http://foundation.bz/
Monday, July 8, 2013
Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee
www.comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com
Quote by Ben Graham
Must see before i die: Khajjiar, Himachal
How are you shaping the world that’s to come?
“The most powerful person in the world is the story teller.
The storyteller sets the vision, values and agenda of an entire generation that is to come."
Brilliance: http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-story-teller-2013-7
Thursday, June 27, 2013
The Fortune Cookie Principle
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
quote by e. e. cummings
himself he picked the was
of shall and finding only why
smashed it into because.”
“To be nobody but
yourself in a world
which is doing its best day and night to make you like
everybody else means to fight the hardest battle
which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.”
e. e. cummings
Friday, June 14, 2013
Monday, June 10, 2013
quote by Charlie Munger
Saturday, June 8, 2013
45 things about life
Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
When in doubt, just take the next small step.
Much happier
Here is a list of 15 things which, if you give up on them, will make your life a lot easier and much, much happier. We hold on to so many things that cause us a great deal of pain, stress and suffering – and instead of letting them all go, instead of allowing ourselves to be stress free and happy – we cling on to them. Not anymore. Starting today we will give up on all those things that no longer serve us, and we will embrace change. Ready? Here we go:
1. Give up your need to always be right. There are so many of us who can’t stand the idea of being wrong – wanting to always be right – even at the risk of ending great relationships or causing a great deal of stress and pain, for us and for others. It’s just not worth it. Whenever you feel the ‘urgent’ need to jump into a fight over who is right and who is wrong, ask yourself this question: “Would I rather be right, or would I rather be kind?”Wayne Dyer. What difference will that make? Is your ego really that big?
2. Give up your need for control. Be willing to give up your need to always control everything that happens to you and around you – situations, events, people, etc. Whether they are loved ones, coworkers, or just strangers you meet on the street – just allow them to be. Allow everything and everyone to be just as they are and you will see how much better will that make you feel.
“By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond winning.” Lao Tzu
3. Give up on blame. Give up on your need to blame others for what you have or don’t have, for what you feel or don’t feel. Stop giving your powers away and start taking responsibility for your life.
4. Give up your self-defeating self-talk. Oh my. How many people are hurting themselves because of their negative, polluted and repetitive self-defeating mindset? Don’t believe everything that your mind is telling you – especially if it’s negative and self-defeating. You are better than that.
“The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive.” Eckhart Tolle
5. Give up your limiting beliefs about what you can or cannot do, about what is possible or impossible. From now on, you are no longer going to allow your limiting beliefs to keep you stuck in the wrong place. Spread your wings and fly!
“A belief is not an idea held by the mind, it is an idea that holds the mind” Elly Roselle
6. Give up complaining. Give up your constant need to complain about those many, many, maaany things – people, situations, events that make you unhappy, sad and depressed. Nobody can make you unhappy, no situation can make you sad or miserable unless you allow it to. It’s not the situation that triggers those feelings in you, but how you choose to look at it. Never underestimate the power of positive thinking.
7. Give up the luxury of criticism. Give up your need to criticize things, events or people that are different than you. We are all different, yet we are all the same. We all want to be happy, we all want to love and be loved and we all want to be understood. We all want something, and something is wished by us all.
8. Give up your need to impress others. Stop trying so hard to be something that you’re not just to make others like you. It doesn’t work this way. The moment you stop trying so hard to be something that you’re not, the moment you take of all your masks, the moment you accept and embrace the real you, you will find people will be drawn to you, effortlessly.
9. Give up your resistance to change. Change is good. Change will help you move from A to B. Change will help you make improvements in your life and also the lives of those around you. Follow your bliss, embrace change – don’t resist it.
“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls” Joseph Campbell
10. Give up labels. Stop labeling those things, people or events that you don’t understand as being weird or different and try opening your mind, little by little. Minds only work when open. “The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about.” Wayne Dyer
11. Give up on your fears. Fear is just an illusion, it doesn’t exist – you created it. It’s all in your mind. Correct the inside and the outside will fall into place.
“The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.” Franklin D. Roosevelt
12. Give up your excuses. Send them packing and tell them they’re fired. You no longer need them. A lot of times we limit ourselves because of the many excuses we use. Instead of growing and working on improving ourselves and our lives, we get stuck, lying to ourselves, using all kind of excuses – excuses that 99.9% of the time are not even real.
13. Give up the past. I know, I know. It’s hard. Especially when the past looks so much better than the present and the future looks so frightening, but you have to take into consideration the fact that the present moment is all you have and all you will ever have. The past you are now longing for – the past that you are now dreaming about – was ignored by you when it was present. Stop deluding yourself. Be present in everything you do and enjoy life. After all life is a journey not a destination. Have a clear vision for the future, prepare yourself, but always be present in the now.
14. Give up attachment. This is a concept that, for most of us is so hard to grasp and I have to tell you that it was for me too, (it still is) but it’s not something impossible. You get better and better at with time and practice. The moment you detach yourself from all things, (and that doesn’t mean you give up your love for them – because love and attachment have nothing to do with one another, attachment comes from a place of fear, while love… well, real love is pure, kind, and self less, where there is love there can’t be fear, and because of that, attachment and love cannot coexist) you become so peaceful, so tolerant, so kind, and so serene. You will get to a place where you will be able to understand all things without even trying. A state beyond words.
15. Give up living your life to other people’s expectations. Way too many people are living a life that is not theirs to live. They live their lives according to what others think is best for them, they live their lives according to what their parents think is best for them, to what their friends, their enemies and their teachers, their government and the media think is best for them. They ignore their inner voice, that inner calling. They are so busy with pleasing everybody, with living up to other people’s expectations, that they lose control over their lives. They forget what makes them happy, what they want, what they need….and eventually they forget about themselves. You have one life – this one right now – you must live it, own it, and especially don’t let other people’s opinions distract you from your path.
13 Things Happy People Do Differently
People aren’t simply happy or sad, we’re both. Sometimes at the same time.
Happy and sad are momentary experiences, just as hunger, melancholy, joy, grief or clarity are things you experience in a specific moment.These things define a moment, not a person, so while happiness isn’t something you possess as you do with a shoe size or eye colour, it is something that you can cultivate more of.
Happiness can surely get you into trouble if you go about it in the wrong ways (by padding life out with the accumulation of stuff rather than filling it with moments of value, for example), but at its core, happiness can remind you of all that’s good in the world, rather than focusing on all the bad things.
This is why it’s worth bothering about, because happiness adds to your perception and lends you perspective, always lending you a better, simpler way of looking at things.
But if happiness feels like something you’d like to experience more of, here are 12 things happy people do differently that you can start with.
1. Practice gratitude
Being grateful and thankful doesn’t turn you into the kind of simpleton who would say “Thank you, I love ducks” right after being pushed into the boating lake. It does however, create thinking that tunes you in to the good things you have in your life rather than becoming more and more blasé about them. Practicing gratitude focuses you on what life brings rather than what it doesn’t, and that’s where happiness comes from.
2. Prioritise nourishment
Nourishment is more than eating your vegetables and getting a decent night’s sleep. It’s about making sure your head, heart and body are kept topped up with the stuff they need not only to function, but to flourish. If you’re not taking good care of yourself little else will matter.
3. Don’t pursue status
Your brain is wired not only to figure out where you sit in the professional and social pecking order against others, but to reinforce your position in that pecking order. Yeah, we’re hardwired to be assholes sometimes. When you get wrapped up in establishing or maintaining status, the moment your place in the hierarchy drops you’re going to feel pretty horrible, like you’ve screwed up, that you’re no good or that others are better than you. Don’t get into the status game – there are no winners.
4. Separate success and specific outcomes
Your level of happiness is not dependent on reaching a goal or objective. Your success and happiness have nothing to do with what happens, and everything to do with how you perceive your achievements, your value and how you’re engaging with your life. Every time you make your success and happiness conditional on something happening, you’re missing point entirely.
5. Don’t reject or bury the bad
If you’re in the habit of brushing the bad stuff under the carpet, sooner or later you’re gonna trip up over that small hill that’s grown in the middle of the room and end up smashing your ego all over the place. You can only ignore or shut out the bad stuff in life (and there will always be bad stuff in life) for so long. Respect it. Integrate it. Welcome it. Learn from it. Accept it.
6. Stay out of the drama
Happy people don’t spend their time whining about how hard they’re having it, how everything’s going wrong, how everyone just needs to stop screwing everything up for you and how life would be so much easier if it wasn’t for everyone and everything they do. Getting into all of the “he said she said” of the world will keep you down in the detail and drama and you’ll be excluding all the beautiful and extraordinary stuff that’s right there in front of you.
7. Strip away expectationsInside that noggin of yours, your brain is doing its best to figure out what will happen next so that it can make sure you’ll be safe and sound. So it starts creating expectations for how things will go, what you’ll do next and how you’ll do it. It creates expectations about what others will do and what that means for your world. It even creates expectations about what other people might expect of you, just so you can fit in, not draw attention and keep on staying safe, secure and certain in your environment. Only, those same expectations will drastically limit your quality of life and resultant levels of confidence and happiness. So get rid of ‘em.
8. They know what makes them tickIt’s redundant to talk about happiness unless you know something about what makes you happy. So what are the things that make you tick – the stuff that matters to you enough for you to do something about? You’ll experience more happiness from doing the things that foster meaning, flow and contribution, so doing a little leg work to see what makes you tick goes an extraordinarily long way.
9. Don’t fight against their environment
So many people waste time and energy flapping their wings against the bars of the cage they think they’re in, they never figure out a better way to use that same energy. If you struggle against your environment, your environment will win. Instead, put in some effort to create an environment that’s congruent with what matters to you – an environment that brings what matters to life.
10. They’re connected
Feeling isolated is pretty darn sucky. It’s a bit like being alone in an attic while the zombie apocalypse happens in the world outside. You end up scared, stuck and listening out for sign of an undead brain-eater heading your way. Okay, so it’s mainly the scared and stuck thing. Feeling connected (to others, a project, a community, a family, a cause, etc.) gives you a sense of belonging, a sense that your life and your world are bigger than just you and that you’re part of a network that counts for something.
11. Notice the small things
I talk a lot about doing stuff that matters to you, making a difference and creating extraordinary change, and the temptation is to think that this is some big, grand, oh-so worthy endeavour.
Truth is, there’s wonder in the tiny things too. Holding hands. Sunlight through trees. A steamed-up bathroom. The way someone smiles. That song you love. Squirrels playing in the park. A car letting you cross the street. The first page of a book. Laughing out loud. The small things matter massively.
12. Leverage natural confidence
Natural confidence is being able to choose your behaviour with implicit trust in that behaviour. It’s knowing that you can get on, make choices and do stuff, and deal with whatever happens.
Natural confidence is freeing, simple and powerful, and it’s the quality that allows you to get out there and do what matters.
13. Know they don’t need to be happy all the time
Happy people don’t bank on feeling happy all the time. They know that it’s transitory, and they know that there are moments when it’s a choice. Thinking that you need to be happy all the time or that you’re owed happiness will put you on the road towards Missing the point completely.
Happiness is as much an intention – a precursor to a moment in time – as it is an outcome.
How are you with this whole happiness thing?
Source: http://www.dumblittleman.com/2013/04/13-things-happy-people-do-differently.html?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+DumbLittleMan+(Dumb+Little+Man+-+tips+for+life)
This, I know
You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a fulltime informal school called life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.
There are no mistakes, only . Growth is a process of trial and error, experiment . The failed experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that absolutely works.
A lesson is repeated until learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.
Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive there are lessons to be learned.
There is no better than ‘here’. When your ‘there’ has become a ‘here’ you will simply obtain another ‘there’ that will again look better than ‘here’.
Others are mere mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you hate or love about yourself.
What you make of your life is upto you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
Your answers lie within you. The answer to life’s question lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen and trust.
Book review: V is for Vulnerable
V is for Vulnerable : Seth Godin - Life outside the comfort zone.
Seth is brilliant. Seth isnt a writer, he is a movement. He is a shift of thought. You will get it when you read him. I am most happy to pay for the beautiful work he writes. He makes art. He produces magic.
V is for vulnerable is a short fun book. It's got alphabets from A to Z with some fun besides each alphabet. Thats all. Here are my favorites. Have fun
Anxiety is experiencing failure in advance. Tell yourself enough vivid stories about the worst possible outcome of your work and you'll soon come to believe them. Worry is not preparation, and anxiety doesn't make you better.
Commitment is the only thing that gets you through the chasm. Commitment takes you from "that's a fine idea" and "it's done." Commitment is risky, because if you fail, it's on you. On the hand, without commitment, you will fail, because are unshipped isn't art.
Effort isn't the point, impact is. If you solve the problem in three seconds but have the guts to share it with me, it's still art. And if you move ten thousand pounds of granite but the result doesn't connect with me, I'm sorry for your calluses, but you haven't made art, at least not art for me.
Feedback is either a crutch or a weapon. Use feedback to make your work smaller, safer, and more likely to please everyone (and fall in the long run). Or use it as a lever, to further push you to embrace what you fear (and what you're capable of).
Heroes are people who take risks for the right reasons. Real art is a heroic act. Hipsters, on the other hand, are pretenders who haven't risked a thing but like to play the part.
Initiative is the privilege of picking yourself. You're not given initiative, you take it. Pick yourself. If you're not getting what you want, it may be because you're not making good enough art, often enough.
More is not the goal of the artist. Better is the artists dream. Better connection is the point of the work. More stuff leads to a world of scarcity, while better connected creates abundance.
No feels safe, while yes is dangerous indeed. Yes to possibility and yes to risk and yes to looking someone in the eye and telling her the truth.
Pain is the truth of art. Art is not a hobby or a pastime. It is the result of an internal battle royal, one between the quest for safety and the desire to matter.
Shame is the flip side of vulnerability. We avoid opening ourselves to the connection art brings because we fear that we will finally be seen as the fraud that we are.
Umbrellas keep you from getting wet. Why on earth would you use one? Getting wet is the entire point.
Vulnerable is the only way we can feel when we truly share the art we've made. When we share it, when we connect, we have shifted all the power and made ourselves naked in front of the person we've given the gift of our art to. We have no excuses, no manual to point to, no standard operating procedure to protect us. And that is part of our gift.
Friday, June 7, 2013
My new found miracle : running
Since mid March, running has been my new found miracle. It is an exhilarating experience to go for a jog/run 3/4 times a week.
There has been significant transformation in the way I run since I began. Initially running was more of an effort where by I would struggle and barely manage a 3km run. My breathing was certainly not rhythmic and it was about the pace at which I ran.
Now as I look back, running is about the distance, training the machine like body to run the 10 kms daily. That's my current daily target. Running now is about the rhythm and breathing. Forget the pace, focus on running the distance. The pace will take care of itself.
Apart from the physical fitness associated with running, I find the challenge of daily goal setting and achieving it, an exhilarating experience.
Why More Is The Wrong Place To Start
More customers or subscribers. More sales and increased profits.
This is the reason business strategy questions and answers often begin, (and end) with the ‘how to’ of getting more.
But more is the wrong place to start for two reasons.
When you begin by asking, “How can we sell more?“
You’re bypassing the question that comes before it, which is—“Why will people want more?”
And, what makes a good business a great brand isn’t just more.
It’s more of the right customers who believe in the story.
Sure aim for more. But remember it’s meaning that scales.
Source: http://thestoryoftelling.com/more-wrong-place-to-start/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=more-wrong-place-to-start&utm_source=The+Story+of+Telling&utm_campaign=6996c02c07-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b219f3cf17-6996c02c07-312829165
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Welcome back me
Agriculture land as a component of your investments
India has a rising middle class and its aspirations to cater to. Amidst the high inflation, as the value of money reduces, where can an Indian find a bang for his buck? Equity markets have been volatile making poor returns since 2008, property prices have seen great variation, fixed returns through bonds and fixed deposits do not suffice to cover inflation, our savior has been Gold.
That’s been the darling! What other opportunities except for the shiny metal pose as a good long-term investment? In my opinion, owing agricultural land is an extremely rewarding long-term investment opportunity. The intended approach of the article is one of ease, simplicity and a quick read. Here’s what makes it a rewarding investment:
- Agricultural land investment provides high level of capital protection as it backed by a physical asset. Over time the value of this investment only appreciates.
- There is a fundamental limitation to the supply of land because they don’t make it anymore. Anyone who owns agricultural land is always favorably positioned.
- Agricultural land is an attractive portfolio diversification tool as there is low correlation to equity and bond markets.
- Investor interest in agricultural land across the country is on the rise. The early mover will benefit the greatest.
- Agriculture income is free from income tax. It seems unlikely to be made taxable over the next decade given the political environment in India.
- There is increasing demand supply mismatch of agricultural commodities. This leads to increase in commodity prices that in turn forms the case for increase in rental returns.
- Farmland has been a stable income-producing asset that has stood through the good and bad times. Like gold, it has been the storekeeper of wealth and value. Despite the rewards, there are several challenges in owing agricultural land.
These are:
- One of the biggest hurdles in owing agriculture land is the requirement to be a farmer. While there are ways of getting converted to a farmer, the process isn’t as simple.The lack of professionals in the field, force an individual to scout around to learn of this process. Often this exercise is a time consuming and expensive process. There are several deceitful brokers waiting to pull a smart one over you. It is difficult to trust one and the fragmented nature of the industry doesn’t help either. Word of mouth could be your starting point, but it may not necessarily be helpful.
- Another major hurdle is the risk of illegal encroachment, or frankly, of being sold a worthless piece of land. One needs to ensure that the title of the land is clear and it isn’t encumbering or has litigation on it. Even after engaging the legal aspects with a proper realtor/lawyer and local broker, one cannot be too sure. A thorough title due-diligence needs to be done on the land with at least 30 years historical title check. There should be no minor as owner of the land. One needs to ensure that there are no village roads/lanes; no electrical wires running though the land. One also needs to check whether the farmers have been rehabilitated if the land is vacated.
- Location challenges like access to a main road,development of motor able roads, availability of or accessibility to electricity and water for the site also needs to be kept in mind. The price of a good land parcel vis-a-vis neighboring parcels also needs to be thoroughly evaluated.
While the benefits of owning land are obvious and plenty, the tiresome efforts of time, money and finding the right people do not guarantee returns. However with great precaution and due diligence one can acquire agriculture land as a component of their investments. If got right, it will certainly add great alpha to your portfolio.