What is most Important for Success- Knowledge, Power or Wealth?

At our learning centre, we recently held a discussion on- “What is important for success- knowledge, power or wealth?”

Importance of Power

The participants in the discussions were entrepreneurs, corporate executives, bankers and others. Different views were presented by the speakers. Some considered knowledge as most important factor. They enumerated examples of successful people who had risen from being unknown to highly rated successful individual by consistently acquiring knowledge and gainfully using it. Knowledge in such cases did not necessarily mean any university degree or such other qualification. Knowledge, here, denotes application of mind of the practical knowledge received through any medium and using the same for earning name, fame and wealth. Steve Jobs is one such example. Our own Dhirubhai Ambani is another. Even Warren Buffet’s story is no different. It is rags to riches. While academic Knowledge has also helped lots of people to become successful and famous.

Importance of Power

The role of power in success, too, cannot be undermined. Politicians achieve power and then use the same to achieve greater power. This is how power helps them to be successful. In the present scenario, a powerful politician can introduce his/her son or daughter to become a nominated leader and in the process achieve success in politics. Many politicians, today, are following this model of leadership succession. Likewise, a powerful bureaucrat can use his power to help his friend relative to achieve success.

Importance of Wealth

Wealth can buy knowledge and power. So, one may say that if you have money, you can achieve any goal by hiring people, facilities to create any large project and achieve success. But without Knowledge achieved through experience it is very difficult to see the success of a large project. Political leaders can no doubt introduce their wards in leadership succession through the power they wield, but unless they ensure that the latter gain sufficient experience, the entrant may not be successful. Knowledge acquired through experience alone will bring success to them. Here too, Knowledge gained with experience becomes important. Power alone will not work.
So, the fact of the matter is that knowledge learnt through studies or gained through experience is indeed very important in any field.
But, it needs to be remembered that the meaning of success has to be defined by each and every individual in his/her own terms.
How should one do that? That will be a subject of another post.

Thank you. for Reading ?

Two Short Poems, Today!

Poems for Peak Personality!

Focus

Thought words and deeds
of a focused man
Stimulates action
as per plan
Unexpected situations
Are overcome
others are managed
Avoided some
Define your goals
Far and near
All your impediments
your focus will clear

Resolve

Should you dare to resolve?
Turbulent task or evolve
Plan to meet enemy strong
Fight a battle that may prolong
Develop strong will
With best of skill
It’s your determination
That denotes dedication
Which alone culminates
Bringing success ultimate

Poem of the Day – Attitude

Attitude

Every tide yields to an ebb.
Every high heralds a low
Storm in sea secures a calm
These are nature’s fluctuations, which flow.
Day fades to fetch the night
Until it is morn again.
Spring softens winters worst bite
Happiness returns without a stain.
Success and failure are intertwined
Joy for ever; you will never find.
Life does depend on what you do
More than that, it is your attitude.

How to Brighten Your Personality to Realise Your Dreams?

Pages from my forthcoming book, ‘PowerPacked Personality’ for Your FREE reading!

Here are some more pages continued from where we left…..
Last week we had talked about the first step to realize your dream is to write down your specific goals. When you become very clear about your goal which will help you to realize your dreams, you have to work out a plan of action for realizing each of your specific goals. Here are some further pages which I hope you will need to understand and make suitable efforts. We have to always remember that anything significant cannot be achieved without consistent hard work. Perseverance is the key to climbing up. Leader of success is steep and difficult, but the rewards merit all.

Implementing your goals

Why do you set your goals? Let’s consider this basic question. The simple answer is that you are not happy with your present status and you want to improve. Now let’s consider who is responsible for your present status? Your circumstances, influence of your parents, teachers, friends, relatives, neighbor and all those who have been interacting with you. They have influenced you mind which in turn has influenced your actions and behavior. Over the years you have formed some habits. Triggered by your habits, you continue to do the same things over and over again. Your relationships with others remain the same. Nothing changes. Therefore you don’t own what you want; you don’t garner respect from others. Life is drudgery. Nothing to look forward to. You accept that this reality and you have to live with it. And then, you write down your goals. These could be about health, career, finance, family, hobby and even spirituality.
Once we understand that you background and habits have brought you to a situation which you are not happy with, you need to do whatever it takes to change these influences and most importantly change your habits. You may not be able to change company of everyone around you, but you can choose to divide your time according to your choice.

Implement Goals Quotes:

People will always have an opinion, but you have to live life the way you want to. It’s very easy to tell others what to do, but difficult to implement it on yourself.
Set some goals. Stay quiet about them. Smash the hell out of them. Clap for your damn self.
Success is steady progress toward one’s personal goals. (Jim Rohn)
You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.
When a planner speaks of implementing goals rationally, he implies that it is possible to demonstrate logically and experimentally the relationship between the proposed means and the ends they are intended to further. (Alan A. Altshuler)
In real life, strategy is actually very straightforward. You pick a general direction and implement like hell. (Jack Welch Winning)

Self-Belief

To be connected with earlier chapter.
In life it is necessary to have some beliefs. That does not mean that you need to follow any dogma or belief forced on you. You can pick your own beliefs with discretion. First, let us understand what is self-belief. What are the qualities that it inherits? Self belief is an invaluable virtue which brings great possibilities in your life. Its indications are that you:

Stop making any excuses for any reason what-so-ever.
Do not indulge in any negative thought.
Stop thinking that difficulties surround you alone. You do not jump to conclusion and take hasty actions. You express your fears to others without any hesitation, because you keep in mind that everyone has some fears.
You stop procrastinating because that is indicative of your lack of confidence.
Stop pursing perfection. Perfection is never achieved. It only stops you from moving ahead.

Once you develop self belief and you observe that you confirm to all what has been said above, you will find the following eight advantages coming to you smoothly and seamlessly.

Self-belief enables you to hold strong conviction. All things do not happen the way you have planned or the way you expect. But strong conviction will help you to move ahead without fear of failure.
Self belief also helps you develop optimistic attitude which is necessary today in the wake of fast changing world. Life is becoming extremely competitive. Any opportunity missed once may never come back again. But if you have a negative attitude you will not be able to catch the fleeting possibilities.
Your self-belief also makes you more reliable to others.Thus you tend to build up better relations with others. Your credibility is not question. Since people can trust you they vie for good relations with you. Needless to say that for any significant project you need help from others.
Self-belief also helps you to be focused and self motivated. You no longer take life as it comes. You don’t depend on unknown sources to bring you luck. You carve your own destiny. Self motivation helps you to maintain enthusiasm and interest in life.
Your risk taking ability improves if you start relying on yourself. It is said that there are no gains if there are no risks. Your conviction helps you to take calculated risks in meeting the challenges of life. The tendency to avoid and escape facing challenging situation reduces substantially. You start realizing that difficulties form a necessary part of life.
Further, self-belief enables you to give and receive constructive criticism with an open mind. In the current scenario exchange of ideas and views are extremely important. The autocratic leader is not acceptable any more. So if you want to progress you have to collaborate with others from your own organization or outside outfits.
Self-belief helps you to be more assertive. You start caring for yourself more than pleasing others. Someone said that he doesn’t know any formula of how to succeed. The sure short formula for success has never been discovered. But there is a firm unbeatable formula for failure and that is trying to please everyone. Your self-belief will not allow you to embark on the journey of securing approvals where these are not mandatory.
Last but not the least, you start working on improving your self respect. You realize that if you do not respect yourself, others will follow suit. When you’re in need to raise self esteem, you become more effective and you become more productive. Now, you start managing your time very effectively as any improper or inadequate use of your time will hurt your self-esteem.

Personal Productivity

Personal Productivity and its review constitute are essential ingriedients in the implementation and achievement of personal goals. But what is personal productivity? Does it mean how we manage our time? The answer is yes and no. Yes, time is an important aspect of personal productivity. Rather, it could be so provided your activities are aligned with your goals. And yet it is a lot more. Does it mean one’s achievement towards realization of personal goals? Not just that! Personal goals may change. Personal vision may change. And if one may say so personal mission statement if one ever cares to establish that – that also may change.
When we talk of mission statement or vision or an organization, that hardly ever changes. But when we are talking of an individual, the factors that affect a person’s likes and dislikes, desires, drastically change with changing circumstances, or even without these.
The most important factor for a person’s success is his/her personal productivity. As we growwe realize that it is not just money, not just health, not just family, or your social status, hobbies etc., that bring you happiness, but it is a combination of all these in varying proportions. So what we need to do is to align all our activities to achieve whatever we want in the aforesaid different fields.
Therefore a daily review of what you do becomes very important. In the highly competitive world we have today, the targets that the organizations set for you are hard ones. These sap your energy and rob you of the power and ability to think what you must do. You only start following sometimes even unachievable targets. In the process, you totally destroy you concept of personal productivity.
Hence, what is really needed is to have the right balance and proper perspective towards life. It is only such a healthy attitude that strikes a right balance between family and friends, home and work, health and money that will lead to a truly happy and successful life.

Tips to Achieve Goals

How to achieve goals?

First, you must write down your goals in clear specific language. Then start with not only visualising but also seeing your goals as clearly as you have written down. For example, if your goal is to go to Italy and visit Venice, activate your imagination and see that you are in a boat in Venice. Likewise, if you want to buy a specific expensive car say BMW, you should imagine or see yourself riding the BMW.

You have to figure out that the sense of believing that you have already achieved the goal is to start looking at it.
Next, you need to understand the obstacles. If all things were very easy then nobody would need to create goals, write goals or work hard to achieve them. Things are not easy and they will never be easy. Once you see yourself achieving your specific goal, then you sit down and work out what are the kind of obstacles you might face. There will definitely be some obstacles, which you can visualize. And one more important thing to remember is that as you move forward towards achieving your goal, some unexpected obstacle will also come which you will have to conquer. It is only your determination, your decision and your perseverance that you will some way or the other help achieve the goal that you have already imagined.
Create a mental picture that the obstacles are coming and you are conquering all the obstacles. Imagine that there is an athlete who is running an obstacle race, while he is running fast; he is also crossing the obstacles. Likewise, now that you know what kind of obstacles will come, you imagine crossing those obstacles, picture yourself conquering those obstacles and still carrying on with your mission.
Many doubts can arise in your mind. It is normal. However, clear all the doubts, clear your mind of all doubts which often come, which are quite natural. You say to yourself, nothing doing, no such doubts will stop me from achieving my goal. I have a clear picture of achieving my goal, I am determined and I have created a mental picture of conquering my obstacles. Therefore, there is no doubt that I can do it. The goal itself is a challenge. And all the obstacles that you face while pursuing the goal, will also be kind of smaller challenges. Embrace the challenge. It is an opportunity which will definitely enhance your courage, which will give you more will power to pursue and to be successful. Stay on track. Keep up on the track following the same thing, which you have defined and seeing yourself achieving it. There should be no diversion. Staying on track will definitely make it easier for you to overcome the obstacles and reach your goal. Eventually show the world you can do it. As I say, SUCCESS stands for,

S – See your goal
U – Understand the obstacles
C – Create positive mental pictures
C – Clear your mind of self-doubts
E – Embrace the challenges
S – Stay on track
S – Show the world you can do it.
When the goal is a big project, define it and write it down. Then have a very strong desire for it. That is the kind of motivation, which is necessary to follow the steps that I have already mentioned.

Believe in yourself; that you can do it and then you will do it.
If it is an arduous task and a big project, split it up. Split it into smaller goals and then give a time line to those smaller goals. You must review these every day. You have to review what you have done. You have to check if you have come up to your expectations or not. This step is extremely important. Schedule it, add a timeline to all smaller goals and then do it.

Thanks for reading.

Dictionary meaning of POISE enlightens us!

What is Poise?

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, poise is defined as calm, confidence in a person’s way of behaving or a quality of grace moving in an attractive fashion; balance in the way a person moulds or moves their body. Examples: he would be embarrassed for a moment but would quickly regain poise. Her confidence and poise show that she is a top model. Further example:
A lady with a lot of poise says – I am enough, I am full of sparkle and compassion, I genuinely want to make world a place I love. I practice kindness; I am not afraid of truth, I am loyal, adventurous, supportive and surprising. I am a woman, I am enough, I make mistakes but I own them and I learn from them, sometimes I make a lot of mistakes.

Only if you have poise, you can be confident, you can be graceful & elegant; you can be anywhere and make your presence felt. It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it as explained by the famous philosopher, Aristotle.
Oscar Wilde once said “Now-a day’s people know the price of everything and the value of nothing”.
A poised man knows the value. He may also know the price but considers value more important than price. It can also be attributed that grace and elegance will never go out of fashion as poise and elegance are always loved and appreciated. It can also be said that key to winning is poise to be maintained under stress, among other qualities. Such is the importance of poise. Poise can also be felt inside one’s feelings, character and thoughts. It’s just being oneself, being at ease and never fighting oneself, never underestimating one’s abilities. It is pretty impressive to see students standing in front of their peers. It takes poise, talent and courage because poise remains with us. Audrey Hepburn, a British actress of yester years said “poise is the knowledge that you are never alone, for beautiful eyes, look for good in others, for beautiful lips look for words of kindness and poise. Opt for the knowledge that you are never in dire difficulty”.
It also means to beat defeat with dignity, to receive criticism with homour and humility. These are also the marks of maturity and elegance. All in all, it is poise. It can also be stated that one should never hesitate, never try to hide oneself and be afraid of facing consequences or have shame, standing up on the values one believes in. Never to regret the past; it’s a waste of time as there is a reason for everything. Every terrible thing that one must have gone through in their lives also leave some messages. Every mistake that has happened would have a deep meaning associated with it. The only way one can earn respect is if one respects themselves and to do what he/she considers is the right thing; not to apologies for being oneself. Accepting your mistakes committed requires a lot of poise.
In a stress full situation, one can be concerned or little worried as well but maintaining poise you can overcome all negative feelings. Poise can also be mean as one’s ability to balance the extremes of life. Sometimes we find life difficult like a turbulent sea. But poise helps to maintain equanimity and dignity.
It is said that “never go through life, but grow though life”. In other words always be original, be yourself. Don’t try to duplicate someone in the process however successful the person may be, never try to copy or imitate others.
Further, life is like riding a bicycle. To keep one’s balance he/she must keep moving and never be stuck. Never think of past; never worry about future, but learn to live in the present. Our present alone and shape our future.
How to achieve poise?
Focus in your work gives you poise; patience gives you poise. But achieving success without work can only be found in the dictionary. Likewise maintainning poise without efforts is not conceivable at all .The necessity to do one’s work or perform duty has been emphasized in our great book of knowledge – The Bhagwat Gita. It says man maintains his balance, poise and sense of security only if he is moving forward. If he is stuck, he is dismayed and not able to perform his duty. He loses poise as well.
Sir Winston Churchill who had set an example and was an institute in his own right wittily said. “A pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity but an optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty but keeping balance in both the situations”.
We must remember that poise and power are inseparably associated. It can be stated that the calm and balanced mind is strong and great mind but the hurried and agitated mind is a weakling. So never be in a hurry and never try to do anything ‘yesterday’. Be patient as the things do take their own time.
Never be upset with the circumstances if it is not in your favour and despite genuine hard work. One is not able to perform, as per expectation always. But patience is the key. And so is poise the ultimate key to elegance and success.
Thanks for reading.

Happiness

In general dictionary, there is no proper definition for happiness. One has to find out his own definition which works for himself. In simple words, it is a constant and continuous feeling of joy and contentment. It should not be momentary just like pleasure.
Whatever a person does, he ultimately does to find happiness. It is not a destination, but can be found in the journey of life. It is ones choice to be happy. Whether one has everything or not, it is completely his choice to make himself happy with what he has. It is not a possession to be prised, but the quality of thoughts and state of mind. It is a sort of action. When one is wise, he makes others happy.
Some of the authors and world leaders say that today, the biggest problem in the world is that, we are more interested in making others believe that we are happy than actually trying to be happy by ourselves.
It is just a belief that money and success can buy happiness. But alone they are useless. Your decision to be happy plays the top role. Money, success, your decision, etc. are just few of the constituents of happiness, which are to be placed on their proper positions.
Happiness can’t be bought, but just created, felt, expressed or experienced. If it could have been bought, all would have paid a price for it. The best method to create happiness is to do the things which you love. It contributes a lot. And if that is not possible, then love the things which you do. Choose to be happy in the work you do and it is only possible when you start liking them.
STEPS TO BECOME HAPPY:

Think less
Feel more
Act more
Frown less
Smile more
Laugh more
Talk less
Listen more
Understand better
Judge less
Expect more
Watch less
Do more
Complain less
Appreciate more
Be grateful

Gratitude is extremely important if one wants to be happy. Likewise, the person should not be over emotional but have faith. He should not give up but keep trying. He should not complicate but make things simple. Sometimes, he need not be serious but laugh at the problems. He should be as youthful as a kid. That will make him happy.
One’s happiness should depend on himself and not on other people or things which he may lose. One can never lose himself. Those who desire love, try to find a soul mate. But those who desire happiness, finds themselves, and then their soul mate finds them.
Happiness is never experienced with the amount of problems but the ability to face it. If someone can’t write happiness in others life, then atleast he should try to erase his problems.
BENIFITS OF BEING HAPPY:

It boots motivation. It keeps one inspired and he is always enthusiastic. He loves creativity, have lot of energy, good health and create good vigilance. All this is possible only if he is happy.
It improves productivity in one’s life.
It reduces cardio vascular diseases.
It is said that happy people have a longer life and are tend to attract more people. So they make good friends.

Thanks for reading

Four Simple Steps to Develop Good Habit

If habits are stepping stones, their choice should be the outcome of reality’s and targets’ cognitive approach. Acharya Rajneesh once proclaimed that “I am less interested in your chain-smoking but more interested in your habit. Any habit that becomes a force, a dominating force over you, is a great sin. One should therefore live more in freedom. One should be able to do things according to the situations but not according to the habits”.

Control Your Thoughts

If you don’t learn to control your thoughts or opinions, you will never learn to control your behaviour and if you don’t learn to control your behavior, you will never be able to build good habits. Habit creates the appearance of justice and progress has no bigger enemy than habit.

Change your thoughts & Actions

If you want to replace the bad habits with the good one, you have to change your actions, thoughts, habits and start doing small things differently every day. Habit change happens when you start with small things. Moreover, if you want to build courage, then simply act courageously. If you do something over and over again, you build a habit. Some people develop the habit of courage whereas some people develop the habit of non-courage.

Don’t Play a Victim

People who consider themselves as a victim will rarely produce positive result. Instead you must utilise the given opportunities and turn out the difficulties into a driving force to make yourself and the world better. Mind control is the result of self-discipline and habit. You either control your mind or the mind controls you. There is no half way compromise.

Be Practical

And at last, you realize that you can’t force loyalty, consistency, or even honesty. You can’t force them to keep their word, or to communicate, or to realize something special is right in front of them. You can’t make someone to put up a fight for your heart or change his/her own ways. Take a step back and reflect if your relationship has turned into battlefield of harsh words, mixed emotions, and constant bickering, you must ask yourself whether it’s worth anymore.
It is estimated that up to 90% of our daily activities are habits. If you want to improve your time management, then you need to improve your habits. Never ever allow ‘waiting’ to become your habit. Be fearless, live your dreams and take risks. Life is happening now and if you wait you tend to lose time. You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep other people warm. Remember your first duty is to ‘Yourself’ but it doesn’t mean that you have to be selfish. But it is necessary to be strong, capable and competent so that you can help others too.
The act of discovering who we are, will force us to accept that we can move further than we think. Success is nothing but a few simple disciplines, practiced every day, while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated everyday.
Always be yourself, respect yourself and have faith in yourself. Ensure to make plans and organize your discipline, thoughts, and devote attention to detail for creating something worthwhile but not for criticizing your own self. Karma comes after everyone eventually. You can’t get away with screwing people throughout your whole life. Don’t care about others identity, or what all the problems he/she undergoes around. Sooner or later the universe will serve you the revenge that you deserve.
Motivation is what gets you started, and habit is what keeps you going. It’s quite important to keep moving. There is a powerful driving force inside every human being that once unleashed can make any dream, vision or desire a reality.
Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing. Either way it is all about your choice. So choose the right habits that enrich your lifestyle!!
Thanks for reading.

Five Ways to Break 10 Bad Habits

Bad Habits
Nearly everyone has a bad habit that they should break. Some people have less than others and some people’s bad habits are more grating than those of others. Bad habits like excessive drinking, smoking, biting the fingernails, etc., starts slowly and gradually. They jeopardize your health — both physically and mentally thereby wasting your time and energy.
Bad habits are hard to give up, they are like a comfortable bed, easy to get into, but hard to get out off. However, you can achieve anything with the right amount of willpower and a realistic plan of action. With persistence and right mind-sets, it’s possible to break your bad habits.
Here are some ideas for breaking your bad habits
1. Change one thing at a time
It is most important that you don’t try to break all your bad habits, at once. You’re not a superhuman and trying to quit all your bad habits at the same time is probably going to be hard to achieve. Instead, prioritize and choose the habit that you need to change most urgently and then focus on that accordingly.
2. Prepare for weak moments
A positive mindset is significant but if you’re not prepared for those weak moments this can be a biggest mistake. Try to remove temptations as that can help you prepare for those weak moments. For instance, clear the cupboards of junk food, keep some distance from friends who encourage you to smoke/ drink and avoid stressful situations.
3. Set regular reminders
Bad habits are often so deeply ingrained in us that sometimes they can catch us unexpectedly. To help prevent those accidental slip-ups, try setting yourself regular reminders to resist those bag habits.
4. Reward your success
The key to breaking bad habits is to make the process as rewarding and enjoyable, as possible. If you are facing difficulty focusing on the long-term benefits of breaking bad habits, then arrange small rewards for yourself as you go along to help keep you motivated.
5. Remind yourself why you’re breaking those habits
In order to successfully break a bad habit, you have to be sure of your reason for breaking those habits. Find a solid reason for breaking your habit that really means something to you – such as improving your health, relationship or appearance – and keep your goal in sight. This will help you to carry on and stay strong in moments of weakness.
10 habits you must quit to be happy
When you quit doing the bad things, you make more room for the things that make you happy. Aristotle, a great philosopher once said, “we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit”. However, here are 10 habits that you need to give up in exchange for your happiness.

Quit procrastinating on your goals
Quit talking down to yourself
Quit blaming others and making excuses
Quit trying to control the uncontrollable
Quit criticizing others
Quit trying to avoid change
Quit running from your problems and fears
Quit trying to be someone you’re not
Quit living in another time and place
Quit being ungrateful