Tag: Success

Posted in Life Gyan

Everyone Wants to go to Heaven…

Posted on by Anand Surana

Everyone wants to go to Heaven,
but no one wants to Die

Ever wished for a magical solution to make your problems disappear in the blink of an eye? Many of us have fantasized about magical wands, flying carpets, or Aladdin’s genie effortlessly fulfilling all our wishes. However, as much as we yearn for shortcuts, reality often reminds us that such magical interventions only exist in fairy tales. When faced with challenges, it’s natural to seek escape through daydreaming, but ultimately, the hard truth prevails – there are no shortcuts in real life.

Scientists who study human behavior have found that when we are pushed to the corner or faced with any challenge, our primordial brain is wired to respond in two ways: FIGHT or FLIGHT. For millions of years, when humans were hunter-gatherers, they ventured into the forest to hunt animals for food under unfavorable conditions. Their tools were basic and crude, and more often than not, it was their courage and physical strength that put food on the family’s plate. However, sometimes they would come face to face with unexpected opponents and had to either run for their lives or fight whatever was staring them in the face. This was the norm for thousands of years, hardwiring FIGHT or FLIGHT responses into the human brain over millions of years of existence.

Depending on what you are running away from, FLIGHT (meaning running away from the situation at hand) is often the easiest response our brain will consider. Unless this option is withdrawn, you are cornered, or made aware of the consequences of running away, it takes a lot of effort, courage, and willpower to choose the option to FIGHT.

On the journey to self-development, you don’t realize how:

  • Unfit you are until you go for a run.
  • Undisciplined your mind is until you sit down to meditate.
  • Out of practice you are until you pick up the bat/ball again.
  • Compulsive you are until you put your phone on airplane mode.
  • Unfocused you are until you have to work on something really important

And when you do realize it, you give up. Your response is FLIGHT. Your mind tells you stories like it is too difficult, it is not important, running will hurt your knees, maybe you should try walking, you don’t have time to fit this in your schedule, you are so busy, and so on. The list goes on.

You need to take an objective look at these thoughts popping up in your brain and recognize that these are stories the brain is weaving to protect you from getting hurt or experiencing pain. If you want to overcome your current situation, you have to endure this pain, make those difficult decisions, and cut through these manufactured stories. You have to decide to FIGHT. That is the only way – there are no shortcuts on the road to self-development.

The things we most avoid are the things that we know are growth opportunities for us. In life, whenever you are faced with any significant decision, you will often get two options – one will be easier, and the other will be hard. It may seem “smart” to choose the easy option, but it will not yield any results. The second option will be harder, and it may take a while to see the results on this path, but eventually, you will see a lot of rewards – satisfaction of doing the right thing and not cutting corners, confidence in yourself, improved self-esteem, and a stronger mind capable of handling more challenges besides achieving the goal. So don’t be afraid of choosing the road less travelled.

  • Go for another run
  • Sit down to meditate again
  • Pick up your hobby again
  • Turn your phone off and forget about it
  • Work hard

It’s only a matter of time – you will surely see the results.

Posted in Life Gyan

Timeless Advice for Your Self

Posted on by Anand Surana

Read each of the points slowly with a calm mind, absorbing the essense of the timeless wisdom that lies within these simple words. Before you start reading, take a deep breath and prepare your mind like you prepare it for a ritual. For maximum benefit, after you read each point, pause and reflect briefly without hurrying to complete all the points in one go.

  • If you have dream go chase it because it’s not coming your way without effort
  • You can not move forward if you are stuck and focused on the past
  • Be so busy improving yourself that you don’t have time to pay attention to anything or anyone that distracts you from your growth
  • Don’t use your energy to worry. Use your energy to believe, create, trust, glow, grow and heal
  • Most times you have to go through something that absolutely destroys you, so that you can figure out who you really are.
  • Speak less, observe more. Not everything needs a reaction – Remember your attention is a currency. Use it wisely
  • Never be embarrassed to struggle. There is absolutely no shame in working hard to get what you want. Remember – People’s opinion don’t pay your bills
  • Some people will judge you for changing. Others will be celebrating you for growing. Choose your circle carefully
  • Work on things people can’t take away from you. Things like your Mindset, Character, Personality, Transparency, and your entire being.
  • Struggle is temporary, sacrifices are like investments. Give up the short term comfort for the long term win. Be focused and stay patient.
Posted in Financial Gyan

The Paradox of Investing in Stocks

Posted on by Anand Surana

Many are lured by the prospect of making quick money in stock markets. Especially so when the Indian Stock Markets are witnessing unbridled growth. Those who are standing at the sidelines are tempted to jump in and those who are already invested wish they had more money to invest.

However despite the bulls reigning, the SEBI has been warning investors that 9 out of 10 folks are losing money in the stock market. Looking at this one investor was in dilemma of whether to invest, it is a good time to invest now when the markets are already high. However on the other hand there was a feeling of FOMO so he asked a veteran investor, “When is a good time to buy?”

The veteran replied, “You’re looking in the wrong place for a good time. The stock market is a place of regret. You buy, and the price falls; you sell and it rises. You cry over losses and lament selling too early on profits. When the market rises, you regret not buying and wait for a drop, but when it falls, fear keeps you from buying. Instead of waiting for the right moment, it’s better to enjoy life and the rollercoaster ride in stock markets.

Have you also been in this situation?

Posted in Life Gyan

If You Think You Can…

Posted on by Anand Surana

This is one of my favourite poems which I also used to motivate myself during my college days. This poem was written by Walter D Wintle in early 1900s but is a timeless classic and continues to be relevant irrespective of time. I had this poem printed on a A4 sheet of paper and pasted on the wall above my study table. This served as a constant reminder to myself to exercise my will power and positive thinking and never to give up in the face of hardships.

I urge you to read each line slowly, absorb it and if you can believe in these words, you can achieve any goal you put your sight on.

If you think you are beaten, you are
If you think you dare not, you don’t,
If you like to win, but you think you can’t
It is almost certain you won’t.

If you think you’ll lose, you’re lost
For out of the world we find,
Success begins with a fellow’s will
It’s all in the state of mind.

If you think you are outclassed, you are
You’ve got to think high to rise,
You’ve got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.

Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man,
But soon or late the man who wins
Is the man WHO THINKS HE CAN!
– Walter D Wintle

Posted in Life Gyan

Put the Extra in the Ordinary

Posted on by Anand Surana

This is an excerpt from  “Living with a Purpose: The Importance of ‘Real Intent.”, Randall L. RiddThis story teaches us about the power of real intent – the real desire to do a job well.

There was a young man who had ambitions to work for a company because it paid very well and was very prestigious. He prepared his résumé and had several interviews. Eventually, he was given an entry-level position. Then he turned his ambition to his next goal—a supervisor position that would afford him even greater prestige and more pay. So he completed the tasks he was given. He came in early some mornings and stayed late so the boss would see him putting in long hours.

After five years a supervisor position became available. But, to the young man’s great dismay, another employee, who had only worked for the company for six months, was given the promotion. The young man was very angry, and he went to his boss and demanded an explanation.

The wise boss said, “Before I answer your questions, would you do a favor for me?”

“Yes, sure,” said the employee.

“Would you go to the store and buy some oranges? My wife needs them.”

The young man agreed and went to the store. When he returned, the boss asked, “What kind of oranges did you buy?”

“I don’t know,” the young man answered. “You just said to buy oranges, and these are oranges. Here they are.”

“How much did they cost?” the boss asked.

“Well, I’m not sure,” was the reply. “You gave me $30. Here is your receipt, and here is your change.”

“Thank you,” said the boss. “Now, please have a seat and pay careful attention.”

Then the boss called in the employee who had received the promotion and asked him to do the same job. He readily agreed and went to the store.

When he returned, the boss asked, “What kind of oranges did you buy?”

“Well,” he replied, “the store had many varieties—there were navel oranges, Valencia oranges, blood oranges, tangerines, and many others, and I didn’t know which kind to buy. But I remembered you said your wife needed the oranges, so I called her. She said she was having a party and that she was going to make orange juice. So I asked the grocer which of all these oranges would make the best orange juice. He said the Valencia orange was full of very sweet juice, so that’s what I bought. I dropped them by your home on my way back to the office. Your wife was very pleased.”

“How much did they cost?” the boss asked.

“Well, that was another problem. I didn’t know how many to buy, so I once again called your wife and asked her how many guests she was expecting. She said 20. I asked the grocer how many oranges would be needed to make juice for 20 people, and it was a lot. So, I asked the grocer if he could give me a quantity discount, and he did! These oranges normally cost 75 cents each, but I paid only 50 cents. Here is your change and the receipt.”

The boss smiled and said, “Thank you; you may go.”

He looked over at the young man who had been watching. The young man stood up, slumped his shoulders and said, “I see what you mean,” as he walked out of the office.

What was the difference between these two young men? They were both asked to buy oranges, and they did. You might say that one went the extra mile, or one was more efficient, or one paid more attention to detail. But the most important difference had to do with real intent rather than just going through the motions.

If you have the right intent and do your job with passion it surely will take you places. That is why it is often said that a work of quality is not produced by accident. There is a lot of effort behind it and above all there is an intent for excellence.

Posted in Leadership

Building a Learning Organization

Posted on by Anand Surana

How to create a learning organization?
This probably is the question on the minds of many leaders and founders who are immensely passionate about building great teams and building great organisations.

Peter Senge, provides a model to solving this problem in his widely read book The Fifth Discipline. He  describes a concept called “Systems Thinking“.  According to Senge, systems thinking is very important in creating a learning organization however as the title of his book goes – it is the fifth discipline not the first. The first four disciplines are (1) personal mastery, (2) building shared vision, (3) mental models, and (4) team learning. The 5th discipline is very important as it fuses the other four together to foster a culture of learning and co-operation.

People frequently ask if systems thinking is same as strategic thinking. Systems thinking and strategic thinking are somewhat similar concepts however they are applied in different situations. Both involve looking at the big picture and taking a long term view

Systems thinking 

  • Focus: Looks at the system as a whole, including interactions and relationships
  • Goal: Considers if the system can work differently
  • Use: Can be used in design thinking to understand the user

Strategic thinking 

  • Focus: Makes decisions to achieve specific outcomes
  • Goal: Identifies the gap between where you are and where you want to be
  • Use: Can be used to explore the context of long-range goals

Learning organisations may encounter various challenges or obstacles which Senge refers to as learning “disabilities”. He goes on to describe what these disabilities are and how companies can rid of the learning “disabilities” aka detrimental habits or mindsets, that threaten their productivity and success. He also elaborates on how organisations can grow by modelling the strategies of learning organizations – ones in which new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, collective aspiration is set free, and people are continually learning how to create the results they truly desire.

Senge states that “At its core, learning organizations build great teams – the trust, the relationships, the acceptance, the synergy, and the results that they achieve.” You can look around for yourself and see that unless there is trust within the teams, there can be no synergy and team members will not sacrifice personal goals to work towards a common goal – the success of the organization.

The startups that thrive today can vouch that their teams have “a strong ability to learn, adjust and change in response to new realities.” that is the only way to thrive and grow as per Dr. Senge in the fast changing complex world that we live in.

The distinguishing characteristics of a learning organization include a learning culture, a spirit of flexibility and experimentation, people orientation, continuous system-level learning, knowledge generation and sharing, and critical, systemic thinking.

 It is worthwhile to read more about Senge’s 11 laws of Systems Thinking. These will help you to understand business systems and to identify behaviors for addressing complex business problems.
In brief the 11 Laws are –

  1. Today’s problems come from yesterday’s solutions
  2. The harder you push, the harder the system pushes back
  3. Behaviour grows better before it grows worse
  4. The easy way out usually leads back in
  5. The cure can be worse than the disease
  6. Faster is slower.
  7. Cause & effect are not closely related in time & space.
  8. Small changes can produce big results, but areas of the highest leverage are often least obvious.
  9. You can have your cake & eat it too but not all at once. Not either/or. allow time for solutions to work.
  10. Dividing an elephant in half does not product two small elephants
  11. There is no blame
Posted in Life Gyan

Three Beautiful Stories

Posted on by Anand Surana

Storytelling is the most powerful way
to put ideas into the world.

– Robert McKee

From time immemorial stories have always fascinated mankind. And story-tellers have used various means to convey their message viz. narration, theatre, cinema or by writing. Some people tell stories to entertain and make you laugh. Some to impart life lessons. Yet others use this as a medium to touch upon difficult topics of social importance. And some tell stories to hide the truth.

No matter what the medium is, or what the end goal is, the job is said to be well done if you are able to convey your ideas in the most impactful manner to your audience.

Now there are few other type of stories. Those that leave you with a question to ponder or provide you some food for thought. They make you revisit the assumptions that you had always believed in your life. They do not just fade away after you have turned the page – they stay in your psyche for a long time. Some can even alter the way you perceive and live life. Today I am going to share three such stories with you which did just that for me.

The stories are itself simple but the life lessons they hold are really valuable. I urge you to go through each story one by one and reflect on the lesson rather than rushing through this post. Once you have gone thru them, pause and reflect. And if possible do share your thoughts in the comments section below.

So which story did you find the most impactful? Please do let me know in the comments section below.

Posted in Life Gyan

Three Enemies of Success

Posted on by Anand Surana

I am a huge fan of Brian Tracy’s work on how to prepare yourself to be successful in life. He offers a lot of thought provoking questions and concepts which when applied for onself will surely result in transformation. I wanted to share some insights from what I have learned from Brian.

He talks about the 3 destructive traits that he calls “enemies of success“. By being aware of them we can avoid these traps in our own lives and can move faster towards our goals in life.

The first and the foremost is the Comfort Zone. It is like a slow poison. You become comfortable doing with what you are doing. You don’t realise that you are doing anything wrong but slowly you start slipping into the comfort zone. The daily routine is comforting. You know the drill like the back of your hand. You are able to navigate thru the daily hurdles with skill and you consider yourself successful. And all this while without realizing that you are getting deeper and deeper into the comfort zone. When you think about it you know that change is good and beneficial however you feel it is too much effort to move.

The next enemy is Learned Helplessness – where people think “i can’t do it”.  This is the next stage of Comfort Zone. As you set your sight on new goals and decide to move in that direction, the inertia pulls you back giving you various reasons why you should not pursue the goal or why it can’t be done. To navigate the way out of comfort zone, you must break the inertia and move forward.

Now you come across the third and final enemy – Path of Least Resistance. So you have decided to move out of the comfort zone and you have also handled the inital resistance from your mind. Now you have started taking the steps towards your goal. Soon you realise that it is a long journey and requires a lot of hard work. When the first fatigue sets in, the goal starts to look distant and again your mind tries to look for short cuts. You may even think of changing your goal to something much more smaller and within easy reach. Bur remember nothing worthwhile can be achieved without hard work. Anything worthwhile requires a long period of hard work with many failures on the way. There is no shortcut for sustainable success.

So beware of these mental traps and do not lower your goal – instead increase your effort.

Posted in Life Gyan

30 Short but Impactful Habits

Posted on by Anand Surana

1. Write things down – our brains are for having ideas, not holding them.

2. Take a second to pause before you respond. Become less reactive.

3. Read something every day. Even just one page.

4. Write something every day. Even just one paragraph.

5. Automate and batch as much as you can. Our brains have more room to be creative when they’re not constantly making decisions.

6. Get some sun on your skin as early as you can in the day.

7. When your brain hurts. Stop working. Take a quick break to disconnect and recharge.

8. Limit your to-do list to the top 3 most important tasks of the day.

9. Write down anything that resonates with you.

10. Break down goals into the smallest steps possible

11. Value your time above all else.

12. Find hobbies that engage your mind and soul – do them as often as you can.

13. Place your phone outside the room while you’re working.

14. Track everything you do for one day to the minute. Find where the time-sinks are.

15. Stop comparing you behind the scenes to everyone else’s highlight reel.

16. Be bored more often. Our minds get the best ideas when they are allowed to wander.

17. Listen more than you speak.

18. Create more than you consume.

19. Compliment more than you complain.

20. Delete apps you don’t use.

21. Donate clothes you don’t wear.

22. Serve others as much as you can. This is a powerful source of happiness

23. Make a habit of reaching out to old friends.

24. Never say “yes” simply because you feel obligated.

25. Take care of your information diet – Junk info hurts our brains like junk food hurts our bodies.

26. Look at your phone less, look at people’s eyes more.

27. Revisit things that have brought you joy in the past. They will probably do it again.

28. Set time limits on tasks. Use “Parkinson’s Law” in your favor.

29. Remember people’s names and use them often.

30. Remember you’re going to die one day.

Posted in Life Gyan

20 Things People Learn Too Late

Posted on by Anand Surana

1. Don’t tell people more than they need to know, respect your privacy.

2. Every challenge, hard time, and pain you endure will turn into strength, resilience and blessings.

3. Don’t argue with people who want to misunderstand you – Starve them with silence.

4. Life is short, don’t forget to make a life and not just a living.

5. You don’t need to explain yourself or get anyone’s approval to live your life.

6. Keep your standards high and  don’t settle for something because it’s available.

7. Boundaries are your responsibility, you decide what is and what isn’t allowed in your life.

8. You don’t have to attend every argument you’re invited to.

9. Never expect to get back what you give or you will always be disappointed.

10. Don’t take criticism from someone you wouldn’t take advice from and don’t let someone who has done nothing, tell you how to do anything.

11. If you keep waiting for the “right time” you will keep wasting all of your time.

12. Don’t let people trigger you. Control your reaction and leave them powerless.

13. Stop expecting loyalty from people who can’t give you honesty.

14. Accept people for who they are and not who you want them to be.

15. Life doesn’t always give us the experiences we want, it gives us the experiences we need to learn and grow.

16. The best revenge is no revenge. Improve yourself and forget they exist.

17. The people who belong in your life want to be there, they don’t need to be chased.

18. It takes time to build trust but only seconds to lose.

19. No one is going to come and save you because You are perfectly capable of Saving Yourself.

20. Don’t judge people and their choices when you don’t understand their reasons.