Fuel of life : ATP – A Targeted Plan

If you want to achieve something. Plan.

This is THE MOST important and first step to achieve your goals.

It is mentioned in all possible self help books that you can find.

Listing some

Think and grow Rich

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams & Reaching Your Destiny

Jumpstart Your Business: 10 Jolts to Ignite Your Entrepreneurial Spirit
Even “root” once said about PhD advisor’s motto

Decide what you want. Go get it

And Les Brown says that too.

Ambition is the most desired character in any field. That is in one way a natural trait of humans. “Ambitions unlimited” seem to be the genetic motto of humans. But by some circumstances people tend to be mediocre. Ambition boosts once self confidence. The end result of ambition, called “Success” is what people envy about. Never once have I heard people say that I envy someone’s ambition. The mediocre guy pretends ignorance to ambitions or act like a jealous Indian, forgetting conveniently that there is no limit to excel.  They overreact when someone says Plans can fail. They do not see that at the end of a failure there is success.  Thus, in a sequence not planning lead to non-failure, planning is often never done due to fear of failure. Even if texts which are centuries old, Bhagavad Gita, and later literature urge one that fear of failure should not be a deterrent to success.

Knowing this the very next best step to do is to decide. Though indecision, is also a decision. (Remembering Narasimha Rao‘s famous ” inaction is also action”). Some spritual schools may definitely believe in indecision as decision. Also, decision can be reached by this sort of elimination method.

Let us think what a decision can do.

We know that ambitious people have a plan, a focus , a decision. This decision leads to A Targeted Plan = ATP . Like the ATP molecules which are the energy units of the human body cells. A Targeted Plan can change the way of life. As the Inventor Charles Kettering said ” A Problem well stated is a problem half solved” . The decision leads to well stated target. This target leads to single-minded focus. Which helps us to stay organized around this central idea or theme. Focus is essential , as in cameras, to get the clear picture. The decision to follow the target plan, with persistence of effort naturally lead to the desired success. Some people are brilliant at multi-tasking, some are brilliant in coming to a decision fast, some are slow, some are great at choosing the right decision, some are excellent in analyzing the available choices to arrive at the decision. All the further activities are determined by the decided mind.

Ambitious people know their weakness. And work towards bettering it. Decision lets you prioritize and rearrange the tasks at hand. Decisions by ambitious keeps them moving.

Like the great Taxi driver who told about his son’s life.

“A motor without load will burn”

His son, he said, started like him, as a driver. He took bike on loan, paid it off, got a car on loan, paid the loan through his rides; took house on loan and paid it off by hard work. Because of this all banks are happy to lend him money. Because they know he has proven record of repayment on time. He said whatever his son has made is through his own hardwork and persistence, without anybody’s help. The load that he took upon himself , the ambition, made him a successful person that his father is proud of. Without that load of ambition the talents as a human would have burned and become useless.

The ambition of  person can be limitless. In fact, ambition should drive one towards a positive life, made possible by decisions and actions. No wonder truly ambitious people stay focused and achieve what they want.

Ten years back, when I wrote the Kerala Engineering , Agricultural and Medical Entrance Exam, I scored mediocre marks. A family friend asked me why you are not on the top. As was my track record in his perception. I said I was not decided on what I wanted. It reflects directly on the results. This is a fact. This is an experience. At the same time, I have achieved stuff on which I was ambitious, decided what I wanted and stood focused. Come what may, that ends up in success. The good thing about being ambitious is same as that of education.

More education paves way for more venues to learn. As ambitions leads to success, that success paves way for more success. It is all a matter of persistence. And all we need is to keep the fuel of life or ATP well stocked in our tanks.

The gist of marketing : Lessons from root

Any business needs to project itself, get noticed, get work, do work, get appreciated, and create a foundation for future work. The foundation so created improves the posture of the business. Any new business has to face competition from established business giants in the field. Bigger businesses can only be beaten by unique selling proposition (USP). This objective in a startup helps to keep the focus in niche creation. For this a fair understanding of the market, the competitors and their USP is absolute necessity. Business startups come with something unique to the market, this may be an innovation, novel idea, cheaper solution or a better solution. If something is cheaper or better than existing solutions then finding the USP is not a big deal. This focus of the startup paves way for the reference model implementation. This may be one or more of the first few clients who trust the startup and does business with it. These reference models are the stepping stones for future business. This work is going to be the talking point, selling point and reference for most of the next few works. Hence it becomes extraordinarily important to put efficient work in action in these projects. The idea is that after this humble beginnings of perfections, it will become a habit, a character that the business may be trusted upon. Primarily a business exists for its ideology, vision and appropriate solutions provided.

The basics of reaching out to potential market can be listed into three steps:-

• Creating Interest

Just like any marketing campaigns the objective of this step is to get the attention of the prospect. This requires communication with appropriate professionals in the business, getting their background information and their interests. To create interest, to stand out from the crowd the business need to prove that it is unique from the rest. This is the base USP. Once the prospect feels the uniqueness of the business proposition, then the idea need to be established. Here, previous works act as a good reference to prove the USP.

• Showing Competence

An active needs to show that it has stuff up its sleeves to meet the requirements of the prospects. This proof of competence is an integral part of startups. Competence is the most visible aspect of business that a client sees.

• Building trust

To build trust in business it is imperative to have good standing with previous clients. Most often it is the word of mouth marketing and reference from previous clients that get the business moving rather than other modes of marketing. Therefore, it is of special importance that whatever happens, in business truth always triumphs. Given a chance, always tell the truth. Truth should be told so that the statements made to client do not change when asked again.

Courtesy: Based on marketing strategy of environmental engineering in The Solutions Centre, Kochi. On 20th anniversary of the business.

Simple live solutions in traffic and septage management

Dear world ,

When Government of Kerala was unable to provide adequate land for a four lane road between Edappalli & Talappadi in NH 17 the NHAI went out of the project itself. The NHAI & GoK blame each other. Just let us look what the Kenyans, strapped for money did in their two lane highways for easing traffic congestion. See the attachment. They provide an extra lane on the left side wherever there is a steep climb for the slow moving large vehicles to use. Isn’t there a lesson to learn from them in this matter. Although not a transportation expert, I was impressed by what they did here. Later I found out that in all their two lane highways, they do it!!!!!

Cut back to septage-When I was in the fourth largest town in Kenya, Nakuru, during a meeting with Local Self Government officials, I asked them what they do with their septage. They immediately replied that the septage removal is done by the municipality and the same is transferred to the Municipal Sewage Treatment Plant for further processing.
Now, please tell me, how many in the KWA or equivalent bodies in India could be responding like them?

Money and Power is of no use, if one does have the sense to use it properly.

****

Getting confused is good

Getting confused is not always related to foolishness. Iis not a monopoly of the imbeciles. What you understand by getting confused is that your mind is thinking, it is thinking radially without being monotonic, it is thinking in radial directions, keeping things open and making your mind more healthy and creative. A scientist told me this. Catch him in twitter ->
http://twitter.com/#!/ajeyaajeya/status/33365659731628032

When someone is giving you facts, statements of life and experience and provides suggestions and advices your mind should naturally get confused, of course only if it is a healthy and creative mind. By this the mind keeps open the opportunities that lie ahead and the broad image and perspective of the things around make life a smorgasbord of  sweet dishes to choose from. The confused mind lets you loose yes but also it keeps banging you with more options than you have ever thought of. Don’t think that every confused man is stupid or vice versa. Nevertheless, it is as important to get confused as to get to a practical solution to the confusion. As the word suggests it is a fusion of ideas a lot it, some mind-blowing and out of the world ideas, some down to earth and silly ones, some mediocre and moderate ones. See the whole Gaussian distribution; get to know more. Keep your eyes, ears and nose open. That is  exactly why it is in a normally open condition. Let the mind process in an incubator of its own. Time will give you the solution. But don’t let the time run out. For the clock ticks and the age grows. Be yourself. Be your master.

No limit to Excel

Once root had told this. The only thing sensible ever told by this root.

There is something to it.

Many believe that being in the middle is the right thing

When you CAN, you probably never do it.
When you WILL, people praise you , overwhelm you with applause. You simply feel great. An act of jealousy for many others. Yet they comply, since they never bother to WILL. And hence they be at their very position, boasting that they can, and will some day.

Being middle class or being in an average level is the safest game to play. A friend of mine ,whose family was in better financial position than mine, told me that he got hurt when I say that he is rich. He wants himself to be placed in the middle position, away from all the glare.

At lab , another friend of mine would suggest that we should not be the last persons to finish our work, its ok if we finish with the majority. Not earlier but never last.

They comply by their self imposed rule.
And they fail, miserably, to bring out the true potential in them.
When majority of the class lie with an average mark a Bell shaped curve results, that is the Gaussian distribution or standard probability distribution. Those at the extremities are either of lower standard or higher standard, both a meager number. What the society needs is for all to excel.

I remember a friend of mine who studies at IIT now. He , at 12th would leave 2-3 questions and grab a 80% and keep quiet. His teacher had scolded him for not attempting all the questions. But he never minded them.

A tendency towards mediocrity and silent compliance fails the whole purpose of formal education and living in general. But one may close his eye against this chronic attitude seeing the lesser beings fighting themselves to see ” who is the most backward”.

Where is OPTIMISM?
Where is the spirit ?
To try, To conquer , To reach the summit
Reach for the sky, There is no limit to excel.

Unleash the indomitable spirit

22.11.2009

I’d been closely watching the OP-ED section in Hindu. Two columns caught my eyes. One was written by Narayana Murty ,the infosys man, also scientific advisor to India Govt. He was talking about why there are not many researchers in India. The countries like USA and China are No 1 and No 2 for producing largest number of researchers. China with a money one-sixth that of USA. For India the number produced here was incomparable with theirs. A better financial package in the IT industry absorbs all good brains. Those who take up research are less and quality of them are also poor. While Govt talk about IITs and IIMs there are many other institutes which make the base level, deserving a mention and care.
On another day there was a writing saying “talent attracts talents”. It said the brains fly to USA not because they want to be part of innovation and research but more because they wanted to be in a place were things were happening in research field. Now that is because there are not much funding and research facilities in India, which inculcate research orientation. A lack of talent pool thus fails to attract more talent. Also, in Govt owned research oriented jobs , seniority was the criteria for better exposure and sign of knowledge. Whereas in foreign ,those who reform get their true returns through patents and recognition.
A talk with root concluded that -In USA there are better facilities not because the Govt funded it but because the industrialists and entrepreneurs are investing on Research resources to innovate and invent. There are many scholarships and funding on that regard. The editor or writer cannot put blame on Dr. Manmohan Singh or Govt to release and provide funds and scholarships, it is the industrialists and entrepreneurs who should give from their pockets some money for research and innovation. TIFR and IISc were the first world class institutes for technologists, they were funded by Tata. There are not many who provide funds to students and research oriented guys. Then there was the seniority issue. In Govt employments to judge one’s achievements ther will be a panel/board/council which decided whom to give the recognition,awards an so on. The panel may be corrupt. There may arise internal conflicts. To maintain a path of least resistance the criterion used for fixing and upgrading salary is seniority.

God:the chat

God

• Jun. 21st, 2008 at 10:44 AM

Root happens to be an agnostic.Why?………..find out.

One day when I had some leisure time I went to the ROOT.Picking up a conversation is a piece of cake for him.
He started.

#:”I am a big agnostic”

$:”I have heard you telling that before,Isn’t that a way of escapism.

#:”I believe that there is a total universal energy governing and controlling all matter,living or not,on earth.It (the energy is a part of the system which it governs and the universe covers the system and the matters governing the system.

$:<hm,he system is likely to be infinite.>
“Tell me how do you define a theist?”

#:”A theist is one who believes that there is an omnipresent ,all pervading force which rate us and our deeds and the marks would be totalled to get the aggregate marks.By looking at the marks the “god” judges the person’s conduct and decides whether he deserves the hell or the heaven.”

Theist in its true sense is better than atheist.
Theist says that he believes in God .Blindly or not,the belief matters.
But the atheist says,he doesn’t believe in God.The problem may be that there is no strict definition of God and understanding the term varies from person to person.
But atheists do believe in something-his relatives, father, mother, siblings or on himself or a friend. Thus, the Atheist technically is a believer. The basis of science is truth and logical arguments. .If someone opposes the existence of God, he/she should prove it by science and logic. No atheist has enough arguments to contest the existence of God.

Beyond a certain level of philosophy or theology there is no mentioning of God.For it all ends saying ‘Aham Brahmasmi’ in different ways.”

The people ,the common man generally does not guide his belief by reasoning or logic.He ends up seeing the Bible saying ‘There is no God’. While it actually says ‘There is no God other than the Holy Father.’ <I don’t remember the exact words.>
When you cover some part of it you get the Bible saying that ‘There’s no God.”! Such things can be replicated in many aspects of life. When you hear or read something, you have to see or read it in full and not assume something after reading or seeing just a part of it.

There happens to be agitation among some fellow beings about Bhagavat Gita where Lord Krsna says that “The four castes were made by me”
The full text says that ‘The four castes were made by me based on the characteristics of the individuals for the welfare of all’.

$:<It could ‘ve been better if they had read the ‘Purushasuktham’ besides the Gita
which says that the four castes are the parts of the Virat Purush’s body.>

#:”Such people are basically ignorant. They lack the power of Knowledge. they don’t have  even the basic knowledge to guide themselves to read the full text, of Gita or the Bible,and then interpret.”. Even simpler things like reading a news item and understanding the content is hardly achieved by them.

$:<So foolish of them,Do I happen to be one?!>

Plastic Menace:the chat

Plastic Menace

• Jun. 21st, 2008 at 9:58 AM

#:”Hello,you know something?The 30 micron plastic cover from Fabmall (a Birla group Super market) was used for 8 months.It became quite famous in the locality. It could carry water bottle to my office, vegetables to the house and lot many things.”

“Earlier 10 micron and 6 micron covers were provided by the shopkeepers. The problem was that the cover could break or tear away very easily,and it didn’t last long.So people would throw the plastic bags and this caused the plastic menace.”

“That is why the Government made it mandatory to distribute plastic of 50 micron or of more thickness.People could now reuse it and the plastic waste get reduced.This helped to cut down the earlier menace. In spite of whatever all those environmentalists say plastic can not be replaced totally.”

$:”What about the packaged drinking water. Is there any rule about its specifications?.Also what about the pet bottles available in plenty?”

#:”The packaged drinking water bottles is made up of Poly Ethylene Terephthalate(PET).It is a Government rule to sell drinking water in such bottles.” “Strictly speaking it is meant for just one time use (theoretically).Ideally PET bottles should be recycled after a single use. Practically it can be used for longer time.The rule was made so that the bottling units and manufacturers kept their thoughts away from reusing the PET bottles.The reuse may eventually lead to the duplicate and non-genuine bottlers to reuse the bottles.”

$:”Ok,so the rule is actually good and sensible.”
What is the pet bottle made up of.The bottles that we use for keeping pickles and the pet bottles we get with soft drinks.”

#::”The “pet” bottle is just a ,marketing name.It is made of Poly Propylene (PP) and can be reused any number of times.After ones death His children and grandchildren can use it.”

“The soft drink bottles are made of PET(Poly Ethylene Terephthalate) and should be discarded when the bottle starts changing its texture.”

$:”How do you know that the texture has changed?”

#:”Just like your clothes the PET also changes texture.After washing and wearing for a long time the cloth’s texture changes.You can feel it with your hands.The PET’s texture change can be seen by the naked eye.You can see tiny grains in the PET.At that time you have to discard your PET.”

“The Munnar people are very environment conscious.They are using only bio-degradable .Poly Styrene bags. Polyethylene (the common plastic) bags are not distributed. For the common man everything is plastic.Poly Styrene,Polyethylene and Poly Propylene are just plastic for them.”

“During my official visits I had to  visit a Professor at CUSAT(Cochin University of Science and Technology).Basically a microbiology Professor and quite brilliant a man. He had done experiments and found that If a PET bottle filled with water is kept at a place with sunlight, after so may hours the water is found to be bacteria-free.”

“But that was just a microbiologist’s perspective. In that case a good observation too. But the professor was enlightened later. He had not considered the PET’s reaction and its effects.Pet is actually a bye-product of petroleum industry.It comes from gas extraction process.PET usually consists of some heavy metals.During normal usage it does not cause trouble.But when PET bottles are filled with chilled water,the heavy metals come out.PET contains some heavy metals,the list includes Arsenic.”(Quite famous to cause deaths of many popular figures across the globe).

$:”what about cold water?”

#:”There is no problem, filling the PET with cold water.’Chilled’ means the ice formation has begun.When taken out from chilling system there is a transition of water from solid(ice) to liquid(water).The densities change and chances are in favour for the heavy metals to come out of the PET and go into the water.
Hot water shouldn’t be used in PET. Filling the PET in room temperature is the best method.”

• Location:INDIA:

Chat with root:began the blog

An introduction to the blog

• May. 27th, 2008 at 11:04 PM

I have found many things interesting in my conversation with ROOT(whose real name I shall not reveal now).I will represent root by ‘#’ and myself by ‘$'(going by the Linux routines).

Sometime back,I asked him

$:”why don’t you blog ,so that your ideas get propagated.”

Root said #:”I don’t have the skills to write.”

$:He had shown me the magazine in which his letter to the editor was published.he heads a firm and handles all the documents of it.He has read and understood so much that once he said

#:”Many things I said were not told by many eminent and popular figures of the world.If I had been some renowned personality my ideas and words would have been valued more.

If it came to the war of tongue he is a clear winner.Its his words and quotes,and deeds that I would like to express through this blog.When asked for his permission,it was granted.

i am no Arthur Conan Doyle to write about Sherlock Holmes.I am nothing other than a common man.But to write about the Root is a pleasure.

• Mood: amused