Do you periodically check whether your children need your help?

Often we leave our children to themselves. We are confident that they can handle their day-to-day activities in school or college successfully, by themselves.

We do this more often when we find our children are very successful. We also exhibit this "let go" approach when we are caught up in our whirlwind of activities.

Children, too, often forget to reach out for help; They approach us only when they hit the wall or experience a crisis.

This is not a good approach. Parents should periodically check whether their children need their inputs.

You can never know, an input from you can make a big difference in your child's approach to study or in the submission of a report.

Children should be taught and encouraged to ask for help. A collaboration of this kind can enhance the bonding between you and your child and also raise the performance of your child.

This is true, even after they grow up, get employed, get married, and have their own children. The need and opportunity to help your child never ceases.

Think about it? When was the last time you reached out to your child to help?

Stop everything and do it after you read this post. You may be surprised at the outcome.

Do share your experience in the comments to this post.

Do you teach your children to detect dishonesty and deceat?

As you teach children to be honest and have integrity, it is also important for you to teach them the absence of it.

It is important that they learn to detect dishonesty when they come across. This will protect them from being deceived.

This is an important skill many parents forget to teach their children. A good way to teach is to discuss real-life examples.
When you buy expensive stuff for your children, you also need to teach them how to keep them safe.

All these efforts will hopefully protect them from others deceit and dishonesty.

What is your experience? Do share it in your comments.

Do you leave your day to chance?

How do you spend your time? Are you preoccupied with activities defined by yourself or have others defined them for you or have they been chosen by chance?

What is the right mix of activities?

It is important to adjust these levers of activities. The adjustment will depend on your circumstances and your current situation. Invariably, people forget to include activities which have been defined by themselves. They just react to chance or the demands of others.

You need to determine the right mix for you. You need to take charge of these three levers.

Try this out. Check which lever is high! You may need to readjust those levers.

Do share your experience in your comments on this post.

How much time do you take from idea to action?

All of us have ideas. Some of us have brilliant ideas. We also get ideas from others or by reading a book or watching a movie; Sources of ideas are plenty.

However, it is not the number of ideas you have that matters, it is the number of ideas you action out that will make the difference for you.

The time taken from an idea to action depends on the nature of the idea and the situation/context in which you operate. Hence, every idea has its optimum starting point and its own optimum speed of action.

Determining the optimum starting point, the speed of action and the deadline for completion is a task of utmost importance.

The time for such analysis and the treatment of the idea should be any where between zero to not more than 24 hours; Depending on the situation and context you are operating in and the nature of the idea.

Any idea delayed after 24 hours has the danger of being forgotten.

How you treat ideas will determine whether you are an "also ran" or an "Olympic Champion".

Think about it! Do share your comments.

How do you handle clutter? - 2

How do you ensure an item in your house does not get lost? It is important to follow the principles of organizing. Let me introduce you to an important principle of organizing

The principle of inherent potential of an article/item to get lost:

Every article/item has an inherent nature to be high or low in its potential to get lost.

Hence our care for ensuring the article/item to be easily accessible increases as the potential of the article/item to get lost increases. This may appear as common sense but you may be surprised how many people violate this basic principle.

Here is another principle for you.

The principle of inherent current/future value of an article/item

Every article/item has an inherent value-current or future which may range from low to high.

Please refer to the previous post "How do you handle clutter? - 1" for further details on value.

If you want to ensure that your house is clutter free and also you are able to get the articles/items immediately when you want them, you will have to consider these two principles and work with them.

Look at the figure to understand how to apply these principles.

When you get an article, you need to immediately determine its value. Which category does it belong?

1. Expensive


2. Daily usage value


3. Nostalgic value


4. Contextual value


5. No value

If it is of no value then throw it out immediately. If the article is of value to you then you need to assess whether it has a high potential to get lost and hence the care for making it accessible is high.

Low care, Low value -You will come across articles of Low care, Low value - these are junk to be thrown away. Example: A rusted bicycle in your garage - Low care because it is there and it is unlikely to get lost. Low value because it is useless now and you have no emotional ties with it.

Low care, High value - these articles are precious to you however you need not put in too much effort to make it accessible as it is already accessible to you. Example: Painting on the wall-low care as it will not get lost and high value because it is expensive and it was gifted to you by your father.

High care, Low value - This is an article that has high potential to get lost, hence you need to take a lot of care to make it accessible. however, this article is of low value to you personally. Example - your friend requests you to safe guard her jewellery while she is traveling to China.

High care, High value - All the stuff that are highly valuable to you and has a high potential to be misplaced. Example - your certificates, your camera, your watches, your documents and important papers, ---

Evaluating the articles/items that pass through your hand and taking appropriate care to make it accessible is an important action that needs to be taken to live a stress free and productive life.

Do share your experience in using these principles by commenting on this post.

How do you handle clutter? - 1

Handling clutter is an important skill to master. Clutter comes in the way of everything you do; Time, energy, money, and opportunity can get lost in a clutter.

I have created a process flow to handle clutter. The diagram is self explanatory, once you understand the definitions of the various terms used.

Definitions:

Clutter: Anything that can get deposited all over your house.

Loose items: These are items that can be moved from one place to another-Example: Paper, pens, books, magazines, jewellery, watches, photographs, wires, stationary items, toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo bottles, nail cutter---. These items can, easily, get lost.

Fixed items: These are relatively fixed items in your house-Example: Tables, Chairs, Sofa, Beds, Paintings on the wall, TV, Refrigerator, ---. These items cannot get lost but still may cause clutter.

Value: An item is said to be valuable if it belongs to the following categories:

1. Expensive items: These are your watches, jewellery, chinaware, diamonds, Nikon D 80 Digital SLR camera, Camcorder, ---. They cost money and are precious to you.



2. Daily usage items: These are items you cannot do without, day in day out. You need to have them near to be functional-Toothbrush, toothpaste, pens, laptops, shirts, trousers, ties, watches, ---



3. Nostalgic items: These are items that are very precious to you, as they evoke pleasant memories of the past. You want to preserve them carefully-Your father's letters, the sweater your mother knitted for you, photographs, the greeting cards, your wife gave you over the years, your daughter's little gifts to you, since her childhood---.



4. Contextual items: These are items that you need on a daily basis or at least on an immediate basis depending on the changing situations you encounter-Winter clothes, snow boots, your certificates, party wear, ---. You don't need these on a daily basis but you would like to have them, instantly, if you suddenly need them when the context and situation dictates that you need them.

Now you are ready to study the process flow and understand it.

It is very useful to apply this process flow and classify your items; You can, then, begin to organize them.

Those that you require daily need to be stored in an area that is near, easily accessible and is constantly known to you. Each item need to have a specific home to "stay put" in.

Those that you do not need on a regular, daily basis need to have a remote, accessible, known, home to be in.

The junk, of course, need to be thrown away.

The horror of clutter unfolds when all these value category items get mixed and spread all over your house along with the junk that get intermingled to create the confusion and distress.

Stay tuned for further posts on the principles of organizing to live a clutter free life.

What is the root cause of your disorganization?

We are disorganized as a family. Our house is full of clutter. All of us attributed this disorganized state of our home to some deep seated disorder in our personalities; Perhaps we inherited some faulty "disorganizing DNA" from our ancestors.

Our belief grew over the period of years until few months back when we decided to sit down and examine this "we are disorganized" belief. After several discussions and analysis we came to a conclusion that the major cause for our disorganization is lack of storage devices.

Please find below the reasons for us being disorganized.

1. Our strong held belief that we are disorganized


2. Plenty of ever increasing number of loose items such as books, clothes, paper and other stuff we shop and accumulate


3. Very poor storage devices in our house for these loose items


4. Our indecision to buy storage equipments

This led us to a vicious cycle as depicted in the picture.

Last week, we bought three book racks. We decided to focus on books as they are the major ones that are causing all the clutter in our house. The book racks had a near magical effect on our clutter. A large part of it vanished as our books got neatly organized in our book racks.

Our house now looks less cluttered. We also bought an extra storage Almira for our clothes which further reduced our clutter.

We still have to work on other areas such as papers, DVDs etc. which we have decided to tackle in the coming weeks.

The learning from this experience was profound for me. Many a times we conclude that we have a personality defect like disorganization and use that as an excuse to do nothing. What I realized is that invariably the major part of the problem could lie outside us rather than inside us.

It is important to elicit both internal and external causes of the problem. It is far easier to tackle the external cause of the problem (example:buying a book rack) rather than trying to change an internal personality trait that may not be the primary root cause of the problem.

The questions you need to ask yourself constantly are:

1. Have I identified the internal and the external causes of the problem?


2. Have I tackled the external causes first?


3. What is the effect of tackling the external causes?


4. Is there any internal cause to tackle or was my belief that there is such an internal cause wrong?

Try this approach and do give me a feedback through your comments.

Have you tried doing things for fun which you have never done before?

Many of us get stuck in a routine, even for activities that give us joy. We may continue to go for movies, read the same kind of books, visit the same friends, go to the same mall for shopping---
Unless we consciously take stock and break out of the routine, we will miss out on various other ways to enjoy.

Here are the steps you need to take to break out of your routine and have fun in new ways:

1. Take a blank sheet of paper
2. Suspend judgement for about 5 minutes (you are going to think creatively for the next 5 minutes).
3. Generate ideas to have fun. Write whatever comes to your mind. Do not judge. The crazier your ideas are, the better they are. Sometimes you may be writing the ones you are already doing; No problem, just acknowledge and continue. Write non-stop for 5 minutes.
4. You can, now, begin to judge those ideas. Cross out anything that is harmful, illegal, immoral, and impossible.
5. Now you have a list of things to do that are clean fun
6. Segregate the ideas that you can attempt immediately. Save the rest for the future (Example-you may want to visit Paris but you have to first save money for such a trip)
7. Select an idea that appeals to you most and is feasible for you to do this coming weekend or alternatively, select the idea that least appeals to you ( you may be pleasantly surprised at the outcome)
8. Develop an action plan to do it
9. Do it
10. Enjoy

Do share your experience in the comments, because you are going to have the time of your life!

Do you raise your bar periodically?

How about taking everything you do to the next level? How about doing this periodically?

Many of us never raise the bar. We have this habit of quickly being satisfied with our level of achievement in the various things we do. We will either continue to maintain it at the current level of excellence or mediocrity or become complacent enough to let our level slide down.

We need to challenge ourselves by shifting and raising the bar of achievement on preselect areas in our lives.

Here are the steps to do exactly that:

1. Identify areas in your life you want to focus upon. Strive for balance by choosing from several areas-Physical, Health, Financial, Professional,---
2. Determine your next level goals in the areas you have chosen
3. Develop an action plan to achieve them
4. Periodically review and monitor progress

Once you have achieved the next level in one area choose another area to work upon.

Try it and share your experience by posting a comment.

Do you care enough for people that you take care to remember them?

I have this tendency to forget names. I rarely do forget faces. This is very dysfunctional and I am taking steps to counter it.
How do you ensure that you remember people and their faces? I think we need to go even beyond that.
Here are the steps:

1. Consciously study the face so that you remember it next time
2. Repeatedly connect the name to the face. You could use mnemonics if you want to
3. Enquire and remember what they do in life
4. Remember the conversation you are having with them
5. Take their visiting card and study it to connect to the person you are talking to

Let's say you meet him after three months and your conversation goes like this:

You: "Hi! Bob, How are you today?"

Bob: "Fine."

You: "How is your work going on in ---?"

Bob: "Oh! we made great progress ---. This is what we achieved ---."

You : "Great Bob!. Last time you had discussed with me about your trip to Hawaii. How was your trip---?"

Bob: "Wow! that was fun ---"

Just imagine the impact you will have on people if you remember to the above detail. They will look at you differently.

While it is important to record the data of people in your Palm or which ever PDA or low tech device you use, it is more important to register and record them in your mind.

Stay tuned for future posts on how to accomplish this.

Think about it. How much do you remember about people you meet.?

Think about the last person you met for the first time.

How much do you remember about her?

Do you know what to talk about yourself?--2

Here is an exercise for you:

1. Refer to the post - Do you know what to talk about yourself?---1
2. Craft a message about yourself
3. Practice introducing yourself while talking into an audio recorder
4. Listen to yourself. How do you sound? What are the gaps in the content? Did you forget to mention an important fact about yourself? Did you forget to talk about an important achievement?
5. Fill the gaps and practice again while recording your talk
6. Finalize the version of your talk
7. Practice! Practice! Practice!

When you do this exercise two things will happen immediately:

1. You will develop confidence in presenting yourself
2. You may discover gaps in your achievement which if you could have achieved would have given a powerful impact and face lift to your image; Such an achievement will elicit a 'WOW!' response from your listener.

The good news is that you can work towards that achievement. The missing achievement can become a goal you will strive for and very soon you will be able to add it to your self-introduction.

This exercise can change the course of your life!

Try it and do share your experience in the comments.

Do you know what to talk about yourself?---1

Let's say you have to introduce yourself to others. They are important people and you will need their support in future. How do you go about talking about yourself? Do you just start off? What you say will have tremendous bearing on how they will perceive you.

It is important to be able to talk about yourself in a manner that is impressive and do all the talking in just 3 minutes.
Here are some important points you need to cover:

1. Your background
2. Your achievement
3. How you can be of benefit to the person you are talking to?

Your introduction should result in the other person realizing that you are an important person who can contribute in achieving his goals.

It is important to craft your message with a lot of thought. Your message should be crisp, to the point, and must strike a chord in the heart of the listener.

Stay tuned for further posts on how to craft the message about yourself.

Think about it! How do you talk about yourself?

Who is calling the shots in your life?

I have seen many people abdicate calling the shots in their lives. It is important to take stock. I believe no one has the right to call your shots. Many people allow their bosses, subordinates, peers and their customers to call the shots.

If it is anyone other than you who is calling the shots in your life, then it is important to change that situation.

Do you recognize the phenomenon of the "deception of simplicity"?

The phenomenon of the "deception of simplicity" is one of the most dangerous phenomenon you ever can encounter. Let me explain:

Many things appear very simple to deal with until you begin to actually start doing them.

Based on this phenomenon we decide a timeline to complete the task which is way out of the base. Hence, the maximum damage it can cause is total failure at its high end effect and at its low end effect, it could cause all kinds irritation and mess.

How does this phenomenon of the deception of simplicity wayward us?
It does so through the following steps which we need to be aware
There is a task in front of you

1. The deception makes you think it is simple
2. You determine that it will take only about 15 minutes or what ever time in your mind that represents short and simple, to complete it
3. You procrastinate till the last day (task has a deadline)
4. You allocate 15 minutes in the evening to complete it
5. You start the task and suddenly realize to your horror that it needs all kinds of inputs which will require at least a week's preparation
6. You miss the deadline and will have to face all the consequences that go along with such missing of the deadline

The only way to avoid the deception is to face the reality. Study the task clearly to its full detail and stay clear of the deception.

Give yourself sufficient time to complete the task with a stamp of your excellence.

When was the last time you got caught in the deception of simplicity?

How do you handle suggestions from others?

There are different ways we handle suggestions. If we look at the figure above e can see 4 quadrants which depict the following:

1. Quadrant 1-Low Thinking and low acceptance- here you outright reject a suggestion with little thinking


2. Quadrant 2 - Low Thinking and high acceptance-here you outright accept a suggestion with little thinking


3. Quadrant 3-High thinking and low acceptance-here you thoughtfully reject an idea


4. Quadrant 4-High thinking and high acceptance-here you thoughtfully accept an idea

Both quadrant 1 & quadrant 2 are dangerous. You may either miss good suggestions or accept some suggestion with little thinking and land yourself in trouble. Quadrant 3 & quadrant 4 are good provided you weigh the pros and cons of the suggestion and take action. Quadrant 3 is good as long as you don't reject an idea because of ego or arrogance.

It is important for you to examine the way you handle suggestions; The way you handle suggestions could spell out success or failure to you.

Most of us take the way we handle suggestions granted; Sometimes the price we pay may be very high.

Which quadrant do you usually fall when you are given a suggestion?

Do you use the power word "NO"?

In life people place all kind of demands on us. Some of them we comply because we want to comply but a large number of them we just yield in because we said "yes" without thinking through or we did not have the heart or the courage to say "no".

The word "NO" is one of the most useful words we can ever have.

Here are some advantages of using the word "NO":

• You will save a lot of time
• You will save a lot of effort
• You will build relationship and make it stronger because you are honest in the first instance
• You will have power on your side in a negotiation scenario
• You will save yourself from bad habits-Saying no to cigarettes is a good way to avoid the bad habit in the first place
• You will have the power to change your habits. I said no to sodas (Coke, Fanta---) and completely stopped them since Jan 1st.
• Saying "NO" enhances the power of your "YES"
• People around you will take you seriously
• A habit of saying "NO" will force you to think because you don't want to take your "NO" or "YES" lightly

I have listed only some of the advantages. I am sure there are a lot more.

What is important is to think through before we say "YES" and use "NO" whenever it is appropriate.

When was the last time you used the "Power of NO"?

Do you slacken your vigilance with respect to newly acquired good habits?

Sometimes we slacken our vigilance and let our hair down, so to speak, with respect to dysfunctional habits. We think that if we indulge in one bad habit just for once we can quickly get back to our new healthy & productive ways by refocusing and redoing the new habits that have just got installed.

Days pass by and we suddenly realize that not only do we have to deal with the dysfunctional habit we chose to do for sometime, but also we have related set dysfunctional habits to deal with.

We need to be very careful not go back to the old dysfunctional habits.

If we have careless then we will have to put in herculean effort again to get back to our good habits.

Do you set your expectations clear to others, especially in business transactions?

It is very important to set our expectations clear while we are transacting business with others. We may have a lot of expectations in our minds and we will evaluate the relationship based on these expectations; Sometimes these expectations are unspoken.
Examples:

1. You need to paint the walls of the apartment before you give your apartment for lease to us
2. You need to fix and repair the apartment before we move in

Many a times we take these expectations as a given and expect the other party to fulfill them without any protest.

We may be in for a surprise.

It is better to be tough in our negotiation stand before a deal is done rather than later. The more clarity both the parties have on what is expected of each other, the more the chance of developing trust and respect.

Tough negotiation is the foundation to building trust.

What is your experience?

Do you tell white lies?

What are white lies? These are lies people tell each other to smoothen the social machinery.
Examples:

1. I tried to call you yesterday but your number was not getting through. Belated Happy Birthday. (She could have said that she forgot and apologized for it)
2. We will hit our targets this month.(He could have said that he will fall short and could have shown his boss the plan to bridge the gap)
3. Wow! Your new dress is beautiful(She could have told her the truth that the new dress doesn't look good on her)
4. I will definitely come to your party.(She could have apologized and said that she cannot go for the party as she will be out of town.

These are just a few examples. I think millions of white lies would have been uttered all over the world even before you finish reading this post.

We need to be assertive and tell the truth, while being sensitive to others feelings. The line between white lies and harmful lies is really thin.

If you tell white lies it will be easier for you to tell the real harmful lies because you will get a lot of practice day in day out.

Telling the truth is the best approach.

What do you think?

Do you wear a mask? Does the mask you wear paint an illusion of yourself even to you?

Recently I went for a series of meetings with other leaders. As usual in such meetings, some of the leaders were excellent, professional, and more than anything else, very sincere. Their words matched their body language; Many of the leaders present there, I knew them personally.

There were also leaders whose words did not match their body language nor did their behaviour.

I have seen this happen time and again. People portray a false image of themselves to the world outside;especially leaders, they wear a mask of professional leadership and spew out well rehearsed jargons about being proactive, being open to criticism, being collaborative, being kind and showing false concern for their subordinates.

The problem of wearing a mask and putting on a make up on it produces only transient effect; In the heat of the moment, the masks and the make up melt down rapidly and the leaders are exposed as they are.

It is possible to fool people for sometime, but not forever. A leader may think that his people are getting caught in the web of his illusion and he may actually succeed for a while, but not for too long.

Circumstances and events will destroy that illusion and suddenly everything about the leader will become crystal clear to everyone.

What is more dangerous is that the leader himself getting illusioned by his mask and make up. He may come to believe that he is truly all that he portrays to the world and much more, while he is the stark opposite of the play act.

To speak metaphorically, it is a situation where the actor who acts out the role of the Great Emperor Akbar thinking that he is Akbar himself.

Do you wear masks? Are you spinning an illusion around you? Are you getting illusioned by your own play act?
These are hard questions to ask yourself. It takes courage to unmask yourself and see yourself as you are.

You need courage to strip the mask you are wearing and the compassion to look at yourself as you are; For this is the first step to change the inner forces that are making you an "ugly" person.

If you want to be a true leader be one; It takes a lot of inner work to accomplish that.

Which are the areas in your life where you need to do in depth study?

One cannot know everything about everything. However, there are certain things in our lives that we need to know in depth. Let me give you a sample list to illustrate my point.

List:

1. Matters related to your profession-professional knowledge, trends in your profession --
2. Matters related to the company you work for-policies, competitors, markets, industry trends---
3. Matters related to the various laws of your country - tax laws
4. Matters related to your hobbies
5. Matters related to your education
6. Matters related to your physical fitness
7. Matters related to your child's education

The list can go on.

If you draw up a list you may have very different elements depending on your life's context. You may also find similar elements to the above list, as some of the elements are universal.

Your need to have in depth knowledge in each of these areas will depend on the various situations in your life and the various roles you play. These lists may change as you live your life.

It is important to draw up this list and identify the areas in your life that currently needs in depth study. It is also important to monitor and check this list periodically as many new elements may be added.

Draw up this list immediately! You may be surprised that there are many important elements you need to have in depth knowledge, but have scant knowledge about them.

Your ignorance may be causing you lots of trouble right now or may be building up a potential for trouble for you in the future.

What is the worth of a man? What characteristics do you have in mind while you decide the worth?

Different people have different yardsticks to measure the worth of a man. I am listing some of the common parameters below:

1. Good grooming
2. Good manners
3. Wealth
4. Educational qualifications
5. Social position
6. Power or capacity to wield power
7. Friends
8. City dweller
9. Country they are coming from

It is very important to be aware of the parameters you have in your mind. These criteria might have been developed by yourself or you might have been programmed to use these criteria during your upbringing.

The only criteria for measuring the worth of a person is what is stated below:

He or she is a human being

We quickly judge people by all kinds of invisible yardsticks. The measurement we come up with may interfere with the way we treat them.

We may loose a chance to befriend a true, good person, just because they do not meet the preset criteria in our minds.

The danger is that all this happens, for many of us, unconsciously.

What yardsticks do you use?

Do you make the decision timeline work for you?

Every decision has a decision timeline. There are points on in this timeline that will determine whether we are successful or not.
Please refer to the figure while you read this. Here we have taken as a given that the decision is right and the quality of the decision is good

1. Pre-optimal point-this is a point when we take the decision and act too early. This is ok for some type of decisions, but may be disfunctional for others. Moreover, this decision and the subsequent action may eat into other decisions that should have been taken instead of this decision at the pre-optimal point.


2. Optimal point-This is the right point for that specific decision when taken and acted upon will give us sufficient time and put timliness in our favour. Decisions taken at the optimal point on the decision timeline will enhance the chances of our success


3. Sub-optimal point- This is that point in the decision timeline that will give us less time to act and the quality of our action will be slipshod. We will increase the chance of our failure or perform much below our potential if we continue to act on this point.


4. Failure point-This is that point on the decision timeline where we have missed the bus and we will fail.

Different types of decision will have different decision timelines. For every decision we take, we need to determine the optimal decision point and take the decision and act accordingly. This will help us to take our good quality decisions to success.

Example: You are a student. You want to compete and score high in the GMAT test. The test is one year away. Your optimal decision point for various components of the GMAT test will be different.

For example, you may need to take a decision to start practicing numerical ability tests 6 months prior to the test, as your skills are lower in this area, while other areas may need less number of months.

Numerical Ability test:

Pre-optimal point- 2 years (too early and your practice may not be consistent and the pattern of the test may change)

Optimal point - 6 months

Sub-optimal point - 2 months

Failure point - 1 month

This concept is so simple but it is so violated by a large number of people.

How do you handle the decision timelines for various decisions in your life?

This is a very important question to ponder over.

Do write your comments after using this concept.

What you need to keep in mind before you make a presentation to a client?

I am a consultant. I make lots of presentations to clients all across the world.

Please find below tthe checklist I have prepared to make my presentation effective:

1. Have a detailed talk with the people who invite you for the presentation. You need to find out the purpose and the primary objective of why you are being invited


2. Find out whether the need for your presentation was made by the client himself or it is an intermediary's need


3. Find out the context in which the presentation will be made


4. Find out what is the current situation if a project is going on


5. Find out who are the participants and why they have been invited


6. Check whether you need to meet the CEO seperately before making the presentation


7. Check the quality of the relationship the person who invited you has with the client


8. Try to elicit the trigger words and the taboo words


9. Rehearse your talk


10. Prepare a presentation following all the principles of communication


11. Prepare the presentation afresh, and completly avoid copy and paste


12. Practice your presentation


13. List down the possible queries and develop answers for them


14. Get the list of key people (decision makers) who will be present in the meeting


15. Plan your visit and be punctual.

How do you show you care for your loved ones?

There are different ways people show that they care:

1. A husband tells his wife he loves her.
2. A wife buys a gift for her husband
3. A daughter buys a gift for her mother
4. A son sends a card to his father stating that he is missing him

We often use occasions as props to show that we love and care. Perhaps it is a sign of our times. We get so busy oiling and running the machinery of our lives that we forget to express our love to our loved ones. Our conversations revolve around the mundane-grocery, electricity bills, houshold chores---

I think we need to do both-express our love and care daily and also use special occasions to punctuate the routine by a planned expression of showing our love to our loved ones.

Today, I got fantastic gifts from my wife. She had carefully planned this and put in a lot of effort. I am deeply touched.

I also learnt a very important lesson. We need to seek opportunities to celebrate our love with our loved ones. Along with day to day expression of our love, we also need to invest our time and effort just to show that we care and we love.

This can be done several ways:

1. Plan a party for the person
2. Buy her a gift
3. Take her to a movie
4. Buy him a watch
5. Send her flowers

The list can go on. The point I am driving at is that the more time, effort and planning we put in to delighting our loved ones the more fulfilling all our lives will be.

We need not wait for an occasion to do this. We can pick up a random date and decide to delight our loved ones just for the sake of doing so.

I think we can classify people in different categories:

1. People who forget to express their love day in day out and use occasions as props to express their love
2. People who their express their love day in day out but don't take occasions seriously and miss an opportunity to express their love in a more grand, gala way
3. People who forget to express their love day in day out and don't take occasions seriously either.
4. People who express their love day in day out and also take occasions seriously and turn them into delightful experiences.

My wife belongs to the 4th category. I am learning to get into the 4th category. She is also good at selecting a random date and planning something delightful, either for me or for our daughter.

What about you? To which category do you belong to?

Another question you need to ask yourself is how much time, effort and planning do you invest in delighting your loved ones.

A chain is as strong as its weakest link. What are your weakest links?

I have missed out on doing things that are fun and very beneficial, just because I believe I am not good at it.
Here is a list:

1. I am not good at painting
2. I am not good at striking the first conversation
3. I am not good at sports
4. I am not good at trekking
5. I am not good at networking

I use these statements as excuses for not attempting to start activities around these areas.

It is important to examine these lists. Perhaps, these lists have been handed over to us by others-teachers, friends, peers, bosses---or they have been created none other than ourselves.

Here is an approach to make your weakest link your strongest, if not the strongest, make it as strong as you want it to be.

• Identify an area
• Substitute the statement-example, "I am taking steps right now to make myself good at painting", instead of "I am not good at painting."
• Set a timeline of 6 months with slots of 21 days (It takes 21 days to form a habit)
• Plan to do poorly, initially. It is ok to make mistakes and you have the right and the permission (from yourself) to do so
• Have fun
• Celebrate the effort you put in, not the results.
• Monitor every 21 days of your progress

I am planning to use these steps. What about you? Do you have a similar list?

Try this approach out and do feel free to come to this post and share your experience.

How do you appear to others? What is your "default face"?

This morning, I watched the news on TV and saw a comentator. He was worried or appeared worried. I continued observing people and there appearence while I was at the bank transfering some of the shares I sold and during the hour long commute to the office (Traffic was horrible today).

Each face reflected a different emotion; Some were happy;Some were angry;Some were bored;---

I was feeling quite happy myself, inside and I hope it reflected on my face. All these reflections brought me to this fundamental question:

How do I appear to others? What is my "default face"? Am I approachable?

If our "default face" is anything other than pleasent and approachable it is time to take a look and change it.

How does your "default face" look?

Are you caught in the motivation trap?

Since New Year, I have been challenging this motivation belief in me.

Let me explain the belief:

" I believe that I need to be motivated to do any task. Motivation should come first and then my action."

This is such a limiting belief. I picked this belief from many of the self-help books I have read, from management theories regarding motivation, from my bosses, teachers--- I can keep listing the source of this belief, it is a long one.

This belief was responsible for the internal dialogue in me that prevented me taking important actions when it was required.

Some examples:

I don't feel like exercising

Preparing and submitting the expense statement is so boring

I don't feel like resolving the conflict I had with my colleague

I don't feel like organizing my house

I have started substituting my internal dialogue, by being aware of it and changing it.

Hence, "I don't feel like exercising." was substituted with "Let me begin exercising to feel motivated about it."

It worked remarkably. I exercised everyday since the New Year Resolution and have lost 6 KGs (13.22 pounds).

Here are few more examples of substitution:

Let me begin to prepare and submit the expense statement to drive away boredom and get interested in the activity

Let me begin the first step to resolve the conflict to feel motivated about solving it.

Let me begin organizing the house to get into the feel of the activity and get motivated.

An action has its impact on our perception about it. Though it may not be possible to feel high about every action, we can, however, definitly generate enough feeling, interest and excitement to carry it through.

Try it out! Challenge this limiting belief of motivation! You will get a lot of things done.

The key is to identify the first few steps and begin the task. Your interest and feeling will suddenly appear and follow you through.

Do write your comments after you have tried it out.

Do you use your watch to its fullest potential?

I love watches. I have a good collection of them. I keep changing them every now and then. Recently a thought came to me, as I looked at my complicated watch. Am I using my watch to its fullest potential? I found a strange thing. I am just wearing it as an accessory and I rarely look at my watch even to check the time. My digital diary tells me the time. My laptop tells me the time.

Here are my thoughts on how we can use a watch to its fullest potential:

1. Tell the time (most obvious one)
2. Plan to reach an airport on time. Let me illustrate-If your flight is at 3:00 PM; Need to be at the airport one hour before at 2:00 PM; One hour commute to the airport, so leave at 1:00 PM; One hour for lunch, so start lunch at 12:00 PM ---
3. If your watch has a stop watch, you can estimate the amount of time a repeating task takes; Try to cut down the time for the same task by providing yourself just 30 minutes instead of one hour it usualy takes.
4. If your watch has a countdown feature, you can set a time limit, of say 30 minutes, for a task and try to finish it within the set time limit
5. If your watch has an hourly chime, you can anchor the chime as a reminder for you to get up from your desk and walk to the other end of your office block. This can prevent arthritis in future.
6. You can use an alarm to remind you of any errand you have set;You can shut down the Outlook email that will distract you and check it after 2 hours, by setting an alarm
7. You can use it as a jewelery.

I am sure everyone knows the various uses one can put a watch to. However, most of us take this wonderful gadget for granted.

We wear complicated watches that can tell us the temperature, the direction, the altitude and do many other things, except perhaps cook us a breakfast, in addition to telling us the time in our time zone and perhaps different time zones. How many of us use these features?

Moreover how many of us use the watch for its primary purpose-To help us to be punctual and be more effective?

What about you? How do you use your watch?

Do you seek opportunities to build trust?

Recently one of our colleagues was put on the chopping block. There were a lots of complaints about him from different leaders. There was a discussion about him whether he should be allowed to continue or be asked to quit.

Finally a decision was taken by all of us to give him a second chance. All this happened without his presence. When he called me for some official business, I decided to tell him and warn him that such a discussion had taken place. He was shocked and surprised. He told me that none of the leaders, all of them whom he thought were his good friends, had warned him and appraised him about this incident.

He thanked me profusely and our relationship totally changed. The trust levels went up very high. I was surprised by this incident as I was never close to him and he had never considered me as his friend.

What this incident taught me was that being fare and showing genuine care and concern has a profound impact on relationships. It can turn an ordinary acquaintance to a friend.

While it is not possible to have everyone as our friends, we always have to seek opportunities to show we care. Who knows that person may turn into a good friend of ours?

When was the last time you recognized an opportunity to build trust?

Definitions for using the necklace-treasure chest model* to become highly productive.

Definitions of terms used in the previous two posts:

Simple task:

1. A task that can be done in 5 minutes
2. A task that has not more than two sub tasks

Complex task:

1. A task that will last more than 5 minutes to a 8 hours
2. A task that has multiple steps
3. A task that has action items that need to be done by others

High Benefit

1. Tasks that will take you to your goals
2. Tasks that will help others
3. Tasks that will enhance relationships
4. Tasks that are fun to do

Low Benefit

1. Tasks that does not contribute to reaching your goals
2. Addictive harmful tasks
3. Tasks that are fun to do

*© Muralidharan Jayaram

Discover what pulls you to do useless activities?

Please read the previous post before you read this one - Are you filling your treasure chest with plastic trinkets?---.

Your choice of whether you will do the plastic, zircon, emerald or diamond activities will depend on whether the actiivites are "urgent" or "not urgent".

"Urgent" plastic and zircon activities are distractions that will pull you to focus on them and do them.

"Urgent" emerald and diamond activities usually gets done.

It is the "not urgent" emerald and diamond activities that have a major chance to get neglected.

Keeping this model in our mind will help us to understand why we behave the way we do.

The questions to ask yourself are from two angles;

Is the urgency forcing you to choose the plastic and zircon activities?

Is the lack of urgency causing you to neglect the emerald and diamond activities?

These are very important questions for everyone of us to ponder over.

Are you filling your treasure chest with plastic trinkets? Fill your coffers with 'gems of activities" daily.

At the end of today, every one of us would have done a string of activities. These activities can be broadly classified into the following:

1. Plastic


2. Emerald


3. Zircon


4. Diamond

Please see the figure. It is self explanatory.

At the end of the day, do you have a diamond or a emerald necklace or a zircon necklace or worst, a plastic one.

Be careful of the necklaces you craft everyday, lest the treasure casket of your life be filled with plastic and zircon.

Stay tuned for a future post, where I will define these terms.

So, what necklace are you making right now?

It is a very important question for you to ponder.

What an accident can teach you?

I had an accident, last Monday. The cars in the fast track suddenly stopped and our chauffeur had to jam the brakes. He saved our car from crashing into the car in the front; However, a taxi skidded and hit our car from the behind.

These are the sequence of events that happened after that:

1. I got out of my car and checked the damage done to my car
2. I checked the damage of the taxi that had hit us
3. The taxi driver got out and checked his taxi
4. I took his license number and noted the number of his car
5. We exchanged words while other cars were cursing us for blocking the traffic
6. We had the option of going to the police station, but I chose not to
7. We parted and went our ways

Later on, I checked whether I had any pain in my back; It was just a mild one. As I was thinking about the impact of the accident on myself and my purse, I suddenly realized that I had completely forgotten to ask the driver of the taxi nor my own driver whether they had any injury or hurt.

Both the drivers had got out of the car and stood there arguing. Neither the taxi driver nor my driver had asked me whether I had any hurt or injury, all us were fully focused on our respective cars.

I was ashamed of myself. It is in these situations that our real values come to play. My car was, probably, in a higher position in the value hierarchy than a real living person; Of course, the taxi driver and my own driver had no injuries and if they had one then I would have reacted differently and offered them help.

Nevertheless, the point I am driving at is that all of us and the passersby had no basic courtesy to check whether any party was injured.

Why did all of us, including the passersby, react like this, despite Mumbai being one of the most helpful cities in the world? Is this a sign of our times?

Well, I need to do a soul searching regarding this, for I always thought I had great concern for people.

How about you? How would you react?

">

Is the genie in you awake?

There is a genie in you. There is a genie in everyone. Alas! for most of us our genie is fast asleep.

Here are my thoughts on the genie

The Genie*

I saw the child standing there,
With a wary look and a scare,
He saw everyone, here and there,
in the games they played, without a care,

He stood alone and walked alone,
Dropping his tears on many a stone,
What his fears are, did know, no one,
He got no cheers from anyone,

Look my child, you need no one,
Only one friend you need, more than anyone,
That is you my child, you can have the fun,
You can get the success wild, and get the race won,

There is a genie in you, you need to wake,
Wake that genie and it's all a piece of cake,
The genie will help you to move and shake,
embark you on the journey, for you have the world to take,

He moved with courage and was bold,
A lot of things he touched turned to gold,
He had a success, forever to hold,
for what ever he made, got wildly sold,

Now I saw him stand there,
With a smile and not a thing to care,
For the genie was in him, he was always aware,
He also had friends around him, everywhere,

There is that lonely child, don't fail to notice,
She is full of fears and you need to pay your fees,
Awaken the genie in her and put her to ease,
That is the way, your genie, to keep and please.

*© Muralidharan Jayaram

Will generations down the line thank you?

Your actions are determined by your values. Every family hands down its values from one generation to another. In that sense, the values handed over to you, by your parents/guardians or whoever raised you, will have a say whether you succeed or fail. Your upbringing and your family has had tremendous influence on you so far, whether you like it or not.

Good families handover wholesome values that will go a long way in helping its family members to succeed in life.

No matter how good a family you belong to, you will have, definitely, missing strands of values as no family is perfect. Moreover, along with the wholesome values you would have also got the disfunctional ones.

Over and above this, you would have changed your values, mostly unconsciously, living your life so far and hopefully you have changed the dysfunctional values.

Rarely do people examine the values they have inherited. It is a very important activity.

Examine your values and begin to cultivate the wholesome values that are missing. You need to do this not only for yourself but also for your children and rest of the generations to come.

Generations down the line, they will thank you for it.

What are things you need to do that will make you outstanding?

What do you need to do periodically that will make you outstanding?

Here they are:

1. Identifying and challenging assumptions


2. Constant search to do something no one else has done in your field


3. Being alert to changes in your context and situation


4. Being alert to opportunities around you


5. Seeking opportunities in every event and situation


6. Trying to do something new and enjoying it; Learning to enjoy failure if you encounter one
   
7. Creating opportunities for yourself

I am monitoring, periodically, whether I do all these things.

What about you?

Your first subordination analysis

In order to take control of your subordination process (see the previous posts), you need to know the activities you want to subordinate. It will be a good idea to look at your activities landscape systematically. This is a very simple exercise and shouldn't take a lot of time.

Here is what you need to do:

1. Be aware of every activity you do through out the day-make a mental note of the time you spent on it(a rough estimate would do).


2. Mentally scan through the activities at the end of the day and choose one or two activities you feel you can subordinate. The choice is entirely up to you. Search for frequent, fun activities (trivia) such as gossipping over the telephone, reading novels, reading the news paper, watching the TV etc. These activities should be the trivial ones we spend time on and cutting them will not in any way harm us or collapse our world.


3. Make sure that you are not selecting any important, high yielding activity.


4. Map this activity in a similar template shown in the picture


5. Negotiate with yourself the amount of time you will cut. Example-I have cut two hours of my daily TV viewing time.


6. Do this for a typical week of yours.


7. Look at your week and decide which activity you could subordinate.

Calculate the amount of time you will free up if you subordinate the chosen activities.

You can now decide to do those activities, you want to do, which you thought you never had time for!

Try this simple but very powerful tool. It may change your life for ever.

Do write back, through your comments here, of using this tool.

What are the laws of subordination?

It is important to keep in mind the laws of subordination (See the previous post) while changing the landscape of your activities.

First law of subordination:

Activities that are the most fun to do will be the most resistant to subordination

Example-Balancing your check book vs watching a baseball game on TV.

Second law of subordination:

The act of planning activities and conscious subordination work together, in synergy, to produce results

Example-Planning to do your assignment instead of watching Disney channel

Third law of subordination

The balance of indulgence in an activity and the subordination of it needs to be maintained for successful subordination.

Example-You cannot keep missing your Disney channel for ever. You are going to rebel, sooner or later

Fourth law of subordination

Successful subordination releases the time you need for important activities you thought you had no time for

Example-You get time to do your hobby instead of surfing the Internet blindly

Fifth law of subordination

Rotational subordination will ensure your fun activities get a chance to give you fun

Example-you don't get stuck just playing cards, you also paint, go for movies, play your piano --- while you get your important things done too

Keep these laws in mind while planning your activities for the day; Breaking these laws of subordination leads to procrastination and failure.

Stay tuned for further posts on how to successfully subordinate and live a fun filled, productive life.

Do you make the "principle of subordination" work for you?

What is the principle of subordination?

Every activity happens at the expense of another. One activity, thus, subordinates another in a finite continuum of time.

Let's say you come back home from work every day at 8:00 PM and watch TV from 8:30 PM to 10:00 PM, every day. One day, you suddenly realize the dire need for exercising; so you come back home and go for a walk, along with your spouse, for an hour and get back home at 9:30 PM. You have, automatically, subordinated the activity of watching TV.

Your ability to continue exercising will depend on the tug of war between these two activities. Let's assume that you succeed in sticking to exercising, instead of watching TV, will that mean that you will reduce or totally stop watching TV. I don't think so.

Your TV watching may subordinate your activity of sleeping and may erode into your sleep time. Does that mean you will sleep less? May be or may not be, as you may sleep late and subordination is carried forward till it finds a nice, high priority area on to which it can settle down, finally.

The problem is, for most of us, this happens automatically and unconsciously. This is dangerous because you may subordinate important activities like sleep, family time, work ---

The more you are in control of the process of subordination, the more fulfilled your life will be.

How do you subordinate effectively? Well! that is for another post.

Meanwhile, you can begin to examine and identify important high priority activities that are getting subordinated by relatively low yielding activities.

Stay tuned in, for more, in the future posts.

Are your values being slowly eaten?

When was the last time you checked the shift in your values? Day in day out you are bombarded by advertisements, movies, soap operas, colleagues, bosses, friends, strangers and this constant assault can erode your values. Hopefully your parents/guardians/teachers have set in you default values for success such as:

• Honesty


• Integrity


• Hard work


• Smart work


• Concern for others


• Speed


• Punctuality


• Walking the talk


• Respect for others


• Commitment to friendship and friends

The list can go on. These are default values and hopefully you have, consciously, examined these and chosen them, again for yourself.

Environment has tremendous impact on you, whether you realize it or not;It can quietly eat in to your values and turn you into a new leaf with a new color.

Are you turning into a new leaf?

Same thing can happen to your child. A single exposure to a conniving relative or stranger can quietly change your child's values.

Vigilence is the only answer to this immense problem.

Examine your values again, today. It is a high priority action item, as your success or failure depends on maintaining wholesome values you have gained or been gifted with.

Also check your child's value shifts. Build trust with your child and be alert for changes.