Reachout Blogs: June 2008

Speaking Skills

Successful communication is an exchange, two people sharing insights on the same topic. Their insights might be diametrically opposed, but each expresses an opinion and listens to the response.

Many times the conversation instead of being a dialogue becomes a monologue. Only one person does all the talking and the other listens. This leads to breakdown in conversations. Good conversation like good tennis needs volleying from both sides.

So remember when you converse allow the other person to air his / her opinion. Try to understand his view if possible even if it is totally against your opinion.

Whether speaking to an audience of hundreds or of one, strengthen your speaking- and your image with a short silent pause. We often clutter our speech with verbal crutches-"like", "Uhh" "Err" "Well" . We lean on these crutches to fill the silence when thinking of the next idea or word. The silence is better.

If you use these crutches break the habit by pausing. Make no sound. You will be surprised to see how quickly the next word pops up. And you will find the silence is hardly noticeable.

Why Some People Have All the Luck By Professor Richard Wiseman, University of Hertfordshire

A psychologist says he has discovered the answer.

Ten years ago, I set out to examine luck. I wanted to know why some people are always in the right place at the right time, while others consistently experience ill fortune. I placed advertisements in national newspapers asking for people who felt consistently lucky or unlucky to contact me.

Hundreds of ext rao rdinary men and women volunteered for my research and over the years, I have interviewed them, monitored their lives and had them take part in experiments.

The results reveal that although these people have almost no insight into the causes of their luck, their thoughts and behaviour are responsible for much of their good and bad fortune. Take the case of seemingly chance opportunities. Lucky people consistently encounter such opportunities, whereas unlucky people do not.

I carried out a simple experiment to discover whether this was due to differences in their ability to spot such opportunities. I gave both lucky and unlucky people a newspaper, and asked them to look through it and tell me how many photographs were inside. I had secretly placed a large message halfway through the newspaper saying: "Tell the experimenter you have seen this and win $50."

This message took up half of the page and was written in type that was more than two inches high. It was staring everyone straight in the face, but the unlucky people tended to miss it and the lucky people tended to spot it.

Unlucky people are generally more tense than lucky people, and this anxiety disrupts their ability to notice the unexpected.

As a result, they miss opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else. They go to partiesʼ intent on finding their perfect partner and so miss opportunities to make good friends. They look through newspapers determined to find certain types of job advertisements and miss other types of jobs.

Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there rather than just what they are looking for. My research eventually revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via four principles. They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.

Towards the end of the work, I wondered whether these principles could be used to create good luck. I asked a group of volunteers to spend a month carrying out exercises designed to help them think and behave like a lucky person.

Dramatic results! These exercises helped them spot chance opportunities, listen to their intuition, expect to be lucky, and be more resilient to bad luck. One month later, the volunteers returned and described what had happened. The results were dramatic: 80% of people were now happier, more satisfied with their lives and, perhaps most important of all, luckier.

The lucky people had become even luckier and the unlucky had become lucky.

Finally, I had found the elusive "luck factor".

Here are Professor Wiseman's four top tips for becoming lucky:

1) Listen to your gut instincts - they are normally right

2) Be open to new experiences and breaking your normal routine

3) Spend a few moments each day remembering things that went well

4) Visualize yourself being lucky before an important meeting or telephone call.

Have a Lucky day and work for it.

The happiest people in the world are not those who have no problems, but those who learn to live with things that are less than perfect.

Jerico Santander Digital Art (Contributed by Arun M)

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Palm Jumeira Dubai (contributed by Ahmed Imam)

Release your potential in THIS life

A child was born three months after the death of his father. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother said that he could easily fit inside a quart mug.. When He was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother,

Began his schooling in the village schools. When he was 15 yrs, his step father died and his mother came back only to remove him from school and attempted to make a farmer of him. He was thoroughly unhappy with the farm work. One of his high school teacher helped him back to school to complete his education.

At the age of 19 he fell in love, romanced for a year and got engaged to his beloved. But he became engrossed in his studies and let the romance cool itself & she left him & married someone else. He never married. He faced challenges everywhere!

He was born unlucky with much hardship for very survival & struggle for education.

What can you expect that child to do & achieve in life? Think!

He described universal gravitation (Gravity) and the three laws of motion. He invented the reflecting telescope and made many contributions to mathematics.

Yes we are talking of Sir Isaac Newton

Best wishes to you to release your hidden potential in this life itself!

Before it starts (by Ahmed Imam)

Before it starts

A man comes home from an exhausting day at work, plops down on the couch in front of the television, and tells his wife, "Get me a beer before it starts."

The wife sighs and gets him a beer.

Fifteen minutes later, he says, "Get me another beer before it starts."

She looks cross, but fetches another beer and slams it down next to him.

He finishes that beer and a few minutes later says, "Quick, get me another beer, it's going to start any minute."

The wife is furious. She yells at him "Is that all you're going to do tonight? Drink beer and sit in front of that TV? You're nothing but a lazy, drunken, fat slob, and furthermore . . ."

The man sighs and says, "It's started . . "

A Basket of Water (contributed by Lakshmi Venkateshwaran)

An old Farmer lived on a farm in the mountains with his young grandson. Each morning Grandpa was up early sitting at the kitchen table reading his Bhagavat Geeta. His grandson wanted to be just like him and tried to imitate him in every way he could.

One day the grandson asked, 'Grandpa! I try to read the Bhagavat Geeta just like you but I don't understand it, and what I do understand I forget as soon as I close the book. What good does reading the Bhagavat Geeta do?'

The Grandfather quietly turned from putting coal in the stove and replied, 'Take this coal basket down to the river and bring me back a basket of water.'

The boy did as he was told, but all the water leaked out before he got back to the house. The grandfather laughed and said, 'You'll have to move a little faster next time,' and sent him back to the river with the basket to try again.

This time the boy ran faster, but again the basket was empty before he returned home. Out of breath, he told his grandfather that it was impossible to carry water in a basket, and he went to get a bucket instead.

The old man said, 'I don't want a bucket of water; I want a basket of water. You're just not trying hard enough,' and he went out the door to watch the boy try again.

At this point, the boy knew it was impossible, but he wanted to show his grandfather that even if he ran as fast as he could, the water would leak out before he got back to the house.

The boy again dipped the basket into river and ran hard, but when he reached his grandfather the basket was again empty. Out of breath, he said, 'See Grandpa, it's useless!' 'So you think it is useless?' The old man said, 'Look at the basket.'

The boy looked at the basket and for the first time realized that the basket was different. It had been transformed from a dirty old coal basket and was now clean, inside and out.

'Son, that's what happens when you read the Bhagavat Geeta. You might not understand or remember everything, but when you read it, you will be changed, inside and out. That is the work of Krishna in our lives.'

'Celebrate Life. Care for others and share whatever you have with those less fortunate than you. Broaden your vision, for the whole world belongs to you.'

Mission Impossible

See this half minute video to understand -

- how to make the impossible possible

- how to focus on your goals

- how to be totally determined

If this video doesnt convey that to you, nothing ever would! And do share it with others, unless you are totally selfish as well.

The Pickup (contributed by Jc. K.C. Padmesh)

One night, at 11:30 p.m., an older African American woman was standing on the side of an Alabama highway trying to endure a lashing rainstorm. Her car had broken down and she desperately needed a ride. Soaking wet, she decided to flag down the next car. A young white man stopped to help her, generally unheard of in those conflict-filled 1960s. The MN took her to safety, helped her get assistance and put her into a taxicab.

She seemed to be in a big hurry, but wrote down his address and thanked him. Seven days went by and a knock came on the man's door. To his surprise, a giant console color TV was delivered to his home. A special note was attached.

It read: "Thank you so much for assisting me on the highway the other night. The rain drenched not only my clothes, but also my spirits. Then you came along. Because of you, I was able to make it to my dying husband's bedside just before he passed away... God bless you for helping me and unselfishly serving others."

Sincerely,

Mrs. Nat King Cole.

GOD is missing - Jumpin' to Conclusions

Two little boys, ages 8 and 10, are extremely mischievous. They are always getting into trouble and their parents know all about it. If any mischief occurs in their town, the two boys are probably Involved.

The boys' mother heard that a preacher in town had been successful in disciplining children, so she asked if he would speak with her boys. The preacher agreed, but he asked to see them individually.

So the mother sent the 8 year old first, in the morning, with the older boy to see the preacher in the afternoon.

The preacher, a huge man with a booming voice, sat the younger boy down and asked him sternly,

"Do you know where God is, son?"

The boy's mouth dropped open, but he made no response, sitting there wide-eyed with his mouth hanging open.

So the preacher repeated the question in an even sterner tone, "Where is God?!"

Again, the boy made no attempt to answer. The preacher raised his voice even more and shook his finger in the boy's face and bellowed,

"Where is God?!"

The boy screamed and bolted from the room, ran directly home and dove into his closet, slamming the door behind him.

When his older brother found him in the closet, he asked, "what happened?"

The younger brother, gasping for breath, replied, "We are in BIG trouble this time - GOD is missing, and they think we did it!"

HOW TO RECRUIT THE right PERSON FOR THE JOB

               HOW TO RECRUIT THE right PERSON FOR THE JOB?

               Put about 100 bricks in some
               Particular order in a closed
               Room with an
               Open window.

               Then send 2 or 3 candidates in
               The room and close the door.

               Leave them alone and come back
               After 6 hours and then analyze
               The situation.

               If they are counting the
               Bricks.
               Put them in the accounts
               Department.

               If they are recounting them..
               Put them in auditing .

               If they have messed up the
               Whole place with the bricks.
               Put them in engineering.

               If they are arranging the
               Bricks in some strange order.
               Put them in planning.

               If they are throwing the
               Bricks at each other.
               Put them in operations ..

               If they are sleeping.
               Put them in security.

               If they have broken the bricks
               Into pieces.
               Put them in information
               Technology.

               If they are sitting idle.
               Put them in human resources.

               If they say they have tried
               Different combinations, yet
               Not a brick has
               Been moved. Put them in sales.

               If they have already left for
               The day.
               Put them in marketing.

               If they are staring out of the
               Window.
               Put them on strategic
               Planning.

               And then last but not least.
               If they are talking to each
               Other and not a single brick
               Has been
               Moved.

               Congratulate them and put them
               In top management

Bleeding Image of Divine Mercy at St. Michael's, Mahim, Mumbai

One of our group members who was fortunate to be present has captured this event on video. Over 1000 views in the past few hours!

The BEE Attitudes

{Life Lessons from BEES}

Download here

A gift for his sister... (contributed by Thulsiram Govindan)

I was walking around in a store making shopping, when I saw a Cashier talking to a boy couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 years old.

The Cashier said, 'I'm sorry, but you don't have enough money to buy this doll. Then the little boy turned to me and asked: ''aunty, are you sure I don't have enough money?''

I counted his cash and replied: ''You know that you don't have enough money to buy the dolll, my dear.'' The little boy was still holding the doll in his hand.

Finally, I walked toward him and I asked him who he wished to give this doll to. 'It's the doll that my sister loved most and wanted so much. I wanted to Gift her for her BIRTHDAY.

I have to give the doll to my mommy so that she can give it to my sister when she goes there.' His eyes were so sad while saying this. 'My Sister has gone to be with God. Daddy says that Mommy is going to see God very soon too, so I thought that she could take the doll with her to give it to my sister.''

My heart nearly stopped. The little boy looked up at me and said: 'I told daddy to tell mommy not to go yet. I need her to wait until I come back from the mall.' Then he showed me a very nice photo of him where he was laughing. He then told me 'I want mommy to take my picture with her so my sister won't forget me.' 'I love my mommy and I wish she doesn't have to leave me, but daddy says that she has to go to be with my little sister.' Then he looked again at the doll with sad eyes, very quietly.

I quickly reached for my wallet and said to the boy. 'Suppose we check again, just in case you do have enough money for the doll?''

'OK' he said, 'I hope I do have enough.' I added some of my money to his with out him seeing and we started to count it. There was enough for the doll and even some spare money.

The little boy said: 'Thank you God for giving me enough money!'

Then he looked at me and added, 'I asked last night before I went to sleep for God to make sure I had enough money to buy this doll, so that mommy could give It to my sister. He heard me!'' 'I also wanted to have enough money to buy a white rose for my mommy, but I didn't dare to ask God for too much. But He gave me enough to buy the doll and a white rose. My mommy loves white roses.'

I finished my shopping in a totally different state from when I started. I couldn't get the little boy out of my mind. Then I remembered a local news paper article two days ago, which mentioned a drunk man in a truck, who hit a car occupied by a young woman and a little girl. The little girl died right away, and the mother was left in a critical state. The family had to decide whether to pull the plug on the life-sustaining machine, because the young woman would not be able to recover from the coma. Was this the family of the little boy?

Two days after this encounter with the little boy, I read in the news paper that the young woman had passed away.. I couldn't stop myself as I bought a bunch of white roses and I went to the funeral home where the body of the young woman was exposed for people to see and make last wishes before her burial. She was there, in her coffin, holding a beautiful white rose in her hand with the photo of the little boy and the doll placed over her chest. I left the place, teary-eyed, feeling that my life had been changed for ever.

The love that the little boy had for his mother and his sister is still, to this day, hard to imagine. And in a fraction of a second, a drunk driver had taken all this away from him.

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The Four Imperatives of Leadership

The first is to inspire trust. You build relationships of trust through both your character and competence and you also extend trust to others. You show others that you believe in their capacity to live up to certain expectations, to deliver on promises, and to achieve clarity on key goals. You don't inspire trust by micromanaging and second guessing every step people make.

The second is to clarify purpose. Great leaders involve their people in the communication process to create the goals to be achieved. If people are involved in the process, they psychologically own it and you create a situation where people are on the same page about what is really important—mission, vision, values, and goals.

The third is to align systems. This means that you don't allow there to be conflict between what you say is important and what you measure. For instance, many times organizations claim that people are important but in fact the structures and systems, including accounting, make them an expense or cost center rather than an asset and the most significant resource.

The fourth is the fruit of the other three—unleashed talent. When you inspire trust and share a common purpose with aligned systems, you empower people. Their talent is unleashed so that their capacity, their intelligence, their creativity, and their resourcefulness is utilized.

{Source unknown but attributed to an interview with Dr. Stephen Covey}

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You can be happy - Change your Inputs for better Outputs

You are a product of your environnent.

Most people realize this — usually, in the form of having something else to blame — but they tend to forget one important fact:

Humans are the masters of changing their environment.

What this means is that if your environment affects you, and you can affect your environment, then obviously, you can affect yourself.

• Your environment includes people. Figure out who in your life isn't good for you, whose presence tears you down more than it builds you up, whose nearness is poison to you — and get rid of them. Get them out of your life. I don't care if it's your best friend, your boss, your mother, your lover — if they are harming you, if they are doing nothing but reinforce everything bad you tell yourself about yourself, then your relationship with them needs to radically alter or it needs to end.

• Your environment includes goals. Don't set yourself pie-in-the-sky impossible goals and then beat yourself up over not achieving them — set yourself goals that will be good for you, not a source of pain. Attainable goals. Set them and meet them. Don't tell yourself you can't — that's the old story, that story you used to tell yourself about what a poor sad victim you were and how you could never change anything about your life. You can meet your goals. This is the new story.

Trying to clean your house? Good for you — a clean house can really affect your state of mind for the better. But don't say "Today I'm going to clean the entire house from top to bottom," when you don't have the time and energy to — don't set yourself up for failure; don't feed the demon. Just say, "Today I'm going to wash all the dishes and clean off the kitchen counter." And do it.

Don't tell yourself, "This month I'm going to write that novel." Tell yourself, "Today I'm going to write five pages." And do it. Take your dreams and break them down into small pieces and you'll have them in your hands before you know it.

And you'll find, as you start meeting your goals, that you like it. That it feels good, makes you feel confident and capable. You'll develop a hunger for it.

• Your environment includes yourself — your physical presence. Do what you know you need to do — treat yourself better. Sleep, eat right, exercise. This doesn't mean you have to stop staying out late at night now and then, it doesn't mean you can't have a candy bar, it doesn't mean you have to stop sitting around watching television — it just means start doing the things that are good for you as well as the things that are bad for you, every so often. It's not an all-or-nothing proposition; you don't have to devote your life to being a health nut. Just try eating more fruits and vegetables, the occasional vegetarian meal; go for walks in the park on the weekends. You'll feel better and be more alert if you're a little healthier, and once you start feeling a little better, you'll start wanting the things that make you feel better. You'll see.

• Your environment includes your appearance. If you're not happy with yourself, if you're angry with the person in the mirror, it can honestly help to literally change who you see when you look in the mirror. Try a different hairstyle, new glasses, new jewelry, new clothes. It doesn't have to be expensive — there's a whole universe full of possible You's waiting to be found in thrift stores, if need be. If you're deciding to become the person you want to be, then decide what that person is going to look like. Dress the part. It's not shallow, it's not about vanity, it's about self-transformation — even the most primitive tribes understand the value of costumes and masks for ritual, for change, for becoming someone else.

You are not an object. You are a system. Like with any system, if you change the inputs — change what goes into it — you'll change what comes out.

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Children that Dont Trust Wont Respect

Trust is one of the pillars of good parenting. This post is slightly different than the other posts on becoming a better parent. In the other posts, I have written about how love and respect are essential to proper parenting. No one will tell you that love and respect are not important. However, if your kids don't trust you then they wont respect you.

This is not just something we should be concerned about when our kids are older. Trust starts when your kids are just that – kids. Its much easier to be a little misleading or dishonest when our kids are little. However, don't make it a habit. A little white lie now can quickly grow into a full blown lie without you realizing and before you know it you'll quickly lose your children's trust.

An example of ways to damage your trust

The magazine article in Parenting.com on advising ways to take away recalled toys from your toddler by making it disappear in the middle of the night is a perfect example in building mistrust in your relationship with your kids.

"Make the toy "disappear" while your child is sleeping. If he is distressed about losing his favorite object, you may have to tell a white lie and feign ignorance about the toy's whereabouts."

Another example, my daughter once cut herself; she refused to wear a bandaid. A guest over at our house suggested to sneak one on her while she was sleeping. After telling this person that I was against that idea, she turned to me and said that sometimes a parent has to do things that a child doesn't want them to do. I was annoyed because we were talking about a cut that was slightly larger than a paper cut. I was more concerned about affecting the trust with my daughter than giving her a bandaid.

I learned from being a EMT and a First Aid and CPR instructor that you never tell a patient that they will be ok when you know that they wont be. Never lie to a patient. If they learn not to trust you then they will learn not to trust any paramedic or doctor.

This applies to parenting as much as anything else. A parent should never tell their child that "it wont hurt" or "it will be ok" or worse when going to the doctor a parent should never ever tell their child that they are just going for a checkup when they are really going in for a shot.

The absolute worst way of destroying trust with your children is telling them that you will or wont do something knowing perfectly well that you will do the opposite of what you just told them. A perfect example is when a mother tells her son that she wont touch anything in his room while he's away for the weekend and once he leaves she starts reorganizing his room and throwing away things that she feels is garbage. This may sound extreme but parents do this all the time. They say one thing to their children but do the exact opposite.

Trust begins when your child is old enough to understand. If your child learns that they simply can not trust you then they will almost have no reason to respect you either.

Source: Unknown

Its Upto YOU (Contributed by Hiral Lakdawala)

I gave you life, but I cannot live it for you.

I can teach you things, but I cannot make you learn.

I can give you directions, but I cannot always be there to lead you.

I can allow you freedom, but I cannot account for it.

I can take you to church, but I cannot make you believe.

I can teach you right from wrong, but I cannot decide for you.

I can give you love, but I cannot force it upon you.

I can teach you to be a friend, but I cannot make you one.

I can teach you to share, but I cannot make you unselfish.

I can teach you respect, but I cannot force you to show honor.

I can grieve about your report card but I canot make you study,

I can advise you about friends, but I cannot choose them for you.

I can teach you about sex and the facts of life, but I cannot decide for you.

I can tell you about drinking, but I cannot say "no" for you.

I can warn you about drugs, but I cannot prevent you from using them.

I an teach you about goals and dreams, but I cannot achieve them for you.

I can teach you kindness, but I cannot force you to be kind.

I can warn you about sin, but I cannot make your morals.

I can love you as a [daughter] son, but I cannot place you in God's family

I can pray for you and your future, but I cannot make you walk with God.

I can tell you how to live, but I cannot give you eternal life

Author: Unknown

Who Packed Your Parachute (contributed by Hiral Lakdawala)

Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important. We may fail to say hello, please, thank you, congratulate someone on something wonderful that has happened to them, give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason.

Charles Plumb, a US Naval Academy graduate, was a jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent 6 years in a communist prison. He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience.

One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!"

"How in the world did you know that?" asked Plumb. "I packed your parachute," the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man grabbed his hand and said, "I guess it worked!"

Plumb assured him, "It sure did. If your chute hadn't worked, I wouldn't be here today."

Plumb couldn't sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb kept wondering what the man might have looked like in a Navy uniform. He wondered how many times he might have seen him and not even said good morning, how are you or anything, because you see, he was a fighter pilot and the man was just a sailor. Plumb thought of the many hours that sailor had spent in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he did not know.

Now Plumb asks his audience, "Who is packing your parachute?" Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day. Plumb also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down. As you go through your week, month, and even New Year, recognize the people who have packed your parachute and enabled you to get where you are today!

Author: Unknown