It is that time for RESOLUTIONS when a new year starts. Again, as in any goal, make them SMART.
I would always recommend dividing your precious time across three facets, and make each of them meaningful to you:
(i) Life – Family and friends
(ii) Work (and wealth) – your profession, save for a rainy day
and (iii) Health – taking care of it and keeping yourself in the best shape
Your hobbies, sport activities, gym, moonlighting, travel, religion, spiritual enlightenment, etc would all fall into one of these buckets.
But be wise to spend good percentage across these three depending on your priorities
Month: September 2024
Fancy Job Titles
Ridiculous to see such titles as Senior Associate Director, and Senior Assistant Vice President. What do these titles mean and what would be the responsibility of such titleholders. Honestly, it is a big joke, but for making the person happy with a Director or a Vice President as the suffix, and the prefix is laughable to say the least. And I can infer the deep and bad hierarchy in these companies which literally tells me they do not believe in flat hierarchies and hence efficiencies, and thus not an attractive company. Time to change now. Get rid of these titles – Director and VP, that is it. Let the folks earn these titles instead of getting accommodated in intermediate career rungs
Understand your customers
“The purpose of any business is to get and keep a customer. Without customers, no amount of engineering wizardry, clever financing, or operations expertise can keep a company going” – Theodore Levitt
Simply put, focus on market pull and not technology push. You need to show how to acquire new customers and what problem of theirs is your product or solution solving, that simple. Understand customers first and what they want and when, and deliver it to high quality.
Chin Mudra and about fingers
A noteworthy derivation about life, The Supreme and meditation, interpreted from Skanda Purana:
The Thumb stands apart from the rest. It is not in the same group as the other four fingers. Without the Thumb, the other four fingers cannot be totally functional . Hence the Thumb represents The Almighty.
The Fore finger or the Index finger signifies Life. Middle finger signifies Ego and Pride. The Ring finger signifies karma, dead or feat (can be good deeds or bad deeds) – it is the process of doing. The small finger or Pinky signifies Maya or Illusion.
God creates us and we all want to go back to bad through Moksha Mukthi – highly possibly only through good deeds and meditation. So, one has to keep the ego, bad deeds and illusions away from one’s life. Chin Mudra in Yoga is the touching of Index finger-tip with the Thumb – “life” joining with “God” – this is the basic pose for meditation.
So, when one meditates, we keep the Ego, Karma and Illusion away. This is when you become one in peace.
Some more tit bit on Ring finger: This is the finger associated with Apollo, the Greek God of Love and romance. This finger is also associated with the moon. The Romans believed the vein in the Ring finger on the left hand ran directly to the heart – “Vein of Love”. This is why wedding or engagement rings are worn on the left hand Ring finger.
The Bulls and the leaders
My extrapolation from a statement in Jeffrey Archer’s book when it comes to quality of senior leadership at the top of any organization: ” Only the suffix differentiates between the Bulls and the Bullshitters “. So true, lots of very ordinary guys who speak quite well with great Powerpoint skills are able to reach higher rungs of any organization, suppressing the awesome talent with real substance that are there inside the very same organization.
What is motivation and discipline?
Motivation is a thought, a realizable dream, a potent desire to do something because of some reason. It is NOT the act or action itself. Having just motivation is not enough. Being motivated is a good start.
Discipline is when you act on the dream and make it a reality. Discipline is when you take concrete steps to realize the thought or the dream. Discipline over time becomes a habit.
Great entrepreneurs have discipline as a key strength – they take an idea to fruition, or create a successful business.
Success = Motivation + Discipline + risk management
Discipline is what makes motivation happen. Say for example, one is motivated to join the gym but nothing happens unless you get to the gym regularly to push your body around which is where discipline is needed.