Category: Everything else

Today, I learnt how different people are, as it was my pleasure to get to know a colleague who has been to 140 countries. And this is by no means 1 day in and out, he’s spent 5 out of his last 10 years traveling (i.e. he spends half his year as a management consultant and the remaining half traveling). And he is only 33..

I found this extremely inspirational – not the fact that he had gone to 140 countries but the fact that he had the courage to come out of his lucrative full time consulting gig, start out as a freelancer and live his dream. That takes a lot of guts and courage and that is once again, truly inspiring! He plans to write a book about his travels everywhere (literally) when he finishes the list in 2012.

He promised to show me his map where he’s marked the countries he’s traveled and I’m looking forward to taking a pic and posting it here. Coming soon..

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On a slightly different note, having a travel friendly passport definitely helps as well. For example, being German, he takes many a weekend trip that I (having an Indian passport) can’t quite take. So, well.. it helps being born in Western Europe if you have travel around the world goals. But again, taking nothing away from his tenacity.. :)

between work and opportunity..

between hard work and BIG opportunity.. :)

between getting bogged down and pulling yourself together

between negativity and positivity..

between slave-behavior and leadership..

between being ordered and taking the initiative..

between growing old and staying young (in heart, mind and spirit)

And in my opinion, the difference between adding years to life and adding life to those years..

Here’s to proactivity – no matter how adverse the circumstances. It takes only 7 muscles to smile.. or so I’m told!

Hahaha.. Happy Friday!

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This is a personal observation as I find myself stuck still in transition between tier 2 and tier 3.

What is very encouraging is that we are in full control of what we laugh at. The tough part, to me atleast, is to transition to the point of laughing at myself. While I’m out of tier 2, I’m definitely not into tier 3 yet.

Not there yet, but will get there.. :)

Reminds me of the quote that goes like ‘Overprepare and then go with the flow’

Happy Thursday.. it’s my Saturday here in Oman so I’m looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend!

‘Unpleasant‘ can range from unexpected to simply annoying at that point of time..

You’re readying your strong irritated response.

My advice from recent experience – ‘File it away’

The outcome is never going to be good and you’ll probably look at the email with a smile when you open it tomorrow. And you’ll wonder why you reacted so strongly in the first place.

Our annoyance (directed at others) is a result of our annoyance at some event during that day. Let’s contain it, and move on..

There is a school of thought that questions this. ‘Why internalize?’ they ask. Why think of yourself as the cause when it’s not always the case?

I agree with them – it is not always the case but it is useful to internalize it just for the fact that it puts us in total control of our own lives, reactions and emotions..

Haha! I simply love this one!!

Have a nice day! :)
It’s ‘Friday’ here in Oman and I’m looking forward to the weekend!! :)

I’m practicing a small change exercise – I realize I’m still not satisfied with the look of this blog (or my other one for the matter). So, I’m putting myself through an exercise where I’ll try and make changes to the template from on a regular bases and hopefully stumble on to a good one.

The only issue with this process is that the part of me that doesn’t like the change wants to go right back to the original..

And the fight of course is internal as the other part is trying hard to resist it..

Change is easy to preach and talk about, tougher to accept and internalize though. Even small change..

Have a great day everyone! :)

I’m half way through the ‘Get it done’ guy’s book and I find it a nice read. It has many of the age old GTD concepts (atleast) so far briskly packaged.

One concept that caught my eye was the concept of an ‘Action Day’. A simple application of an ‘Action Day’ in our lives could work in the following situation.

Situation:
A whole host of household tasks are piling up. Eg: head to the bank, buy this commodity from so-and-so supermart half an hour away, exchange a spoilt appliance, buy a new tech gadget.

Complication:
Given our busy lives from Monday to Friday and (often) busier weekends, it’s just extremely hard to find time to do these things.

Solution:
1) Schedule an action day (eg: last saturday of the month) i.e. batch all the annoying errands to this one day
2) Get 2-3 friends on board so you don’t feel alone. Maybe they have their own action days or maybe they play your ‘boss’ so you report to them every 2-3 hours to report progress.
3) And make sure you either have a nice incentive or a strong consequence – whichever makes you happy. From personal experience, the consequence works better but hey, that’s up to you..

This could, of course, apply to other tasks that we have been procrastinating for a long time (Eg: read THAT book, read THAT research paper, work on THAT report etc).

In short, pick a date, get a friend on board and have fun banishing THAT task out of your life!

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Nice concept I thought. I’m looking forward to applying it..