What is Culture?

It is the answer to the following questions:

1. What do you work on?
2. How do you do it?
3. What do you do when things don't work?
4. What do you do when you don't work?

NO!

Never say "Yes" to a deal you don't want to get involved in!

Let your life sit on a ground of "Firm NOs" than "Shaky YESs". Beware of the people who can't say "NO" - they take the whole world down with them. If you can't commit, then don't!

Don't use an "AND" gate, when just a single-channel will do or an "OR" gate will be better.

De-couple - People you like, things you like to do! Otherwise every time you regret not being able to do something, you will hate the people you could have loved deeply.

Fail harder. Fail faster.

My fear of failure is causing me to fail miserably.

Cost-benefit analysis

The value of your success is equal to the cost of your failure.

Lessons from a Skateboard

Lose control. Gain Balance.

a.k.a. Life

"Pour it warm, but serve it over rocks.
Or chill it and place a flame below.
Mix it with some sugar and lime.
Bring along some of those soft chewy nuts."

"Sir, you place a tough request."

"But, my man, that's how I like it.
Contradiction is the kick it gives,
Flavor is but just a disguise.
'Expecting the unexpected' is wherein lies the high"

"What do you like to call it, Sir?"

"For want of a better word, my man, I just call it Life"

The Carnegie Tales - Part 1

 The purposes of a man's heart are deep waters, 
but a man of understanding draws them out. 

- Proverbs 20:5

About a month back, one of the professors in our department recommended in a women's group lunch that we read the book "How to win friends and influence people" by Dale Carnegie. She mentioned how the book had influenced her greatly and she felt that it would influence us positively as well. Having read the first two parts of the book (it has four parts in total), I must admit that it is indeed a great recommendation. Even though the author suggests that we read only one chapter at a time and re-read each chapter before moving on to the next one, I was so engrossed in the book that I could not follow his advise. I finished the first 9 chapter in the last two days, because I just could not put the book down. 

Truth be told, I already feel like a better and happier person. I haven't made an extensive attempt to apply his lessons, but sub-consciously those lessons have already applied themselves to my being. I have smiled more, laughed more, criticized less, apologized to and thanked people for some old incidents -  all by just reading the book. 

The book is divided into four parts -

1. Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

2. Six Ways to Make People Like You

3. How to Win People to Your way of Thinking

4. Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment

Though, to my understanding, it appears that it can be divided into two broader parts which form the title -

1. How to Win Friends (Parts 1 and 2)

2. How to Influence People (Parts 3 and 4)

Having read through the first two parts in a hurry, I decided to pause and take, what appears to me, a logical break. I feel like I have covered the sections dealing with how to make friends and should learn how to apply those principles to my life before I move on to the next two sections which deal more with leadership issues rather than close personal relations. Personally, at this point of my life, I am more interested in making new friends than leading a herd.

So, for the rest of the post, I would like to summarize, for my own personal benefit, as well the benefit of anyone who stumbles across my blog, the first 9 lessons mentioned in the book. It'll be a great idea to go over them a couple of times in a week (or daily!) and make a conscious effort to apply them to each and every personal interaction we have from now on. Here we go:

1.Don't criticize, condemn or complain.

2. Give honest and sincere appreciation. People want to feel important. Be "hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise."

3. Arouse in the other person an eager want.

4. Be genuinely interested in other people.

5. Smile - a simple way to make a good first impression.

6. Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and the most important sound in any language.

7. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.

8. Talk in the terms of other person's interests.

9. Make the other person feel important - and do it sincerely.

The way I am interpreting it is to focus on others and be nice to others. Forget about yourself, your ego, your needs and your problems for one second and experience the world in this new light.

I will try this method out for a few days and get back on the blog with my results. Cheers!

My Prime membership

Since childhood I have maintained that I am the blessed one. I have always got what I have wanted. Not literally all the time, but most of the time. It's not like I haven't cried at things, people, fights lost, but something great has come out of those losses. If I haven't got what I wanted exactly as I wanted it, I have got something even better instead. I have always laughed at myself for crying at the tiniest of things in the past because, in the end, life has been so blessed.

Not to be mistaken here, it's not a good time that I write this in, it's a rather tough one, but I have refrained from crying and I have tried to remind myself of how all the crying in the past was futile. Not because crying doesn't change anything, but because something better comes up in the end. 

This makes me think that I seem to have a "Prime membership" with the universe. Except that, unlike Amazon Prime, there is no free two-day delivery. In life, you have to pay for the shipping yourself, rather steeply sometimes, and the item gets here when it gets here. But, no matter what, the order is never missed. Delivery is guaranteed.

Lessons off sticky notes

I came across a stack of sticky notes sticking to each other and containing a few terse commandments I had written for myself maybe two years ago. I was still trying to fit into the research group I had joined few months back and was introspecting quite a bit to figure out how I was behaving and contemplating about how I should behave instead. Here are the commandments from those times:

1. Be active.

2. Be available.

3. Be approachable.

4. Listen/ Be attentive/ Be a good listener.

5. Voice your opinion/ preference. Be vocal.

6. Smile.

7. Say "yes".

8. Be patient.

9. Be good at what you do.

10. Be prompt.

11. Be an eloquent speaker.

12. Be a compassionate friend.

13. Be positive.

14. Forgive and forget.

15. Be sincere to your work.

16. Be more efficient.

17. Focus on solving problems, not proving yourself.

18. Be nice to people.

Ways to simplify life were also listed: Wake up early, cook and workout daily, work 9-to-6.

Also listed were these four terms - self-awareness, imagination, conscience, independent will. I can't recall what they were for. The last thing on there was a maxim - money comes and goes.

I would really like to believe that some of those commandments have been followed since then, but some could still use some working up on. 

To good times, that are disguised as bad times! They forge the human out of us!

Interesting quotes from this week

All life is a Three Hand Monte. - James Altucher

The beat is unforgiving. - Craig Anderson

You need to figure out where you will more effective. - KM (On my dilemma about which country to settle in and contribute to.)