Life's Encounter

Bits and Pieces

2006-12-31T09:41:00.000-08:00

You are entitled to live a long, joyous, abundant, exciting life. It is your birthright. If you are experiencing less, you are shortchanging yourself. While I cannot provide you with this kind of life, throughout. I will share with you some of the concepts, techniques, and tools that have helped me and countless others to improve the quality of our lives and to begin reaching our full potential as human beings.

This is not a theoretical treatise. Some are experienced lessons in my life: I have, as they say, "walked my talk." What I'm sharing with you may be simple, but they are not necessarily easy. Easy things require no effort. Implementing the ideas will require some effort, but the result — living a happier life — will be well worth the effort.

After many years of living in a downward spiral, I had hit rock bottom. I was spiritually, emotionally, physically, and financially broke. I was out of control. My own family did not even want me around. I had only one friend left who would tolerate my behavior but even his patience wore thin. Through the grace of God and help from a lot of people, I was finally able to begin getting my life back on track. During this time of rebuilding my life, I became a student of personal growth and self-help. I read everything I could get my hands on, listened to countless tapes, and attended numerous seminars.

I began applying what I had learned in my own life, and before long, I started seeing results. Wanting to share my newfound knowledge, I began writing. After all, who am I to write and who will read? I'm just an ordinary guy. I don't have impressive educational credentials.

One thing I do have, however, is experience. I am living proof of their effectiveness. The fact that I live what I consider to be a dream life today is all the reason I need to keep applying principles. They have worked for me, and they'll work for you if...

When you're ready to take charge of your destiny,just keep readin...

How many times have you said, "All I want is to be happy"? So many of us get caught up in looking outside ourselves for happiness when, in fact, happiness is something that you can choose at any time. The old saying "Happiness is an inside job" does not refer to working indoors. It means that it is we who choose whether or not to be happy.

There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.

Remember: This is your life, not a dress rehearsal.

In any situation, you can choose how you represent what is taking place. You can give away your power and let outside circumstances take away your happiness, or you can claim your God-given birthright to be happy, regardless of what is going on around you. Think about it. How many times have you become unhappy because of something completely out of your control? How many times have you let other people's opinions of you or even the weather control how you feel? There was a time in my life when I thought that if I just bought enough "stuff" I would be happy. I thought a new car or a better stereo or bigger house would do the trick. I also used to look to other people to provide the happiness that was lacking in my life. When these methods didn't work and I was still not happy, I would be devastated. I now realize that all the material things and all the people in the world cannot, in and of themselves, make me happy. Only I can.

If you want to achieve happiness and live your life to the fullest, the first step is to accept where you are and who you are, right now. This is where change begins.

All too often we look at a situation, decide how we think it should be, and then act on our perception of it. The problem with this approach is that it is based on pure fantasy. If all we do is wish things were different, we will wind up being constantly frustrated. How many people are in relationships that are not working, telling themselves everything is fine when, clearly, it is not? Instead of living in denial, face the reality of what is happening, accept it, and decide do something about it. Perhaps your relationship would benefit from seeking a marriage therapist or maybe something as simple as scheduling special time together.

We must learn to accept circumstances as they are, not as we would like them to be. How many times have you said, "If only it wasn't raining, then I would be happy"? A happy person will accept the rain and go on with her life.

You cannot change the fact that it is raining, but you can change how you react to it. It is important to know the difference between these two viewpoints.

We must also learn to accept ourselves as we are in the moment. We sabotage ourselves by saying things like, "If only I had more money" or "If I were ten kilos lighter, then...." We cannot change what is. We can, however, accept everything about ourselves, warts and all, right here and right now. Only then can we begin to make the changes we desire and become the person we are capable of becoming. By accepting ourselves right here and right now, we will be less likely to allow occasional setbacks to divert us from our goals.

Once we have learned to accept ourselves, we can then identify those areas we want to change. For example, if I am fifty kilos overweight and telling myself it's because I have "big bones," I am living in denial. If I am overweight, it's because I probably eat too much and don't exercise. Once I accept the fact that I have a weight challenge, I am empowered to begin taking action to change it. Until I get out of denial, I am stuck. Acceptance is the first step in making any change.

A good exercise to assist you in developing acceptance is to take a personal inventory. This is similar to a grocer who, when she wants to know the state of her business, will take an inventory of the store's contents. She will count and itemize the good, sellable merchandise, then separate out the unsellable merchandise and get rid of it.

Responsibility is the thing people dread most of all. Yet it is the one thing in the world that develops us, gives us manhood or womanhood fibre.

But if I take complete responsibility for my problems, I then have the power to do something about them. This may sound like an oversimplification or a mere play on words, but it is a critical distinction. We are always 100 percent responsible for our lives. Whether or not we "caused" our problems in our conscious or subconscious minds is irrelevant. The fact is, these situations are present in our lives, and if we see that we somehow contributed to their being there, we are then empowered to change them.

If, for instance, you blame the fact that you don't have the kind of job you would like on your lack of education, then you are stuck right where you are. But if you accept responsibility for this lack of education, you can do something in the present to change it. You could go back to school, take a correspondence course, study on your own, and so forth. The point is that once you take responsibility, you are empowered to change. Author Louise Hay once stated, "The point of power is always in the present moment." At any given time, we can choose to change. It is good for us to recognize that while we may move forward and backward in the course of changing, at least we do not remain "stuck" in the powerless position of blaming. Begin now to take responsibility for creating the life you want. As Wayne Dyer suggested, "Make your life a work of art in progress."

If it's to be, it's up to me.

History will repeat itself!!!

2006-12-31T09:09:00.000-08:00

"We need leaders of inspired idealism, leaders to whom are granted great visions, who dream greatly and strive to make their dreams come true; who can kindle the people with the fire from their own burning souls."

You don't have to look far for the evidence of the imprint Kennedy has left on American life and politics. From the day of his death, virtually every president and presidential candidate since has, to varying degrees, sought to portray himself as the heir to the Kennedy legacy. Lyndon Johnson was obsessed with living in Kennedy's shadow. Richard Nixon was immensely jealous of the man he also thought of as his friend. Jimmy Carter reveled in being described by Time magazine as "Kennedyesque'' during his 1976 campaign. Ronald Reagan invoked Kennedy's tough stance toward the Soviet Union and his tax-cutting economic strategy to buttress his own efforts in these realms. A sixteen-year-old Bill Clinton famously was photographed— with a beatific look on his face—shaking Kennedy's hand in the Rose Garden. John F. Kerry (with the same initials and from the same state) took the comparisons to extremes at times, windsurfing off Nantucket Island in seemingly conscious emulation of Kennedy sailing off Hyannis.

Perhaps the politicians sense something that the political science professors—who have tended not to rate Kennedy's presidency very highly— don't: Even four decades after his death, JFK remains extraordinarily popular. An ABC News poll taken over President's Day weekend in 2003 listed JFK as the second-greatest president of all time.

Cynics have looked back at Kennedy's career and proclaimed that he was the spoiled son of a wealthy father whose success was inevitable. Such a conclusion sells Kennedy seriously short. There were plenty of talented, handsome, well-off, and politically ambitious young men in America in the 1950s and they did not all become president, much less an icon of the age for millions of their fellow citizens. Advantages JFK certainly enjoyed, but they were offset by considerable disadvantages that he had to labor mightily to overcome. John F. Kennedy on Leadership, I believe, will demonstrate how the modern executive—or merely the interested reader—can profit from learning how Kennedy went about this process of leadership development.

Kennedy, for example, gave us the "look'' of the modern presidency. If Franklin D. Roosevelt created the "imperial presidency,'' it was Kennedy who gave it its royal trappings. Kennedy took the boxy, functional presidential aircraft; hired a top industrial designer to repaint it; and christened the result Air Force One, to descend majestically from the skies as the very symbol of presidential power. No longer would American presidents greet their foreign visitors prosaically at the airport. Instead, the visitor would be whisked to the White House for a grand "welcoming ceremony'' on the South Lawn. State dinners, which had been fairly staid affairs for decades, were transformed into spectacular events with men in white ties and women in evening dresses. The White House itself, after being a fairly down-at-the-heels mansion from one administration to the next, would now glitter in grand style. And the supposedly plebeian American public loved it.

Kennedy's brief yet action-packed career can be studied with profit by business executives. He knew what he wanted, but he wasn't wedded to particular ways of getting it. When he wasn't getting the economic growth rates he wanted (i.e., "Getting the country moving again''), he shocked observers by calling for a large tax cut. He dismantled the rigid chain-of-command style of the Eisenhower White House—which he thought stifled creativity—in favor of a more freewheeling approach. At the same time, he centralized policy making in the White House to ensure the administration spoke with a single voice.

Almost all leaders have heroes and role models, and Kennedy was no exception. His hero was the man who had taken office in Great Britain twenty years earlier at a moment of supreme crisis in that nation's life: Winston S. Churchill.

The similarities between Churchill and Kennedy are striking. Both were the sons of famous and politically active fathers. Both were born into their respective nation's aristocracies and received elite educations (though Churchill never attended university). Both used their family connections to get into—rather than avoid—combat and made their reputations as war heroes, Churchill in South Africa and Kennedy in the South Pacific. Both launched themselves almost immediately into politics upon returning home. Both were facile with words and worked as newspaper correspondents. And both were able to convert seeming forensic handicaps into assets (in Churchill's case a lisp, and in Kennedy's case a pronounced regional accent) that made them electrifying public speakers. They even married at somewhat advanced ages, Churchill at thirty-four and Kennedy at thirty-six.

Churchill also lived the kind of life Kennedy himself found attractive. At the center of public life for more than fifty years, Churchill carved out a position for himself as a historian and public intellectual. Kennedy would come to prominence in a remarkably similar way.

If nature made JFK the son of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., choice made him the son of Churchill, a man his father couldn't stand. It was a crucial decision, because had young Jack (like his brother Joe Jr.) embraced his father's crabbed, pessimistic, isolationist politics rather than Churchill's optimistic internationalism, he almost certainly could never have become president of the United States. Kennedy later implicitly acknowledged his debt to the British leader by naming him only the second person in history to receive honorary citizenship of the United States. (The Marquis de Lafayette was the other.)

Its now simple and after reading this you will wonder that there are so many greats but only wedo not know them or what they have achieved. Looking at JFK or Churchill you will learn the art of creating a vision for yourself. here is how-

How to Create Your Own Vision

Craft an inspiring vision. If you aspire to leadership, your ability to inspire people is not optional; it is essential. A properly formulated vision will not only motivate your people to support your organization's goals; it will inspire them to pull the organization through crises.
Don't think you have to come up with a vision all by yourself. Look for role models, and consult widely. Start with the history of your organization to discover the roots of its spirit. Think of how Kennedy and Teddy Roosevelt before him appealed to the spirit of the American frontier. There was a driving force that once sparked the imaginations of your employees and inspired them. Tapping into the organization's memory is key to creating a vision that resonates and rekindles passion.
Keep it simple and direct—and make it memorable. CNN, for example, was a bold idea in the early 1980s. It aimed to be not only the first twenty four-hour news network, but also the network of record worldwide, seen in every nation on the planet. This vision is easily understood by all and ambitious enough to be memorable.
Don't be boxed in by your vision. Keep it flexible in order to accommodate unforeseen circumstances or a changing marketplace. Jeff Bezos started out with the vision of creating the "earth's biggest bookstore" by selling books on the Internet. Had he stuck to books only, he would have been overwhelmed by the competition that cropped up in response to his success. Bezos refocused his vision, thinking larger each step of the way. Today Amazon.com stands as "earth's biggest anything store."
Make your vision inclusive. If there are divisions or departments that cannot relate to or support the vision, they will not be inspired to reach their goals. Worse, some may feel left out and actually be demotivated by the vision. Include people from different parts of your organization in the process of creating a vision. Use focus groups to discover what inspires them. Why do they work for your company?
Be optimistic. Demonstrate how implementing the vision will lead to a brighter future. Consider Apple Computer's vision, for example. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak set out not to simply make computers, but to have Apple computers change the world. That higher mission appeals to our vision of the future where our lives are significantly improved by technology.

Its Time.. Alexander the great

2006-12-31T07:39:00.000-08:00

I believe that leaders are in the reality creation business. They make the world, obviously within constraints, the way they want it to be. This is called enactment—the process whereby an actor takes an action, the outcome of which changes the world to which that actor subsequently responds. The actor, perhaps a leader, manager, parent, general, strategist, politician, coach, or thief, changes either the environment, situation, perceptions, rules, processes, ideas, or other like concepts. In all cases action is required.

To reframe a situation is to change what people pay attention to or deem important. The meaning given to problems and the manner in which they are defined is critical. For example, by transforming an unsolvable task into another solvable one, the world to which we respond is essentially changed.I believe that the most important job for leaders is to create reality for their organization. A fundamental way in which we do this is to frame and reframe problems presented to our organizations. For example, a good vision statement (e.g., the customer is first, quality is first, or employees are first) is a simple reframing that can transform the organization—provided customers, vendors, and employees behave differently because the statement is promulgated. This reframing occurs because the leader declares it or makes it so, which transforms reality. If quality comes first, there are implications for the value chain, the unions, the stockholders, and the customers that are different from the reality transformation derived from asserting that the customer comes first.

Alexander the Great sometimes reframed problems by creating another problem. When he solved this new, "created'' problem, the original "unsolvable'' problem was either irrelevant, trivial to solve, or moot. I call this process problem displacement, and it is arguably the most important leadership secret.By now, I hope you appreciate the extraordinary power of reframing problems. When confronted with a seemingly unsolvable problem, you can reframe the problem, solve that new problem, and eliminate the original problem. I call this problem displacement. This technique has been in use for thousands of years, but it has never been studied systematically or popularized. Obviously, it does not work in every situation. But when resources are inadequate, the goals too grand, or the time constraint too short, these are indicators that maybe you are the problem, because you have accepted the definition of the problem.Notice the range of actions Alexander the Great used in reframing situations: choreographing the battle (at the River Hydaspes); using the enemy's strength against them (elephants); adjusting simple technology (the length of sarissas); using extra-organizational agencies (the League of Corinth); not destroying the enemy in order to make them an ally (Athens); burning the wagons (to gain mobility); founding cities (to create security and retirement communities); redefining mutiny (as when Alexander said that going home was his idea); looking at the sea and seeing land (at Tyre); foraging the enemy (everywhere); using deception (to cross the River Hydaspes); and acting without organizing (initiating the invasion of Persia without an heir). In hindsight, the outcomes almost seem inevitable. They were not. Success came from Alexander's amazing ability to reframe problems. How, you might ask, can you use such a simple range of actions to rout your competitor? This is a good question indeed.Reframing and problem displacement are powerful tools in planning at any level of an organization.

The first step in a strategic, tactical, or functional plan is to be clear about the objectives, whether we call this the vision, mission, objective, or goal. If we conceive of goals that are too modest, we may achieve them, and everybody will be happy. But we may have left too much money on the table. A grander conception might have served the organization fantastically.A common barrier to successful reframing is the leader's ability to conceive. There is a well-known principle that if you can conceive, and you can believe in your conception, then you can achieve it. The idea is that great leaders are able to conceive of things that others may find inconceivable, such as the women's movement, the environmental movement, the development of laptop or handheld computers, or space planes, the elimination of poverty, or the goal of world peace. If it can be conceived, and the leader is convinced of its authenticity, its capability for being brought into existence, and its rightness, then it can be achieved. The converse is simple. If you cannot conceive of something, your organization is highly unlikely to achieve it. Conceiving, believing, and achieving are critical to reframing. Without them, achievement is impossible. My experience is that people and organizations are capable of much more than many leaders realize. In such cases, leaders become the barrier. They stifle the organization. Don't be the problem. Conceive the solution, believe it, and achieve it.

Get going!!!

2006-12-14T21:38:00.000-08:00

Its always life that teaches us everything. I am sure each one of us have gone thru man different experiences - good or bad. I have always had everything in life and have earned good pals. Life is all about fun and yes i had a good deal of it. When it was time for education, I ignored and had fun and then there was a time when I had to realise that I needed to get serious in life.

Everything went right in my life my family, my pals and my career. No one could have had a better start. I have always had career as the top most priority in my life and then i realised that "Health is Wealth". Take it from me pals, nothing is much important than one's health and utmost care needs to be taken.

I was not well for over a year and underwent very tough treatment and now I am recovering to a better state of life. The last one year has thought me to be strong, believe and be more optimistic about life. My family and few of my friends made me feel that I am strong. Today, i am mentally tough having gone thru a trauma and now I pray that no one should ever undergo the state i had.

This also taught me few more things on people. "Love and be affectionate" is something we must know as people.I understood who were my real pals and who were not. This also gave me a lesson that we should always expect the unexpected. People who I did not even think of were actually by my side and that made me smile. Actually special people enter one's life and really make a difference and it happened in my life. From my heart, you need such people at any point in time who understand you well and you need to understand them well too. It is more than gratitude that you can repay them with life long.In this world of difficulties love those special people truly and forever. Its a long life of 'whitey and blackey'

Lets make this world a more nice place to live in than be selfish about ourselves. This is just a small start and will describe the event more in detail and also will write much more in detail about various incidents that i have faced/seen .