I am back from vacation!

I was away on a vacation last week.

I will start posting from today.

What are the prerequisites of any action?

Every action can be done well or it can be done poorly. An action can hit the mark or be wasted in terms of effort and time spent on it.

What are the universal prerequisites that will take your action to the level of excellence and give it a masterpiece touch?

Let me list, for you, the prerequisites for you here:

Please refer to the picture while reading the list below.

• Your desire to contribute through the action must be very high. This one factor is the missing link between you and excellence. Check your desire to contribute and consciously raise it.
• Your commitmentt to the action must be high; If you are highly committed to the action, you will leave a stamp of excellence. Check your level of commitment for the task.
• You need to set the goal/objective of the action. It is very common for people to start an action without thinking through what they want to accomplish through it. Check whether you have set a goal for the action. This is also the time to set a deadline.
• Include others in the action; especially if team work is required for carrying out the action. Even if it is only you who have to carry out the action, it is a good ideas to discuss the action with others. They may give you a different perspective. Ask your self who you can contact for this action.
• Generate ideas of how you will carry out the action. The more you generate, the richer the choice you have. You can choose the best alternative. In this stage it is a good idea to involve others. They may give you priceless ideas or their ideas may lead you to a totally new idea. Check whether you have generated sufficient ideas before you have decided what to do.
• Action it out without any delay. If there are several, sequential actions then list them out and do them one by one. Delegate the actions and monitor your other team members for completion.
• Once the action is complete, learn from it; This is especially true for recurring actions.

Use this list and you will be amazed at the results you get in life!

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Do you use locks effectively to reach your goals?

In this world of extreme distraction, we need to learn to use locks. If we do not learn to use locks effectively, we can end up in an imbalanced and unfulfilled life.

Look at the picture and you will see the series of locks you need to use to accelerate the achievement of your goals.

Let me describe them here:

• Contextual lock-This is the first lock you need to engage-example: You are in the office and you lock yourself in the professional context; Which means that your actions are all related to your professional and company related matters. At home you engage the family lock and do not continue to pursue actions on the professional front, unless it is an emergency.


• People lock-Once you have locked the context, then you need to engage the people lock. The actions you are going to pursue, are they for self or some specific individual in your organization, assuming your context is professional at that moment.


• Contribution lock-Once you have engaged the people lock, then you need to ask yourself how you can contribute to this person and establish an area for contribution-example your boss has asked you to develop a business plan for a new business venture.


• Goal Lock-Once you have engaged the contribution lock, then you need to determine which goal you will pursue in the locked context, person and contribution area. Identify a goal and engage a further goal lock with an established period of time you will pursue this goal-15 minutes 0r 1 hour or half a day.


• Action lock-You develop an action plan based on the locks you have engaged so far and finally engage an action lock, which means that for the next period of established time, say one hour, you will pursue this action and nothing else.


• Unlock-Once you have finished the action and the time period is over then you will unlock and pursue either another action or decide to continue the action you are doing by re-engaging the locks.

There is a power in this cycle! It is one of the best antidote to distraction and multitasking which will get you nowhere.. It also helps you to achieve a balanced success in all areas of your life

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15 things to do so that you do not have to hear ideas, you could have thought about yourself, from others.

Hearing ideas from others is a valuable exercise. We need to be open to others ideas so that we can examine our own and discard them if we encounter a superior idea. However, many a times, we hear ideas from others, we could have easily come up with ourselves.

Have you ever come out of a meeting thinking how you wish you had thought of that idea yourself?

Here are the fifteen things you need to do to avoid such a situation:

1. Define the problem or issue completely so that you home in on ideas that are rich and relevant to it
2. Arrive at the definition only after arriving at at least 5 alternative definitions of the problem or issue
3. Apply the Pareto principle-what are the 20% of the elements of the issue or problem if I tackle, will give me 80% of the results or impact?
4. Depending on the complexity of the problem or issue, set aside 3 to 5 sessions of creative thinking.
5. Use an expensive pen and a note book to capture your priceless ideas; Nothing motivates like luxury!
6. Generate as many ideas as possible
7. Look at the issue from different angles
8. Plan your sessions sufficiently advance so that you can sleep over after each of the sessions
9. Read the ideas you have written just before falling asleep
10. Capture ideas, if any, in the morning
11. Repeat steps 5 to 10 for every planned session
12. Consolidate the ideas and review
13. Choose the best of the ideas and form an ideas list
14. Start applying these ideas to the issue or problem
15. You are now ready to listen to the ideas of others with an open mind

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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

How to break the chains that bind you?

All of us drag chains with heavy weights attached to it. These chains prevent us from achieving success and reaching our full potential.

Everyone of us has at least one big iron ball chained to our legs or our hands are tied as we go through life?

Examples of chains that bind you:

- Laziness
- Disorganization
- Insensitive nature
- Pleasure centered living
- A bad habit

The list can go on. It is important to draw up a list and identify which chain and iron ball is holding you back; The one that is the biggest.

Take decision to day to untie and unchain yourself with that one thing that binds you, hinders you, and prevents you from reaching your full potential.

It is time for you to untie and unchain yourself!

Here is what you need to do:

• Develop top 5 list of chains that bind you


• Identify one chain that is impeding your progress to the greatest extent


• Use overriding will (see previous post) and break that chain


• Develop strategies to educate your will (see previous post)


• Educate your automatic will


• Take a zero tolerance stand


• Monitor periodically for success



• Reward yourself periodically


• Start with the reward right now ( you have read this post and decided to act on it)-you deserve it!


• Stabilize the change and move on to the next chain

Try this out! Break one chain at a time and set yourself free to soar the skies of achievement!

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Do share your experience here by commenting on this post!

Do you know how to use your will?

There are three kinds of will.

They are listed below*:

• The automatic will
• The overriding will
• The educated will

What is an automatic will?
It is your will that has been hijacked by a habit or an external stimulus.

What is an overriding will?

It is the will you use to overcome the tremendous pull a habit or an external stimulus arouses in you to act by using the associated automatic will

What is an educated will?

It is the automatic will associated with a habit or a recurring stimulus that is educated to respond differently

It is important to examine our actions and check which of these wills are acting. Most of the people have their will subordinated by impulses, habits and strong external stimuli.

It is important to use your overriding will and train and educate your automatic will to respond differently.

The more educated will you have the more your life will go in the direction you want it to go.

Example: You have this great urge to smoke. The urge comes from your habit, the stimulus-withdrawal symptoms of nicotine acting upon you, and the external stimulus of your friend offering you a cigarette. Your automatic will overpowers any thought of avoiding to smoke and you yield.

You have two alternatives:

One alternative is to use your overriding will and say no. This requires tremendous energy and your overriding will needs to be strong enough, by constant use, to do so. It will be difficult to use only the overriding will because at some point it may be exhausting to do so.

Another alternative is to use your overriding will and say "NO" and then educate your automatic will to respond differently.

You will decide and teach your automatic will the following:

• Your automatic will be taught to avoid situations that are conducive to smoking
• Your automatic will be taught to say no to your friend, explaining him that you are giving up smoking
• Your automatic will be taught to throw away the cigarette with one puff, even if you yield to smoking
• Your automatic will be taught to substitute cigarette with say coffee or tea

The point I am trying to drive at is that your will need to be educated to deal with the strong pull of a habit or an external stimulus.

The strategies I have provided, with respect to smoking, need not work for you; What you need to do is develop your own strategies to get rid of smoking.

You can apply this powerful approach and set things right in your life. Once you educate your automatic will it will behave differently

Remember: Educated Will + Skill + Educated Will directed environment is the formula for success.

Try it out and do share your experience here.

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Do you read, watch movie or TV indiscriminately?

There are many movies I wish I had not seen. This is one of the reasons why we as a family is very careful while taking our daughter to the movies; Similarly there are many TV programs that I should never have watched.

My father was always cautious and checked the books I read when I was a child.

I read a lot! I have plenty of very good books, however, I have also come across books that do not match my values or they are plain wrong in the stance they take.

The problem with books is that you cannot have a dialogue with the author and disagree with him.

Hence, it is important to be careful while buying books; otherwise you can have an indigestion; So is it with movies or television. To give you an example, there was one frightening movie that I saw as a child that haunted me for a long time

What is your experience? Do share it here.

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Do you know you always have a choice?

How do you react when life doesn't match up the way you want it to? You feel you have lost it and everything seems dark in front of you.


Here is a poem that will light your way!

You always have a choice!*

There will be times when things will go wrong, very wrong,
And life will no more be a happy song,

There will be times when you wish you were never born,
And life will gift you a thorn

There will be times when, in sorrow, you drown,
And life will push you down and further down,

It is in these times, you need to stand up, fight,
Fight hard to set things right,

It is in these times, you need to find poems & prose,
And throw the thorn and search for the rose,

It is in these times you need to embrace your strife,
Strive hard and fully live your life,

It is in these times you need to wipe your frown, smile,
And get going and go for the extra mile,

For always, you have a choice, to find your voice,
And use that voice to tell you that you have a choice.

*© Muralidharan Jayaram

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Do you expect to hit a home run every time?

There are times when you will perform excellently. There will also be times when you don't perform well, for what ever reason; when that happens, you need to quickly learn and move on.

The point I am trying to make is that all of us are humans and not robots. There are days when we will shine through but there will also be days when we mess up, perhaps mess up big time.

You need to learn and move on; A dysfunctional thing to do is to ruminate negatively and get yourself into a negative state or even depression.

Sometimes things go wrong even if you have put in all the efforts. You always have choice to learn from the situation and move on.

Moreover, the situation you have experienced may be the best thing that could have happened to you; Who Knows? There may come a time in future when you look back to this situation and realize the immense life changing contribution it made; You may even say "Thank You!"

Are you ruminating too much on things that have gone wrong or the mess up you have created?

Stop! Reflect! Learn! Let Go! Move on in life!

Do share your experience here.

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How do you put distance in a relationship?

The more closer you get with a person more the chances he will take you for granted. This is true especially with relatives. Sometimes people take you for granted to the point of violating your rights and even ignoring you when you need them most. How do you handle such a situation?

Here are some very important points to remember:

• You always have a choice to determine what this relationship means to you
• You have the right to choose to keep the relationship or put a distance between you and the person/s in question
• You also have the right to completely cut off the relationship
• Whatever your choice, you need to plan your moves well

Steps to put a distance between you and the person whom you want to put in place:

• Take a decision to continue to respect the person as a human being
• Take a decision you will be polite and never hurt her
• When you meet regulate the natural warmth you feel, if any, for the person (this is more applicable if the person is your close relative-cousin, uncle, aunt---)
• After the initial greeting, talk only if that person talks to you
• Answer to the point, politely, what ever questions the other person asks
• Do not ask any question! The conversation should be a "one way traffic"
• Team up with your spouse or a mutual relative or friend, let her talk to the person as usual so that the contrast is enhanced
• Watch the magical transformation that will happen in the person in question. If the transformation doesn't happen the relationship was not worth in the first place
• Always keep your end of the transactions polite, kind, cold, and distant

These steps above are extremely powerful. Take them ONLY if you have decided, enough is enough, and you want this person to be put in his place once and for all.

There is a better alternative to the above steps which I strongly recommend you try before you take these steps; That is open communication with the individual to tell her the impact of her behavior on you and the feelings her behaviour generates in you. If the person understands and is sincere then she will change. You can negotiate that change.

However, there are some relationships you want to put a distance to because you are sure, for what ever reason, that it is not worth it; It is in these types of relationships, the steps, I have suggested, will work wonders.

The person will take immediate notice of the change in behaviour. He will either approach you because he wants to find the reason and correct the situation or he may get the message and move on.

In either situation, you have the choice either to continue the relationship or maintain it at the cold distance or completely cut it off.

In case the person approaches you to get the relationship warmer, then you need to tell him the reason for the cold distance - the impact of the series of his behaviours and the hurt and bad feelings that the behaviors aroused in you.

It is up to you to define the various relationships you have in life and you need to choose how that relationship should be;Never give up that choice

Try these and do write your experience here.

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Are you monitoring the gradual changes around and within you?

Sudden changes could be dangerous, but gradual changes can be devastating. Let me explain this.
We easily notice the sudden changes. They catch our attention and we need to take action. However, most of us, completely miss the gradual changes that affect us until it becomes so painful that we are unable to ignore them anymore.

Examples

• Gradual loss of hair
• Erosion of trust
• Slow loss of self-control
• Gradual accumulation of clutter
• Gradual gain of weight
• Slow and steady deterioration of a relationship
• Gradual loss of customers
• Gradual erosion of our values
• Gradual move towards becoming redundant

The list an go on.

How do we combat this?

The only way is to be alert and monitor the changes.

Here are a few steps you can take:

1. Identify areas in your life that is subject to gradual changes;The list can be very long
2. Prioritize the areas you will monitor
3. Assess the extent of erosion
4. Develop action plan to arrest the erosion
5. Develop action plan to reverse the erosion completely, if possible
6. Revisit the list periodically

Do it now before it is too late!

Do it before the change attains a critical mass!

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Do you use the power of music to move you?

I was watching a show recently where professional singers, each having a totally different style of music, were performing. I could see and feel the mood of the audience swing as the different themes of music and songs were sung.

I could also feel the music arousing in me, the very same moods that the audience were experiencing (I was watching this on television).

At one point, one singer sang a very jubilant and bubbly song with a corresponding jubilant effect on the audience, while the next performer sang a serious, sad, and thought provoking song. The latter singer changed the jubilant audience with just few lines of her song to a sober, silent, thoughtful and even tearful audience.

The transformation was magical and immediate; This set me thinking.

How about using music to change our moods deliberately. I have been neglecting this powerful tool all my life.

Every one of us need a collection of music to change our moods; Now with ipods around, let's put technology and music to proper use.

Just imagine hearing very inspiring music, every day. Just imagine having a menu of music to select from.

I have decided to collect music carefully, the ones that will inspire me, and load them onto my ipod; Here is another idea-How about having different ipods for different moods?

What do you think? D0 you have a collection?

Do share your experience here.

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