Job Market and 'Sabzi' Market

'Sabzi' is a Hindi/Urdu word which means vegetables. In a wider sense it includes fruits also. The job and sabzi market are similar in many ways and different in many other ways. While thinking about this some days back, I came up with the following similarities and differences. I thought it is something interesting enough for sharing with others so here it goes...

First, the similarities:
1. Bargaining is the name of the game
2. The seller (job-seller or the company, sabzi-seller or sabzi-wala) always has more information about the market prices than the poor buyer (prospective employee, customer)
3. The seller always gets to set the base price for effecting the sale

Now, the differences:
1. The job-seller always operates with an upper bound on the sale price (the salary). Any buyer (prospective employee) demanding for more than this price won't get the job. On the other hand, the sabzi-seller always operates with a lower bound on the sale price. The buyer (customer) willing to pay lesser than than this price won't get the sabzi.
2. The job-seller doesn't need to compete with other job-sellers in open (though generally the job-seller has the required information - or they easily find it out by calling the candidates themselves).On the other hand, the sabzi-seller has to compete with other sabzi-sellers openly (and loudly).
3. The job-seller is selling a non-perishable product (a job not sold on a given day could be easily sold the next day or a week after or even later).On the other hand, the sabzi-seller has to sell the product within its shelf life otherwise he would incur complete loss.

The funny reality is that all of us need sabzi... and all of us need job as well to buy the sabzi!

Entering Stock Market

I entered the world of stock (equity shares) market investing in 2006 with an IPO (Initial Public Offering) purchase. My second purchase was also an IPO. I have lost money on both - even today both are in red.

Then I decided to purchase subscription to a Trading-cum-Demat Account. The first Brokerage Firm I applied for lost my documents so I decided to avoid them altogether (lack of professionalism).

And then in 2009 beginning, I managed to open a Trading-cum-Demat account with another Brokerage Firm. Within a week of all formalities getting completed, I had an user-id. For two months I did nothing as I didn't know what to do with the trading terminal! After few e-mail complaints to their customer care someone from the Brokerage Firm came and gave me a demo. And in fact, while the person was there I bought stocks of two companies. Well... both these have been in green so far.

I have started testing the waters more and more. It's still step 1 for me but I guess I have learned enough (and am still learning) how to be an intelligent investor. I have read Benjamin Graham's book also on the same subject. And a couple of other books by "experts".

I will have more to share about 'shares' as time passes... And I hope after a while I can emphatically say "Yes" to the question - "Is investing in Stock Market safe?"

Unethical Credit Card Companies

Many credit card companies have perfected the art of cheating customers. Some of the unethical practices are listed below:

1. The cheque a customer drops in the drop-box goes missing (and it is done deliberately with a malicious intent). The customer is informed that his cheque was not received and he will have to bear the late payment and finance charges.

2. The cheque dropped by a customer is not processed deliberately until a few days after the due date. And then the customer is informed that he will have to bear the late payment andfinance charges.

I had a really bad experience with one of the "branded" credit card companies. I was wrongly/unethically charged for late payment (unethical practice 2). I agreed to pay the ethical/correct/fair amount and dropped a cheque in their drop-box. And then they informed me that the cheque was not received by them (unethical practice #1).

I communicated with someone who was holding the position of "Asst Vice President - Customer Service". After this experience I was wondering how come this person got to this position? She should have been actually given the designation of ""Asst Vice President - Customer Harassment".

Anyways, I have canceled this credit card and am fighting it out with them.

Job Search Sites in India

Are you looking for a job in India? Are you searching for better career opportunities? Do you want to use the Internet for getting to know about the jobs available in your skill area?

Well I went through an intensive job search exercise myself sometime back. And while searching for jobs in my skill area I came across many job sites. After spending considerable time on many of these job sites I came to a simple conclusion - everyone is looking for a list that provides names of the "top" job sites. Such a list will help save time and effort in reaching to one's dream job. I thought it will be helpful to the job-seekers if I create such a list based on my experience. So here's my list of the "top" job sites that you can use as you search jobs in India:

Multi-site Job Search (my preferred method - these job sites don't have any job data of their own and search sites which have actual job data. One would need to create account in almost all the sites that appear in the job search results.)
http://www.indeed.co.in/
http://www.bixee.com/
http://www.careerjet.com/
http://www.oneclickjob.com/

Major Job Sites (these sites have actual job data - one can apply directly for a job from these websites)
http://www.naukri.com/
http://www.timesjobs.com/
http://www.monsterindia.com/

A Really Bad Accident

While going to the office many months back I happened to see a horrible accident. A vehicle had gone over a woman lying dead on the road... both of her legs seemed to have been cut apart and were lying on the road.

It was a bad sight and made me feel very sick. And I guess anyone who has seen anything like this would empathize with me. Words fail me as I try to write this post. I guess road safety is an important aspect that all of us should not only be aware of but MUST practice.

This makes me really scared... And in an overall perspective it teaches us all to be nice and good to others as any day may prove to be our last day. All our achievements, worries, happiness, etc. could leave us in no time.

Regulatory Body for the Housing Sector

There’s an urgent need for establishing a government authority to regulate the real estate companies – on the lines of TRAI or IRDA. In today’s context, home should be seen as an essential commodity and not a luxury. After all we do say that all humans need and deserve “roti, kapda and makaan” – out of these three, makaan is the one that costs significantly more than the other two.

The recent strain on the entire real estate industry has made the “proverbial wolf to come out of the sheep’s clothing without any pretensions whatsoever”. Even in earlier days, the builder community was not known for ethical business practices.

My own experience in dealing with one of the top builders of NCR has been very painful. I went ahead with the booking of a property relying on the builder’s brand image. After having failed to get home loan for making the down-payment I tried to get refund but have been made to go in circles just like what you see on a “jalebi”.

I am still trying hard to settle this matter – either get the builder to hand me a list of banks who have pre-approved the project (so that I get loan) or get refund of the money.

It is true that many customers are requesting for refunds (even the genuine buyers). The primary reason includes the delays and indefinite waits which home buyer s have experienced since the last quarter of 2007. On top of it, builders have taken money from home buyers even for those projects which have not got approvals from government authorities and banks. The poor customers are in a fix as they cannot afford to pay additional amounts to the builders since getting home loans disbursed these days is next to impossible.

In the above situation, either the government should step in to settle the matter or like good old capitalist rules of game the builder files for bankruptcy and pays the home buyers whatever salvage value is possible.

Numerology Based Baby Name Selector

While searching for a good name for my daughter (few years back when she was born), I developed an excel-based utility to select a name based on numerology.

The Numerology Based Baby Name Selector is a useful utility that can be used for selecting the name of you baby boy or baby girl as per Numerology calculations.

The utility is developed using spreadsheet.

Click here to download the Numerology Based Baby Name Selector

Moving to My Own Domain

After careful considerations of many factors which included the "money" involved with purchasing a domain and a hosted website, I finally went ahead and bit the bullet!

I purchased a domain which came along with a hosting package I bought from www.hostmonster.com. The domain name is my nickname that I have been using for quite sometime now.

I was maintaining four blogs on www.blogger.com and have moved them to my own domain. Just to make sure that the visitors to my existing blogs don't have any difficulty in reaching here I have posted about the move to this domain on all the four blogs.

The web platform I decided to use is TikiWiki. This decision came about after extensive trials of various web platforms like TikiWiki, Drupal, Joomla, MODx, BuddyPress and few more.

Tikiwiki provides a comprehensive platform that can be used to create web content of various types such as blogs, wikis, articles, forums, etc. I am currently using the blogs functionality and will soon start working on buildinjg wiki-style content. The admin console offered by TikiWiki seems quite easy to use. Especially for someone like me who doesn't want to get into the techie-mode for maintaining a website, it seems to be just the right solution.

Creating Personal Website, Blogs and Wikis

Here are few learning that I had in the entire process of streamlining my web assets - personal website, blogs and wikis:

1. Blogger is the best in my opinion as it seamlessly integrates with other Google services. Also, I felt more comfortable with managing my blogs using Blogger than with Wordpress or with the other Wordpress-based blog site that I used.

2. Blogger does not provide great themes as compared to Wordpress but that is fine as for a blog the main strength should be its content rather than other aspects.

3. Importing a blog from Wordpress into Blogger is quite time consuming. There is a converter available for this at http://wordpress2blogger.appspot.com/ but the quality of conversion is not upto the mark. I found an innovative way to do it though - I will explain more about this in later posts.

4. Blogger has the option of adding "Label" to posts, whereas Wordpress provides "Category" and "Tag" options. I felt that Label option is fine as it could be used both as a category or as a tag. Anyways, for any post, both the "Category" and "Tag" have to be very close (or at times same) as they would refer to the same content.

5. Weebly is an excellent website builder. My suggestion is to start with a free version and when you have enough eyeballs move to the Pro version. I also intend to follow this path.

6. I used http://feedburner.google.com/ for generating the RSS feeds of my blogs and can say that this is simply a great tool. When I was trying to connect my Blogger blogs to Weebly personal website, I found problems with the simple RSS feed that Blogger was generating by default. Blogger allows you to use the feed from FeedBurner instead of the default feed. Once I did that it worked fine for me. I will explain more about this in later posts.

Managing My Blogs

I am now maintaining four blogs :-

1. Personal blog (this one)
2. Blog on business and business excellence
3. Blog on life and personal excellence
4. Blog on the world and excellence in general

The first one will have random thoughts and musings that occur to me. The other three are for the specific topics as mentioned above. The idea behind this change to the way I plan to manage my blogs is to make sure I have specific blogs for specific content.

Streamlining My Personal Website, Blogs and Wikis

In the last 3 years, I have spent considerable efforts in experimenting with many ideas and tools for streamlining my web assets - personal website, blogs and wikis.

1. I deleted my personal website which was on http://geocities.yahoo.com/ and first moved it to http://www.weebly.com/, then to a hosting company (www.hostmonster.com), then to google apps and finally to the google sites. The movement out of geocities was, in fact, not really a movement; it was rather a fresh creation from the scratch. The geocities site was created by me in 2003 or perhaps in 2002 - not very sure now. I had virtually stopped updating it for all practical purposes since 2005.

Note - As per the information on their site, Geocities is closing down later this year.

2. I had a personal blog right since 2005 but I was hardly updating it. Recently I created few more blogs on certain niche areas of my interest. This all was done using Blogger - http://www.blogger.com. Then I decided to move them to http://wordpress.com/, and then again decided to move them to another Wordpress-based blog site. And finally, I have moved back the whole of it to Blogger. And I think I will continue this way going forward.

3. I am still stuck on my wikis. I never had any so have created one using http://www.wikidot.com/. Overall, I am okay with it though it needs one to learn the Wikidot language. I will post about my experience later on when I am able to bring it up.

From "Made in Japan" to "Made in India"

I would like to see the above transition happen. I think that will mean something for us as Indians. This is not a reality today as we all know. Making 'Made in India' a name to reckon with requires serious effort from all quarters - government bodies, industrialists, professionals, academicians and even ordinary citizens.

This should really start with us - the ordinary citizens. If we demand high standards everywhere, the service providers will soon need to change gears to meet up with the enhanced expectations.

The other side to this is: can we really afford to do this? With a significant majority struggling below the poverty line and having to constantly worry about their next meal, this idea sounds Utopian.

What's the way out then? Not sure... business excellence in this context should probably encompass all walks of life and must include the business of governing a country in addition to what we normally understand from the word "business".

Understanding Life

Life is perhaps a gift from "some" Supreme Power whose existence will probably never get proven scientifically. Science would consider Life as just an event like any other, with a start and an ending as well, just like a machine.

The debate regarding Science being the "only" valid way to understand Life and its very existence and evolution is an ongoing one since many centuries. But does Science hold all the answers?

Its really a very interesting topic - "Can one understand Life remaining within the boundaries of Science or does one need to go beyond?"

You Get Hired for Business Need not for Career Growth

When you get hired by a company it is not because they are interested in your career growth but because they have a business need. It can be said that you get hired for the company's business need not for your career growth.

What is the key implication of the above for a salaried professional? It means you have to take charge of your career. It also means that when you decide to join an organization it should be based purely on your assessment of career growth for yourself in that particular job opportunity. Following are some strategies for you as an individual to ensure career growth for yourself:

Assess Your Career Progress Regularly

Assess periodically (at least once in a quarter) what's happening in your career and based on that decide whether to continue or quit.

Analogy with what companies do:
Companies take decisions like which product line to continue or discontinue based on quarterly results.

Remain Updated on Changes in Demand Pattern of Relevant Competencies

Always know what's hot and happening in the market in respect of your core and related skills, competencies and qualifications.

Analogy with what companies do:
Companies are always evaluating the current and emerging market trends for the products and services they sell in the market.

Analyze Whether to Stay Put or Move On at Each Career Milestone

Never shy from taking hard career decisions which could even mean leaving a company if you joined it but later on realized that it was a wrong decision.

Analogy with what companies do:
Companies take hard decisions like discontinuing certain products and services, laying off employees, etc. if they make wrong decisions on these fronts

Always Keep the Search On for Interesting Career Opportunities

Keep your resume updated and floating around with consultants and your professional network, also let it be known that you are always available to consider interesting career opportunities.

Analogy with what companies do:
Companies are always on the hunt for exciting and interesting business opportunities to grow further.

Why an Employee Changes Job?

This is an over-discussed question so the following reasons may not sound original or new. However, this question is really an important one and hence merits additional insight. The reasons why an employee changes his or her job has to do with the following:  

Poor Job Definition and Lack of Clarity on Career Direction

Poorly defined role which doesn't satisfy the employee's aspirations and offers no growth opportunity. For any employee the aspects of any job - what one is currently doing and how it could grow up matter more than anything else. Lack of clarity with respect to these aspects from those to whom the employee reports into (both direct and functional managers) has a significant impact on whether the employee will stay for long or not.

"Closed" Organizational Culture and Corporate Legacies

Organizational culture which promotes and rewards certain behaviour patterns that makes an employee uncomfortable. The personalities, legacies and self-images created in the organization fuel this further and eventually it appears to the employee that the organization is 'closed' as far as taking suggestions to change are concerned.   

Reporting Into Superiors Who Have Neither Interest Nor Time

Those to whom the employee reports into (both direct and functional managers) have no time for the employee and show least interest in proactively knowing about what the employee is doing. It appears to the employee that what he or she is doing is not important or strategic for the managers, which is quite demotivating.   

Lack of Opportunities and Growth

Those to whom the employee reports into (both direct and functional managers) don't create opportunities for the employee to grow further in line with organizational needs and the employee's aspirations. If there are opportunities available but they are not provided to the employee it is highly frustrating for him or her.   

Uninspiring Leadership

The management or leadership team is not considered by the employee to be worthy enough of the positions they hold. This might arise due to negative statements and actions of the management or leadership team.

Do You Stand a Chance to Become CEO?

Career progression is an upward journey on a “pyramid with a single top” which means at any given point in time only one employee in the whole organization stands the chance to become CEO. Understanding the “pyramid with a single top” concept of career progression is quite important for guessing the answer to this all important question for any employee – “do you stand a chance to become CEO?”

Progressing to the top of corporate hierarchy - do you stand a chance?

The likelihood that one employee amongst those who have direct reporting to the current CEO will succeed her is probably the highest, though not guaranteed. However, it is possible to guess the answer to thequestion “do you stand a chance to become CEO?” for every employee at various points in her professional career.

So how to tell whether you stand a chance to become CEO or not? There is some likelihood of your becoming CEO one day in the following cases:

You can become CEO if you are working in the core business function and not in the support groups

Those who work in support groups like Quality, HR, and Administration stand virtually no chance. Those who work in support groups like Finance, Sales & Marketing, and Business Development are exception to this rule. The employees in Quality, HR, and Administration do stand a chance to become CEO but only in those organizations which specialize in providing such services.

You can become CEO if you are in the right chain of reporting

This is where “Mother Luck” works for or against an employee. If the reporting manager of an employee is not considered as a top performer then her team gets labeled in a similar manner. This phenomenon starts with the CEO, passes through all employees in particular chains of reporting and goes all the way down to the junior-mostemployee. Being in the wrong chain of reporting is detrimental to the career progression of an employee. Unfortunately, an employee generally will not get to choose her manager; it’s always the other way round.

You can become CEO if you are liked by the people higher up in your chain of reporting

Performance does matter but is not enough. The people higher up in an employee’s chain of reporting should like her. The key point is that an employee should be seen as “ready for promotion” and hence fit to take bigger and more challenging assignments. Being liked is unfortunately based mostly on perceptions and is very subjective. An employee should always attempt to build good relations with people higher up in her chain of reporting and with the others as well.

You can become CEO if you are not caught amidst office politics and ego issues

An employee despite playing the ‘corporate game’ in an adept manner can at times get caught in office politics and ego issues for no fault of hers. Some of such incidents can prove to be fatal for that employee’s career. In another scenario, an acquisition or organizational restructuring can abruptly make an employee’s career bite the dust in no time. An employee cannot do much in certain situations which are beyond control and at best can only pray silently.

Happiness

Happiness is more of a mental state than a physical state. Realization of this definition of happiness is the first step in the direction to seek happiness in a true sense.

How to be happy?

Many books, newspaper articles, websites provide reams and reams of information on this interesting and important topic.

There are some golden rules to follow if one is trying to reach the state of happiness:

• Never regret your past actions, learn from it though.
• Never worry about the future, plan for it though.
• Never compare oneself with others, get inspired though.
• Never expect anything from others, do the best for others though.
• Get into action mode and not keep planning forever, don't take actions until one has a reasonable plan in place though.

Progress Over Perfection

Many people attempt to attain perfection in the tasks they do but in the process take excessive time to complete that task. And interestingly greater value could have been created had the task been completed earlier, even in a less than perfect condition.

Some people have the tendency to over-do things by taking care of all ifs and buts right the first time when completing the task. It is wiser to complete the task in an iterative manner. The first cut doesn't need to be the most perfect in the whole world but rather good enough to ensure progress can be made. Subsequent iterations can be used to drive the progress towards perfection.

Nothing is static in the world and changes are needed even to things which are supposedly "perfect". Perfection is a mirage since one can never truly reach the state of perfection. However, in the quest to achieve perfection, people tend to forget the adverse impact it could bring as far as making progress is concerned.

One should go by the principle of progress over perfection. In fact progress is far more important. One should not delay starting an activity until one has the perfect plan, all facts are known, etc. Rather one should start an activity and gradually progress towards perfection.

Learning and Growing Professionally

For an individual it is important that he or she gets opportunities for learning and growing professionally in the place of work. It ensures that the individual improves upon existing competencies and acquires additional, related competencies. This helps an individual realize his or her full potential. 

Learning and Career Growth

Learning is not only essential for an individual to keep his or her career fit and healthy but it also enables career growth. Learning is a constant process and generally happens in one or more of the following ways:

• Taking up higher responsibilities in certain work assignments and projects
• Acquiring knowledge (through various modes like self-learning, classroom training, knowledge sharing sessions, seminars, etc.) and applying the knowledge gained in the work being performed
• Becoming a trainer, coach or mentor for others

Performance, Career Growth and Role Enhancement

Performing to the desired expectations (and usually exceeding them) is needed for growing professionally. The most essential element of career progression is do with role enhancement. In many organizations, the practice of promotion is focused on changes to the salary band and/or the designation or title. This may or may not mean a role enhancement in the true sense. Though it may appear that the individual being promoted would taken up additional responsibilities, it is more on the papers and may not be the case in reality.

Career Growth Needs More than Performance

Opportunities to learn are easy to get in most organizations but opportunities to grow are limited in all organizations. More than actual performance on the job, growth has to do more with other factors like the following:

• There is a vacant position available (can you get promoted to your manager's role if he seems to have got cemented to that forever)
• Person's fitment and suitability for higher position as perceived by those who are supposed to award promotions (despite all the HR theories around this, personal egos and working relationships do matter a lot here)
• Labeling of an individual as non-performer or poor performer due to the way the performance appraisal system is designed (it is however common to find a non-performer shifting into another company and becoming a top performer in no time - remember Amitabh Bachchan, the legendary Hindi cinema actor, was rejected by All India Radio with the reason that his voice is not good!)

Taking Career Growth Heads On

 So what should an individual do in a situation where he or she feels that a promotion (strictly in terms of role change) to them is deserved? There are basically two options. First, stay and sulk. Second, move to another organization with a role change. For an individual the following question should always be at the top of the mind - does my current role and / or organization fit into my career vision? One must be honest enough to admit that his or her current organization doesn't fit in with what they want to achieve in their professional career and move out of it at the earliest to contain the adverse impact on their professional growth.

Individual Aspirations and Organizational Expectations

When a business organization ("Company XYZ, Inc.") hires an individual it is concerned only about its interests. The decision to hire an individual is based on need of the business and fitment of the individual to the role, title and budgeted CTC. It's a process where individuals are considered to be a business commodity which need to be purchased like any other commodity. The significance of "Me, Inc." is limited to the business context in which "Company XYZ, Inc." operates.

Going by the above elaboration, it is clear that "Company XYZ, Inc." from time to time would not need certain individuals. Right-sizing, down-sizing, organizational restructuring, lay-offs, closures, etc., is the name of the game for an organization to retain its market relevance. If an individual, a project, a product line, a location or a plant is not performing to the organization's expectations, there is a danger of it being 'shut down'.

Understanding the Me, Inc.

There's a second side to it, the organization loosing its relevance for the "Me, Inc.". If the aspirations of "Me, Inc.". are not aligned to or at direct clash with the expectations of the "Company XYZ, Inc.", an individual should analyze and decide his or career path accordingly.

For an individual, the way his or her career shapes up is the most important concern more than anything else in his or her professional life. For each month, if not week or day, spent in the organization, an individual must analyze how his or her career is progressing. Everyone should do a "Monthly Career Progress Review" against the short-term and long-term career aspirations.

When Me, Inc. Should Part Ways with Company XYZ, Inc.

It may not be advisable for an individual to cling on to an organization in the following situations:

• The individual's competencies are either under-utilized or not utilized or his or her aspirations are not duly recognized and addressed
• The individual's role doesn't offer the possibility for any further growth into increasingly senior positions
• The individual's role is designed from a 'job' perspective and not a 'career' perspective
• The individual is not in agreement with the organizational expectations from his or her role and finds it difficult to accept certain aspects of the role
• The individual is not able to or willing to adjust with the overall working culture which makes him or her to work in a style not natural to the individual (like an organization where one is not supposed to question or challenge the persons higher up in the organizational hierarchy, or an organization where the legacy element is so strong that the very suggestion to change anything is considered to be 'revolt', or an organization where there's excessive bureaucracy in getting job title change, getting a laptop, getting administrative tasks done, etc.)

What should an individual do if his or her aspirations are not supported by the organization's expectations from "Me, Inc." as highlighted in the points above?

Putting Parting Ways into Action

Here's a suggested step-wise strategy to handle such situations:

• Step 0 : Bring out that rusted resume, update it and float it to know one's marketability. And in fact, one should attend some interviews as well to know precisely where one stands w.r.t. one's market value.
• Step 1 : Give oneself a specified time for correcting the situation in one's current organization. This requires making 'right noise' about one's aspirations. One must be careful but this needs to be done if one wants to determine whether he or she has any 'future' with the organization one is working with. Having a mature and understanding boss is crucial for this to be even attempted. Otherwise, this is akin to committing professional suicide.
• Step 2: If Step 1 fails, one must be ready to move out. This is the time when Step 0 would come to one's rescue. One shouldn't wait beyond the specified time and must exit as fast as possible.

The above strategy is similar to "Me, Inc." shutting down the "Company, Inc.", figuratively speaking. Again, one must ensure that before joining an organization, one has researched about the organization thoroughly. Frequent job change is not good for an individual, organizations, the economy and the society as a whole. And in fact, it impacts individuals more than anyone else. After all, individuals have lesser resources and lesser power than organizations.

Frustrated, Impatient, Anxious and Uncomfortable

Everyone goes through times when almost none of the events in one's life may be happening in a favorable way. Making a change from the hard, bad and negative situation one may find oneself to a happy, relaxed, good and positive situation may seem all too tough or plain impossible. It may appear as though all the ways have closed down.

How does one feel then? 'Frustrated, Impatient, Anxious and Uncomfortable'. Yes that's right... one does tend to get frustrated, impatient, anxious and uncomfortable. Every hour of every day seems to take too long to pass. The light of hope doesn't seem to be there in the sight at all. It seems all the doors of change towards a positive situation have been shut off.

What should one do if one finds himself or herself in such a situation? Should one stick around until one breaks down? Or should one quit the situation one is going through by simply saying that 'I have lost'? It's a tough question for which there's is no answer. How much and how long one must go through a situation depends on one's mental make-up, the stakes involved and one's assessment of the actions of other actors involved with the situation one is in. One thing must be clear though, saying 'I have lost' shouldn't be seen as the end of life.

Defeats and failures are part of life. Everyone can't be smart, successful and happy. Many people who apparently seem to have arrived and look smart, successful and happy may be different when it comes to their private lives. In some sense, no one in the world can be happy all the time. And by the same logic, no one in the world can be sad all the time. Life is about ups and downs, happy moments and sad moments, wins and losses.

One must learn to handle and channelize the negative energy that is emanated when one is frustrated, impatient, anxious and uncomfortable and attempt to turn them into positive energy. This is difficult and may at times be impossible but one must try. It's always worth it to try before one says 'I have lost'. The chances that one may fail miserably is very high. Not just that the chances that one may fail never to get up again are also there albeit small.

One should take life as it comes. One shouldn't expect to win every time one goes to play out. One should try as hard as possible every time but still be humble enough to accept defeat as well every time. In fact, one must be ready to work hard in one's whole life and still be prepared to die with not even a single win in one's whole life!

Don't Try Too Hard

At times we try too hard to achieve something.

We may not achieve what we want but may end up damaging our physical and mental well-being and happiness, sometimes permanently.

Stretching and reaching out is fine but only till a certain extent.

Why do people try too hard? Here are some reasons:

Enormous Size of Human Ego

Human ego is too big to be satisfied easily.

Everyone thinks that he/she is the 'best' God ever sent to earth. Nothing can be as dangerous an assumption as this one.

We are really nothing, and that includes all of us, ever the rich and the powerful.

Nature doesn't care whether we exist or don't. Rivers won't stop flowing, Sun won't stop its movement if you or I or someone else dies. So stop the ego drive.

Needless Competition Among Fellow Humans

Everyone wants to be better than his neighbor or office colleague or family friend or relatives. We all want bigger compensation, rewards and recognition.

And this drives us to go beyond our limitations and compete with everyone else needlessly.

Pushing the envelope is surely needed but to the extent the envelope doesn't get torn apart.

If you are second to others or even come last, don't worry - try next time but don't try too hard so that you break. Compete but with care.

Compete with yourself and improve your capabilities before competing with others.

Ignoring Inherent Limitation of Human Capabilities

Know yourself, your limitations and capabilities. Try as hard as your limitations and capabilities allow you. Of course, try to improve your capabilities always.

Also know that certain limitations are inherent to who you are, they are in your DNA and can't be changed.

It is not only difficult but impossible for us to become good at everything we do.

We must try to find out early in our lives about the following - what's our true calling, what is it we are extremely good at, what is it that we enjoy doing.

And once we know that, we should go full steam on the chosen path for creating a name for ourselves.

However, we must also be positive about accepting the fact that we will not necessarily end up successful. Try hard but don't assume guaranteed success.

Forgetting to Enjoy Life, One Day at a Time

Many times we forget to enjoy life. We assume happiness lies in the results not in the efforts. Nothing can be away from truth.

We try too hard to make sure that we get excellent results. Since excellent results are not always possible, we assume we need to try harder next time.

This is a self-feeding cycle and eventually leads to disaster.

We must try hard, as much as is possible until the point of breakdown, but we must never stop enjoying the process of trying.

Remember achieving the desired results depends on many factors, and there are many on which we have absolutely no control.

We must do what we have control on (our efforts) and not fret about what we have limited or partial control on (the results).

Life is a Constant Struggle

Living life is akin to living from one struggle to the next, where the struggles cease when life itself ceases. In some sense, life and struggles are inseparable and at times it may appear that life is itself a constant struggle.

Struggle is not necessarily negative; it’s the way we react to it that makes it negative or positive. Struggle should always be seen from a positive perspective despite the problems, odds and issues one comes across almost every other day.

The way to remain happy and positive in face of struggles is to understand the following truths in all situations that we have to go through:

Not all situations result from our actions though many do

Suppose you need to rush to another city and you board a bus which breaks down on the way and you reach late (you can’t do much).

On the other hand, suppose you started late from your house and missed the bus (you could have surely avoided this)

The results of different situations may or may not always favor us

Suppose you give an interview where you do excellently well in answering all the questions asked and despite that you do not get the offer due to issues like designation, role, salary and compensation, cultural fitment, career aspiration mismatch, etc. (you can’t do much without making compromises with your expectations and personal values).

On the other hand, you agree to give an interview where you knew you’ll have issues with designation, role, salary and compensation, cultural fitment, career aspiration mismatch, etc later on (you could have surely avoided this by seeking clarifications on these upfront – it must be remembered that flexibility should never be construed as compromise)

The manner in which we handle the situations and their results lies entirely within our reach

Suppose you reach to the other city late or don’t get the job offer. Sulking or giving up will not be of any help rather positively accepting the situation and its result and taking a lesson for the next time will prove to a much better strategy.

Even if one is sad and down for sometime, it’s absolutely fine but one must come out of it sooner than later.

Health Before Wealth

Health should come before wealth.

It may seem like wealth can buy health but this is a misconception.

A wealthy person can use his wealth to keep healthy but only to a certain extent.

Wealth or money can be used to purchase the food, medicines and equipment required for staying fit and healthy.

An illustrative list of food, medicines and equipment for protecting or enhancing health is given below.

Health Foods

• Exotic fruits and vegetables
• Organic farm produce
• Health drinks, protein shakes

Health Medicines

• Vitamin supplements
• Immunity booster pills

Health Equipment

• Treadmill
• Body Relaxer
• Sauna
• Weights

The first and foremost requirement to stay healthy is to cultivate a healthy lifestyle.

Once health deteriorates beyond a certain point the food, medicines and equipment listed above may not be of much use.

And in such a case even the entire wealth of a person would fail to buy health.

You should strive to cultivate healthy lifestyle and earn health rather than trying to buy health. You must Be Wise About Your Health.

And always remember that, health should come over wealth.

Behavior-based Interviews

Behavior-based interviews are increasingly being used by organizations for hiring people. This interviewing style is essentially based on the premise that "how a person has worked in the past" is as important as "what the person has worked on in the past".

The answer to the question "what the person has worked in the past" is generally captured in the resume. Also, this can be gauged by asking following functional and technical questions:

• Can you please tell about yourself? The candidate is expected to talk about his/her professional experience till date in brief. Follow-up questions can be asked as needed.
• What do you think are your key professional accomplishments till date? This shows some of the key functional and technical areas where the candidate claims to have excelled in the past
• How will you perform xyz task? xyz has to be replaced with a certain functional or technical activity relevant for the position for which hiring is being don.

However, this ignores "how a person has worked in the past". This is important as the "how" (PROCESS) has a direct influence on the "what" (PRODUCT).

There are many sites and articles which provide sample behavior-based interview questions. Some of the examples of such questions are listed below:

• Describe a situation where you had conflict with a peer team member and how you resolved it?
• Describe a situation where you disagreed with your supervisor and how you went about handling it?
• Describe a situation where you mentored a poor performer in you team to improve his/her performance?

As is obvious from the above, behavior-based interviews are essentially aimed at profiling the candidate on the following parameters:

• Behavioral characteristics (team player versus loner, assertive versus aggressive, risk-taker versus conservative, strategic versus operational, autocratic versus democratic, logical thinker versus creative thinker etc.)
• Fitment against competencies needed for the position for which hiring is being done (over skilled versus right skilled, individual working style versus organizational working culture, etc.)

These interviews are no doubt quite effective at what they attempt to uncover about a candidate. But they have certain inherent limitations and fail to uncover many areas. Some of the following points bring this out:

• Human behavior is never black and white - it is mostly gray and situation-based. How does one explain the fact that a rough-mannered and dreaded gangster becomes mild-mannered and mellow with his one year old kid?
• Human behavior is strongly influenced by the psychological factors. How does one explain the fact that a generally very calm and controlled person suddenly blows his lid off on something apparently very trivial?
• Human behavior is ever changing with time. How does one explain the fact that a person behaves differently (and generally matures up) when he becomes old versus when he was middle-aged versus when he was a youngster?
• Human behavior cannot be ascertained with certainty. How does one explain the incidents of a small school-going kid shooting down his own classmates?

There are many more such questions. The fact is that, behavior-based interviews seem to be here to stay. So it's important to be prepared in advance.

The preparation needed is similar to what what one sees in a Beauty Pageant. We all generally feel that the contestants are not really what they claim to be but we expect them to behave and answer questions in a certain - politically correct - way. And in some sense they ought to be great actors to wear the "mask of charm and goodness" for the entire duration of the contest.

After all, every contestant in the Beauty Pageant wants to wear the crown of "Beauty Queen" and similarly every interviewed candidate wants to wear the crown of "Hired for Joining".

Feeling Down - Think 100 Years Later

Are you feeling unhappy and sad?

Are you feeling down and out?

Are you feeling life has been cruel to you?

Are you feeling demotivated as your boss is not giving you due recognition?

Are you feeling hassled as your spouse doesn't ever understand you?

Are you feeling irritated as your kids don't listen to you?

Are you feeling cheated as your friends hid something from you?

Are you feeling dejected as you had to again stand in that long queue?

Are you feeling worthless as you had to again wait due to VIP movement?

Are you feeling frustrated as you have been trying but failing to change your job?

Are you feeling home-sick as you are in a different city and are desperate to move back to your home town as early as you can?

Are you feeling appalled at the news of yet another big name getting into some controversy?

Are you feeling tired, exhausted and devoid of any energy to continue with your life?

Are you feeling depressed?

If you have answered yes to even a few of the above questions, don't fret and feel upset.

Welcome to the real world. And surprisingly, most of us have experienced or will experience some of the above feelings one or the other time in our lives.

Howsoever important we may be, life can't be expected to be fair and fun always. There are problems and difficult situations and they will never go away completely. Thinking differently, life will be lusterless if everything were to go smooth and quietly in our lives.

Are there solutions to avoid these situations? No. But are there solutions to handle them? Yes. And there are many.

One of them is: "Think 100 Years Later". Whenever you are in a situation you dislike, think about yourself in that situation 100 years later. Neither you will be there, nor the situation! It is also true that even other persons creating those situations will also not be around.

In the time-line of this universe, our existence is like a drop in the ocean (actually even much smaller than a drop). One drop lost doesn't make any difference to the ocean.

So be happy and if you can't, "Think 100 Years Later".

Fighting Sadness and Melancholy

There are times when one is engulfed by feelings of sadness and melancholy. These feelings make a person feel lonely and can quickly lead into depression.

The reasons for this situation to arise are many:

• Workplace related problems - being stuck in a job which one doesn't enjoy, having a manager who doesn't allow or encourage your career growth and is only interested in his/her growth, working with manipulative and difficult peers, job insecurity, etc.
• Family related problems - being stuck in a marriage that doesn't seem to go anywhere, having problem kids, having nagging spouse, etc.
• Health related problems - being afflicted with any chronic disease, having sick family members or relatives to attend to, having congenital medical issues, etc.
• Security and safety related problems - having constant fear of terrorist attacks when one visits any public place, etc.
• General everyday life related problems - traffic jams, corruption, mean and rude people, pollution, over-crowding, getting robbed, etc.

Despite the above, it is still possible to be happy and exuberant. The trick involves following:

• Stop expecting - or at least start having reduced expectations from others and also from oneself
• Become ego-free - don't assume that bad things can't happen to you or you deserve to be treated well
• Don't try to become successful - remember everyone cannot reach the top

3 Quick Tips on Health and Fitness

Health and Fitness is a concern for everyone. Being healthy and fit makes one enjoy life to its fullest. How to be healthy and fit?
1. Eat well
2. Take adequate rest
3. Exercise regularly

Investing in Stock Market

Is investing in Stock Market safe? Well.. the answer is both yes and no.

No - if you invest in the market without testing the waters, without adequate preparation and without having an underlying strategy (when to buy, how long to hold and when to sell).

Yes - if you do opposite of the above.

Before one enters the stock market, it is strongly advised that one studies and acquires understanding of the basic terms and concepts listed below:

• CMP - Current Market Price
• Bid Price versus Ask Price
• Stop Loss
• Intraday (Margin) versus Delivery
• Buy, Hold and Sell Strategy
• Short Selling
• AMO - After Market Order
• Brokerage and Securities Transaction Tax
• Technical Analysis - Uptrends, Downtrends, Breakouts, Moving Averages, Highs and Lows
• Fundamental Analysis - P/E, P/BV, EPS, Dividend Payout History

Saving Tax Under Section 80C

As of August 2009 the following investments or expenses can be claimed under Section 80C of the Indian Income Tax (Personal):

• PPF (Public Provident Fund)
• NSC (National Savings Certificate)
• ELSS (Equity Linked Saving Schemes)
• Principal Repayment and Pre-payment
• Infrastructure and Other Tax Saving Bonds
• Premium Payment for Life Insurance Policies
• PF (Provident Fund)
• Children Education Fees (Limited to Maximum 2 Children)

Live Life As It Comes

Live Life As It Comes - this a a good approach to a happy life.

There are many unknown variables and uncertainties in life which need to be accepted as they emerge out of nowhere.

There are many factors which are not only uncertain but also difficult to control or simply uncontrollable.

Accepting these factors makes life easy to live.

The Ultimate Goal of Life

What's the ultimate goal of life?

Going by the Hindu religion life is meant for the communion of the self being with the supreme being.

Life is but a journey towards the eventual reality of demise.

Death is not the end of life but the beginning of yet another life.

The cycle of life and death is never ending.

In effect, the goal of life is death and the goal of death is life!

Managing Home Loan EMI

Do you want to track your home loan EMI? Do you want to manage it keeping the following factors in front of you:
1. What if the rate of interest changes?
2. What if you make a pre-payment?
3. What if you want to retire the loan within "n" years?
4. What if you increase or decrease your EMI amount?

For helping you in this, here is an excel-based utility for managing your home loan EMI better. Play with the various home loan variables using this utility.

Click here to download the Home Loan EMI Tracker

Recession and Lay-offs

The recession in 2008-09 ignited the phenomenon of lay-offs to a degree which was absolutely dangerous for the world economy. Companies had relied more on reducing staff size rather than reducing salary size for containing the impact of recession. It could have led to major economic devastation and social instability. Massive job-cuts could have led to grossly reduced demand which in turn would have necessitated more job-cuts (this is a self-feeding cycle).

Everyone was impacted except few. Those whose life-style was minimally impacted by the recession were from one of the following groups:

• Capitalists / Business Owners and Promoters - they had mercilessly taken actions to protect their profit goal achievement
• High Net Worth Individuals /Institutional Investors - they already had enough that the losses to them were probably a tiny fraction of what they held
• Bankers - they always know how to squeeze that last rupee

And who were impacted the most? Here's the list:

• Daily Labor (Construction Workers, etc.)
• "Normal" Employees of Private Corporations. This doesn't include the senior management, executive leadership, board members (they are the proverbial fat cats who get big bonuses even though the companies they lead may make heavy losses)
• The Common Man - who lives life from month to month waiting eagerly for the salary every month to pay for basic expenses

It seems, recovery is on the way... but the damage it has done already is exorbitantly high. Many individuals and families have been thrown into economic darkness! Recovery should first shed light on the individuals and families who have been impacted the most. However, in reality, it will bring louder cheers to the Capitalists / Business Owners and Promoters,High Net Worth Individuals /Institutional Investor and Bankers.

Carbon Footprint

How much carbon footprint are you generating?" - this is a question which is increasingly becoming important for everyone - individuals, communities, institutions, corporations and the government.

Moving Dangerously Towards Natural Disaster

The human civilization is precariously perched on the precipice of natural disaster. By playing with the natural environment for so many decades and centuries we have reached to a point where any major retaliation by mother nature would mean complete annihilation of the human race from the face of planet Earth. A monstrous Sunami or a high-Richter Earthquake or or deadly Hurricane is all what it may take for this to happen.

Addressing the question "How much carbon footprint are you generating?", becomes all so important as we are getting to see the adverse manifestation of our excesses on nature through massive exploitation of the natural resources to fuel the engine of economic development.

In the blind race towards creating more and more products and services to quench our hunger for more and more material comfort we have come dangerously close to a situation where things can get out of our own control. And when that happens, we'll become meek observers and helpless victims of nature's fury. 

Controlling Carbon Footprint

We must focus on controlling our carbon footprint. In fact, we need to set the balance right first. We should not only attempt to control the carbon footprint we create every time we do something but must go beyond and attempt to reduce the carbon footprint we have already generated in the past few decades and centuries since the time of industrial revolution.

And each time you do something, do not forget to ask yourself - "How much carbon footprint am I generating?".

Development or Greed?

Economic development, unfortunately, is a double-edged sword. It helps improve the life style of people but at the same time adversely impacts the planet. Balanced development and not greed is needed to sustain the planet.

Take an example - roads. Road are a undoubtedly a wonderful invention to improve transportation but trees have to be felled to construct roads.

This reminds of the famous saying by Gandhi, "there's enough on this planet for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed".

Road Safety and Us

We all know and understand that death is an eventual certainty for all human beings. However, the human race must make sincere efforts towards minimizing deaths due to non-natural reasons such as accidents. Loss of lives in accidents play havoc on the families of those involved. Road safety considerations play an important role in ensuring the above.

Making Our Roads Safer

How to make our roads safer? Some thoughts:

• Make stringent safety guidelines for certification of vehicles - minimum level of safety standards should be enforced on all vehicle manufacturers
• Make stringent norms for allowing anyone to earn the privilege to drive. Being allowed to freely drive cannot be granted as a fundamental right.
• Have stringent checks on driving disciplines. Certain traffic violations should be penalized heavily like lane cutting, driving in wrong lane or direction, drunken driving, non-maintenance of vehicle, jumping red lights. These violations increase the risk of accidents exponentially and hence must be dealt with a firm hand.
• Fitting of vehicles with automated speed governors. These governors will be sensor-based and provide warning to the driver about over-speeding.
• Improve public transportation which leads to lesser clogging on the roads and hence lesser opportunities for accidents.

Improving Road Safety

What is the way forward? Many countries already have stringent road safety standards. For such countries better enforcement is the way forward. For countries which still have to adopt stringent road safety standards, there is a need for them to consider their adoption at the earliest.

How Green Are You?

No! don't rush towards that mirror next to you. Well... you don't need to stand in front of a mirror to know how green you are. You don't even have to look at yourself from the head to the toe to know how green you are. Green is also not what you will become after wearing the mask of Stanley Ipkiss (remember Jim Carrey in the movie "The Mask"). The green here is not the color of the clothes or the shoes that you are wearing. It's not even the color of your hair.

ECOogical Quotient (ECO-Q)

Is green not a color then, you will ask? Yes it is, and you reaction to this question is but natural. The green here, however, signifies your ECOogical Quotient (ECO-Q). ECO-Q is Just like IQ and EQ.

How green are you is, simple speaking, your ECO-Q. A simple test below will tell you where your ECO-Q stands and how green you are.

• In the last week, I walked more than once for some household work - like buying small quantities of groceries from the nearby store.
• On one of the days last week, I went to the office using public transport
• A good portion of my daily diet includes seasonal vegetables, salads, fresh fruits
• While taking bath, I make sure not to keep the tap water running continuously
• While going for shopping, I prefer to carry my own bags

How to Calculate Your ECO-Q

• Step 1 : Put a "Yes" or "No" against the above questions
• Step 2 : Give yourself 1 mark wherever you have put a "Yes" and -2 marks wherever you put a "No"

• Note - remember everything you do has as impact on the environment - either positive or negative!. It is always easier to prevent an ecological excess than to tun it back. It may be quite difficult to undo some of the ecological excesses like melting of ice in north pole. At times, it nay just be impossible to undo some of the ecological excesses such as extinction of a particular species.

• Step 3 : Add the marks to obtain your ECO-Q score 

How to Interpret Your ECO-Q Score

• Perfect 5 - You are a born conservationist and naturalist. Hats off to you!
• 1, 2, 3, 4 - You are positively helping the environment but can do some more. Keep up the good work!
• 0 - Your existence on the planet is yet to result in any ecological benefit.
• Less than 0 - You need to do something fast to help save the planet. All are counting on you to save Mother Earth.

P.S.:

IQ - Intelligence Quotient - denotes how closely your resemble great scientists, mathematicians, researchers, intellectuals, etc. (think of Aryabhata, Ramanujam, Einstein, etc.) and EQ - Emotional Quotient - denotes how closely you resemble successful leaders, politicians, etc. (think of Sardar Patel, Atal Behari Vajpayee, Bill Clinton, etc.).

Some Whys Behind Economic Recession of 2008

In an earlier post Economic Recession of 2008 three questions were posed with the first one being - "1. First, why did this happen?" This post will analyze that question.

Impact of Recession

First and foremost one must understand what's the impact the recession had. Some of the key impacts are listed down:

• Economic problems have become the topmost political issue these days. And that is why at every global meeting worth it's name such as World Economic Forum, any Gx meeting (G20, etc.) the primary agenda is how to turn around the world economy. This is a good move by all nations as all problems that affect most of the citizens of a country should rightly bubble up to become a political problem.
• Companies have closed down and people have lost jobs. This unfortunately takes the whole world in a downward spiral. When there are job cuts, people who get the axe will, on their own, cut down all non-essential expenses immediately; but if they remain jobless for a longer period they will be eventually forced to even cut down on the essential expenses. This leads to further demand suppression requiring additional production cuts and eventually more job cuts!
• Investments have become risky and virtually no-return propositions. The avenues left for investment, especially for the small investors with short pockets, have become very less. The returns on the amount invested have become lesser and riskier - in some cases even the capital runs risk of complete loss or in the best case scenario, steep devaluation.

There are many other impacts which have become evident. The above three are the key ones that impact everyone of us directly.

Reasons for Recession

Now coming to why this happened. Analyzed without using the associated economic buzzwords, these are the primary reasons:

• Greed of a few individuals - remember what Mahatma Gandhi said about this... there's everyone for people's need but not enough for people's greed. The wealthy individuals desire to become wealthier. The promoters and investors want to earn as much as is possible, milking out even the last drop. The CEOs adopt innovative means to enhance stakeholder value which may have a long-term adverse impact. The source of the current economic problem lies in cheap loans being provided to those who were known to lack repayment capacity. Excessive greed to earn by disbursing loans in such cases is nothing but milking out even the last drop. The conversion of home loan mortgages into derivative securities is another example of that (howsoever innovative the idea may be).
• Inadequate regulatory controls - this will hopefully be tightened in the days to come. The investors and businessmen may not like more controls (after SOX was firmly put in place - remember Enron scandal). But it must be understood that businesses should be governed by the political desire of the nation. Businesses must be forced by political will to pay attention to all the three Ps - Planet, People Profits. And strictly in the same order, since if there's no planet, there's can't be people and if there are no people what for the profits?
• There are many more reasons which seem to have set the stage for the recession. Many of them involve analysis of complex economic data. The above two reasons, however, can be considered to be amongst the root causes. The first one is more important, as even if better regulatory controls are put in place unless as individuals we behave ethically and more responsibly, no control is going to be adequate in a complete sense.

The current economic problem that world is facing has to do less with economics but more with politics and even more so with simple ethics.

Economic Recession of 2008

2008 will be remembered as the year of disaster for the world economy. The bubble burst and led nations, economies, governments, companies and individuals slip down the ladder of economic growth and prosperity in such a manner that recovery seems nowhere in sight.

Snakes and Ladders

The situation is like being in the 90s in the game of snakes and ladders, only to be bitten by a snake that takes one all the way down to the 10s or even lower! For those of you who haven't ever played snakes and ladders here's a quick description, one has to move from 1 to 100 progressively on the throw of a dice. Every time one reaches the bottom of a ladder one can climb up to a higher number and on the other hand, if one is bitten by a snake one has to move down to a lower number.

Learning from the Recession - the Three Key Questions

There are three questions that we must answer if we are to avoid such disasters in the future:

• First, why did this happen?
• Second, what can be done for the recovery?
• And the third and the most important one, what can be done to prevent the recurrence of such a catastrophe in the future (assuming it is possible)

Cash to Crash

The bleak economic scenario in 2008 and 2009 can be labeled as "Cash to Crash". Just two years before that the world was flush with high liquidity and cash was in plenty and flying all around.

However, in 2009 cash was rare to find. It was a crash for the cash.

This was a result of lack of focus on long-term vision and action. The focus on short-term excessive greed of some in the business world led to the "Cash to Crash" situation and resulted in excessive bleeding for many.

Consideration to all aspects while doing business is paramount and essential for our survival. And it means due respect and care of all the three P's - Planet, People and Profits. And strictly in the order in which they appear.

If there's no planet, there will be no people and then profit will be meaningless.

One action that can be taken to ensure the chances of the recurrence of such a global crisis of gargantuan proportions is minimized is to put in place better economic governance. Statutory and regulatory frameworks must ensure businesses are made answerable to the first two Ps.

Here it is important to acknowledge why we need businesses in the first place. Speaking from the perspective of first principle we need businesses to:

• Foster economic development
• Create employment opportunities
• Provide revenue to the government to fund social welfare and other schemes

In the same breath, let's also list down what role businesses actually play in reality and which must necessarily be controlled through a system of checks and balances:

• Protect the profit margins of the promoters and investors (at the cost of the other two Ps - Planet and People)
• Channelize deployment of excessive wealth of rich promoters to create more wealth for these already-rich promoters

So it's clear that the creation and deployment of wealth needs to be governed by statutory and regulatory frameworks which will ensure fair, equitable and desirable consequences.

Lack of political will among nations is also a cause for desired improvement in economic governance mechanisms not to take stronger roots.

In that sense the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 was as much a political problem as it was an economic problem.

Culture of Excellence

Excellence is like a culture having its own belief system and thought process. The urge to keep striving for excellence is what drives the world to become better every day. We should continuously work towards making ourselves and the world around us better and better. 

Culture of Excellence for Sustaining and Improving

Everywhere - in personal life as well in the business world, culture of excellence is a key ingredient to sustain the achievements. The basic belief on excellence as the key ingredient for sustaining and improving is an inherent aspect of the culture of excellence.

The culture of excellence originates from the individual and then progresses through the family, the community, the city and the country eventually to the entire world.

Need for Excellence

Excellence means to be able to create value in something so that others would be willing to pay for it. Everyone is and should be engaged in enhancing their excellence with one goal - to be able to "sell" themselves better and more, and also to be able to retain the "sell" value.

The real worth of the endeavor towards excellence - in personal life or in business - is just one... to improve on the "sell" factor. Excellence could be a way to create the initial "sell" value and subsequently help retain edge over others by offering a higher "sell"value on a sustained basis.

Technology and Excellence

The use of technology in both personal life and in the business world is aimed at increasing the convenience factor and efficiency factor. This is essential for achieving excellence in what we do.

Role of Technology in Our Lives

Take an example - in the earlier times, in the absence of the modern automobile technology, people used to travel barefoot or on a palanquin, also known as palki (in Hindi and Sanskrit language). The invention of wheel technology improved the efficiency of travel (by reducing the travel time) and increased the convenience factor. With the onset of the modern automobile technology, based on use of engines and motors, the efficiency of travel and the convenience factor saw significant improvements.

The above example demonstrates how technology leads to convenience and efficiency. Technology provides the tools, techniques and devices to bring in marked improvements in whatever we do and hence accelerates the journey of excellence.

Technology as Enabler for Excellence

Just like excellence is a never ending quest, technology has shown the same kind of behavior till date. Newer and innovative technologies render the existing technologies obsolete. The urge to constantly advance the frontiers of technology by challenging the existing levels of excellence in technology is the reason for all technological advancements.

Use of technology is an enabler for excellence. And in the same way, use of the concept of excellence in the technology arena is an enabler for technological excellence.

Excellence in Governance

The term "Excellence in Governance" is so wide in its scope that uncovering its many layers in a single post will be grossly inadequate.

Need for Excellence in Governance

Excellence in Governance is an absolute must if a nation has to prosper in all manners. The reasons for this are so obvious that explaining them is not at all required.

In the end government agencies have significant influence on a country and its various communities. The push towards excellence results into improvements in effectiveness and efficiency of delivery mechanisms used by the government agencies.

Excellence - the Big Picture

Where does excellence fit into the larger picture? Not sure, excellence in a wider sense should probably encompass all walks of life and must include the business of governing a country in addition to what we normally understand from the word "business".

Excellence Needs Concerted Effort

Excellence requires serious effort from all quarters - government bodies, industrialists, professionals, academicians and ordinary citizens.

Excellence Begins with Us

Excellence should actually begin with us - the ordinary citizens. If we demand high standards everywhere, the service providers (including government bodies) will be forced to change gears to meet up with the enhanced expectations.

The other side to this is: can we actually afford to do this? With a significant majority struggling below the poverty line and having to constantly worry about their next meal, this idea sounds Utopian.

How to Quit Smoking for a Healthier You?

Why Quit Smoking?

It is widely accepted and has also been thoroughly well-researched and validated using scientific means that smoking is bad for thehealth.

Smoking invariably leads a person to have a shorter life than what he or she will otherwise have. Smoking adversely affects the human body in many harmful ways. And it leads to cancer and many other life-threatening diseases.

Do we all not know this already? Everyone reading this post is assumed to be aware of why smoking is bad and how severely it can harm you and your family. So this post will not talk about “Why Quit Smoking?” and would rather focus on “How to Quit Smoking for a Healthier You?”

How to Quit Smoking?

There are many methods and systems which have been proposed. Some of these are listed below:
1. Eating anti-smoking chewing gum
2. Making use of tobacco-free substances as a psychological substitute
3. Exercising willpower

Information on these techniques is already available in abundance. Instead, a personal experience about a friend (X) who quit smoking is being narrated in this post.

Personal Experience

X was not an addict, so as to say, but then there is no way he could have been called a non-smoker. He wanted to give it up and had tried everything possible – all physical and mental techniques – but had failed every time. He used to jokingly say, “I am able to quit smoking, you know… I mean, I stay away from smoking… hmmm… at least till the time I have that one more cig!”

And then, X quit smoking completely – and it took him just 1 (one) day!

It was around the time one of X’s close friends lost his job and within a few days of that was detected with a life-threatening disease (the cause was smoking – X’s friend was also a smoker).

While X was discussing about this one day, mentioning how badly he would like to give it up, he decided to work upon the idea to think of a similar extreme situation for himself and use that as a factor to motivate himself to quit smoking. He also followed the suggestion to quit smoking on an occasion which is very dear to him and he would never be able to forget that, such as the birthday of a family member.

X’s daughter was about to turn 3 years old in a few weeks time. And he used that occasion to quit smoking. Now, anytime he has the urge to take that one more puff, he thinks of the extreme situation and the occasion when had said "quits". It has helped him so far and it has been more than a year now that he has stayed away from smoking.

And what was the extreme situation that both of us thought of that could happen in his life? Well… here it is:
•X loses his job
•X is detected with lung cancer and has to be admitted to hospital for an extended duration and exhausts almost all his life’s savings
•X’s spouse meets with an accident and passes away
•X’s little daughter has to be pulled out of school as X has no money to continue her education
•X’s little daughter has to be sent to an orphanage to spend the rest of her life there

Why it worked for X? Not sure... one thing is that for X his little daughter meant the whole world.

It's not sure if this technique would work for others but all of us are like X in many ways and would be able to relate to this incident.

You may have already been trying very hard… just try one more time. Wish you all the best of luck in your mission to quit smoking!

Be Wise About Your Health

Being wise pays – always.

And especially when it concerns our health then we must be wise in our lifestyle choices so as to enjoy good health until we depart this material world.

Unfortunately, our modern society has come to adopt certain practices which increase the chances of our becoming unhealthy.

Health related reasons shorten life as we all know very well.

Some of such practices which lead to health problems are:

Overeating – eating more than what one needs and filling up the human tank (stomach) with extra fuel (food) is not a good idea

Fast Food – deep fried, over cooked food is bad for health as it provides almost no nutrients but adds to the cholesterol levels

Smoking – smoking is always bad, period.

Alcohol – occasional drinking in controlled quantity is fine but going over board is certainly bad.

Lack of Sleep – lack of sleep and adequate rest either due to late night parties or for any other reason is not good for health as human body is like a machine (biological) that needs its breaks and rest periods.

Late Night Parties – occasional late night parties are still fine but overdoing is absolutely not.

Stress and Tension – stress and tension make us psychologically weaker and hence make us immune to diseases faster as strong will power carries great power to prevail over many common illnesses.

Lack of Exercise – lack of exercise either due to being lazy about it or simply not being interested in it leads to the body becoming rigid, stiff and also adds on a lot of body fat, which is not healthy.

We all have choices available for all the points highlighted above.

Choosing a certain lifestyle over the other is within our control. Exercising the right choice will make a lot of difference to our health and overall well-being.

And the right choice will surely make us healthy, wealthy and wise.

Healthy, but obviously!

Wealthy, as one would save on doctors, medicines and also unpaid sick leaves.

And finally wise as one would have definitely made smart lifestyle choices if one has earned the other two - wealth and health.

Ayurveda and Health

Ayurveda is an ancient technique for healthy life. Ayurveda essentially considers use of natural remedies to prevent and cure diseases. In fact, the primary thrust of Ayurveda is on prevention rather than cure. It believes in improving the health of the vital systems of the body to keep diseases away.

Ayurveda is composed of two Sanskrit / Hindi words - ayur and veda. Ayur means life (also health and age) and veda means science (also book of knowledge). So Ayurveda can be regarded as a storehouse of knowledge on how to be healthy in a natural way.

Ayurveda evolved in the ancient times in India and was practiced by vaidyas, who were like the doctors of today. All the the kings used to have their raj vaidya, who was like a personal or family doctor for the king and his family.

There's a lot of information available about Ayurveda on the Internet which can be easily searched out. You can also search for recipes based on the philosophy of Ayurveda. These recipes can be used by you to prepare healthy, wholesome and nutritious diet for yourself and your family. And yes, it is generally quite easy to follow such a diet on an everyday basis.

Taking Good Care of Me, Inc.

Just like a company constantly keeps a close watch on it's health based on parameters such as revenues, profits, etc. all of us should also keep a close watch on the health of Me, Inc.

Me. Inc. simply means you!

Being healthy is not only important but also a pre-requisite to having a fulfilling and happy life.

If one is not healthy, many of the simple joys of life will remain elusive.

Staying Healthy and Fit

In the times we live, being healthy and fit has become a common mantra among the masses.

"Keep fit and remain a hit" - this phrase is applicable to all of us and can be taken as a 1-line simple mantra for the entire life.

"How to keep healthy?" is a question on which newer and newer research is constantly being done.

There seem to be no easy and certain answers to this question though.

Taking good care of the Me, Inc., however, requires following some simple and generally accepted practices. Some of them are listed below.

Eating and Drinking

• Nutrition, and not taste and gluttony, should be considered as the main purpose behind eating and drinking. 
• Giving higher value to "we eat to live" over "we live to eat" is important.
• Eating natural and wholesome diet is a sure way to becoming and keeping healthy.
• Such a diet may either be completely natural or involve processing using simple techniques such as boiling and sun-drying. 
• This kind of diet will generally be rich in nutrients and easy to digest.
• Some principles that should be seriously considered for adoption on a permanent basis:
• avoiding over-eating
• avoiding fried and oily food
• avoiding cold and stale food
• consuming less of processed foods
• consuming fruits and vegetables in the most raw form... to the extent it is possible
• having more of vegetables and fruits than meats
• drinking sufficient amount of water
• controlled intake of other drinks and beverages (tea, coffee, alcoholic beverages)
• doing proper chewing; having the dinner early - few hours before going to bed

Exercise and Meditation

• Natural forms of exercise such as Walking, Yoga, etc. should be preferred over going to gymnasium. 
• Yoga exercises are not only highly beneficial but they are also easy to perform wherever one may be - whether in a hotel or on a train.
• Meditation on a regular basis improves the psychological well-being.
• A healthy body requires a healthy mind in equal measure to maintain the right focus at all times.

The above points are by no means a complete and exhaustive list. 

There are many more points that can be and should be added to this list. 

In case the readers of this blog post have any additional points they are welcome to put them in the comments.