Dynamic Mindset

CODE ETHICS: What Next for Tech Ethics? A New Course

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 13 Jan 2020 16:01:00 +0000

CODE ETHICS: What Next for Tech Ethics? A New Course: In 2018, a group of keen techies ran a conference on technical ethics in London. The first spin-off from that event was the sustainable ...

Must Watch

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 11 Sep 2016 08:00:00 +0000

Revolution is not a dinner party - Mao Movie gave me a Sleepless Sunday Afternoon Thank you for all responsible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddha_in_a_Traffic_Jam

DX: Using Containers for Agile Scalable Releases

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 10 Sep 2016 18:29:00 +0000

Vedanta Vision

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 26 Aug 2016 15:30:00 +0000

Mind must be free from petty considerations and focus on the larger picture. Gain the larger picture at BHAGAVAD GITA CH 4 lectures by Mrs. Jaya Row at Bhaidas Hall, Juhu, Mumbai 31st Aug to 3rd Sept 2016 Daily 6.30 to 8 pm All are welcome Call / Whatsapp +91 9769179001

Keepin' Babel at Bay: ............ Online Language Training .............

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 25 Jun 2015 17:13:00 +0000

Keepin' Babel at Bay: ............ Online Language Training .............

LOVE

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 06:00:00 +0000

Love Defined

(Short notes and excerpts from the Road Less Traveled" by Scot Peck)

Love is too large, too deep ever to be truly understood or measured or limited within the framework of words. "A timid young man reported to a psychiatrist: "My mother loved me so much she wouldn't let me take the school bus to school until my senior year in high school...."

We are incapable of loving another unless we love ourselves just as we are incapable of teaching self discipline to our children unless we ourselves are self disciplined.
Scot Peck believes that - "Not only do self love and love of others go hand in hand but that ultimately they are indistinguishable.

Love is not effortless- when we love someone we take an extra step or walk an extra mile - which indeed is effort.

Love is an act of will, namely both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.

Falling in 'Love'

Falling in love is specifically a sex linked erotic experience. We do not fall in love with our children, though we love them very dearly and care for them greatly. The feeling of ecstatic lovingness that characterizes the experience of falling in love always passes. When we fall in love we collapse our individual boundaries to make it one boundary. Sooner or later, in response to the difficulties of daily living individuals begin to reassert themselves. She wants to go shopping, he wants to watch a movie, he wants to put money in the bank, she wants to buy a washing machine, she doesn't like his friends, he doesn't like hers. So both in privacy of their hearts, begin to come to the sickening realization that they are not one with their beloved.The beloved has and will continue to have his/her own desires, wishes, tastes, prejudices, and timing different from others. One by one gradually or sometimes suddenly, the boundaries snap back into place gradually or suddenly they sometimes fall out of love. Once again they are two separate individuals. At this time they begin to either dissolve the ties of their relationship or to initiate the work of "REAL LOVING". Real love is a permanently self-enlarging experience. We falll in love primarily to terminate our loneliness and perhaps ensure this result through marriage. While we have fallen in love we perceive faults of our beloved as insignificant little quirks or darling eccentricities that only add color and charm.

Couples must know that even when they are no longer romantically in love with each other, they are still capable of remaining committed to their relationship. Couples must also learn that a true acceptance of their own and others individuality and separateness is only the foundation upon which a mature marriage can be based and real love can grow.

Falling in love is in fact very close to real love. Real love involves an extension of ones limits (boundaries) when we extend our limits through love, we do so by reaching out, so to speak, towards the beloved, whose growth we wish to nurture. In the first place hence, we must be attracted toward, invested in and committed to the other. When we go beyond the boundary of the self we also incorporate a representation of the other in ourselves. What transpires then is the course of many years of loving, extending our boundaries is a gradual but progressive enhancement of the self, a growth and stretching leading to the thinning of the boundaries.

The more we extend or thin our boundaries, the more blurred becomes the distinction between the self and our partner. We become identified with our partner and hence we begin more and more to experience the same sort of ecstasy and relive the "falling in love" experience. This feeling of ecstasy or bliss associated with this union, while perhaps a more gentle and less dramatic than that associated with the initial falling in love, is nonetheless much more stable and lasting and ultimately satisfying. There will be times when we may forget who we are, lose track of self, be lost in space and time, be outside of ourselves and be transported. This can be termed as "mystical union". Boundaries must therefore be first understood, appreciated and strengthened or hardened before it can be softened.An identity must be established before it can be transcended. Find oneself before you can loose it. Spiritual growth can be achieved only through the persistent exercise of real love. Therefore falling in love is not love itself, yet it is a part of the great and mysterious scheme of love.

A very common misconception about love is the idea that dependency is love. Dependency may be defined as the inability to experience wholeness or to function adequately without certainity that one is being actively cared for by one another.We all as human beings have dependency needs and feelings. No matter how strong we are, now matter how carng and responsible and adult, if we look ourselves we will find that we wish to be taken care of for a change. We will at times like to have a satisfying mother and father figure. But we need to be know that as long as it is not the predominant theme of our existence it is perfectly normal to nurture these feelings. So it is OK to be dependent as long as a sence of wholeness and identity are in place. People who lack this will define themselves solely by their relationships and never feel "full-filled" or have a sence of completeness. In marriage there is normally a differentiation of the roles of the two spoces, a normally efficient division of labour, between them. Healthy couples instinctively will switch roles from time to time. This process will in actuality diminish the dependency and increase the freedom of the other. The goal should be spiritual growth of both.

To nourish the spirit, the body must also be nourished. We need food and shelter, we also need rest and relaxation, excercise and distraction.

Self Sacrifice: We have to learn that expressing one's own needs, anger resentment and expectations in every bit as necessary to the mental health of the family as self sacrifice, and therefore love must be manifested in confrontation as much as in beatific acceptance.

Surely love involves a change in the self, but it is an extension of the self rather than a sacrifice of the self. Love enlarges rather than diminish the self, it fills rather than depletes the self. There is a paradox in love - it is both selfish and unselfish at the same time. It is not the selfishness or unselfishness that distinguishes love from non-love; it is the aim of the action. In the case of genuine love, the aim is always growth of both the persons involved.

Genuine love implies commitment, and the excercise of wisdom. In a constructive marriage, the partners must regularly, routinely and predictably, attend to each other and their relationship no matter how they feel. Like mentioned earlier, couples will sooner or later fall out of love, at this time that the opportunity for genuine love begins. It is when the spouces no longer feel like being in each other's company always, it is when they would rather be elsewhere some of the time, that their love begins to be tested.
Love is therefore:- The will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth. The person who truly loves does so because of a decision to love.

True love is not a feeling by which we are overwhelmed. It is a committed, thoughtful decision. Love is a two way street, whereby the reciever also gives and the giver also recieves. Love is a free excercise of choice. Two people love each other only when they are quite capable of living without each other, but choose to live with each other.

Nietzche on Hardship - Philosophy: A Guide to Happiness

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 22:30:00 +0000

This six part series on philosophy is presented by popular British philosopher Alain de Botton, featuring six thinkers who have influenced history, and their ideas about the pursuit of the happy life. Episode 6: Nietzsche on Hardship - British philosopher Alain De Botton explores Friedrich Nietzsche's (1844-1900) dictum that any worthwhile achievements in life come from the experience of overcoming hardship. For him, any existence that is too comfortable is worthless, as are the twin refugees of drink or religion.

Structure of society

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 15:36:00 +0000

The Structure of society was eloquently expressed by nineteenth century philosopher & economist John Stuart Mill who wrote, "The only freedom deserving the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it... Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest."

This way of thinking has become so ingrained that we rarely pause to consider that it may be not universally shared ideal - that we may not always want to make a choice , or that some people prefer to have their choices prescribed by another. But in fact the construct of individualism is a relatively new one that guides the thinking of only a small percentage of the world's population. Let's now turn to the equally rich tradition of collectivism and how it impacts people's notions of choices across much of the globe.

Members of collectivist societies, including Japan, are taught to privilege the 'We' in choosing, and they see themselves primarily in terms of groups to which they belong, such as family, coworkers, village or nation. In the words of Harry Triandis, they are "primarily motivated by the norms of, and duties imposed by, those collectives" and "are willing to give priority to the goals of these collectives over their own personal goals," emphasizing above all else "their connectedness to members of these collectives." Rather than everyone looking out for number one, it's believed that individuals can be happy only when the needs of the group are met.

For example, the Japanese saying makeru ga kachi (literally "to loose is to win") expresses the idea that getting one's way is less desirable than maintaining peace and harmony.The effect of collectivist world view go beyond determining who should choose. Rather than defining themselves solely by their personal traits, collectivist understand their identities through their relationships to certain groups. People in such societies, then, strive to fit in and to maintain harmony with their social in-groups.

By Sheena Iyengar

Psychology of Achievement

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 18:29:00 +0000

The Phoenix Seminar by Brian Tracy

15:06 - 5 years ago

Brian Tracy's Phoenix Seminar on the Psychology of Achievement, Module 1 of 27.

The Phoenix Seminar has been called a "life transforming experience." Over 2,000,000 people have attended this exciting program and came away "charged" with new energy, enthusiasm and excitement for living. In the Phoenix Seminar, you will learn how to unlock your inborn potential, set and achieve your goals, develop happier, more harmonious relationships and become more effective in every area of your life.

How To Make This New Year Your Best Year Yet

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 05:41:00 +0000

"Awakening is possible only for those who seek it and want it, for those who are ready to struggle with themselves and work on themselves for a very long time very persistently in order to obtain it." - G.I Gurdjieff

5 Step Process to make this your best year yet.

1. Celebration,

Write down what wins do you need to Celebrate from the past 12 months.

2. Education,

With better awareness you can make better choices, with better choices you are bound to see better results. Write down what are the 3 best business lessons you learnt from the last year. What are the three best life lessons over the past year.

3. Clarification,

Clarity Precedes Mastery. What are your big 5 goals for this year. What are your to 5 values for the next 12 months. Creativity + Audacity = Mastery, write down your 15 Goals in the key areas of your life.

4. Graduation,

Take your goals, values and big 5 for the next twelve months and put them into a plan. Put the above into a monthly graduating plan sequencing all of the activities on a double sided page scheduled for execution over the next 12 months.

5. Visualization,

Emotionally engage with what your life will look like in the key areas of your life. Picture what your life look like if all the above are fulfilled. Revisit this picture every few days, consciously or sub consciously your behavior will be aligned with your visualization. That will drive your behavior.

Related Post "60 Tips for a stunningly great life"

As a man thinketh by James Allen

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 05:30:00 +0000

Hear why Denis Waitley described Allen as "the Norman Vincent Peale or Earl Nightingale" of his time; his 1902 classic tells you that you already have what you need to achieve the life of your dreams: your mind. Allen's empowering words will show you the endless possibilities that await you if you align your thoughts with your goals.

About the Secrets Of Success Series
Here are the masterpieces of success and motivation that have influenced and earned the praise of many other self-help giants. The priceless lessons imparted by these unabridged books will help you:

Change your life by changing your thoughts;

Attract the prosperity you deserve;

Appreciate the opportunities that await you;

Live true to the values most precious to you;

Manage stress and self-defeating impulses that hold you back;

Make the contribution to the world that only you can make-and enjoy the abundance you'll receive in return.

The gift of greatness can be yours. Bring THE SECRETS OF SUCCESS into your life, or share them with someone you love, to turn yesterday's priceless wisdom into tomorrow's boundless rewards.

Download eBook
MP3 Audio Book
Embedded www.Odeo.com audio player of the audio book. (not appearing any ideas?)

Merry Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 05:31:00 +0000

Kiran Bedi Talks: A police chief with a difference

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 18:01:00 +0000

5 Rules to Live by

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 06:42:00 +0000

Give Credit
Don't boast about projects in progress, Celebrate their completion.
Don't throw sand or, when you are older mud.
Let napping dad's lie.
Don't show off. Impress

Make up your mind

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 13:00:00 +0000

An expert helps choosy choosers choose more easily. Columbia Business School's Sheena Iyengar on The Power of Choice. During a recent visit to The Wharton School, Professor Iyengar stopped by the Knowledge at Wharton studio and taped this presentation on her research into choice.

The choices we make define us. But these days even picking, say a breakfast cereal can be overwhelming. Whole grain or multi grain? Oat Bran? Nut flakes Fiber?

In her new book, The Art of choosing, Sheena Iyengar a Columbia University, New York Business Professor who was born blind, contemplates the ways choices can motivate, fustrate, paralyse and ultimately transform us. Her ideas for choosing easily, quickly, and smartly:

Choose not to choose
"When my husband and I go out to eat, I let him pick the resturant and even delegate him to decide what I should order. So much time is wasted in our culture on choices that dont matter. Letting someone make small decissions for you can be extremely liberating and gives my husband and me more time to focus on each other."

Ask for Help
"We cant be experts in everything, so do what you do best and call for professional for other things. I will devote myself completely to a new research study, for example.
But when it comes to choosing investments, let's say, or making important medical decissions, I'm much better listening to Warren Buffett or my doctor other than speculating on my own."

Use other as mirrors
"Its important to know how our family, friends, coleagues and strangers see us. These opinion can serve as reality check. By playing cose attention to how people react to our actions we can decide our behavior.- our choices - needs to change to better to align with how we would like to be percieved. The best way to start the process is to ask. As a blind person, I will ask friends do I look better in this color dress or that color? And the reactions help me shape my choices."

Set the clock
"Often the best way to make a decission when faced with a bewildering array of choices is to impose a time limit. If you are buying a new digital camera, you could spend all day pouring over websites and talking to friends about which one to buy. Or you could stop agonizing and say, I'm giving myself exactly 30 minutes to research this. That way you wont deplete your energies."

Go with 'Good Enough'
"Let's say you are buying tooth paste. There are always dozens of options and it is easy to get overhelmed. Here's the trick: Just pick one. It doesnt have to be the best or have most dazzling features. It needs to be good enough We call that satisfacting - being satisfied with whats sufficient.

It takes the pressure off."

Related Link
The Tyranny Of Choice

Gandhi Jayanti

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 20:33:00 +0000

"Gandhi Jayanti is a national holiday in India celebrated on 2nd October. This day is celebrated in the honor of the birthday of the Father of the nation, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi or Bapuji." Designed by Manish Jinwal from India.

The Neuroscience of Emotions

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 18:30:00 +0000

A talk on the following topics a must watch not for neuroscience ;-) but to know yourself better.

Darwin and Emotions

Animals need emotions to survive
They need fear as a trigger to escape predators and aggression to defend their territory , young and food.
Emotions are maintained from our animal past.
We rely on emotions to make quick, often complex, decisions.
Moral Development
Adaptive or dis-regulated.

Reasoning and Emotion

Emotions are an important source of information and feedback that help to direct our behaviour and social interactions - "Gut instinct", "intution"
Frontal lobe lesions can result in impaired emotional awareness, social reasoning, and decision-making.

Why do we have emotions?

Directs Attention
Enhances Memory
Organizes Behavior
Drives social approach and avoidance.

Classes of Emotion

6 Primary: Happiness, Surprise, Fear, Sadness, Disgust, Anger
Background: wellbeing/malaise, calm/tense, pain/pleasure

Markus Aurelius (Meditations) 167 A.C.E
If you are distressed by anything external [or internal] the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have power to revoke at any moment.

Emotional Intelligence

-The ability to monitor one's own and others feelings and emotions,
-to discriminate among them and
-to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions

Peter Salovey and John D .Mayer (1990)

Multiple Intellegences
1983, Howard Gardner's Frames of Mind:

The Theory of Multiple Intellegences:
Interpersonal intellegence

The capacity to understand intentions, motivations and desires of other people.

Intrapersonal intelligence

The capacity to understand oneself, to appreciate one's feelings, fears and motivation.

Empathy

Identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives
State of being 'in tune with' another person, particularly by feeling what their situation is like from inside.
Empathy may or may not precede sympathy.

Understanding Others
Cognitive prespective taking
Ability to understand intentions, desires beliefs of another person, resulting from (cognitively) reasoning about others's state.

Empathy

Affective state, caused by sharing of emotions or sensory states of another person
Compassion: Defenitions
Deep awareness of suffering of another couples with the wish to relieve it.
Tender Feeling
Sympathetic, sad concern for someone in misfortune.
Pity for others with a desire to help.
Empathy + Cognitive Perspective taking + action

I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance- Pablo Casals

Love and compassion are necessities not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Don't be evil

-Google

At least do not harm

Hope this brings some benefit to others.

The Art of Writing

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 18:15:00 +0000

Most writing is a private activity but a public service. You may dash off a protest letter in solitude of your study, or compile a report in the office after everyone has gone home for the night, or scribble a few secret paragraphs of your romantic novel at the kitchen table while the baby is sleeping but in each case intention is the same that eventually your writing may become the reading matter of someone else, that your private words will 'go public'.

Writing in other words, is above all for communication – for conveying ideas and feelings from one mind to another mind. Apart from the few oddities – filling out a crossword puzzle, or writing 'X loves Y' in the sand at low tide – this is true of all writing tasks. Even with such activities such as taking lecture notes, or recording a funny incident in your secret diary, you are still writing to communicate with your future self.

The hallmarks of good writing, then, are the hallmarks of good communication. The ABC's of both are these

accuracy, appropriateness, attentiveness to your audience, avoidance of ambiguity

brevity or conciseness, brightness or buoyancy

correctness (of usage and grammar), clarity, consistency, correctness

Since writing is primarily for communication, you have to keep your reader constantly in mind as you write. This is not always easy to do. Faced with an intense or convoluted writing task, you many often become very inward looking, struggling to put your thoughts into words and get the words down on paper. You will then need to force yourself continually to emerge from this self-absorption.

You must continually keep your eyes forever on your Reader. That alone constitutes Technique.- Fort Maddox Ford, The English Novel

That means more than typing neatly, or avoiding a personal shorthand which only you can follow. It means taking trouble – ordering your thoughts in the most methodological and logical sequence, and wording them in the most lucid language. If you fail to take that trouble in clarifying your ideas, you will put the reader to a great deal of trouble in deciphering them.

You write with ease to show your breeding, But easy writing's curst hard reading. - Richard Brinsley Sheridian, Clio's Protest

As it happens, it is not so difficult to think yourself into the mind of another person: you probably do it everyday, whenever you speak to anyone.

Think how carefully you pitch the level of your voice and speech according to circumstances. If you are speaking to someone hard of hearing, you tend to speak louder than usual. If you are speaking to a child or foreigner, you tend to use simpler words and shorter sentences than usual, and talk at a slower pace. If you are speaking to the bishop, you probably adopt a more formal and respectful tone than you use with your workmates.

With writing, things are not so easy: you get less guidance from your 'audience' and they get even less from you. Listeners derive information not just from the speakers words but also from the tone of his voice, his pauses, his facial expression, his gestures, his 'body language', and so on. Readers by contrast have only words to guide them ( together with a few typographical aids such as italics and exclamation marks). Similarly most speakers with an live audience enjoy immediate 'feedback' and can modulate their level instantly to ensure that the message is getting across. Writers, by contrast, get their readers feedback only after their act of writing is finished.

When writing a letter or report keep, thinking about the readers response to the contents, the style and tone

As for style the constant watchword is: appropriateness. Write simply bearing in mind that simple writing varies according to readers level of sophistication.
As for tone: pitching it correctly is rather dressing correctly. Don't confuse formal with stiff. A formal tone still attracts and involves the reader; a stiff tone distances and alienates the reader.

Above all, remember someone has to do the work if communication is to take place successfully. An inverse proportion operates: the more work you as a writer do to get it right, the less work the reader has to do. And vice versa. If you slack, it will be the reader who does the bulk of the work - or perhaps not: he may simply view the whole thing as a discourtesy, and give it up as a bad job.

Excerpts from the book Above

xenophile

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 18:34:00 +0000

In reality, serendipity accounts for one percent of the blessings we receive in life, work and love. The other 99 percent is due to our efforts.-Peter McWilliams

Sure, the web connects the globe, but most of us end up hearing mainly from people just like ourselves, take for instance the video below by TED which has a dropdown in the bottom half for Subtitles so you can see the video as well as read the translations worldwide.And if your language is not there you can add yourself as a translator.

See the subtitle button below the video try selecting your language from that. If it is not visible here can you please try it in the original site www.ted.com

This is a talk on TED.com by an American named Ethan Zucherman but the ideas represented are the same. Subject of the talk is similar to my post "listening to global voices" although I have skipped major hilarious portions like the initial introduction, football and CALA BOCA, GALVAO which is a topic which topped twitter for a few weeks during the football world cup so this is not a translation of the video above it has more to do with how we gain an understanding of the world around us that is we communicate.

TED's Open Translation Project brings subtitles in 40+ languages to TED.com

I believe companies like http://www.yeeyan.org/ are already into translating English material for the local population. Online on the www its quite easy to interact globally see image of a Chinese site translated to English by the tool bar above in Google Chrome Browser.

Entire website in a foreign language translated quite quite correctly by translation toolbar in Google chrome except for the layout errors.

Need to obtain details of internalization on the web see http://www.w3.org/International/
This post is to conceptually gain understanding of status of www in general, in english there is a famous saying "Curiosity killed the cat" so I don't intend to be that cat ;-) So as said by Ethan Zucherman Activisim is pretty easy to get away with, so this may be considered my attempts at it. Conclusions and excerpts from the talk above and me too.

Its not enough that you want to make a personal descission that you want a wider world.

We have to figure out how to rewire the systems that we have.

We have to fix our media,

we have to fix the internet,

we have to fix our education,

we have to fix our immigration policy.

We need to look at ways of creating serendipity

Of making translation pervasive,

We need to find ways to embrace and celebrate these bridge figures

We need to figure out how to cultivate xenophiles.

Related Post: How to Fan this Spark into a fire from PickTheBrain.com

Rest in Peace Dio

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 18:25:00 +0000

Song Lyrics

Power Of Context

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 16:30:00 +0000

I usually write down thoughts or matters read in my blog over a period. As an added bonus, I have discovered that venting via my written words helps me ease my inner strife and upset, particularly when I have unresolved feelings and thoughts on a particularly thorny issues in my life and not when I've had a hard day. So relax life's cool.This over thinking mind of mine needs some outlet so this is it keeping things in is practically psyching ;-) and moreover telling others is the best way to hard wire matters into our consciousness.

The power of context is an environmental argument. It says that behavior is a function of social context. A group of social scientist at Stanford University led by Dr Philip Zimbardo concluded that there are specific situations so powerful that they can overwhelm our inherent predispositions. The key word here is situation.

He is not talking about our environment which has a major external influence on all of our lives. He's not denying that how we are raised by our parents affects who we are, the friends we have or the kind of neighborhoods we live in affect our behavior. All of these things are undoubtedly important. Nor is he denying that our genes play a role in determining who we are. Most psychologists believe that nature - genetics - accounts for about half the reason why we tend to act the way we do.

His point is simply that there are certain times and places where much of that can be swept away, there are instances where you can take normal people from good schools and happy families and good neighborhood and affect their behavior by merely changing the details of the situation.

Peer influence and community influence are more important than family influence in determining how children turn out. Studies of juvenile delinquency and high school drop out rates, for example show that a child is better off in a good neighborhood and a troubled family than he is in a troubled neighborhood and a good family. We spend so much time celebrating the importance and power of family influence that it may seem, at first a blush,that this can't be true.

But in reality it is no more than a obvious and commonsensical extension of the Power Of Context, says that children are powerfully shaped by their external environment, that features of our immediate social and physical world -- the streets we walk down, the people we encounter --- play a huge role in shaping who we are and how we act. It is possible to be a better person on a clean street or in a clean subway than in one littered with trash and graffiti.

Read more on Wikipedia

Notable Quote's
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."- Steve Jobs

"Your best shot at happiness, self-worth and personal satisfaction - the things that constitute real success - is not in earning as much as you can but in performing as well as you can something that you consider worthwhile."-William Raspberry

Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.- Samuel Johnson

Ask not what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive... then go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.-Howard Thurman

A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought.- Dorothy L. Sayers

Mother

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 16:30:00 +0000

There was this family with one kid.

One day the mother was out and dad was in charge of the kid, who just turned three.

Someone had given the kid a little 'tea set' as a birthday gift and it was one of his favorite toys.

Daddy was in the living room engrossed in the evening news when kid brought Daddy a little cup of 'tea', which was just water.

After several cups of tea and lots of praise for such yummy tea from father, kid’s Mom came home.

Dad made her wait in the living room to watch the kid bring him a cup of tea, because it was 'just the cutest thing!!'

Mom waited, and sure enough, the kid comes down the hall with a cup of tea for Daddy

and she watches him drink it up, then she says to him,

'Did it ever occur to you that the only place that baby can reach to get water is the toilet??'

.... Mothers know!!

Song Lyrics

Management Lessons

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 18:25:00 +0000

Lesson four

One fine day, a bus driver went to the bus garage, started his bus, and drove off along the route. No problems for the first few stops - a few people got on, a few got off, and things went generally well.

At the next stop, however, a big hulk of a Pathan got on. Six feet four, built like a wrestler, arms hanging down to the ground. He glared at the conductor and said, "Pathan doesn't pay!" and sat down at the back.

Conductor didn't argue with Pathan, but he wasn't happy about it. The next day the same thing happened – Pathan got on again, made a show of refusing to pay, and sat down. And the next day, and the next..

This grated on the bus driver, who started losing sleep over the way Pathan was taking advantage of poor conductor. Finally he could stand it no longer. He signed up for body building courses, karate, judo, and all that good stuff.

By the end of the summer, he had become quite strong; what's more, he felt really good about himself. So, on the next Monday, when Pathan once again got on the bus and said, "Pathan doesn't pay!"

The driver stood up, glared back at Pathan, and screamed, "And why not?"

With a surprised look on his face, Pathan replied, "Pathan has a bus pass."

Management Lesson: Be sure there is a problem in the first place before working hard to solve one.

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Management Lessons on Feb 4 2008

The Art of Start and Reality Check

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 09:45:00 +0000

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked, over the years, if I regretted going to law school.

The answer is no. It taught me how to analyze scenarios, options and organize thoughts and deal with tremendous amounts of stress. What it didn’t teach me a whole lot about, though, was the actual practice of being a lawyer.

I’ve heard a similar theme from many MBAs. Truth is, the great value in most MBA and JD programs can be boiled down to 5 to 10 talks, presentations, classes and conversations that changed the way you experienced the world. So, I figured, why go through 2 years of B-school, drop $100,000 (that’s $70k on school, $20k on booze and $10k on Red Bull) and give up two years of income, when you can experience your…
extraordinary moments with true visionaries…right here, right now…

Guy Kawasaki’s “10 things” list crushes a bunch of start-up myths, shows you where to spend your time, money and energy when starting and growing a business. Main Points in the video below

1 Make Meaning
2 Mantra
3 Get Going
4 Define a business model
5 Weave a MAT (Milestone Assumptions Tasks)
6 Niche Thyself
7 Follow 10/20/30 Rule
8 Hire infected people
9 Marketing
10 Seed the Cloud
11 Dont let the bozos grind you down

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The Leader Who Had No Title

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 01 May 2010 06:41:00 +0000

The Leader Who Had No Title

The New Way to Win in Business - and in Life

The old way of leading is dead. Many of our best-known organizations have fallen and some of our most revered leaders have lost face. The global economy has now transformed and with all the new media ranging from Twitter to YouTube, everyone now can build a following. And lead their field.

We have just entered what I call The Decade of Leadership. Leadership has become democratized. I'm not at all suggesting that we don't need titles and people at the top of organizations to set the vision, manage the team and take overall responsibility for the ship. What I am offering is that we now work and live in a world where leadership isn't just something executives do. It's something everyone needs to do - for their organizations to survive, in this period of dramatic change.

For the past 15 years, I've had a simple mission that has become my obsession: to help people in organizations lead without a title - and play at their best in all that they do. This mission has taken me into client companies like Nike, FedEx, GE, Panasonic and Unilever where I've not only helped their best people grow even better but learned what world-class teams and enterprises do to create wow. This mission has allowed me to serve as the private leadership adviser to many billionaires and celebrity entrepreneurs. And this calling has caused me to meet people from every walk of life in every industry and learn what keeps them from stepping up to their leadership best when that's exactly who they are built to be.

I've distilled everything I've learned into a step-by-step formula that I've shared in my new book "The Leader Who Had No Title: A Modern Fable on Real Success in Business and in Life" (Simon & Schuster). Here are 9 smart moves you can make today to start changing the game and creating exceptional results:

1. Remember that you need no title to be a leader. Leadership has less to do with the size of your title than the depth of your commitment. I've seen front-line employees, taxi drivers and carpet installers doing their work like Picasso painted. Leadership isn't really about authority. It's about a choice you can make to do your best work each and every day, regardless of where you are planted.

2. Shift from Victimhood to Leadership. No great career, business or life was ever created on a platform of excuses. Too many people play victim at work. They blame the boss or the economy or the competition or the weather for their less than mediocre results. Leaders Without A Title are different. They get that they have power. It may not be the power granted through a title like CEO or SVP. But they have power. And that's the power to see opportunity amid crises. That's the power to drive positive change. That's the power to encourage everyone on your team. And it's the power to step into the person you've always longed to be.

3. Innovate or Stagnate. To Lead Without A Title is to leave everything you touch better than you found it. Mediocrity happens when people refuse to change and improve all that they do. Look what happened to some of the big car companies because the slowed down their devotion to innovation. The competition ate them for breakfast. And put some out of business. The best leaders and the best enterprises have a hunger to improve. It's such a deep part of their culture they know of no other way to be. And that's the edge that makes them great.

4. Become a Value Creator versus a Clock Watcher. Success comes from the value you add rather than from the busyness you show. What's the point of being really busy around the wrong things? Leadership is a game of focus. Focusing on fewer but smarter activities, the ones that create real value for your teammates, customers and the world at large.

5. Put People First. "The business of business is people" said Southwest Airlines founder Herb Kelleher. We have a ton of technology yet less and less humanity. Yet let's remember that people do business with people they like, trust and respect. One of the clients we've done leadership development work with is RIM. Yes, they are a fast and innovative technology company. But they also get that excellent results come from people playing at excellence. So build your team. Meet your customers. Deepen human connections. Treat others with respect. And put people first.

6. Remember that Tough Times Build Strong Leaders. Look at any exceptional leader and you'll find that they stepped into their leadership best during a period of crises versus calmness. To Lead Without A Title is to hunt for opportunity amid every adversity. Every setback has the seeds of an opportunity. Companies like Apple, Google and Amazon were built because their people leveraged disruptive times into brilliant wins. And because their people refused to give up when faced with difficulty.

7. Go to Your Limits. The more you play out on the edges of your limits and take intelligent risks, the wider your limits will expand. The more you leave your comfort zone, the bigger your comfort zone will grow. Each day at work, do the things you know you must do but are scared to do. That's how you grow, build your leadership capability and access more of the leader within you. There's zero safety in staying within what i call "The Safe Harbor of The Known". That's just an illusion that bankrupts too many businesses and breaks too many human beings.

8. Lead Yourself First. "The Leader Who Had No Title" isn't just a book showing you how to create exceptional business success and win at work; it's also a handbook for personal leadership. Because how can you lead other people if you haven't first done what it takes to lead yourself? Get to know your values. Think through what you want your life to stand for. Become physically, mentally and emotionally strong. And have a remarkably good relationship with your family. What's the point of becoming super-successful yet being alone?

9. Give Back a Legacy. Success is good. Significance is even better. Sure profit and peer recognition and doing great work is mission-critical. But even more important than that is what you give - and all you leave behind. As I write in the book, "even the longest life is pretty short. And all that matters when you get to your last day is the difference you've made and the people you've helped." So as you Lead Without A Title and step into your leadership best, stay focused on adding value. And making an extraordinary contribution.

Robin Sharma is one of the world's most highly respected leadership experts, with a client list that includes Microsoft, GE, NIKE, FedEx, Yale University and IBM. In a survey of 22,000 business people ranking top leadership gurus, Sharma was in the top 5, along with Jack Welch. His books such as The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari and The Greatness Guide have sold millions of copies in over 60 countries. His new book is "The Leader Who Had No Title: A Modern Fable on Real Success in Business and in Life" (Simon & Schuster). Robin's blog is at http://robinsharma.com.
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Quotes:
"Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily; even if you had no title or position." - Brian Tracy
"Leadership is the ability to get extraordinary achievement from ordinary people.” Brian Tracy
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