Current Success is always Small February 18, 2012
Posted by aglakadam in Children n Students, Management.Tags: aglakadam, inspiration, lesson, life, Management, Motivation, success, win
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Current Success is always Small
National Talent Search Examination, popularly known as NTSE, has always been an aspiration mark for school students. Recently results were declared for the first level examination of NTSE 2011. Approximately 13,000 students appeared for this test in Chhattisgarh. My daughter Mahima, who is a Class VIII student at Krishna Public School Raipur also appeared for this examination and secured a slot in the first 90 odd students to get through. We all in the family were overwhelmed with this success and surely this was an occasion for celebration.
Immediately after the results we went to meet the director of her school, Mr. Ashutosh Tripathi to convey our gratitude for extending the best academic support. He was elated with his student’s success and it was all showing on his face. He luxuriously lauded Mahima for the feet and expressed his happiness in smile studded words of praise. His words of wisdom were highly inspirational. What came thereafter from his coffer of knowledge is absolutely rich and valuable life skill. I take this opportunity to share his success sutras with all the readers of “The Hitavada”.
One step of praise and two stages of admonition was his strategy. Suddenly after the dose of appreciation the director made us wary and suggested no party for this success. We all were surprised, why no party when there is such a relevant occasion to celebrate! To elucidate further, Mr. Tripathi shared two success secrets with Mahima :
- Remember this for lifetime that “current success is always small”
&
- Make success a habit.
These are so powerful advises I feel every person on the universe should take cognizance of it. Let’s try and understand the depth of these sutra’s. Qualifying for NTSE Level is a recognizable achievement though it is just half the way through. The ultimate victory happens when the student qualifies in the final (national) level examination! Being selected in the first stage and becoming eligible for appearing in the national level NTSE examination is similar to having qualified in the league matches before the semi finals and the final match. When you have a larger goal in front of you, it is a vital success habit to always consider the current success to be small. Current success should be used as an inspiration to achieve bigger victories. Current success should enable an individual to steer aggressively towards higher goals.
It surly makes sense to target partying at a higher achievement point and not get complacent by celebrating the smaller success. Success at every stage should be treated as an investment bank account. To en-cash the current success you should only withdraw confidence from the bank of success. Where is the time to rest when there are bigger challenges to test! A cricket enthusiast once asked Sachin Tendulkar “How do you celebrate every six that you hit in a match?” Came the reply, “I celebrate by focusing on the next incoming ball!”
Success breeds success. Getting habituated to success is good but getting into the habit of failure is worst! One should have the passion to be successful. When you do not make success as a natural tendency it becomes tough to align the mindset even when you are close to success. Here is an illustration from the world of cricket to put forth the point. The national cricket team of Bangladesh was in a phase of poor performance. They had lost a few matches in a row and the overall moral was very low in the team. At such a juncture they had to play a match with the then world champion Australia. To the shock and surprise of the cricketing world one new find bowler in the Bangladesh team spelled doom for the rival batsmen. The Aussies somehow managed to be at the crease at stumps. In the evening television journalist interviewed both the captain’s. The Aussie captain said, “To be in the game and to WIN it we will have to add 250 more runs tomorrow”. In the same interview the Bangladesh team’s captain said, “ we will have to ensure that we take all the wickets before lunch if we have to save this match! Pl re-read the words… “if we have to save this match”!!! Where is the question of saving a match when you are in a favorable match winning situation? What went wrong with the Bangladesh team was that they got habituated to loosing matches. Due to this negative habit they missed to recognize the visiting victory. On the contrary the Australian team was in the winning habit and even in a stressful situation they were thinking of victory!
We all know that it takes no time for the current to become past. With every passing moment, the current success tacitly gets buried into history and future unfolds with more demands for success. Winning should then become a way of life. We should allow our thoughts and design our actions to be governed by the habit of success.
Lessons for Excellence :
- Like failure, success should also not be counted as final
- Milestones of smaller success should never tempt you to rest till you achieve the bigger targets.
- Make wining a habit and you will never get distracted on the way.
- Current success should lay the carpet to welcome the next success.
- Always think success, to achieve success.
Feedback : Ajit Varwandkar
Email : md@fsindia.in
Stress is the shadow of wrong imagination February 6, 2012
Posted by aglakadam in Management.Tags: aglakadam, guidance, inspiration, lesson, life, Management, Motivation, stress, success, varwandkar
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Imagine this situation:
You are in a happy holiday mood. You plan to have a joyful day with your family as such you decide to go on a long drive. You start driving your car on a highway where there is almost no traffic. You are tempted to explore the odometer and you press hard on the accelerator. The madness of speed invariably brings obnoxious consequences. As you approach a traffic signal square, you do not stop at the ‘red traffic signal’ but zip past it since there is no other car on either side of the four-way. All of a sudden you get alerted by the sound of a police car siren. You see in the rear view mirror that the police car is approaching you at a still faster pace. You know that you have just committed a mistake and somehow the traffic police might have taken a note of it. The police car is at a distance where it would soon overtake you and ask you to stop. You feel stress mounting inside. You start imagining the consequences. What if you do not stop and rush at a still faster pace? Oh but the police might ask for more troops to stop me at the next turn! If they ask me to stop, I should obey them, says your inner voice. I am sure I will be fined for trespassing the traffic rule as well as for the rash driving. Oh God, please help me, they should not take me to the police station, I have no wrong intentions for sure. Your heart rate has increased and the effect seen as sweat drops on your forehead. You loose focus on the road and you’re only concentrated on the incoming harassment from behind. By now the police van is almost parallel to you. You have already started feeling very low, restless and insecure. Suddenly what happens is unbelievable for you. The police over took your car and went ahead, probably they were chasing a different target. Oops, all the while you were thinking that the police was running after you!
When there is ‘terror alert’ announced by the intelligence agencies, the overall administration & police is on its toes. What happened with you in the above illustration was something similar, your mental mechanism was all of a sudden put on high alert. There was a temporary phase of worry, stress and shock for you. Did you realize that all this was fictitious and hypothetical? Nothing of what you had imagined was actually true? You were not the target of the police van and they never intended to put you behind bars. However it was you who negatively extrapolated the imaginary consequences and started palpitating.
Can you get back to the first few words of the above imaginary situation. You were in a happy welcome mood which eventually translated into anxious and nervous state of affair for you. All this happened only because of you. It was you who instigated the negative thoughts in your mental backdrop. The world outside was the same even when you started the day in a happy mood and when you got into the stressful situation.
I share yet another situational example for you here. There was one family which was on to start a holiday tour. They had to board the train at a particular scheduled time known to them in much advance. Due to certain household chores they got delayed to start from home. Unfortunately for them, that day, the train was scheduled to arrive on time. Father – mother and their kids were tight-fisted and had their fingers crossed while they were rushing to the railway station in the car. The angry husband was all the way shouting at his wife & scolding her for being slow in arranging travel preparations. Although they intended to be on a holiday mood their journey started with stress. The poor children were close-lipped somehow wanting that they should be able to board the train. Finally, it was a touch and go situation and they somehow managed to get into the train. Friends, wasn’t it true that even if the gentleman had not behaved in a stressful manner they would have been able to board the train? What actually happened was the head of the family imagined all negative consequences and got stressed out.
We get exposed to similar situations many times in our daily life. In the process we sometimes unnecessarily invite a lot of stress and sadness into our life. The difference between stress and sorrow lies in the man’s perception. When you think bad, you feel bad. When you start feeling bad, it turns out to be worst for you personally. Stress is like friction, it is a necessary evil. Elementary level of stress is in-fact necessary for human being to survive. Stress is an energy & enthusiasm catalyst. It provokes a person to get into action mode and perform. Like you can store only a limited volume of fuel in your vehicle, human body is also designed to store a limited quantum of stress. As the stress grows more than the defined limit, it starts spilling and warns danger. It is our responsibility to disallow stress to walk along our life as soon as it becomes a liability. Finally it is our judgment to decide till what stage we would allow Mr. Stress to walk along with us in our journey of life!
LESSONS FOR EXCELLENCE :
- Never allow stress to be blown out of proportion because of unrealistic imaginations.
- Stress is like a small stone found under the shadow of a huge mountain.
- Invariably stress is created inside the human mind, it should be cured there itself.
- We should learn to be good to stress and in return stress will always be good to us.
- A basic amount of stress is must for us to excel in our ventures in life.
Ajit Varwandkar
Feedback : md@fsindia.in
For SUCCESS : commitment is more important than speed January 21, 2012
Posted by aglakadam in Management.Tags: aglakadam, inspiration, lesson, Management, Motivation, success, varwandkar, win
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Efforts never die
Your commitment is more important than your speed
I retell the story of a few frogs which lived their life happily near a dairy farm. Once while they were in search of food, a few of them inadvertently jumped into a milk bucket. Milk bath was an entirely new experience for these frogs. Eventually they realized that the side walls were too slippery and it was not possible for them to jump out of the vat. They could do nothing but to swim around hoping for some help. They were unaware of the fact that help comes to those who try a way out on their own first.
God helps those who help themselves. Almost all the frogs that
………………….. Complete write-up in my forthcoming book…. for announcement on the book title and launch, pl keep visiting www.aglakadam.com ………………………………………
In the journey to success, your commitment is more important than your speed.
Ajit Varwandkar
Feedback : md@fsindia.in
When opportunities knock, don’t be sleeping on the couch November 26, 2011
Posted by aglakadam in Management.Tags: aglakadam, airline, बच्चो, career, change, couch, kingfisher, lesson, life, Management, Motivation, opportunity, success, tall, win, win-win
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When opportunities knock, don’t be sleeping on the couch
Recently news about a reputed airline company cancelling flights occupied the media headline space prominently. This aero business company suddenly realized that it was in a horrendous loss of more than Rs. 1000 crore. The high-profile chief executive of the company approached the government heads requesting bailout! It was as if the airline was unaware of the impending crisis! …….
……………. Complete write-up in my forthcoming book…. for announcement on the book title and launch, pl keep visiting www.aglakadam.com ……………………………………… Ajit Varwandkar
Feedback : md@fsindia.in
Don’t stop at Good, Great is waiting ahead October 3, 2011
Posted by aglakadam in Management.Tags: aglakadam, बच्चो, belief, lesson, life, Management, Motivation, success, varwandkar, win, win-win
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Suppose you are travelling from Delhi to Mumbai and on the way you reach Agra. You are welcomed by some acquaintance of yours in the midway city. Will you consider having arrived at your destination? I am sure you won’t. While the target is to reach Mumbai, Agra is just a milestone. Apparently this looks like a very simpleton fact. Let me present the same situation with a twist. On your one way from one city to other suppose your car gets a flat tyre and cannot move ahead. Will you declare that the target destination is reached? Not really. You will have to find a way out to move ahead. When on road this might seem easy but when travelling on the journey called life, it becomes tough to distinguish a milestone from a goal.
Sachin Tendulkar started playing cricket for India at a very early age and it took him a 22 years long journey to be the part of a World Cup winning team. In the meanwhile he created a history of world records.
………………….. Complete write-up in my forthcoming book…. for announcement on the book title and launch, pl keep visiting www.aglakadam.com ………………………………………
Never confuse a milestone as the ultimate destination on the road to success.
Ajit Varwandkar
Email : md@fsindia.in
How can I win from here? September 10, 2011
Posted by aglakadam in Inspirational Story.Tags: aglakadam, game, inspiration, lesson, Management, quote, win-win, winner, winning
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I met two school students recently. In spite of there being certain stark similarities between both, they were performing differently in their examinations. Both belonged to similar socio-economic family background and were from the same village. Incidentally both went down with a long drawn viral fever just before the examination. It took time for them to get well and only a few days before the examinations they could get back to studies.
I happened to ask both the students about how they plan to prepare for the test. Here are their replies: The first student said “Not a problem, I shall somehow try to get passing marks”. This student had never been the topper and had never tasted success. He did not have any aspirations to be the best in his class. He was satisfied with bare minimum numbers and never targeted high. His plan was just to maintain his status quo. On the other hand the second student replied “It would be tough, but I shall work hard to keep up my place in the top three”! This student was a topper all through and always aspired to be on the merit list. Just to pass, anyhow could not be his aspiration even in the toughest situation.
It matters where your thoughts extrapolate from! While one student was targeting just to manage and somehow pass in the examination the other was targeting to be at the top. It is the quality of target that you maintain at every stage in the process of your journey which matters. The result should not surprise you: the student who had the target to just pass actually failed while the other student topped in the examination.
Many of us start the year with very high targets and rich ambitions. However with the passing months most of us tend to miss on our targets. The natural reaction is to lose will and feel hopeless. It’s easy to feel hopeless but difficult to keep up the hope against pressure. It’s not tough to surrender but it is an arduous task to keep the spirits high when under struggle. As they say it’s not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog which makes it win. If you are not up to the mark today never should you do this mistake to assume that you will not be so tomorrow. Tomorrow is always a new day and it comes with new promises. Let not the shadows of past failures darken your future. Keep up the mental demeanor. Redirect your adrenalin to recharge your will power and not the blood pressure.
Everything in life has a beautiful end, if it’s not beautiful enough it’s not yet the end! Once you have started off with your mission, its utmost important how you finish. Thomas Alwa Edison, while he was inventing the bulb, could have very easily surrendered when he failed in his second or in the ninety ninth attempts. However he had the lamp of hope glowing till he succeeded in achieving his goal. On the way we might fall occasionally and this is but natural. In such low moments winners count the number of times they get up and get going while the losers would count the number of times they stumbled.
It’s must to continue giving your best performance till the end. Falling down should be considered as recharge coupon and the “will power balance” should get the necessary top-up with every setback. A battle is lost not when the enemy wins but when the other side gives-up and thinks he cannot fight any more. Sachin Tendulkar and Shane Warn have been typically known for their never lose approach while playing on the field. Whatever may be the statistics on the scoreboard and irrespective of the field equations in the game, they prefer to ask their colleagues “How can we win from here”. Situations when the other team felt complacent about their victory these leaders were actually determined to turnaround the game. This approach has made their team win many games which they would have otherwise lost. Especially in the game of football and hockey you learn to keep up the winning will till the last-minute in the game. Many a match winning goals in international tournaments were shot just while the referee would have blown the finish whistle! It’s vital to be in the game till you finish strong.
Lessons for Excellence :
- Past is a history and future is a mystery. It’s mandatory to execute in the present moment, that’s the real asset.
- Hope is the only dependable weapon for a warrior who desires to win. Keeping the ultimate will to win will surely show you the well deserved victory in life.
- In the journey of life defeat should only be taken as a mini stoppage and not as the destination.
- At the end of the day it’s ones attitude, while facing adversity which defines the fate. It pays to manage and keep on the winning attitude.
- “How can I win from here” could be used as a sure formula for success. Whenever you are under challenging situations, ask yourself ( at least once) : How can I win from here? I am sure you will get your answer.
Ajit Varwandkar
Email : md@fsindia.in
