Why giving is so important ?

We spend all our live chasing one thing after another…goal is to have it all. Be it toys, friends, money, property, job/career, family, travel….u name it.

I am sure we enjoy each of them as if our life would never be complete without any of them. Take a moment and think about two more aspect….

1. There are millions who do not have all those things of luxury that I have (including fresh drinking water)…so take a moment and be thankful.
2. Since I have all I need and I am happy, now what can I do to increase my happiness……GIVE.

I don’t have to wait to have it all to give..i.e  I don’t have to wait to be happy …to be happier…it is a matter to practice to give as little or much as possible and have that heightened moment of happiness. Giving is not always charity and it is absolutely not just about money – we can give our time, skills, wealth social capacity or leadership to any cause or action or person in need.

Most important lesson out of this exercise is the act of selflessness. We are so much consumed with the big “I” and myself that we either ignore others or make them secondary. Our every act is driven by what the fact – ‘what is in it for me’ question. Building the practice of giving helps us get out of maze of our own pumped ego and to seriously care and support the larger issues, causes and humanity which is the purpose of life.

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Why we need good Memory?

“We are what we remember”- Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

• Do you remember your last 5 addresses ?
• Do you remember 10 phone numbers from your phone contact list?
• Do you remember 15 significant event from last 15 yrs – 1 from each year ?
• Do you remember 20 courses you took during school or college ?
• Do you remember birthdays of all family members ?

These are few simple, personal events or facts related to us that we assume to know or maybe we thought we know. I know you will blame it on technology and I don’t blame you for that…technology has enabled us to not remember a lot of these information rather they are available to us when we need them. Computers, mobile devices armed with internet/networking power has lead this cataclysmic change that will completely change human in next century. We will slowly and steadily lose our capacity to memorise things. I am sure if you ask the above 5 questions to your parents that will be able to answer better and if you can ask these questions to your grandparent’s generation, accuracy will be even superior. I am sure you are prepared to argue that we don’t need to remember these facts since they are easily available, which I completely agree with you. But the question is not about these facts but about MEMORY. It is not about the content but the container/medium. Research have confirmed that less use of brain/memory makes them dumb since there are lesser number of active nodes in brain’s neural network.

As we know that most of the Indian Vedas, Upanishads and other voluminous literature including Mahabharat (100,000 verses) were orally recited and passed on from generations to generations for more than 2000-3000 years. We can’t even imagine doing it today, forget about 4 vedas, we can’t memorize 4 credit card numbers. I am sure you all are now convinced that we have lost some serious memory power and the trajectory is not favorable either.

My goal is not to provide a 4/5 step process to improve your memory but to raise the right questions and awareness. We all need to think seriously about it and do something.

Education

What is education ? I guess we can define it at two levels – structured/formal and unstructured/informal.

• Formal – the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university.
• Informal – an enlightening experience.

Is it something that is necessary ? well if you ask your parents or teachers they will equivocally say in a loud voice with all their conviction… YES!!!

But then the moot question is…do we have the right education system and what is the goal of this education system that will impact 85% of 7 billion people around the world and how will it change the world in next 100 years. Today’s education system is about student factory, from age 4-22 (average) we all go through the process of fact memorization. Be it about Geography, physics, english grammar, history or any subject in that matter. Some does well and many do not since all the minds are not tuned to absorbing facts but if you are part of the system, this is what you have to do… literally you are set up for failure. I am sure this debate is all over the world and there is no right answer. However, I would like to quote the visionary reformist – Swami Vivekananda “To me the very essence of education is concentration of mind, not the collecting of facts. If I had to do my education over again, and had any voice in the matter, I would not study facts at all. I would develop the power of concentration and detachment, and then with a perfect instrument I could collect facts at will. Side by side, in the child, should be developed the power of concentration and detachment”.

I believe we need to seriously think of the education we want to give to our children instead of letting them run in the rat race and be another doctor, accountant or lawyer. Our education system needs to cut down facts swallowing teaching by 50% and let that other 50% be more spiritual or the things that interest the kids.

Vedanta says that within man is all knowledge—even in a boy it is so—and it requires only an awakening, and that much is the work of a teacher. We have to do only so much for the boys that they may learn to apply their own intellect to the proper use of their hands, legs, ears, eyes, etc., and finally everything will become easy.

 

 

Fail or Quit

Failure is an option quitting is not….

Failure is not a new concept for any of us. We all have experienced it on more than one occasion. Any failure is not a pleasant experience. Then comes the question, should we quit trying that thing, event, purpose or be it any thing where we had continuous failures. Just think of two names – Thomas Edison and J.K. Rowling. They had failed on multiple occasions but what they didn’t do is…QUIT. It is very important to understand that most of the times, the path to success goes through a series of failure. No purpose is too big to quit, sometimes it may take more than one lifetime. You may start it and someone else may complete it for you.

• Thomas Edison – “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
• J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter novels was rejected by a dozen publishers.

Even though I passionately advocate that you should not quit and load you with examples about those who made impossible possible – just by sheer persistence, even after failures staring in their eyes every moment. What is that one thing that draws the line between quit, fail and succeed. I believe it is the voice of our heart. We all have heard it (maybe occasionally) and it is the most powerful thought that drives us to the dawn of success. Listen to your heart and if it tells you to pursue it, then in spite of all the challenges, failures you will come out as winner.

Let yourself fail but let yourself not quit….

 

Goals 2017

I am sure many of you draft goals every year. Most of them are repeated year after year. Most of them die untimely death usually in the first quarter….I too plead guilty.

I had better luck in last couple of years as I met 5 out of 7 goals from 2015 and 9 out of 11 goals from 2016. Pretty good..right ?

I tried to reflect on the reason why the goals were accomplished….were they too simple to be accomplished ? or is there any strategy that I had deployed (knowling/unknowingly). I guess there were several reason but what has worked best is “COMMUNICATE”.

• Communicate to yourself about your goals
• Communicate to others about your goals

It helps you remember what you have committed to yourself and sometimes a little nudge from others goes a long way. However, most important one is – self esteem, since you have committed about your goals to others and you don’t want to look in bad lights in front of others.

I have been fortunate to find people to whom I can confide about these goals. It may not be the same person who knows all my goals. Maybe the idea is to find someone for whom that particular goal matters. For example – my dad will not care if I go to GYM 4 days a week but  one of my fitness freak friend will, thus he should be the one to whom I communicate my GYM/fitness goals.

• Find the right person to share your specific goals
• Make sure you visit your goals every week
• Maybe make notes on how you feel about the progress of these goals

2017 is exciting and I want to take it a step further. Have more detailed goals, specific, measurable goals and I want to track it every day. Spend 10 mins to update the progress and develop smart strategies to accomplish them. There is no calendar year more important than the current one and the one roadblock that stands between me and my goals are commitment/discipline. Think & Act!

Thoughts!

 

I am sure, most of you may have discipline in life with right conduct, action and speech but when it comes to thinking we expose ourselves too much (to ourselves) since there is no mental moral police for social embarrassment; thus the thoughts tend to deviate in all directions – Good/Bad, Right/Wrong, Lawful/Unlawful, Moral/Immoral, Beautiful/Dirty, etc.

We tend to think that it is just a thought, it does not harm anyone. I am not doing any wrong to anyone, I am not hurting anyone.

Think again !!!!

There is nothing more powerful in this cosmos than THOUGHTS! they live, breathe, manifest, act, impact and change things for ever. So, when I have to think about anything, I will use my judgement. If I have a choice, I will choose the right things as the dark or wrong thoughts will grow hands and legs and come after me if not others.

I will end with a wonderful quote that summarizes the above mentioned idea.

—————–

We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.

—Swami Vivekananda

One thought a day!

It’s been awhile since I wrote a blog on general topics. While I wrote a few on Linkedin and other sites.

2017 – I commit to be religious to write on various topics including – Science, Business, Thoughts, Psychology. Philosophy, Mythology and culture. Lots of topics with interesting thoughts, observations and commentary.

Today’s topic is – EXPANSION

Most of us are in the rat race of acquiring more and more, everyday. We want more than what we had yesterday, we want more than our neighbours, peers cousins, or any potential competition we can find. I believe it is now in our DNA through the contemporary system of education and culture – Compete, Win, Acquire, Expand!

Take a moment and think, do we really need to ? What would this expansion lead to….? More expansion  – till we die? Can we take a moment to reflect if we need an external expansion of all the material prizes or should we chase ourselves internally and expand and dive deeper to Explore, Observe, Understand and Expand!

Inner expansion will enrich our lives with much better understanding of ourselves and our external eco-systems as well.

Business Case for Business Cases

One of the basic requirements of any business is to justify any dollar spent in marketing efforts, technology upgrades or employees training as most of the time these expenses are considered as supporting functions rather than core operation.  Even if these expenditures are well thought of and have reasons such as to increase productivity, increase revenue or raise employee satisfaction.  Management has one basic question whenever such initiatives are discussed. The question is “what is the business need for this particular initiative”. Even though the qualitative benefits can overwhelming, but it is a rational questions and a well written business case having both quantitative and qualitative analysis would be a good answer to the particular questions.

After speaking with several managers and consultants, I have realized that there is a wide understanding of what is a business case. Several consulting companies have mastered the art of writing business cases and no two companies resonate with the structure and basic ingredients of a comprehensive business case. Each format of a business case is as unique as a company. There are some generic formats which is more common than other. One of such format includes the following pieces:

1. Fact/Situation Analysis
2. Core Issue
3. Alternatives
   1. Strengths
   2. Weaknesses
   3. Recommendations

This is a basic skeleton and can be customized based on the requirements and situations.

There are many reasons why a company writes a business case. These are mentioned below:

1. Defining current situation and acknowledging the gap
2. Alignment of strategic directions
3. To validate business requirement
4. Justify investments (by creating Return on Investments model)
5. In-depth analysis of alternatives
6. Selection of the best of the breed and process

Understanding a need for business case and writing it in a correct structure not only provided a good insight of the issue and the solution but also it gives a greater clarity to the strategic direction of the management.

Defining value within Organization

Do we know what portion of our business is value added service, value enabler or non value added?

I am not surprised to learn that most of the business thinks that either the questionis too theoretical or too complex to answer. In either case most organizations fail to follow up or answer the question. Most often businesses end up growing into a complex set of processes and it is not east to classify them based on the value added, non value added or value enabler activities.

Value added activities are those activities that actually change the form, fit or function of the product to meet customer requirements.

Non-value added activities consume resources, time or space and do not add value to the product for example, time delays, transportation, planning documentation etc.

Value enabler are those activities that consume resources, time or space and do not add value to the product but are required for business or regulatory reasons (impossible to avoid or eliminate).

Open Source in Business Management

The concept of management may be the product of industrial era. But I am confident to state that management as a concept is as old as the development of societies. It is since then, man has learnt to manage men in tactful ways be it business affairs or domestic issues. Management is all about getting things done efficiently and effectively with and though other people. There are enough evidences that early societies have learned the art of team management for activities like hunting, agriculture or cultural events. Management has evolved since then, even though the basic tenet of the theory is same but there is always a shade/color of the society and its relevant customs. Bringing back to management today and how businesses models have shifted in the past few decades, it would not be ambitious to state that management style of a company will no more be its proprietary. Several reasons to support my statements include global nature of business, increased movements of employees to other companies, and similar fibre of the issues experienced by the companies.

Question is when the issues of the businesses are same then why do we have to think of different solutions? Can we have a solution that will benefit both side of the business? To answer such question there was a better need of open source. Open source is a collaborative style of business which is a winner for all. Open Source is a relatively new concept with the development of software as an industry in early 1960. One of the best charms of open source is that once the blue print is created, it is distributed among the end users and the users could modify and source code as per their need to make it bigger and better. This collaboration begets a better product for the community of users and the stakes were shared too. This model has been extremely popular and successful in the last two decades.

As we have experienced that Open Source is applied basically for programming in IT world. However, I am convinced that there is much more to gain from this business concept. One of the ideas is to design Open Source codes for management style. As we all know that there are a lot of common grounds in regards to how businesses are done in an industry or a geographical region. Designing business management protocols and semantic to share and collaborate will help all businesses in the community and industry to gain from this collaboration.

For example, if a firm designs a prototype of hiring and if we consider it as a basic source code which and is shared with others with an intension to modify the sources to a bigger and better version. I am convinced that there is much more to gain than to hold back and have monopoly. As we know that even major business rivals like IBM, Oracle and Sun collaborate and modify codes so there is a bigger and better market for all.

To reiterate the point again that once we are able to prototype business models, processes and systems, it will not only make the business systems more efficient but also expand the market for all.

There is a radical shift in the ways how business was done in the past and there is a higher need for collaboration for any business to succeed.

“I’m thinking of changing the world with open source. I know that’s kind of communist.” Michael Hand