Tuesday, July 30, 2013

2013-31 - Make it happen...

The obstacle itself is not enough to stop you. What stops you is your assumption that you can’t get past that obstacle.

The problem is not that you have too much of this or too little of that. The problem is, you’re waiting for perfect conditions that will never come.

The achievement that really happens, happens in the real world. The things that get done, get done in less than ideal conditions.

Don’t make excuses for why you can’t get it done. Focus on all the reasons why you must make it happen.

There will always be challenges. And there will always be something you can do to get beyond each one.

Listen closely, and hear that your dreams are calling you. Feel their pull, feel their positive power, and do what it takes to make them real.

~ Ralph Marston




Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.

~ Michael Jordan

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

2013-30 - Peace of mind...

Once Buddha was walking from one town to another town with a few of his followers. This was in the initial days. While they were travelling, they happened to pass a lake. They stopped there and Buddha told one of his disciples, "I am thirsty. Do get me some water from that lake there."

The disciple walked up to the lake. When he reached it, he noticed that some people were washing clothes in the water and, right at that moment, a bullock cart started crossing through the lake. As a result, the water became very muddy, very turbid. The disciple thought, "How can I give this muddy water to Buddha to drink!" So he came back and told Buddha, "The water in there is very muddy. I don't think it is fit to drink."

After about half an hour, again Buddha asked the same disciple to go back to the lake and get him some water to drink. The disciple obediently went back to the lake. This time he found that the lake had absolutely clear water in it. The mud had settled down and the water above it looked fit to be had. So he collected some water in a pot and brought it to Buddha.

Buddha looked at the water, and then he looked up at the disciple and said, "See what you did to make the water clean. You let it be... and the mud settled down on its own... and you got clear water. Your mind is also like that. When it is disturbed, just let it be. Give it a little time. It will settle down on its own. You don't have to put in any effort to calm it down. It will happen. It is effortless."

~ Author Unknown




"Try not to hate and just let it be. Sometimes all you need to do is just wait and see."

~ Author Unknown

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

2013-29 - White Earphone Leads...

When it launched, the iPod was the coolest thing around.

But the problem was you kept it in your pocket. This meant you couldn’t show everyone how cool you were. It also meant other people couldn’t see that all the coolest people owned iPods.

All anyone could see was the earphone lead… The black earphone lead. Because every music player in the world back then had a black earphone lead.

So Jobs did the opposite.

iPods became the only music players with white earphone leads. Even if you couldn’t see the iPod, you knew what it was. All the coolest people had white earphone leads. In fact, even the advertising concentrated on the white earphone leads, not the iPod.

It was so successful that you’d see people using their old, non-iPod, MP3 players with white iPod earphones that they’d actually gone out and purchased separately. Everyone knew exactly what those white earphones were connected to.

Jobs had the foresight to understand the power of this one minor change, the colour of his earphones.

~ Author Unknown






The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards.

~ Arthur Koestler


Tuesday, July 9, 2013

2013-28 - Colors of belts...

Wang Tsing, who is a professor of Tai Chi Chuan, now lives in Argentina, after having spent almost a decade in Sao Paulo.

One of his disciples told me that once he wanted to know from Wang Tsing why Tai Chi does not use the system of colored belts that other martial arts use (to indicate the grade of apprenticeship).

"If you have money, you don't carry it in your hands, you carry it in your pockets," answered Wang.

"If you have lots of money, you don't stuff your pockets with it, you keep it in the bank. What is the sense of walking around wearing a big belt that everyone can see, revealing all that you know?"

"A good warrior knows that strategy is far more important than vanity."

~ Paulo Coelho



"But who bothers looking beyond the surface?"

~ Mandy Hubbard

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

2013-27 - The River-Guide and the Rapids...

It's probably not an accident that rapid (as in rapid change) shares a root with rapids (as in Lava Falls in the Grand Canyon).

The river guide, piloting his wooden dory, has but one strategy. Get the boat to the end of the river, safely. And he has countless tactics, an understanding of how water and rocks work, and, if you're lucky, experience on this particular river.

The thing is, the captain changes his tactics constantly. He never whines. He doesn't stop the boat and say, "wait, no fair, yesterday this rock wasn't like this!" No, the practice of being great at shooting the rapids is a softness in choosing the right tactic, the ability to hold the tiller with confidence but not locking into it. If your pilot keeps demanding that the rapids cooperate, it's probably time to find a new pilot.

Domain knowledge underlies all of it. Give me an experienced captain over a new one any day--the ones that got this far for a reason. Yes, the reckless pilot might get lucky, but the experienced pilot brings domain knowledge to her job. It takes guts to go onto the river, but once you're there, the one who can see--see what's coming and see what matters--is the one you want piloting your boat.

~ Author unknown



Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.

~ Auguste RodinRead