Author: alearningaday

‘listen very carefully’..
Ha ha ha! :D

to do it all by yourself..

That preparation will be key!

:)

Goodbye’s are hard. Vinod, 1 year my senior at NUS, is off home and then into working life at Barcap.

Vinod was my 1st association with NUS. As a member of the society of Indian scholars, he had been down at the airport the day I arrived and all associations with NUS started with him. Still remember him trying to fool around with me saying he was a male nurse scholar among others, greeted us with a ‘sup machan’.. We always wanted to catch up, never did.. he was busy, so was i.. we fell into this busy wheel called university life and never really found time to even sit down and say hello until today..

Thanks Vinod, for everything! All the best, and we will stay in touch! :)

those who predict have little knowledge. :)

This is my 990th post. When I started penning my learnings into this blog in May 2008, it was a distant dream that I would be able to keep it up for so long..

Looking forward to the 1000th.. I think it will be dedicated to the people that made this happen… haha

Space:

Places with more space between people(a.k.a less population density) have a culture of giving people space. This is apparent if you have spent a week in India and the US

Spice

Hotter places => More spicy food..

Happiness

Happiness is measured differently in warmer climates which are more agriculture based. Here, values are things life family and moving out of such a place is unthinkable(just like a farmer would never leave his land)..

Warmth

Proportional to the climate of a place.
Also, the colder the place, the more time spent with friends dancing and partying(its cold, need to sweat it out!:))

Building Houses

Build houses slowly.. A friend of mine was mentioning today that while he was constructing his apartment, phase 1 was just to get it set. The next phase to improve it and it would be a few versions before it got better. Of course, this applies to anything we do – presentations, project reports etc..

But, on thinking deep, I realized thats what my Granddad did when he built our house. It was completed fully with 2 floors only in about 10 years..

Nice learning.. :)

The Team:
Top Row
From Left

Bruno: From whom I learnt to lead.. define the boundaries, give the team direction and let go..
Nishanth: From whom I learnt to laugh at myself.. :)
Jasvind: From whom I learnt that improvement begins by focusing on the things we CAN do..
Rohan: From whom I learnt to be an idiot, but a lovable one(hopefully..haha)
Alvin: From whom I learnt that wonderful manners never lose their significance..
Dong Hao: From whom I learnt that emotional endears..

Bottom Row
Eugenia: From whom I learnt that there is such a thing as a lovable, reliable and caring boss.. :)
Ankur: From whom I learnt that being a student is the most important aspect of being a teacher..
Peter: From whom I learnt that humor breaks barriers..
Daan: From whom I learnt that it takes a lot of effort to make people happy..
Alan: From whom I learnt ‘Bonjournoooo’ – :D
Yinning: From whom I learnt that the most important thing, at times, is to give yourself a complete rest.. :)

And to Bruno for the moment of the camp, ‘Peter.. Carmen is online! :)’ ha ha ha ha ha

1) Important to trust and let go when leading a team. Can’t be controlling everything..

2) Delegation is KEY if you ever aim to grow..

3) Solve problems with systems rather than by talking. Let a system be hard on a person rather than wasting energy and emotion shouting at someone..

4) I am not a 100% secure person. I’m still taking time to find myself. I learnt that it is ok to be insecure.. as long you are aware of it and use it positively to drive you to do better. This is true with any problem.. it is ok as long as we accept it and then act..

5) A smile can brighten a day!

6) I’d rather be a person of value than a person of success.. Doesn’t mean I hope to be any less successful, but means i hope to be a person of value a lot more.. ha ha..

7) My biggest dream is to be a coach, be it of a football team like Man Utd or my own life academy. I must take time every week to coach somebody and get better myself..

8) My greatest strength is to react quickly to feedback. I may not be the smartest person on the block but if I can remember to learn quickly and persist, I can give the smartest a run for it.. ha ha :D

9) Little things define great people. Anybody can clear out the trash. The best make sure that the room has NO trash left while the not-so-great ones will leave a trail behind which the others clean up. And we always ask little things of the people we love – little things which seem so insignificant, yet big..

10) Anything is possible if we make a shift in our thinking. It doesn’t mean we can walk into Manchester United tomorrow and play a great game if we can’t play football for nuts but if we are indeed an average football player, if we can keep cool, not panic, just play our role, work hard and make people like Rooney and Giggs look good.. atleast we will survive..
And often, survival is a fantastic result! :D

I survived RealAcad.. there you go.. :D

I had a really bad memory for names 2 years ago, not because I had a bad memory but just because I didn’t care so much to remember names. Then, 2 incidents happened..

1) We were out for dinner as a team and a mentor of mine began addressing the waiter by name(they generally wore tags) and suddenly, this guy started serving us with great pleasure. I was amazed!
2) I read a bunch of books that emphasized that the easiest way to make an impression with people is to remembered their name! :)

So, the effort began. I spent an exciting week with a bunch of truly amazing people.. and I realized that remembering names can be really fun. Here’s an example..

Peter has a wonderful little nephew called Daan. Guess what, we had a camp mate called Daan. His niece is called Finka(reminds me of another RealAcader called Tinka).. and sister Sara(simple enough to remember eh? :))

Now, Daan’s sister’s name is Elaine and Alan(another camp mate) also has a sister with the same name..

Aren’t the patterns fun?

What do we need to do?
We will need to take some effort to make sure we write names down/form maps about people.
For eg: Daan’s sister Elaine’s map in my mind would be – Elaine, Law – related to Daan-political Science, Canada etc.. makes it easier to remember Elaine all of a sudden..
or Daan’s brother’s map would be something like – Robert, runs faster than Daan, pic of Robert on Daan’s desktop wall paper.. :)

How can we do it?
Here are a few tips that may help..

1) Memory is all about forming patterns. It is the exact opposite of decoding logic/algorithms. Here, we just have to create these algo’s for ourselves. Now, everyone has their own programmable computer.. so its a question of what works for you.

2) What works for me is.. if I know when I meet a person that I won’t remember it(we know it.. most likely we can feel it in our gut), I make sure I type their name into Memos on my Palm(do find a place that you look at from time to time) and within 3 days, I am confident I can take the memo off..

3) I also take a bit of time to form mental maps about people. Helps here to prepare.. for example, before the camp I had little maps of people drawn out for myself from applications/intro cards. This may/may not be in our control, but hey.. let’s do the best we can with what we have.. :D

4) Helps understand and get to know people. I know someone whose name means the ‘morning dew’ and his sister’s name means ‘morning’ and somebody else whose special friend means ‘wisdom’ in latin. These things definitely help us remember.. but again, they take effort..

5) There is NOTHING wrong in asking a person you have met after a long time to repeat their names. It can feel bad but its much better than pretending.. :) 1 way that can save your face though is –
5a. Ask them for their phone number as your phone has been reformatted and ask ‘How do I spell your name?’

:)
Hope this Names101 helps whoever necessary. Just as a closing note, it’s worth remembering names.. it works like Magic and all it takes is a bit of effort! :)

Oh, and Big Question
Will I remember all the connections between Daan, Peter and Alan 6 years, or even 6 months from now?
I’m not sure would be the best answer, but atleast I know I can come back to this blog post and refresh my memory.. ha ha ha

:D

is like driving a car looking at the rear view mirror..

:)