It’s not what happens to you; it’s what you do about it!

Posted on March 7, 2012 by malik mirza

Experience is not what happens to a man. It is what a man does with what happens to him.

Aldous Huxley

I would like to narrate an inspiring story from the book “Chicken Soup for the soul” about a person who got burned at age 46 due to a terrible motorcycle accident. Four years later he gets paralyzed from the waist down in an airplane crash.

Can such a person become a millionaire, a respected public speaker, a happy newlywed and a successful business person?

Welcome to the story of W. Mitchell! (www.wmitchell.com)

W. Mitchell undergone 16 surgeries after the motorcycle accident. He burnt more than 65 percent of his body. Mitchell never believed he was defeated.

“I am in charge of my own spaceship,” he said. “It’s my up, my down. I could choose to see this situation as a setback or a starting point.” Six months later he was piloting a plane again.

Four years after the motorcycle accident, the plane Mitchell was piloting crashed back onto the runway during takeoff and Mitchell was permanently paralyzed from the waist down. “I wondered what the hell was happening to me. What did I do to deserve this?”

Can you believe what slogan he chose when he ran his campaign for Congress? One of his slogans was: “Not just another pretty face.”!

Despite his initially shocking looks and physical challenges, Mitchell began water rafting, he married, earned a master’s degree in public administration and continued flying, environmental activism and public speaking.

Mitchell’s unshakable Positive Mental Attitude has earned him appearances on the “Today Show” and “Good Morning America” as well as feature articles in Parade, Time, The New York Times and other publications.

“Before I was paralyzed, there were 10,000 things I could do,” Mitchell says. “Now there are 9,000. I can either dwell on the 1,000 I lost or focus on the 9,000 I have left. I tell people that I have had two big bumps in my life. If I have chosen not to use them as an excuse to quit, then maybe some of the experiences you are having which are pulling you back can be put into a new perspective. You can step back, take a wider view and have a chance to say, “Maybe that isn’t such a big deal after all.”

Remember: “It’s not what happens to you, it’s what you do about it.”

Your thoughts?

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Posted in Food for thought, Inspiration, management & interpersonal skills, Motivation, Overcoming fear of failure, Personality development, positive thinking, Self Help, Success
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5 qualities of a champion – Do we have them?

Posted on January 15, 2012 by malik mirza

One of my friends gave me an interesting book by Donald Trump: ”How to think Like A Champion – An informal Education in Business and Life”. A particular chapter in this book made me write this post. As the title of the book says, the key learning from this book is the perception or the thoughts which a champion adopts. What are qualities of a champion?

Trump says that champions are born and champions are made. They want to achieve some thing special in life. Champions think big and champions focus on some particular work in order to get extra ordinary results. How can we do that?

An interesting quote from Graham Bell, the person who gave us gift of telephone’s invention is as follows:

“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand.

The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.”

We know that we can use rays of sun to burn a paper only if we use a magnifying glass. Rays of the sun can be used to generate heat and electricity, provide those rays are focused.

Here is the food for thought from Donald Trump. Let’s evaluate: Do we think like a champion?

“Champions want to be presidents, doctors, astronauts, scientists, and so on. They’re on the right track and have the right mindset. If you need to, bring yourself back to when youhad high achievement as a goal. Not everyone can be the world champion at something, but you can strive to be the best you can be. That’s the first step—and a daily responsibility.

Champions go the extra mile. We all know when we’ve done just enough and when we’ve really exerted ourselves. Make an effort to exert yourself—every day. Don’t fail because you never allowed yourself to get started! Don’t avoid success because you think the responsibility might be too much—just focus and get going!”

To conclude, five qualities of a champion are as follows:

1. Champions think big

2. Champions are focussed on a particular result they want

3. Champions set their goals and then adopt right mindset to achieve it.

4. Champions go extra mile

5. Champions take full responsibility

Don’t forget: Champions are like us – They are human beings!

Why talented people fail?

Trump says that talented people can fail too. Why?

According to Trump, winning comes from taking responsibility. Those who’re afraid to take responsibility of success will never be successful. Unless and until a person decides to become the best, he or she will remain runner-up!

To conclude this post, I would like to quote from the book – a thought for the day:

“Search yourself carefully to make sure you’re ready and capable. If you’re not, do something about it. It’s an important element of success.”

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Posted in Entrepreneurship, Inspiration, management & interpersonal skills, Motivation, Personality development, positive thinking, Self Help, Success
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Common problem, an uncommon solution!

Posted on December 19, 2011 by malik mirza

In developing countries including Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and countries in Africa, there is an issue which is called ‘loadshedding’ i.e. there is no electricity for long hours.

Should this be taken as an excuse?

Is it the responsibility of Government to provide electricity to its people?

I recently read about Gyanesh Pandey in Richard Branson’s latest book: “Screw Business as usual”.

Before I share with you the solution which Mr. Pandey applied in India to solve electricity crisis, let me state the problem in detail.

It is estimated that over 1.4 billion people in the world have no access to electricity. Out of those 1.4 billion, around 400 million people live in India and out of those 400 million people, 80 million people live without much electricity in one of the India’s poorest state: Bihar!

Lack of power / electricity has a direct impact on the economy and growth. Production is slow and people are affected too. It also causes significant health problems as people burn fuel in a very small space for cooking and light.

So, here is the solution.

Gyanesh and a partner founded Husk Power, an innovative company that is delivering eco-friendly, reliable electricity to families for only $2 per month.

How did they do that?

How can a company sell electricity so cheap?

Richard Branson explains that:

 ”They did this by going out and listening to people in communities throughout Bihar and working out how they could turn something that was discarded as waste into something valuable and reusable.

They generate electricity using rice husks, a waste product from rice manufacturing in the region.

Rice husk - a waste product!

Even as optimistic entrepreneurs, they were also very practical and realised that the best way to deliver this service would be to operate at a village level.

This brilliantly simple idea has also served as a platform for the creation of jobs. Today Husk has installed sixty-five micro-generation units run by three hundred people in rural India giving power to more than 30,000 households. By 2014, Gyanesh and his team want to reach one million homes and create 10,000 jobs. I suppose this could be categorised as a truly rubbish solution!”

So, what is learning for us?

1. Believe that there is a solution.

2. Consultation – listen to people.

3. Take action!

We might be facing issues and challenges in life. There is always some solution. The key is to think differently and to think in an entrepreneural manner.

If you want to read about business opportunities in the age of social media and other aspects related to entrepreneurship, feel free to read it from the blog of Mr. Hammad Siddui: http://hammadsiddiquiblog.com/business-opportunities-in-the-age-of-social-media/

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Posted in Entrepreneurship, management & interpersonal skills, Motivation, Overcoming fear of failure, Personality development, Self Help, Success
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How to organize ourselves?

Posted on December 18, 2011 by malik mirza

 

“Time management” is common sense – but not a common practice. Why is this?

 

One explanation is that our behaviour is often guided by the amount of pleasure we gain from doing something. For example, we enjoy being driven by day to day events, emergency situation and fire fighting. We know that we should ‘plan’ and we should ‘prioritize’ our work. However, as these tools require more effort, we get busy in things which are easy i.e. day to day crisis management! 

One of the ways to better manage our life is to plan effectively and in order to ‘help ourselves’ to plan, we need to make a mental link between our efforts and the pleasure which we will get from planning. This simply mean that we need to stop for a while, think about our lives and then plan a little!

It is said: “If we fail to plan, we plan to fail!”. At the same time, we should not forget that plans can be changed too! Here are a few tips and techniques for better planning and organizing ourselves:

1. Create a weekly plan to give sufficient time for major tasks and at the same time, create an overall picture, in case you need to change what you do (in response to those days when you achieve nothing!)

2. Translate the ‘overall’ plan into a ‘daily To Do’ list.

3. Categorize tasks into ‘urgent’ and ‘important’ and then prioritize them.

4. Be realistic. We cannot do every thing in 24 hours.  Review ‘To Do’ list throughout the day.

5. Before doing any task, ask yourself: ‘Why Me’? ‘Can any body else do it’? This will help to decide if the task can be delegated.

6. Some body told me: Work on ‘key’ tasks every day and focus on the task which will give maximum return / benefit instead of working on urgency.

7. Last, but not the least, get into the habit of doing a ‘To Do’ list for the following day before you leave work.

Note: I have recently got my first book published on effective time management. Visit: http://wisdomfrombooks.com/my-first-book-time-flies-do-you-want-to-take-a-ride/

Feel free to share your ideas on time management and effective organization by making comments.

 

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Posted in Goal setting, Inspiration, management & interpersonal skills, Personality development, Self Help, time management
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Worst tool in the Devil’s tool box – beware!

Posted on November 30, 2011 by malik mirza

Are you aware of the ‘worst’ tool which a devil can use?

Once upon a time, “The Devil” decided to organize an exhibition. The Devil informed people that the tools from the tool box will be displayed with the price tags so that people can buy any of those tools.

On the day of exhibition, people started coming to the venue.

On one stand there was the shining dagger of ‘Jealousy’. Next to the Jealousy was the knife of ‘anger’.

There was an arrow of ‘hatred’ and there was ‘greed’, ‘want’ and ‘desire’, all beautifully priced with different prices. There were the weapons of Fear, Pride and Hatred as well. Each one had been carefully presented, and labelled with its name and corresponding price.

But in a section all on its own, quite separate from the rest, was a small, unimpressive, stand of wood, which the Devil had labelled ‘Discouragement’.

Surprisingly, the price of this tool was higher than all the others put together. When someone asked the reason for the difference and such a high price of ‘discouragement’ as a tool, the Devil replied, ‘The reason I value this tool so highly is that it is the one tool  that I know I can always rely on if the others fail.’

With a smile the devil said: ‘If I can just insert discouragement into a person’s mind, it opens up the door for every type of negativity. There is nothing quite so deadly as Discouragement.’

We all know that there is no such physical ‘devil’ or ‘saatan’ in place. It is the negative thought or the negative virtues in life which play the role of devil. The words we speak have an impact on other people.

Therefore, we must not be discouraged at all. ‘Hope’ is the light which must keep on burning!

At the same time, we should avoid discouraging others from achieving their dreams!

Note: I read the above in the book: Tales for Coaching by Margaret Parkin

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