Help and Giving

Tamil Nadu floods - see it good and bad sides

Bad sides - Lives are lost, Losing basic amenities of life, Pushing people to migrate to different part of city, Psychological issues, Material losses.....

Good Side - You got to know you are not alone. People are with you. People helped people. People donated to People. Some gave part of their salary. Some gave everything they had. Some might borrowed from someone to give people.

For a common man. "Giving" is big thing. Giving without advertisement for vested interest is another big thing. It shows your deep care for others. "How much" you give is not important. There is no price tag for the help done in needy time.

This picture summarizes everything.

Think, Learn, Unlearn

Think - How to think properly and how to improve thinking.

Learn - Learn right things and learn to learn thing faster

Unlearn - Unlearn things and move on

It is a cycle, that's how i can be a life long student.

Think - Learn - Unlearn - Think - Learn - Unlearn....................you die

Reading, Doing and Habit

Reading gives us knowledge. Doing gives us experience. It is not something that you do not know.

Why we say so?

Reading - I read a book and understand the contents. For people like me it would take 5-6 reads to understand. But i will never be able to understand it completely (read a book that tells benefits of waking up at 5am).

Doing - When i do it, i understand it more. When i understand it more, i am closer to perfection than mere reading (do it few times here and there, see the benefits yourself).

Habit - Do it consistently takes me a lot closer to perfection and the returns are huge (make it a habit and reap the fruits). 

Success lies in reading something, doing it to understand it and making it as an habit.

Weird Questions

Lots of energy is pumped into Chennai relief work and everyone of us see the impact that youths are creating in Chennai during the last week and this week. The students and professionals work tirelessly to arrest the hunger and to put the life to normalcy.

1. Why do they commit themselves so selflessly?
2. Why do they feel that they can listen someone's order in relief activity?
3. Why do they give space to others to give their share of ideas?
4. Why do they collaborate?
5. Who instilled the vision? 
6. How do they chase their dreams?
7. While they are very tiny in the whole, how they get the feeling that their "tiny" things make whole?

While their bosses and teachers say quite opposite.

Vision - Purpose - Passion - Drive - Results - Impact Delivered

Branding Woes

Chennai is getting back to normal faster. The people share everything - food, water, shelter, clothes, emotions and morale. The severely impacted person consoling and giving confidence to worst impacted person. People are migrating within the city and reaching safest places. People continue their journey on becoming self dependent and self sufficient.

But the government's branding continues. The branding started allegedly when chief minister's sticker was pasted on the relief materials donated by a people (often NGO, caring individuals). I have myself seen ambulance displaying chief minister's poster (It is government's (people's) vehicle)

Irrespective of whether it is government's relief or someone else's it is poor branding and it is one of branding woes. If the government ensures that the relief is above everything else, it becomes a great branding. If operations of relief work is carried out with minimal issues, the people are going to think that it is great work by government which would be a GREAT branding.

Certainly the government has to downplay its poor branding (like pasting stickers on someone's donation and pasting stickers on sanitary pads)

Following Framework and Intutition

Intuition and gut feeling helps us to attack a problem in our own way. The disadvantage of intuition is that it is not scientifically proven and it depends on one's experience. Most of the times, it might work and sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't work, it becomes our learning.

Following a framework - the advantage is you can rely on it. Within the given boundary, it is supposed to produce predictable results. How the things are done is fairly fixed (it is supposed to produce almost same results irrespective of who is doing it). But the issues crop up when we do not understand the boundary (or rather underestimate the boundary). There is scope for learning by trying to improvise the framework.

Growth lies in using our intuition (solving new problems) and defining a framework to solve it when it is recurrent.

Switch - Book Review after first read

Title: Switch - How to change things when change is hard

Authors: Chip Heath and Dan Heath

I was browsing to find good books on emotional intelligence. While was browsing through the book reviews, i found one of the sites recommending Switch. I did a brief research on authors, their credibility and Amazon reviews. I decided to buy this book. Initially i skim it through about one third and i found that the book was interesting.

After about few weeks, i again started to read the book. Having heard about quotes and perspectives about change like "change is only permanent" and usual boring stuff, i found that this book was interesting. The book talks about change and why it is hard. Some of the myths i had about change are completed busted with sound reasoning. I tend to believe that i can approach a change scientifically if i follow this book (that is after reading only few tens of pages).

The book is split into three parts - Direct the Rider, Motivate the elephant and Shape the path. Each part again split in multiple subsections. First part is how to get started with the change, the second part takes about how to keep going and what to do during the change journey. This book gives you a framework under broader perspective and numerous case studies, success stories and clinics (a quick problem and solution - before reading the solution you are encouraged to solve it on your own)

Are you trying to change something - in life (trying to lose weight, relationships) or at work (take part in change and be a catalyst etc). This book is must read for anyone who wants to understand science of change.

This book deserves another round of reading. I feel i should take notes and use it as a manual, try out in real world and see it working. Books are investment.

I would give a five star (*****)

Want to read all the posts on Switch. Click here

Problem with a Girl Kid

The problem with having a daughter is that you think that she is your kid (and try to protect her) but she thinks you are her kid (and protects you). Beyond the command, the cajole, the cry and so many other things she does, she showers the love of a mom.

Numbers don't define quality

How many people would read my posts and how many eye balls i catch? Should i write better?

How many people would buy my product? Should i have these features?

How many this and how many that? Doesn't it make sense to do only this since the number is low?

The problem with number is that it is quantitative. It is not qualitative.

Numbers don't define quality.

Quality precedes quantity

Play your strength

I got the messages in Facebook. It summarizes what we should be doing - "play your strength" and "measure the performance when playing the strength"

How much we rely on the performance appraisal system (outsourcing our career) and how much we are ensuring that we are playing our strength (creating our future).

Thinking

How much ever i try to think, i cannot think.

Despite that i continue to think that i can think well one day (hope is eternal, remote possibility but there is hope)