Maximise Potential

The first step to understand about success is that it is not a destination but a wonderful journey that never ends. The best definition of success I have come across is by Earl Nightingale "Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal/goal." It is the process that’s actually exciting. Most of the times once we reach goals like getting the promotion or losing the weight we can’t keep up momentum but it is the process that actually keeps us energized. Once we achieve our goals we feel good for that moment but in order to keep that feeling ongoing we need to keep setting new goals. The important thing to remember is that goal setting is a lifelong activity and it does energize our lives. People talk a lot about dreams but there has to be a distinction between outrageous dreams and dreams that ignite. I can have a dream to be the greatest tennis player that ever lived but that dream is surely not going to be realized and it is very much outrageous. I think when we s...

We all start out with the same time. Everyone gets 24 hours a day whether we like it or not. What we do with our 24 hours day in and day out determines ultimately where we end up. How we use those 24 hours is totally our choice. Once we see that each of these 24 hours is a gift the whole idea of time management changes. With technology available 24*7 the whole concept of compartmentalization of personal and work life is no longer valid. We are connected to our emails all through the day and we hardly switch off. As we have heard a million times all time management experts say we should only check emails 2-3 times a day. This is easier said than done and personally I don’t agree with this approach. For many of us our work depends on email and speed is the essence especially if your customer or boss needs something urgent. I think the better way to manage email is to give it the respect it deserves. Leaving unanswered email (Iam talking about official email) which is important doesn...

Some of the recent books I have read and found illuminating Daniel Pink 1.        A Whole New Mind: This is an absolutely original book and the author has done a great job in helping us think out of the box. He argues that the new world order requires more creativity and right brainers will rule the future. His main argument is we should be able to do something that cannot be done cheaper overseas, computers cannot do it faster and that appeals aesthetically. He explains the process through Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play and Meaning. I really enjoyed this book with great stories and made a great impact on me. He also provides resources which are extremely useful. One of the examples he gives is to maintain a gratitude log so write on every birthday the number of things you are grateful for. The number of things you are grateful for should total the number of your years. Also maintain a daily gratitude log to be thankful daily for things that ...

A leader as defined by John Quincy Adams is  “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” Following are the 7 keys I liked for anyone to become an inspiring leader in their field as identified by Jack Welch in his excellent book Winning with my take on each. Establish a compelling vision Vision is a key trait identified across all leadership studies as a distinguishing factor between great leaders and others. A leader is a dealer in hope. Leaders have to excite the troops to come out and play for the team. The best way to do this is to create an exciting vision and then ensure the team buys into the vision. The most important step in getting this done is to communicate the vision to everyone in the team through all mediums of communication including email, letters, conferences and meetings. In order for the team to buy into the vision they should also be allowed to participate on the formation of vision ...

M. Scott Peck begins his best-selling book "The Road Less Traveled" with the words "Life is Difficult." We have all experienced difficulties and failure but the key question is how we can use failure to improve our success. In fact it might even be better to not label anything a failure. One example of a team that continuously falls short in big moments (world cup) is the South African cricket team which has always failed at knock out games in their world cup campaigns with one exception. They were highly fancied during the 2015 world cup held in Australia/New Zealand earlier this year and still lost in the semifinal. It is likely that they are not able to bury the ghosts of past failures which is required if they ever want to win and go all the way. Here are some answers I have expanded with each letter of the word Failure. F – Fail forward John Maxwell begins his book Failing Forward with the thesis that “All successful people have one characteristi...

Steve Jobs is one of the most versatile and innovative business icons of our times. Here is my take on what to learn from Steve Jobs S – Sell yourself –Steve Jobs was unafraid of showing off. In fact it could be argued this was his biggest asset. Unless you show others what you are capable of nobody is going to know. I think we should learn to sell ourselves not in an abrupt manner but a classy manner. This requires practice but this will pay off in spades. He was always in the spotlight, enjoyed it and created the larger than life personality. Lesson: Never sell yourself short. Always exhibit your prowess. T – Talent – If there is anyone who epitomizes the word talent it has to be Steve Jobs. How many people started a company in the garage, enjoyed massive success, get fired from the company he founded, founded another company, made successful movies and came back for one of the biggest turn around in business history. He is one who believed in his talent even when he was...

Teams are the most important building block of projects, organizations, sports teams and their performance ultimately decides overall success. An important goal of a leader is to develop winning happy teams which contribute desired results. Effective team building is a critical skill for a leader to develop and the main areas which can contribute to this are Team Selection: The first step of leaders is to select the right team. The skill set needed for every project is different so it is absolutely imperative that the right team players are on boarded. Selection of a team is an art and requires some intuition along with logic. We have seen in sports like cricket, football that selection of the team is crucial for victory. There are some sports teams full of superstars and still lose because a team does not require all superstars it is more about attitude, team bonding and sacrificing for the larger cause.  Team Vision: Once the team is selected an exciting vision is cruc...