Be a Trusted Professional

Most of  the professionals work hard and sincerely, but between the two equally performing, one races ahead of him. There can be many reasons, but the most essential quality desired at senior positions is in the most preferred doll.

A sage presented a prince with a set of three small dolls. The prince was not amused.

"Am I a girl that you give me dolls?" he asked.
"This is a gift for a future king," said the man.
"If you look carefully, you'll see a hole in the ear of each doll."
"So?"

The sage handed him a piece of string.
"Pass it through each doll," he said.
Intrigued, the prince picked up the first doll and put the string into the ear.
 It came out from the other ear.

"This is one type of person," said the man. "Whatever you tell him, comes out from the other ear. He doesn't retain anything."

The prince put the string into the second doll.
 It came out from the mouth.
"This is the second type of person," said the man. "Whatever you tell him, he tells everybody else."

The prince picked up the third doll and repeated the process.
The string did not reappear from anywhere else.
"This is the third type of person," said the man. "Whatever you tell him is locked up within him. It never comes out."

"What is the best type of person?" asked the prince.

The man handed him a fourth doll, in answer.
When the prince put the string into the doll, it came out from the other ear.
"Do it again," said the sage. The prince repeated the process. This time the string came out from the mouth. When he put the string in a third time, it did not come out at all.

"This is the best type of person," said the sage. "To be trustworthy, a man must know when not to listen, when to remain silent and when to speak out."

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Whom would you invite . Wealth, Success or Love ?

When the options are thrown,  we generally take decision as per our understanding of the subject and the targets set for ourselves. Many a times we do not realize the full potentials of the outcome of options left out.  This tale conceptualises the lesson that before making the decision analyse who follows whom.

A woman came out of her house and saw 3 old men with long white beards sitting in her front yard. She did not recognize them. She said "I don't think I know you, but you must be hungry. Please come in and have something to eat."

"Is the man of the house home?", they asked. "No", she said. "He's out." "Then we cannot come in", they replied.

In the evening when her husband came home, she told him what had happened. "Go tell them I am home and invite them in!" The woman went out and invited the men in. "We do not go into a House together," they replied. "Why is that?" she wanted to know.

One of the old men explained: "His name is Wealth," he said pointing to one of his friends, and said pointing to another one, "He is Success, and I am Love." Then he added, "Now go in and discuss with your husband which one of us you want in your home."

The woman went in and told her husband what was said. Her husband was overjoyed. "How nice!!", he said. "Since that is the case, let us invite Wealth. Let him come and fill our home with wealth!"

His wife disagreed. "My dear, why don't we invite Success?" Their daughter-in-law was listening from the other corner of the house. She jumped in with her own suggestion: "Would it not be better to invite Love? Our home will then be filled with love!"

"Let us heed our daughter-in-law's advice," said the husband to his wife. "Go out and invite Love to be our guest."

The woman went out and asked the 3 old men, "Which one of you is Love? Please come in and be our guest."

Love got up and started walking toward the house. The other 2 also got up and followed him. Surprised, the lady asked Wealth and Success: "I only invited Love, Why are you coming in?"

The old men replied together: "If you had invited Wealth or Success, the other two of us would've stayed out, but since you invited Love, Wherever He goes, we go with him. Wherever there is Love, there is also Wealth and Success!!!!!!"

Moral  :  The missionaries are the most successful and best managed enterprise world over. Learn the basics from there

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The Master

When one Guru was dying, one of his disciples asked him "Guruji, who was your master?"

He said, "I had thousands of masters. If I just relate their names it will take months, years and it is too late. But three masters I will certainly tell you about. "

"One was a thief. Once I got lost in the desert, and when I reached a village it was very late, everything was closed. But at last I found one man who was trying to make a hole in the wall of a house. I asked him where I could stay and he said 'At this time of night it will be difficult, but you can stay with me - if you can stay with a thief'.

And the man was so beautiful. I stayed for one month! And each night he would say to me, 'Now I am going to my work. You rest, you pray.'

 

When he came back I would ask 'Could you get anything?'

 

He would say, 'Not tonight. But tomorrow I will try again, God willing.' He was never in a state of hopelessness, he was always happy. When I was meditating and meditating for years on end and nothing was happening, many times the moment came when I was so desperate, so hopeless, that I thought to stop all this nonsense. And suddenly I would remember the thief who would say every night, 'God willing, tomorrow it is going to happen."

"And my second master was a dog. I was going to the river, thirsty and a dog came. He was also thirsty. He looked into the river, he saw another dog there -- his own image -- and became afraid. He would bard and run away, but his thirst was so much that he would come back. Finally, despite his fear, he just jumped into the water, and the image disappeared. And I knew that a message had come to me from God: one has to jump in spite of all fears."

 

"And the third master was a small child. I entered a town and a child was carrying a lit candle. He was going to the temple to put the candle there.'

 

Just joking, I asked the boy, 'Have you lit the candle yourself?'

 

He said, 'Yes sir.'

 

And I asked, 'There was a moment when the candle was unlit, then there was a moment when the candle was lit. Can you show me the source from which the light came?'

 

And the boy laughed, blew out the candle, and said, 'Now you have seen the light going. Where has it gone? You will tell me!'

 

My ego was shattered, my whole knowledge was shattered. And that moment I felt my own stupidity. Since then I dropped all my knowledge-ability."

 

"It is true that I had no master. That does not mean that I was not a disciple -- I accepted the whole existence as my master. My Disciple hood was a greater involvement than yours is. I trusted the clouds, the trees. I trusted existence as such. I had no master because I had millions of masters I learned from every possible source. To be a disciple is a must on the path. What does it mean to be a disciple? It means to be able to learn. to be available to learn to be vulnerable to existence. With a master you start learning to learn."

 

The master is a swimming pool where you can learn how to swim. Once you have learnt, all the oceans are yours.

Where to Tap ?

Two men born together get the equal experience in life through out, yet they have different levels of achievement in their career. Why does it happen so? In a nut shell the difference comes only how do they make use of the experience gained in life. The story of a failed giant ship engine describes this effectively.

Long back a ship fully loaded with goods had trouble when its engine failed suddenly. Engineers on the board made all efforts to trouble shoot the problem, but could not start the engine. Ship’s owners called one expert after the others from city, but no one could figure out how to fix the engine.

At the advise of someone they brought in an old man who had been fixing ships since he was a young man. When he came he carried a large bag of tools with him. After reaching, he immediately went to work. He inspected the engine very care fully, top to bottom. Listened to the noise by tapping with hand. Gathered information from the people who were there when it went off.

Two of the owners were there watching him with the hope that he would know what to do and were ready to pay any price to get the solution.

After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly the engine lurched into the life. He carefully put his hammer away. The engine was fixed. He went back saying that “Please make the payment as soon as you receive the bill.”

A week later , the owners received a bill from the old man for 10,000 dollars. The owners, who saw the old man working exclaimed. He hardly do anything!. So they wrote back the old man a note saying, “Please send us an itemized bill.”

The man sent the bill that read

Tapping with a hammer :  $  2.00
Knowing where to tap :   $  9,998.00

Moral of the Story : Effort is important. But knowing where to put an effort makes all the difference

Keep the Spark Alive

The famous Author of The Three Mistakes of my life Chetan Bhagat while addressing students at Symbiosis Pune beautifully narrated the purpose of life.

There are few days in human life when one is truly elated. The first day in college is one of them. I call this excitement, the spark within you that makes you feel truly alive today. Today I am going to talk about keeping the spark shining.

Where do these sparks start? I think we are born with them.I see students like you, and I still see some sparks. But when I see older people, the spark is difficult to find. That means as we age, the spark fades. People whose spark has faded too much are dull, dejected, aimless and bitter. Remember Kareena in the first half of Jab We Met vs the second half? That is what happens when the spark is lost. So how to save the spark?

Imagine the spark to be a lamp's flame. The first aspect is nurturing - to give your spark the fuel, continuously. The second is to guard against storms.

To nurture, always have goals. It is human nature to strive, improve and achieve full potential. In fact, that is success. It is what is possible for you. It isn't any external measure - a certain cost to company pay package, a particular car or house.

Have Purpose of Life

Most of us are from middle class families. To us, having material landmarks is success and rightly so. When you have grown up where money constraints force everyday choices, financial freedom is a big achievement. But it isn't the purpose of life. If that was the case, Mr. Ambani would not show up for work. Shah Rukh Khan would stay at home and not dance anymore. Steve Jobs won't be working hard to make a better iPhone, as he sold Pixar for billions of dollars already.

Why do they do it? What makes them come to work everyday? They do it because it makes them happy. They do it because it makes them feel alive. Just getting better from current levels feels good. If you study hard, you can improve your rank. If you make an effort to interact with people, you will do better in interviews. If you practice, your cricket will get better. You may also know that you cannot become Tendulkar, yet. But you can get to the next level. Striving for that next level is important.

I must add, don't just have career or academic goals. Set goals to give you a balanced, successful life. I use the word balanced before successful. Balanced means ensuring your health, relationships, mental peace are all in good order. Your striving is only worth it if there is harmony in your life. Else, you may achieve the success, but this spark, this feeling of being excited and alive, will start to die.

One last thing about nurturing the spark - don't take life seriously.

Love Your Spirit first.

Finally, the point that can kill your spark is isolation. As you grow older you will realize you are unique.. This can create conflict as your goals may not match with others. . And you may drop some of them. Basketball captains in college invariably stop playing basketball by the time they have their second child. They give up something that meant so much to them. They do it for their family. But in doing that, the spark dies. Never, ever make that compromise. Love yourself first, and then others.

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Don't Be Serious, Be Sincere

Few speeches remain fresh for ever in minds. Here is one such from the famous author of hit books like Five Point Someone, A Night @ Call Center, The Three Mistakes Of My Life and 2 States - Chetan Bhagat. This was given in June, 2008 as Inaugural Speech for the new batch at the Symbiosis BBA program, Pune. But this message is for all. Some portions are deleted to reduce the length.

 Don't just have career or academic goals. Set goals to give you a balanced, successful life. I use the word balanced before successful. Balanced means ensuring your health, relationships, mental peace are all in good order. There is no point of getting a promotion on the day of your break up. There is no fun in driving a car if your back hurts. Shopping is not enjoyable if your mind is full of tensions.

You must have read some quotes - Life is a tough race, it is a marathon or whatever. No, from what I have seen so far, life is one of those races in nursery school, where you have to run with a marble in a spoon kept in your mouth. If the marble falls, there is no point coming first. Same with life, where health and relationships are the marble. Your striving is only worth it if there is harmony in your life. Else, you may achieve the success, but this spark, this feeling of being excited and alive, will start to die.

One  thing about nurturing the spark - don't take life seriously.  Life is not to be taken seriously, as we are really temporary here. We are like a pre-paid card with limited validity. If we are lucky, we may last another 50 years. And 50 years is just 2,500 weekends.  Do we really need to get so worked up?

It's ok, bunk a few classes, goof up a few interviews, fall in love. We are people, not programmed devices.

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• New Year Resolutions for 2011

Six Golden Rules to Live Happily Ever

1.Don’t hurt anyone- It takes only a few seconds to hurt people you love, and it can take years to heal.


2.Live today-There are two eternities that can break you down. Yesterday and tomorrow. One is gone and the other does n’t exist. So live today.

3.Value - What is most vulnerable is not, What you have in your life but who you have in your life.

4. Money- Money can buy every thing but not happiness.

5. Marriage- Do not marry a person that you know that you can live with; only marry someone that you can not live without.

6.Trust- It takes years to build trust, and a few seconds to destroy it.

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Keep the Spark Alive

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