30 things to stop doing to yourself

http://www.marcandangel.com/2011/12/11/30-things-to-stop-doing-to-yourself/#more-402 :Source of this wisdom
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1. Stop spending time with the wrong people. – Life is too short to spend time with people who suck the happiness out of you. If someone wants you in their life, they’ll make room for you. You shouldn’t have to fight for a spot. Never, ever insist yourself to someone who continuously overlooks your worth. And remember, it’s not the people that stand by your side when you’re at your best, but the ones who stand beside you when you’re at your worst that are your true friends.
2. Stop running from your problems. – Face them head on. No, it won’t be easy. There is no person in the world capable of flawlessly handling every punch thrown at them. We aren’t supposed to be able to instantly solve problems. That’s not how we’re made. In fact, we’re made to get upset, sad, hurt, stumble and fall. Because that’s the whole purpose of living – to face problems, learn, adapt, and solve them over the course of time. This is what ultimately molds us into the person we become.
3. Stop lying to yourself. – You can lie to anyone else in the world, but you can’t lie to yourself. Our lives improve only when we take chances, and the first and most difficult chance we can take is to be honest with ourselves. Read The Road Less Traveled.
4. Stop putting your own needs on the back burner. – The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too. Yes, help others; but help yourself too. If there was ever a moment to follow your passion and do something that matters to you, that moment is now.
5. Stop trying to be someone you’re not. – One of the greatest challenges in life is being yourself in a world that’s trying to make you like everyone else. Someone will always be prettier, someone will always be smarter, someone will always be younger, but they will never be you. Don’t change so people will like you. Be yourself and the right people will love the real you.
6. Stop trying to hold onto the past. – You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading your last one.
7. Stop being scared to make a mistake. – Doing something and getting it wrong is at least ten times more productive than doing nothing. Every success has a trail of failures behind it, and every failure is leading towards success. You end up regretting the things you did NOT do far more than the things you did.
8. Stop berating yourself for old mistakes. – We may love the wrong person and cry about the wrong things, but no matter how things go wrong, one thing is for sure, mistakes help us find the person and things that are right for us. We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past. But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, and you are here NOW with the power to shape your day and your future. Every single thing that has ever happened in your life is preparing you for a moment that is yet to come.
9. Stop trying to buy happiness. – Many of the things we desire are expensive. But the truth is, the things that really satisfy us are totally free – love, laughter and working on our passions.
10. Stop exclusively looking to others for happiness. – If you’re not happy with who you are on the inside, you won’t be happy in a long-term relationship with anyone else either. You have to create stability in your own life first before you can share it with someone else. Read Stumbling on Happiness.
11. Stop being idle. – Don’t think too much or you’ll create a problem that wasn’t even there in the first place. Evaluate situations and take decisive action. You cannot change what you refuse to confront. Making progress involves risk. Period! You can’t make it to second base with your foot on first.
12. Stop thinking you’re not ready. – Nobody ever feels 100% ready when an opportunity arises. Because most great opportunities in life force us to grow beyond our comfort zones, which means we won’t feel totally comfortable at first.
13. Stop getting involved in relationships for the wrong reasons. – Relationships must be chosen wisely. It’s better to be alone than to be in bad company. There’s no need to rush. If something is meant to be, it will happen – in the right time, with the right person, and for the best reason. Fall in love when you’re ready, not when you’re lonely.
14. Stop rejecting new relationships just because old ones didn’t work. – In life you’ll realize that there is a purpose for everyone you meet. Some will test you, some will use you and some will teach you. But most importantly, some will bring out the best in you.
15. Stop trying to compete against everyone else. – Don’t worry about what others doing better than you. Concentrate on beating your own records every day. Success is a battle between YOU and YOURSELF only.
16. Stop being jealous of others. – Jealousy is the art of counting someone else’s blessings instead of your own. Ask yourself this: “What’s something I have that everyone wants?”
17. Stop complaining and feeling sorry for yourself. – Life’s curveballs are thrown for a reason – to shift your path in a direction that is meant for you. You may not see or understand everything the moment it happens, and it may be tough. But reflect back on those negative curveballs thrown at you in the past. You’ll often see that eventually they led you to a better place, person, state of mind, or situation. So smile! Let everyone know that today you are a lot stronger than you were yesterday, and you will be.
18. Stop holding grudges. – Don’t live your life with hate in your heart. You will end up hurting yourself more than the people you hate. Forgiveness is not saying, “What you did to me is okay.” It is saying, “I’m not going to let what you did to me ruin my happiness forever.” Forgiveness is the answer… let go, find peace, liberate yourself! And remember, forgiveness is not just for other people, it’s for you too. If you must, forgive yourself, move on and try to do better next time.
19. Stop letting others bring you down to their level. – Refuse to lower your standards to accommodate those who refuse to raise theirs.
20. Stop wasting time explaining yourself to others. – Your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe it anyway. Just do what you know in your heart is right.
21. Stop doing the same things over and over without taking a break. – The time to take a deep breath is when you don’t have time for it. If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting. Sometimes you need to distance yourself to see things clearly.
22. Stop overlooking the beauty of small moments. – Enjoy the little things, because one day you may look back and discover they were the big things. The best portion of your life will be the small, nameless moments you spend smiling with someone who matters to you.
23. Stop trying to make things perfect. – The real world doesn’t reward perfectionists, it rewards people who get things done. Read Getting Things Done.
24. Stop following the path of least resistance. – Life is not easy, especially when you plan on achieving something worthwhile. Don’t take the easy way out. Do something extraordinary.
25. Stop acting like everything is fine if it isn’t. – It’s okay to fall apart for a little while. You don’t always have to pretend to be strong, and there is no need to constantly prove that everything is going well. You shouldn’t be concerned with what other people are thinking either – cry if you need to – it’s healthy to shed your tears. The sooner you do, the sooner you will be able to smile again.
26. Stop blaming others for your troubles. – The extent to which you can achieve your dreams depends on the extent to which you take responsibility for your life. When you blame others for what you’re going through, you deny responsibility – you give others power over that part of your life.
27. Stop trying to be everything to everyone. – Doing so is impossible, and trying will only burn you out. But making one person smile CAN change the world. Maybe not the whole world, but their world. So narrow your focus.
28. Stop worrying so much. – Worry will not strip tomorrow of its burdens, it will strip today of its joy. One way to check if something is worth mulling over is to ask yourself this question: “Will this matter in one year’s time? Three years? Five years?” If not, then it’s not worth worrying about.
29. Stop focusing on what you don’t want to happen. – Focus on what you do want to happen. Positive thinking is at the forefront of every great success story. If you awake every morning with the thought that something wonderful will happen in your life today, and you pay close attention, you’ll often find that you’re right.
30. Stop being ungrateful. – No matter how good or bad you have it, wake up each day thankful for your life. Someone somewhere else is desperately fighting for theirs. Instead of thinking about what you’re missing, try thinking about what you have that everyone else is missing.

Annual Update

This is the year i cross the magic 40.  so if i was born in the neolithic period, i would be dying the second time if not more. probably be on my deathbed if this were the 1400's instead the 2010's.

A highly packed year with work, athletics, adventure and reading.


Work: Doubled the size of the company, Launched another product and 2 major campaigns on cloud computing. Learnt a lot about planning, building, executing and wrapping up all sorts of projects. confident about more technologies than ever before

Athletics: the running has been downhill since the marathon last year, with sustained efforts to go back up to the peak form in the next year. took up bicycling and proud to say i am now capable of staying with a professional team on an easy ride for about 25 miles or so.

Adventure: This is the spotlight of the year. From buying a bicycle to completing a 200 mile ride with a 9 year old has been an amazing experience. so i end the tour with a tear and totally embarassing the little one at the finish line. Newspaper, radio interviews and be mentioned on TV. great experience for a little kid and me.

Reading: I am proud to say i have doubled the reading speed in the last couple of months thanks to speed reading and constant practice. now gobbling up books is not a weeks effort but hours worth of effort.

Its the time of the year when i should plan for the next decade but opting to do the best of everything coming across my path as opposed to a check list. Let us see how this works for a couple of years.

Post MBA experience

Its been three years since my MBA that has lead me over

• Four Product launches
• Four startups
• Three Product designs
• Number of consulting gigs
• Hundreds of teams and peoples
• Many reorgs, layoffs, cutbacks and expansions
• ran my first 10K, Full Marathon and compleated it
• Tried a bunch of "firsts" like sailing, seriously long running, bicycling for recreation and starting tech companies, wrote a childrens book
• and more...

The up's follwed by down's and vice versa; sunny day's and grey's; hot and cold; short and loooong.. each working on their own rhythm...me driving some and being carried across others- such is life. Moving forward i have put together the objectives for my life.

1. Educate Arya
2. Live a healthy life
3. Make enough money to go back to school.

Well, there are more but lets stick with these as they will take a long commitment and time to fulfil.  Let me post more as events unfold and see where this leads.

so long for now...
A

MBA Bottomline

The MBA experience is over. I actually graduated June of last year but never really seemed to close out on this blog. I kind of felt "studentsy" and didn't want to give up. Although, i have been slogging and thinking for way too long to now realize the benefits from the rigors of the MBA program.

Let me summarize the program by the numbers

Number of quarters in class : 10
Number of credits : 86
Average Hours in class per week : 8.6
Average Hours spent preparing for class per week: 10
Average hours preparing per quarter : 20
Average hours for exams (prep and completion) : 40
Average work hours from 2004-2007 : 40
Average time with friends and family per week : 8
Average vacation time used for school work per quarter: 32

Average time for socializing per quarter at school : 20
Shelf space covered by the books to read: 24
Bookcases purchased for storing the collected books: 3

Number of books read: Lost count. recorded a few on this blog, others on notes filed carefully in boxes. I could come up with few more numbers based on the calendar logs but the idea is clear.

I wish
I had spent more time networking
I had attended more events
I had gone on the school trip
I had used the career services more
I had attended more day classes
I did not have to return to the real world
I completed the entrepreneurship certificate

The school experience was a blast. I loved every moment of it was sad to see it end and didn't know what to do with all the free time on my hands. But found that i could not continue on the path for long as fatigue set in and found my brain slow, lose energy and momentum and it got harder and harder to jump start it.

I finally managed to get a break in November travel to India for 5 weeks with my son and meet people and see some places together. Refreshed, yes but also tired and stressed out at losing paychecks during the period.

I am still on the exploratory path and hope to start another blog on my career experience journey touching various thoughts, options and decisions leading me to this point and beyond.

Life is huge! we just have to pick what we want to do with it; this implies consciously letting go of a lot of things (possibilities). The hardest part of life for me yet.

So long now

A

Chase, Chance and Creativity.

Chance I is completely impersonal; you can’t influence it.

Chance II favors those who have a persistent curiosity about many things coupled with an energetic willingness to experiment and explore.

Chance III favors those who have a sufficient background of sound knowledge plus special abilities in observing, remembering, recalling, and quickly forming significant new associations.

Chance IV favors those with distinctive, if not eccentric hobbies, personal lifestyles, and motor behaviors.

VALUE CHAIN

This is a great framework for value analysis. keeping it here for future use

Good to great

Good to great was a fascinating read. I had originally planned to take notes througout th ereading but i couldnt contain myself and just needed to go through. Not only is the content fascinating but also the process described in the research. I had to make a note of how this book came about. No doubt this is goign to be in my collection.

I wanted to capture the tool of Jims trade here for quick reference, a primer to creating somethign really fascinating. " an odyssey of curiosity" as he put sit

1. The search for a research set: Look for patterns in company performance based on some parameters. In this case" 15 years of cumulative stock return at or below general stock market, punctuated by a transition point, then by cumulative eturns at least 3 times the market over the next 15 years.

2. Compared to What? A comparison set to answer the crucial question " What did the good to great companies share in common that distinguished them from comparison companies.

3. Probe inside the blackbox. Depth analysis [collect data, code materials into categories such as strategy, technology, leadership and so on]; interview executives; systematically read and debate [present to the team, draw potential conclusions and ask questions].

4. Develop concept from Chaos: Develop Ideas and test against the data, revise ideas, build frameworks, break the framework under the weight of the evidence and rebuild.


SUMMARY

Disciplined people achieve breakthroughs after a strenious buildup, through disciplined action that is based on disciplined thought.