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30 lessons from life and career of NR Narayana Murthy

2011-08-20T09:18:00.002+05:30

This article is from: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-company/corporate-trends/30-lessons-from-life-and-career-of-nr-narayana-murthy/articleshow/9656715.cms

NR Narayana Murthy , who steps down as Infosyschairman on August 20, is a role model for not just what he achieved but also how he did it. Here are 30 lessons from Murthy, one for each year he spent at company.

Seize Your Gandhi Moment
Murthy, a self proclaimed socialist in the mid '70s was jailed for 72 hours in Bulgaria. The experience taught him that entrepreneurship and job creation is the way to alleviate poverty.

You might fail, but get started
Learn from mistakes and move on. In 1976, Murthy founded Softronics, a company that lasted a year and a half. When he realised that his first venture wasn't taking off, he moved on.

Think Big. Don't Hesitate to Start Small
In 1981, a determined Murthy started Infosys with Rs 10,000 he borrowed from his wife. In few years, Infosys went on to become one of the largest wealth creators in the country.

Cut Yourself a Slice, Not a Large One Always
When Infosys was set up, Murthy took a pay cut while salaries of other co-founder's were increased by 10 percent. According to Murthy, a leader needs to show his or her sacrifice and commitment.

Lend a Hand and Throw in a Foot Too
After Murthy convinced seven of his colleagues, there was a problem. Nandan's future inlaws were not sure about him. Murthy met Nandan's uncle and convinced him.

Own Up, and Then Clean Up
In the '80s Infosys developed an application for a German client. Murthy noticed a single character error and informed the client immediately.

Trust in God, But Verify with Data
In God we trust, the rest must come with data, is perhaps Murthy's favourite statement. When confronted with difficult decisions, he tends to rely on data.

Keep the Faith
Infosys almost wound up in 1990. Murthy did not want to sell the company. He asked co-founders if they wanted out and offered to buy their shares. All of them stuck together.

Get Involved
Infosys won a contract from Reebok in the early '90s. Seeing the founders involvement, the software, was nick named 'Dinesh, Murthy and Prahlad.' Infy veterans still recall those days.

Sharing is Caring
After the IPO, Infosys decided to share a portion of its equity with employees. This helped them retain talent and gave employees a sense of ownership. Murthy is proud of having given away stocks worth over Rs 50,000 crore to employees.

Treat your People Good, but Your Best Better
Murthy always had a thing for good performers. And he rewarded them well. When Infosys decided to give its employees stock options, Murthy insisted that some shares be given to good performers through the 'Chairman's quota.'

Hire a Good Accountant, Even if he is Argumentative
A young, argumentative Indian, was asking too many questions at an annual general body meeting of Infosys. More impressed than irritated, he hired Mohandas Pai, who went on to help Infosys list on Nasdaq.

When in Doubt, Disclose
Keep your books clean and leave the cooking to the chef. Murthy's philosophy about being open and transparent has given the company a lot of credibility. He often says, "When in doubt, please disclose."

Leave the Family Out
Murthy told his wife that only one of them could be with the company. Murthy, along with other founders, said that none of their children would work for Infosys. This left no room for nepotism at Infosys.

Don't be a Pushover
In 1994, when General Electric wanted to re-negotiate rates, Murthy said no to selling services any cheaper. This helped Infosys not to be overly dependent on any one client.

Make hay While the Sun Shines
In late 90's, India's tech companies made use of the Y2K opportunity to make themselves known in the global market. For Infosys, it was a great opportunity to enter into long-term relationships with their customers.

Brand-aid First, Get Clinical
When the sexual harassment case against Infosys' top sales guy Phaneesh Murthy threatened to tarnish the company's brand, Murthy decided to quickly react. He let go of Phaneesh, and settled the case out of court despite Phaneesh wanting to fight it out.

Mind your Business, you'll See Things Coming
Murthy carries and updates a mental model of Infosys' business all the time. According to him, every leader must have a model, consisting of six to seven parameters that might affect business.

Keep it Simple, Not Silly
Keep your life simple and straight. That way, you get to work more and worry less. Murthy is known to be frugal with money. Despite being one of the richest Indians, he leads a simple life. However, he does not cut corners on buying books or brushing up on literature.

Founders Keepers, but Not Forever
Murthy's decision to not allow founders to continue with the company after the age of 65 set another standard for the company. This way, younger leaders at Infosys had a greater chance at the top positions.

Talent Spotting and Division of Labour
Murthy is known to have an eye for talent and a talent for dividing labour. Nandan was given sales responsibilities while Kris and Shibu did the tech stuff. N S Raghavan was asked to handle people and Dinesh was assigned quality.

Hold on to Your People but don't Cling
Letting go is never easy but its not good to cling on to your colleagues either. Amongst the founders, Ashok Arora, Nandan Nilekani and K Dinesh have quit Infosys. Infy veteran Mohandas Pai has also left Infosys.

Give, it only gets you more
In 2010, the Murthy's donated $ 5.2 million USD to Harvard University Press for a project that aims to make India's classical heritage available for generations to come. He is also supporter of the Akshaya Patra Foundation.

Do it First and Do it Right
Infosys did many things first. And most things right. For example, it was the first Indian company to list on Nasdaq. It was the first Indian company to make it to the Nasdaq 100 list and it was the first Indian company to attain the highest level of quality certification.

Perils of Being a Poster Child
Being the poster child of Indian IT industry, Infosys and Murthy have been at the receiving end of many criticisms. The company has been accused of taking away American jobs and been called a "chop shop."

Get Rich. Honestly
Rich businesses were considered to be dirty in the days when the country had a socialist bent. Infy was a company which got rid of this sentiment. Murthy, with his 'no compromise' policy on greasing palms and doing ethical business, set the standards.

Do Not be Afraid to Court Controversy
Ever since Infosys became a success, Murthy was under constant public glare. This did not deter the straight talking Murthy from courting controversy or voicing his opinions openly.

Invest in Learning
With big investments in training, development and building facilities, India's IT bell-weather has always been keen on grooming the younger generation. Murthy drove the culture of learning in the company in its early days.

Never Lose the Common Touch
The big man of Indian IT kept his personal life simple. He lives in a simple, middle class house and flies economy till date. Murthy has always been accessible to people around him.

Do Good, Look Good
Murthy knew the importance of creating an image for Infosys. He invested in creating a sprawling, world class campuses early on, bigger than any other company's headquarters in the country, that would make his global customers feel like they were in a global office.

How to Lose Time and Money

2010-07-22T21:25:00.001+05:30

Source: http://www.paulgraham.com/selfindulgence.html

When we sold our startup in 1998 I suddenly got a lot of money. I now had to think about something I hadn't had to think about before: how not to lose it. I knew it was possible to go from rich to poor, just as it was possible to go from poor to rich. But while I'd spent a lot of the past several years studying the paths from poor to rich, I knew practically nothing about the paths from rich to poor. Now, in order to avoid them, I had to learn where they were.

So I started to pay attention to how fortunes are lost. If you'd asked me as a kid how rich people became poor, I'd have said by spending all their money. That's how it happens in books and movies, because that's the colorful way to do it. But in fact the way most fortunes are lost is not through excessive expenditure, but through bad investments.

It's hard to spend a fortune without noticing. Someone with ordinary tastes would find it hard to blow through more than a few tens of thousands of dollars without thinking "wow, I'm spending a lot of money." Whereas if you start trading derivatives, you can lose a million dollars (as much as you want, really) in the blink of an eye.

In most people's minds, spending money on luxuries sets off alarms that making investments doesn't. Luxuries seem self-indulgent. And unless you got the money by inheriting it or winning a lottery, you've already been thoroughly trained that self-indulgence leads to trouble. Investing bypasses those alarms. You're not spending the money; you're just moving it from one asset to another. Which is why people trying to sell you expensive things say "it's an investment."

The solution is to develop new alarms. This can be a tricky business, because while the alarms that prevent you from overspending are so basic that they may even be in our DNA, the ones that prevent you from making bad investments have to be learned, and are sometimes fairly counterintuitive.

A few days ago I realized something surprising: the situation with time is much the same as with money. The most dangerous way to lose time is not to spend it having fun, but to spend it doing fake work. When you spend time having fun, you know you're being self-indulgent. Alarms start to go off fairly quickly. If I woke up one morning and sat down on the sofa and watched TV all day, I'd feel like something was terribly wrong. Just thinking about it makes me wince. I'd start to feel uncomfortable after sitting on a sofa watching TV for 2 hours, let alone a whole day.

And yet I've definitely had days when I might as well have sat in front of a TV all day—days at the end of which, if I asked myself what I got done that day, the answer would have been: basically, nothing. I feel bad after these days too, but nothing like as bad as I'd feel if I spent the whole day on the sofa watching TV. If I spent a whole day watching TV I'd feel like I was descending into perdition. But the same alarms don't go off on the days when I get nothing done, because I'm doing stuff that seems, superficially, like real work. Dealing with email, for example. You do it sitting at a desk. It's not fun. So it must be work.

With time, as with money, avoiding pleasure is no longer enough to protect you. It probably was enough to protect hunter-gatherers, and perhaps all pre-industrial societies. So nature and nurture combine to make us avoid self-indulgence. But the world has gotten more complicated: the most dangerous traps now are new behaviors that bypass our alarms about self-indulgence by mimicking more virtuous types. And the worst thing is, they're not even fun.

P.S. Check Paul Graham's website, it has wealth of information and series of really really good essays.

Nice Story

2010-04-27T09:03:00.001+05:30

A professor began his class by holding up a glass with some water in it. He held it up for all to see & asked the students
"How much do you think this glass weighs?"

'50gms!' ..... '100gms!' .....'125gms' ...the students answered.

"I really don't know unless I weigh it," said the professor, "but, my question is:

What would happen if I held it up like this for a few minutes?"

'Nothing' …..the students said.

'Ok what would happen if I held it up like this for an hour?' the professor asked.

'Your arm would begin to ache' said one of the student

"You're right, now what would happen if I held it for a day?"

"Your arm could go numb, you might have severe muscle stress & paralysis & have to go to hospital for sure!"
….. ventured another student & all the students laughed

"Very good.

But during all this, did the weight of the glass change?"
asked the professor.

'No'…. Was the answer.

"Then what caused the arm ache & the muscle stress?"

The students were puzzled.

"What should I do now to come out of pain?" asked professor again.

"Put the glass down!" said one of the students

"Exactly!" said the professor.

Life's problems are something like this.
Hold it for a few minutes in your head & they seem OK.

Think of them for a long time & they begin to ache.
Hold it even longer & they begin to paralyze you. You will not be able to do anything.

It's important to think of the challenges or problems in your life,
But EVEN MORE IMPORTANT is to 'PUT THEM DOWN' at the end of every day before You go to sleep..

That way, you are not stressed, you wake up every day fresh &strong & can handle any issue, any challenge that comes your way!

So, when you leave office today,
Remember my friends to 'PUT THE GLASS DOWN TODAY! '

Have Breakfast… or…Be Breakfast!

2010-04-04T11:06:00.002+05:30

This article will provide interesting insights on "Who is your competitor?"

An interesting management article from Dr.YLR Moorthi:

Have Breakfast… or…Be Breakfast!

Who sells the largest number of cameras in India?

Your guess is likely to be Sony, Canon or Nikon. Answer is none of the above. The winner is Nokia whose main line of business in India is not cameras but cell phones.

Reason being cameras bundled with cellphones are outselling stand alone cameras. Now, what prevents the cellphone from replacing the camera outright? Nothing at all. One can only hope the Sony’s and Canons are taking note.

Try this. Who is the biggest in music business in India? You think it is HMV Sa-Re-Ga-Ma? Sorry. The answer is Airtel. By selling caller tunes (that play for 30 seconds) Airtel makes more than what music companies make by selling music albums (that run for hours).

Incidentally Airtel is not in music business. It is the mobile service provider with the largest subscriber base in India. That sort of competitor is difficult to detect, even more difficult to beat (by the time you have identified him he has already gone past you). But if you imagine that Nokia and Bharti (Airtel's parent) are breathing easy you can't be farther from truth.

Nokia confessed that they all but missed the Smartphone bus. They admit that Apple's I phone and Google's Android can make life difficult in future. But you never thought Google was a mobile company, did you? If these illustrations mean anything, there is a bigger game unfolding. It is not so much about mobile or music or camera or emails?

The "Mahabharata" (the great Indian epic battle) is about "what is tomorrow's personal digital device"? Will it be a souped up mobile or a palmtop with a telephone? All these are little wars that add up to that big battle. Hiding behind all these wars is a gem of a question – "who is my competitor?"

Once in a while, to intrigue my students I toss a question at them. It says "What Apple did to Sony, Sony did to Kodak, explain?" The smart ones get the answer almost immediately. Sony defined its market as audio (music from the walkman). They never expected an IT company like Apple to encroach into their audio domain. Come to think of it, is it really surprising? Apple as a computer maker has both audio and video capabilities. So what made Sony think he won't compete on pure audio? "Elementary Watson". So also Kodak defined its business as film cameras, Sony defines its businesses as "digital."

In digital camera the two markets perfectly meshed. Kodak was torn between going digital and sacrificing money on camera film or staying with films and getting left behind in digital technology. Left undecided it lost in both. It had to. It did not ask the question "who is my competitor for tomorrow?" The same was true for IBM whose mainframe revenue prevented it from seeing the PC. The same was true of Bill Gates who declared "internet is a fad!" and then turned around to bundle the browser with windows to bury Netscape. The point is not who is today's competitor. Today's competitor is obvious. Tomorrow's is not.

In 2008, who was the toughest competitor to British Airways in India? Singapore airlines? Better still, Indian airlines? Maybe, but there are better answers. There are competitors that can hurt all these airlines and others not mentioned. The answer is videoconferencing and telepresence services of HP and Cisco. Travel dropped due to recession. Senior IT executives in India and abroad were compelled by their head quarters to use videoconferencing to shrink travel budget. So much so, that the mad scramble for American visas from Indian techies was nowhere in sight in 2008. (India has a quota of something like 65,000 visas to the U.S. They were going a-begging. Blame it on recession!). So far so good. But to think that the airlines will be back in business post recession is something I would not bet on. In short term yes. In long term a resounding no. Remember, if there is one place where Newton's law of gravity is applicable besides physics it is in electronic hardware. Between 1977 and 1991 the prices of the now dead VCR (parent of Blue-Ray disc player) crashed to one-third of its original level in India. PC's price dropped from hundreds of thousands of rupees to tens of thousands. If this trend repeats then telepresence prices will also crash. Imagine the fate of airlines then. As it is not many are making money. Then it will surely be RIP!

India has two passions. Films and cricket. The two markets were distinctly different. So were the icons. The cricket gods were Sachin and Sehwag. The filmi gods were the Khans (Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and the other Khans who followed suit). That was, when cricket was fundamentally test cricket or at best 50 over cricket. Then came IPL and the two markets collapsed into one. IPL brought cricket down to 20 overs. Suddenly an IPL match was reduced to the length of a 3 hour movie. Cricket became film's competitor. On the eve of IPL matches movie halls ran empty. Desperate multiplex owners requisitioned the rights for screening IPL matches at movie halls to hang on to the audience. If IPL were to become the mainstay of cricket, as it is likely to be, films have to sequence their releases so as not clash with IPL matches. As far as the audience is concerned both are what in India are called 3 hour "tamasha" (entertainment). Cricket season might push films out of the market.

Look at the products that vanished from India in the last 20 years. When did you last see a black and white movie? When did you last use a fountain pen? When did you last type on a typewriter? The answer for all the above is "I don't remember!" For some time there was a mild substitute for the typewriter called electronic typewriter that had limited memory. Then came the computer and mowed them all. Today most technologically challenged guys like me use the computer as an upgraded typewriter. Typewriters per se are nowhere to be seen.

One last illustration. 20 years back what were Indians using to wake them up in the morning? The answer is "alarm clock." The alarm clock was a monster made of mechanical springs. It had to be physically keyed every day to keep it running. It made so much noise by way of alarm, that it woke you up and the rest of the colony. Then came quartz clocks which were sleeker. They were much more gentle though still quaintly called "alarms." What do we use today for waking up in the morning? Cellphone! An entire industry of clocks disappeared without warning thanks to cell phones. Big watch companies like Titan were the losers. You never know in which bush your competitor is hiding!

On a lighter vein, who are the competitors for authors? Joke spewing machines? (Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, himself a Pole, tagged a Polish joke telling machine to a telephone much to the mirth of Silicon Valley). Or will the competition be story telling robots? Future is scary! The boss of an IT company once said something interesting about the animal called competition. He said "Have breakfast …or…. be breakfast"! That sums it up rather neatly.

—Dr. Y. L. R. Moorthi is a professor at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. He is an M.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and a post graduate in management from IIM, Bangalore.

A Chat with Dr. Devi Shetty (Heart Specialist) - Very Useful!

2010-01-22T08:31:00.000+05:30

A chat with Dr. Devi Shetty, Narayana Hrudayalaya (Heart Specialist) Bangalore was arranged by WIPRO for its employees . The transcript of the chat is given below. Useful for everyone.

Qn: What are the thumb rules for a layman to take care of his heart?

Ans:
1. Diet - Less of carbohydrate, more of protein, less oil
2. Exercise - Half an hour's walk, at least five days a week; avoid lifts and avoid sitting for a longtime
3. Quit smoking
4. Control weight
5. Control blood pressure and sugar

Qn: Is eating non-veg food (fish) good for the heart?

Ans: No

Qn: It's still a grave shock to hear that some apparently healthy person
gets a cardiac arrest. How do we understand it in perspective?

Ans: This is called silent attack; that is why we recommend everyone past the age of 30 to undergo routine health checkups.

Qn: Are heart diseases hereditary?

Ans: Yes

Qn: What are the ways in which the heart is stressed? What practices do you suggest to de-stress?

Ans: Change your attitude towards life. Do not look for perfection in everything in life.

Qn: Is walking better than jogging or is more intensive exercise required to keep a healthy heart?

Ans: Walking is better than jogging since jogging leads to early fatigue and injury to joints

Qn: You have done so much for the poor and needy. What has inspired you to do so?

Ans: Mother Theresa , who was my patient

Qn: Can people with low blood pressure suffer heart diseases?

Ans: Extremely rare

Qn: Does cholesterol accumulates right from an early age
(I'm currently only 22) or do you have to worry about it only after you are above 30 years of age?

Ans: Cholesterol accumulates from childhood.

Qn: How do irregular eating habits affect the heart ?

Ans: You tend to eat junk food when the habits are irregular and your body's enzyme release for digestion gets confused.

Qn: How can I control cholesterol content without using medicines?

Ans: Control diet, walk and eat walnut.

Qn: Can yoga prevent heart ailments?

Ans: Yoga helps.

Qn: Which is the best and worst food for the heart?

Ans: Fruits and vegetables are the best and the worst is oil.

Qn: Which oil is better - groundnut, sunflower, olive?

Ans: All oils are bad .

Qn: What is the routine checkup one should go through? Is there any specific test?

Ans: Routine blood test to ensure sugar, cholesterol is ok. Check BP, Treadmill test after an echo.

Qn: What are the first aid steps to be taken on a heart attack?

Ans: Help the person into a sleeping position , place an aspirin tablet under the tongue with a sorbitrate tablet if available, and rush him to a coronary care unit since the maximum casualty takes place within the first hour.

Qn: How do you differentiate between pain caused by a heart attack and that caused due to gastric trouble?

Ans: Extremely difficult without ECG.

Qn: What is the main cause of a steep increase in heart problems amongst youngsters? I see people of about 30-40 yrs of age having heart attacks and serious heart problems.

Ans: Increased awareness has increased incidents. Also, s edentary lifestyles, smoking, junk food, lack of exercise in a country where people are genetically three times more vulnerable for heart attacks than Europeans and Americans.

Qn: Is it possible for a person to have BP outside the normal range of 120/80 and yet be perfectly healthy?

Ans: Yes.

Qn: Marriages within close relatives can lead to heart problems for the child. Is it true?

Ans : Yes, co-sanguinity leads to congenital abnormalities and you may not have a software engineer as a child

Qn: Many of us have an irregular daily routine and many a times we have to stay late nights in office. Does this affect our heart ? What precautions would you recommend?

Ans : When you are young, nature protects you against all these irregularities. However, as you grow older, respect the biological clock.

Qn: Will taking anti-hypertensive drugs cause some other complications (short / long term)?

Ans : Yes, most drugs have some side effects. However, modern anti-hypertensive drugs are extremely safe.

Qn: Will consuming more coffee/tea lead to heart attacks?

Ans : No.

Qn: Are asthma patients more prone to heart disease?

Ans : No.

Qn: How would you define junk food?

Ans : Fried food like Kentucky , McDonalds , samosas, and even masala dosas.

Qn: You mentioned that Indians are three times more vulnerable. What is the reason for this, as Europeans and Americans also eat a lot of junk food?

Ans: Every race is vulnerable to some disease and unfortunately, Indians are vulnerable for the most expensive disease.

Qn: Does consuming bananas help reduce hypertension?

Ans : No.

Qn: Can a person help himself during a heart attack (Because we see a lot of forwarded emails on this)?

Ans : Yes. Lie down comfortably and put an aspirin tablet of any description under the tongue and ask someone to take you to the nearest coronary care unit without any delay and do not wait for the ambulance since most of the time, the ambulance does not turn up.

Qn: Do, in any way, low white blood cells and low hemoglobin count lead to heart problems?

Ans : No. But it is ideal to have normal hemoglobin level to increase your exercise capacity.

Qn: Sometimes, due to the hectic schedule we are not able to exercise. So, does walking while doing daily chores at home or climbing the stairs in the house, work as a substitute for exercise?

Ans : Certainly. Avoid sitting continuously for more than half an hour and even the act of getting out of the chair and going to another chair and sitting helps a lot.

Qn: Is there a relation between heart problems and blood sugar?

Ans: Yes. A strong relationship since diabetics are more vulnerable to heart attacks than non-diabetics.

Qn: What are the things one needs to take care of after a heart operation?

Ans : Diet, exercise, drugs on time , Control cholesterol, BP, weight.

Qn: Are people working on night shifts more vulnerable to heart disease when compared to day shift workers?

Ans : No.

Qn: What are the modern anti-hypertensive drugs?

Ans : There are hundreds of drugs and your doctor will chose the right combination for your problem, but my suggestion is to avoid the drugs and go for natural ways of controlling blood pressure by walk, diet to
reduce weight and changing attitudes towards lifestyles.

Qn: Does dispirin or similar headache pills increase the risk of heart attacks?

Ans : No.

Qn: Why is the rate of heart attacks more in men than in women?

Ans : Nature protects women till the age of 45.

Qn: How can one keep the heart in a good condition?

Ans : Eat a healthy diet, avoid junk food, exercise everyday, do not smoke and, go for health checkup s if you are past the age of 30 (once in six months recommended) ....

Triple Filter Test

2009-12-26T10:53:00.003+05:30

One day an acquaintance came to meet Chanakya and said to him excitedly ," do you know what I just heard about your friend ?"
" Just wait a while", Chanakya replied." Before you tell me anything I would like you to go through a little test which I call the triple filter test".
" What’s that?" asked the acquaintance.
" I will tell you", Chanakya said." Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you are going to say. That is why I call it the Triple filter test. The first filter is ‘Truth.’ Are you sure that what you are about to tell me is true?"
"No", the man said." Actually, I just heard about it."
"All right", said Chanakya." So you don’t really know if it is true or not. Now lets us try the second Filter, the filter of ‘Goodness’. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?"
"No, on the contrary.."
"So", Chanakya continued," You wanted to tell me something bad about him but you are not certain it is true. You may still pass the test because there is one filter left; the filter of ‘Usefulness’. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?"
"No, not really..."
"Well", Continued Chanakya," If you want to tell me what may not be true and is neither good nor useful, why tell it to me at all?"

MORAL OF THE STORY: He who repeats the ill he hears of another is the true slanderer

Quotes by Chanakya:
1. Quotes by Chanakya
2. Quotes by Chanakya - II

Merry Christmas to all readers :)

10 TIPS FOR SUCCESSFUL LIFE

2009-12-15T21:56:00.001+05:30

MUST FOLLOW EVERYDAY

1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay 'them.'
2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.
3. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain idle. 'An idle mind is the devil's workshop.' And the devil's name is Alzheimer's.
4. Enjoy the simple things.
5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.
6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person, who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.
7. Surround yourself with what you love, whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, and hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.
8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.
9. Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county; to a foreign country but NOT to where the guilt is..
10. Tell the people you love that you love them , at every opportunity.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

Still Growing ...

2009-12-12T11:37:00.000+05:30

Sir Edmund Hillary was the first man to climb Mount Everest. On May 29, 1953 he scaled the highest mountain then known to man-29,000 feet straight up. He was knighted for his efforts.

He even made American Express card commercials because of it! However, until we read his book, “High Adventure”, we don’t understand that Hillary had to grow into this success.

In 1952 he attempted to climb Mount Everest, but failed. A few weeks later a group in England asked him to address its members. Hillary walked on stage to a thunderous applause. The audience was recognizing an attempt at greatness, but Edmund Hillary saw himself as a failure. He moved away from the microphone and walked to the edge of the platform.

He made a fist and pointed at a picture of the mountain. He said in a loud voice, "Mount Everest, you beat me the first time, but I’ll beat you the next time because you’ve grown all you are going to grow… but I’m still growing!"

Awesome one-liners ... humor

2009-11-14T20:33:00.003+05:30

One Line Humor

[1] Regular naps prevent old age, especially if you take them while driving.

[2] Having one child makes you a parent; having two you are a referee.

[3] Marriage is a relationship in which one person is always right and the other is the husband!

[4] I believe we should all pay our tax with a smile. I tried - but they wanted cash.

[5] A child's greatest period of growth is the month after you've purchased new school uniforms.

[6] Don't feel bad. A lot of people have no talent.

[7] Don't marry the person you want to live with, marry the one you cannot live without, but whatever you do, you'll regret it later.

[8] You can't buy love, but you pay heavily for it.

[9] Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.

[10] Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.

[11] Marriage is give and take. You'd better give it to her or she'll take it anyway.

[12] My wife and I always compromise. I admit I'm wrong and she agrees with me.

[13] Those who can't laugh at themselves leave the job to others.

[14] Ladies first. Pretty ladies sooner.

[15] A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.

[16] You're getting old when you enjoy remembering things more than doing them.

[17] It doesn't matter how often a married man changes his job, he still ends up with the same boss.

[18] Real friends are the ones who survive transitions between address books.

[19] Saving is the best thing. Especially when your parents have done it for you.

[20] Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools talk because they have to say something

[21] They call our language the mother tongue because the father seldom gets to speak!

[22] Man: Is there any way for long life?
Dr: Get married.
Man: Will it help?
Dr: No, but then the thought of long life will never come.

[23]Why do couples hold hands during their wedding? It's a formality just like two boxers shaking hands before the fight begins!

[24]Wife: Darling today is our anniversary, what should we do?
Husband: Let us stand in silence for 2 minutes.

[25]It's funny when people discuss Love Marriage vs. Arranged. It's like asking someone, if suicide is better or being murdered.

[26]There is only one perfect child in the world and every mother has it.

[27]There is only one perfect wife in the world and every neighbor has it!

Incredible Love Story - Liu Guojiang

2009-11-08T20:04:00.003+05:30

An incredible love story has come out of China recently and managed to touch the world. It is a story of a man and an older woman who ran off to live and love each other in peace for over half a century.

The 70-year-old Chinese man who hand-carved over 6,000 stairs up a mountain for his 80-year-old wife has passed away in the cave which has been the couple's home for the last 50 years.

Over 50 years ago, Liu Guojiang a 19 year-old boy, fell in love with a 29 year-old widowed mother named Xu Chaoqin..

In a twist worthy of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, friends and relatives criticized the relationship because of the age difference and the fact that Xu already had children.

At that time, it was unacceptable and immoral for a young man to love an older woman.. To avoid the market gossip and the scorn of their communities, the couple decided to elope and lived in a cave in Jiangjin County in Southern ChongQing Municipality.

In the beginning, life was Harsh as hey had nothing, no electricity or even food. They had to eat grass and roots they found in the mountain, and Liu made a kerosene lamp that they used to light up their lives.

Xu felt that she had tied Liu down and repeatedly asked him, 'Are you regretful? Liu always replied, 'As long as we are industrious, life will improve.'

In the second year of living in the mountain, Liu began and continued for over 50 years, to hand-carve the steps so that his wife could get down the mountain easily.

Half a century later in 2001, a group of adventurers were exploring the forest and were surprised to find the elderly couple and the over 6,000 hand-carved steps. Liu MingSheng, one of their seven children said, 'My parents loved each other so much, they have lived in seclusion for over 50 years and never been apart a single day. He hand carved more than 6,000 steps over the years for my mother's convenience, although she doesn't go own the mountain that much.'

The couple had lived in peace for over 50 years until last week. Liu, now 72 years, returned from his daily farm work and collapsed. Xu sat and prayed with her husband as he passed away in her arms. So in love with Xu, was Liu, that no one was able to release the grip he had on his wife's hand even after he had passed away.

'You promised me you'll take care of me, you'll always be with me until the day I died, now you left before me, how am I going to live without you?'

Xu spent days softly repeating this sentence and touching her husband's black coffin with tears rolling down her cheeks.

In 2006, their story became one of the top 10 love stories from China , collected by the Chinese Women Weekly. The local government has decided to preserve the love ladder and the place they lived as a museum, so this love story can live forever.

Good Morning

2009-11-07T22:12:00.002+05:30

Regular Health Mistakes

2009-11-04T22:08:00.003+05:30

Came across nice article. Check out here

Take care (especially to me :) )

Thoughts

2009-10-18T09:36:00.005+05:30

Address by Subroto Bagchi, COO, MindTree Consulting

2009-10-10T22:57:00.001+05:30

Address by Subroto Bagchi, Chief Operating Officer, MindTree Consulting to the Class of 2006 at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore on defining success. July 2nd 2004

I was the last child of a small-time government servant, in a family of five brothers. My earliest memory of my father is as that of a District Employment Officer in Koraput, Orissa. It was and remains as back of beyond as you can imagine. There was no electricity; no primary school nearby and water did not flow out of a tap. As a result, I did not go to school until the age of eight; I was home-schooled. My father used to get transferred every year. The family belongings fit into the back of a jeep � so the family moved from place to place and, without any trouble, my Mother would set up an establishment and get us going. Raised by a widow who had come as a refugee from the then East Bengal, she was a matriculate when she married my Father. My parents set the foundation of my life and the value system which makes me what I am today and largely defines what success means to me today.

As District Employment Officer, my father was given a jeep by the government. There was no garage in the Office, so the jeep was parked in our house. My father refused to use it to commute to the office. He told us that the jeep is an expensive resource given by the government � he reiterated to us that it was not his jeep but the governments jeep. Insisting that he would use it only to tour the interiors, he would walk to his office on normal days. He also made sure that we never sat in the government jeep � we could sit in it only when it was stationary. That was our early childhood lesson in governance � a lesson that corporate managers learn the hard way, some never do.

The driver of the jeep was treated with respect due to any other member of my Fathers office. As small children, we were taught not to call him by his name. We had to use the suffix dada whenever we were to refer to him in public or private. When I grew up to own a car and a driver by the name of Raju was appointed � I repeated the lesson to my two small daughters. They have, as a result, grown up to call Raju, Raju Uncle � very different from many of their friends who refer to their family drivers as my driver. When I hear that term from a school- or college-going person, I cringe. To me, the lesson was significant � you treat small people with more respect than how you treat big people. It is more important to respect your subordinates than your superiors.

Our day used to start with the family huddling around my Mothers chulha � an earthen fire place she would build at each place of posting where she would cook for the family. There was no gas, nor electrical stoves. The morning routine started with tea. As the brew was served, Father would ask us to read aloud the editorial page of The Statesmans muffosil edition � delivered one day late. We did not understand much of what we were reading. But the ritual was meant for us to know that the world was larger than Koraput district and the English I speak today, despite having studied in an Oriya medium school, has to do with that routine. After reading the newspaper aloud, we were told to fold it neatly. Father taught us a simple lesson. He used to say, You should leave your newspaper and your toilet, the way you expect to find it. That lesson was about showing consideration to others. Business begins and ends with that simple precept.

Being small children, we were always enamored with advertisements in the newspaper for transistor radios � we did not have one. We saw other people having radios in their homes and each time there was an advertisement of Philips, Murphy or Bush radios, we would ask Father when we could get one. Each time, my Father would reply that we did not need one because he already had five radios � alluding to his five sons. We also did not have a house of our own and would occasionally ask Father as to when, like others, we would live in our own house. He would give a similar reply, We do not need a house of our own. I already own five houses. His replies did not gladden our hearts in that instant. Nonetheless, we learnt that it is important not to measure personal success and sense of well being through material possessions.

Government houses seldom came with fences. Mother and I collected twigs and built a small fence. After lunch, my Mother would never sleep. She would take her kitchen utensils and with those she and I would dig the rocky, white ant infested surrounding. We planted flowering bushes. The white ants destroyed them. My mother brought ash from her chulha and mixed it in the earth and we planted the seedlings all over again. This time, they bloomed. At that time, my fathers transfer order came. A few neighbors told my mother why she was taking so much pain to beautify a government house, why she was planting seeds that would only benefit the next occupant. My mother replied that it did not matter to her that she would not see the flowers in full bloom. She said, I have to create a bloom in a desert and whenever I am given a new place, I must leave it more beautiful than what I had inherited. That was my first lesson in success. It is not about what you create for yourself, it is what you leave behind that defines success.

My mother began developing a cataract in her eyes when I was very small. At that time, the eldest among my brothers got a teaching job at the University in Bhubaneswar and had to prepare for the civil services examination. So, it was decided that my Mother would move to cook for him and, as her appendage, I had to move too. For the first time in my life, I saw electricity in homes and water coming out of a tap. It was around 1965 and the country was going to war with Pakistan. My mother was having problems reading and in any case, being Bengali, she did not know the Oriya script. So, in addition to my daily chores, my job was to read her the local newspaper � end to end. That created in me a sense of connectedness with a larger world. I began taking interest in many different things. While reading out news about the war, I felt that I was fighting the war myself. She and I discussed the daily news and built a bond with the larger universe. In it, we became part of a larger reality. Till date, I measure my success in terms of that sense of larger connectedness.

Meanwhile, the war raged and India was fighting on both fronts. Lal Bahadur Shastri, the then Prime Minster, coined the term Jai Jawan, Jai Kishan and galvanized the nation in to patriotic fervor. Other than reading out the newspaper to my mother, I had no clue about how I could be part of the action. So, after reading her the newspaper, every day I would land up near the Universitys water tank, which served the community. I would spend hours under it, imagining that there could be spies who would come to poison the water and I had to watch for them. I would daydream about catching one and how the next day, I would be featured in the newspaper. Unfortunately for me, the spies at war ignored the sleepy town of Bhubaneswar and I never got a chance to catch one in action. Yet, that act unlocked my imagination. Imagination is everything. If we can imagine a future, we can create it, if we can create that future, others will live in it. That is the essence of success.

Over the next few years, my mothers eyesight dimmed but in me she created a larger vision, a vision with which I continue to see the world and, I sense, through my eyes, she was seeing too. As the next few years unfolded, her vision deteriorated and she was operated for cataract. I remember, when she returned after her operation and she saw my face clearly for the first time, she was astonished. She said, Oh my God, I did not know you were so fair. I remain mighty pleased with that adulation even till date. Within weeks of getting her sight back, she developed a corneal ulcer and, overnight, became blind in both eyes. That was 1969. She died in 2002. In all those 32 years of living with blindness, she never complained about her fate even once. Curious to know what she saw with blind eyes, I asked her once if she sees darkness. She replied, No, I do not see darkness. I only see light even with my eyes closed. Until she was eighty years of age, she did her morning yoga everyday, swept her own room and washed her own clothes. To me, success is about the sense of independence; it is about not seeing the world but seeing the light.

Over the many intervening years, I grew up, studied, joined the industry and began to carve my lifesown journey. I began my life as a clerk in a government office, went on to become a Management Trainee with the DCM group and eventually found my lifes calling with the IT industry when fourth generation computers came to India in 1981. Life took me places � I worked with outstanding people, challenging assignments and traveled all over the world. In 1992, while I was posted in the US, I learnt that my father, living a retired life with my eldest brother, had suffered a third degree burn injury and was admitted in the Safderjung Hospital in Delhi. I flew back to attend to him � he remained for a few days in critical stage, bandaged from neck to toe. The Safderjung Hospital is a cockroach infested, dirty, inhuman place. The overworked, under-resourced sisters in the burn ward are both victims and perpetrators of dehumanized life at its worst. One morning, while attending to my Father, I realized that the blood bottle was empty and fearing that air would go into his vein, I asked the attending nurse to change it. She bluntly told me to do it myself. In that horrible theater of death, I was in pain and frustration and anger. Finally when she relented and came, my Father opened his eyes and murmured to her, Why have you not gone home yet? Here was a man on his deathbed but more concerned about the overworked nurse than his own state. I was stunned at his stoic self. There I learnt that there is no limit to how concerned you can be for another human being and what is the limit of inclusion you can create. My father died the next day.

He was a man whose success was defined by his principles, his frugality, his universalism and his sense of inclusion. Above all, he taught me that success is your ability to rise above your discomfort, whatever may be your current state. You can, if you want, raise your consciousness above your immediate surroundings. Success is not about building material comforts � the transistor that he never could buy or the house that he never owned. His success was about the legacy he left, thememetic continuity of his ideals that grew beyond the smallness of a ill-paid, unrecognized government servants world.

My father was a fervent believer in the British Raj. He sincerely doubted the capability of the post-independence Indian political parties to govern the country. To him, the lowering of the Union Jack was a sad event. My Mother was the exact opposite. When Subhash Bose quit the Indian National Congress and came to Dacca, my mother, then a schoolgirl, garlanded him. She learnt to spin khadi and joined an underground movement that trained her in using daggers and swords. Consequently, our household saw diversity in the political outlook of the two. On major issues concerning the world, the Old Man and the Old Lady had differing opinions. In them, we learnt the power of disagreements, of dialogue and the essence of living with diversity in thinking. Success is not about the ability to create a definitive dogmatic end state; it is about the unfolding of thought processes, of dialogue and continuum.

Two years back, at the age of eighty-two, Mother had a paralytic stroke and was lying in a government hospital in Bhubaneswar. I flew down from the US where I was serving my second stint, to see her. I spent two weeks with her in the hospital as she remained in a paralytic state. She was neither getting better nor moving on. Eventually I had to return to work. While leaving her behind, I kissed her face. In that paralytic state and a garbled voice, she said, Why are you kissing me, go kiss the world. Her river was nearing its journey, at the confluence of life and death, this woman who came to India as a refugee, raised by a widowed Mother, no more educated than high school, married to an anonymous government servant whose last salary was Rupees Three Hundred, robbed of her eyesight by fate and crowned by adversity � was telling me to go and kiss the world!

Success to me is about Vision. It is the ability to rise above the immediacy of pain. It is about imagination. It is about sensitivity to small people. It is about building inclusion. It is about connectedness to a larger world existence. It is about personal tenacity. It is about giving back more to life than you take out of it. It is about creating extra-ordinary success with ordinary lives.

Thank you very much; I wish you good luck and Godspeed. Go, kiss the world.

Love and Marriage Explained Beautifully

2009-10-08T08:24:00.000+05:30

Love and Marriage Explained beautifully

A student asks a teacher, "What is love?" The teacher said, "in order to answer your question, go to the wheat field and choose the biggest wheat and come back.

But the rule is: you can go through them only once and cannot turn back to pick."

The student went to the field, go thru first row, he saw one big wheat, but he wonders..may be there is a bigger one later.

Then he saw another bigger one.. but may be there is an even bigger one waiting for him.

Later, when he finished more than half of the wheat field, he start to realize that the wheat is not as big as the previous one he saw, he know he has missed the biggest one, and he regretted.

So, he ended up went back to the teacher with empty hand.

The teacher told him, "..this is love.. you keep looking for a better one, but when later you realize, you have already miss the person.."

*"What is marriage then?" the student asked.

The teacher said, "in order to answer your question, go to the corn field and choose the biggest corn and come back. But the rule is: you can go through them only once and cannot turn back to pick."

The student went to the corn field, this time he is careful not to repeat the previous mistake, when he reach the middle of the field, he has picked one medium corn that he feel satisfy, and come back to the teacher.

The teacher told him, "this time you bring back a corn.. you look for one that is just nice, and you have faith and believe this is the best one you get.. this is marriage."

Our Life ... Don't Waste It

2009-09-30T23:46:00.002+05:30

Philosophical but TRUE

2009-09-30T22:59:00.001+05:30

1. ATTITUDE IS WHAT LIFE IS ALL ABOUT.......
SOLDIER: SIR WE ARE SURROUNDED FROM ALL SIDES BY ENEMIES,

MAJOR: EXCELLENT!! WE CAN ATTACK IN ANY DIRECTION.

2. EVERY ONE KNOWS ABOUT ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL WHO INVENTED THE TELEPHONE, BUT HE NEVER MADE A CALL TO HIS FAMILY. BECAUSE, HIS MOTHER AND WIFE WERE DEAF.

THAT'S LIFE "LIVE FOR OTHERS".

3. THE WORST IN LIFE IS "ATTACHMENT" IT HURTS WHEN YOU LOSE IT. THE BEST THING IN LIFE IS "LONELINESS" BECAUSE IT TEACHES YOU EVERYTHING AND, WHEN YOU LOSE IT, YOU GET EVERYTHING.

4. LIFE IS NOT ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO ACT TRUE TO YOUR FACE........ IT'S ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO REMAIN TRUE BEHIND YOUR BACK.

5. IF AN EGG IS BROKEN BY AN OUTSIDE FORCE........ A LIFE ENDS. IF AN EGG BREAKS FROM WITHIN....... LIFE BEGINS.

GREAT THINGS ALWAYS BEGIN FROM WITHIN.

6. IT'S BETTER TO LOSE YOUR EGO TO THE ONE YOU LOVE. THAN TO LOSE THE ONE YOU LOVE....... BECAUSE OF EGO.

7. A RELATIONSHIP DOESN'T SHINE BY JUST SHAKING HANDS AT THE BEST OF TIMES. BUT IT BLOSSOMS BY HOLDING FIRMLY IN CRITICAL SITUATIONS.

8. HEATED GOLD BECOMES ORNAMENTS. BETTED COPPER BECOMES WIRES. DEPLETED STONE BECOMES STATUE. SO, THE MORE PAIN YOU GET IN YOUR LIFE THE MORE VALUABLE YOU BECOME.

9. WHEN YOU TRUST SOMEONE TRUST HIM COMPLETELY WITHOUT ANY DOUBT.............. AT THE END YOU WOULD GET ONE OF THE TWO: EITHER A LESSON FOR YOUR LIFE OR A VERY GOOD PERSON.

10. WHY WE HAVE SO MANY TEMPLES, IF GOD IS EVERYWHERE?

A WISE MAN SAID: AIR IS EVERYWHERE, BUT WE STILL NEED A FAN TO FEEL IT.

Smile - video worth a watch

2009-09-28T07:54:00.001+05:30

Check this cool video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbk980jV7Ao

something really nice

2009-09-25T07:41:00.002+05:30

I received following story in email. Nice way to start day :)

There were about 70 scientists working on a very hectic project. All of them were really frustrated due to the pressure of work and the demands of their boss but everyone was loyal to him and did not think of quitting the job.

One day, one scientist came to his boss and told him -

Sir, I have promised to my children that I will take them to the exhibition going on in our township. So I want to leave the office at 5:30 pm.

His boss replied

“OK, You ‘ re permitted to leave the office early today”

The Scientist started working. He continued his work after lunch. As usual he got involved to such an extent that he looked at his watch when he felt he was close to completion. The time was 8.30 PM.

Suddenly he remembered of the promise he had given to his children. He looked for his boss, He was not there. Having told him in the morning itself, he closed everything and left for home. Deep within himself, he was feeling guilty for having disappointed his children.

He reached home. Children were not there. His wife alone was sitting in the hall and reading magazines.

The situation was explosive; any talk would boomerang on him.

His wife asked him “Would you like to have coffee or shall I straight away serve dinner if you are hungry.

The man replied “If you would like to have coffee, I too will have but what about Children??”

Wife replied “You don't know?? Your manager came here at 5.15 PM and has taken the children to the exhibition”

What had really happened was …

The boss who granted him permission was observing him working seriously at 5.00 PM. He thought to himself, this person will not leave the work, but if he has promised his children they should enjoy the visit to exhibition. So he took the lead in taking them to exhibition. The boss does not have to do it every time. But once it is done, loyalty is established.

That is why all the scientists at Thumba continued to work under their boss even though the stress was tremendous.

By the way, can you guess as to who the boss was..?

He was none other than

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Former-President of India

Excellence

2009-08-27T22:13:00.001+05:30

A German once visited a temple under construction where he saw a sculptor making an idol of God. Suddenly he noticed a similar idol lying nearby. Surprised, he asked the sculptor, "Do you need two statues of the same idol?" "No," said the sculptor without looking up, "We need only one, but the first one got damaged at the last stage." The gentleman examined the idol and found no apparent damage. "Where is the damage?" he asked. "There is a scratch on the nose of the idol." said the sculptor, still busy with his work. "Where are you going to install the idol?"

The sculptor replied that it would be installed on a pillar twenty feet high. "If the idol is that far, who is going to know that there is a scratch on the nose?" the gentleman asked. The sculptor stopped his work, looked up at the gentleman, smiled and said, "I will know it."
The desire to excel is exclusive of the fact whether someone else appreciates it or not.

"Excellence" is a drive from inside, not outside. Excellence is not for someone else to notice but for your own satisfaction and efficiency...

Good Read

2009-08-16T12:18:00.004+05:30

Arthur Ashe, the legendary Wimbledon player was dying of AIDS which he got due to infected blood he received during a heart surgery in 1983. From world over, he received letters from his fans, one of which conveyed: 'Why does GOD have to select you for such a bad disease'?

To this Arthur Ashe replied:
'The world over -- 50 million children start playing tennis, 5 million learn to play tennis, 500,000 learn professional tennis, 50,000 come to the circuit, 5000 reach the grand slam, 50 reach Wimbledon, 4 to semi final, 2 to the finals, when I was holding a cup I never asked GOD 'Why me?'.
And today in pain I should not be asking GOD 'Why me?'

Happiness keeps you Sweet
Trials keep you Strong
Sorrow keeps you Human
Failure keeps you humble
and
Success keeps you glowing, but

only Faith & Attitude Keeps you going......................... ........

Tips for Better Life

2009-08-14T22:31:00.002+05:30

Nice Read: http://pravstalk.com/tips-for-better-life/

Poster kinda thoughts and most of the things are not that difficult to follow.

Discipline and doing the right things is the heart of the message.

How Ego sometimes misjudges a Person

2009-08-10T23:16:00.005+05:30

How our inner Ego sometimes misjudges a PERSON

A lady in a faded grey dress and her husband, dressed in a home-spun suit walked in timidly without an appointment into the Harvard University President's outer office. The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods, country hicks had no business at Harvard and probably didn't even deserve to be in Harvard.

"We want to see the President" the man said softly.

"He'll be busy all day" the secretary snapped.

"We'll wait" the lady replied.

For hours the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become discouraged and go away. They didn't and the secretary grew frustrated and finally decided to disturb the president..

"Maybe if you see them for a few minutes, they'll leave" she said to him. The President, stern faced and with dignity, strutted toward the couple.

The lady told him “We had a son who attended Harvard for one y ear. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus."

The president wasn't touched....He was shocked. "Madam" he said, gruffly, "we can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery."

"Oh, no," the lady explained quickly “We don't want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard."

The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit, and then exclaimed, "A building! Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical buildings here at Harvard."

For a moment the lady was silent. The president was pleased. Maybe he could get rid of them now. The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, "Is that all it costs to start a university? Why don't we just start our own?"

Her husband nodded. The president's face wilted in confusion and bewilderment. Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford got up and walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California where they established the University that bears their name: -StanfordUniversity, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.

Most of the time we judge people by their outer appearance, which can be misleading. And in this impression, we tend to treat people badly by thinking they can do nothing for us. Thus we tend to lose our potential good friends, employees or customers.

Remember:

In our Life, we seldom get people with whom we want to share & grow our thought process. But because of our inner EGO we miss them forever.

It is you who have to decide with whom you are getting associated in day to day life.

Small people talk about others,

Average people talk about things,

Great people talk about ideas.

10 Inspiring Last Lectures and Commencement Speeches Everyone Should Watch

2009-08-03T22:14:00.001+05:30

Check below link:

http://oedb.org/library/features/10_inspiring_lectures_and_speeches

Really Good One.

10 years of kargil war

2009-07-25T23:51:00.002+05:30

I was just seeing TV show on NDTV featuring the occasion of 10 years of kargil war between India and Pakistan.

And, some soldier were talking really really inspiring things.

I fetched four sentences which I liked the most (these are not the exact ones as they spoke). Hope you will also feel the same.

Everybody has fear and conquering it is part of our reason to be here (in this world).
Everybody has fear including your enemy, so side which dares wins.
Soldier by himself never wants war.
Death does not have smell, it has effect. And, when you are killing enemies you have to expect you can also be effected. It's part of our job.