One step forward is better than two steps back

Break your goals into smaller goals and take the first step – Take action; take massive action on the goals that you have set. When you have one step forward, that is progress. Confucius had a saying that “If you know something and you do not act upon it, is as though you know nothing.” A humble request is not to fall into the trap and become a NATO – No Action Talk Only. Receiving knowledge would be great and it would be power, but applying that knowledge would be Real power. Action speaks louder than words. Samuel Langhorne Clemens better known as “Mark Twain” the American author and humorist had a saying “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.” Every drop makes an ocean and a small leak could sink a great ship. When we have big dreams and result in setting big goals, sometimes it is important to make them into to smaller goals, going one a baby step mode.
Don’t change your destination, just alter your course - Confucius had another saying “When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don't adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.” You cannot change the direction of the wind but you can always adjust your sale. One of the key principles is be adaptive to situations and adjust yourself and your goals. As the famous martial artist and film star, Bruce Lee had a saying “Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless--like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in a teapot, and it becomes the teapot. Now water can *flow* or it can *crash*! Be water, my friend.”
It is not only about finishing the race but running the marathon of life – slow and steady. Don’t rush into the solution, take your time. Confucius had yet another saying “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” Also remember not to be too slow, if not, you have to speed up just to stop. To get you started off in running might be difficult, but as you get the hang of it, always remember to maintain your momentum.
Do not be a soccer ball of other people’s opinion – You might have heard of this story of the grandfather, boy and the donkey were all set out to travel a long distance to a particular location, a few villages away. As they were travelling, the grandfather was concerned about his grandson had to walk, so he put his grandson on the donkey. As they went pass one village, he overheard the villages commenting, “Terrible young boy, make an old man walk”. Grandfather was hurt so he decided to bring his grandson down and he sat on the donkey. As he passed the next village, he heard another comment such as “What a terrible old man, make a small boy walk”. So he decided to bring his grandson on the donkey, so the both of them travelled on the donkey. As he passed the next village, guess what, village again commented, “Two of you should be a shame of yourself, poor donkey” So both of them carried the donkey to their destination. People will always be there to share their opinion; you make the choice and decide.
Stand out from the crowd and be different - It is better to be a somebody in a nobody’s island than to be a nobody on a somebody’s island. Mark Twain had another saying “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”

Steve Jobs' 12 Rules of Success

Lessons from Steve Jobs, Founder of Apple Computers

Executive Summary by Vadim Kotelnikov

Steve Jobs is one of the most successful entrepreneurs of our generation. His success story is legendary. Put up for adoption at an early age, dropped out of college after 6 months, slept on friends’ floors, returned coke bottles for 5 cent deposits to buy food, then went on to start Apple Computers and Pixar Animation Studios.

1.Do what you love to do. Find your true passion. Do what you love to do a make a difference! The only way to do great work is to love what you do.

2.Be different. Think different. "Better be a pirate than to join the navy."

3.Do your best. Do your best at every job. No sleep! Success generates more success. So be hungry for it. Hire good people with passion for excellence.

4.Make SWOT analysis. As soon as you join/start a company, make a list of strengths and weaknesses of yourself and your company on a piece of paper. Don't hesitate in throwing bad apples out of the company.

5.Be entrepreneurial. Look for the next big thing. Find a set of ideas that need to be quickly and decisively acted upon and jump through that window. Sometimes the first step is the hardest one. Just take it! Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

6.Start small, think big. Don't worry about too many things at once. Take a handful of simple things to begin with, and then progress to more complex ones. Think about not just tomorrow, but the future. "I want to put a ding in the universe,” reveal Steve Jobs his dream.

7.Strive to become a market leader. Own and control the primary technology in everything you do. If there's a better technology available, use it no matter if anyone else is not using it. Be the first, and make it an industry standard.

8.Focus on the outcome. People judge you by your performance, so focus on the outcome. Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected. Advertise. If they don't know it, they won't buy your product. Pay attention to design. "We made the buttons on the screen look so good you'll want to lick them." "Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."

9.Ask for feedback. Ask for feedback from people with diverse backgrounds. Each one will tell you one useful thing. If you're at the top of the chain, sometimes people won't give you honest feedback because they're afraid. In this case, disguise yourself, or get feedback from other sources. Focus on those who will use your product – listen to your customers first.

10.Innovate. Innovation distinguishes a leader from a follower. Delegate, let other top executives do 50% of your routine work to be able to spend 50% your time on the new stuff. Say no to 1,000 things to make sure you don't get on the wrong track or try to do too much. Concentrate on really important creations and radical innovation. Hire people who want to make the best things in the world. You need a very product-oriented culture, even in a technology company. Lots of companies have tons of great engineers and smart people. But ultimately, there needs to be some gravitational force that pulls it all together.

11.Learn from failures. Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.

12.Learn continually. There's always "one more thing" to learn! Cross-pollinate ideas with others both within and outside your company. Learn from customers, competitors and partners. If you partner with someone whom you don't like, learn to like them – praise them and benefit from them. Learn to criticize your enemies openly, but honestly.
Source: Steve Job
http://www.1000advices.com/guru/leader_corporate_12_success_rules_sj.html

Opportunity is Everywhere

There's no need to spend a lot of time looking for opportunity. It is everywhere, and every day more opportunities are being created.
There is always work to be done. There is always value to be created.

Instead of waiting for a new opportunity or searching for the perfect opportunity, go ahead and get to work. Make the most of some of the opportunities that are already here and now.

There is great value that can be created on this very day. There are problems that can be solved, processes that can be improved upon, and endless ways to be purposefully creative.

Opportunities are worthless unless they are acted upon. Choose to take the actions that will turn the best opportunities into real and lasting achievements.

Opportunity is everywhere, already, right now. Step forward and put it to work.

-- Ralph Marston

Something Wonderful

Something wonderful will come from this. Something of great value is already taking shape.
In every disappointment, there are fertile seeds of accomplishment. In times of pain, there are opportunities arising for magnificent joy.

When you are making your way through the dark and lonely valley, keep going. Keep going and you'll soon reach the place where you begin to climb out and up toward the mountaintop.

Allow your difficulties the opportunity to give you strength. Let the tough times make the good times much more rewarding than they otherwise would have been.

Be truly thankful for each opportunity to more fully appreciate life's goodness. And be confident that the goodness is always there.

Know that something wonderful will come from this. And it will.

-- Ralph Marston

some motivating words

“No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.”
—Helen Keller

When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced; live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.
— Cherokee Saying

“Each choice we make causes a ripple effect in our lives. When things happen to us, it is the reaction we choose that can create the difference between the sorrows of our past and the joy in our future.”
-Chelle Thompson

It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else’s eyes.
— Sally Field

Something I came across

habits of procrastinators #1
Blaming others is far easier than admitting that it is your fault for where you currently find yourself. Well it is isn't it. That way you don't have to take any responsibility for the results of your own actions, now or into the future. Blaming others means you have the perfect set of excuses lined up ready to be used when you don't do anything, or make a half-hearted attempt at something. Not only do you lack motivation, you've forgotten that only you have the power of choice over YOU
Blame is another word for excuses
Strategies to Overcome the Procrastination Habit - Get rid of the blame list.

Do you know who is holding you back from achieving your dreams and goals?

Have you ever stopped to consider that the only reason you aren’t doing what you said you wanted to, is because you don’t really want to.

You aren’t doing all that you can, or being all that you can be – because YOU don’t want to.

You’re happy where you are. Oh I don’t mean that you are “happy” and you have a smile on your face. You are happy because blaming other people means you don’t have to take any responsibility for your actions..

Unless you live in a dictatorship, you have total control over your thoughts and your actions. No-one but you can determine what you are going to think, say, eat and do.

Blame is another word for excuses.

Blaming something or someone else for our lack of progress is far easier than acknowledging that we've made a mistake or two, or not done as much as we could have or more importantly SHOULD have done. We don't want other people to know we've been lazy so we blame others, or our circumstances.

Near the end of Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon lists what he named “57 Famous Alibis by Old Man IF.” And he writes that “People who do not succeed have one distinguishing trait in common. They know all the reasons for failure, and have what they believe to be air-tight alibis to explain away their own lack of achievement.
“Some of these alibis are clever, and a few of them are justifiable by the facts. But alibis cannot be used for money. The world wants to know only one thing—HAVE YOU ACHIEVED SUCCESS?”

Well to bring Napoleon Hill’s book right up to date, here are a few of my favourites:

If I had more time

If I had more money

If the kids/spouse weren’t so demanding

If I had some help around the house

If I didn’t have so much homework/housework

If I didn’t have such a demanding boss

If I didn’t have to take junior to soccer practice I could do ….

If I had more money I’d be happy

If I had time to exercise I wouldn’t be so fat

If conditions were different

If I could just live my life over again I would…

If I’d known about this last week (month, year)

If I’d taken the opportunity when I was first offered it

If only I were younger, thinner, smarter…

If only things were better at work…

If I could just get out of debt I could…

If I hadn’t tried and failed before…

There are a million excuses we can use as to why we haven’t gotten to where we thought we were going to be, or thought we should be, and by the time we get to the end of our lives we will have used them all, to justify why we haven’t achieved “success”.

First and foremost I would like to dispel a myth or two. You will always find time to do what you need to do, and more importantly want to do.

You will always find time to do what you need to do, and more importantly want to do.

Interesting isn’t it.

We all find time to watch the movie, or go to the ball game, but we can’t find the time to read the books that will educate ourselves, or take the classes that will give us the skills that we need to take our businesses to the next level. That to some people is “study” and who wants to study, we did that when we were at school didn’t we.

Let me dispel another myth for you right here.

The formal classes give you the basic grounding and the information that you need. But unless you put that information to use, it will only remain as information, it will never become “knowledge”.

Since leaving school and later university, I have read hundreds of books, papers, articles, research reports. Why? Because I want to brag about it? Well no, that’s not the reason. Because I want to show off my information gathering skills? No, that’s not it either.

So why do I read so much?

Well the first is for pleasure. Remember what I said about finding time to do what you want to do? Well reading for me is something that I want to do.

The second reason is that the information someone has taken the time to gather up and place in one book can take me to places I’ve never been to before, I can meet people who I could never get to meet otherwise, I can hear their wise council and I can try and add their wise council to the way that my life and the life of my family turns out. Now don’t get me wrong, some books bore me rigid, I still can’t read books on economics, or a profit and loss statement without getting hopelessly confused, which probably explains why I am still struggling with money and need outside advice. But I know that if I didn’t read as much as I did, then my life would be far less richer than it is now.

So what excuses are you currently using to explain why you aren’t doing as much or as well as you should.

By the way, everyone can see through the blame game and the excuses list. More often than not, they can see through it because they are using the same kinds of excuses for not doing whatever it is they should be doing. And by doing so they validate your reasons for wasting time, just as you validate theirs. I suppose you could call it a support network in reverse. Instead of telling you to get on with it, or encouraging you to try something a little differently, they say things like "Oh I know, it happened to me, I mean it's just not fair is it?"

So if you want to get more out of every day you need to find the blame list, and you need to throw it away. You also need to:

1. Take responsibility for every action that you have made so far, and those you are about to take, no matter how small.

We can choose to blame other people for where we are and what we do; or we can take responsibility for our own actions.

We can choose to do what we have always done, or we can choose to do something different,

We can choose to work hard on what we say we want to achieve, or we can sit in front of the television and drink beer all night.

The choice as they say is ours. And it is entirely up to us how we allocate our time and who we allocate our time to. No-one can make us do anything we don’t want. After all we don’t live in a dictatorship (thankfully). Only you can decide to change, no one can do it for you.

You may decide to buy a gym membership so that you can achieve your goal of getting fit and lose some body fat. Whilst this is a good start, you still need to “go to the gym” on a regular basis for this to happen.

2. Acknowledge that every decision has an effect on what you do and the next set of choices that you are faced with. And then accept the consequences of those decisions.

The choices that you make on a daily basis can have a major effect on where you end up at the end of this year, in 5 years, in 10 years.

Don’t believe me? Well imagine that you pick up a cup of take away coffee from the drive through coffee shop. Yes it’s a habit, and one that you are not ready to give up just yet. You may also have noticed that over the months and the years that you’ve been picking up the coffee (and the occasional muffin or bagel) that the waistline on your trousers has gotten tighter, and your bank balance always seems to be low for some unknown reason.

Well the reason is because you spend your money a few dollars at a time, we don’t think it’s so bad, whilst you may baulk at spending $800 in one go, a few dollars a day doesn’t seem to matter. By the way $3 x 5 days x 48 weeks in a typical working year = $720. Just as gaining the odd pound or two over a year doesn’t seem that bad. But a few years of that and you will need to buy a bigger size of clothing.

3. Limit your association with those people who try and validate your excuse list.

Assuming you do want to get more out of every day it is important to find the blame list and to throw it in the bin. You are totally responsible for every thought that you have, every word that you speak and every action that you take. You see, they want as many excuses to not do something as you do. And they want us to justify their actions as being OK. Well if they want to continue to live their lives running from one crisis to the next or from one drama to the next, let them. If you are willing to accept responsibility for every action that you take, no matter how small, you can hardly blame them for wasting your time, only you can decide how you are going to spend those precious minutes or hours that you have been allocated today.

Remember you can always get more money – you cannot get more time. This is the only chance you have of living today, so what are you going to do with it? Are you still happy to continue wasting it with people who need to make excuses as to why they aren’t getting on?

No, me neither.

4. Understand that frustration is a call for ACTION and not an excuse to go and find a corner and sit in it.

We all get frustrated from time to time. However, those people who are looking for an excuse will seize frustration by the hand and use it to explain why they haven’t managed to do whatever it was they were supposed to do.

We get frustrated because we haven’t found all the answers, or we know what we have to do, we just don’t want to do it.

Frustration should not be a brick wall that you bang your head against, but another chance to see if there is a shortcut somewhere hidden close by. We may have closed our eyes and our minds to all the options open to us, consequently we fail to see the ladder leaning against the wall. That ladder could be a person who can help us, or a book that we can read.
Source:http://www.motivateme.info/procrastination-habit-blame/

Rejuvenating: “Sharpening the Saw”

Suppose you were to come upon someone in the woods working feverishly to saw down a tree.
"What are you doing?" you ask.
"Can't you see?" comes the impatient reply. "I'm sawing down this tree."
"You look exhausted!" you exclaim. "How long have you been at it?"
"Over five hours," he returns, "and I'm beat! This is hard work."
"Well why don't you take a break for a few minutes and sharpen that saw?" you inquire.  "I'm sure it would go a lot faster."
"I don't have time to sharpen the saw," the man says emphatically. "I'm too busy sawing!“

Source: “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”
By: Steve Covey

An African Fable

Every morning in Africa,a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lionor it will be killed.Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up.It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle or it will starve.It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up,you’d better be running.

Communication process

Why you need to get your message across
Why Communications Skills Are So Important:
The purpose of communication is to get your message across to others clearly and unambiguously.

Doing this involves effort from both the sender of the message and the receiver. And it's a process that can be fraught with error, with messages often misinterpreted by the recipient. When this isn't detected, it can cause tremendous confusion, wasted effort and missed opportunity.

In fact, communication is only successful when both the sender and the receiver understand the same information as a result of the communication.
By successfully getting your message across, you convey your thoughts and ideas effectively. When not successful, the thoughts and ideas that you send do not necessarily reflect your own, causing a communications breakdown and creating roadblocks that stand in the way of your goals – both personally and professionally.

In a recent survey of recruiters from companies with more than 50,000 employees, communication skills were cited as the single more important decisive factor in choosing managers. The survey, conducted by the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz Business School, points out that communication skills, including written and oral presentations, as well as an ability to work with others, are the main factor contributing to job success.

In spite of the increasing importance placed on communication skills, many individuals continue to struggle, unable to communicate their thoughts and ideas effectively – whether in verbal or written format. This inability makes it nearly impossible for them to compete effectively in the workplace, and stands in the way of career progression.

Getting your message across is paramount to progressing. To do this, you must understand what your message is, what audience you are sending it to, and how it will be perceived. You must also weigh-in the circumstances surrounding your communications, such as situational and cultural context.
Communications Skills - The Importance of Removing Barriers:
Problems with communication can pop-up at every stage of the communication process (which consists of sender, encoding, channel, decoding, receiver, feedback and context - see the diagram below) and have the potential to create misunderstanding and confusion.

To be an effective communicator and to get your point across without misunderstanding and confusion, your goal should be to lessen the frequency of these problems at each stage of this process with clear, concise, accurate, well-planned communications. We follow the process through below:

Source...
As the source of the message, you need to be clear about why you're communicating, and what you want to communicate. You also need to be confident that the information you're communicating is useful and accurate.

Message...
The message is the information that you want to communicate.

Encoding...
This is the process of transferring the information you want to communicate into a form that can be sent and correctly decoded at the other end. Your success in encoding depends partly on your ability to convey information clearly and simply, but also on your ability to anticipate and eliminate sources of confusion (for example, cultural issues, mistaken assumptions, and missing information.) A key part of this is knowing your audience: Failure to understand who you are communicating with will result in delivering messages that are misunderstood.

Channel...
Messages are conveyed through channels, with verbal including face-to-face meetings, telephone and videoconferencing; and written including letters, emails, memos and reports.

Different channels have different strengths and weaknesses. For example, it's not particularly effective to give a long list of directions verbally, while you'll quickly cause problems if you criticize someone strongly by email.

Decoding...
Just as successful encoding is a skill, so is successful decoding (involving, for example, taking the time to read a message carefully, or listen actively to it.) Just as confusion can arise from errors in encoding, it can also arise from decoding errors. This is particularly the case if the decoder doesn't have enough knowledge to understand the message.

Receiver...
Your message is delivered to individual members of your audience. No doubt, you have in mind the actions or reactions you hope your message will get from this audience. Keep in mind, though, that each of these individuals enters into the communication process with ideas and feelings that will undoubtedly influence their understanding of your message, and their response. To be a successful communicator, you should consider these before delivering your message, and act appropriately.

Feedback...
Your audience will provide you with feedback, verbal and nonverbal reactions to your communicated message. Pay close attention to this feedback, as it is the only thing that allows you to be confident that your audience has understood your message. If you find that there has been a misunderstanding, at least you have the opportunity to send the message a second time.

Context...
The situation in which your message is delivered is the context. This may include the surrounding environment or broader culture (i.e. corporate culture, international cultures, etc.).

Removing Barriers At All These Stages
To deliver your messages effectively, you must commit to breaking down the barriers that exist in each of these stages of the communication process.

Let’s begin with the message itself. If your message is too lengthy, disorganized, or contains errors, you can expect the message to be misunderstood and misinterpreted. Use of poor verbal and body language can also confuse the message.

Barriers in context tend to stem from senders offering too much information too fast. When in doubt here, less is oftentimes more. It is best to be mindful of the demands on other people’s time, especially in today’s ultra-busy society.

Once you understand this, you need to work to understand your audience’s culture, making sure you can converse and deliver your message to people of different backgrounds and cultures within your own organization, in your country and even abroad.

Ten tips to the top

1. Business activities - reduce operating cost, build revenue.
2. Develop a consistent daily work routine.
3. Always use a meeting agenda.
4. Delegate.
5. Specialize.
6. Position yourself accurately.
7. Be a professional advisor.
8. Always evidence trust and integrity.
9 . Be straightforward, candid.
10. Don't forget to say thank you.

5 stages of innovation

Denial
• You deny that the new innovation is worthwhile.
• You say things like ‘That will never scale’ or ‘That was done back in the 80s and no one used it’
• Whenever anyone mentions the new innovation, you present a laundry list of reasons why it won’t work.
Anger
• You actively unsubscribe from blogs who rave about the new innovation
• You snort with derision and roll your eyes when you see the innovation on a resume
• You engage in flame wars with advocates of the innovation
• The phrase “propeller head” appears in your writing, as does the phrase “Blah, blah, blah, I am so sick of hearing about ___”
Bargaining
• You look for ways to justify your disinterest, in the face of clear market interest in the innovation
• You say things like ‘Yes, but without support for XYZ, it’s dead in the water.’
• You’ll buy books that include the new innovation, but only as long as they also include something else you’re really fond of. For example:
o Agile Development and XML - the forgotten connection
 or
o Monads and Method Invocations - How Haskell is just like Introspection
• At conferences, you’ll visit the session about the new innovation, but you’ll leave early.

Sadness
• You start to feel tired, because the world is changing around you
• You say things like “I’m too old for this shit.”
• You feel stupid, because the new innovation just doesn’t quite seem to make sense
Acceptance
• Finally, you realize that everyone’s figuring out the new innovation, and it’s all a big mess.
• You read blogs or news articles and you say things like “Wow, they don’t know what to do with it either!”
• If you’re entrepreneurially inclined, you start to think about how you could build a startup around the innovation and retire early and rich.
For most innovations, many people will never move past anger.