[Time-Management] Arise, awake and take charge!

 

31st December 2010

 

We have the power to begin the world over again.

Thomas Paine

 

We are at the last day of the end of the first decade of the twenty first century!

 

We would have passed through various experiences in the last decade. Let's look forward to an even more exciting and challenging second decade. Many say that 2020 is going to offer lot more opportunities, thanks the innovation and revolutions that are taking place all around us.

 

Let us make the New Year the beginning of an exciting era of bliss and harmony. Let is start our New Year with all our power and enthusiasm.

 

I wish all my readers a very Happy and Prosperous New Year!

 

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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[Time-Management] Arise, awake and take charge!

 

30th December 2010

 

It's the friends you can call up at four a.m. that matter.

Merlene Dietrich

 

We live in a society which is becoming very competitive day by day. On one side opportunities are growing and on the other side the risk and uncertainties are also growing. We need to muster all our resources even to turn out ordinary things in life. Have you heard of the Five M's – Money, Material, Method, Machinery and Men? These are the five basic resources which we should learn how to use. Of all these resources, the human resource is the most important and critical of all the other resources. We have to work with people to reach our goals and aspirations in life.

 

Friends play a very important role in our life. When it comes to friendship, it is not the number of friends that we have, but the intensity of friendship that is very important. What decides the intensity of friendship is how much we are willing to sacrifice for each other.

 

In an organization, there is a process to rate vendors. We can also evaluate the quality of our friends by some of the following parameters:

 

  1. Honesty: is our friendship honest and true?
  2. Is our friendship attentive and adaptive?: If this parameter is lacking, the friendship will break.
  3. Is our friendship adaptive of our goals and aspirations?
  4. What is the quality of trust level?
  5. Do we know the expectation of each other? Otherwise, it will be only one sided.
  6. Will the friendship last during bad days?
  7. Is the friendship mutual or one sided?

 

You can add to the above list. Like we monitor any other resource, we should also measure and maintain our friendship. Over this weekend, list all the friends that you have and apply the above parameters and see how many of them will qualify to be your true friends?

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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[Time-Management] Arise, awake and take charge!

 

29th December 2010

 

Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.

John Wooden

Each one of us is endowed with some gift and talent. We are unique in our own way. We are created as masterpieces and we should not die as a copy. We have our own strengths and weaknesses. But the opportunities around us are same. We see a lot of people with special talents and abilities. We are astonished and pleasantly shocked with the achievements of some people.

Viswanthan Anand has won the World Chess Championship six times continuously! Suchin Tendulkar has created a history in cricket by breaking all records. Tiger Woods has an impressive record in golf. Bill Gates is a role model for anyone aspiring to grow in the software industry. Dhirubai Ambani is an excellent example for rags to riches. Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King are examples of what a single person with determination can do. Walt Disney is an example of what a man's creativity can do. Mother Teresa is a personification of human kindness. Winston Churchill is role model for political leadership.

When we read the above, there are two ways we can respond. Either we admire these people and consider our own achievement as nothing. Or we can take them as role model and repeat the philosophy of their life in our own field.

Instead of saying `I cannot play cricket as Sachin Tendulkar, I cannot play chess like Viswanthan Anand, I cannot start and lead a freedom struggle like Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King etc', we can say `I can be a Tundulkar, a Viswanathan Anand, a Mahatma Gandhi, a Martin Luther King in my own area and will become a legend and role model for others'.

Try this inner dialogue and you will see how your hidden power unleashes!

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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[Time-Management] Arise, awake and take charge!

 

28th December 2010

 

What the caterpillar calls the end, the rest of the world calls a butterfly.

Lao Tsu

 

Last week I was invited to speak to a group of employees are to retire from their services. Except a few, most of them were not comfortable to retire and felt kind of insecure. Some even wanted the Management to consider extending their services. For many of us, security means getting an assured income every month and we don't want to imagine a world without the support of the organization. While it is true that we need people to support us, we have to accept the fact that everything has a beginning and an end.

 

I explained to them that many of my friends were looking forward to retirement and started a new life. In fact some of them were actively preparing to meet their post retirement life than be passively waiting and decide what to do after retirement. We need to believe that what ultimately give us a living is our innate talent and self confidence and not the external environment. Just think : what would have happened if Walt Disney had not been fired from his job for lack of creativity? What would have happened if Albert Einstein had not lost his job as a patent clerk?

 

Have you heard of Colonel Sanders? He ran a restaurant at Kentucky and had a `secret chicken recipe' which gave him popularity and money. But he had to close down his restaurant since the traffic on the road where he ran his restaurant was closed and he was paid a social security compensation of US $105! At that time he was 65 years.

 

But that day was not the end of his business, but the beginning of his fantastic business career and he founded the Kentucky Fried Chicken Corporation. In 1964 he sold his company for US$ 2 million!

 

N C Sridharan

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[Time-Management] Arise, awake and take charge!

 

27th December 2010

 Never relinquish the initiative.
Charles de Gaulle

We need to be innovative and creative. We need to encourage innovation around us. What is encouraged will grow. I enjoyed the following story:

 Five monkeys were in a room that contained a table in one corner, and a banana hanging from a string in the middle of the room. The monkeys figured out that if they dragged the table to the middle of the room, they could climb up and grab the banana. So they did. As one of the monkeys quickly hopped up and reached for the banana, hidden compartments in the walls suddenly opened, releasing high-pressure cold water that knocked the monkey off the table and drenched the other four monkeys. They quickly learned that whenever one of them climbed on the table, all of them were soaked with cold water. They realized climbing on top of the table was a bad idea. Without the knowledge of the monkeys, the high-pressure cold water hoses were disconnected and removed.

The next week, one of the five monkeys was removed from the room and replaced by a new monkey. The new monkey saw the table and the banana dangling from the ceiling. The monkey headed for the table. But fearful of being drenched by the high-pressure cold water, the other four monkeys pounced on the newcomer and beat the tar out of him. Every time the new monkey got near the table, the others beat him up. Soon the new monkey no longer went near the table.

By the third week, another of the original five monkeys was replaced by a new monkey. And like the monkey the week before, the newest member of the group tried to get near the table to move it over to the banana. Once again, the others beat up the newest member of the group. Even the first new monkey joined in.

Each successive week, one more of the original monkeys were replaced. The same thing happened every time; when the newest monkey attempted to get near the table, the others joined in to discourage him. By the sixth week, not a single monkey was left from the original group. Not one remained that had been squirted with cold water. But when the newest monkey headed toward the table and tried to reach the banana, the other four monkeys "trained" him by beating the tar out of him. If you could ask each monkey why it was beating up the new monkey, each probably would say, "I don't know, that is just the way we do things around here."

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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[Time-Management] Arise, awake and take charge!

 

27th December 2010

 Never relinquish the initiative.
Charles de Gaulle

We need to be innovative and creative. We need to encourage innovation around us. What is encouraged will grow. I enjoyed the following story:

 Five monkeys were in a room that contained a table in one corner, and a banana hanging from a string in the middle of the room. The monkeys figured out that if they dragged the table to the middle of the room, they could climb up and grab the banana. So they did. As one of the monkeys quickly hopped up and reached for the banana, hidden compartments in the walls suddenly opened, releasing high-pressure cold water that knocked the monkey off the table and drenched the other four monkeys. They quickly learned that whenever one of them climbed on the table, all of them were soaked with cold water. They realized climbing on top of the table was a bad idea. Without the knowledge of the monkeys, the high-pressure cold water hoses were disconnected and removed.

The next week, one of the five monkeys was removed from the room and replaced by a new monkey. The new monkey saw the table and the banana dangling from the ceiling. The monkey headed for the table. But fearful of being drenched by the high-pressure cold water, the other four monkeys pounced on the newcomer and beat the tar out of him. Every time the new monkey got near the table, the others beat him up. Soon the new monkey no longer went near the table.

By the third week, another of the original five monkeys was replaced by a new monkey. And like the monkey the week before, the newest member of the group tried to get near the table to move it over to the banana. Once again, the others beat up the newest member of the group. Even the first new monkey joined in.

Each successive week, one more of the original monkeys were replaced. The same thing happened every time; when the newest monkey attempted to get near the table, the others joined in to discourage him. By the sixth week, not a single monkey was left from the original group. Not one remained that had been squirted with cold water. But when the newest monkey headed toward the table and tried to reach the banana, the other four monkeys "trained" him by beating the tar out of him. If you could ask each monkey why it was beating up the new monkey, each probably would say, "I don't know, that is just the way we do things around here."

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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[Time-Management] Arise, awake and take charge!

 

24th December 2010

 

You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere

Lee Iacocca

 

We need to be sensitive to how others receive our communication. We need to appreciate that communication is from the mind of one person that of another person. It is not from the mouth of one person to the ear drum of another person! Once we understand this simple principle, we will know how to be sensitive to the soft aspect of communication.

 

The purpose of any communication is to create an impact in the mind of the receiver. It is not merely a mechanical process. A transmission of message from a speaker to a tape recorder is a mechanical process. But a human communication is an emotional process. The NLP Presupposition `the purpose of communication is the response you get' focuses on the result of the communication and not on the content of the communication.

 

In my interaction with very senior corporate executives  in my life skills seminars, I notice a direct connection between successful career and ability to communicate effectively. Effective communication is even more important when you want to change the mindset of people. Combining presence of mind, sense of humour, voice modulation, inflection etc are very important in deciding the impact of communication.

 

Recently I was listening to a professor who was speaking on the need to take failures and success equally. The whole audience broke into laughter when he said this: `It's not every time that Sachin Tendulkar hits a ton in cricket. There are occasions where he gets out at a hundred runs short of a well deserved century!'.

 

Notice the humour – a hundred runs short of a well deserved century!

 

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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[Time-Management] Arise, awake and take charge!

 

23rd December 2010

 

`The limit of your present understanding is not the limit of your possibilities'

Guy Finley

 

We want to understand others. But, do we ever ask the question: do I know myself fully? We operate within our own knowledge about ourselves. It's something like a cattle being tied to a peg through a rope. The cattle can go only as far as the rope can allow. Similarly, our performance is limited by our own `known' capacity. But the real opportunity lies in the land of the unknown.

 

There are infinite possibilities in the world if we are willing to break our limitations and look beyond what we have so far accomplished. In fact this is what we did when we were children. We were very curious to know and do various things. We were not afraid to fail. Nor did we evaluate ourselves by what we did. We fell down, but we did not conclude that we cannot walk.

 

If you look at the present inventions and technologies, you will wonder where these ideas were hiding all these years! A hundred years ago who would have dreamt of a person talking to another person across the world through a wireless mode? A fifty years ago did we not accept that cancer is a killer disease?

If our leaders and scientists had accepted their limitations as something insurmountable, what will be the quality of our present life?

 

Get excited about the limitless possibilities and your own hidden potential and do not limit yourself by your understanding of your own limitations!

 

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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[Time-Management] Arise, awake and take charge!

 

22nd December 2010

The depth of your mythology is the extent of your effectiveness.

- John C. Maxwell

Having a role is different from being effective on the role. As we grow in our life, we take on various roles. We take on the role of a student. Then we join a college. After the college education, we start our career with a job. As we settle down in our job, we get married and slip into a new role of a husband or wife. When we raise a family, we get into the role of a parent.

 

Life goes on and on like this. Some role excites us and we are proud when such roles are conferred on us. Many times we do not check how effective we are in a given role. In every role, there are bench marks. Some people become a legend in their role and they are taken as a role model by others.

 

Whether we like it or not, we are always judged in our role in comparison with someone else in our field. We may not like it, but it is the reality.

 

Perhaps it is better to reflect on the following questions and `audit' our own effectiveness in our role:

 

  • What outcome have I produced in my role? What is expected out of me? Is there a difference between the expectation and the real performance?
  • Who is my role model and the legend with reference to my role? What is the gap between me and my role model?
  • Do I have the requisite qualification and knowledge to deliver the best in my role?
  • Do I have the skill and the expertise to be at my best in my role? Is `my best' acceptable by those who demand my services?

 

Many of us are evaluated by others in our job. But the most effective people believe in self evaluation. The only person who knows us best is our self!

 

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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