The Little Book of Behavioral Investing by James Montier

Well packaged and well researched book . Icing on the cake is , it’s not lengthy and boring . Very simple experiments on each of the investment bias to prove the point , is worth to contemplate . Being an avid reader on financial matters , I skipped the experimentation part and went right to the theory of biases and I must say it did intrigued me to think on what biases I would have displayed which impacted my investments . The only way we learn to unlearn some of the investment decisions is to be aware of these emotions and acknowledge the same ! Pick it if you like brain teasers else move on but be aware that it’s your real money at stake when and some of these emotions do create havoc on our lifestyles when investments go awry :)

Millionair Road Maps By Matthew R Kratter

Boy what a book it is . One - it’s easy to read , plain simple language about people who have done really well in their life and mind you , they are all from humble background and second it’s free on kindle ! Icing on the cake , you really cannot resist trying to check kratter other book series on this subject :) . What life offers is limitless opportunities and we have a living proof of the results around us . As I finish reading , I was thinking we are generation behind about exciting things happening with humans life , perhaps they have surpassed the realm of reality itself ! Must read if you like turn around your life !

Do It Now - By Napolean Hill

Its very concise and written well . There are basically few nuggets discussed in the book which we can always relate to but hard to replicate :) There are things like Personality development through Self-Awareness which in turn will help to channelize the energy towards the purpose of our life . Then they are definitive action plan around how to know real self and what are the fundamental questions we need to ask to unearth the potential of our consciousness ( read Sub-Conscious Mind) so that it can unravel itself in purest form . Once you discover the path , its basically - how to reach there . As simple as Health , Discipline , Focus and other things which will help to accomplish few steps every day for a long time so that we can achieve the desired goal . While there are many self help books which picked a single monolithic structure or theme on how to succeed , this book has taken a holistic view of what ticks in our life and why present moment matters for everything. In His own words - “Do it now! can affect every phase of your life… It helps you seize those precious moments that, if lost, may never be retrieved.” Napoleon Hill

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

Well some one refereed me this book and am fortunate to have this with me as a collection. Its a gem ! Full of wisdom told through the eyes of a dying professor. We have aspirations in life. We have capabilities to achieve them to larger extent. We are highly successful and at some point we feel sky is the limit And of course there is depression and sadness in our lives which we manage to overcome some way But life always holds surprises beyond this and this story of Morrie who is professor , with a difference , lets you think otherwise. The book is full of wisdom's but written in such a subtle way by the professsor's student that you will not realize you are onto something The conversation between Morrie who is the professor and the student is very intriguing. As the diseases catches up with Morrie , the wisdom and truth about life just oozes out more from the experience the student has with him All through out the book , it makes you think deeply about life and morals , life has preserved for you . To get the understanding of these values, one need to be aware and when you are aware and when you read this book , you know for sure - you salute the professor who holds so much courage to "leave" happily from the world. Tears at the end book is gauranteed but the learning you carry forward is priceless !! Grab this book for the weekend and am sure you will reach a point where you can differentiate worthiness of certain things in life !

Who Will cry when you die (Robin Sharma)

Its been a long time since I wrote the book review but I promised once again to myself to continue the good habit and hopefully I will surely do !
Courtesy : The book "Who Will Cry When You Die" By Robin Sharma

You would not be disappointed and surely you would not for its a story woven across the experience of the people. people who are famous and one who have found the truth of living the life in its truest form...
I always shun life skill books because they tend to drag a little bit and pushes you out of your mind !

But then Robin Sharma's "Who will Cry When you Die" is aptly written and grabs your attention .you would raise your eyebrows when you read it .
The finer moments of life skills are so beautifully woven in every sentence and the fact that you could actually practice what he preaches adds a topping to this recipe for life.

Surely Author has done a phenomenal job of giving reference to all the wisdom he teaches , correlating the same to his life as well...


I sat on my chair gaping at simple things the author explains and wondered , "yes" this is what I need to do to make my life better and make people around me happy and joyful.

There are tips and tricks to define goals for your life , to define a legacy which can live much after your death , there are life skills which acts as catalyst to think beyond just the material world and
then there are just neat quotes/wisdom from the famous and more famous personalities like Mother Teresa , Armstrong and many more

So when you close the book , you are there , thinking, feeling happy about discovering something new in your life .
More importantly , trying to adopt and change the gear in your life , so you become a better person , you become a better personality and you become a good human being
who would be remembered for not the way you lived but the way you help your life to grow with the people . To me that's the greatest Achievement !!!

Co-incidently I read an interview of Yuvaraj Singh, the famous Indian Cricketer , which Makes my belief even stronger - "To me its not money and fame which is important ,but to me
what is more important is Happiness and tranquility and I would work for the betterment of cancer patients in the future" "Surely Money Counts but not so much".

Time and again wisdom like these and many more stands out as jewel in the crown and so perhaps you would be the next in line to wear it and be proud ! Will you ?

Ricardo Semler's book "Maverick: The Success Behind the World's Most Unusual Workplace"

Think of it - the corporate world is bogged by so many diplomatic levels that by the time a vision reaches to the top , an objective becomes a subjective debate whose real benefit gets lost

Semco is one such company which does not have this structure.The company has an open policy and the employees are all a real stakeholder in decision making
Including the decision to have how much of salary they deserve !!!! The transparency and the good intention is what makes the company a flagship corporation which has withstood the economic crisis of Brazil

Its only when people feel connected with the company and its only when they feel part of the business decision would be able to value add to work .
without this , its just a diplomatic way of handling things and getting the work done....Sort this - At any time the productivity of any company is just 20% ...that means , only 20% of them are effective and rest 80% are dilly dallying and sticking around the company for a different reason and if you can do something to make the other "80%" of them to be effective , you are not just building a company , you are building a brand and semco had all the ingredients to make such a "brand" in a country where lot of economic turmoil happened !!!

Semco has unions and they can fight for their rights including filing cases and dragging the corporation to the court. But none of those would be sacked for (mis) deeds !!!!
Rather the matter would be settled legally and fairly.But guess what , here is the twist - these guys continue to work for the same company irrespective of what ever happened between the corporation and the workers !

Semco doesn't have receptionists, secretaries or personal assistants, regarding them as unnecessary. The top boss has to walk into the printer/fax and get the things done !!

Its just not these policies which make semco a great company to work for...The workers can shift their base from engineering to accounting to any other department of their choice.But they have to perform and they have to fight for their place
Not because their performance would be impacted but for the reason that they own the company and have decided what level of salary they deserve to be in that place.
The inherent nature of the system is such that employees always feel connected and responsible for what ever they do inside the company and run it as though it is their own

Semco allowed its workers to set their own production quotas and found that employees would voluntarily work overtime to meet them. Profit sharing is practiced right down to factory floor level, instead of large bonuses only for senior management. Semler eventually retired from all executive positions at age 33.


Its hard to imagine such a company exists - it did , it thrived and it did make lot of money...But it does not mean they made blunders .They did. But the sheer power of people inside the company made it a formidable force to recon with,.....Semco's CEO , ricardo semler was just 24 year old when he took over from his father and he ensured the success belongs really to the people and not to the company... Check this excerpt from the book .... makes me think , A company cannot be a bureaucratic nerve center but the one which binds people to a single goal...

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---> How rules snowball:

In their quest for law, order, stability, and predictability, corporations make rules for every conceivable contingency. Policy manuals are created with the idea that, if a company puts everything in writing, management will be more rational and objective. Standardizing methods and conduct will guide new employees and insure that the entire company has a single, cohesive image. And so it became accepted that large organizations could not function without hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of rules.

Sounds sensible, right? And it works fine for an army or a prison system. But not, I believe, for a business. And certainly not for a business that wants people to think, innovate, and act as human beings whenever possible. All those rules cause employees to forget that a company needs to be creative and adaptive to survive. Rules slow it down.

With few exceptions, rules and regulations only serve to:

1. Divert attention from the company's objective.
2. Provide a false sense of security for the executives.
3. Create work for bean counters.
4. Teach men to stone dinosaurs and start fire with sticks.

The desire for rules and the need for innovation are, I believe, incompatible.Rules freeze companies inside a glacier; innovation lets them ride sleighs over it.A turtle may live for hundreds of years because it is well protected by its shell, but it only moves forward when it sticks out its head.

----> What's wrong with bosses:

That's what's wrong with bosses. So many of them are better prepared to find error and to criticize than to add to the effort. To be the boss is what counts to most bosses. They confuse authority with authoritarianism. They don't trust their subordinates.

----> Why bureaucracies get built:

Bureaucracies are built by and for people who busy themselves proving they are necessary, especially when they suspect they aren't. All these bosses have to keep themselves occupied, and so they constantly complicate everything.I wanted our people to have more contact with one another. I wanted less clutter. I wanted fewer levels. I wanted more flexibility. I wanted a new shape for our organization.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


It is this vision which makes a corporation a great place to work for - its free , fair and Unconventional

Whats your company look like - do you feel , you have a role to play , do you feel connected and most importantly do every one follow one principle which leads to trust each other ?

Mohnish Pabrai: the DHANDHO Investor

When ever you think of investment , for the west it is equities and for us it is debt,gold etc..
I think the world saw one of the worst financial crisis through 2007 to 2009 and yet India Inc had a stable but yet sustainable growth . All thanks to a proven and sound track record of Indian Investment strategy in general and People in particular

We always believed in organic growth and as per the last SEBI data available , hardly 1% of the Indian investor's are in equity market and this % is now increasing

Well, equity is good if country's economy supports it and its bad when you have a growing desire to make a quick money yet you do not know where you have invested and
worst yet not knowing where your money has been invested

this is true for all the middle class families who would wish to grow their money and to that extent this book gives you a chance to open up to a new world called "Arbitrage"

Warren buffet did it , so did Microsoft and other companies who have given their shareholders a consistent returns....confused ??



Most of the strategy in financial market is purely a copycat of a well proven and well spun plan.

1. Invest in sustainable business
2. Do not invest in industries which you do not understand. Warren Buffet does not understand Information technology. He cannot see a tangible results. So he does not invest.
Did he lose ? yes he did but then cost of loss is much smaller than the profits he made in business he understood. Classic case is Washington News and other business he invested and continue to reap a huge profit.

At this point in time , Berkshire has given an investor more than 25% profit consistently over last several years

3. Look for low risk and High uncertainty market. Now this one is a clincher . Its like saying , Head you win tail you do not lose much !!!!
The case of Patel's from Gujarat ruling the Motel business in US is worth taking a dig and a learning to every one who would want to be entrepreneur
Motel business stands at more than $40 Billion in US alone and this figure could be much higher across the globe. And this is all run by Indians mostly.
When patels migrated to US , they barely had foot-n-Mouth existence and US was going through depression in 1970's..Motel business was losing and they saw an opportunity of arbitrage.
These business were selling at a cheap price....they bought them , turned them around into low cost models and made volume based profits which has sustained all the crisis of the market .


How did they see an opportunity which nobody could. How did buffet made profits when Index was losing and when wall street was downgrading the stocks , he was buying...How is it that one or two men could always be right when the wallstreet was telling it otherwise.....The answer lies in the Ingrained philosophy which these guys follow irrespective of market conditions and those things are told in very simpler terms in the book

Financial independence is one of the best gift we could give it to our kids . So we need to be knowledgeable enough to impart the right strategy and information to them

Let this book be a step towards that directions......


And lastly its interesting to go through Buffet's letter he sends every year to his investors...This letter gives you a different perspective of "Value Investing" and the power of Investments and
what they did differently which beats the market most often than not and more importantly tell's us where the investment guru - Mr warren Buffet sees an opportunity in coming days :)

iCon:Steve Jobs, the greatest second act in the history of business

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According to F. Scott Fitzgerald, there are no second acts in American life. Apparently he forgot to tell Steve Jobs. Jobs rose from an outcast high school electronics nerd to become the driving force behind Apple and avatar of the computer revolution, only to be driven from the company in failure and disgrace. Then, having endured repeated personal and professional disasters, he went on to make an indelible mark on the entertainment industry, reclaim the throne at Apple, and, with the extraordinary success of the iPod, regain his reputation as arguably the greatest innovator of the digital age.

Remember Incredibles , Monster Inc and all the toy story sequels which amassed a hug money world wide

Not to mention Ipod , Ipad and Mac series of computers

Apple had it all and he had already made the dent in the universe atleast thats what it look for some more years before another stefan Jobs come's in and take over this world

Nothing could deter this school dropout. He was there somewhere positioning his belief , moving with all the convictions he had in his heart and true evangelist.

He was a pirate in its true sense and what world once thought could end Job's era was just a beginning to this great man. His greatness was not in his characters but in his leadership to move a small team to conquer the world and make an History by itself

Thrice he got into a bankruptcy but then he is now the most charismatic figure you would see...that's steve job for you


He joined Apple , messed it up to an extent where he was thrown out of it and then he went on to believe Hardware is where his heart lies and design is what everyone thinks will stand out But then it was too late

IBM pc on one end and Microsoft on the other ripped apple apart and so does his next company which he founded when he was shown the doors from The apple..He called this company 'Next' and dreamt it to be the best seller in the PC market...But he misjudged everything from the starting. He misjudged customers and he even went to an extent where he thought he could sell those dumb computers by a spectacular design

Everything flopped. He had not learnt his lessons at least that's what world thought he could have ...But then , universe was just waiting to explode to his sheer enthusiasm and belief that he held for so long years

20 years of making is not a joke and holding on to his own convictions of proving his point is no way a sane act ..It was insane...Steve Jobs was bleeding with his loss making company , Next and he was looking out for a hope

He was looking out for another venture for a turn around and it was a sheer accident to Buy Pixer for few millions and turned that company to a billion dollar or may be more than that

Disney wanted it .So does every other great companies like Sony and others wanted Pixer. But it was Steve's remarkable power to turn around what seems impossible to possible which made apple ,Pixer and Next such great companies.

He gave un realistic demands , schedule to his world class engineers and everyone were working 18 hours a day and in the process broke all the history and here he was the king of Animation - Toy story which hit the market and he never turned back again..

He sold Next to Apple and went to sell iMac series to different market or rather he created a market for everyone to come and conquer...perhaps...but none could !!!

And not to forget Ipod which went head to head with Pixer sales and Now we are waiting , what next from Steve Jobs

The blue ocean strategy had just bugged him in the late 80's and he could never be failed ..
He had conquered everything from Hardware to Animation to Music to Technology but sadly couldn't be in a good health. the last I heard , he wanted to stay close to his family...Well that's the truth but he had made a dent already in the universe which no one could ever imagine .....

What set him apart could be seen in his sayings...read on and I am sure you will be excited !!!

"Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations."

"Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me . Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful. that's what matters to me."
"We've gone through the operating system and looked at everything and asked how can we simplify this and make it more powerful at the same time."
"Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected."
"I want to put a ding in the universe."
"I was worth over $1,000,000 when I was 23, and over $10,000,000 when I was 24, and over $100,000,000 when I was 25, and it wasn't that important because I never did it for the money."
"The Japanese have hit the shores like dead fish. They're just like dead fish washing up on the shores."
"Unfortunately, people are not rebelling against Microsoft. They don't know any better."
"Bill Gates'd be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger."
"The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don't think of original ideas, and they don't bring much culture into their products."

"My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to make them better."
"We made the buttons on the screen look so good you'll want to lick them."
"Click. Boom. Amazing!"
"You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new."
"Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."
"Why join the navy if you can be a pirate?"
"A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets."
"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."
"Recruiting is hard. It's just finding the needles in the haystack. You can't know enough in a one-hour interview.
So, in the end, it's ultimately based on your gut. How do I feel about this person? What are they like when they're challenged? I ask everybody that: 'Why are you here?' The answers themselves are not what you're looking for. It's the meta-data."
"We've had one of these before, when the dot-com bubble burst. What I told our company was that we were just going to invest our way through the downturn, that we weren't going to lay off people, that we'd taken a tremendous amount of effort to get them into Apple in the first place - the last thing we were going to do is lay them off."
"I mean, some people say, 'Oh, God, if [Jobs] got run over by a bus, Apple would be in trouble.' And, you know, I think it wouldn't be a party, but there are really capable people at Apple.
My job is to make the whole executive team good enough to be successors, so that's what I try to do."
"It's not about pop culture, and it's not about fooling people, and it's not about convincing people that they want something they don't. We figure out what we want. And I think we're pretty good at having the right discipline to think through whether a lot of other people are going to want it, too. That's what we get paid to do.
We just want to make great products. (I think he means "insanely great products!")"
"So when a good idea comes, you know, part of my job is to move it around, just see what different people think, get people talking about it, argue with people about it, get ideas moving among that group of 100 people, get different people together to explore different aspects of it quietly, and, you know - just explore things."
"When I hire somebody really senior, competence is the ante. They have to be really smart. But the real issue for me is, Are they going to fall in love with Apple? Because if they fall in love with Apple, everything else will take care of itself.
They'll want to do what's best for Apple, not what's best for them, what's best for Steve, or anybody else. (this actually reiterates my oft-repeated mantra of "ubiquitous evangelism" in companies)"

What Ever You Think , think the Opposite by Paul Arden

20 minutes of reading but a game changer in your life - this is how I felt when I read this book

My review might look timid but the book is far more exciting.

I am bugged of pushing my ideas through book review's and thats my way and I believe I did the right thing after reading this book :)

**************************************************************

I am pretty sure and I can guarantee this to all you - You are dead bored.where ever you are , at some point in life , you would have felt that life is Just this or is it something I have been forcedto go through.

Hold your breath and just sit back and deep breath. You are now connected to your soul and you are now in a journey of your own thought. You will have ideas...some are wild , some are foolish and some are just eccentric

Take it , apply it...fail because thats the best way to learn than getting the right answer after a 3 long hours of thinking...This is what we call Intellectual drain. Because the more you reason out and

more you are knowledgeable , you will not enjoy the journey of the goal . So we see great companies are built by young than the old :)..

Pragmatic decisions everyone of us take is just a Blunder we are making in our lives.The idea is to remain foolish and remain childish

Steve jobs would not have made Apple if he was an intellect and taken right decisions...He failed and he failed to an extent where he could have lost is life..

Thats the beauty.He won , he conquered and the rest is history

Dear patrons, its better to fail than winning and the amount of lesson it teaches is just beyond everything...

So take those decisions , right or wrong , you will have tremendous scope ...Think you can , think you can't either way you are right

Don't go with the crowd...pull them to you .Don't do what other people do , Don't listen to every one and get manipulated...ACT on your self and then you will see the richness

its YOU and YOU alone can decide the destiny ..Good or Bad , Just Do it !

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Roots and Wings By Raksha Bharadia

Ok , with this book I agree to disagree on most of the aspects because we are blessed with "Information" which we know is right and which is endorsed by most of the books written on children. However, I give her (Raksha Bharadia) a thumbs up for doing so much research on this topic and yet cutting down the number of pages to 300+. This is an achievement by itself because there is no 'one' short answer as to "How we need bring up our kids?"

There is always a room for improvement and there is always space for a blunder; we do it occasionally. So read this book with a pinch of salt.

On one hand, Raksha wants to let loose the strings and let kids do what ever they feel like doing and on the other, she explains on how we need to undo the "DO" and that's a little funny aspect of this book. Take for example, she asks parents not to be 'Entertainment Directors' and let them through trial and error figure out the best way of coming out of a problem. No doubt they will figure out some way, but what's the guarantee that its the "Right" way. :)

That's where she falters and according to me, it is "Unacceptable" since she has put so much of effort on the topic. Believe it or not , she has given reference to 100+ books in 300 odd pages and yet the irony is - A contradiction.

One of the most striking errors in the book is "- the Interviews". She has spoken to so many celebrities on how we need to bring up kids and the obvious answer, all of them gave is 'Space' - Give kids the space they want; give them their choice and complement their mistakes by asking them to reason out what went wrong!

This reminds me a quote on the American children -"In the United States today, there is a pervasive tendency to treat children as adults, and adults as children. The options of children are thus steadily expanded, while those of adults are progressively constricted. The result is unruly children and childish adults." ~Thomas Szasz

So all in all, pretty disappointing to me personally. But I thank her for giving some references and books which I always love to have it in my library! Thumbs down but before we wind off , remember this Shloka -

Laalayeth panchavarshani, dashavarshaani taadayeeth |

Praapthethu shodashe varshe, putram mitravad aachareeth ||

Tend to kids with love for first 5 years, mend them for next 10 years and be a friend - A soul for ever from then on!!!

why I want to Join Rotary Club !

Recently I cam across a foundation called CRY and they wanted some help from the professionals like us. Though I did help my bit but was not satisfied and had lot of open questions like - How do I become a part of the larger cause
How can I make difference to the human kind
How can I impart values to my daughter (Her name is Saanvis and she is 2 years old) - I would want her to be associated with noble causes and I believe Rotary would provide a platform.
How can I help myself to be a better person
How do I know my effort yield the results I would love to see.. ( I donated some money to CRY but I could never see as to how it helped a kid )...

Above all this , I want to be part of a social networking who is reputed , who can bring a massive changes ( And I believe thats very important) , who can be TRUSTED !

I read lot of books and would like to mention one of them . You can read the review here which I had written : http://be-a-ware.blogspot.com/2009/09/leaving-microsoft-to-change-world-by.html

So am pretty much clear that , you need a bigger platform , you need a larger community and you need leaders to move this world out of the crisis and I believe I can bring tremendous changes to the community as well....So rotary I believe can help me set this direction

looking forward to hear from you soon !

thanks
kiran

The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy

This Book with 300 odd pages has taken me exactly 21 days to complete. Not that it's boring but it's practical!

Unless we have something to gather out of the read, we will never be able to appreciate anything. If you solve the problem of relativity, you thank Albert Einstein for letting us know; and that's exactly the same experience with this life changing book. Life skills and so does the attitude, is hard to come by. Especially in a world of disgrace, hatred, confusions and irritations, it becomes more difficult and catastrophic to be "what you ought to be" - A human with peace and tranquility in your heart.

Spot this - We always complain, we always have qualms and we always have fears of many things and beyond that we do not think. If we did, we still continue to carry those baggage until we are clear - the storm has passed by and again a new beginning of new fears accost us in our lives.

All these are actually stemming from our own thoughts and misdeeds and edging that as an the art of the behavior into the "Sub Conscious" Mind. It is this secondary mind which is controlling everyone and it has been trained to do so by our thoughts, attitude and feelings. "MIND" is like a start button and "Sub Conscious" is like the engine. It can never run until someone triggers it do so. This secondary mind has tremendous and absolute energy to do anything and alas by the time we realize, it will be too late in our life.

So this book is a real game changer (But I agree it becomes boring too); and it indeed takes a lot of your time to go through and implement.

I would not want to comment on what I gained from this book because everyone's mind and hence sub conscious mind is relative and the benefits will be different.

For a change, I found a "Life Skill" book which is more practical and makes logical sense to everything we do in our lives. It takes a lot to be a good human being beyond and within our world and this book can be a starting point. As Joseph Murphy told "The Power is within you" and we all ought to live in a Better world than we are in today!

The Choice by Og Mandino

There isn't a time when we have to decide which side we need to part with. There are many strings attached to the decision we make in our lives. To that extent, the choice has become a dilution of many buttons we often take into consideration. But then you know for sure that these decisions in our lives are oblivious and have virtually zero impact in our day to day activities. I personally know a world wide support manager who quit his software job and chose to be a pilot. There is, this author who quit a 3 million buck salaried job to write a book!

How can we ever justify their decisions? How can we ever find a rational thought process for this tangential jump? How can we ever imagine we could be one of them?

You can and you alone can be the one who could buy in all these crazy natto stuff. (By the by, natto is a stinky fermented Japanese food :) ) You know why! As most of the successful creatures on this earth are the ones who have taken the die hard turns in their lives. There is no logic but rather a plain truth and that is 'they believe in their true self'. They know they are born to do just that!!!

Otherwise how can we ever justify Steve Job at one point of time leaving Apple to discover Pfizer. Can you believe that? I would never have done that but then he did, for he found is own path to succeed and that's the key.

Nobody but just YOU ALONE can tread the path, you think leads to success.

"The Choice" isn't a good motivational book but rather a good and overly perforated one which will highlight a subtle thing - A successful man isn't good till his family and friends thinks he is!

Good to have one in your cup board!

There is never an End and thats life !!

Joe E. Lewis
You only live once - but if you work it right, once is enough.

Samuel Butler
All animals except man know that the ultimate point of life is to enjoy it.


Life should always work like a binary. it should and it cannot be a bubble on the water...You never know when it explodes....We are the decision points and more specifically , you ALONE can be the decider of this game of LIFE....every step , every thought will lead to a point where you need to take either right or left but most never decides and walk the life as it comes and thats where we fumble....LIFE unfolds itself for those who want to listen , for those who want to feel and for those who want to move ahead in their own path.Nothing can stop them , not even their own self can make them sit at one side and crunch them...thats the beauty of being a binary in our own lives...when you are in that mode , you are very clear about your thoughts ....the decision you take may be wrong or right but you still hold your pride because you CHOSE THAT PATH...well! every bad decision will invaribaly lead to the BEST DECISION in your life....So be a binary , make the choice of wisdom because you know you will always have a second chance because destiny is always a choice you made the previous night !!!!

What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis

Do you know Facebook is by and large the single largest Human network dreaded even by Google. Google re-invented itself into many forms and it's all because we helped them to grow. That's the power of Human network. Take any company and you will see traces of this pattern every where. Google did an extra ordinary move to give the control to US and we made a difference to this company.

But Google has many ethical questions it needs to ask itself. The Company still does not share its Ads revenue and we do not know what it does with our personal data. Some say, they make money by bumping the priority of the page rank. But yet in someway we have lot to learn from this company. In fact when Google decided to launch Google news, it did not know whether to sort by date or sort by relevance. It didn't do anything and let customers decide what they wanted. It released a beta (in fact most of the Google products remained in beta for more than 3 years :) ) and there it comes - many customers wanted them to sort by date and they flooded the company white boards with this request. You see! customers will eventually push you to their way and Google respects that feeling. It did sort the Google News by date.

We need to be a platform for our customers to resolve their issues. They will use us as a tool to achieve what they want to achieve in their business model.

Remember Dell with all its awkward customer centric services, lost market in its desktop and notebooks till Michael Dell called it a shot one day and told the employees to listen to the customers. They just did nothing more than listening to blogs, feedback and giving control to the customer to prepare their own desktops. Now Dell forms a major threat to any company who would want to enter into this market.

It's funny but true that we hold something very close to our heart (like our source code :) ) and it does nothing more than bringing our customer more pain.

"What would Google Do By Jeff" has thrown open lot of patterns which every company is going through, be it open source companies like Red Hat, mixed source like Novell and closed door like Microsoft.

The question is can we open up, give control, collaborate, provide a platform for the customer, listen to them through Google, blogs and wikies and give them what they want rather than make them to come to our home page and search for a miniscule out of an horrendous data, flashes and options in our home page.

To that extent, you can differentiate the home page of Google vs Yahoo. Open google.com, you see an editable field. Google says nothing about its company, brags nothing about its search, but it follows the customer where ever he goes. It embeds its videos, blogs, wikis, flashes, ads to to customer's home page. It makes the google map mobile; that's the power it gives to the customer.

And go to Yahoo.com, you will be lost with abundant data thrown open to already confused & frustrated customers.

While reading this book, you will be pleasantly surprised about what your Company could be. You'll be posed with questions like does it have a human side, does its existence make sense and many more intriguing yet interesting dwells.

Happy reading!

What's love got to do here !!!!

every relationship in this world has its own set of rules....to think of , if you don't love someone and if he still continues to love , then thats called LOVE .if not it becomes pure attraction .....relationships blossom if you don't expect anything out of it and just pour your heart out...Love does not have ends or means. its just as plain as water ...if you see , you will find nothing but when you drink it draws your thirst.....its so very true for every bond we share with others.....

So fall in love , again and again and again..but yes with the same person :)

Siddhartha By Hermann Hesse

Enlightenment is within , at least that's what people say..but then Hermann has a different opinion...Enlightenment is with"out" you !!! Its as if the body and soul are just made to experience both good and bad...Bad is not bad to be experienced...It just happens and when it does it just means that you are bound to go through it and there is no escapism....looks very very naive but life has its own set of hidden agenda for each of us and hence bad is just not bad either to you or to the people around you

Young Siddharata learn to fast , to think and to wait and this is what he has adopted from Samanas but yet he is not quite sure he is "self" and hence lands up in "Samsara" experience which he devours later..but soon he recalls its not the fate but a necessity to go through all these experience to be self and to be grounded.

For him setting goals is limiting your thoughts and manipulating the nature of your mind...A soul with no goal and no objective and deathly attached is better than a soul with a purpose....

Some of these does not really fit into our world but this is one off the track book which really make your thoughts flow to an era of enlightenment and nirvana

I enjoyed the book but will I adopt it ? ...perhaps not but then I really relished reading through Hermann Hesse's thoughtful writing .....

A different book of its genre(1960's) which is worth a try.

"The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch

Jai Hugs Randy over the podium and tells him "Not to Die"...But can he? He is in his last leg of his life and he has to succumb to pancreatic cancer. He has no choice. Am I telling you a story straight from a Hollywood blockbuster! No I'm not and it is happening in reality (my guess is, it has already happened and Randy would have died!). It's heartfelt to read "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch.

Randy - the flamboyant charismatic professor of Carnegie Mellon University gave the "Last Lecture" as a tribute to his own life. I could not believe this guy can actually search for logic when he is dying. Hats off and my full bow to him. If at all life was too short, I would rather live his life; his thoughts are a life line to so many lifeless soul!

He had so much wisdom all through to tell and it just continued in his death. He showed us "How to dream" more than that "How to fulfill your childhood dreams" even if you are short lived. But your presence is "Long felt" and that's where we want to be "Someday" when we all are in death bed. This book is thought provoking not just to me but to so many people around the globe. He had so much wisdom to share and he did in a way which makes it even more tearful to accept the fact that he Died !

I am a dreamer but not anymore to match Randy's skill of making it happen. We just do not realize the worth of our "childhood" dreams and to the fact I have decided to live up to my dreams. I felt "We die thousand times before we actually Die" but not anymore after you read this book.

He has not gone too far in his death...and these links will justify it !

http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

Peace or pace...choice is yours

The process of birth is no less than a miracle and death is an ultimate truth!
Off the late one single question that haunts me very often is " Whatz life all about?" .Vital signs of getting old,uh??!! (Yeahhhhhh, I need those epics which talk about the essence of life :-p!).
Life is exciting, all about making money, thrilling, fun, superb, fantastic, boring...blah blah blah and finally "what"??!! I don't believe in reincarnation, to me, Life is something that happens just once. With this one chance that we all have, We are in a rat race to gain something or the other. True to its sense, life is about achieving something that we all dream off. But wait if that achievement is all about power and money, then think again, how long can you hold on to it?? My quest for the answer as to "whatz life all about" hit a dead end again ....
Suddenly, a simple thing that crosses my mind is the phrase "Peace of mind ". To all my questions I finally arrive at one answer.... "Peace of mind".... and yeah it's "Powerful" ( in the literal sense till the last letter D!). Ultimately if our dreams or achievements or whatever that we are struggling and juggling for in life doesn't give us peace of mind, then I don't think anything that we tried doing was worth the shot!!! Its THE thing that matters at the end ,no matter what!!!
And for me now, a silent wish awaits its fulfillment ..a wish for peace of mind !! As always,its easy said than done .Creating the inner peace needs a lot of sustained effort as one needs to get away with any kind of apprehension.
" God, grant me the serenity to accept things I cannot change ,courage to change the things I can , and wisdom to know the difference" is all that I pray for now !!!!

Thanks
Radhika

Leaving Microsoft to Change the World By John Wood

There are words which reflect just what we need to speak to our soul. John has notoriously involved with such a wonderful journey of life...I envy him...certainly there are more than just his experience. He has a point to prove to the human kind which is more human than any other facts that exists to date. I might be exaggerating but that's the way I feel after I read this fabulous experience of love for the job, lust for the wacky dreams he had and the longing to do something simple to the human kind; and that's "Leaving Microsoft to change the world", ladies and gentlemen

If I request you do something little great, I would urge you guys to buy this book. Guess why? Every coin you give to purchase this book will go to fund a girl child somewhere in the northeast region of our country, Nepal or may be it will help to buy a book or 2 for a Cambodian child who craves to learn and live.

Every rupee you donate to buy this will help to chase the dream of a girl to educate herself than being a slave or a prostitute. No that's a fact, let's accept it! As the saying goes "if you educate a boy you educate him alone but if you educate a girl you educate her whole family. Her kids will know to dream, her family will know how to respect and she will know that she has a life and not tears"

It's a fateful moment I felt when I read this book though John has written every positive things in life. It made me think about just one question "What is the purpose of this life?" Is it just buying a yacht and sail far away from the beach or help in some bigger change than that. Certainly there is more to it than what I just told.

Please grab one copy and I assure you, you will not regret !!!!

The book is all about John, the entrepreneur of a special kind who leaves Microsoft and decides not to sell MS Excel anymore to any other country, rather bring smiles to millions of kids across the globe. He has sent a magnificent message to the mass - "Think Big and that's the only way to save this world. Like it or Not "!!!

http://www.leavingmicrosoftbook.com/