Inferiority Complex

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent"
- Eleanor Roosevelt

The one complex that is available in all parts of the world is this one.

The first seed to this comes when our mother's say "don't touch this", "don't lift that", "you are TOO SMALL to hold it", "you'll BREAK it" and the seed grows during our school and college days thanks to all the bullying and ragging sessions by our friends and goes on to become huge un-curbed poisonous weed coz of the career doubts; uncertainties; peers; financial pressure; family pressure and ends up spoiling our whole life.

It spoils our confidence; self esteem; self worth; this; that; everything. If by any chance we have this then it is suggested that we should immediately curb it out to the core.

One needs to understand that it is just not our fingerprints but also our abilities are really & truly unique to everybody and if you believe in that everybody's ability is unique then every human being are incomparable products. If two products can't be compared then how the heck can one be inferior or superior to other?

Just remember that everybody have unique ability and work towards it. Everybody are equal. Here is a more clear explanation of it. http://searchwarp.com/swa26350.htm

WHY?

I believe this one word has revolutionized the human life and has made a difference to the human society. This one word why has been the curiosity root cause for many, if not all inventions that has taken place till date.

I salute anybody who ask "Why" as equal to everybody who serve the human race. If you don't ask why to everything you do, then you are certainly underutilising the strength of being a human.

- Why apples always tumble down?
- Why should we use a product?
- Why believe in god?
- Why are you reading this?
- Why I fail in maths?

Start asking why immediately, I am sure you would find a change and clarity in the way you do things.

Finally, an old Tamil song from MGR movie penned by lyricist kannadasan which starts off by praising the question "Why". This is one my favorite and if you know Tamil then I am sure you would enjoy this song.

Yen endra kelvi
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Career options = Confusion

How to confuse somebody?

Have you ever done that? If so, then you would pretty simply know that it is done by NOT telling them anything straight. If somebody asks for a route to the nearest church or railway station then you should answer either a "Yes, pls take a right and then a left" or a "No, I am sorry I do not know".

Unfortunately lot of times we come across people who give us different options to reach a particular destination and end up getting confused.

This is simply in relation to what happens to us in life and career decisions these days I believe. Let it be girlfriend, mobile phone, higher education, career choices we simply have too many options to decide and rely (yes, rely and not just have) at one.

In the former example of route it is others who confuse us. Unfortunately in the latter example especially in career choices we are the one who confuse OURSELVES.

I just tried to look up for a few people who never had many options in their lives and have achieved many a milestone in this world. Examples being Sachin, MJ, Dhirubai etc., I don't think these greats had too many options in life and they did not worry much about it. So if you don't have much options, actually BE HAPPY !!! :)

Procrastination

WHO DO WE PROCRASTINATE?

I believe there can only be 4 major reasons for this.

1. Lethargic/Laziness of doing a particular activity at the point of time - The common type, at times called as irresponsibility.

2. Aversion towards the activity - Literally hate to do it.

3. Fear of incapability or not achieving perfection.

4. Other important activities to do - Most of the times this is due to procrastination done earlier or lack of prioritization.

Powerpoint the killer application

Powerpoint, with such a wide such usage (and so many boring presentations made anywhere and everywhere) is certainly a killer application.

Whenever I have had an opportunity to present, I follow several simple strategies to save those who are sitting in front of me:

- I always KISS to get up close and personal with the person/group I am trying to communicate (no pun intended!).

- The triple seven strategy. 7 words per line; 7 lines per slide; 7 slides per presentation. Have tried this a few times in my presentation and have found it interesting as I tried ten cut down on those unwanted words to make my slides shorter and sharper. But never really made it as a protocol of my presentation, whenever I feel that the rule does not fit the objective of my presentation I just bypass it.

- Final main strategy (especially for long presentations) is to switch off the lights to save embarrassment of both parties.


"There are atleast million power point presentations are being made right now and atleast 50% are unbearable", Alexei Kapterev aptly says in his below presentation "Death by Powerpoint".

Death By Power Point

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4 P's of effective communication to your sub-ordinates!!!

While working with a team, one thing that I believe makes a hellava difference is effective communication of your thoughts. Recently working on an event I had to pass messages to several of my co-volunteers to get jobs done. This encouraged me to come up with a few points for effective communication that might help me.

Let it be face to face; over the phone; text messaging; emailing; or snail mailing, I am sure these points are very important so as the other party understands clearly and acts accordingly. The pic in right is an example for a funny mis communication (click on it for larger view)

Precise: sharp & shorter messages always gains advantage. A second thought of what we are going to say, A second look into the wordings that you have framed always helps than to give urgent vague or unclear communication that might produce negative results.

Personal: Communication that is personal always has a appeal. For eg, a two liner with "Hi Sundar, happy new year" is far more effective than a flashy greeting email that is sent to hundreds including Sundar simultaneously.

Pleasant: Being pleasant is very important when you are communicating with somebody for the first time or during initial part of your relationship. It helps in building a rapport and stopping conflicts and makes understanding easier.

Punctual: Like anywhere else time is very essential. Today's newpaper is tomorrow's waster paper.

While these points always apply at any point of time, I believe these should 100% be followed to our sub-ordinates or at times even superiors or for that matter to anybody whom we want to have a job done.

This moment will change

Long ago, a holy yogi (saint) called the king of his country and gifted him a piece of paper and said it has a mantra that will bring him from any tough situation in his life. The king gladly accepted it and placed it underneath the diamond ring that he wore and then completely forgot about the piece of paper.
Several months passed by and the king lost a furious battle and fled alone atop a hill to find that there is no road ahead and he has to either jump from the hill killing himself or to surrender to the enemies. He felt lost; shouted and cried for his country men and their future.

At that moment in the bright sun light shined his diamond ring. Realising the mantra he pulled out the piece of paper to read "THIS MOMENT WILL CHANGE". Confused and upon hearing the enemy's horses closing in, the king decided to kill himself and suddenly saw a pavement beneath the rock where he was standing splitting the hill to two. He immediately crawled into it. The enemies seeing the lone horse thought the king has killed himself and left empty handed.

The king then disguising himself as a farmer went to his own country (now ruled by his Arch rivals) and worked hard for years to form a rebel army and did win his war against the current ruler. Upon knowing the farmer was their own king the country's men and women became so proud. There was a grand celebration all over the country as the king prepared himself to crowned again. He felt so happy; so proud and felt that no one can ever beat him again and he is best man that the world has ever seen.

At that moment in the bright sun light shined his diamond ring. He pulled out the piece of paper to read "THIS MOMENT WILL CHANGE". :-)

----------------x--------------------------

This story has inspired me all through my life. Whenever I am sick, upset, lost; whenever I feel I am unbeatable; I think of this mantra and it immediately gives me the strength and wisdom to face the situation.

P.S.....
When I was a kid I used to be a fan of Mr. thenkachi ko swaminathan who comes in everyday morning show of a radio channel telling philosophical stories. This one again is a story by him (with some changes by me ofcourse :-) ) and one of my favorite. Hope you understood it to.

Sales; Marketing and Begging

While I was hanging around with my friends on beach last weekend when I came across a begger women with a child in her hand (nothing new for any Chennaite). Though they seem unethical; unreal; irritating; pestering, there is just one thing that made me think. The way they market themselves and make a sale. THEY SEEM TO DO ENOUGH BUSINESS ALWAYS!!! RECESSION OR NOT :-D. There are a few points I would like to compare their show with those of sales and marketing experts.

1. Their prospecting mechanism: Though thousands of them are there at the beach they always knew whom to target (No, they did not come to me :-D)

2. They are really good in grabbing your attention. Their message is crystal clear. They know what they want from you (Those huge hoardings or costly celebs are nothing when it comes to grabbing attention).

3. They are always kids or atleast carry kids. Because they know this is what makes you interested. Isn't this simple to demonstrate why somebody should spare a change :).

4. They create a desire by convincing you that its' for the kid who has not had food for the past couple of days etc., (you feel so sorry that you certainly want to help them).

5. If they know you are feeling sorry they hell won't leave you until they make you do the act (with their tenacity and patience) of giving them the change .

6. The best point I learn is that they just don't leave you here. They thank you and wish you good luck in all your endeavors & wish you success right through your life all for just the one or two buck that you spared for them (now isn't that a great deal of value offered?). This is how they satisfy their customers. This makes them lot of return customers even.

If you think I am making sense above then watch closely on the bold fonts, I am talking about the AIDAS formula, the mantra for marketing. Now guys! how many of our sales & marketing experts have
- Good prospecting mechanism;
- A value to create interest and desire in the customer
- Satisfy the customer or how many of us THANK our customer for their business :).

My next steps are to research on this particular arena and start a "beggers training camp". Pls don't think cheap, reports say that on an avg. a begger in an important traffic signal in any of the metropolitan cities of India earn more than Rs. 300/few hours in the evening.

So... Interested to attend?

Brand building is a piece of cake

While searching for something I landed up at the wow brandings web page and got impressed with their example of showcasing brand building concept with a "piece of cake". Brand building has become more important than ever as corporates focus more this arena.

The idea of brand building is to create a identity for yourself among many others. While most organizations attempt to create a individual brand for themselves only those survive who make a promise that is attractive and have goods to deliver the promise.

In this cake theory we see that the creamy layer is the communications efforts taken by the management to attract new customers and the promise made in communication is to be satisfied by the product; people & process. You can learn more on this here.

Bharat matrimony, where the girls in the ad never get married!

Well guys, I have been watching this online advertisement campaign of bharatmatrimony.com (pic in right) for really long time and I see that same girls appear at all advertisements. At times I think, why do these girls again and again appear, "will these gals ever get married" or will they continue to remain as profile.

Though the idea of having beautiful gals seem to be a good enough to attract the guys fishing outside (leave alone the question will the site really have such beautiful profiles lol :D), I just doubt what if it turns out against them and produce negative results for bharatmatrimony.com. After all, having a matrimony site is to get people married asap and not to have them as a client for months and years. The same picture makes me raise an eyebrow!

"Heart has a reason which reason knows nothing of" - Blaise Pascal

“Heart has its reason which reason knows nothing of” is a famous quote on heart and head by Blaise Pascal. The contradiction between emotional and intellect/reasoning quotient during a decision making process is always imminent. Pascal here talks about religious beliefs which necessarily need not have any reasoning behind it. The word “reason” takes a different meaning in the first part of the sentence in comparison with the second. While the first one emphasizes the emotional quotient the second part show’s the impact of logical reasoning in the decision making. While emotional decisions have no reason, intellectual decisions are taken only when there is a sound reasoning behind it.

Though Pascal has said this he is probably not sure why it is so. Scientists like Steven Pinker have lately concluded on a few aspects of or our mind which influences this. “Love at first sight” is a simple example of emotional decision or a decision powered by our limbic part of the brain. Also, how many times have we seen somebody falling in love and later regretting their decision after some thinking. This decision which has a logical base is powered by our neocortex part of the brain. In a work place too, we often see a analyst view (logical decision) of the market being correct but at times we have also a gut/intuitive decisions (emotional decision) against a analyst view even becoming success.

Heart vs. head has always been a problem with decision making process. More often, even in the above “Love at first sight” example we can see that, a decision when powered by emotions have complete command over our logical decision capability and simply does not allow us to think at least for that point of time even if not forever. It is also considered that a decision taken by heart has more initiating capability than a decision taken by mind. Similarly, when decisions go wrong the after effect of an emotional decision going wrong takes a considerable psychological toll on us compared to a logical decision going wrong. This might make one conclude that a decision which is based on emotions might not be apt for a few occasions. But some say that logical thinking is something like a math equation and tells us a step by step process while a heart is multi dimensional and gives different perspective that might help us in a better decision making process.

Going back to Pascal it is indeed true that our beliefs like religious; our relationships with others are purely based on emotional content and there is no logical reasoning behind it but is purely powered by our bodily chemicals. This is what on most occasions tells us what we want to do and going to be in life and logical reasoning helps us in getting there.