Monthly Archives: September 2015

Thinking Big

We hear it everyday; in School, In College and at our workplace. “You need to think big if you need to be successful or get things done”. What does this exactly mean?

Thinking big is the ability to understand the situation and analytically arrive at an answer.

This is not easy. Having an understanding of a situation demands understanding the probable answers and then applying our knowledge to derive an appropriate solution.

In few scenarios we do have a lot of input. Even if we did not study the subject we talk to people, read literature and arrive at a methodology. For example, ‘Money Management’. The moment we start earning, we get lot of suggestions of how to save and invest so that we get good returns on our money. Financial institutions do a lot of advertising for us to understand. Even if we did not study Finance as a subject we develop our skills. When it comes to what we want to do in life or better at a job? We don’t get this information easily. We need to invest time to learn and apply our learnings.

In a running race, to participate in an event, you would work hard to build up the stamina and practice your body to help you run without injuring yourself. What differentiates the winner and others is the technique you have built. Developing technique is based on understanding body, its abilities and the plan we device to build it to our need. The person who comes first has ‘thought big’ and understood his/her short comings and worked on them even more than the one who comes second.

It is the same in other facets of life too. Understanding our strengths/weakness; devising a plan to better at each of them are the key ingredients of thinking big.

So the next time you are addressing something, design a plan to get the best out of you. This needs practice and the moment you start practicing you are practicing thinking big.

Perception

Everyday we see news articles and posts on Social Media about a lot of things. In my feed on Facebook for instance, for every 100 posts which come up, 60% are perception based which fortunately or unfortunately are “shared” and not supported with authentic data and mostly leave a negative mark.

In today’s world what we really need in “Perception with data” and this makes a difference.

What happens to just ‘perception’ not supported by data? This creates the negative impact. This impacts our thoughts and these thoughts hamper our actual thinking ability. What happens when your thinking ability comes down is that you turn to opinion based decisions. We all know that opinionated decisions hamper not only us an individual’s but also others around and this impacts the overall society, which has an adverse effect on the Country.

Media is a very powerful tool and we should curate it for a better living.

As Dr. APJ Kalam says “Where there is righteousness in the heart, there is beauty in the character; when there is beauty in the character, there is harmony in the home; when there is harmony in the home, there is an order in the nation; when there is order in the nation, there is peace in the world”.

How to become a Visionary?

 Visionaries are people who thin they want to change the world in what ever way they can. By creating their own company, by writing, by traveling, by reading, by sharing their ideas or by creating value in their own lives.


When you embark on a journey with the intention of creating value to yourself, it starts with humiliation, rejection and non-conformance.

When you want to create value to your life, you will need patience, willingness to accept what does not work, embrace it and then build over it. All these are qualities of visionaries who changed the world.

When you wish to change the world, you change yourself and automatically the world around you changes and you become the epitome of change.

Have you embarked on the journey yet?

 

Where do Ideas come from?

Most of the complex problems in the world are already solved in the past; Problems which are not on priority are being solved now and the boring problems have been left for this generation to solve.

From Computing to Search to Facebook to LinkedIn to Twitter, all these are not new innovations/inventions, but problems which were solved previously and are now addressed at larger platforms.

Today’s Innovations are stemming from frustrations or inability to connect various solutions. If you look at online market places which bridge the gap in the B2C and B2B segment, this is not a high priority problem. There are existing solutions where we can order goods (by word of mouth, by friends etc). This solution has a limitation. The key limitation is that the choice’s are very minimal and you do not know the variety available in the market. When the problem is magnified, we thought of bringing the world shopping to our finger tips.

For instance, this blog idea is not my invention, but a thought which came about while I was reading about FitMeIn – An online application which offers monthly multiple fitness memberships. What is the pain point they are addressing – Boredom of going to gym everyday. Similarly, quite a few solutions we see today are amalgamation of existing solutions.

Today, there are many platforms from where you can pick ideas if you have the passion to solve them. Use Quora, where you can find many questions and possible answers. Research on this platform to find ideas which you can take forward and solve them. Organisations like HeadStart, Open Coffee Club etc provide a platform for us to solve problems.

Don’t Copy and Paste, but Adapt and Paste is the new mantra.

5 Steps to create your Niche.

Creating a niche to bring out the best in yourself always is not an easy one. In today’s world, identifying skill set, nurturing the right attributes with apt understanding of domain are the key qualities to establish oneself.

 

The 10 Year Rule
To be a perfectionist in a particular field, one needs 10,000 hours of practice. Let us break this into a practical way to implement.

 

Years 1-2 of your career goes into understanding the “working world” after spending 21 years in school/college.

 

Years 2-4 go into understand what the work is.

 

Years 4-6 go into mastering what you are doing.

 

At this juncture, you need to understand what you wish to do – If you wish to add professional qualifications to strengthen subject knowledge or find work which will help you broaden understanding of the subject.

 

Years 6-8 go into building on the learnings.

 

The last two years in the decade goes into establishing yourself as the Subject Matter Expert.

 

These 10 years will help you complete 10,000 hours of practice and help you identify, create and nurture your niche.

 

If you aspire to make a meaningful impact in what you do, identifying you niche is the first step.

What do you want to be remembered for?

Life gets really unfair at times. Robs you of what you deserve and what you are destined. Brings you down each second, trying to show you that what ever you do, it has the upper hand. It teaches you to cry, loose confidence and hurt yourself. This is the reality of life.
What do you at these times? Give up? The easy answer is “What ever is destined, it will happen” and this is correct. What ever is destined, will definitely happen. But, if you take a moment and question yourself, the path you have taken, the decisions you have made, all of these will give you different answers.
What did Steve Jobs do when he got fired from his own company? What did Richard Branson do when he had to sell his successfully running music business to start Virgin Airlines and when British Airways was beating him top to bottom? Did they give up? If they did, today, I will not be typing on a MacBook or think of flying in Virgin Atlantic.
Simple Question we need to ask ourself is “What do I want to be remembered for?” This is what Dr. APJ Kalam asked himself. When someone asked him this question, they were looking forward to hearing – Scientist, Statesman etc. But, Dr. Kalam was quick to respond “Teacher”.
Fortunate for him, Dr. Kalam breathed his last when he was teaching and we remember him as a true Thought Leader who had his Theatre of Action perfectly in place.
So, what do you want to be remembered for?