Last Saturday (23rd May) lot of people had a great time with Dr. Aruna an Oncologist and a great role model for Life. The way she carried herself and the way she conducted herself was just mind blowing. I am and every one who attended the session is blessed to have met such a great person who survived a Cancer and living with so much courage and discipline in life.

She was so energetic and she was just emanating joy of life. She surprised everyone when she started saying “I am doctor but I am going talk about life”. What did I learn from her? I think different people had different learning but these are my learning. I am sure I cannot express everything because there was also lot of connection and feelings that was communicated.

1. All of us have been successful in life. We won the race when we were born and thats a great deal in life.

My Learning: Wow what a message to start with this was. Hitting me hard to remind me that Praveen its time you do more in life.

2. World came into existence by Imagination. For example, electricity can be used for many purposes, for light, ECG for checking if the heart if working, an oven to bake and an electric chair to kill people

My Learning: Whatever is happening in the world is by imagination and if we can stretch it wide we can do wonders.  And I am doing this every day

3.  Be aware of all things in life and thinking can Change your Life. Thinking changes everything or even the events that happen around. 

My Learning: I just found of what thought patterns I have about certain things that are not happenign in my life and I changed them. Event is not the outcome but Event plus response is the outcome and I can control the thoughts and choose the response

4. Jonathan the seagull: This is from a book where the seagull was fat and people thought it cannot fly and it started flying and was on top of the world. It is like the bumble bee. Aero dynamically speaking the bumble bee cannot fly but it does not know it cannot fly

My Learning: Be the seagull. Break barriers that you thought you cannot. So I am taking up new challenges in my life

5. There is not any hopeless things or situations that you cannot come out of if you think differently.

My Learning: Wow! thats all can I say

6. Sorrows are not sorrows in itself but its only so called sorrows which you can come out of. Do not succumb to Sorrows

7. People see me as a successful person but am I successful. If I achieve what I want then i am successful

My Learning: Never live for others. Just achieve what you want.

8. Your living is by your thoughts. Difficulties will come, but have the mental strength and dont give up at any cost

My Learning: During difficult times I will focus on the goals and move one

9. Why waste this precious life? Never compare yourself with others

My Learning: I never do that and dont want to do it in future too. I will have role models and do better than many.

10. At no point of time I thought I will not do my M.S. Thinking is the greatest attraction

My Learning: Dr. Aruna had some challenges to do her Masters in Medicine and this belief and focus made her achieve. Can’t I do that?

For all those who could not attend, I feel sorry for you and this is the best I could do.

I just thought I’ll share with you all what I posted for a contest entry in Litemind.com, for a Personal Excellence Project (Great concept and thanks to author Luciano). here it goes… 

Tip:

Internal Conflict questions Passion

Details:

We have passion to do something and there are other forces that pull us away from Passion. Though we are passionate about doing it we are not sure the true purpose of things we do. For example I know many people who have wanted to write the best of personal development blogs (including myself). They have 2 reasons to blog for, one is to give help others achieve more and secondly to make money. Though the passion is to help others, because of wrong strategies people fail to make money. They are caught in a fix and thats when the internal conflict arises. Either to it for money or for the true purpose. When this confusion starts, though you begin to work hard, you don’t get what you want. Primarily because you are not attracting. You start feeling that are people thinking that I am doing this to make money. Then you start defending your actions, and this conflict also arises a lot of negative energy and you feel drained every time you think about it.

There are 2 things to this

1. Making money is not evil. You can do lot of things with money. Even Mother Theresa the most noblest person ever lived wanted money 2. There is not harm in doing things for money.

The thing is that you must be sure of the reason behind you doing something. Be it Purpose of changing people or the purpose of making money be 100% sure of that. This will make sure that your conflict does not arise.

Other major conflicts people face are

Careers Vs Family

Money Vs Purpose

Health Vs Pleasure (Every time you eat that extra piece of Chocolate cake you feel guilty and that guilt makes things worse inside of your body)

Do feel free to list down more. 

This day happens to be the Birthday of my greatest inspiration of all times. Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam. I have learnt plenty of lessons from this greatest personality and thats what is here today.

1. Dream - All you need in life to achieve is a big dream. At a very young age Dr. Kalam used to dream of flying and later he realized his dream to a great extent. Today he in fact asks all the youngsters to dream big so that they as well as the country could flourish

2. Resourefulness - Its never resources but resourcefulness that makes history. From a very small village in South India, being an icon around the globe is about Action and strong positive Belief that anything is possible

3. The True Personality - He never was too keen on wearing the best of clothes nor dressing up himself. True personality is the inner beauty and the inner strength. Probably the most charismatic person with the charming and inviting smile ever. Be yourself and you can attract everyone.One of my favorite quotes of Dr. Kalam goes like this

“Learning gives creativity. Creativity leads to thinking. Thinking provides knowledge. Knowledge makes you great.”

His entire life, he dedicated for the society. Such as selfless person with so much of love and care has the entire nation to shower their love. One thing that I always want to follow from Dr. Abdul Kalam is the 6 traits of a great leader

1. The Leader must have a Vision

2. The Leader must be able to travel into an unexplored path

3. The Leader must know how to manage success, and even more importantly, failure.

4. The Leader should have the courage to make decisions

5. The Leader should have nobility in management

6. The Leader should work with integrity and succeed with integrity

I can go on and on about this great leader. I experince him in me when I want and feel great about it and trust me that gives a great sense of achievement and satisfaction and allows to perform deeds similar to the this great icon, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. Long live this great person.  Happy Birthday My Hero!

Recently I saw a chat show which as discussing on whether parents/teachers must show love to their children and make them understand and realize or should they scold them and be harsh with them? I was a keen watcher of this chat show which had 2 sets of people. One said that love must be shown and that’s the only thing. Because they were humiliated by parents and teachers. A few others struck to the usual saying “Spare the rod and spoil the child”.

I did not understand the concept for the long time because whats the intention of the parent and the teacher? To pull them down or to motivate? I think more than deciding whether a child should be dealth with love or be harsh with them, the question must be “How to Motivate a Child”. This would give numerous possibilities.

Even when a parent is scolding a child, the intention is not to humiliate them but to make them perform better and motivate. Sometimes the words that the teachers and the parents use are not really so perfect and that immediately affects the self esteem of the child. Yes, agreed sometimes the teachers do not bother about this and they humiliate the kids (not everyone though. Many teachers are great motivators).

Most of the times, when the parents are harsh with the kids, its because they don’t have a choice. Its not that they feel happy and excited about scolding their kids. So its about motivating the children. Whatever be the way, the choice must be only to motivate them and make them perform better. Is it possible? 100% yes.

Appreciation is one thing that most of the parents must do. While most of the parents spend a lot of time on finding fault and correcting the children, very little time is taken to appreciate them. Is this also very important? This will drive them to take responsibility and ownership to achieve the best.

So rather than debating “Showing Love or Scolding”, it should be “How to Motivate the Child”. Shall we have a round of discussion on these? Do write in all your comments as you read this.

What does this 23 year old boy/man have that we do not? Records after records and beating his own. Why does he do it or rather how does he do it? Skill/Practice? I think its beyond all those. Every time during an olympics there are many who put in 4 years of rigorous practice. They have the best of Coaches, equipments for training and so on. Then why?

The difference is the mindset is what I believe. The person who reaches the fastest gets the Gold, the 2nd silver and the 3rd bronze and the 4th nothing. They are not in the history books and whats the difference, milli seconds. That decides your destiny.  So you ought to give your best and even then you get a chance not to win.

Mindset is the key difference. And also there is a lot of self fulling prophecy that works for Phelps now! Everyone is expecting him to win and resources around him also support. He would have a great mindset when the thought of Play To Win will be so high.

But few point I want to push here is

1. Success comes from 100% intensity and passion

2. Having the right mindset in every action of yours will make success easier

3. Courage and Determination must beat the fear and give the certainty that you can be on top.

Look at the picutres of all the olympic medalists, the intensity is so high and they have fun and passion is at the peak. Its true in any area of life I believe! Thats what is pushing me today to do more.