Sharing Ideas Sharing Thoughts

1. Body posture - Keep your back straight and chin up, at all times. If you do this, you will be healthier and be able to think better. A straight back ensures that life-force energy traveling through the spine flows freely and does not get blocked. A bent back squeezes the diaphragm and lungs do not expand fully, thereby  2. Drink 10 glasses of water daily. Body and brain is about 70% water. 3. Sleep on your back for 7-8 hours. Avoid soft beds. Our body needs to be recharged and the brain cells realign during the sleep time.  4. Expose the body to 10 minutes of early morning sunlight. Please do not think of an alternative for this. Vitamin supplements are not enough.  After all, we need, food, water, air, and sunlight to stay alive.  Good health is governed by three things: 1. Right food  2. Exercise 3. Right thoughts I will write a separate post to cover the above points.

30 minutes after waking up and 30 minutes before going to sleep - is sacred. Internalize yourself during these periods. You may do the following In the morning - 1. Meditate 2. Do affirmations. 3. Think. (You may plan your day. In the order of priority, list the three things you intend to do that day) At night: 1. Review your day. 2. Meditate. Additional activities: Read and write during these periods. You may have to extend the time then. Don't's 1. Do not check your phone or computer 2. Try not to speak. Practise silence.

How does one get better? How does one become Great? The following three things help. 1. TRY - Curiosity drives us to try new things. When was the last time you tried something new? A new cuisine, a new language, a new routine. This is the beginning of our quest to grow. If the mind shouts a "BIG NO" then ignore it. The mind may say the following: - It is not practical (Conforminism) - Why do you want to do this - there is no need. (Laziness) - There is no time for this. (Efficiency, Productivity, time management issues) - It 'seems' risky. Are you crazy? (Fear) Don't be rash and stupid. But try developing the ability to take some risk. Get out of your comfort zone. Explore & experience wonder. 2.  LEARN - When you will try new stuff, you are likely to "FAIL" in many things, many times. Don't get disheartened. Analyze and learn. Most people feel that they are good learners, but very few actually are. The good news is - we can learn t

At work, do you regularly have, "hair on fire situations"? Are you always in a catch-up mode? Is it often that you have an urgent task at hand?  Don't worry! you are not alone. Most professionals, on most of the days, are frantically chasing the next thing? But why can't these smart people learn and find a better way to manage their time? Why do we live lives of physicians in an emergency room?  Please see the picture below: It's a good idea to focus on few important things and stay in quadrant 4. Planning and prioritizing will be essential for this. I use the following spreadsheet to stay in the 4th quadrant. I call it my weighted To-Do list. Items with the highest total will ascend to the top - and must be done first. You will notice the override column. I use this to award extra points to a task that needs to be done first but may not come on top of the list on its own (and vice-versa) How do you stay efficient & productive?

"The good traveler doesn't know where he is going next. The great traveler doesn't know where he came from" - Chuang Tzu. Do you like your travels perfectly planned or do you leave options for adventures? Traveling opens me up in amazing ways. My best thoughts come pouring in when I am on the move. And my best memories are from the unplanned travels. 

Imagine a small fishing village on the coast of Morocco, where every morning men go into the sea to catch - Tuna. You are a young fisherman and do the same. Every afternoon when you are back from a hard day at sea you load your catch in your truck and drive to the nearby fish market. Business was fine until recently when the brokers started demanding shrimp instead of tuna. Since your boat was good for shallow water and to catch shrimp one had to go farther, you along with many others continued to catch Tuna. Prices fell due to excess supply and you initially ignored the change. You started saying things like, "I've been in this business for 20 years and this change is temporary. You "hoped" things will change. But hope is not a good plan. Soon the truth was staring in your eyes and there wasn't sufficient demand for tuna. You also realized that you didn't have the capital to invest in a boat that could go farther to catch shrimp. You went out of business.

If a radio is broken, it cannot play a song. That does not mean that the signal is missing. Rather, it means that the radio is incapable of tuning to the broadcast. Similarly, success, wealth, health, joy etc. is always around us. We just need to tune ourselves to what we desire. We also have to believe that we deserve it and work towards our goal. And then magic will happen. Not only we will get what we want but it will seem effortless. But first, we have to be ready to receive. Friendly tip - a radio can only play one station at a time.

Three years back I wrote a post - What is that one thing knowing which everything else is known.  - in which I shared my concern about information overload. Imagine a large funnel on top of our head through which we selectively pour books and articles, audio's and video's, conversations & experiences. Ideally, the brain should process this vast amount of data and produce a few actionable points. In reality, we go through information indigestion. How can we make these things a part of our lives? Short answer : Take one thing at a time and work on it with full concentration till it becomes a habit. Then take the next. Remember, there are no Quick Fix solutions . 

Just as we cannot know the speed and position of an electron at the same time, we cannot give our 'A' game when we are attached to the outcome. Goal setting and Planning is extremely important but while executing, if we start worrying about the results, then we are injected with an unhealthy dose of emotions which prevents us from giving our best. In other words, the mind is distracted. One may use it to either be completely absorbed in the activity OR use part of it to worry about the outcome.

Let's understand this cycle. Although each step is important, let us start with Judgment. We will never have enough inputs or time to make a decision. Therefore, we make a judgment based on our experience or instinct or intuition. This ability to discriminate is what we know as wisdom. Having judged well, it becomes easy to take a decision. The next important step is execution. We take required actions completely believing in our judgment, therefore, we are committed and intrinsically motivated to give our 'A' game. With heightened awareness and visualization we mostly end up with the desired result. This result is not a prize but another opportunity created by us and the cycle continues. Are we wise enough to judge correctly? 

Success = Concentration + Practise It is not possible to succeed in everything. Therefore, choose a few things and perhaps only one thing. It is extremely important that this 'one thing' is what you love to do and are passionate about. There is no secret formula for concentration. Removing the distractions results in concentration. This may sound over-simplistic and yet this is the essence of concentration.  Mind needs to be trained. It is restless by nature and therefore when mind wavers we have to bring it back to the point of focus. One would agree that focusing is effortless and enjoyable when we are on what we love to do. Hence, choose to succeed in the thing you deeply care about. You will not give up because you love what you do. You are possessed with this idea. Taking baby steps, having shorter goals, building a routine and getting disciplined helps. Slowly things will change. But practise is essential to develop concentration. Life is all about making cho

How painful it must be for a caterpillar to transform into a butterfly? I don't know. But the joy to finally be a butterfly must be transcendental. Great pain is followed by indescribable joy. If the caterpillar resists this painful process then the transformation will not happen. If it hangs between accepting the pain and resisting it then the process will be prolonged. Only when it embraces the pain it will finally be liberated. May be there is a lesson here. Opening up to the pain is necessary for the birth of this 'new' thing. This is the process of creativity. Complete absorption & surrender. Sometimes we want to change things within us. We want to give birth to a 'new me'. But if we resist the pain then we will fail. This does not mean that we have to be brave; it simply means accepting, opening up and to let it happen. But what is the seed of this thought? I think we sow the idea when we want a thing badly. As badly as want to breathe. The litt

Our life is a series of moments. A sort of movie film reel. Each frame represents a moment.And we see one frame at a time on the screen. The frame that we see is the one through which light is passing at that moment. God creates each moment. Then He sustains it and in the end destroys it. [You can break this down into micro-moments and so on]. In a sense, the Trinity is working at all times to show this movie of life. The Trinity that has been mentioned in almost all the religions. What represents the light and the screen?

I have been meditating twice daily since March 09th, 2012. Today, I complete 5 years of this activity.  I have also been exercising twice daily for 15 minutes since the above date. These are free hand exercises and a type of pranayam. By the grace of God, I never missed the meditation or the exercise even once. So at least an hour daily. Lets do the Math. 5 (years) x 365 (1 hour everyday) = 1825 hours. I am closer to the 10,000 hour target.