NEVER SAY NEVER

Hey all! Greetings!!

I was reading a couple of online articles today like I usually do. Secrets to success, how to make the most of your time, effective techniques of managing resources, finance management etc... while I was reading those, this particular statement marked in bold in an article caught my attention...

If You Haven’t Buried The Words - "I CANT", You Will NOT prosper. It instantly struck a chord in my head and made a connect.

As a working professional in the area of marketing and business development and an aspiring serial entrepreneur myself, (my dream is to own multiple business houses in various industries, and just like there are "serial killers", be a "serial entrepreneur") I completely and totally related to the above statement!

Think about it, If we don’t decide to eliminate the words “I CAN’T” from our dictionaries we just cannot progress .. and hence I think the above statement is so true!!

If you don’t believe so, try reading up on success stories of business tycoons online or ask successful entrepreneurs the "secrets" to their blooming and expanding empires - You will notice that it isn’t the formulas they produced or the many theories they came up with or the product lines they discovered.

Most stories usually revolve around one common point that determined their success - the literal stance to WIN regardless of the present situation or circumstances.

It is the eternal belief and the stubborn determination they have in them ...that emerges them as WINNERS...

How POWERFUL a thought is that!!

What if WE knew we couldn’t fail at all...? What if our success was already determined ? It’s the way we THINK about our current situation that determines if or not will we be successful...

Try this out.. Pick up a book called “Think and Grow Rich Through Persuasion” by the great Napoleon Hill. Or read "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho. Read at least 2-3 pages per day from these books and try to keep the same mindset you’ve always had..

I DOUBLE DOG DARE YA.. It’s going to be impossible for you to stay the same..
The problem in succeeding in your business or any work you undertake is NOT ALL ABOUT the amount of leads you can generate, nor is it about all the new cool tools, blogs, and capture pages you can whip together in seconds..

Nope..

Not even close..

It’s literally about your "awareness levels"

It’s about how long you can stay focused without being distracted.

It’s about having FAITH to know that no matter what - you will WIN!!

It’s about tricking your subconscious into visionary success..

It’s about getting around people who are Big Thinkers and Super Doers.. and getting INSPIRED.

We live in a volatile world, so thinking about the future makes us more nervous, than excited. If we are left all by ourselves - we might perhaps eventually lose focus and quit.

Here is yet another mantra I read and truly believe in and would like to share,  that promises to increase the odds of us having a brighter future.

It says "Be a generous expert, trustworthy and clear, open-minded and adaptable, persistent and present"
I'd like to suggest that you commit this sentence to memory, or print it and paste it on your desk and that you do your best to live by it.

Let's break this mantra down and decode it for our better understanding.

1. Be Generous: help others long before you need their help. Focus on other people in a sincere and giving manner. If you do this well, when you are blindsided by events, others will have your back.

2. Be an Expert: become competent in one or more areas that others value. It also means that whenever you take on a new task, do your best. In a tough situation, you will be one of the people to whom others will turn to for help.

3. Be Trustworthy: take ownership of your words and actions, and recognize that you live in a world in which they will increasingly be recorded, remembered, analyzed, and replayed.

4. Be Clear: know what you want and to be able to communicate it effectively. It doesn't matter if you have the best ideas in the world; if you can't express them clearly, no one will ever understand your insights.

5. Be Open-minded: no matter how much of an expert or successful you become, never stop listening and learning. Even the wisest among us are probably only correct 60% or 70% of the time. When you start believing that you are always right, you are on your way to being always wrong.

6. Be Adaptable: keep your options open, so that when the world surprises you, it won’t be that surprising. Don't bet it all on anything, ever.

7. Be Persistent: keep trying, even when times are tough and you are tempted to quit. This will come in especially handy if times get tough all around, not just in your neck of the woods.

8. Live in the Present: learn from the past and be prepared for the future, but above all pay close attention to the present moment as it unfolds - otherwise, you will miss vitally important details.

But before you do all of the steps above..

Go and bury the words – >> I CAN’T

I Did and so can you..

Let’s Win Together :-D

Cheers!!

WALK LIKE AN ELEPHANT!

"A for apple.. B for ball.. C for cat and D for doll... and E for???" "ELEPHANT!! "

We often hear kindergarten kids learn their alphabets this way. As kids we are taught a specific trait about every new word we learn so that we remember it better... like for e.g. Lions are king of forests... Apples are red... Elephants are FAT so on and so forth.

All throughout my childhood, I was this little cute chubby baby kid everyone loved to pull cheeks of and laugh at. The over-loved, over-pampered kid.

Cousins and peers would pull my cheeks and call me "baby elephant"

"Cute my foot!!" I would think to myself, No one taught me about elephants being "cute" in school! All I knew throughout my academic period of pre school was that elephants were fat and huge! Exactly what I hated to be called...

"Grrr... I hate people calling me baby elephant" I would tell mom everytime I was mocked in school or college. I used to hate the damn word! The moment someone would equate me to a baby elephant.. However cute it would have seemed to them, I wanted to punch the admirer in his face.

The word had such great impact on my psyche that involuntarily in my subconscious I always had this aversion towards the animal and never really liked it either! (sounds silly I know! )The poor cute animal lost all its brownie points on my appreciation list. My fav animal always remained the lion.

Until a day in a college workshop I discovered ...

It was one of those bright sunny Saturday afternoons that your college teachers decide to ruin by organising workshops meant to develop your personality and groom you as an individual. (i admire the effort, but why waste my holiday, why cant we do all this on a weekday?! )

"Good Afternoon everyone" said a vibrant voice of a wheatish brown man tall enough for us to stretch our necks up and see and size huge enough not to be noticed but yet a personality you cant ignore. "Elephant" my inner voice instantly mocked in my head and I wickedly grinned. The sadistic pleasure of being on the otherside of mocking is pure pleasure sometimes. The class greeted him with equal enthusiasm, "Good Afternoon Sir" most of us curiously waiting to get done with the session and begin our weekend.

The college had organised a 2 hour lecture cum workshop on managing ourselves as individuals as a part of our usual personality development lectures every other weekend. The session began with the speaker asking us random ice breaking questions on how we feel about standing up on stage, about giving presentations, about how many of us loose our tempers and get angry or sad when someones mocks at us etc. While most of us were throwing chorus answers to his generic questions. He was perhaps preparing us for a fabulous lesson.

"Please take out a small piece of paper and write your name on it and alongside your name mention your favorite animal." He told us. I instantly tore a sheet off my notebook to scribble my name on it and right next to it I proudly wrote LION. I then kept the chit in my notebook, awaiting further instructions

"Before I ask you students to read out your chits, allow me to participate first... My name is Mr. Joshi and I simply love elephants !" The entire class burst out laughing at his sense of humor. The fact that this statement was coming from an overweight fat man himself made it even more funny.

"Wow he is fat and isn't shy about calling himself an elephant! So cool! " we thought. An "instant hit" trick it was in striking the chord with the class. He grinned back at us and said "Why are you guys laughing? Aren't elephants cute? Dont you want to be elephants?" Now what kind of question was that I thought! "Who wants to be an elephant??"

I continued to listen to him more intently now since I wanted to figure out why was an elephant the favorite animal of a cool professor like him. It was perhaps the soul searching moment for me (I love drama)

He said to class.. "Next time you are in trouble, or you have a stage fright or you are scared to face a crowd or you are trying something new..remember these golden words.. say to yoursef, walk like an elephant!" And showed us the picture of an elephant on a LCD projected slide.

This is how you must be he said pointing at the picture. All of us were still looking at the picture trying to figure out a logical explanation of what he just said, while he continued.

"Although elephants are huge in size, they are the most loving and humble animals of the animal kingdom."

"Elephants are loved by adults and kids alike. They are popular and fun to be with. They are strong yet humble and playful. When angered they can cause mayhem, uproot trees and their strength cannot be matched by the mighty lions or the fearless tigers! Barking dogs dont bother the mighty elephant. They are intelligent and  their emotional connect is closest to the humans. When they walk their path they don't get bothered by other animals around them."

"That's how you guys should be" he said.

"Don't be bothered or intimidated by the so called achievers or stars or whoever is around you. Be nice and humble to everyone around you. Smile and make others smile. Use your anger and strength only when someone seriously bothers you. Be playful and fun and don't worry much. Eat well and enjoy being magnanimous!"

The class was quiet. I don't know about the others but I was jaw dropped. What an awesome change in perspective.

I never thought of the elephant the way sir just explained!

I took the chit out and right next to the word lion, I wrote elephant with a  :-)

...and ofcourse then on I did not mind being called the ELEPHANT! ;-)

STAYING ALIVE!

You would perhaps have heard this very old story illustrating the difference between positive thinking and negative thinking

Many years ago two salesmen were sent by a British shoe manufacturer to Africa to investigate and report back on market potential.

The first salesman reported back, "There is no potential here - nobody wears shoes."
The second salesman reported back, "There is massive potential here - nobody wears shoes."

This simple short story provides one of the best examples of how a single situation may be viewed in two quite different ways - negatively or positively.

When reading this story... I thought of narrating my own story where I made an interesting "choice" too..

I always jokingly called myself a challenge to the medical fraternity, the industry I was very much an integral part of as a professional as well. I would often kid with people who knew of my health concerns that, “if I could think of an apt nick name for me it would be a ‘medical catastrophe’. I knew more doctors in the city than my relatives! Beat that for a statistical analogy.

But having said the above, there was never a dull moment in my life, be it my attitude or the way I prefer to deal with things. And that is one reason I have always managed to keep the smile pasted on my face despite all the challenges life has thrown at me.

One such milestone moment I am proud of is conception of my own consultancy TAG.

“…..I SIMPLY LOVE MYSELF!” – I told KJ, my friend who had come to see me at the hospital where I was recuperating from a hip fracture, “What on earth keeps you so pepped up all the time, when most of these times you are in deep shit…” she asked. “Now this wasn’t the first time that I was encountering such a remark from someone or for that matter KJ herself. I am quite a health disaster that way! Troubles love to find me. On this fateful day, after torrid clinical investigations from head to toe, I was informed about the mother of all reasons that had caused me these miserable health rollercoaster rides – a brain tumor! As filmy as it may sound, I had BRAIN TUMOR. I instantly felt like the female hybrid version of a Shahrukh Khan from Kal Ho Na Ho and a Rajesh Khanna from the movie Anand! (Sorry! I love drama) Ofcourse I would feel like that! after all, this is the least a happy go lucky, popular 25 yr old would expect to hear at a time when she is making plans to scale new heights in her career, speed date with her boyfriends, hang out and party with friends or is scheduling an international holiday with her own earnings!

“How are you Madam?” KJ asked me with all the concern she could gather in that one breath. “If I was any better, I’d be twins” I said with a devils grin and wink back at her. She slapped her head in disgust to say, “You are simply impossible! “THIS IS ME” I said..,

Each morning I wake up and say to myself – Dear Girl, you have two choices today.

You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood. I choose to be in a good mood.

Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it.

Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose to point the positive side of life.

"Yeah, right, this is YOU.  It's not that easy to keep this positive all the time," she protested making a dirty face at me. "Yes, it is," I said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live life. And I choose not only to live but to STAYING ALIVE!”  

The doctors had asked me not to take up any kind of strain inducing activity, both mentally and physically until the treatment was on. Now this could mean anything from 6 months to 3 years. I have two problems in life, I get bored with monotony too soon and second, quitting isn’t an option I consider so easily. So sitting at home with restrictions in mobility and no physical activity as a protocol to the treatment for so long didn’t go down so well with me. Seriously! I can’t sit idle!

Doctors continued to inform me, “your condition is life threatening but “reversible” if treated correctly and in time. REVERSIBLE – Now that’s the word I caught onto.  Call it attitude or technical default, I was born this way. I see a positive streak in everything around me. I’m shamelessly positive!

This was again one of those moments, where I had to make a CHOICE. (Just like the story above)  I said to myself either you choose to cry your lungs out in despair and whine away to glory criticizing the sudden turn in destiny or make the most of this challenging time and create something out of it. A couple of weeks after I came home, I began thinking of what I can do with my gigantic resource and talent pool and limited physical ability. Thanks to my management education and admirable experiences with a lot of great mentors I had the skill to gather the right resources for the right purpose. I began with creating a website and some basic digital and social media network marketing material. This took about a month or so followed with a face book fan page and LinkedIn invites. Oh boy! What would one do without social media networks! I conceptualized TAG in 2010 as a staffing agency specially catering to the clinical research industry, along with two parallel business verticals catering to corporate event management and creative business model designing and marketing. Although I originally belonged from a larger market of clinical trial business development, I realized the need for a personnel agency that filled a void left by other temporary and permanent placement agencies which recruited and hired over various domains and lacked the technical insight and know-how of the clinical research and pharmaceutical industry. I had experienced this void myself while I was working. Now that’s where I saw an opportunity I could grab on! I established TAG out of the desire to contribute to the clinical research industry. The right mix of presentation and communication skills brought me my first training and placement project. Through the distinctive combination of industry expertise I had through professional acquaintances, an extensive candidate database and a comprehensive career lifecycle and background screening process, I managed to secure the  right professionals for my clients - on time, every time. That kick started the staffing vertical.

The office set up was no rocket science. The well known K.I.S.S. formula ( Keep It Simple & Sweet) worked fine for me. I began operating from home and created a virtual office. A mobile connection, a wireless landline, a super fast broadband wi-fi router and a well equipped laptop connected to a printer and a comfortable wheelchair to maneuver me all over was all it took for the infrastructure bit. Yea! I was on the "roll" .. ;-)

 I believe that leadership is something that you are born with - and that is defined by the choices and actions you take. Choices as simple as – waking up with a smiling face every day or as complicated as giving up on your usual daily lifestyle and adapting changes to accommodate an absolutely new one so as to deal with the herculean challenges life brings to you on the platter!

I'm glad you actually read my ramble upto the end... you ought to be proud already! And I sincerely hope I have managed to motivate you to see your problems differently.. more as opportunities and less as hurdles... :) cheers!!