Lessons from My Autobiography

I am blessed that my autobiography is published by IEEE-USA on the following link

http://shop.ieeeusa.org/usashop/product/careers/98935

Here are the lessons from the various chapters of this e-book. You can read stories behind these lessons in my e-book.

1. Have a dream and follow it through. Remind yourself from time to time that you can achieve anything you want.  
2. Always help others, because giving is truly receiving.
3. Sometimes, you simply have to accept failure, and move on. Just because you didn’t succeed in one opportunity isn’t the end of the story. Other opportunities will present themselves—and you will succeed!
4. If you are lucky enough to find a good role model, let that person’s successes inspire you to achieve more.
5. Comparing yourself to others can destroy your own self-esteem. Each of us has positive qualities that we only need to discover.
6. The ability to communicate well with others is more important than how intelligent you are.
7. Seek out positive ways to distinguish yourself from others. When you stand out from the crowd, you get noticed.
8. A new job can offer an opportunity to quickly assess where your skills may be deficient. Don’t hesitate to get the extra training you need, so you can do your very best for your employer.
9. Special assignments can be your opportunity to demonstrate your best abilities. In the process, you will learn new things and form new business relationships.
10. Professional development is a continuing process. Be open to continuing to learn new skills.
11. Develop good relationships with your colleagues. Not only can they help you shorten your learning curve on the job, but they also just might recommend you for your next one! 
12. Superwoman is a fantasy. Don’t try to do it all, and remember to pace yourself.
13. Learn to prioritize, and when to say “no.”
14. Take care of yourself: Regular physical exercise is vital, as is getting enough sleep. And don’t forget to give yourself mental pats on the back for how well you’re paying attention to your needs!
15. Don’t be afraid of new professional opportunities to learn and grow.
16. Because we all spend our days at work, our professional colleagues are our extended family. Share your joy and positivity with them.
17. None of us know when a tough situation will appear; nurture your spirit regularly, so you can stay positive and strong when you must.
18. Never hold onto stress. Whatever it takes, do something about it!
19. When you leave an organization, do it gracefully.
20. Our energy is continuously flowing, and you get what you give. When you show respect and cooperate with others, they will cooperate with you.

 

One final note: Listen to criticism, but don’t take it personally. You are and will be your own best friend—and the master of your life!

The Need to Step Away from the Familiar and Step Up to Unknown in Order to Sustain Success

I did jump the curve – the need to step away from the familiar and step up to unknown in order to sustain success.several times in my personal and professional life.

I realized, when a frog is living in a pond, the frog thinks that the pond is his world but when frog jumps out of the pond and sees the bigger picture then he realizes world is so big and same experience happened with me. To be frank, I was little nervous when I was taking up this role but I reminded myself that things will be fine because I am a sincere and fast learner. So my learning is don’t be afraid to make changes and don’t have fear of the unknown. You never know what opportunities future has to bring to you.

 

I do know many people who want to make a change but are afraid. I tell them that if a bird wants to fly up in the sky, he must leave the branches. If you keep holding a branch and keep complaining that you are not able to fly then it is not a fair complaint.

 

I am reminded of a poem, which I read in elementary school. It is a story of a raindrop. The raindrop was afraid to leave the cloud and it was thinking; what if it  fell on a fire-stone and got burnt. What if it fell on the ground and got absorbed. But finally the drop gained courage and left the cloud. And it fell into a seashell and became a pearl. So the crux of this story is to be courageous and come out of your comfort zone, as you never know you may become a precious jewel one day!

 

When someone jumps the curve, there is certainly a ramp up which needs to happen to fit in new environments and learn new things. During this ramp up, it is very important to stay focused and open-minded. Don’t just cling to your old belief system and slow down rather embrace the change. Build upon prior experiences and learn new things with an open mind. Then you will rise up for sure. Sometimes, you may fall down during the process of jumping the curve, which is perfectly fine. That fall is not a failure- rather you are building resilience so that you can jump next time with greater force and right attitude. Remember the story of King Bruce and the Spider, try try again until you climb up the curve!

 

Remember life is a journey, if one curve or path doesn’t lead you to the way you wanted to go, find another one or make your own. There are always choices. Don’t stand still and expect someone else to blaze a path for you. You must look forward and move forward. It is OK to take small steps instead of standing still. Once you have enough strength, you can jump or take big steps. One thing that I learned during this journey is, to be confident no matter what. No one will empower you and give you step-by-step instructions or a recipe for jumping the curve. It is you who needs to empower yourself and carve your own path. You are responsible for your own journey and career. You need to drive it in the direction you want. Others are there to guide you but at the end of the day you need to drive it. Be the CEO (Chief Execution Officer) of your own job role and execute it the way you want! Self-doubt and perfection can hinder your growth. Take risks and keep going.

 

When you are moving ahead, you may face challenges and criticism. Take criticism seriously but not personally. It is worth listening to but don’t knock yourself down. You need to develop skin as thick as a Rhino! People will throw darts at you or maybe bullets, but you can protect yourself by wearing bulletproof vest! Are you ready for jumping the curve?

How to remain easy while being busy?

Do you wish you had more than 24 hours in day? Do you wish you had more than 2 hands? In this fast pace life, can we remain easy, efficient and effective?

Here are the few tips and tools that I used myself to remain easy while being busy.

1. There are 24 hours in day, 10-12 hours you are spending at work. You need 8 hours of sleep. How much time is left for you and your family? After working longs hours, you are discharged and you go with that energy at home. You give what you have. You might not be able to spend quality time with family when you are discharged. And then you go to bed with thoughts of your today’s meetings and next day meeting and same cycle repeats. When are you charging yourself?  Are we machines? We charge our machines also e.g. phone and laptop but we don’t have time to charge ourselves. If you don’t have positive energy you will not give it to family and friends.

2. Pressure is good motivator to get us going but if we feel pressure for long time and continue to work in that mode, soon we will be stressed out.

Stress = Pressure/Strength 

 Pressure is there in high demanding jobs and it will be there more going forward but do I need to get stressed out. I don’t have control over numerator but how can I avoid stress. Answer is obvious to increase inner strength/Resilience. We know when we put same amount of pressure on different metals, different metals have different stress because of difference in resilience of each metal. In same work environment, few people enjoy their work while others feel stress. What is the difference between these two categories of people? It’s their inner strength/attitude, which is making difference. While working hard what kind of thoughts am I generating? Am I worried that I won’t be able to finish it or what if missed out my deadline? Our state of mind impacts our inner strength and quality of our work and life.

3. When it is raining or it is too cold, do I keep complaining about weather? I do take measure to protect myself by using umbrella or putting warm clothes. Similarly when there is too much pressure would I complain about it or find a solution to protect myself. Under such situation when you need protection, talk to yourself the way you would to your good friend. You would always tell your friend that it is just temporary phase; things will be fine, just do your best and leave rest on God. Take control of your thoughts, feelings, emotions, actions and deeds.

4. Do personal SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threats).

Clarifying your strengths (What are the particular personal strengths that you can depend on the future?)

Acknowledging your weaknesses (What old weaknesses, if they could be removed, would have the greatest impact on your life?)

Recognizing Possible threats (What are the greatest risks or negative challenges that you will have to deal with in the future?)

Identifying golden opportunities (What opportunities can you see opening up in your life right now?

Having self-awareness is very critical part to maintain good work-life balance. Sometimes you might not be leveraging your strengths. You could be in a job role, which you may not be enjoying. It can cause stress in your life.

5. Embracing Change: Everything around you is changing, all the time. So you might as well get comfortable and embrace change, rather than resist it. Understand what's changing and what change you need to make. Change with change, and you might just discover that change is, in fact, an energizer, an opportunity! 

6. I am as I think. Our quality of thoughts decides our quality of life. So it is very important to observe what am I feeding to my mind. We need to learn art of positive thinking and avoid negative and wasteful thinking. We have very little and precious space in our memory, we can’t fill it with past resentment, grudges and hurt. We need to put virus scan on our brain memory and clean such virus every day. If you always do as you have always done, you will always get as you have always got. Similarly, if you always think as you have always thought, you will always do what you have always done. So to change your action, you need to change your thinking and attitude.  If negativity crowds your mind, replace it by positive thoughts. Divert your mind by not focusing on the negative exclusively. Negative thinking will just drain your energy, which is not helpful. It’s just a waste of time. This reason alone is a validation to stop thinking negatively.For instance if you catch yourself worrying about losing your job, stop yourself and divert your attention to an enjoyable game or recently watched movie.

7. In silence, we connect with our inner values and start the process of healing. It is simple and easy to do. No matter how tired or busy you are, you can give yourself the gift of just one minute –a long, deep breath in your busy life. A moment of silence can

1. Slow down your heart rate and breathing 
2. Normalize your blood pressure
3. Help you use oxygen more efficiently 
4. Slow down the aging process 
5. Improve your immune function

Take 1 min break after every hour. When something spills on your couch, you clean it immediately so that stain in not permanent. Similarly we need to clean our mind every hour. If my last hour was not good for some reason, I need to clean it to make my next hour enjoyable.

8. Take the responsibility and ownership of your own situation. You don't have control over others but you can keep your control with you. We mostly give our remote control to others and feel controlled by them and blame them. Be master of your own self, your emotions and feelings. Others cannot give me hurt until I take it. Even if they are throwing garbage at me, I need to be smart enough not to collect garbage and spoil my mind or mood.

9. Share your feeling with family or good friend. Have a network of people who are very positive and supportive. You don't need to go in complete silence or become violent. Remain cool, calm and connected. If you don't have any one around to share just start writing it on piece of paper. From my experience I always felt better putting my thoughts on paper. I started with complains but came out with positive out look.

10. Start your day we positive thought. Your mind is like a bloating paper in the morning and whatever information you feed, your quality of the day will depend upon that. Similarly end your day reading something positive and expressing gratitude for what you have.

Do what you love and love what you do. You will enjoy work as well as life as there is only love and no labor. You will remain easy while being busy!

Own your Experience

You might have met few difficult people in your life. If you want to have positive experience with such people, you must be ready to increase your positivity. I know it is easier to say than done. But here are few tips, which I applied at my work life and in personal life and I am benefited a lot.

1. To have positive experience you need to have positive emotions.

To have positive emotions you have to have positive thoughts. Your thoughts are like seed. If you sow quality thoughts, you will reap quality fruits. And remember fruits don’t appear next day. You need to take good care of that seed by giving water, fertilizer and enough sun light. Relationship is also like that. You need to nurture it with love, care and patience. Never give up because great things take time.

2.Own your Experience.

If you are negative and the person whom you are working with is a negative person, you will a negative experience for sure. If you are a positive person and the person whom you are working with is a positive person, life is good and you will have a positive experience like music in your ears. What kind of experience will you have when you are positive and other person is negative? If you want to have a positive experience your positivity needs to be much more than the negativity of the other person. Your experience depends on you. You don’t have control over the other person but you can certainly have control on yourself and your emotions.

 

3.Give respect to get respect.

Are we beggar of respect? We generally think if other person didn’t give me respect, why should I give. If I give respect to you, at some point cause and effect, action and reaction is such that respect will be returned. No matter what you have done, if I have continually shown respect, off course balance has to change and respect comes back to me also. Energy is continuously flowing -- What you give, what you get. Begin to co-operate with others; others will start to co-operate with you and you will have beautiful relation developed.

4.Let it go. 

Every one is unique and wonderful the way they are. Accept them; embrace them as they are instead of finding fault in them, criticizing them. They are doing their job/role, and I need to do mine. By doing this, you won’t get upset with anyone. You will have healthy relationship with whom so ever you meet. If you keep sending away every person who challenges you, you will never grow. Some people are in your life to sharpen you. When you are in conflict with someone, respect other opinion first and then present your opinion. Good feelings and then good communication can resolve 90 % of conflicts. And 10 %, if you don’t agree let it go.

5. What goes around comes around. 
If nothing works for you, think I had done something in past and it is coming back to me. Have mercy for the other person. He/She might be in pain for doing such behavior. And you don't to give him/her more pain by giving negative energy. If you do send negative energy, negative will come back to you and vice verse, so choice is yours. Break this cycle of feeling hurt and giving hurt and only send positive energy. You will have beautiful relationship.