Do you miss an opportunity even though it stares in your face?

Some opportunities will knock your door hard and you need to to be completely stone deaf not to hear it. However, most of the opportunities arrive silently and are in the backdrop;

They stay there until time elapses and the opportunities fade away, unnoticed.

Most of the people miss opportunities as they are unaware of them!

Why does this happen?

Experiment:

Just close your eyes and decide that when you will open it you will notice all the red colored stuff around you.

Did you suddenly become aware of all the red colors around you? The more you are in this red color search mode, the more you will filter out the other colors or even if you see them, you will ignore them.

Hence, it is very important to scan for opportunities. The problem is people get fixated on their goals. They wear goggles and forget to remove them (Check out the previous post on "goggles" if you have not read it).

Examples:

So executives get stuck to their professional goals to the neglect of their family goals or people get stuck to their financial goals to the neglect of their health goals; This is assuming that they have set goals in the first place.

To a person carrying a hammer, everything will appear as a potential nail.

What is paradoxical is that even if you have set goals in different areas of your life, you will miss them if you do not actively scan for opportunities.

The more you are aware of your goals, in different areas, in your life and the more you keep them in front of you and scan for opportunities, the more you will be able to spot opportunities and grab them.

The picture depicts what you need to do.

Steps:

• Identify the situation or context you are in (in office or out on the road or at your daughter's school or ---)
• Select a goal relevant to the situation
• Scan for opportunities relevant to the goal
• Spot the opportunity
• Action it
• Accomplish

Going through this cycle again and again for different goals can completely change the direction of your life!

Try it and share your experience here!

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Do you use pen and paper to think?

Try this out! Next time you have a complex problem to solve, take a pen and paper and begin to think by capturing on paper your thoughts.

For many of you, this will give a tremendous boost in the quality of your thinking; While you write down your thoughts, you should also attempt to draw them.

You will realize the power of this technique only when you actually experience it.

Once you find your quality of thinking improving, you can then buy an expensive pen and a note book; Name this pen as the think pen and the note book as the think note book.

Have them handy! You never know when you will need them!

Why do you need to buy expensive pens and notebooks? It is because you need these tools to record your priceless thoughts!

Many of us do not have this habit of thinking on paper and we miss out on the powerful thoughts that could have flown from our minds to the pen to the paper if only we had these tools and used them!

What is your experience? Do share your thoughts here!

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What is your degree of ownership and contribution to a specific cause?

The degree of your ownership and contribution will determine the extent to which you give high quality output and attain satisfaction for others and yourself.

Let's examine the Ownership-contribution matrix:

Please study the picture before you read further.

Quadrant of Low Ownership and Low Contribution:

In this quadrant your ownership to the goal/task is low and also the contribution is low. Unless you have consciously examined the goal/task and determined that it is of no value to you, this is a wrong quadrant to be in. It can also be a dangerous quadrant to be in.

Example: You have consciously examined and determined that it is a waste of time to wash the car as it will rain any moment.

Example: You have low ownership of your weight loss program and your contribution to your own weight loss is zero, as you don't exercise and continue to eat junk food.

Quadrant of Low Ownership and High Contribution

In this quadrant your ownership to the goal/task is low, but your contribution is high. This more of forced contribution.

Example: Your child doing home work because her teacher is going to check the home work tomorrow.

Example: You go to the gym everyday and work out because your spouse will be very unhappy otherwise and may nag you.

Quadrant of High Ownership and Low Contribution

In this quadrant you have high ownership for the goal/task, but your contribution is low.

If it is a conscious choice to delay the contribution because of specific reasons, such as, you having a time constraint, as you are focused on achieving other high priority goals, where your ownership and contribution is high, then it is alright to be in this quadrant for the particular goal/task in question.

However, if you are in this quadrant because you are pursuing other non value adding activities that have diverted your attention or pursuing activities dictated by others which are not aligned to your goals and you said yes to them because you couldn't say no to the people who asked you, then this is a dangerous quadrant to be in.

Example: You have consciously decided to delay exercising till you finish your forthcoming exams

Example: You have forgotten about exercising because you have chosen to watch TV mindlessly or you have postponed unconsciously because you value lazing around the TV more than exercising.

Quadrant High Ownership and high Contribution

This is the best quadrant to be in. It is possible to be in this quadrant only if we constantly ask ourselves these two questions:

• What is my current ownership to this goal/task?


• How can I contribute, my best, to this goal/task?

We need to ask these questions and raise the degree of our ownership and contribution!

This is a sure fire recipe to a highly successful living!

Try it out and it will change your world forever!

What is your experience? Do share your thoughts here!

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Do you see your world, coloured, through just one pair of goggles?

All of us wear goggles! I am using the word "goggles" metaphorically here. There are different kinds of goggles. Some of them are shown in the picture.

Different types of goggles!

• Parent goggles
• Business person goggles
• Professional goggles
• Hobbyist goggles
• Fitness goggles
• Recreation goggles
• Spouse goggles
• Leader goggles
• Manager goggles
• Citizen goggles
• Contribution goggles (How can I contribute to the betterment, enhancement, achievement---)
• Family goggles
• Friend goggles

There are many goggles you wear in life. The ones you wear the most, color your world the most; For example, if you wear your professional goggles, it will filter everything out that is not related to your professional life. If you forget to take this goggles off when its utility is done, you will continue to see your world colored through it and you may neglect your other areas of life.

The good news is that you have a choice to select the appropriate goggles you wear! You also have a choice to rotate different goggles you wear, day in day out, so that your life is balanced.

The way you see the world determines the thoughts and the actions you will be taking.

Questions to ask yourself:

What goggles am I wearing right now?

How long have I been wearing them?

Are there other goggles that I should be wearing but I have not worn them for a long time?

A successful life is a balanced life! Use the powerful concept of goggles to have uniform achievement in all areas of your life!

What is your experience? Do share your thoughts here!

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What is the timelag between your goal oriented actions?

Let's say you start an action which you chose that will take you to one of your goals. You do it for a certain period and then stop; Then there are a set of actions that are not related to your goals, which lasts for a certain period of time; This action goes on till you suddenly realize that you have to get back to the activities that are meaningful to you and goal oriented to you.

What is the time lag between the two set of goal oriented activities ? Have you ever checked that out?
For some people it may be an hour or two, for some it may be minutes, and for a lot of people it may be days or months or even years!

Do this experiment! You may be surprised at the results.

This monitoring may prove to be one of the most important activities you ever have done in your entire life.

The time lag between your goal oriented actions will determine whether you will achieve all the goals in your life!

Think about it!

Do share your experience here.

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Do you speak with people who matter?

I visited an old colleague of mine whom I have always respected. I enjoyed my conversation with him. We discussed various topics including the consulting industry to which we both belong.

Not only did I enjoy the conversation, I also found my mind drawing in some options for solutions to some specific issues I was juggling with.

What is amazing is that neither one of us were directly talking about or discussing the issues in question.

It is important to have a select few individuals with whom you need to talk on a regular basis. You will be surprised at the amount of subliminal inputs you get from them.

Try it out! Do share your experience here.

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How do you treat your senior citizens?

An incident, yesterday, at the mall shocked me and taught me a very important lesson!

We were searching for some drawing tools for my new hobby; I am learning to draw cartoons.

As we went from one aisle to another, we finally reached the aisle where the stationary items were displayed.

I went half way in and my way was blocked by a man who did not respond to me when I told him, "Excuse me!"; As I moved forward, when I got a chance, I told him to stand aside, as he was blocking the way of others.
My tone was tough, rough, and expressed exasperation. As we continued to search for the items in that aisle, a lady came to me and said that the person, who was blocking the way, was an old man, 72 years old.

She picked up a fight with me and said, "That is not the way to talk to an old man!" I further got irritated and put her in her place!

Later on while reflecting on the incident, I felt that I had committed serious error.

Why did this happen?

Here are the reasons:

• I assumed that the man stood there, blocking the way, on purpose
• I assumed that he did not care for me
• I assumed that he was arrogant
• I did not even look at the man and hence, did not notice that he was old

Here are some more thoughts that came to me while reflecting on the incident:

• May be he was deaf
• May be he had a recent operation and could not move swiftly
• May be his reflexes are slow at his age
• May be he was preoccupied with his worries and did not hear me
• May be he was arrogant

I always thought I was a compassionate person.

I learnt that you can be compassionate only if you are aware!

You can be compassionate only if you observe others and their situation.

You can be compassionate only if you pause and not react blindly to your assumptions.

Another lesson I learnt is that old people are like children. We need to take care of them and ensure that they do not come in the way of others or are not a nuisance others.

We need to be behind them, just as we would be with a small child. We need the compassion and caring to do so!

I decided that never again will I loose my temper because of my assumptions. I also decided to be more aware of others to be more compassionate.

What is your experience? Do share your thoughts here!

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When was the last time you gave courage to someone?

Recently we came to know that one of our relatives (a 31 year old lady) was diagnosed of a serious, life threatening illness; Her family members are completely shaken up; especially the girl's mother.

What do you say to such a family that is in shock? It is very important to carefully decide before hand what needs to be told.

This is how we handled it:

• We expressed our shock and sadness to them
• We talked to the close people around that girl, especially the girl's mother

We told her that:

• This is the time for courage.
• This is the time to be tough.
• This is the time to give a lot of courage to your daughter
• This is the time to keep saying that everything will be fine
• This is the time to guard your daughter from every negative thought, every negative people and every negative situation
• This is the time to accept what has happened and to start doing things to cure the disease
• This is the time to fight back at the disease
• This is the time to go to war against the disease
• This is the time to take charge and lead the battle, for your daughter needs you to lead more than any other time in her life
• This is the time to take charge and guide every other family member about the situation
• This is the time to use the wonderful advances in medical science and wage a war

We left her with this thought:

No battle is lost until the last bullet has been fired! Be tough! Be courageous! Be positive! Give your best fight! Trust in doctors after choosing the best ones; More than anything else, trust in God!

We also told her that we will always be with her and her family in this fight!

Trust in God; Do your best;Fight with an attitude to win!

This is what we realized after we gave courage to them!

It is in these kind of situations your family or friends need your support! It is easy to play, have fun, enjoy, when things are going right with them; You need a lot of courage your self to give courage.

When was the last time you gave courage to others? If you have not done so, then it is time to reexamine your values and start giving courage to the needy; More than any gift you can give a human, it is the courage to face the battle of life that will be prized the most!

Do share your experience here!

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Trust in God; Do your best;Fight with an attitude to win!

What we realized after talking to the girl's mother