Author: alearningaday

Smartphones are taking over the world and we see more emails with the familiar ‘Sent from my iPhone’ signature.

Lifehacker has a good article on Email Annoyances that is worth a read.

For those who would like the executive summary, one best practice might be to have a line like

‘Sent from my mobile. Please excuse the brevity, spelling and punctuation.’

I use ‘Sent from Handheld. Please ignore any typos’ myself.

I’ve said this many a time on this blog. It sometime helps to think of ourselves as a venture – ‘Me Inc’. We are the CEO’s and the Chief Investors in this venture. It is our responsibility to make sure this venture is successful and happy.

Just like any real world company, it is vital we have our ‘Board of Directors’. Typically, this board consists of respected people who would like to see this venture be successful. The more committed this board of directors are to the venture’s success, the better the venture’s strategic decisions are.

In our own lives, this ‘Board of Directors’ is a set of respected mentors to whom we go for advice.

Over the years, as I have come to realize that ‘The World is My Family’, I’ve had more help than I could have imagined from my own ‘Board of Directors’. There have been few who have stayed with me, some who have come and left but this group’s care, love and belief in me have constantly left me amazed.

While I will write about the difficulties of engaging mentors some other time, I think the simple idea here is to find a mentor/mentors if you don’t have one. And if you don’t know where to start from, try and find people a couple of years older who you would like to emulate/be like and then reach out to them and try and keep them engaged with what’s happening in your life.

And if you are nervous about reaching out, do keep in mind that there is 1 thing that will probably go your way – if those you are reaching out to are indeed doing well, then they probably haven’t gotten there alone. So, you have every chance they will atleast understand where you are coming from and be of help.

Universities/schools of education encourage ‘independence’ in their bid to get us ‘standing on our own feet.’ The issue is that the fact remains that in the ‘real world’, nobody gets to where they are, alone. We need all the support we can get. And just like it is a CEO’s responsibility to ensure he has a board he can rely on, it is our duty to do so in our lives as well!

It often amazes me as to how we all live in worlds of our own and how we are kept so incredibly busy in them.

I am always amazed by the idea that every person walking on the street has a story of his/her own complete with drama, hopes, fears and a mixture of emotions.

And hence, the simple idea that perspective is the most valuable commodity on the planet is a powerful one. For we can get so very entrenched in our own worlds that we often lose sense of what’s on the outside.

Today was one of those days when I felt humbled after a long conversation. It wasn’t that I was feeling particularly ‘high’ but I guess the act of looking ahead at the many challenges that lie ahead made me reflect on the past, and look ahead at the same time with the sort of perspective that doesn’t allow for bullish confidence nor fear.

Some might call it ‘inner peace’ but to me, it was just an act of keeping perspective. It helps greatly to meet with people outside our immediate circle, often even people who are way above our league in intelligence, achievement, age etc (if we can manage to find some time) because it always helps give a different perspective. And that is always useful.

Now, I have seen many white boards destroyed thanks to being written on by permanent markers.

Coming from this background, I groaned when I saw that a friend had written on her board with one. I was vaguely aware that using nail polish remover generally solves the problem but felt that sinking feeling all the same when I saw I couldn’t erase the marker off.

And that’s when this friend simply wrote/drew/scribbled on the text with the ‘whiteboard’ marker and erased the whole thing.

(The science is that the whiteboard marker simply ensures that there is a dose of xylene on the ink which makes it erase-able)

It feels ‘obvious’ now that he has done it. But it wasn’t to me and wasn’t to a friend who I helped the very same day. She was considering replacing the board altogether!

So, next time you find someone feeling bad about writing on a whiteboard with a permanent marker, amaze them by scribbling over the writing and taking it off. It could even be a magic trick! :)

We’ve all heard this in different forms but I was struck by its simplicity – in understanding and application.

Let’s take a simple example with just 2 activities –

1. Reading

2. Exercising

They are not easy to do on an every day basis. We all are busy after all, aren’t we? How can we dig out 30 mins to an hour for reading? And the same holds true for exercising as well, of course.

What amazes me is that the most successful folks around have just made it a habit – exercising 30 mins to an hour every day (typically in the morning) and definitely 30 mins to an hour of reading.

These are simple examples – I, for one, am still struggling with making daily exercise a habit. I did it for a month in June and I could feel the difference getting up @ 530am in the morning and getting to exercise. But since then, the simple truth is that I’ve been making one excuse after another and I’ve been trying to justify (to myself) that exercising 3 times a week is not that bad. It probably isn’t.. but then again, I am missing the point.

A Bill Gates wouldn’t bother with that. He’s simply made a habit of doing this kind of thing..

That’s simply what defines great people – they live by doing. And then by doing more..

Live now, do now. Time to get back to daily exercise!

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Here’s a link to Albert Gray’s full speech – for those who are interested.

Last October, I decided to take inspiration from some of the popular blogs out there and put in a picture with every long form post.

Over the past many months, I have been amazed as to how easy Google Images has made it for Bloggers to find pictures.

And today, I thought I would pay tribute..