I decide from this moment now to rise And welcome each day with a smile :) For I know it will keep me agile To delight myself and the people I meet in this world all day!
Sunny, rainy, stormy or the skies be clear I will greet'em all alike with happiness; Ego, hatred, jealousy and fear My heart will never let'em near For only if I master my emotions Can I greet people all day with cheer
Puzzle, game, lesson, technique or a trick; A book, a friend, a boss or the world wide web No matter what & from where, brick by brick I will learn and SHARE at least one a day To delight myself and the lovely people in this world
Time is eternity, life is a journey Folks who said these live no more neither do I have the master key to walk through the eternal door Procrastinate I must not, for if I do I will neither delight myself nor the wonderful people in this world.
To win, I don't need a high Intel. quotient I may fail but I will try and try again Persist, persevere and I will be patient until I succeed, reach my goal and gain To delight myself and the beautiful people in this world
I will neither let my past shame nor my dreams of future fame affect the now, this moment of Joy I will cherish each minute of today I will delight myself and the fabulous people in this world. I will live this day as it were my last For I know, one day it will be!
I have not attempted to write poetry here or let the words sound rhyming. This truly is the philosophy of Getting to delight - Join the movement - to delight NOW!
A friend of mine from school, Kartik Iyer who founded Happy Creative Services (India) Pvt. Ltd., www.thinkhappy.biz/ sent me this video which was one of Happy's first creations for Thermal and a Quarter, a popular Indian rock band. I was so overwhelmed when I saw the video , that I called him to find out if I could add it to my blog or website and he generously agreed. Not just beacuse I liked it but it depicts getting to delight philosophy in many ways.
I believe it's a masterpiece, simple with a deep meaning of life. Sit back, enjoy and play whenever you want a boost . Keep Smiling :)
Delight yourself first to delight people around you. Most importantly, make your choice NOW!
If BRAWN Mercedes had a dream debut today (1st and 2nd position) at the Australian F1 Grand Prix, then it was thanks to Kubica's mad rush of blood trying to overtake Vettel at a near impossible bend. With only three laps to go and racing for the 2nd and 3rd spot, this collision not only forced the drivers out of the race but also proved a blessing in disguise to BRAWN's Barrichello who could not believe he finished 2nd! As the Brawn's were celebrating with a Magnum MUMM champagne, I had this urge to log on to you tube and check out some careless errors by drivers which cost them the race. As I kept clicking from one car crash to another, I hit my Inspiration button. It was not Jenson BUTTON who won the race today, rather Alex Zanardi. Before I talk about Alex Zanardi, I want you to STOP for a moment and think about today's' race. Even if you didn't watch it, I ask you to picturize the words in the first para. It might be easy for us to say that one has to evaluate risks before making a decision and be totally unfair to Kubica here. Just imagine driving a car fitted with V8 engine at 200 to 300 km/hr, 3 more laps to go and having to decide - Overtake or Don't? ; Yes or No?
Like Malcolm Gladwell, I feel it is in these situations that a very crucial factor called "Gut feel" comes into play. Malcolm discusses about such snap judgments in his book BLINK and how they usually go right compared to cautious decision making. Well, in this case it did fail, but just look at the carefully chosen words here even from Malcolm - "Usually go right". He also explains that such decisions are extremely quick, originate from very little of previous experiences and most importantly taken unconsciously - meaning you just know but don't know why. A Strange and scientifically difficult to accept concept.
If you trust your insticts without being deceived by your mind, the probability of the decision working in your favor is better and brighter. I say this because the mind is always telling you to act based on what you "WANT" and not the "REAL". As human beings we make qualitative judgments about people whom we meet for the first time either in a party, wedding or a simple business handshake. Such judgments within the first 30 seconds of an interaction include things like whether you want to meet the person again or would you be comfortable engaging in a business relationship, even things like honesty, integrity etc. of that person. What I have said here is not my statement or about me, but scientifically proven. There is no real need for us to make judgments here unlike an F1 race, yet we do and I am forced to question this more than the Kubica one.
Two sides to a coin, right?. There are highly successful people in business, the likes of Jack Welch who wrote "Straight from the Gut" but many of his decisions were not just from the gut. He used carefully worked out theories of management, systems and principles to get GE to where it is today. To cut the long story short, where the gut feel doesn't play a role, then the suggestion is to apply the traditional basics in decision making:
- Recognize the problem/situation on hand - Availability & access of information necessary - Evaluate risks involved - Have alternatives - Cost/benefit ratios - Get rid of bias - Freeze decision, act and review
Gut feel decision or carefully planned, it is imperative to make a decision - Be it business, personal life or Sports!Though not recommended, choosing not to decide which is also a decision may work in your favor but very rare.
Getting back to Zanardi, I was stunned to watch his car crash at the at the Euro Speedway track in Lausitz, Germany in 2001. Until then Zanardi had been a great entertainer on the US CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams) racing track and had won two of them but the moment Tagliani's car hit him at 200 Km/hr , people thought it was his end. His story is a great example of beating all odds to survive and the dramatic events that followed can be read athttp://observer.guardian.co.uk/osm/story/0,,766954,00.html
The accident:
Though he lost his legs his determination and courage to live a normal life got him walking on prosthetic legs with support within 6 weeks after such a nightmare.
In 2003, Zanardi was not only back behind the wheel, he was also racing again, with the aid of hand-operated brake and accelerator controls. He completed the final thirteen laps at the race track which had nearly killed him in 2001, and did so at highly competitive speeds approaching 310 km/h (193 mph). In fact, had he been qualifying for the race that weekend, he would have been fifth. It was a fitting testament to his recovery and persuaded him that a race return was something to pursue.
Zanardi competed in his first race since the accident at Monza, Italy, in a touring car modified to allow the use of his prosthetic feet, finishing the race quite impressively in seventh, In 2004, he returned to racing full time, driving for Roberto Ravaglia's BMW team Italy-Spainin the FIA European Touring car Championship. The season did not see him score many points, but for 2005 matters were much improved, in a series which became the World touring car championship by adding two non-European races. On August 24, 2005, Zanardi won his first world series race since his accident at Lausitzring.
Watch Zanardi in David letterman's show - Positive and so thankful to what he is today!
Delight yourself first to delight people around you. Most importantly make your choice NOW!
I returned home this evening from a good physical exercise - brisk walk along the boat club road in Chennai along with two friends from schooldays, one of whom I was meeting for the first time after 16 years. Thanks to social networking sites and facebook in particular that has worked well not just for me but to many more re-establish lost connections. Our trip down the memory lane was nostalgic reminiscences of funny incidents, our teachers and about the rest of the classmates. We then spoke about what we are and how we are today. Not surprisingly the "What" question was easier to answer compared to the "How" one!. That lead us to debate about the generation today - "OURS". The Primary concern in this highly competitive world is that an obsessed lot are constantly trying hard to achieve a goal in the future which they believe will make them happy. The joy of the PRESENT moment is lost and there is no "I am happy" feeling. If you belong to this lot, it's certainly not too late to make a conscious choice now! John Lennon said it best - "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans".
Secondly, flat world and fast response are the effects of globalization and technology. The "Tortoise and Hare " fable with the moral "Slow and steady winning the race" is almost extinct and cannot be applied in today's situation. Now it's all about Speed: You can check in to your plane from home, you've got the blackberry to surf the net and respond to mails on the move and what not?.
Whether you are checking in at the airport, standing in queue to pay for your groceries at a supermarket or visiting a hospital to see a doctor - the words you don't want to hear are "Please wait" for reasons whatsoever. Today's generation have (or) have been tuned to live at such a pace that anything less is unacceptable, frustrating and the result - Self induced unwarranted stress!
I am an advocate of Speed and accuracy in customer service, they are not just business commitments but also key differentiators with the competition. Things go wrong in every business and if you happen to be the customer - first understand that technology is there to make life easy, not miserable for you.
Watch Louis CK talk about this on Conan O'Brien late night show about this: Click Play
Of course another common issue is the "me, myself" factor in everyone today and my reasoning is that people are living in an egoistic delusion and the fear of failure or being left behind in the race is driving all of them nuts.
I read an article written by a Volvo employee and this para below caught my attention:
The first time I was in Sweden , one of my colleagues picked me up at the hotel every morning. It was September, cold and snowy. We would arrive early at the company and he would park far away from the entrance (2000 employees drive their cars to work). The first day, I didn't say anything, neither the second nor the third. One morning I asked, "Do you have a fixed parking space? I've noticed we park far from the entrance even when there are no other cars in the lot." To which he replied, "Since we're here early we'll have time to walk, and whoever gets in late will be in a hurry and need a place closer to the door. Don't you think?" Great attitude and great approach to life, I thought. No wonder, Sweden boasts of some of the world's renowned companies like Volvo, Escania, Ericsson, Electrolux, Nokia and Volvo supplies the NASA.
Delight yourself first to delight people around you. Most importantly, make your choice NOW!
It's getting hot everywhere - Global warming on the environment front, recession is blazing and almost all business houses talk of budgets being cut down, sales looking bad, overhead costs high, performance under scanner, unpaid leaves and in worst cases staff SHOWN THE DOOR!
Ask the economic experts and they all remain hopeful that the latter part of 2009 should be fairly better than what we are going through now. Billionaire Warren Buffet described that the economy has fallen off the cliff and warned of unemployment climbing further before the recession is over.There are many out there feeling doomed already after having got the Pink slip and many more caught up in the fear of "What next" or "When is my turn?".
For those of you who wake up with a war of worries, I thought I will share the success story of Marcus Frind who is referred to as the online dating King today. In the year 2003, Marcus founded www.plentyoffish.com - a hugely popular on-line dating site that gets 1.2 billion page views per month and half a million unique logins per day. The most amazing part is that until recently (few months) when he hired a customer service representative , Marcus handled all of it as the CEO and the only employee of this company with a handful of servers. It is reported that he makes up to $10 million a year on Google ads working only two hours a day.
Marcus started this company at a real bad time in 2003 when he was shifting every 2 months from one sinking company to another and was about to get fired. To learn about birth and growth of this empire, I encourage you to read his blog at the link below:
Some of Markus's statements that left strong impressions in me...
When he added the Goole Adsense affiliate program to monetize his site for the first time, he says;
"I made a whole $5.63 cents my first month, but that was more then enough for me to realize that I wouldn't go broke running the site and I could make a business out of this with enough traffic" - You might make very little money to start but the positivity is what matters! "I refused to accept defeat of any kind, and I constantly forced myself to test new things" - Keep Innovating! "When 2004 rolled around and word of mouth REALLY kicked in and as they say the rest is history".- You need to get people talking about you or your company! "I look back now at how ill prepared I was, I didn't know anything about SEO, Advertising, community and I didn't even know what Venture Capital was. Just goes to show you ANYONE CAN DO ANYTHING! "
Delight yourself first to delight people around you. Most importantly, make your choice NOW!
For 9 months now, I have successfully managed to escape from the rush hour traffic and tensions of reaching office on time. For the people who continue to do so, I am guessing that the first thing you do is switch on your computers (I did that even before I sat down). And the Inbox awaits you with a bunch of e-mails - between 10 to 200 mails delivered overnight depending on your responsibility level at the office. In my experience, by default there was at least 1 inspirational quote or message amongst the top 3 in the list of e-mails. If I had survived the traffic, I would SPEED READ and go on to the other official mails and in case I happened to be a victim of the traffic jam - OVERLOOK IT and tell myself to read later which never happened.
With all due respect and the goodness about Speed Reading, the truth about the message is not felt by the inner self. I am not getting spiritual but I always had the choice to read the message, smile, enjoy the moment, talk about it to colleagues, even share it in the meetings and feel good the whole day. As I learn to live in the present and not be remorseful of the past, I will allow you to innovate & start your day in a delightful manner and stay that way with the inspiring message that you receive from now on.
With my network getting smaller after I started out on my own, the delight bank has only about 4 or 5 e-mail deposits when I open the account in the morning. To ensure that I get a consistent supply of Inspirational funds, I register with sites like http://www.simpletruths.com/
Alternatively I also talk to my connections and always find one for a day. The success story of the skating prodigy in the image below is what inspired me yesterday.
7 year old Tejaswini is already a state champion at the Roller skating tournament. She has won many individual championships at the quad, district and state level competing with 12 year olds and now age is the only deterrent to participate at nationals (Minimum 8 yrs to qualify). Natural talent transformed recreation into serious sport and she is getting ready to delight India at the 2014 olympics. At such a tender age, she mentions in her interview with a popular daily about famous skaters Chad Hedrick and Barry Publow as role models. I have neither met Tejaswini nor seen her interview but I am glad I know her father Ravi, who was delighted to share the success of his daughter. As we finished our Masala chai & cut fruits - my favorites at the Seasons cafe, Ravi said that the family will do all it takes to make their daughter live her dream. I could see a proud father in him :)
"Any time a thought, a sentence, or paragraph inspires you or opens up your thinking, you need to capture it, like a butterfly in a net, and later release it into your own field of consciousness." ~Steve Chandler
Delight yourself first to delight people around you. Most importantly, make your choice NOW!
India's national game is hockey, the entire nation loves cricket, Abhinav returns home from Beijing with an Olympic gold for shooting and I decide to write about football. Gives me a funny feel but last Sunday's English Premier league when Aston Villa slumped to a 1-2 defeat against Totenham Hotspur was the first time I compared this game to a day at work.
Irrespective of the referee's decisions in this game, I found a lot of passion, enthusiasm and energy throughout the 90 minutes from all players. Throughout..that's what made it good to watch for the fans and I am pretty sure the players from both teams felt good for having given it their best. Compare it with a day at work, we make a great start but soon give in to the pressure and end up having perhaps an average or a BAD day.
The players were determined and remained focused on the Simple & Straight forward task - Stop, AIM and SCORE in 90 minutes. You have 9 hours in the day to DELIGHT your cutomers - Simple & Straight forward.
Every player has a definite role to play as a forward, defense or mid-field but they aretrained to swap places and adapt to situations. They all understand that it will be next to impossible to score by themselves. I could see it that even when there were half chances, their egos did not take over and the players simply passed the ball to the next one who had a better chance to score. Let your ego not dominate while scoring at WORK! Both teams had to break through a tough line of defense to score. And they did because they were prepared and had a strategy. Competition, internal policies, resistance to change are the some of the defense walls at work which prevent you from scoring with your customers . Be ready to break them - with Strategy and alternate plans.
Free kicks are like Freebies. Mistakes in the form of fouls cost the teams free kicks and this is common in a game of football. As long as lessons are learned out of mistakes at work, you may get away with a service recovery in the form of an apology and a freebie. Repeated errors caused out frustration may lead to losing a customer for good. "Frustration Error = Penalty kick"
Cheers and thunderous roars from the crowd for getting closer to scoring a goal energized the players in this game. The momentum and the spirit of the game got better every time players created opportunities. Create opportunitiesat work.. to delight customers. Cheer and appreciate when you see your team members making efforts as that will motivate them to do better.
To me the last 2 lines of the last paragraph was the "Winning Edge". Totenham Hotspur created more opporunities, more cheers and hence more goals!
Vertical tooth fracture - ever heard of it? At least I hadn't until my dentist called in to confirm my X-ray results last week. I had an appointment to meet her the following day and discuss the next steps. Googling my way through only got me more confused if not too worried. I knew my anxiety would have to wait another 20 odd hours for a better understanding.
"I am sorry Vasanth, it doesn't look like I can save the tooth. We have to extract it", my dentist said with a genuine & caring expression. She had to bring in an endodontist to get the extraction done as it appeared a bit complicated. It was one of the molars way inside and I thought it wouldn't matter much. However, it can get a bit nervous sitting outside waiting for your turn to get the tooth removed. You have very little choice and a local anesthesia on the gum is imperative. A little chat with the enterprising endodontist calmed my nerves and then before the procedure began he said, "It might pain a little but I will try to make it as less painful as it can be". And, yes it was not that bad at all.
If we look at the words used by my dentist and endodontist, it was comforting as there was a clear understanding of my pain. Just imagine if I was told "It's nothing..don't worry". "EE", I mean enterprising and empathy are great qualities for anyone particularly in customer service. Though people tend to relate "putting yourself in anther's shoes" as empathy, I am not surprised when it gets similar to the story below in real life:
A man walked into a police station and said, "I have three big brothers and all of us live in one big room. My eldest brother has 10 cats, the second one has 5 dogs and third has 2 sheep's. I want you to do something about the smell.". The Inspector asked him, "Are there windows in your room?" The man replied, "Yes, there are 4 big windows." The Inspector asked, "Why don't you open the windows?". The man said, "If I do that all my 500 pigeons will fly away".
Delight yourself first to delight people around you. Most importantly, make you choice NOW!
I was just about to blog my recent experience at a dentist and as I was structuring my thoughts, happened to read an e-mail forward from my mentor and great friend Sam. The article titled Learning to dance in the rain also happens to be the name of the book written by Mac Anderson, Founder of Simple truths.
It was about Patrick Henry Hughes. As soon as I read the name, there was a bell that sounded and my mind said "Hey, wait a minute you know this kid". As I continued reading, I was inspired, thrilled and overjoyed because I knew that it's going to "make my day" once again watching this wonderful gift sent to mother earth - Patrick. I share the video and my delight here.
I am equally touched as much as Mac has been with Patrick's words ""God made me blind and unable to walk. BIG DEAL! He gave me the ability...the musical gifts I have...the great opportunity to meet new people."
Patrick no doubt is a True inspiration. I firmly believe that when something is taken away from you, there is always more left in you that needs to be unearthed. It was his Parents who helped discover this inner talent and nurture it. I salute them both!
So, stop complaining NOW about "The Have nots" in you. Get your Self-image up by developing the attitude of gratitude. Work on your strengths rather than struggling to beat your weakness. You will end up delighting yourself and the people around you.
Delight yourself first to delight people around you. Most importantly, make your choice NOW!
Banking industry collapse, depression, job cuts is what we read or hear - more often than we would like to these days. And the big question that everyone is asking is when will the markets recover?
Okay, now I am not going tell u when the Bulls will return, rather about how quick one can recover if one wants to.
It's an incident that happened a week ago right below the first floor balcony of the apartment where I live. His name is Pandian and he irons clothes for the neighborhood in our locality. If you may call it as his business assets - they are a 4 wheel cart parked on the platform below my window, charcoal iron box, stock of charcoal kept in a plastic bag for 3 days perhaps. On this day, I was woken up at 6AM with commotion on the streets and a bit of smoke. When I looked out, I got to hear that Pandian's ironing cart and rest of his assets had been burnt by some miscreants. An act of vandalism which I have not seen in the 4 years we have lived in this locality. People gathered to find out more information asking the 5 Wives and 1 Husband. I mean - the Who, what, when, where, why and How questions. So, gossips I thought and went back to preparing myself for the day ahead. At 10:30AM as I was preparing to leave home for a training program I was stunned to see Pandian already at work. I stopped, went up and brought my camera down to take a picture of what I saw.
Take a look, incredible I thought. Back to pressing clothes using a slab supported by stones and the best part is that he was smiling for the photograph. He went on to explain that if he kept thinking about the loss, he would lose more, his Customers!
His business recovery program took only 3 hours. Pandian's Power of Positive thinking and Proactive effort to meet customer needs despite the horrific loss was fantastic. If Pandian can, I am sure you too can - remember only if you want to.
I am motivated to write this blog after I watched a short clip of Priyanka Chopra, former Miss world speaking at the India Today conclave at New Delhi yesterday. Infact the debate and discussions revolved around "Challenges of Change" and day 2 had some powerful, impressive speakers from all over the world. The reason I mention Priyanka is because she reminded me of a sensational Apple computers ad and I was delighted to watch & read it again;
"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits, the rebels, the trouble makers, the round pegs in square holes, the ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules and they have no respect for Status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or villify them. But the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward.And while some may see them as the crazy ones, We see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."
From the time it dawned on me on that "Change" is the only thing that is "Constant", I have dared to beat the common mindset. Parents, friends, managers, motivational speakers, books have all played a crucial role in dealing with change. Here are two examples:
Senator Michael O. Leavitt, the former US Secretary of state for Health was visiting India in Jan 2008 and I had the opportunity to attend a conference hosted by the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) about the "Changes in Healthcare". He concluded his 10 minute speech saying.."Change is inevitable. You can resist and suffer (or) You can accept and live with it, or You can adapt quickly and LEAD". I coninue to share these words in many of my training programs today.
I am a fan of Marcus Buckingham and his book - First break all the Rules. When it gets to changing others, I cant think of better story than what Marcus quotes in his book. Long time ago, there lived a scorpion on the banks of a river. He wanted to get across to the other side, however he could not swim and sought the help of a frog who was nearby. The idea was to ferry him to the other side on the Frog's back. The frog rejected the idea saying "you will sting me". The Scorpion managed to convince the frog that if he did sting, he would drown too. Understanding it was a safe bet, the frog took the scorpion on his back. Mid-way, an agonizing & painful sting is what the frog got from the scorpion. He turned back and shouted.. "Why did you do it? Both of us will die now". The reply from the scorpion was simple: "That's my nature". Remember, people dont change so easily even by themselves, so don't attempt it. If they need to, they will have to dare to.
Delight yourself first to delight people around you. Most importantly, make your choice NOW!
That's how the skype call started this morning with a friend of mine. Then we paused and laughed a bit as we realized that the word "different" is fast becoming quite a cliche. Ask an actor or a film director in India about a new release and their first words are "It's a different movie". Nowadays, they consciously add a few prefix words saying.."Everyone says this but this movie is truly different".
Anyway once we were done with the movie stuff, I asked my friend who is in the technology business about this word "different" and it's relevance to him. I listened carefully to the first word which was "Innovation", followed by "out of the Box". I am always thrilled talking to these tech grads & geeks on any subject because they always support their statements with interesting links. And just as I had expected, my friend sent me a youtube link. It was Johnny Lee making a research project presentation about low cost interactive electronic white board he has created using Nintendo's wii remote. I have shared the video here and if you want to know more, you could visit Johnny Chung Lee''s website
I am sure you will smile just as I did after watching the video, coz nowhere in the presentation Johnny uses the word though you can describe it as "Truly different". What impressed me more was that when he published the software free on his website, there were half a million dowloads in 3 months. Wow, that is real impact!
I personally think everyone should give a thought on how you can relate this cliche word to your own business. From the best of consultants that I have talked to or listened and from my own experience, in the hospitality sector you can only make a difference by creating customer "Experiences".
I am reminded of another story. George Eastman, teh founder of Kodak called his sales force to a meeting. He asked, "What are we selling?". There were many responses that included "Cameras, good ones", "Film rolls" and so on. He said, "You're all wrong. We sell MEMORIES".
Is the response going to be "different' when you get to explain a question about your business? I hope not.
"Delight yourself first to delight people around you. Most importantly, make your choice NOW"
No, the blog's title is not an address in Chennai.
Actually it's my mother's age and her love for learning music more formally by going to college now.
My mom hails from a small but well known town called Kumbakonam. She completed her graduation in Geography (in tamil) before she got married and moved to Chennai. I have always seen her active and busy managing the three children, our education, marriages and so on. Back then, I am sure she hardly had time for herself. Now, she does have a choice to lead a relaxed life.
Yesterday was her first day back to college life pursuing Masters in music. What a start - waking up early, preparing food, packing some lunch for herself and rushing to beat the traffic in chennai. Passion and love for music - How else can I describe it?.
She was narrating her first day experience to my dad more like a bubbly school kid when she returned at 6pm. Only difference, she was simultaneously preparing our dinner. I admire my dad for his support and over the years his patience and tolerance levels have seriously got better :)
No, but honestly, we are so thrilled and we want her to complete the course with flying colors. Good luck mom, you are my first and greatest inspiration.
"Delight yourself first to delight people around you. Make your choice NOW!"
