1. Top 12 Most Important Personality Development Tips
“Personality Development”. How often do we hear this term, from our mentors, our teachers, on
the covers of self-help books or on the banners of institutes and learning centers? The abundance of
the usage of this term signals towards its importance in today’s life. So what do you mean by
personality development? Is it something about how you look, or how you speak? Or is it how easily
you can connect with people? Personality development is none of these. Or somewhere it is all of it.
In order to survive in today’s world one needs to be smart and quick-witted all the time. It’s no
longer just about how much effort you put into your work but one’s personality also has a lot to do
with what one achieves. Here I have got 12 simple yet crucial tips over how you can acquire a well-
meaning personality.
12. Know yourself
Obviously before you get on developing something you need to know all about it first. The same
goes with your personality. One needs to start with taking a good look at themselves, analyzing their
traits, the strengths and weaknesses and everything that needs to be worked upon. Don’t shy away
from accepting your flaws and learn about yourself as much as you can.
11. Bring positivity in your outlook
2. Your thoughts and your actions both need to be positive in order to have an attractive personality.
The way we think has a lot of effect on the way how we act. And if one prospers positive thoughts
inside his mind then that also gives him a confidence boost and enhances their personality.
Situations and circumstances in life can always be full highs and lows. But in order to adopt a
positive outlook towards life, you need to find the brighter side of the things and focus on the good
parts.
10. Have an opinion
Having an opinion and being able to confidently put it forward doesn’t just help making your
conversations interesting but it also makes you look more influential and well informed around
other people. Never shy away from projecting your opinions even if they happen to conflict with
those of other people. Be well informed about all the relevant stuff in your surrounding and fell free
to have opinions. It will make yourself feel important too
9. Meet new people
3. Meeting new and different kinds of people is a healthy step towards expanding your horizons and
exposing yourself to a larger number of things. You get an opportunity to know more about other
cultures and lifestyles and it significantly has a positive effect on your own personality.
8. Read more often and develop new interests
4. A man of very few interests has very little to talk about. But if you are well informed about things
and cultivate a number of interests, more people tend to like you. You can strike up interesting
conversations instead of appearing to be dull and monotonous. When you meet new people you do
not have to think about what to say as you can share your knowledge or your interests and get them
indulged in conversation.
7. Be a good listener
“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” True it is. Being a
good listener may not seem like but it is an important step towards achieving a more likable
personality. When somebody talks to you, listen with interest and give them all the attention and
importance. Maintain a direct eye contact and do not get distracted by the surroundings. It will help
you in knowing a better deal about people and attending them in a better way.
6. Be a little fun
5. Oh yes, this is necessary! Being able to find a humorous side in otherwise terrible situations and
bringing a little quirkiness of your own is appreciated by one and all. Everybody loves a person who
can make them laugh and bring a funny perspective to the regular things of life. One does not need
to be all serious and sober all the time but adorning your funny hat (not literally) every once in a
while will turn you in to a more charming personality.
5. Be courteous
Being courteous is never out of fashion and is well appreciated and respected by everyone. Be
humble and greet everyone with a smile. Never shy away from helping or supporting your peers and
being available to them whenever they need you. Doing random acts of kindness will not just make
somebody else’s day but it will also make you come along as a pleasing person. Also it will give your
personality a confidence boost. Be humble and down to earth to your juniors and seniors alike.
4. Work on your Body Language
6. Body language is just as important for your personality as your verbal communication skills. It tells a
lot about yourself and helps people in making accurate conjectures about you. Everything including
the way you walk, sit, talk or eat leaves an impact over the people around you and having a correct
body language can do wonders for your personality. Walk in an upright position with shoulders
straight. Do not droop. Sit in a relaxed posture and make always eye contact while speaking.
3. Check your attire
I am not abruptly beginning to emphasize about your exterior self instead of your skills and abilities
but one’s attire has an important role to play while making a desirable impression. And not just that,
but it also gives yourself a confidence boost knowing that you look good and are dressed
appropriately. Dress up in a decent manner and keeping your surroundings in mind. While flashy
colors and too much body tattoos or piercings convey an unprofessional attitude, neatly ironed
clothes make you look presentable.
7. 2. Be yourself
Though one can always look up to other people to take an inspiration from, but you should still
remain your own unique self. Each one of us is different, we have our own sets of skills and flaws
and trying to be somebody else gets you nowhere and just simply backfires. Trying too hard to fit in
a new group or wanting to belong should never take your authenticity and singularity away. Never
try moulding into another person but instead work on being the best version of yourself.
1. Be confident
Yes, that’s the key. Being confident about who you are and what you are doing is the most
important tip for personality development. Never doubt your capabilities and if there is something
you need to work upon then put in all the effort so you can come over your fears and gain
confidence. Read success stories or surround yourself with motivational thoughts or
8. “encouragements” which can boost up your self-esteem and help you in attaining a charming
personality. Just everything you do, have faith in yourself and put in your hard work. There can be
nothing more appealing in your personality than an incredible confidence.
Source:
http://listovative.com/top-12-most-important-essential-personality-development-tips/
9. Personality Development
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Personality Development
PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
Personality is the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts and interacts with others. Or
Personality is generally defined as the deeply ingrained and relatively enduring patterns of thought,
feeling and behavior. In fact, when one refers to personality, it generally implies to all what is unique
about an individual, the characteristics that makesone stand out in a crowd.
Personalities is the sum total of individual’s Psychological traits, characteristics, motives,
habits, attitudes, beliefs and outlooks.
Personality determinants :
10. Heredity : Heredity refers to those factors that were determined at conception. Physical structure,
facial attractiveness, gender, temperament, muscle composition and reflexes, energy level, and
biological rhythms are characteristics that are generally considered to be either completely or
substantially influenced by who your parents were, that is by their biological, physiological and
inherent psychological make up.
Environment : The environmental factors that exert pressures on our personality formation are the
culture in which we are raised, our early conditioning, the norms among our family, friends and
social groups, and other influences that we experience. The environmentto which we are exposed
plays a substantial role in shaping our personalities.
Situation : A third factor, the situation, influences the effects of heredity and environment on
personality. An individual’s personality although generally stable and consistent, does change in
different situations. The varying demand of different situation calls forth different aspects of one’s
personality. We should not therefore look upon personality patterns in isolation.
DEVELOPING POSITIVE PERSONALITY
1. Subconscious Programming :
Most of us sometimes get programmed / conditioned by a wrong messages that “ donot do that”,
“don’t take the risk”, “you can not do that” you are not good in …and so on…..
You can imagine the bad effect such message can have on any person.
Fig- I : Subconscious Mind
Programming Our Conscious Mind is like
a watch man. And the Subconscious Mind is a store of all the previously programmed or
11. conditioned information / knowledge/ believes. Now programming personality means putting
positive believes/ information into the store with out the knowledge of the watchman (conscious
mind).
Suppose you tell yourself that “you are good at Public Speaking”. And the store has stored based on
peoples comments and experience that “you are poor in communication” “you can not speak well in
public”, “you don’t have an impressive body language” …..
The watch man sees your sentence and compares it with the knowledge in its store and says “this
information is wrong”. The watchman throws the new information away. He does not allow the
new positive information into the store. This is the fundamental difficulty in changing personality &
behavior of a person.
Now the question is how and when we could programme our mind for positive personality trait with
out the obstruction of watchman…
The answer is we can programme our mind for positive personality traits during the Twilight
period just before sleeping and just before waking up. This is the time when the conscious
mind is active enough to generate the positive traits for entering into store but inactive to
judge/compare and will not obstruct to the positive traits to enter into the subconscious
store house.
2. Reinforced Programming / Conscious Programming :
Autosuggestion and Repetition of the positive traits despite negative response from comparison
with the store house also gives success in programming for personality traits.
Auto-suggestion is a statement made in the present tense, of the kind of person you want to be.
Auto-suggestion are like a commercial about “Super You”, or “Future Super You” for yourself
what you want to be or achieve. They influence both your conscious and subconscious mind in the
long run shaping your personality and attitude.
Auto-suggestions are the conscious way to programme the subconscious mind for positive traits. It
is the effective method of voluntary development of positive traits and attitudes.
12. Auto-suggestion should be mixed with emotions. All such reinforced / conscious programming
which have been emotionalized (giving feeling) and mixed with applied faith, begin immediately to
translate themselves into physical or real equivalent.
Auto-suggestive thoughts which are mixed with any of the feeling of emotions constitute a
“psycho-magnetic” force which attracts other similar or related thoughts.
Our subconscious mind resembling a fertile garden spot, in which weeds will grow in abundance if
you the seeds of more desirable crops are not sown therein. Auto-suggestion is the agency of control
through which an individual can voluntarilyfeed his subconscious mind on thoughts of creative/
positive nature or by neglect permit thoughts of a destructive nature to find their way into the rich
garden of mind. So Caution should be taken while programming your mind for positive traits
only.
3. Defensive Approach :
One of this type of approach is protest or deny the negative traits at it’s very beginning of the
entering in the subconscious store. And the second is to consciously avoid this type of environment
or situation. In real life situation it is very difficult because it may lead to confrontation and
argument or Inaction.
Another problem in this is that most of us have some negative traits previously in our store house
due to our past experience and conditioning.
4. Imaginary Anchoring or Invisible Counseling Committee :
While watching a picture we anchor the Hero, placing ourselves in place of hero. Similarly we can
anchor Great men in imagination and let them shape our personality.
Another is the Invisible Counseling Committee comprising of great personalities of your choice.
We can counsel from these great minds at times or situation. What decision or action he would have
been taken in my situation..
13. Winston Churchill the war time British Prime Minister was following this principle. He had his
Imaginary Counseling Committee by the side of his Chamber. Many great decisions he used to take
by following these principles.
I follow the habit of reshaping my Character by trying to imitate some great personalities whose
lives and life works have been most impressive to me. These personalities are Mahatma Gandhi,
Mother Teresa, Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon Bonaparte, Albert Einstein, Shiva Khera, Napoleon
Hills & Bill Gates. I held an imaginary council meeting with this group whom I called my “Invisible
Counselor”.In these imaginary council meeting I called on my cabinet members for the knowledge
I wished each to contribute addressing myself to each members in audible words as follows :
Mahatma Gandhi, I desire to acquire from you the ideology of truth and Non-violence and
devotion towards practicing these in every odd hours and to acquire the magnet leadership to attract
millions to join in the peaceful struggle for freedom and Humanity.
Mother Teresa, I desire to acquire from you the ability to provide relentless humanitarian services
to the most unprivileged, poor diseased and intense spirit to serve the mankind despite all odds.
Mr. Abraham Lincoln, I desire to build into my own character the keen sense of justice, the
untiring spirit of patience, the sense of humor, the human understanding, and the tolerance which
were your distinguishing characteristics.
Napoleon Bonaparte, I desire to acquire from you, by emulation, the marvelous ability you
possessed to inspire men and arouse them to greater and more determined spirit of action. Also to
acquire the spirit of enduring faith, which enabled you to turn defeat into victory, and to surmount
staggering obstacles.
Albert Einstein, I wish to acquire from you the Scientific Bent, ever inquisitivemind, the spirit to
innovate and contribute to Humanity.
Napoleon Hills, I want to acquire from you the ability to nurture the human resources and to Give
the society the magic formulae ofsuccess of wealth and fortune and helping people realize their true
potential.
14. Mr. Shiva Khera, I want to acquire from you the skill and understanding to motivate the people
towards positive ends and to offer the world the blue print for positive and successful life.
Bill Gates, I wish to acquire from you the Brilliant Intelligence, Innovation, Intense drive to
succeed, persistence, personal intensityand conscientiousness dimensions
5. Physical Action / Body Language Approach :
In general it is the positive practice or experiencing desired traits whether the desired perfection
achieved or not.
It is generally said that our personality traits control our body language. But it is a fact that the
reverse is also true. This meanswe can change our negative traits towards positive traits by
consciously practicing the body language for positive traits.
6. Domino-effect. Direct exposure to good personalities or environment :
Here the direct environment is the driving force in shaping the personalities. When one constantly
remains in direct contact with great personalities will enriches his own to be the one. Similarly the
organization culture and structure also many times influences ones personality. Sometimes it is the
guiding principle for job satisfaction / recruitment.
Caution should be taken while programming your mind for positive traits only. Because
these processes give results for negative traits also. Mahatma Gandhi and Adolf Hitler both
successfully applied these principles but one positively and other negatively.
SIXTEEN PRIMARY PERSONALITY TRAITS :
1. Reserved vs Outgoing
2. Less intelligent vs More intelligent
3. Affected by feeling vs Emotionally stable
4. Submissive vs Dominant
5. Serious vs Happy to Lucky
15. 6. Expedient vs Conscientious
7. Timid vs Venturesome
8. Tough-minded vs Sensitive
9. Trusting vs Suspicious
10. Practical vs Imaginative
11. Forthright vs Shrewd
12. Self-assured vs Apprehansive
13. Conservative vs Experimenting
14. Group dependant vs Self-sufficient
15. Uncontrolled vs Controlled
16. Relaxed vs Tense
Some of the behavioral and attitude traits as identified by Shiv Khera for positive personality
building……
TRAITS FOR BUILDING POSITIVE PERSONALITY :
1. Accept Responsibility :
The price of grateness is the responsibility – Winston Churchill
“Responsibility gravitates to the person who can shoulder them.”
-- Elbert Hubbard
Society is not destroyed by the activities of the rascals, but by the inactivity of good people.
2. Show consideration :
Show consideration, courtesy, politeness and caring.
3. Think Win-Win : Win-Win philosophy is the ultimate way to success in the collaborative and
networked world. One who master that art can achieve greatly.
4. Choose your words carefully:
The principle is your speaking must be better than silent, rather be silent.
Words spoken out of bitterness can cause irreparable damage. The way the parents speak to their
children in many instances shapes their children’s destiny.
16. 5. Never Criticize, Complain and Condemn: Constructive criticism is a terminology used to
conceal one's own cynicism. Afterall the limit of constructiveness of constructive criticism vary from
person to person. we sometime misjudge this limit and many times cross the limit which is
detrimental.
6. Smile and Be Kind :
Smile is the shortest distance between two people.
7. Put Positive interpretation on other people’s behavior:
We see the world not as it is, but as we are.
So when we are interpreting other peoples behavior negatively we just reflecting our own mentality
to this situation. In contrast when interpret positively, chances that other people may realize its
negativity and change or amend this.
8. Be a Good Listener :
Effective communication is 50% listening, 25% speaking, 15% reading and 10% writing. So when
we listen carefully then 50% communication is done.
9. Be Enthusiastic :
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
--- Ralph Waldo Emersion
10. Give honest and Sincere Appreciation :
The desire to feel important is one of the gratest craving in most of the human beings and it can be
a great motivator. Honest and sincere appreciation makes one feel important and promote these
positive qualities in him. In contrast giving false and insincere appreciation is flattery or sycophancy
which in the long run is harmful to the receipient.
11. When you make a mistake, accept it and make it easy to amend:
Mistakes are to be learned from. So accept it immediately and make change or amend easy.
12. Discuss but don’t argue:
17. Arguing is like fighting a losing battle. Even if one wins in the argument, the cost may be more than
the worth of victory.
An Ignominious victory is a defeat itself.
13. Don’t Gossip:
Gossip may lead to slander and defamation of character. People who listen to gossip are as guilty as
those who do the gossiping.
14. Turn your promises into commitment:
Commitment leads to enduring relationship through thick and thin. It shows in a person's
personality and relationship.
15. Be grateful but do not expect gratitude:
16. Be dependable and practice loyalty:
An ounce of loyalty is worth more than a pound of cleverness.
Ability without dependability is of no worth.
17. Avoid bearing grudges:
Life is too small to bear grudges.
John Kennedy once said “forgive the other person but don’t forget their name.” Means “if one
cheated me once it is his fault, but if cheats me twice then it is my fault.”
18. Practice honesty, Integrity and Sincerity:
Lies may have speed, but the truth has endurance.
Honesty, Integrity and Sincerity have more enduring effect than the opposite.
19. Practice Humility:
Don’t be cheated regularly to forgive.
Confidence without humility is arrogance. Sincere Humility is the foundation of all virtues. It is a
sign of greatness.
20. Be understanding and Caring :
18. The best way to be understood is to be understanding. And the basis of real communication is also
understanding.
21. Practice courtesy on daily basis :
22. Develop a sense of humor:
Have a sense of humor and you will possess the ability to laugh at yourself. A sense of humor makes
a person likeable and attractive. Some people are humor-impaired.
23. Don’t be sarcastic and put others down :
24. To have a friend be a Friend :
Mutual trust and confidence are the foundation stones of all friendship.
25. Show Empathy :
Empathy alone is a very important characteristic of positive personality. People with empathy ask
themselves this question, “how would I feel if someone treated me that way?”
Source:
http://sadhuji.blogspot.com/2008/12/personality-development.html
19. Positive Leadership
Positive Leadership:
A Philosophy of Life
Successful leadership principle:
Desire, Decision, Faith, Persistence,
the mastermind and organized planning.
Sometimes rarer than ability is
The ability to recognize and nurture ability….
Super Leaders create Leaders.
Albert Grey spent his life trying to find out what he called the common denominator of success,
finally he said:
“The successful person has the habit of doing things failures don’t like to do. The
successful also don’t like doing them either, necessarily, but their dislikes is the
subordinated by the strength of their purpose.”
When you talk of leadership, images of Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Sir Winston Churchill,
Napoleon Bonaparte, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, A B. Vajpayee, Narayan Murthy and the like
immediately conjure up in the mind. True, they are leaders par excellence. But leadership is really
much broader than this. Leadership is a philosophy of life. While CEOs and politicians can be great
leaders, so can caring teachers, committed scientists and compassions mothers.
A leader should be fearless and humble,
committed and vulnerable,
outspoken and sensitive,
value-based and flexible.
Leadership, indeed is the philosophy of life. It all begins from within, by having the self-
discipline to lead and know yourself and to understand that the essence of your life lies in leadership.
As Robert Louis Stevenson once said, “To be what we are, and to become what we are capable
of becoming, is the only end of life.” The secret blend of effective leadership can be learnt by
following a set of principles which have been followed by his history’s greatest leaders. These
timeless truths would help any leader realize his or her professional and personal potential and
energize his or her team into action and raise the organization to heights previously unimagined.
When leadership is right, and the time is right,
20. the people can always be counted upon
to follow the end and at all cost.
ENVISION A DREAM:
The most necessary thing of a leader is,
he must have the ability to attract his follower for his vision.
Great organizations begin with great leaders and every great leader has bold dreams. They
clearly envision their future paths in the present moment. They manufacture a crystal-clear blueprint
or picture of what their companies will look like in the coming years. They know intimately the exact
nature of the success they and their people are starving for. And every step they take is designed to
move them closer to their vividly imagined future. They have a vision that inspires them to each for
the stars. That is the ultimate secret of their greatness as leaders.
So you, as a leader, need to engage in mental rehearsal and vividly imagine the end result,
i.e. your dream, before venturing out. Once you surrender to your vision, success begins to
chase you. Ultimately, you really can’t pursue success, success ensues.
It flows as the unintended by-product of effective efforts concentrated in the direction of a worthy
purpose. You have to take your blinders off and start looking for new opportunities. The best way
to succeed in the future is to create it. As Helen Keller once said, “I` d rather be blind than have
sight without vision.”
Leadership is all about focused action in the direction of a worthy purpose. It is a craft that you have
to constantly work to refine. You have to develop the ability to be present-based but future-focused.
You have to master the twin skills of managing the present while, at the same time, inventing the
future. The visionary leader is one who has learned how to focus on the summit while
clearing the path.
BUILD TRUST AND RESPECT:
The first step in moving towards a culture of integrity is to build an infrastructure of trust and
respect. The leader can’t be effective unless each of the members does his part from a self-leadership
perspective. It is a two-way street. Leadership is not something you do to people; it is
something you do with them. If you respect them you face them. This means you should
involve your people in decision making and look for their opinions. It is why leadership is something
you do together. In a low-respect environment, though, you don’t care what they think. If you don’t
respect them, you have your back to them.
Uphold the golden rule- do unto others as you want them to do unto you. Leading by
example is another way to put respect into action. The way you speak to customers sets the tone
for how they view you and your company. Your behavior directly impacts their level of respect.
Leading with integrity means being the person you want others to be. Trust is when you, as a leader,
are willing to let your people run with the ball and take charge of an area. It is when you, know that
they will behave just as well when you are not there as when you are there. To build a trusting
environment, you need to have a set of operating values that guide people’s behaviors when they are
21. working on organizations goals. A key aspect of having integrity is that we trust each other enough
to share our shortcomings as well as our strengths. When we know we won’t be beaten up for our
deficiencies, we can work on finding ways to improve them.
Build an emotional bank account which stands for the amount of trust that’s been built up in a
relationship. Suppose you are leading a team of professionals, you can build a reserve through
courtesy, kindness, honesty and keeping your commitments to them. They start building up an
increasing level of trust in you, which you can bank upon any time. This makes your communication
easy, instant and effective. It’s a life-long deal.
To believe in something
And not to live it, is dishonest
……M. K. Gandhi
Trust is what happens when values and behavior match up. People are more apt to trust and respect
you when what you say and what you do are one and the same. You have to walk your talk.
SHARE YOUR VISION:
The key to effective leadership is the relationship you build with your team. You can lend a hand,
roll up your sleeves and forge a better partnership between labor and management. You should
value what the staff does. Most managers never expose their staff to company reporting- where the
organization is headed or preview of the revised budget. They act like it is top-secret information.
Essentially, it is the opposite of working in partnership. People run around in the dark shooting for
targets they can`t see. The boss tanks the subordinates are too dumb to understand the numbers. If
one can balance one`s check book, one can read a management report.
Essentially partnership epitomizes a two-way street: both the leader and the lead feel the
gain and the pain. After all, the leader does not want to be the only one losing sleep at night.
Sharing the big picture puts everyone on the same page. You should talk about the concerns
of your subordinates and how you can help them. You should work in partnership with them
to help them win. And when they win, you win.
As a leader, you can give your team members a slice of ownership in your vision. Further still, you
can align your vision with the their interests. Thus, you will generate enormous levels of trust loyalty
and commitment. Too many mission statements hang on office walls rather than live in human
hearts. Give your people, from your top managers to your frontline workers, a genuine sense of
ownership in the cause your organization is moving towards. A shared vision lies at the heart of
every world-class organization. Infosys` initiative in this direction snowballed a small venture into
a software giant.
You can be effective as a leader when you foster a culture of partnership by, establishing a
collaborative learning process that includes cross-training and job rotations. New career paths can be
evolved and the collective skill sets of the team expanded. It is easier to get up the hill when you
climb it together. A team culture of caring and reciprocity begins to emerge.
22. PRAISE GOOD WORK:
Saying thank you is one simple way you can make a huge difference in the way others feel about
themselves by letting them know that you appreciate their efforts and recognize that what they do is
important. The key is to follow the rules of effective praising.Praise is most effective when it is
specific, sincere and given as soon as possible after desired behavior occurs. It should be
consistently applied only to situations where praise is warranted, but not given every single time a
person does something right. Not praising people every time they do something right helps them
learn to praise themselves instead of relying on others to do it all the time.
The power of praising is an easy, cost-free way to make people feel valued. Praise is the
easiest way to let people know they are appreciated. Each of us has the power to recognize the
goodness in others. You, as a leader, can initiate a novel way of acknowledging the good work of
your team members by honoring with a condemnation certificate which would be no less then
saying, “Here’s a salute to you.”
Instead of focusing your energy on the poor performance of underperforming individuals, you
should redirect their behaviors to get them back on track. You can sit down with them to establish
revised game plans, assign them to projects where their talents could be better utilized, or enlist their
fellow team members to serve as mentors. Then you ought to praise when their performance
improves. Assuming that they have life outside of work, you should make friendly scheduling
alternatives such as flexi time, job sharing, telecommuting and compressed workweeks. You can
institute mental hygiene stress-relief breaks as affirmations of stellar performance such as gift
certificates, fun in work place projects, team building initiatives and complementary memberships of
library, club and gym. This would be a conscious time-out for the brain. Your team would go a
further if it stops to refuel.
ENRICH LIVES, FOSTER GROWTH:
As a leader you need to draw the target and get out of the way. Have confidence in the ability of
your people to think for themselves. Let them get to the goal using their best judgment with you just
to back up. They will think for themselves when you quit doing it for them. Leadership is the
process of getting everyone to the place they are supposed to go. You have to motivate them
into action. The vision of your organization must excite their minds and touch their hearts. They will
go far beyond the call of duty when their leader paints for them a future vision that is compelling
and important purpose is the most powerful motivator in the world. Link them to a bigger cause
rather than their petty gains.
When you look at any photo in a newspaper, say of the earth, you look it as the earth where as it is
actually made up nothing more than thousands of tiny black dots clumped together. Generally when
we read the paper we train ourselves to focus on the big picture, to observe the subject the matter
from a higher perspective. Yet, in business, leaders and managers lose all perspective and spend days
focusing on little things. As a leader, you should project the bigger cause of your organization and
inspire them to work for it. For example, if you are heading an insurance company, you need to
emphasize that they are securing the lives of people at large rather than just working for a monthly
pay-cheque. Your people will start to feel good about what they are doing. And when they feel
23. good about their work, they will begin to feel good about themselves as people. That’s when
real breakthroughs start to happen.
Leadership is not about managing things but about developing people. You have to act as a
liberator and not a limiter of human talent. You have to develop your people’s full potential and
transform the workplace into a place of realized genius. Your company must, above all else, become
a place and opportunity for self-development and personal fulfillment. You must offer them the
challenging work so that they can grow through work. When you, as a leader, dedicate yourself to
liberating rather than stifling the talents of the people under your leadership, you will reap quantum
results in terms of loyalty, productivity, creativity and devotion to your compelling cause. The
bottom line is simply that people who feel superb about themselves generate superb results.
Never treat your team members as children, as if they are absolutely incapable of independent
thought. Do not micromanage and dictate the path to be followed at every step of the way. This
type of leadership stifles imagination, energy and spirit. Rather let them use their creativity and
resourcefulness to get there.Challenge them and allow them to grow. Let them try new things
and learn new skills. Let them fail from time to time, since failure is nothing more than
learning how to win. Failure is the highway to success.
Sometimes rarer than ability is-
The ability to recognize and nurture ability….
Super Leaders create Leaders.
H.G. Wells rightly said, “Leaders should lead as far as they can and then vanish. Their ashes
should not choke the fire they have lit.” As a visionary leader, you should push people up rather
pull them down. When your people succeed, you succeed. Learn from Bernard Gimbel who
said, “Two things are bad for the heart-running uphill and running down people.” Moreover
the greatest privilege of leadership is the chance to elevate lives. You should measure your
success not by the extent of your power, but by how many lives you touch and
transform. And you should know that when people work and live at their highest levels, the profits
are certain to come.
INSPIRE CREATIVITY:
We generally feel that only poets, writers, artists and actors are the creative sort. In fact, every
human being is endowed with creative tendencies. As a visionary leader, you need to unlock the
natural state of creativity that sleeps within the minds of every one of your people. You must help
your employees to think smarter and inspire them to explore new pathways of thought. Begin to
see your workplace as one giant idea factory, as a place where creativity and innovation are
recognized and rewarded. Let your people know that they will now be allowed to take some risks.
Teach them that failure is nothing more than learning how to win and that though some of the risks
that they take may lead to setbacks, many will also lead to innovation. Spread this sentiment
throughout the organization. Encourage creativityand make it clear that you are now open to
listening to, understanding and implementing the best ideas of your people.
The essence of creativity liesin originality of thought. You have to propagate the dictum: see what
24. all see, think what none think.Make your people be curious, spontaneous and playful like children
and flex their imagination. To understand better, here is a story. A yogi was sitting with his disciples,
high in the foothills of the Himalayas. As a test, he drew a line o the dirt and asked each student to
make the line shorter without erasing any part of it. The students were perplexed and couldn’t think
of a way to shorten the line without touching it- except for one student. He had been the one who
had studied the hardest and practiced the longest. He walked over to the line that the master had
drawn and quickly drew a longer line next to it. He did not touch the first line in any way. The
teacher smiled and applauded, “Very good, now the first line is shorter.”
This is the kind of original thinking you must propagate. Shed the shackles ofthe traditional
ways of looking at things so that you can master the uncertainty that a changing business
world brings. One of your highest priorities should be to create workplace that rewards curiosity
and recognizes that new ideas are the seeds of success. Remember, even one good idea can totally
transform your organization. As Maya Angelou wrote so beautifully, “Ifone is lucky, a solitary
fantasy can totally transform one million realities.”
In order to foster creativity within your workplace, work should be fun. Playfulness is not reserved
only for kids. There`s nothing wrong with people letting their hair down from time to time and
enjoying a solid belly laugh. There`s nothing wrong with letting people have fun at work. And
allowing them the chance to have fun through their work is a brilliant leadership philosophy because
it will conform to all that you truly do put people first. It shows you care. Fun and laughter are the
doorways to the hearts and imaginations of your people. A company that plays together stays
together. Organize fetes, contests and sports day to make your people laugh and smile and grow
love working at your company. Never forget that when you ensure that your employees laugh
while they work, they will ensure that you clients laugh while they buy.
LEAVE A RICH TRAIL:
As a visionary leader, you have to be a light. Be the one people look up for guidance and direction.
Let the ideal you aspire to burn brightly within you, blazing a path for all to see. This is your ultimate
purpose in leadership and in life. One of the timeless leadership fundamentals is, “The purpose of
life is a life of purpose.” You have to link what you do with those who you serve. The greatest
irony of leadership is that the more you give, the more you get. And, the highest and most enduring
gift that you will ever be able to give is the gift of what you leave behind. Your legacy to the
generations that follow will be how much value you have added to your organization and
how many lives you have improved. How well the father, lying on his deathbed, said to his
son, “Be ashamed to die until you have scored a victory for mankind.”
Focus on leaving a rich footprint of service and contribution behind you when your depart. Link
leadership to legacy. What makes greatness is beginning something that does not end with you. Your
legacy should be a reflection of the person you now are and the person you aim to be. Leaving a
legacy is not about impressing your friends or reaching the top. It’s not about looking good
but about dong good. It’s more about fulfilling your duty and actualizing you humanity. By doing so,
you can create a successful present while building a brilliant future.
LIVE LEADERSHIP:
Leadership of the self is the foundation from which all other success in business and in life
25. springs. Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to conquer the Mt. Everest, said it best when he
observed, “It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.” That’s really the essence of self-
lead-ership – it’s about conquering and mastering yourself. Effectiveness and excellence does not
come only from external factors like an efficient work force of application of latest
technology. Success is an inside job. Excellence begins within. Market leadership begins
with self-leadership. How can you lead organization if you have never learned how to lead
yourself?
The empires of the future are ‘the empires of the minds’.
….Sir Winston Churchill
Goethe said, “Before you can do something, you must be something.” You cannot be the
inspirational leader you hope to be if you wake up every morning feeling miserable and depressed.
You will not be able to capture the hearts and energize the minds of your people if you are yelling
and screaming at them all day. Remember, before you can like another person, you must like
yourself. Success on the outside begins within.
We see the world not as it is, but as we are. By improving, refining and defining who we are, we
see the world from the highest, most enlightened perspective. By mastering ourselves, we see the
world and all its limitless opportunities and potential from the top of the mountain rather than from
the bottom. Commit yourselfto excellence. Strive to do everything spectacularly well. The
most important thing you could do to improve your organization is to first improve yourself.
You must climb your own mountains and rise to the top, conquering yourselfin the
process. You must stop making excuses for why things have gone wrong and assume some
responsibility for a change.
As an effective leader, you need to renew yourself, revitalize your body and energize your
spirit. You need to balance your overwork through self renewal activities, which will make you
stress-hardy and allow you to maintain high level of stamina and creativity for long periods of
time. You ought to take time to relax, connect with the family, enjoy personal hobbies or
pursue spiritual activities. Lincoln captured the essence of this then he remarked, ‘If had eight
hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six hours sharpening my axe.”
Books can be a great source of learning leadership principles as they house the experience and
wisdom of those who have gone before you. Books allow you to look deeply into the minds of the
greatest men and women who have ever lived. By reading the books of Dale Carnegie, Thomas
Edison, Mother Teresa and Rabindranath Tagore, you are literally living with them and
getting an opportunity to rise to their level of thought.simultaneously, you need to take care of
your body too and exercise regularly. A good workout or a sporting activity can give you that extra
vigor, energy and drive that you need in today`s demanding work schedules.
Source:
http://sadhuji.blogspot.com/2008/05/positive-leadership.html
26. Positive Attitude
Importance of Positive Attitude
“The greatest discovery of my generation is human beings can alter their lives by altering
their attitudes of mind”
……… William James
Positive attitude can do wonders. It can make possible what is seemingly impossible for the others.
Positive attitude is the seed out of which positive traits, which are essential for success sprout forth.
It is the positive attitude again which waters and feeds the sapling of positive traits.
Your mind is a machine of thoughts and ideas. If you so not fill it up with positive, inspiring and
motivating thoughts, it will turn into a jungle of negative thoughts. Your mind is a beautiful garden,
if you do not plant and nurture sapling of beautiful flowering plants in it, it will turn into a mess of
wild creepers, bushes and thorny plants.
Your mind is a huge factory charming out ideas and thoughts. You are the supervisor of this factory.
You have two foremen at your beck and call. Mr.Yes and Mr. No. As soon as your factory produces
a great idea, you invite both the foremen to discuss its execution. Both of them as their names go,
suggest accordingly. It is up to you to follow their advice or not. If you begin to follow the advice of
‘Mr. No’ more and more, you begin to develop a negative attitude. A time comes when ‘Mr. No’ has
taken a complete control of your thought process. By and by a time comes when before you could
let a great idea seep within you, ‘Mr No.’ comes and thrushes it out of shape, so much so that ‘Mr.
No’ takes a complete control over you.
If success is what something really attracts you, and sure does everyone,then you must make a deep
association with ‘Mr. Yes’, your positive foreman.
“the greatest discovery of my generation is human beings can alter their lives by altering
their attitudes of mind”
The famous French Philosopher Blaise Pascal was once approached by someone. The visitor said,
“If I had your brains, I would be a better person.” Pascal replied, “Be a better person and you will
have my brains.”
Most of our attitude is shaped during our formative years. There are primarily three ‘E’ factors that
determine our attitude –Environment, Experience and Education. In a positive environment, a
marginal performer’s out put goes up. In a negative environment, a good performer’s output goes
down. Similarly, if you have a positive experience with person, our attitude towards him becomes
positive and vice versa. And finally, education ought to teach not only how to make a living but also
27. how to live.
Absence of negativity alone does not make a person positive. People with positive attitudes have
certain personality traits that are easy to recognize. They are caring, confident, patient and humble.
They have high expectations of themselves and others. They anticipate positive outcomes.
On the other hand, people with a negative attitudehave a hard time keeping friendships, jobs and
relationships. They create a negative environment at home and work and become a liability to
society. They also pass on their negative behavior to other around them and to future generations.
It would be a lot easier and better to have acquired a positive attitude during our formative years.
But it does not mean that if we acquire a negative attitude, whether by desire or by default, we are
stuck with it. We can change it, though it would be a bit difficult. For this you have to get away from
the past. Dust yourself of, get back into the mainstream. Put your dreams together and move
forward. Thinking of the positive things that true, honest and good, will put you in a positive state
of mind. Besides, one needs to consciously practice the following steps.
A balloon when released goes up not because of its colour or shape, it is what is inside that makes it
go up. The same application can be found in our lives. It is what is inside that count. The thing
inside of us that makes us go up is our attitude.
William James once said,
Change focus, look for the positive. We need to become good finders, we need to focus on the
positive in life. Let’s start looking for what is right in a person or situation, instead of looking for
what is wrong. Because of our conditioning, we are so attuned to finding fault and looking for what
is wrong that we forget to see the positive picture. There is something positive in every person and
every situation. Sometimes we have to dig deep to look for the positive because it may not be
apparent. Besides, we are so used to looking for what is wrong with other people and situations that
we forget to see what is right. Someone once said that even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Make a habit of doing it now. A completed task is fulfilling and energizing. An incomplete task
drains energy like a leak from a tank. If you want to build and maintain a positive attitude, get into
the habit of living in the present and doing it now. Learn the phrase ‘do it now’ and stop
procrastination.
Develop an attitude of gratitude. Count on your blessings, not your troubles. We are so focused
on complaining about things we don’t have that we lose right of things we have. There is a lot to be
thankful for. But at the same tome, it does not mean that you become complacent, a smug. It is only
to preserve energies that you waste on complaining about your troubles.
Build a positive self-esteem. Self-esteem is the way we feel about ourselves. When we feel good
28. within, our performance goes up, relationships improve both at home and at work. The world looks
nicer. There is a direct correlation between feeling and behavior. If you want build positive self-
esteem quickly, one of the fastest ways is to do something for others who cannot repay you in cash
or kind. As human beings, we all have the need to receive and take. But a healthy personality with
high self-esteem is one that not only has its need to take but also to give.
Stay away from negative influences. If you want to soar like an eagle, you have to learn the ways
of an eagle. If you associate with achievers, you will become one. If you associate with thinkers, you
will become one. If you associate with givers, you will become one. If you associate with
complainers, you will become one. Whenever people succeed in life, petty people will take cracks at
them and try to pull them down. In order to fight petty people, you have to come down to their
level. Don’t let negative people drag you down. When you refuse to fight petty people, you win.
Remember, a person’s character is not only judged by the company he or she keeps but also by the
company he or she avoids.Learn to like the things that need to be done. Some things need to be
done whether we like them or not. For example, mothers caring for their young. They may be not
fun and games, and may even be painful. But if we learn to like the task, the impossible becomes
possible. Someone said,“Start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible, and suddenly you
are doing the impossible.”
Start your day with a positive. Read or listen to something positive first thing in the morning.
After a good night’s sleep we are relaxed and our subconscious is receptive. It sets the tone for the
day, and puts us in the right frame of mind to make every day a positive day. In order to bring about
change, we need to make a conscious effort and be committed to make positive thoughts and
behavior part of our lives. Practice having positive thoughts until they become a habit.
Finally, if you are going to change your life, you need to start immediately and do it flamboyantly.
POSITIVE ATTITUDE AND SUCCESS
Positive attitude gives hope. Positive attitudereassures you. Positiveattitude is a mental trait of
seeing light in darkness. If you are a person of positive temperament you always see the brighter side
of life. Why is it that?
If you say, I can, you will
If you say, I cannot, you will never
It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare;
It is because we do not dare that they are difficult…..Seneca
When most of the people say the glass is half empty, a few people emphasize that that the
glass is half full.
When a task is assigned to two persons, one of them says it is difficult and cannot be done,
the other person says it requires more effort and can be done.
29. When the weary army of Alexander the great refused to move beyond Indus, saying fighting
any longer was an Impossible task, Alexander said Indus can be crossed and the kings
beyond Indus can be defeated and he did.
When Napolean command his army to cross Alps, they said “it was impossible” Napolean
replied, “the word impossible is written in the dictionary of fools.”
The answer is positive attitude.
There is an intimate link between success & positive attitude. No one who has ever been successful
has in his journey ever said ‘quite’. No one who has ever been successful has ever lost hope in his
journey to success. No one who has said ‘impossible’ to a task has ever gone on to make it possible.
But the contrary is often true:
The Gita speaks of attitude. Critics have failed to understand the attitude highlighted by the Gita.
Gita upholds the non-attached attitude as the highest virtue. Non-attached action has the following
advantages.
You can work without fear of favor
You are committed to work only
Your performance level is high
You’re fully absorbed in your work
There is no hindrance or distraction for you
The chances of your success are very high.
The critics interpret non-attachment as something not humanly possible. According to them no one
can work without motivation. But this is the view of the western scholars. Indian ethos is
substantially different. Also, the interpretation of non-attachment as above, is misleading. Non-
attachment merely means doing your work for the intrinsic worth that lies in doing it and not
because of reward or remuneration associated with it. This is quite logical. ‘Work’ is the only thing
you have control over. You have no jurisdiction over the fruits associated with your work. This
attitude allows you to take failure in its stride. This attitude lets you have the peace of your mind.
This attitude lets you going even under struggle and difficult circumstances. This is truly the attitude
all successful people possess.
Darcy E. Gibbons says, “Success is just a matter of attitude”. A finely tempered nature longs to
escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought.
All the great works in the world have been achieved when men have gone beyond the narrow
confines of their personal self & ego. That is the attitude to work one should have.
30. Think of any great deed like founding of an organization or the movements for the freedom of
nations or even great inventions or emergence of higher and evolved social values. All such great
deeds have involved tremendous sacrifice and will power. They would not have been possible if
leaders and visionaries were selfish, egoist and involved in their personal gain only.
Attitude and effectiveness are two pillars of success. In the beginning we spoke something about
attitude. Let us elaborate a little more on attitude.
Why is it that when the same topic is taught by two professors, students kike the one and
not the other? The answer is attitude.
Why is it that when a problem arises one man begins to quarrel and fight, but faced with the
same problem, the other man solves the problem with out quarreling.
Why is it that when the performance of two students is poor, the one begins to improve but
the other deteriorates further? The answer is attitude.
Your attitude is the sum total of what you are as a person and as an individual.
Dr. Shiv-Khera treats self-esteem as a positive attitudeunder an independent heading. According to
him, self-esteem works like magic in our life. Self-esteem is not ego, self-esteem is the strong value
you attach to yourself as an individual. It was the self-esteem in illiterate Kalidas which transformed
his life and he went on to become the most learned individual of his time.
What man thinks of himself: that is what determines or rather indicates, his fate.
............. Henry David Thoreau
Simply put, self esteem is what you think about yourself. What you think about yourself can be
interpret in term of a set of characters you hold about yourself. These could be honesty, helpfulness,
intelligent, responsible etc. this in turn influences everything, from our performance at work, our
relationships an our role as parents, to our accomplishments in life. Your attitude to others and to
different aspects of life flows out of your self-esteem. It determines your success. Self-esteem leads
you to perform and to prove. It is an internal driver. It unconsciously works on you and in your
behavior towards others. People believe you only when you believe in yourself self-esteem reinforce
your faith in your-self. All the achievers have a high opinion of themselves. They have high self-
esteem. They are optimistic, motivated and ambitious. They are sensitive. They can perform and
take risks. They discover opportunities and challenges.
If you don’t have a high self-esteem, you will most probably breakdown after a failure thinking what
you got was what you deserves. If you don’t you have a high self esteem. Amitabh Bachchan did’t
quit even after a series of flop films right in he beginning of his career.
I remember, a small incident. I had gone to a fair with my young nephew, about 7 or 8 years old. He
wanted to shoot at balloons pasted across the wall. For Rs. 5, he three chances to fire at the
31. balloons. He misfired and wasted all his three attempts. He told me he wanted to take the shoot
again I refused saying it was no use wasting more money on something he could not perform. That
thing struck him; he insisted he can do it. Reluctantly, Ilet him take shots. This time, he again could
not be successful. By mow, I was completely fed up. But he grew more determined. He simply
refused to move from there. Now I warned him, if you cannot do it this time, I would not hear
anything and I would simply move away from there. He was serious, quiet and determined. He
didn’t protest and promised instead that this would be his last chance. He took another round of
shots. The first one went bang on the target. I thought, it was perhaps by chance that he did it. But
to my surprise the other two shots also hit the targets. Now I volunteered to let him have the next
chance. This time I asked him to shoot at the specific balloon pointing out its position and color. He
did it. From then on, he shot any balloon that I pointed out to him. He had truly emerged
successful. Irealized what great role, self-esteem can play in one’s life.
Self-esteem shows up in minor little things of life. Slowly and gradually it shows up in bigger and
bigger achievements.
Self esteem is but, one of the measure indicator of attitude. Your attitude reflects in your personality
and the body language. Your attitude- positive & negative reflects in what your speak and how you
judge, how you behave under adverse and trying circumstances. Your attitude reflects in the opinion
about others you hold.
Respecting and smiling at other people and clleagues doesn't mean a thing, if you criticise them at
their back. Parroting lofty ideas, does not mean a thing if you do not follow them.
How long does it take to become a paralegal? When considering your paralegal degree, you will want
to carefully review the school to determine if it has one of the ABA approved paralegal programs.
An ABA approved program insures you meet your paralegal requirements and the material you are
learning is relevant and valued in the greater law community. Most paralegals will have an
Associate’s Degree which requires two years of study on average and some paralegal certificate
courses are much shorter than that.
Source:
http://sadhuji.blogspot.com/2008/06/positive-attitude.html
32. Principles of Success
Principles of Success
Ø Develop definiteness of Purpose
Ø Establish Mastermind Alliance
Ø Assemble an attractive Personality
Ø Use Applied Faith
Ø Go the Extra mile
Ø Create Personal Initiative
Ø Build a Positive Mental Attitude
Ø Control your Enthusiasm
Ø Enforce Self Discipline
Ø Think Accurately
Ø Control your Attention
Ø Inspire Team Work
Ø Learn from Adversity and Defeats
Ø Cultivate Creative Vision
Ø Maintain Sound Health
Ø Budget your Time and Money
Ø Use Cosmic Habit Force
Definite Purpose of Life:
One should have a high desirable, outstanding goal and keep it ever before you. You can have many
non-conflicting goals, which help you to reach your major definite purpose of life. It is advisable to
have immediate, intermediate, and distant objectives. Identify your desire with a definite plan for
carrying out and achieving your objectives. Put your plan into action at once.
Act Now:
The meaning of life is action. You are known by your actions. You are remembered by your actions.
The generations today know Gandhi as a man of peace, Einstein as a man of science, Henry Ford as
a man who built a huge fortune. When we remember a man, it is the picture of his actions that come
to our mind.
If the meaning of life is action, its natural corollary is you have to act. You have to keep doing the
action that is your chosen profession or vocation. There is no escape from it. The very foundation
of the Gita is action. Actions can be fruitful or go futile. The ‘Gita’ also talks of attitude. Your
attitude towards your action determines the worth of your action. Action without lust, attachment,
greed or ego is the best way to perform an action.
A genius is 99 per cent perspiration & one percent inspiration.
........ Albert Einstein
Some of us who believe solely in luck or inspiration are adamant in our belief. The fact is nothing
comes without toil and hard work. Even Einstein, the greatest scientist of our times strongly felt the
33. value of perspiration. Nothing substantial has ever been arrived at or achieved without perspiration.
Persistence And Determination
Nothing will take the place of persistence.
Talent will not: Nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent.
Genius will not: Unrewarded genius is a proverb only.
Education will not: The world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence & determination alone are omnipotent.
……Calvin Cooli
Resistence is the power to say ‘No’ to a task, comes what may. Persistence is the ability to persevere
under thick and thin alike.
You cannot persist in your efforts, if you do not have a single minded determination. People with
single minded determination and persistence are too busy. They do not have time for anything else
apart from what is their immediate goal or object.
Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.
......Henry David Thoreau.
If you have a goal or target, a plan of action with single minded determination and persistence, the
success is yours. If you have an unwavering faith in yourself and your ability to achieve your goal, it
will be easy for you to develop the character of persistence.
Single minded determination calls for mental discipline. Such a discipline is not acquired overnight
but comes through strenuous effort inculcated over a long period of time. Single minded
determination is a positive catalystfor hard worker. You cannot work hard if you determination is
wavering.
Single minded determination or will reflects your thought process. Understanding your thought
process and applying it to achieve your goal is the key to success.
Belief & Faith
If you do not believe you will be successful, you will never be. If you doubt yourself and your
abilities, the success steps you take will be hesitant and the measures will be half hearted. Belief and
faith can do wonders, it can to miracles.
34. Do you know about faith-healers? Or have you heard about them? Some people are capable of
healing themselves merely because they have an unwavering faith in the curative powers of belief
system. There are even those people who can heal other.
If You Think
If you think you are beaten, you are.
If you think you dare not, you don’t!
If you like to win, but think you can’t. It’s almost a clinch you wan’t.
If you think you’ll lose, you are lost. For out in the world we find.
Success begins with a fellow’s will; It’s all in the state of mind.
If you think you are outclassed, you are, you’ve got to think high to rise.
You’ve got to be a sure of yourself before. You can ever win a prize.
Life’s battles don’t always go to the stronger and faster man,
But sooner or later the man who wins……
Is the man who thinks he can.
SUCCESS : A REPEATED FAILURE WITHOUT QUITING
Ø This man failed in business at the age of 21: was defeated in a legislative race at age 22: failed
again in business at age 24: had his sweetheart die when he was age 26: had a nervous breakdown at
age 27: lost a congressional race at age 34: lost a senatorial race at age 45: failed in an effort to
become vice-president at age 47: lost a senatorial race at age 49: and was elected president of the
United States at age 52. The man was Abraham Lincoln.
Ø In 1913, Lee De Forest, inventor of the triode tube, was charged by the district attorney for using
fraudulent means to mislead the public into buying stocks in his company by claiming that he could
transmit the human voice across the Atlantic. He was publicly humiliated.
Ø Colonel Sanders, at age 65, had assets of a beat-up car and a $ 100 check from social security. He
realized he had to do something to improve his position. He remembered his fried chicken recipe
and went out selling. How many doors did he have to knock on before he got his first order? It is
estimated that he had knocked on more than a thousand doors before he got his first order.
Ø As a young cartoonist, Walt Disney faced many rejections from Newspaper editors who said he
had mo talent. One day a minister at a church hired him to draw some cartoons. Disney was
35. working out of a small rodent infested shed near the church. Seeing a small mouse inspired him to
draw a new cartoon. That was the start of the Mickey Mouse.
Ø One day a partially deaf four-year old child came home with a note in his pocket from his teacher,
“your Tommy is too stupid to learn, get him out of the school.” His mother read the note and
answered “My Tommy is not too stupid to learn, I will teach him myself.” and that Tommy grew up
to be the great Thomas Edison. Thomas Edison had only three months of formal schooling.
FAILURES, BEFORE SUCCESS
Ø Amitabh Bacchan flopped in series of first 12 to 14 movies before emerging as a superstar in
Deewar and Zanjeer.
Ø Thomas Edison failed approximately 10,000 times before he could find a highly resistant filamen
for his electric bulb.
Ø Dhirubhai Ambani worked as a small time employee at a gasoline station in Dubai.
Ø Narayanmurthy started off along with two partners, a small room and a two wheeler.
Ø Sunil Mittal of Airtel began with a capital of not more than Rs. 10.000 sometimes in the early 80s
lent to him, by his father.
Ø Roy brothers of Sahara fame started with a meager capital of less than Rs. 2500/ sometimes in the
late 70s.
Ø Earnest Hemingway had his manuscript rejected almost by every publisher he approached in his
initial literary career. He went on to become the highest paid author of America at one time.
Ø Mohammad Ghori attacked India sixteen times losing the battle every time before being
victorious in his seventeenth attempt.
Ø Henry Ford was broke at the age of 40.
Ø Lee Iacocca was fired by Henry Ford II at the age of 54.
Ø Young Beethoven was told that he had no talent for music, but he gave some of the best music to
the world.
Positive Attitude & Success
Positive attitude gives hope. Positive attitudereassures you. Positiveattitude is a mental trait of
seeing light in darkness. If you are a person of positive temperament you always see the brighter side
of life. Why is it that?
Ø When most of the people say the glass is half empty, a few people emphasize that that the glass is
half full.
Ø When a task is assigned to two persons, one of them says it is difficult and cannot be done, the
other person says it requires more effort and can be done.
36. Ø When the weary army of Alexander the great refused to move beyond Indus, saying fighting any
longer was an Impossible task, Alexander said Indus can be crossed and the kings beyond Indus can
be defeated and he did.
Ø When Napolean command his army to cross Alps, they said “it was impossible” Napolean
replied, “the word impossible is written in the dictionary of fools.”
The answer is positive attitude.
There is an intimate link between success & positive attitude. No one who has ever been successful
has in his journey ever said ‘quite’. No one who has ever been successful has ever lost hope in his
journey to success. No one who has said ‘impossible’ to a task has ever gone on to make it possible.
But the contrary is often true:
If you say, I can, you will
If you say, I cannot, you will never
It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare;
It is because we do not dare that they are difficult
…..Seneca
Positive attitude can do wonders. It can make possible what is seemingly impossible for the others.
Positive attitude is the seed out of which positive traits, which are essential for success, sprout forth.
It is the positive attitude again which waters and feeds the saplings of positive traits.
Your mind is a machine of thoughts and ideas. If you do not fill it up with positive, inspiring and
motivating thoughts, it will turn into a jungle of negative thoughts. Your mind is beautiful garden, if
you don’t plant and nurture sapling of flowering plants in it, it will turn into mess of wild creepers,
bushes and thorny plants.
You mind is a huge factory charming out ideas & thoughts. You are the supervisor of this factory.
You have two foremen at your beck and call. They are Mr. Yes and Mr. No. as soon as your factory
produces a great idea; you invite both the foreman to discuss its execution. Both of them as their
names go, suggest accordingly. It is up to you to follow their advice or not. If you begin to follow
the advice of ‘Mr No’ more and more, you begin to develop a negative attitude. A time comes when
‘Mr.No.’ has taken a complete control over your thought process. By and by a time comes then even
before you could let a great idea seep within you, ‘Mr No’ comes and thrashes it out of shape, so
much so that ‘Mr No’ takes a complete control over you.
If success is what something really attracts you, and sure it does everyone, then you must make a
deep association with ‘Mr. Yes’, your foreman.
Dream & Vision
Imagination is everything.
If we can imagine a future, we can create it,
if we can create that future, other will live in it.
That is the essence of success.
Dream is the stuff reality is made of. The message of our President A.P.J. Kalam to children is that
they must dream if they want to be successful.
37. If you have no dream, you not looking forward to anything. Therefore you cannot be successful.
Nationalists like Gandhi and Nehru had the dream of a future India. They had the visions of society,
polity, economy and constitution that an independent India would have. It was this vision or dream
they were working for.
Dream particles and the real ones are not different, when the dream is lively and vivid. The Hindu
mythology calls the universe a great cosmic dream of the creator.
When you have a lively vision or dream, you are a creator on way to creation. Let this dream persist.
Let your vision grow stronger and stronger each moment of the day. And then one day you will
realize your dream has turned into a reality. You may not be surprised by it, but the others will be.
Do not confuse dreams with day-dreams. Day-dreaming is idling. Day dreams lull you into inaction.
But dreams are different.
Dream energizes you to activity
Dream strengthens your belief system
Dream adds to your confidence
Dreams puts a goal before you
Therefore, one must not just dream, but make the dream colorful and vivid. If possible, a picture of
your dream that you wish to get or attain should be hung in your living room. To make your dream
lively:
Remind yourself of your dream constantly
See the picture of your dream everyday
See your dream as the first thing when you get up in the morning
See your dream as the last thing when you go to sleep in the night.
In other words make your dream a living part of your consciousness. Make it the part of your sub
consciousness too.
A NEW LEVEL OF THINKING
Stephen covey in his illustrious book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People speaks about the new
level of thinking which is principle-centered, character-based, inside-out approach to personal and
interpersonal and interpersonal effectiveness.
Inside-out means to start first with self; even more fundamentally, to start with the most inside part
of self-with your paradigms, your character, and your motives.
It says if you want to have a happy marriage, be the kind of person who generates positive energy
and side step negative energy rather than empowering it. If you want to have a more pleasant,
cooperative teenager, be a more understanding, empathetic, consistent loving parent. If you want to
be trusted, be trustworthy. If you want the secondary greatness recognized talent, focus first on
primary greatness of character.
The inside-out approach says that private victories precede public victories, that making and keeping
promises to ourselves precedes making and keeping promises to the others. It says it is futile to put
38. personality ahead of character, to try to improve relationships with others before improving
ourselves. It must always be the Positive Character ahead of Positive Personality.
Source:
http://sadhuji.blogspot.com/2008/07/principles-of-success.html
39. SELF CONFIDENCE
If you think you can, you can.
And if you think you can’t, you are right.
Self confidence is the inner faith which provides the greatest mental energy. Persons with self
confidence have won a situation much before its practical happening. One must have an inner faith,
internal peace and in depth self understanding to develop a state of self confidence.
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are
small matters as compared to what lies within us.
The ocean of infinite power is within us”
Remember a self confidence is a state of mind which one can be achieved with little self analysis and
effort.
HOW TO BUILD SELF CONFIDENCE :
· Internal analysis-know one’s own strength and weakness
· Auto suggestion
· Positive thinking
· Taking action on small things first and succeed
· Greater involvement and participation by action
· Prepare a bit before on things to be done
· Accept responsibility
40. · Develop good habits
· Associate with high confidence people
· Perfect grooming, body language and dress code
· Smiling, generous, humble
We must listen to our own inner voice, internal strength, confidence and intuition. Never be driven
by the week environment around you. Maintain the self confidence in all the action throughout
your life. Success is always at the other end...
First it is ridiculed,
Second, it is violently opposed,
Finally it is accepted and self-evident.
….…..Arthur Schopenhauer
Source:
http://sadhuji.blogspot.com/2012/04/self-confidence.html