Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Identity 3 rd Stage Phenomenon

The population of pune is around 50,00,000 (5 million). I am one of them. The population of Mumbai is around 200,00,000 (20 million). Who am I in this huge population. What is my identity? 5 million people make their living. Some earn less. Some earn more. People do job, buy flat, marry, raise kids. Everyone among 5 million probably does that. Then what is it that differentiates you from the rest? In other words what is your identity.

Thought a lot on it. I think people in India live their life in 3 stages.
1) Get well equipped
2) Make your living
3) Create your identity

In the first stage there is fierce competition in education to reach the top. Get a better degree. Perform well. Find a good job.

In the second stage, people buy flat, marry, raise kids and have a good married life.

In the third stage, people try to do something which is beyond their self and try to create an identity for themselves in the world full of commodities.

There is so much competition in the first stage that kids are over pressurized for the competitive performance. Each one gets equipped with his/her own set of education, training, experience, course and projects.

In the second stage, we get jobs. It is so difficult to get job if you are not among the so called extra ordinary people. One of my friends supposedly paid 8 lac (0.8 million) to get a job of 15000 per month. He poured in all of the retirement savings of his father. Somehow you get job. Then we strive hard to make our living. Get so called well settled in life. The struggle increases as time passes and you get better positions with better salaries in your job. There is hardly any identity outside your job and your family. Then you have to support your kid going through stage 1 of the process. Many people get old in crossing this 2nd stage.

The third stage remains unaddressed throughout the first 2 stages. The challenges and demands of first 2 stages hardly allow you to devote any time to put some active efforts for the stage 3. There are some people in society who had not had any access to education and other facilities. So they directly started searching for their identity, creating their identity and in the process they became hugely successful. We hear many such stories about such people - severe poverty to super rich transition. Further there are some people who directly enter 3 rd stage after crossing 1st stage e g Obama, Dr Abhay Bang etc. These people also succeed in creating their identity.

So my hypothesis in short is that earlier we target the third stage, more are the chances of succeeding in it. We need to start thinking beyond ourselves in the earlier stages of life. Earlier we do that better are the chances of creating an 'Identity' in the society.

Monday, November 30, 2009

Attitude

Having the correct attitude is a key to the success. No matter what you do, what your sector is, what your profile is, if you have a positive mental attitude (PMA ), you are more likely to succeed. The PMA as explained by Professor Osborne contributes a lot to the success of the accomplished individuals. Faith and spirituality nurture confidence and attitude.

Doubt weakens confidence which affects attitude. Constant use of brain over heart dilutes the enthusiasm which sometimes results in lack of interest and joy in the work. In my view, if we follow our heart we can be very enthusiastic about what we are doing which helps with maintaining a PMA. If you are doing what you like and what you have passion for, then work does not remain work but it becomes your favorite activity. The chances of success would be exponentially high in such work. Following your heart also keeps you happy which improves your attitude and confidence. There is constantly a difference between one's real self and one's ideal self. The whole struggle is to travel from real to ideal, from a commodity to a differentiation. In the end what matters is how you feel about yourself and how happy you are !!!

Monday, October 5, 2009

Simple Mantra

Don't complain. Don't regret. Don't expect.
Do the right work. Enjoy the fruits.
Say YES to the life !!! :)

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Shortcut and Focus

Life is always about choices. Choices we make govern our life. Success has always been very important to me. I almost always had to compete against strong opponents - me having less resources and more responsibilities. Original me is a person of integrity, honesty, principles, values, respect and dignity. I remain so in the process of life till now. Of course have done my part of mistakes. But in all have managed to remain as I am.

But in retrospect I see that though I have not done injustice, I have tolerated a lot of injustice and wrong behavior of many people. Many times I needed them and could not afford to go in their bad books. Many times I did not have time to fight with them. I was very focused in my life and always avoided or ignored the stuff not related to my point of focus. I could have resisted the injustice but I was so focused on my goals that I ignored the injustice. Sometimes even I did injustice to some extent in the name of 'chalta hai' or 'everyone is doing it'.

There have been many incidences where I had to be diplomatic. When the power is in someone else's hand and he/she can decide your success, you automatically become diplomatic in dealing with that person. e g A lab worker is stubborn and will not take sample of patients. You have to handle 20 patients in the ward. You can not go yourself and carry the sample. You have 2 options- carry the sample on your own and ignore the patients for a while or be diplomatic and manage the lab assistant by praising good things in him and request him to do his work. So in the professional life and the personal life , I have always faced many situations where I was helpless and had no way to complain. I had to ensure good results always. I used complaining, scolding. But it did not work.I could have fought against such lab workers. But I was busy with my goals and ambitions and hadn't had time to address the issue related to this injustice.
Another example- if you want to start any good thing in village, you have to request the Sarpanch to inaugurate it. Otherwise you can not start.You know he has 'n' no of bad things in him. But you don't care for him but for the results for the poor villagers.

This is not just my story. It is a common story of all middle class students who have to ignore and avoid 'n' number of things in life and focus on their goals. We are always taught to look at the big picture and ignore irrelevant and trivial stuff. I understand and agree with it to some extent. But with time I guess every injustice and wrong thing in this world becomes trivial and your 'focus' becomes your 'selfishness' and nothing else. I am seeing many of my friends doing that. Till the time of survival if you are doing that, I can understand. But even in prosperity if you chose such a path, I think that is a shortcut. In my view you would be compromising on your integrity in doing so. In my view we should never compromise on our integrity. It is something that defines you. Its a 'identity' kind of thing.
Demands are ever lasting. Greed is never satisfied. Nothing is enough. Ours dreams and goals become bigger and larger. That should happen. But I think we have reached a stage where we can ignore shortcuts while maintaining the focus on our goals. In avoiding shortcuts we are choosing to give more time and efforts (long cut and sacrifices) to reach our goals. The cost and the sacrifice related to the shortcut is definitely not worth our integrity. There is a perception amongst some of us that rich people exploit and they are bad. So its ok to do bad to become rich. You don't necessarily have to become a bad person to become rich. You can be both good and rich. I have seen many people who are good as well as rich. We can join their party !!! :)

So Avoid shortcuts and focus on integrity and choose long cut !!! What say ?

( Just writing thoughts in my mind. No intention of advising anyone. I am too small to advise anyone. Whatever is coming to my mind, I am writing it in the blog and even I will try to follow what has been written )

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar says that the cause of anxiety is impatience. We sow and expect immediate results. Life is so instant these days. We are bound to believe in short cuts. But Life is not a short cut. Many times one has to continue doing good, maintain integrity and patience and survive the hardship. It is very easy to lose faith in difficult and trying circumstances. But if we are more patient and persistent in our efforts in the right direction and if we don't necessarily be dependent on the short term results and have a vision then we will lead our life in a more happy way. If we sow and keep on nurturing then one day we will get fruits. It is essential not to lose sight and vision while nurturing.

Monday, August 17, 2009

The Theory of Karma

Theory of karma:

Sorrow and worry are functions of ignorance unless you are not doing your duty. Loss or win does not matter. Doing duty does. Everything created will get destroyed. Each born will be dead. This is definite. There is no point in feeling sorry for the definite. Understand the truth. Human body dies. Soul is immortal. Current life is a part of the journey of the soul. You brought nothing when you were born. You will take nothing when you will die.

Duty is to fight against injustice. If you don't fight, you will be labeled as a coward. If you lose in that cause, it is worth losing. If you win then you can enjoy fruits of being a winner. Win or loss, sorrow and worry, life or death, happiness or sadness- leave everything and concentrate of doing duty. Profit or loss should not matter. Try to expand your thinking beyond that.

It is necessary to fight. Maya (illusion) makes you think that you are doing everything for yourself. You associate loss or win of the cause to your own self. That confuses you. You get worried about results. Sorrow touches you. Such sorrow and worry do not benefit you or the society, the present or the future. Doing right duty in itself is a win. Results are anyways not in your hands. You can only decide if you will fight or will not fight for the right cause. Even if you decide to fight, there is no guarantee of the success.

Without work, you cannot survive. We need material things to live this life. To earn these things you have to work. Not doing anything is anyways boring. You have to work. You have to decide whether you will do the right work- duty or not. So you have option of deciding what to do or not to do and whether to do or not to do. Result is not in your control.

If you are not attached to your win, you will not be afraid of your loss. If you compete thinking it as your duty, your struggle itself is a win. Do things as your duty. You have right on efforts, not results. Don't cross your boundaries. Just keep on doing right things. Cause is more important than the result. Cause itself should be worth. If you win, enjoy it. If you lose, be sure that it is worth losing in the right cause.

Right person tries to control his senses. Senses make you greedy. Lust is never satisfied. That makes you angry. Anger hurts logic. Once logic is affected, person loses the sight of what makes him happy. Your senses control you instead of you controlling your senses. Right person also is attracted towards these senses. But the right person knows the right things and controls his senses and does not cross his limits. He becomes master of his life instead of life being master of him. Right person controls his senses, not kill them. Right person knows his options and redirects all his senses towards the right destination. He does not give free pass to his senses. He lives his life as a knowledgeable person.

Introverts try to dig in themselves to search for God. Extroverts do work to reach God. But even introverts have to work in finding the value of life.

Results affect the person’s work. Person fails to see the big picture and why and how his efforts will benefit this world. He concentrates on his own win or loss and not with the cause for which he is fighting and living his life. So suddenly win or loss becomes magnanimously important for the person. All this is the result of the Maya (illusion). Maya makes you live your life for selfish reasons. If you are gifted with strengths and power and if you do your work for selfish reasons and indulge in wrong behavior and acts, then normal people thinking you as their role model will be get enticed towards wrong acts and behavior. So you should try to think beyond your own self. It is not just the question of you- your win – your loss – your work. It is much bigger than that especially if you are a gifted and a fortunate one. If you use your strengths to do good and right things, normal people who follow you, when they will become fortunate and powerful, they will also do good work and thus benefit the society and the world. Thus it is the duty of powerful people to become correct role models by thinking beyond their own self and thus benefit this world.

Following your duty makes you free from all the sins. Maya makes you selfish and you do sins. If you can see beyond that and become knowledgeable, you can avoid doing sins. Body is controlled by senses. Senses are controlled by heart (emotions and feeling). Heart is controlled by mind. Mind is controlled by conscience and soul. Thus if you control your conscience and do the right thing for the soul, you can control your life.

Think beyond you own self- your happiness, sorrow, worry, profit, loss, ambition. Do the right thing. Your conscience knows it. Live your life for a greater cause. Not doing wrong things helps you remain in peace with your conscience. Doing right things makes you happy. Control your ignorance through knowledge.

Doubt, fear and greed degrade you. Doing right work and living for the right cause makes your life worth. You cannot become happy if you don’t do your duty. Results are not your problems. Your efforts are your problems, because efforts are in your control.

Thus become knowledgeable and believe in the theory of karma (karma yog- doing right work without thinking of results).

Friday, July 24, 2009

Panipat

Story of Panipat- Afghanistan King Abdali attacks India and wins over Delhi. To protect independence of India, Marathas decide to combat Abdali. Due to betrayals, religious divides, politics, lack of resources, Marathas were left powerless and had to either surrender or die.

Sadashiv Bhavu - maratha general - commander in charge is asked to surrender when all his resources are depleted. He replies " Everyone has to die. Whats a big deal about this 6 feet body. Success or failure does not matter much. What matters is the purpose for which you live - the reason for your existence on this earth. I am fighting to protect India from the foreign rule. In that purpose I will win or die. "

If Bhavu had surrendered succumbing to fear, Afghanistan king Abdali would have remained strong with intact forces. Sadashiv Bhavu fought till his death and reduced the power of Abdali to such an extent that he did not remain in any position to rule India. Abdali signed a treaty and ended the war.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Vivekananda

To succeed, you must have tremendous perseverance, tremendous will. "I will drink the ocean," says the persevering soul, "at my will mountains will crumble up." Have that sort of energy, that sort of will, work hard, and you will reach the goal.

Why are people so afraid? The answer is that they have made themselves helpless and dependent on others. We are so lazy, we do not want to do anything ourselves. We want a Personal God, a Savior or a Prophet to do everything for us.

You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself.

What is the use of talking of one’s mistakes to the world? They cannot thereby be undone. For what one has done one must suffer; one must try and do better. The world sympathizes only with the strong and the powerful.

What about this marvelous experience of standing alone, discarding all help, breasting the storms of life, of working without any sense of recompense, without any sense of putrid duty, and of working a whole life, joyful, free -- not goaded on to work like slaves by false human love or ambition?

Have you got the will to surmount mountain-high obstructions? If the whole world stands against you sword in hand, would you still dare to do what you think is right?

This is the first lesson to learn: be determined not to curse anything outside, not to lay the blame upon anyone outside, but stand up, lay the blame on yourself. You will find that is always true. Get hold of yourself.

We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be produced by our present actions; so we have to know how to act

All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark

“Stand up, be bold, be strong. Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders, and know that you are the creator of your own destiny. All the strength and succor you want is within yourselves. Therefore, make your own future.”

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Selfishness and Friendship

There were two childhood buddies who went through school and college and even joined the army together. War broke out and they were fighting in the same unit. One night they were ambushed.

Bullets were flying all over and out of the darkness came a voice, "Harry, please come and help me."

Harry immediately recognized the voice of his childhood buddy, Bill. He asked the captain if he could go.

The captain said, "No, I can't let you go, I am already short-handed and I cannot afford to lose one more person. Besides, the way Bill sounds he is not going to make it." Harry kept quiet.

Again the voice came, "Harry, please come and help me." Harry sat quietly because the captain had refused earlier.

Again and again the voice came.

Harry couldn't contain himself any longer and told the captain, "Captain, this is my childhood buddy. I have to go and help."

The captain reluctantly let him go. Harry crawled through the darkness and dragged Bill back into the trench. They found that Bill was dead.

Now the captain got angry and shouted at Harry, "Didn't I tell you he was not going to make it? He is dead, you could have been killed and I could have lost a hand. That was a mistake."

Harry replied, "Captain, I did the right thing. When I reached Bill he was still alive and his last words were 'Harry, I knew you would come."'

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Underperforming Team Member

Had a discussion on underperforming team member issue.
It started with a topic that whether underperforming unprofessional team member be allowed to attend a meeting if he/she turns in late for the meeting. To add to the confusion that team member is your friend.
My way of managing such project-
Underperforming unprofessional team member: Lets keep friendship issue aside. The fact that he/she is ur team member indicates that he/she has a potential to contribute. As a manager u should be able to tap in his/her potential. If I disallow him/her from attending the meeting, I will miss on his/her inputs on the task of the project. Based on 80-20 principle, if he/she is going to contribute something in 20% of the input that will give result to 80% output, my loss will be huge if I miss on his/her inputs. He/She may have valid reasons for coming late. But in any case I can not miss on the inputs.

Friend: If that person is ur friend, u should know what r the reasons behind such a behaviour. U should help that person deal with those issues and should have courage to forgive that person and make up for that person on professional front. Of course there is difference between friendship of convenience/pleasure and real friendship(Friend I am talking about is real friend).

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Recession

Many of you have been asking me questions about recession. This is what I think [ based on inputs of professors(especially Sam Thomas), friends and newspapers ]


Every business has a cycle. - Innovation, growth, maturity decline. Initially profit margins are high in innovation and growth stage. Later at maturity stage profit margins are low. US is a developed country. Overall industry of US was at maturity stage. So investors were not able to find many +ve NPV projects with high margins in US (NPV - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_present_value finance term- don’t go in details in short it means- returns are higher than costs in +ve NPV projects). The attention of investors got diverted towards developing countries which were full of such projects as the overall industry in these countries was at innovation or growth stage. Wealth of US investors increased drastically through these projects. Developing countries earned dollars. They invested those dollars in treasury bonds n bills. So that money also came back to US. So US wealth increased rapidly without any net outflow of money from US to developing countries.

Investors, thanks to lack of +ve NPV projects, invested their dollars in banks. Banks had to pay investors some interest rate. Banks lend money to +ve NPV projects. But there was dearth of +ve NPV projects. Money cannot just stay in bank accounts. Otherwise bank has to pay for it. There was increased competition among banks. All this situation made banks think of subprime borrowers who would pay huge interest rates. Banks thought they could eliminate the risk by diversification and securitization (securitization - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securitization - to make it simple say something like insurance- if ur home burns , insurance company will pay. Similarly if borrower defaults, someone else pays u for that. This grossly undermined default risk and encouraged banks to take more risk and lend more money.)

This is background.

Now let us discuss about dollars and bubble. Dollar will settle in the most lucrative area for itself. Commodity bubble, technology bubble, Gas n Oil prices related bubble etc. Around 2000 technology bubble was busted. Money started looking for new sector now. That new sector was housing industry. In 2001, there was 9/11. Panic was set and trade slowed due to the attack. To stimulate the economy interest rate cuts were utilized. Banks had more money to lend in the midst of less number of +NPV projects in developed economy.

Huge amount of subprime lending was done as a result of all this and lots of money was invested in housing industry. Since people were getting finance from bank, they bought houses even after knowing that they may not be able to repay the debt. American dream became a reality for them.

Later housing bubble busted. The apartment worth $250,000 was now just $50,000. People being rational started surrendering their home of $250000 to banks and bought 2nd hand home at 50,000 from the market. This in turn triggered the decline of house prices further. People preferred to return houses to banks than to repay loan amount which is no more consistent with the value of house. Now banks have all these houses whose value is drastically reduced. They did not get their money back. This lead write offs and huge losses to banks.

Auto industry- US auto industry concentrated on luxury cars which were costly and consume more gas (petrol, diesel). Consumers could buy these cars as banks would lend them money and gas was cheap. In similar way, US businesses flourished more in luxury segments. High networking capital was needed to run such businesses thanks to high costs.

Subprime borrowers started defaulting. Banks suffered losses. They became extremely cautious about lending money as a response to that. Companies were denied loans. Companies had to finance their high costs through these borrowings. Because of credit crunch, companies had to reduce their borrowings. So they had to cut their costs. This resulted in job cuts all across the US. People lost jobs and so they had no money to pay EMI of their houses - default - banks in loss- vicious cycle was set.

Due to job cuts, people had less money to spend. Consumer spending reduced. Consumption of goods and services reduced. Demand for products and services reduced. Since no one was buying companies had to reduce their production. To produce less, they needed less manpower - further job cuts. 2.6 million people lost their jobs in a year. Companies have frozen their hiring. So these people are not getting jobs anywhere else. Banks, companies and people have lost their trust and optimism which is making this recession deeper.