How Will You Measure Your Life?

Ralph Waldo Emerson defined success with these words:

• To laugh often and much;
• to win the respect of intelligent people and
• the affection of children;
• to earn the appreciation of honest critics and
• endure the betrayal of false friends;
• to appreciate beauty,
• to find the best in others;
• to leave the world a bit better - whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
• to know even one life has breathed easier because you lived.

This is to have succeeded."     

Nine Do's and Don'ts for Dealing with the Disgruntled - Rosabeth Moss Kanter

http://blogs.hbr.org/kanter/2011/08/nine-dos-and-donts-for-dealing.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date

When faced with cranky, grumpy, or disgruntled people, these Do's and Don'ts can be helpful.

1. Don't give them power. Don't let their claims occupy disproportionate time and management attention. Have one person manage so that everyone else can continue the real work.
2. Do keep telling your positive story about the organization's purpose, mission, goals, and accomplishments. Remind everyone about the big picture.
3. Don't adopt an angry tone. Stay calm and professional. Don't stoop to their level by telling juicy stories. Recent studies show that badmouthing makes the tale-teller look bad, in a boomerang effect.
4. Don't tell their story for them. Don't start meetings or conversations by rehashing the situation. Stick to a simple statement or two that acknowledges your sorrow that there are complaints. Don't sound defensive. Don't lend credibility by providing your answers to things that audiences might not know or care about.
5. Don't assume that being right is enough. Having the facts on your side might be enough in a court of law, but it is not necessarily enough in the court of public opinion. Other people are convinced by your actions. They need to see that you operate by principles. They will judge your authenticity and consistency.
6. Do make a small gesture, even if you don't have to. Anyway, maybe you're not 100% right. A slight concession can make you look gracious and understanding. The disgruntled person can claim to have won something, which makes it easier to get him or her to go away. Make your limits clear.
7. Do respond to rumors immediately. Don't let slurs stand without a response that is accurate, persuasive, and catchy. And put out the counter-story without repeating the insult.
8. Do inform your allies early and often. Arm them with facts and details. Seek their support.
9. Do keep moving ahead. Don't stop the action. Develop and announce exciting plans. Help everyone envision the future.

Above all, do what's right for the mission and stakeholders. Even in a volatile world that requires tough decisions, the best way to counter crankiness is through an inspiring, energizing purpose.

Steve's Seven Insights for 21st Century Capitalists

http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2011/08/steves_seven_insights_for_21st.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date

Herewith, without further ado, a minor eulogy for Steve Jobs the CEO. When you look at the global economy today, here's what might strike you: Apple is an organization almost singularly unlike the massed hordes and would-be contenders to the throne that surround it. It is the one company seemingly tuned to hit the revolutionary apex, not race past the lowest common denominator. So how did Steve — after a legendary decade in the wilderness, exiled from the island of his own creation, watching it turn grey, dull, bland, and colonized, perhaps even lobotomized — rebuild it that way?

I looked through this excellent compendium of Jobs quotes and found seven lessons for people and companies looking to succeed as 21st century capitalists.

Matter. "Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugar water — or do you want to change the world?" That's what Steve famously asked John Sculley. Translation: do you really want to spend your days slaving over work that fails to inspire, on stuff that fail to count, for reasons that fail to touch the soul of anyone?

Master. "Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it's really how it works." Whatever your domain, you have to appreciate Apple's impact on the field of design. Apple built a mastery of design so deep, it reshaped the entire field. Would you say the Gap's reshaped textiles? Would you say McDonald's has reshaped nutrition? Nope and nope.

Do the insanely great. "When you're a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you're not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it." We're awash in a sea of the tedious, the humdrum, the predictable. If your goal is rising head and shoulders above this twisting mass of mediocrity, then it's not enough, anymore, to tack on another 99 features every month and call it "innovation." Just do great work.

Have taste. "The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste." Great work doesn't just require legions of beancounters, or armies of willing muscle — it requires the capacity to make cultural judgments: in a word, taste. I don't mean to be rude (though I do mean to be impertinent) but if the opposite of taste is tackiness, then I'd say: we might just be approaching the tackiest point in history known to man. In a world where customer service can barely pronounce your name (and you theirs), a world where big-box stores barely even bother to tidy up the over-crammed shelves, a world where things get cheaper and cheaper — but look and feel like they were dreamt up by the dream team of Frankenstein, Simon Cowell, and the Wolfpack — a tiny morsel of taste is probably a competitive superweapon.

Build a temple. "Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do." If you have the audacity to do great work, then it probably deserves a home worthy of its title — not a doghouse. Putting great work in a big box store is a bit like the legendary Ferran Adria, arguably the world's most creative chef, deciding to serve his groundbreaking tour de forces of molecular gastronomy at KFC: it might get the job done, but people are going to gulp it and chomp it, rather than savor it, revel in it — and value it. The nuances, complexities, attention to detail, inspiration, and artistry inherent in great work need temples: places and spaces where they can be explored, investigated, discovered — where people can be delighted, surprised, and amazed. Think of it as a tale of economic complementarities, that works both ways: if you want to know why the Sony Style store doesn't work, the reason's simple: the work isn't great; it's an empty temple. The Apple Store's one of the most successful retail spaces in the modern economy — a testament to the power not merely of great work, or cutting edge design, but giving people beautiful spaces in which to want to actually spend time enjoying all the above. Imagine that.

Don't build a casino. "The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament." This one's easy in principle — but difficult in practice. To illustrate: guess how much debt Apple has? Zero. Not as in "a few million," but as in: "not a single penny." In an era where it's harder and harder to resist the voluptuous temptations of glittering casino capitalism, Apple did in practice what most companies struggle and strain to — it built an enterprise so solidly managed financially it might as well have been a fortress. Steve wasn't in it to win the alarms-blaring jackpot — his goal was to create stuff that endured.

Don't pander — better. "We didn't build the Mac for anybody else. We built it for ourselves." It's the received wisdom that Steve never listened to his customers — and he'd often make a point of saying so. But how many other CEOs do you know that were listening so intently that they responded to the average fanboy's (or troll's) emails? Steve's goal in paying obsessive attention to all things Apple wasn't merely to "listen" but to discern people's wildest expectations, and then firmly take a quantum leap past them, instead of merely discovering the lowest-common-denominator of what people wanted most today, and then pandering to it. Leapfrogging your customers means creating new markets, not just new products. And Apple's created (or rejuvenated) market after market by applying the logic above.

Those aren't the only lessons, nor probably the best lessons. Just a quick reflection on my own. You might arguably conclude: Steve took on the challenge of proving that the art of enterprise didn't have to culminate in a stagnant pond of unenlightenment — and won. In doing so, he might just have built something approximating the modern world's most dangerously enlightened company. Can you?

LETTER OF THE EDITOR OF "THE TIMES OF INDIA" TO THE PRIME MINISTER OF INDIA

http://www.jaagore.com/article/letter-editor-times-india-prime-minister-india

Dear Mr. Prime minister,

I am a typical mouse from Mumbai. In the local train compartment which has capacity of 100 persons, I travel with 500 more mice. Mouse at least squeaks, but we don't even do that.
Today I heard your speech, in which you said, 'NO BODY WOULD BE SPARED'. I would like to remind you that fourteen years have passed since serial bomb blasts in Mumbai took place. Dawood was the main conspirator. Till today he is not caught. All our Bollywood actors, our builders, our Gutka king keep meeting him, but your Government can not catch him. Reason is simple; all your ministers are hand in glove with him. If any attempt is made to catch him, everybody will be exposed. Your statement 'NOBODY WOULD BE SPARED' is nothing but a cruel joke on these unfortunate people of India.
Enough is enough. As such, after seeing terrorist attack carried out by about a dozen young boys, I realize that if same thing continues, days are not far away when terrorists will attack by air, destroy our nuclear reactors and there will be one more Hiroshima.
We the people are left with only one mantra. Womb to Bomb to Tomb. You promised Mumbaikar Shanghai; what you have given us is Jalianwala Baug.
Today only your home minister resigned. What took you so long to kick out this joker? Only reason was that he was loyal to Gandhi family. Loyalty to Gandhi family is more important than blood of innocent people, isn't it?
I am born and brought up in Mumbai for last fifty eight years. Believe me, corruption in Maharashtra is worse than that in Bihar.Look at all the politicians, Sharad Pawar, Chagan Bhujbal, Narayan Rane, Bal Thackray , Gopinath Munde, Raj Thackray, Vilasrao Deshmukh all are rolling in money. Vilasrao Deshmukh is one of the worst Chief ministers I have seen.His only business is to increase the FSI every other day, make money and send it to Delhi, so Congress can fight next election.Now the clown has found new way and will increase FSI for fishermen, so they can build concrete houses right on sea shore. Next time terrorists can comfortably live in those houses, enjoy the beauty of the sea and then attack our Mumbai at their will.
Recently, I had to purchase a house in Mumbai. I met about two dozen builders. Everybody wanted about 30% in black. A common person like me knows this and with all your intelligent agency & CBI, you and your finance ministers are not aware of it. Where all the black money goes? To the underworld isn't it?Our politicians take help of these goondas to vacate people by force. I myself was victim of it. If you have time please come to me, I will tell you everything.
If this has been a land of fools, idiots, then I would not have ever cared to write to you this letter. Just see the tragedy. On one side we are reaching moon, people are so intelligent; and on the other side, you politicians have converted nectar into deadly poison. I am everything Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Schedule caste, OBC, Muslim OBC, Christian Schedule caste, and Creamy Schedule caste; only what I am not is INDIAN.You politicians have raped every part of Mother India by your policy of divide and rule.
Take example of our Former President Abdul Kalam. Such an intelligent person; such a fine human being. But you politician didn't even spare him and instead choose a worthless lady who had corruption charges and insignificant local polititian of Jalgaon WHO'S NAME ENTIRE COUNTRY HAD NOT HEARD BEFORE. Its simple logic your party just wanted a rubber stamp in the name of president. Imagine SHE IS SUPREME COMMANDAR OF INDIA'S THREE DEFENCE FORCES. what moral you will expect from our defence forces ? Your party along with opposition joined hands, because politicians feel they are supreme and there is no place for good person.
Dear Mr Prime minister, you are one of the most intelligent persons, a most learned person. Just wake up, be a real SARDAR. First and foremost, expose all selfish politicians. Ask Swiss banks to give names of all Indian account holders.Give reins of CBI to independent agency. Let them find wolves among us. There will be political upheaval, but that will be better than dance of death which we are witnessing every day. Just give us ambience where we can work honestly and without fear. Let there be rule of law. Everything else will be taken care of.
Choice is yours Mr. Prime Minister. Do you want to be lead by one person, or you want to lead the nation of 100 Crore people?
Prakash B. Bajaj
Editor Mumbai-Times of India

You've got to find what you love: Steve Jobs

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

This is a prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.

18 Tips to Ace Your Job Interview

http://go4interview.blogspot.com/2011/08/18-tips-to-ace-your-job-interview.html

18 Tips to Ace Your Job Interview

Finding a job in today’s economy is difficult. Simply searching for a job opportunity is tough enough. Throw in the dreaded job interview and difficult becomes downright stressful. However, it is possible to alleviate some of the stress. Here are 18 tips to help you ace your job interview.

Know Where You Are Going

A few days before your interview, make sure to get directions to your interview location online. If the directions are confusing or you aren’t familiar with the location, take time to do a drive by so that on the day of your interview you don’t get lost.

Call to Confirm

The day before your interview, call whoever scheduled your interview to confirm the day and time. By making a quick “I just wanted to confirm our 12pm interview time tomorrow” call, you will show that you are organized and respect the interviewer’s time.

Hygiene

Before your interview, make sure your hygiene is up to par. For men, this means making sure your hair is in control and that you are clean-shaven. For women, this means making sure to put on a little bit of makeup and doing your hair.

Review Your Resume

The night before your interview, go back over your resume to make sure you have everything on it that best highlights your skills and accomplishments as they relate to the position you are applying for. Make sure you know your major talking points for the interview so that you are adequately prepared.

Research the Company

Take the time to research the company you are interviewing with. Know what they do, their mission statement, any major events in the company’s history, and any other relevant information. By showing that you know about the company, you will convey an interest that the interviewer will appreciate.

Research Your Interviewers

When researching the company, also be sure to do a little research on anyone who will be interviewing you. By knowing their role in the company and any major professional accomplishments they have, you will demonstrate that you care not just about the company but about the employees and that you will be a great coworker.

Dress the Part

If you want the part, you have to look the part. Figure out the kind of culture the company has, then dress a level up. By doing this, you will demonstrate a level of professionalism that will be looked upon favorably.

Drive Safely

Your interview starts as soon as you enter the parking lot and doesn’t end until you leave the parking lot. Be sure to be a good driver when driving. Reckless driving will label you as an irresponsible liability the company doesn’t need.

Be Early

Whatever you do, do not be late. Show up early to demonstrate that you are responsible and appreciative of the interviewer’s time. Even showing up on time doesn’t cut it as that will simply show you will do the bare minimum to get by. Employers want employees who will go above and beyond.

Turn Your Cell Phone Off

One major interview faux pas is to have your phone ring during an interview. Make sure your cell phone is off or on silent during an interview. Or better yet, just leave it in the car.

Bring Multiple Copies of Your Resume
If you were giving a presentation during a company meeting that required a handout you would make sure you had made enough copies for everyone in the meeting, right? Well, chances are you will have multiple people interviewing you, so be prepared and respectful of each interviewer by bringing a copy of your resume for each of them.

Watch Your Nonverbals
Be sure to make good eye contact, give each interview a solid handshake, and not fiddle with a pen. Your nonverbal cues are very important in an interview, so do your best to not just talk confidently, but act confident too.

Have an Elevator Speech Prepared

Most of the time, the first question you will be asked is, “tell me about yourself.” Make sure you are ready for this question by having a brief, 30-second elevator speech ready to go that highlights your job history and accomplishments as well as what you are looking for in your career. Memorize the speech by heart and learn how to deliver your pitch with charm and confidence.

Be Prepared for Certain Questions

Inevitably you will be asked questions along the lines of “what is your greatest weakness,” “why do you want to work here,” and “how does your current skill set fit with this position.” Be sure you know how to answer these questions and any other relevant questions before your interview so you don’t get caught off guard.

Stay Positive

We have all had jobs we hated, worked on projects that were difficult, and had bosses we butted heads with. You will probably be asked about difficult situations in previous positions, so be sure to stay positive about those situations by highlighting your success in that situation as well as anything beneficial you learned from it.

Have Questions

At the end of your interview, you will be asked if you have any questions for the interviewer. Have questions prepared to ask each interviewer. For example, you could ask, “What is your favorite part of your job?” By coming prepared with questions for your interviewers, it shows that you are prepared and have interest in the company.

Take Notes

During your interview, be sure you have a notepad with you so you can take notes when the interviewers answer your questions or give you more information about the job and company. Just make sure you continue to make eye contact with the interviewer and not simply writing frantically on your notepad.

Follow Up

At the end of the interview, get business cards from everyone who interviewed you and send them a thank you note or email within 24 hours. Doing this demonstrates that you are appreciative of their time.

Will God save me, if I do pujas ?!

http://www.speakingtree.in/ttrangarajan/blog/Will-God-save-me-if-I-do-pujas-answer-by-TTRangarajan

TT Rangarajan - Living Guru

Question : Are there divine preferences, divine injustices and divine irregularities?

T.T. Rangarajan (Voice of Love): It may appear so, but Existential Order is always zero defect. Everything is as it should be. There are no irregularities in Existence. If I may use a metaphor, it doesn’t matter how noble hearted one is, but if he doesn’t know how to drive and yet attempts to drive a vehicle, he is sure to meet with an accident. The suffering of most people is that though they may be good, though they may believe in god, they have failed to develop the competence to live life.

We just believe that worshiping god or the messengers of god or the incarnations of god is sufficient to earn His blessing. We are lost in the ignorance that god will come and save us just as an answer to all our pujas, rituals and offerings. We choose to make various kinds of offerings as kickbacks to please the Lord and expedite matters for us, tilt opportunities in our favour, prolong the life of our loved ones, etc… but we have conveniently chosen to ignore principles like Honesty, Integrity, Karma and so many other virtues, which find common mention across all scriptures.

Think about it. If worshipping the Lord is sufficient, then why the Bible? Why the Koran? Why the Bhagawad Gita? Why any scripture for that matter? In fact, the very basis of every scripture is to teach you and me the components of Existential Order, so that you and I can live our lives in alignment with the Existential Order. Even if you are a maths teacher’s son, if two plus two is written as three, you are wrong. Even if you know nothing about the examiner, if two plus two is written as four, you are right.

Even those who do not know ‘Who is god?’, even those who do not believe in the existence of god, as long as they live in alignment to the Existential Order, which is what every scripture is all about, they will always be blessed by His grace. The more you are aligned to the Existential Order, the more you’ll experience His Grace. Grace is the spiritual reward for aligning yourself to the Existential Order.

Suffering is a spiritual feedback that somewhere you have lost your alignment to the Existential Order. God is not a matter of belief, but a matter of alignment.Why did the incarnate Krishna waste his time preaching eighteen chapters, answering and clarifying every question of Arjuna? Krishna could have simply told Arjuna - go around me thrice, pour some milk and ghee over me, smear sandalwood paste all over your body, fall at my feet four times and just shoot your arrows. Then, why at all the Bhagawad Gita?

If going to church on Sunday mornings and faith in Christ are enough, then why did Christ waste three years of his life sermonising ‘Dos’ and ‘Don’ts’ which became the Bible? If doing Namaz five times a day is enough, then why all those ‘Dos’ and ‘Don’ts’ in the Koran?

The Mahabharata shows that Duryodana took all the resources of Krishna, and that was not enough. Arjuna had Krishna himself, and that too was not enough. Only when Arjuna understood the Dharma (Existential Order) and acted in alignment with it was he able to emerge victorious. The message is clear and simple - god does not work for you; He works with you. His design is such that the only way He can work with you is when you live in alignment with the Existential Order.

If god is the Messenger, the scriptures are his Message. The only way to have the grace of the Messenger is to live by the Message. It is just not enough to value the Master… you must Master the values. Be devoted to the Messenger, but be disciplined by the Message.

:A portion from “Clarity is Power” by T.T Rangarajan, ALMA MATER, FROZEN THOUGHTS

Factors to be considered while changing a Job

www.12manage.com/

Six drivers of the Corporate Reputation Quotient Check and compare on these parameters, when you change a Job.
This business reputation model has the following 6 drivers of
Corporate Reputation Quotient and 20 Attributes.
Emotional appeal
Good feeling about the  company
Admire and respect the company
Employees and public Trust the  company
Products and services
Company believes in its products and services
Company offers high quality products and services
Develops innovative products and services
Offers products and services that are good value
Vision and leadership
Has excellent leadership
Has a clear vision for the future
Recognizes and lakes advantage of market opportunities
Workplace environment
Is well managed
Appears to be a good company to work for
Appears to have good employees
Financial performance
History of profitability
Appears a low risk investment
Strong prospects for future growth
Tends to outperform its competitors

Simple steps to effective Meditation

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/how-to-meditate_b_861295.html

Meditation Instructions:

1. Sit comfortably, with your spine erect, either in chair or cross-legged on a cushion.
2. Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and feel the points of contact between your body and the chair or floor. Notice the sensations associated with sitting--feelings of pressure, warmth, tingling, vibration, etc.
3. Gradually become aware of the process of breathing. Pay attention to wherever you feel the breath most clearly--either at the nostrils, or in the rising and falling your abdomen.
4. Allow your attention to rest in the mere sensation of breathing. (There is no need to control your breath. Just let it come and go naturally.)
5. Every time your mind wanders in thought, gently return it to the sensation of breathing.
6. As you focus on the breath, you will notice that other perceptions and sensations continue to appear: sounds, feelings in the body, emotions, etc. Simply notice these phenomena as they emerge in the field of awareness, and then return to the sensation of breathing.
7. The moment you observe that you have been lost in thought, notice the present thought itself as an object of consciousness. Then return your attention to the breath--or to whatever sounds or sensations arise in the next moment.
8. Continue in this way until you can merely witness all objects of consciousness--sights, sounds, sensations, emotions, and even thoughts themselves--as they arise and pass away.
9. Don't fall.

Those who are new to the practice generally find it useful to hear instructions of this kind spoken aloud, in the form of a guided meditation. UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center has several that beginners should find helpful.