Success Requires Sacrifice

I am not sure if it is ethical to blog about someone's personal life. But I hope it's not going to hurt anyone.

Btw, the subject of the blog is "Success Requires Sacrifice". I came to know about it when my boss quoted (current) it. But it is very unfortunate; I missed to learn the same from my ex-kind-of-boss (EKOB).

Ekob and I joined together in a organization as contractors, In fact, I am one month senior to him, but he should be 1/2 years elder to me. Initially it was fun to work in work-free environment, where you don't have any project but attend lots of meetings and trying to prove who has more talent. I kept on proposing solutions to improve security (for no project). Yes, Time passed.

EKOB had a assignment, to review a Oracle stored procedure. EKOB almost took 2 weeks. Output was very good document, clean product, and clear communication, few more suggestions to change architecture. Most of us make fun out of him that he is trying to create mount out of a mole. Yes, Time Passed.

We are all having assignment, Ekob completed another smaller module, he documented,.., suggested to revamp few applications, if possible advised to revamp entire architecture. Needless to say, we mad lots of fun at him. Yes, Time passed.

We all are having next assignment, Ekob who started working on another important .Net assignment. He spent lots of night at office, also learnt history geography of the application (all the way to merger history). He learnt every bit of the application. As per as my myopic view "It is sophisticated data entry system, with 10+ html forms, processed by Asp.Net 1.0, Oracle, nothing more to learn from it". Yes, Time passed.

Forgot to mention, the task he was working was attempted couple of times and failed miserably. It took another 6 months for him to complete (with the help of few good developers). He is not great at java, .net. But he read all the code as if it is a book. Gave few "review comments" to the good developers. And made sure there were nearly no bugs in the system. Yes, Time Passed.

Did I forget to mention? At the completion of the project, he invited us for a drink party and by the time he became an employee also?

Two more assignment, he spent 75% of his time at office. By then, he knew entire architecture, operation, flow of data. Became mentor for "everyone". He worked hard to the extent that one day when he reaches home early at the morning without key, he slept outside the door cause he was so tired.

I never directly worked for him for any projects, but often consulted him to gather more about architecture details. In between there were recession, most of us applied for PR. Hence we will have some fall-back plan to work in other companies in Singapore, he didn't. He was busy with projects.

Two years later, he literally headed the entire Singapore development team. It just took another 9 months for him to become head of the development team for the department itself. And now he moved to USA. In summary, a contractor replaced his super boss in 2 years 11 months, which we wouldn't have dreamt about it. But I guess I should also update this blog sooner because I can understand where he kept his sight at now.

A person, who completed his studies in polytechnic before his first job, is really a great achievement. But honestly his wife and kids should have great contribution in his success.

I was a fool who took 3 years to learn a point "Success requires sacrifice", which I could have taken just 2-3 months from another colleague. Nothing wrong that I am still working as a contractor, I deserve equivalently as my EKOB deserves his success. There is a new book titled, "Leader without a title", But I have witnessed it a year ago.

Moral of the story, Success requires sacrifice, Success also requires the ability to drink 6 bottles of beer (6*660ml) consistently in your life (he does). There is a saying in Tamil, "No body nails your ass, you just sit on it", Similar to that "Nobody gives success, you just pluck from your challenges"

I also like to wish him through the blog "Best of luck to achieve great success in your future endeavor, please invite me for this drink party too!".

TIPS to improve communication skills

People struggle only when needs to communicate formally. They become nervous. It is not natural to them. For natural formal communications, we have to practice it.

There are good and bad communicator, you can't be inbetween.

1. Objective
You should know what you trying to accomplish with your communication. So your communication should have Objective.

Clear and, purposeful communication always time consuming, but important. if possible, write your objectives in short verbs than explaining it.

2. Audience
Understand who is your audience, what do you want your audience to feel, believe, understand, react? Asses them, Use the different tone.

Who is primary target audience, what is negative perception which you would come across, what is their knowledge, resistance and negative perceptions?

Many audiences have short attention span and memory; get to your points very quickly. To influence audience, think from audience point of view.

Keep in mind that, expert audience will look for details, it not, they may not know the basics too.


Execution
1. Give attention to details, practice
2. Avoid unfocused ideas.

Strong Finish is very important in communication. Call to action or summary is very important.

It provides stability and understanding. Summay allows audiences to digest your message. Summary should have TODO list.

Note : Most of the tips from learnking kit "Teaching you : Communication SKILLS", I recommend them.

SQRRR / SQ3R

I spend lot of time in reading, but often disappointed cause not able to recollect what I have read. Recently I came across above acronym. It seems like reading requires lot of decipline.

Survey
1. Glance the whole book
2. Read about what are all the chapters, sections, sub-sections
3. Pictures, charts, tables, bolds and italics

Question
Ask yourself following questions
1. What are we tying to learn?
2. What is covered in the given material?
3. Who, when why, where and how questions about the reading material?

By completing questions steps, it will help us to understand weather the given material is worth reading, if yes, then it also answers about information we are going to collect from it.

Read
1. It supposed to be study :)
2. Studying is different from reading (not like reading my blog)
3. Concentrated effort without distraction, chapter by chapter.

Recite
1. Take notes in your own words.
2. Recollect what you read the last section, chapter.
3. How you could relate yourself with those information.
4. Organize quiz to yourself. [Creating questions will prove, how much worth your effort]


Review
1. You asked many questions, now review how much it answered.
2. Summarize what you read.

Remember and religiously follow the steps. It will surely help you.

Hope it helps! Enjoy reading!

How to set vision?

My boss recently advised me to jot down needs, wishes, issues, problems, disappointment, frustrations in my day to day life. He suggested that it helps to find a pattern and helps to set priority.

For an example

I am dissatisfied ....
I am dissatisfied due to less money.
I have less bank balance.
My salary is not enough.
I have less time to study.

When we keep on jotting down our need, and frustration, and etc. It will help us to find things make us happy, helps to find our goal.

Because, I suffer in a syndrome called "lack of vision", When you are frustrated and dis-appointed, jot-down every thing. Hope this tip will help you.

I thought it is wonderful idea and easy to practice.

Wishing you happy newyear - 2009


“For he who has no tranquility there is no concentration.”

My wishes for 2009.

1) Improving Personality
2) Learning Functional Programming
3) Learning Maths
4) Begining Part-time project
5) Jump into Mobile development

apart from the all of the above... "Doing regular meditation, being a good husband" will take highest priority.

Wishing you all happy and prosperous new year "2009"

The Strong

People may think about "Super Man", "Hoover Dam" or Titanium, when they are asked to think about "Strong", But I won't.

What is strong in this world? The answer is simple, It should be Earth and human mind cause that is what human being touched upon and felt.

Though there could be the strongest material revolving around an unknown star @ somewhere in the universe, let us be pragmatic to think about Strong.

I am planning to ask many of friends to answer the following questions

1) What would you think when a word "Strong" comes to your mind?
2) What was your strongest decision in your life?
3) When someone says "Headstrong person", whom do you think in your life?
4) What are the other words comes to your mind, when "Strong" is subvocalized?
5) What would you consider as the strongest moment in history?
6) Who is the Strongest personality in your life?

For me, My Mother, Immune, resistance and confidence are the words comes to my mind. I am yet to take the strongest decision in my life, Confessing for marriage has been a strongest decision till now.

Being Strong is not optional, if you are not strong enough, it is true that you loose your individuality. But being Strong and Egoistic is two different things. One shows power and other shows weakness.

Here is a famous quote from Vivekananda - "The world is the great gymnasium where we come to make ourselves strong.”

Being Strong and arrogant is two different things, which often I misunderstood in the past. But being strong doesn't give everything in life. cause "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change'.


In worst case, I have to be Strong, In best case, Me and my society around me should be strong. I am going to chase everyone and pass on this message.

Though it is difficult to measure mental strength, First, it is better to focus on physical strength, cause that is what Vivekananda's literal meaning.

What am I trying to blog about after six months, Make sure!!! you are strong person every morning, otherwise number of dead bodies count increases by factor of 1.

Congratulation to Cricket

Congratulation!!! to Indian Cricket team, It was wonderful cricket match, finally India made history by winning the first ICC 20-20 world cup. Congrats!!! Dhoni, Yuvi and Team ; who finally lifted what was mammoth task for Indian cricketing oldies. We hope that they soon leave our team for youngsters.

Highlight of the match is arrival of Misbah-ul-Haq, He just threatened entire cricket loving nation with his ability.