17 Laws of Personal Success

I don't take credit of any of these Laws because I have read them in different books. I have only compiled them at one place. 

1. Law of 3 settings: - It is a technique which is being used for staffing people at key positions. But, we can use it to understand anyone. There are people who are different in office, home, and social gatherings. These people don’t have consistency in their character. It is important to meet people in 3 different types of settings to draw an average about their character and understand them properly. Now, question is why to meet people in 3 settings and not 2 or 1? See, one is not an option, two creates dilemma; unless we don’t have three alternatives, we cannot make any decision.
2. Law of Four: - Everything in this world can be divided into 4 parts, for instance, we have 4 seasons, 4 directions, 4 natural elements, 4 dimensions, etc. Whenever you get any problem, remember, there would be 4 alternative solutions of that problem and among them one would be the best solution. We can also use this principle in relationships e.g. no one has more than 4 friends in one time period. It is important to spend maximum time with those 4 friends because that would keep us energetic and motivated.
3. Law of Co-extinction: - There was one woman who was fit and fine, but she died after one month of her husband’s death. I know many of us must have come across such incidences. Law of co-extinction can explain this phenomenon. It states that two people (or species) which are dependent on each other, if one of them dies then the other one also dies after some time.
4. Law of Compensation: - Our level of income is directly proportional to the value we bring in our work. Increase your value and your income would increase. Suppose, you help your organization to earn or save 10, 00,000 bucks then it’s obvious that you have good chance of getting 50,000 bucks for helping them. Do this- Complete your work on time. Use your office resources efficiently. Help your colleagues and supervisor. Suggest new ideas for the development of the organization. Make yourself a valuable employee. Soon, your reputation and income would take a positive change.  
5. Law of Reciprocation: - It’s an old give and take principle. First give something in order to get something. You can never get first and give later. If you would not help others then don’t expect people to help you at the time of crisis. Everyday do some good somewhere. Unknowingly, you would start a cycle of reciprocation and your influence would take a new height.
6. Law of Subconscious Mind: - Our conscious mind carries only 1/10^th part of our mind and subconscious mind carries 90% of our mind power. Our conscious mind forgets, but our subconscious mind never forgets anything. Every image you see, thought you read, people you meet, get stored in your subconscious mind. Our thoughts get stored in conscious mind and our thoughts mixed with feelings and faith get transferred to subconscious mind. For developing new habits and removing old habits subconscious mind plays the most vital role. Take a thought and repeat it repeat it with faith and emotions. After 66 days that thought would enter your subconscious mind and it would start reflecting in your actions naturally.  
7. Law of Service (extra-mile):- Service has a human touch which cannot be replicated anywhere by anyone. There are employees who give less service as compare to their salaries, there are employees who give services equal to their salaries, and there are employees who give more services than their salaries. There is no competition for the later employees because there is no traffic jam in the extra-mile. These employees eliminate competition and make special place in their employer’s mind.
8. Law of Specialization: - It is good to have knowledge of different subjects, but always have an area in which you can show competency. Your specialized knowledge can become your competitive advantage. Intelligent people are respected everywhere. I have seen that even one piece of specialized information can turn the whole scenario of planning and execution.
9. Law of Causality: - This law was discovered by Aristotle. He found that there is a cause behind every effect. In simple words, if we would do what successful people do then we would also get success and if we would what unsuccessful people do then we would definitely get failures. Hydrogen and Oxygen would produce water and not wine.
10. Law of Complementarity: - Everything in this world complements one another. Man complements women, sea complements land, sun complements life. It is important to understand that we are living in an interdependent world. There is an interconnected system. Whole world is like a body, defect in one area would automatically affect others. Wise people try to learn things as a whole and then in parts because they know they can’t get true knowledge by remaining in one side of the problem.
11. Law of Forgiveness: - Forgive people not because they were right, but because you want to move forward. Hatred takes away lots of energy which can get utilized somewhere else. The first two people you can forgive are your parents because most of the personality drawbacks are related with parenting. If we would not forget people then throughout our life we would struggle with ourselves.
12. Law of Formality: - People with whom we spend our maximum time, we start taking those people for granted. Our long term relationships require most constant deposit of love and respect.
13. Law of Probability: - Every failure reduces the probability of success. Learn from your failures else you would fail once again.
14. Law of Routine: - In order to control our mind and body, it is important to have a daily routine i.e. set of things which we can do daily.
15. Law of Attraction/Law of Inner Effect: - Our most dominant thoughts attract circumstances and people in our life. Law of inner effect is slightly different, it states that our most dominant thought reflect circumstances and people in our life.
16. Law of Substitution: - Every adversity has a seed of learning in it. Only those people are afraid of failures who fail to understand the importance of failures.
17.  Law of Cooperative Effort: - Every success comes from a collaborative effort. No one can reach far in life by working alone. We all need help and guidance. We all need knowledge to create more knowledge. People who understand the importance of cooperation over competition get more success than those who have only competed and never cooperated. 

How to force your employees to resign instead of terminating them?

Photo Source: Unknown

Organizations play an important role in the development of society, country, and individual. But, sometimes they can be your worst nightmare!!

Employees are hired and fired, but there are some employees which cannot be terminated easily because of their proven success record or process of terminating them is too complex to initiate e.g. In India, Judge of Supreme Court or High Court can be removed only by getting Special Majority in both the Houses. The process is too complex to remove them. The only way to remove them is to make them resign willingly. (I don’t want to offend Judges. I only used this example to make my point clear.)

In some cases, employees are needed to be ‘coerced’ or persuaded to give their resignation instead of terminating them.

Below are the 5 common tactics which are used to manage employees out of the organization: -

1.   Micromanaging: - Micromanaging means when your supervisor would try to control and manage each part of your job. He or She would send mails that employee didn’t do this or that work; he or she didn’t follow timeline, he or she is disorganized, he or she is not goal oriented, etc. They would start interfering in every aspect of their employee’s career. This can really piss-off employees. Good managers don’t do it, Bad managers always do it.

2.   Unrealistic Goals: - Supervisor would start giving unrealistic goals to his or her employee so that they could never be able to achieve them. When employees would fail, they would criticize them and embarrass them in-front of others. Humiliation has power to break people. Failures can demotivate anyone and constant failures would keep you demotivated forever. When goals are not S.M.A.R.T. i.e. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time bound then no one in the world can achieve them (unless you are Rajnikant or GOD itself)

3.  Make Job Dull: - Challenges and responsibilities make our job exciting. Remove challenges and responsibilities and our job becomes boring and dull. When nothing lefts to do, we immediately feel like leaving the job and going away. People don’t work just to earn money and pay bills. People work because they want to be something and do something in life. A dull job is only done by the people who have no purpose in life. An intelligent person can never continue with a dull and boring job.

4.   Boycott: - Supervisor would stop calling employee in the important occasions like Annual Meeting, Conferences, and Special Marketing Events. Employee would felt being neglected, avoided, and unappreciated. These feelings demotivate people and affect their productivity. Supervisor would send you on an “Important Project.” The purpose of these important projects is to cut employee from the office crowd and make him or her feel lonely. No one would report to employee. He or she would have to work alone and when task would not get completed then due to poor-performance resignation of the employee would be taken.

5.  On-the Job Discrimination: - Supervisor would call employee, its colleagues, and juniors. In the meeting, friends of the targeted employee and its team members would be praised and appreciated. Supervisor would act friendly towards them and rudely towards the targeted employee.

Now, what being an employee one should do to reverse the situation? LEAVE your JOB immediately. No need to explain yourself to others. A good supervisor would always tell you the real reason and would help you to grow yourself. If people don’t want you, leave them and move forward in life. 

How to develop Intuition?

Intelligence and Intuition both are essential for any success – Alexis Carrel

In this blog, I would discuss both scientific and philosophical approaches for developing Intuition. I would discuss both because philosophy carries the ‘time-tested’ wisdom whereas science carries intelligence gained through systematic observations and ‘experiments’. It is my advice that people should study both the aspects, but give priority to science because it is more reliable. 

Scientific Approach towards Intuition

Intuition is not a myth. It has been observed that there are people who have ability to analyze future and past events with high accuracy. Therefore, intuitive mind can not only predict future, but also past.

Many people don’t develop their Intuitive mind because either they don’t know how to develop this important mental skill or they don’t know how to distinguish between intuition and illusion.

Remember, intuition should have some logical backing else it becomes difficult to differentiate between intuition and illusion.

To develop intuitive mind, we need to develop Expert Power. It means that we would have to develop an expertise in a particular area. Becoming excellent in a particular field unlocks our intuitive mind. Ignorant man can never develop this power. Remember, your intuition would not work in every field. It only works in the area in which you have your core competency. If you are an expert in Biology then don’t expect your intuition would work in Accounts. If you are an expert in Military Strategies then don’t expect your intuition to work in Cooking. It has been seen that when we devote hours of study and years of work in a single field, our mind develops an ability to recognize ‘patterns’ of success and failures. This gives us a strange mental ability to see things which others completely ignore. This strange mental ability is called Intuition.

Every PhD holder needs to read approx 30 to 50 books for the research purpose. Therefore, reading around 30 to 50 books on a single subject would make you an expert in that field and if you would read 500 books on that subject then you would become the most educated person of that field. Read books written by the experts of your field. See videos, documentaries, listen to audio tapes. Keep feeding your mind with the new pieces of information. Soon your efficiency would reach up to a level which would break the dam of your mind and you would start feeling the strange mental power getting developed inside you.

Let me repeat- developing expert power is the key to open your intuitive mind.

Philosophical Approach towards intuition

In every country, we must have listened about the people who had ability to read mind.
We must have heard philosophers of different time-period saying- listen to your inner voice, gut-feeling, internal drives, etc. Nostradamus, an ancient astrologer, predicted certain things centuries ago and we see all that happening around us. People see something in their dream and it become reality. Crime investigators and Archaeologist predict things happened in the past just by seeing some small clue. These evidences prove that we have some power inside us which we completely ignore.

To develop Intuition, from the philosophical point of view, do the following things consistently- Everyday find some time (even 15 mins would work) when no one would disturb you. Close your eyes. Don’t see, don’t listen, don’t talk, and don’t move your body. Just enjoy the complete silence around you. In the beginning, you would get plenty of thoughts- let them come. Once you are completely relaxed start filling your mind with positive thoughts. Exchange all the negative thoughts with the positive thoughts. This would slowly develop Emotional Understanding of your brain. Philosophers like Mahavira, Buddha, Confucius, etc. have advocated on doing similar kind of exercise. Modern Spiritual Guru like Deepak Chopra has also advocated for this approach.

A relaxed and positive mind would give you energy to identify positivity and negativity around you. Just by seeing people, you would get a ‘spark’ that whether you want to be with them or not. You would get ability to find right and wrong in everyday work, and that would be the time when your intuitive mind would start getting evolved.

Note- I am not sure whether Philosophical Approach works or not, but I have mentioned this approach because many Great Thinkers have talked about it.

You can use whatever approach you feel like and realize your true potential.

When to Quit your Job?

When to start something?  and When to stop something? are the two most difficult questions to answer in every aspect of life, for instance, When to start going to gym? When to stop eating unhealthy food? When to start studying? When to stop wasting time? etc. 

Similarly, when to quit your job and move on in your career is an important and difficult question to answer.

With the help of my Work Experience, I believe I can guide people in understanding- When is the time to quit your job?

We should leave our job when any of the following things happen in the organisation:-

1. When people from a particular group get promoted- Once, I got chance to visit the Headquarter of an International Development Agency. Practically, everybody above the sweeper was either Ph.D. or M.S.  In some manufacturing organisations, people from engineering background are only promoted. In some chemical organisations, people with chemistry background are only promoted. You’ll have to see that whether you are in that group or not. If you belong to that group then it’s good else sooner you leave, better for your career.

2. When suddenly Top Executives start leaving the organisation- Remember, before downsizing, bright-sizing takes place i.e. it is the top influential people who first start leaving the organisation before anybody else. It is the most important indicator for leaving the organisation. Top people know very well that where the organisation would be in coming 5 years. If you find that lots of policies are being changed, top executives are leaving then you also leave before your career gets any major set-back.

3. When maximum people at your position are young – I had observed this when I was working as a Summer Intern in Punjab Health Systems Corporation. Most of the Interns were of my age-group. Therefore, everyone more or less had the same competency level. It becomes difficult to make your separate position in an organisation when you find that everyone is as competent as you. It becomes difficult for HR manager to plan for fair promotions. Therefore, one day you would see that company starts hiring externals rather giving chance to insiders.

4. When you see that most of the people at your position are senior from you- In every organisation, most experienced and matured people get promoted first than the less experienced people. No matter, how good you are at your work you would never be considered for the next level when more experienced people are in-the-queue. If this is in your case, learn from your job and leave as soon as you get an opportunity. Waiting for that one day when people would recognize your efforts only kills time. Get up, dress up, and make your career move. 

Your first job is the best time to experiment whether you are at the right place or not. You can know a lot about your working style in your first job.
There is a Universal Problem among the first-timers and it is that they stuck in their first job for longer period of time without realizing that what their ‘actual’ career aspirations are?

      
       I hope the tips shared in the blog would help you in deciding your next step.

Management Challenges in 2030

Source: Unknown

Some unnoticed Demographic Changes are taking place in the world, which would bring New Challenges for the society, organisations, and educational institutions. In this blog, I have tried to explain the coming Managerial Challenges which I believe would come by 2030. 

Challenge 1:- Managing People Older than your age

Most of the employment policies got amended in 1990s, when average life expectancy in India was only 58 years. Hence, retirement age was 60 years, but, by 2017, average life expectancy of an average Indian has rise up to 68 years. Therefore, we would find more people of above 60 working in the organisations and earning their livelihood. We would see older people reporting to younger supervisors. Supervisors would have to learn how to lead people who have more experience than them.

Challenge 2:- Managing Homosexuals and Single Parents in Working Areas

As compare to Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, and Generation Z, Millennial are more open to Same-Sex-Marriage and being a Single parent. Millennial have started ‘accepting’ them than ‘criticizing’ them. New strategies would be required to make working environment comfortable and productive for Homosexuals and Single Parents.

Challenge 3:- Digital Educational System

Schools, Libraries, and Universities are no more ‘only’ sources of Education. YouTube, Wikipedia, Online e-courses, etc. have become important sources of education. In one click, we can get any education anywhere at any time. This change is so vivid and yet we don’t have any plan to systematize our Digital Educational System.

Challenge 4:- Over-Communication

50 years ago lack of communication was a problem. Today, over-communication is a problem. People cannot focus on one thing for long because they have ‘messages’ to check in their e-mail or social account. Any distraction disturbs our mind for about 45 minutes. One stupid message on your phone, at the time of work, can bring down your productivity. Too many distractions can create Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), which is a psychological disorder.

Challenge 5:- How to explore Rural Markets?

We have explored the Urban Markets exhaustively, but what about rural areas and their development? Nothing much to do is left in Urban Areas and hence development of Rural Areas has become even more essential. Innovation is required to crack the Rural Markets. To make goods and services available in those areas would be the next big challenge.

Challenge 6:- New Religious Philosophy

All the four major religions of the world- Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism are more than 1000 years old. New World requires New Philosophies. Industrialization, Nationalization, Liberalization, Globalization, Information Revolution, etc. have changed the human beings. A person born in 900 B.C. and a person born in 2005 has a difference in health, educational level, longevity, etc. People are becoming more scientific (which is good) and less religious. The World demands some new type of Spiritual Feeding. We would need to see God under a new perspective. 

                                                             
 I hope some new strategies would be developed to manage these coming problems. 

Lessons learned from my Grandmother

My Nani ,that is my Maternal Grandmother, is one the strongest women I have seen in my life. She got married at the age of 15 and she had four kids till the age of 24. She wanted to study. Therefore, she completed her Bachelors in Music and lived happily, like a Housewife, throughout her life.
She does not have Big Degrees from Top Universities or Work Experience from Top Companies, but she carries tremendous influence in the family.

We have family of mixed professionals like Doctors, Engineers, Government Officers, Teachers, etc. but my grandmother ‘quietly’ controls everyone. Her decision is always the last decision and everyone agrees to her. From her actions, she taught me 4 powerful lessons which always give results. The lessons which I learned from her are:-

1) Lesson of Divine Love- There is a difference between Love and Divine Love. In Love, we have some expectations from the people, but in divine love, we only love and nothing else. We don’t bother why the other person does not call us or greets us, etc. We love people and initiate conversation without waiting for the other. Divine Love brings people close and increases our influence over them.  My grandmother is a clear example of Divine Love. Throughout my life, I never say her waiting for others. If someone will not call her, she’ll call that person. I remember, she met her distant cousin after 20 years, but her enthusiasm and love was same for her as it was 20 years ago.

2) Lesson of Grace- Many women think that it is the beauty of women which attracts men, but ‘grace’ of women is much more powerful. According to my grandmother, beauty is a gift of God, but grace is a self-earned reward. No one can make you graceful except you yourself. She is around 70 years old, but her face has amazing attraction. She’ll not say a word and her simple eye-contact is enough to control people. “After the age of forty,” said Abraham Lincoln, “you are responsible for your face.” Slowly in life, all our deeds appear on our face. We should do good things, if we want to have a good face at the old age.

3) Lesson of Faith on God- She has a strong faith on the existence of God. I never saw her missing her daily prayers. She believes that only God has power to make and break people. HE can only curse and bless. Only HE knows the past and the coming future. Therefore, we should never divert from the path showed by the God. May be this is the faith on God, which gives her willpower to fight with so many diseases she’s having at her age. She advocates fasting and keeps fast for the welfare of others without even telling them.

4) Lesson of Politeness- She strongly believes that most of the fights take place because of the ‘tone’ we use in the conversation. A drop of honey can attract more bees than the bottle of poison. She always carries a politeness in her language and never tries to belittle people. Sweetness of her language makes her sensible and sober. People open, their heart, in front of her because they know that they are talking to the right person.

They are time tested lessons. Anyone who follows them can increase his or her influence in any part of its life. 

The Best Tool of Thinkers- Focused Question Method

I believe this is one of my important blogs.

Reading about the different self-made experts made me realized that they all used the same technique to uncover the current or coming problem.

I call this

Picture Source: Unkown

technique- Focused Question Method.

All top experts of any field have ability to ask specific focused questions; and in the process of answering these questions, they discover the innovative solutions.

In this blog, I’ll share some of the ‘questions’ which experts of different field used to ask to get the solution of the problem. You can ask these questions to answer both organizational and personal problems both.

[I solely take responsibility for the explanation of each question]

1.  Where do you hope to be in 5 years? And 

     How will you reach this goal? By what method?-  W. Edward Deming (Father of Quality)

This was the question which Deming used to ask from his clients to know exactly what his clients want; and do they have any plan of action.

2.  What is our Business? Who is our Customer?-  Peter Drucker (Father of Management)

Most of the organisations fail to answer these two questions ‘honestly’ and this leads to their downfall.

3.  What we will not do?- Jim Collins, Author of Good to Great

Jim Collins, in his book, studied 11 visionary companies and found that all visionary companies know what they will not do, no matter what happens. Knowing what we will not do is equally important as knowing what we will do.

4.  How do you want people to remember you when you will die?

     - Stephen Covey, Author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Close your eyes. Imagine that you are dead and your soul has left the world. Ask yourself- What exactly do you want people to say at your back. Write those things on a piece of paper. Start living the life you want. Prepare your life for death.

5.   What are the things which make me jealous?

      - Susain Cain, Author of Quiet: Power of Introverts

We can learn a lot from our negative emotions, if we can keep our mind open. We all have some amount of negative emotions inside us, but instead of suppressing them we should study our emotions carefully. This small practice can reveal some hidden facts about our personality.

6.  What is the Reality? – Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric

I remember, once I met a woman who had a goal that within a year she would become a millionaire. She didn’t have any job or business, and her boyfriend was also not a rich guy. After the year passed, she wanted to give million dollars in charity. Many people in life live in a strange type of mental illusion. They have constructed their own mental world and live a fool’s life, ignoring all the facts. Realism is a point between optimism and pessimism. One of the traits of great leaders is that they are realistic in life. Before, making any assumption ask yourself- what is the reality? Be brutally honest while answering this question.

7.   Have I visited the market myself? – Kim Moore, CEO of LG Companies

Sometimes, when we become supervisor of large team we start avoiding meeting customers directly and visiting the market because we believe that our team members should do that and not us. This could bring major downfall in the life of executives and companies both.  Meeting customers, dealers, sub-dealers, etc. gives us clarity about the market, for instance, once my team member told me that he was unable to find a caterer in the Block, in which he was posted. I myself went to that Block and identified three caterers for him. He accepted his mistake because he didn’t explore the nearby areas properly. Though it is a very small example, but let me tell you we all are human beings and we can do mistakes. Therefore, never come to an conclusion if you yourself have not done the monitoring.

I have a long list of questions, which top people asked themselves or others and made a great change. But, I selected only these 6 questions because I personally have liking for these questions.

Whenever, you are in a problem- simply start asking questions about the problem, for instance, What is the real problem? What are the causes? Why I want to solve this problem? How can I solve this problem? Who can help me in my work? These simple and focused questions can give great clarity to our thought process.