The Success Mantras - an amateur speaks

Let me try to don the garbs of a motivator today. Though few may argue, how can an unestablished and unproven person inspire others, then let me tell you that my stars say the next Roman Abramovich is in the making !

Let me start by stating the obvious.

If you really want your dreams to come true, you've got to dream first !

But the truth is few people dream and even fewer people have the courage and conviction to follow their dreams. The principal reason that prevents people from recording success commensurate with the reservoir of talent and genius they possess is the fear of failure.

So here goes the first lesson :
Never get the wings of your dreams clipped by your fear of the unknown.
Let loose your imagination and dream big !

'Dream for stars, you will at least reach the moon !'

Thus it becomes imperative to have a dream, a dream target, a dream destination before you embark on your journey towards success. Some will say 'Success is a journey not a destination'. Well yes, it's very much true, but just tell me, how can you start a journey when you don't even have a destination in mind ; would you call an oceanic expedition a success even before you reached the island you set out for ?
You must have a measurable yet progressive goal against which you could always benchmark the progress of your expedition.

Now that you've a dream, you've got to take an important decision.

'Do you have the pertinacity, mental strength and conviction to realize your dream ?'

If No...well,no need to say more. You may go back to sleep and dream being the next Bill Gates, if you aspire to be a technocrat or being the next Arsene Wenger, if you are a soccer aficionado like me. Sweet dreams !

But if your answer is in affirmative and you really want to realize your dream then it's the perfect time to do some macro-level planning.

'If you fail to plan, you plan to fail'.

Identify the important steps/stages en route your destination. Identify the competencies and resources that you presently have or must acquire/build in order to successfully sail through the different stages of your plan. You may not be able to visualize everything at this stage, but at least you would have made a start. Do remember, the plan we have right now is just a road map to guide us along our journey; it's not once and for all, so you are expected to update it time and again as you move ahead. While devising the plan do keep in mind that the plan should be flexible enough to accommodate some unexpected provisions that may arise in future because of unforeseen reasons.

Now comes the most important stage of your journey - 'The Execution'.
As Nike says, 'Just do it !'.
While 'doing it' you don't just have to follow the plan very religiously and meticulously. Rather the plan should be seen as I guiding force just to ensure that you are always moving towards your target though the pace at times may seem a bit slow. Always remember, 'Rome was not built in a day', so take small yet measured steps one at a time.
I agree, this all is easier said than done. No doubt this is the most difficult and enduring part of journey and is the one which is going to decide the height of the success summit that you will scale.

Perseverance is the key to this stage. History is replete with examples spread across different spheres of life which prove this point. Most of us must have heard the legend of the King Bruce and the spider. The king got his inspiration from a spider who despite failing to reach the top of the cave a number of times kept trying and eventually succeeded. Napoleon Bonaparte is said to have remarked , 'Victory belongs to the most persevering'.

Beware of the temporary setbacks and failures you are likely to encounter in this stage. After years of endurance, most people give in when their fortune is just round the corner. Remember, 'the hour before the dawn is the darkest'.

'Don't give up though the pace seems slow, you might succeed with another blow'.

All work and no play makes jack a dull boy.
The destination is far, the path is tough and the journey is long. So make it a habit to celebrate small successes that you come across in between. That will keep you motivated to survive the hardships of your journey and make you feel 'it is enjoyable'.

Never ever become complacent and haughty after reaching the success summit.
It's much easier to fall from the mountain top than it is to reach it !

Go ahead, chase your dreams !
Success will be all yours !

All the Best !

Who the hell got me here ?

Last two months have really been quite taxing on me. Not because I did a lot of research work and published a lot of papers in them, but rather because I had to attend a lot of insipid, annoying, exhausting or rather distressing meetings with no clear-cut purpose or objective in mind. Yesterday was one of those days again. Yet again, I was put through the same ordeal, the same rigours of sitting through a directionless, rudderless discussion where everyone (expect a few intellect souls) was wondering how on earth could they be at the wrong place at the wrong time day after day ! As usual the non-existant agenda was ambiguous, the preparatory groundwork missing and the quorum members totally awe-struck wondering what had struck them !

After attending and observing a series of such discussions and meetings, an interesting definition of 'A Meeting' has evolved.

A Meeting is a deconstructive approach to decision making.It's a forum where people tend to savage each other's opinions/ideas without even knowing what they are bull-shitting about.

But to be honest it has really been a learning experience and a crash course on "What not to do in a meeting ?".
A meeting needs to be differentiated from a brain-storming session. A meeting ought to be confined within the bounds of an agenda and is expected to lead to a decision, in most of the cases, whereas the boundaries in a brain-storming session could be unrestricted and unrestrained and the different and diverse discussions may lead to no final conclusion or outcome. Though there has to be some similarity between the two ; both must have a limited number of competent and prepared members.

From my experience I would like to summarize a few points which I feel should be an integral part of any worthwhile discussion/meeting.

* "Too many cocks spoil the broth" is one of the critical reasons which ensure that the meeting is doomed. As I said earlier, the quorum must include relevant, competent and prepared members only.

* There ought to be a decided agenda and a finite time frame (in most of the cases) to discuss the same before initiating a meeting. The moderator should ensure the compliance to both the above factors during the course of the meeting.

* The Moderator/coordinator should be open to opinions but should be assertive and decisive at the same time. He/she must know where to draw the line if the arguments tend to go out of hand.

* The minutes/outcome of the meeting should be clearly recorded and made available to the participants after the meeting. This is in view of the observation that people tend to have short volatile memories and a tendency to lick what they had spitted earlier.

Well, as they say we live in an imperfect world and things ought to be disorderly here, so no hard feelings/prejudices against anyone/anything.

Just keep discussing and keep meeting !

What's in the name ?

Don't get misguided by the label of this blogsite. I am not here to prove my ideas worthy of adoration or reverence, rather I am drawing analogy from the sublime chemical process where a solid directly changes into vapours without first melting. The idea is just to illustrate that the thoughts/ideas/opinions published here won't follow any standard defined set or pattern of writing but would rather be encephalic or emotive (as the case maybe) without any scrutiny thus ensuring their purity viz-a-viz their originality.
Although the above analogy may seem weird to some deep thinkers and philosophers, but this is the best you could expect from an engineer.

Before I start blogging, let me include a tentative disclaimer.

DISCLAIMER

The thoughts/ideas/opinions expressed on this website are author's own and are in no way intended to hurt the sensibilities of anyone regarding anything whatsoever. The author does not intend to rake in any controversies that may have unwanted/unnecessary ramifications by means of the content of this site.