How to Do What You Love to Do?

How to Do What You Love to Do?

Moving to www.anbusivam.com

Dear Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam's Blog Page.

Thank you all for your wonderful support, encouragements and criticisms.

I am moving to my Own Domain, now let's continue our journey together @

http://www.anbusivam.com

Looking forward for your support as usual.

Thanks for Visiting my Page.

With Love,
Anbusivam

My Ice Breaker Speech: I am an Optimist

Dear Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam's Blog Page.

I was instrumental in bringing up the Philips/NXP Toastmasters club also served as Vice President, Education there. I was totally out of public speaking for more than two years after I left NXP. Now I am a member of Bangalore Toastmasters Club, one of the Bangalore's oldest club with lots of very eminent speakers. It's great to be part of this wonderful club. I gave my first speech from Toastmasters competent communication manual, i.e Ice Breaker. Find below the transcript of my speech, it would be of help to know more about me.

I am an Optimist

No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, I would always love to raise my sight and see possibilities. To my surprise they're always there and I always see them.

Good Evening Fellow Toastmasters and Guests.

“Humility is like an inner wear, essential, but indecent if shows off”, but people in my home town don’t mind showing it off. This city has gained universal recognition as the leading source of Hosiery and Knitted Garments. It is the garment capital of India, also called Textile City. It is Tirupur in Tamilnadu.

Yes, I was born in a small village near Tirupur to a middle class family whose main occupation is farming. They named me Sivakumar, but I would love to be called as Siva.

Childhood:
Situation at home was not so great when I was young. In spite of all difficulties, when all my cousins were sent to farm fields or garment factories to work, I and my sister were the only lucky ones to attend school. I must proudly say that, today I am standing here in front of you only because of my caring parents and loving sister.

I studied in a wonderful school. Neither I can forget the first day I went school with my grandmother crying all the way from home, nor can I forget the day last day of my 12th standard with tears all the way back to home. We were 6 of us together like a rainbow for 14 continuous years and those were the colorful years in my life.

About my Education:
From my early childhood I was fascinated by electronics. My grandfather had a transistor radio that was very precious to him. He would never miss the morning and evening news every day. One pleasant evening, when Sun was saying good bye to Moon I opened it up out of curiosity to know, what is there inside..?. But, later I realized that opening it up and breaking into pieces is far easier than assembling it together. Somehow with few more screws and wires still remaining, I could make it work the way it was working and that’s a significant accomplishment.

I was totally depressed when I failed to get admission into engineering after my 12th class. There was no one to guide me and not enough money to get things done.

Suddenly this wonderful opportunity came knocking at my door disguised as my father’s friend. When I met him, he asked me “If you are so keen in electronics, why don’t you join a polytechnic...? Then you can very well join an engineering college directly into the second year. It’s called lateral entry.”

I took that as a positive challenge, did my diploma in electronics, passed with flying colors and stood first in my class. Then I went on to study Electrical & Electronics Engineering to come out as a first engineering graduate, in fact a first graduate in our entire family circle.

After a short stint with Wipro and few years with Philips/NXP, now I work for Qualcomm for the past 2 years. My job is to make sure that, your high end mobile phones work even after 10 years from now, flawlessly like it is working today. I do the reliability engineering of mobile semiconductor ICs.

Hobbies:
One of my teachers used to say “Keep yourself engaged in good hobbies, not just for time pass, but something that can be turned into a full time career when you wish or get bored in your routine work”.

My hobbies include reading, writing, listening to music. I read and try to experiment a lot on Self Development, Human Mind and Spirituality. I would love to understand the people around me. I’ve done a Diploma in Counseling Skills last year and I am looking forward for a Masters in Psychology through distance education this year.

Two years ago I picked up Blogging, I blog @ http://www.anbusivam.com. By the way Anbusivam is my pen name with which I used to write some amateur Tamil poems on the last pages of my college notebooks. Even now I used to in some of the lengthy and boring office meetings.

After about 15years I decided to cycle again and bought a new bike last month. Now I cycle 26kms every day, five days a week to and fro between Indiranagar and whitefield. When people ask me “Are you crazy to cycle in this traffic..?” I say, “Yes I am, look into the positive part of cycling. It’s healthier, happier and greener”.

I was happy in life, until I got married 6 months ago. Now with my wife Sangeetha in life, I am happier than ever. She is a home maker, having keen interest in drawing and painting. I am giving in all the support and encouragement to her present goal, which is to expertise in Tanjore Painting.

Beliefs:
I am a deeply rooted spiritual being. But, I am certainly not religious. In my simple understanding: “Love is the one and only universal God”.

I also sincerely believe to a large extent we are the Script writer, Actor and Director of our own movie called Life in this world.

When my friends ask, “How could you take every thing positively…?” I say, I choose to be an optimist, because it does not seem to be much use being anything else.

Optimism is in my blood, I am B+ve. I am an Optimist.

Thanks for Visiting my Blog.

With Love,
Anbusivam

Pleasure of Cycling

Dear Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam's Blog Page.

I came back from school, was depressed and sad about the way things are going on in life. We, a group of 6 have decided to start cycling to school from next month onwards. Now it's the first week of the new month and I am the only one don't have a bicycle yet. I've told my father and asked my mother too....but nothing seems to be happening. That night I resisted from eating dinner, went to bed without talking to anyone. I know that my parents are aware of the reason for my anger. To my great surprise next day when I come back from school there was as bicycle parked in front of our home, though it looked little older. My mom told me that it was from one of my dad's friends. His son was using this cycle for the past 2 years and now he is studying fin a boarding school. Dad had taken it from him for a little lower price.

I was so happy, hugged my parents for getting me a new cycle (new to me anyway). I wanted to run my friend in the next street to tell that I am going to join them tomorrow morning to school. I went to bed so happily, woke up early in the morning, took out an old cloth, cleaned it perfectly. I could make it shining like a new diamond, of course it is for me.

Started my first day ride to school and I will never forget that experience in my life. I think this happened almost more than 15 years ago, but I could never forget this experience in my life. I think Bicycle is one of the best inventions by the mankind. Simply by connecting two wheel, frame and pedal there comes a wonderful means of transportation. No emission of harmful gases, no pollution, no harm to the environment, no fuel needed, zero running cost and so on.

After so many years, I decided to cycle again. Now to my office. I was totally unaware of what had happened to bicycles all these years. When I started looking out for details, I found there are bicycles with gears nowadays. I wondered why do a cycle need 21 gears, while my yamaha is having only 4. I could get lots and lots of details and information for various bicycle enthusiasts and online biking communities like BikesZone, Bangalore-bikers Club, GogreenGocycling and Criticalmass. I could see that, bikers are more than happy to welcome any new biker into their group, provide lots of support and encouragement.

After lots of study and survey I bought Hercules Ryders ACT110, started cycling to office for the past 2 weeks and look forward to continue cycling for ever.


Go Green, Go Healthy, Go Happy, Go Cycle...!!!

The pleasure of pedaling a responsive, wonderful machine, while enjoying the roads, moving along effortlessly, is always awesome in cycling.

Thanks for Visiting my Page.

With Love,
Anbusivam

Opportunity Knocks Only Once

Dear Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam's Blog Page.

Opportunities are always plenty in this vast world, but how many of us are ready to grab that in our life…? At least how many of us are aware of the opportunities we come across in our lives…?

Family and society in which we are born are a chance given to us by creation, but what we become in life is a choice left for us. Chance is something decided upon us, which is beyond our control. Choice is something that we can decide for us, which is completely in our hands to choose. Many of us think that our life is predestined and nothing can be done beyond that.

We have all said at some point of time in our life or often hear people saying:

“It’s all fate”, “Luck is not in my side”, “According to my horoscope”, “It’s bad time for me”

Yes, it is going to be really bad time until we wake up and look for opportunities in life.


Opportunity knocks our door only once. That single moment in our life comes only once and never returns. We may end up getting similar opportunities later on in time, but the one that came will never come again.

A young man wished to marry the farmer's beautiful daughter. He went to the farmer to ask his permission. The farmer looked at him and said, "Son, go stand out in that field. I'm going to release three bulls, one at a time. If you can catch the tail of any one of the three bulls, you can marry my daughter."

The young man stood in the field awaiting the first bull. The barn door opened and out came the biggest, meanest looking bull he had ever seen. He decided that one of the next bulls had to be a better choice than this one, so he ran over to the side and let the bull pass through.

The barn door opened again. He had never seen anything so big and fierce in his life. It stood pawing the ground, it eyed him. Whatever the next bull was like, it had to be a better choice than this one he thought. He ran to the fence and let the bull pass through.

The door opened a third time. A smile came across his face. This was the weakest bull he had ever seen. This one was his bull, he said to himself. As the bull came running by, he positioned himself just right and jumped at just the exact moment. He threw his hands to grab.....But alas.... The bull had no tail.

There are three kinds of people in this world: First, the ones who make things happen. Second, the ones who see things happen. Third, the ones who wonder what happened?

If we are a kind of person who is attentive to things around us, I am sure we could readily recognize that. If we are a kind of person who is keen on achieving great things in life, I am sure we would definitely make the best used of opportunities given.

An individual may possibly have number of abilities and talents, yet he or she could be a miserable failure. Unless the person is aware of her abilities and has the courage to act upon it, she is going to be a failure. Great people knew their abilities and make the best use of at least one of their talents, excel in that, reach greater heights.

Great men and women don’t wait for the right opportunity to come at their door steps; instead they act upon to create the opportunity in order to move ahead in their path of great achievements. These are the people those who make things happen. They don’t sit and wait for the opportunities to come to them; instead they desperately go in search of opportunities and put in all their efforts to make things happen.

Michael Dell says, “Don’t spend so much time trying to choose the perfect opportunity, that you miss the right opportunity. Whether you’ve found your calling, or if you’re still searching, passion should be the fire that drives your life’s work.”

Unless you are planning suicide, there is no better time then right now to start doing what you have been thinking about doing for far too long. The key is to listen to your heart and let it carry you in the direction of your dreams. Just open your mind to different possibilities, different ways of examining an object, a problem or a challenge, and it can provide you with many inspirations and fresh ideas.

Another key point is to act diligently upon the opportunity grabbed. Many of us though get right opportunity; fail to make the best use of it. We end up doing mundane activities those are useful neither for ourselves nor for others. This is because our mind is tied up with petty little things that will give quick gratification. Basic tendency of human mind is to look for quick results at present and immediate pleasure now rather than long term satisfaction at later stage. We should constantly tame our mind to seek permanent happiness in life and not look for instant pleasure. We should constantly focus our thoughts and efforts towards vital and precious activities that will take us forward in our path of success.

With the ability to identify right opportunity, attitude to honestly work on it and sincerity to make the best use of it; making great things happen is an absolute possibility in this world.

Let’s make great things happen.

“When we wake up to the choices given to us,
smartly catch hold of them,
diligently work on them with sincere efforts,
surely we will achieve great things in this world.”

Thanks for visiting my page.

With Love,
Anbusivam

You Are Your Solution in Life

Dear Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam's Blog Page.

All of us have problems in life. I don't think any one can ever find a person without a single problem in this world. Life by itself is a sequence of problems posed in front of us from various facets of life. Most of the time we spend all our time in searching for answers and solutions for our life's own problems. In this entire process the most important person involved is "YOU". Only simple solution for all your life's problem is YOU. Hence the best way to make your life wonderful is to take good care of you.

Yes, it's all about "You".

What you can do for YOU:

- Take quality time off from your daily chores to give yourself.

- Enjoy your own company.

- Be happy and feel good about you.

- Treat yourself with great love and utmost respect.

- Feel you are more worthy and most deserving.

- Look for the positive and good qualities in yourself.

- Focus on these great qualities you love about yourself.

- Have a great belief in your own abilities.

- Have a positive regard and respect for yourself.

- Even kiss yourself often to appreciate yourself.

You are the designer of your destiny. You are the director of your own movie called life. You are the one and only authority having complete control over your life's choices. So, better take good care of yourself.

Ultimately it's all about "You". i.e YOU, YOU and YOU

Thanks for visiting my page.

With Love,
Anbusivam

Life Lessons from Children

Hello Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam's Blog Page.

Today November 14th is Children's Day in India. I had a wonderful opportunity to take part in Children's Day Celebrations organised in our office. Colleagues had come to office with their children and family today for the gala celebrations.

As usual I took up my role as an "Observer", started observing the cute little children over there running around, playing, singing and dancing. Kids just live their life enjoying every moment, enthusiastic about everything, eager to learn, curious about everything and with full of contagious energy. Practical life lessons we could learn by just observing child's play is plenty.

Few learning's from those cute little ones are here:

1. Live every moment:

Children live their life spontaneously. Literally every moment is experienced just during that moment and is thoroughly enjoyed. Nothing is pre-planned, they take life as it comes without much of worry. Kids don't waste the right moment at hand in thinking about the future or past, they just live in that moment completely involved. We adults always repent for what happened in the past or anticipate what would happen in future, and in that very process we miss the present right in front of us.

2. Ask lots of questions:

Kids ask lots of questions on matters very trivial to adults. What...? Why...? How...? When...? Where...? would be their major vocabulary once they start understanding things around. There would always be greatest level of curiosity to learn, to understand and to know about every thing around them. Most of the time they may not get answers for all their questions, but it doesn't stop them from asking more questions.

3. No emotional baggage's carried:

Children never carry emotional baggage's like we adults do always in life. Kids don't carry on with their emotions in life. As child I used to quarrel with my sister, we fought a lot for simple things in life. But that will last for not more than few minutes. We will be playing, jumping and running just after that. But now as grown ups we experience each and every situation with some or other pre-conceived ideas in life.

4. Contagious positive energy:

I would always consider "Contagious positive energy" to be the best in children. They enjoy life with full of positive energy that's instantly contagious. Doesn't matter how big our problem is, simply watching a child's play would make us happy and enthusiastic. Their positive energy is highly contagious.

5. No Inhibitions:

Inhibitions are meaning less in Children's world. They just don't worry about anyone and anything around. Unlike adults they don't worry about the consequences, just never bother what others would think. Kids would always want to be themselves, irrespective of where they are. They carry around themselves as just they are.

6. Curious about everything:

Children are curious about everything around. Curiosity is what makes them touch the fire, catch a fly, eat a bug, run onto the streets, jump from the stairs and many more. Always be ing curious to explore new things gives them a never ending learning experiences.

7. Ego Less:

There is nothing called "ego" in Kid's world. Children never have "I" conscious, they just go with the life as it comes without any egoistic thoughts. They fight and quarrel for a moment and next moment we would find them playing as if nothing had happened. The best part of child's behaviour is complete surrender to the loved ones most often the mother.

8. Express the Feelings:
Children would freely express their feelings no matter they are. Their feelings are readily available on their faces for every one to see. Kids don't hide or conceal their feelings and emotions, instead they express them right at that moment. We don't have to guess what's a child's feeling as it will be very obvious in her face. Openly expressing feelings makes life easier and simpler of us and people around us.

I've just listed few practical learning's we could take from Children. Of course we all has gone through that life as a child, but somewhere in the process of growing up we've acquired few things that are not very useful to us and dropped down few things that may be of great help in life.

Let's go back to our wonderful childhood, wake up the little child in us, live life king size.

With Love,
Anbusivam

Yes, It's Ok to Start Again

Dear Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam's Blog Page.

It's been more than two months now since I wrote a blog post.

After 2 long months, I am back to blogging. Yes, it’s been more than two months now…two long months. It is really long as I have missed almost more than 8 weeks of blogging. Initially I thought of taking break for a month after my wedding, but it got extended to more than two months. I was too busy in setting up our new home, also had friends visiting us with lots of love and kind wishes. It’s been overwhelming to receive good friends and kind relatives at our new home.

In spite of all my counseling classes and learning’s, I always used to wonder how I am going to cope up with a new relation called spouse in my life. I was worried how I am going to share my personal space with someone else whom I did not know for years. Fortunately, we had more than 3 months after we met till our marriage day. We shared a lot about our likes, dislikes, our childhood, school and college life, about our family, friends, relatives and many more. Now with my loving and caring wife Sangeetha beside me, life has taken a new facet. It’s nice to see lots of things are changing in life for good and better.

I feel great and rejuvenated to come back to you all through this blog again.

With this I am starting again.

I am sure I'll share more useful, interesting and informative thoughts here.

With Love,
Anbusivam

Being Right or Being Happy

Dear Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam's Blog Page.

When I wrote about being right or happy in my previous post, many of my readers were keen to know more about it. Here comes my thoughts and understandings on one of the key learning’s from my counselling course.

"Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy...?"

Think for a moment when you were in an arugment and want to be right, don't you remember that you had to compromise on your happiness. I realised this when I was in an argument with one of my friends few weeks ago. I obviously wanted to make my point, knowing that he is not correct. But he was not in a mood to accept that he is wrong, which would be a blow to his big ego. After long arguments and counter arguments, I suddenly realised that the discussion had stuck into an endless circle, without any further progress. I started playing devil's advocate, carefully changing side to accept his point knowing very well that it's not right. I decided to do this only to stop those endless arguments just to prove a point. When we departed he was really happy that his point was accepted and finally he had won the argument. But I am sure that he himself had a doubt on the entire discussion and the point he was conveying and trying to convince me.

Later in the evening when he was little relaxed, I approached him with a clean reference supporting my argument stating that I was right in the morning. In no time he accepted the truth and apologised for being adamant during the morning discussion. I felt happy and he too was.

When I was thinking about the day that evening, it did strike to me that, though I was not right in the morning ultimately I was happy at end of the day. Many a times we tend to stick to our point in arguments and discussions with our loved ones, friends and colleagues without even thinking about the real purpose of the argument.

We should be courageous and courteous enough to give up something, though we know we are correct, while letting the other person win over us. This will be of utmost important especially with our family and loved ones, where the relationship and bonding is of highest priority than being right in a petty issue. Moreover these kinds of heated arguments and discussion always lead to fights shifting focus on the person instead of the real issue. When we are discussing an issue with another person, let's better put our focus on where it should be, on the real problem, not the other person.

When we choose being happiness over the need of being right, obviously a great relationship blossoms over there.

Whenever we are stuck in an argument with our loved ones, we should ask ourselves.

Do you want to be Happy or do you want to be Right...?

Thanks for visiting my page.

With Love,

Anbusivam

Looking Front and Marching Ahead

Dear Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam's Blog Page.

After my previous post on Looking Back, I lately realised that I had almost forgot to look front. Now, I've decided to march ahead with newer learning’s and experiences in life.

At this juncture both in my Personal and Professional life, big changes are taking place that's going to bring in more responsibilities with greater expectations. At personal front I’m getting married on 2nd September. It's taking up most of my time after work and that's the main reason for no regular updates here in www.anbusivam.com.

I am sure Life is going to be colorful with lots of new experiences and learning’s particularly in terms of understanding personal relationships. I am used to live alone, away from my parents now for almost more than 5 yrs. I think I've become less sensitive to the under currents of actual feelings and emotions expressed to me in all these years. May be I should spend some more quality time looking within myself to understand me as a person first and next relationships with my near and dear ones. I am trying to be more sensitive to the feelings expressed and unexpressed sometimes.

My DCS (Diploma in Counseling Skills) would be of greatest help to make my life really fruitful and joyful. I can never forget one question that I’ve learnt on relationships, which is “Do you want to be correct or do you want to be happy…?” Mot of the times we want to be correct, want to be perfect, continue the argument just to prove that other person is wrong and at the end what remains is not happiness, but a bitterness in relationship. The moment we let go those compulsions to prove a point or to be perfect always, close relationships would bloom into flowers of happiness.

Off late I am getting comments from my friends that most of my recent posts are based on emotional and psychological factors. Yes, after my counseling course and little experiences with the few clients I’ve got, I think mental wellness is utmost important than any great leadership qualities in life. Sound mind in a sound body is the basic stepping stone to any great journey in life.

I am starting to look forward and march ahead with new thoughts, ideas and experiments in life to understand ultimately “What makes us do what do we do…?” that is "Motivation" in life.

Thanks for visiting my page.

With Love,

Anbusivam

Leadership & Motivation - Looking Back

Dear Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam's Blog Page.

Last evening, I was just looking back into all my earlier blog posts and it's amazing to see the amount of information that's been collated here in one place over the period of more than 2 years with 84 articles as of now. Yes, when I started this blog with my first post on a fine morning of May, 2007 this was the only intention. All I wanted was to bring in the interesting and useful details that I come across on my most favorite topic "Leadership & Motivation" in one single place. Moreover the best part is the encouragement I get from you the Readers of this blog that keeps me on my toes to get in more and more useful articles that will help us make our lives better.

I still remember what I said on one of our early Bangalore Bloggers Meet, "I've started this blog just for myself to collate some of the useful information I come across, read, experiment, and learn on Leadership & Motivation at one place which, I would be able to look back in future just by click of a mouse. Adding to that it would be great if I can get some sincere readers to this blog and the greatest happiness would be if my thoughts and ideas here in my blog can help them in making their lives better".

Of course I like all my articles, but some are worth mentioning here again. Find here some I liked the most when I looked back yesterday.

Being an ardent lover of nature, I loved these two when I worte and even now when I read after almost 2 years.

Leadership = Gardening

Human'Culture' Vs Agri'Culture'

This one is my favorite as many of my visitors coming from search engines lands up in this page.

Why do we need motivation...?

I like this as I talked about enjoying the present, while getting ready for the future.

Doing What We Love Vs Loving What We Do

I love this only because I get lots and lots of visitors searching for the quote "God made the Earth, but the Dutch made Holland" and also I like my quote "God made me in the Earth, but I made my Life".

Dutch Made Holland – A Lesson for Life

This talks about my own personal fear of starting this blog, writing in English and how I did overcome that. I am really happy for starting this blog (Inspired by my friend Himanshu Sheth ) that has become a great platform to express and share my learning's to the world around me. This also keeps me on to read, learn, experiment and share much more in my life.

Where does the strength to work on weaknesses come from?

This is one of my most favorite, as I wrote this after a home work of little survey asking the question "What is that, ultimately you want in life...???" to people I come across everyday.

Choosing to be Happy :-)

Power of deciding our happiness.

This was written after realising the power of encouragement to achieve, from the Indian Premier League Cricket season 2008. And these lines I like the most "Close your eyes and imagine a cheerful group of cheerleaders in front of you with "Whoos-Hoos" and "Shake Ups" for all those commendable things you've done in your life till this moment."

What about becoming our own cheerleaders?

This article was based on Indira Nooyi, PepsiCo's CEO. According to her there are 5 skills that's the hallmark of a good leader that leads to "Performance with Purpose".

PepsiCo's Leadership Philosophy of Performance with Purpose

I wrote this after my NLP(Neuro Linguistic Programming) lessons, all about Getting into and Getting out of our emotional states/situations.

Power of Association and Dissociation.

Greatly inspiring experience sharing from my visit to Spastic Society of Karnataka and my interactions with those special children with special needs and abilities.

Motivation from Special Children

One another unforgettable inspiration from Prof.Raundy Paush

Brick Walls Are Not There To Keep Us Out

My latest one on similar lines...."Brick walls are no there to keep us out"

I Will Not Quit

Yes indeed its very true that, "A Small Change Can Make Big Difference" most of the time in many areas of our life.

Small Change Can Make Big Difference

Experience is the "bestest" teacher that always results in the most enduring lessons.

Experience - The Best Teacher

I am sure I would like to list all my 84 articles here, but that may not be possbile. Every article or post had its own significance at that time of writing and some like mentioned above are very relevant any time in the past, present and future as well.

At this juncture. I would like to thank all the good hearts that keeps me encouraging in keeping this blog most interesting, informative and above all the most useful in daily life. Many Thanks to all my good friends, kind well wishers and sincere visitors/readers of this blog. My heartfelt gratitude to each one of you those help me, support me and inspire me to go on in life with a passion towards "Leadership & Motivation".

Thank You All. Keep visiting, give your most valuable comments and feedbacks.

Thanks for visiting my page.

With Love,
Anbusivam

I Will Not Quit

Dear Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam's Blog Page.

"When faced with a huge mountain, I will not quit, I will keep on striving until I climb over, find a pass through, tunnel underneath or simply go around to get past. Yes, nothing can stop me."

I came across this saying few days ago and was thinking of writing on this yesterday. As I am getting busy with few of other things in life, writing a blog post had almost taken a back seat. Last night I made a point to wake up early to write this and here I am.

Quitting is something that's so easy for some and way too hard for others. One of my friends is such an expert in quitting; he quits and comes out of almost every thing that he starts within few weeks time. Another friend of mine is struggling so hard to quit something in his life, which he is not able to in spite of all his efforts. Normal human tendency is to find blame excuses to stay away from hard working, time consuming, effort taking tasks.

Why do people visit this blog? or why does self-help a big business all over the world? We all need a strong push at times when we are stuck in front of a huge mountain. The moment we encounter it, we stumble with fear of failure and we convince ourselves to quit the journey. Very few strong minds determined to reach their goals, having great persistence will obviously not worry about these obstacles in the journey of life. They very well know that quitting is not the solution to problems in life and the very problems will make them better in life. Imagine a life without a single problem, I am sure it's not going to be interesting for long time. It will make a routine and boring life.

As I've written in one of my earlier posts, "brick walls are not there to keep us out". Obstacles, brick walls or mountains what so ever we call, they are there only to check and evaluate how badly we want things in our life, it's just there to see the validate the sincere determination of our journey in life.

Yes, of course quitting is not the solution always but in the same time it should be okay for us to give up and let go at times. Our persistence shouldn't disguise into stubborn-ness over time. This should be a very careful process, we should not misunderstand giving up out of weakness, procrastination, fail to put in sincere efforts and to be in our comfort zone. We should be quitting after a careful study of all possible situations saying "Hey, you know what? this is definitely not going to work, there is no point to sticking to it anymore, it's better to quit, spend our time and effort in other goals of life."

And I think quitting, should always be last possible option in life's goals and journeys.

Thanks for visiting my page.

With Love

Anbusivam

Power of deciding our happiness.

Hello Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam's Blog Page.

"What is that, ultimately you want in life...???"

When I asked this question to people I know from all walks of life, starting from a grade 5 student to as elderly as 95 yrs old. The final answer always lead to someting like this,

"I want to be Happy in Life, Happiness is what I want."

I am sure each and every single action we perform in our lives is to seek happiness. Be the CEO of a million dollar corporate or a floor boy in a small office, irrespective of caste, creed, status and religion, happiness is what we all seek all the time. Unfortunately we seek something all over the world that is actually hidden within ourselves in abundance.

With few personal experiments in my own life, I am completely convinced that we can never find real happiness outside us. If we happen to find happiness from something or someone outside us, then its never going to be a permanent one. May be that will last for a second or a minute or a day or for few months. Never can one get a permanent happiness from the external things outside in this world. We human beings are creatures of choice. We have got the great boon of choosing to be happy irrespective of what happens outside. This may sound too philosophical on the first go, but actually this is the ultimate truth that we need to understand.

For example, you have a simple mobile phone with which you can make only phone calls, that being your basic requirement. You feel miserable, seeing yourself in the midst of your friends who are gadget geeks playing around with their high tech phones with which calls could also be made. Now, thinking that you will get happiness with a brand new phone, you buy a new phone with all possible features in it. You think that you are the happiest person in this world with your new gadget, only until you come across an another friend having a device better than yours. At that very moment your happiness ceases to exist and you start thinking you could have bought this one. You feel miserable again.

Here your happiness is fully based on a mobile phone. You the intelligent being had given out the power of deciding your happiness to a lifeless electronic instrument.

We all have made and heard the following statements in our lives:

"You make me unhappy"

"You are making me furious"

"I'll be happy, if you love me"

"I am always upset because of you"

"I don't like to see you"

"I hate this traffic"

The moment we start fixing things outside to make ourselves happy, its going to be a never ending process. Instead we should be fixing things within us. In the sametime, we shouldn't be neglecting the external things that will make our living comfortable and easy in this world. No doubt the world has become a better place to live with all the scientific and materialistic advancements. All those material stuff should be seen as something that will only make our physical existence little easier. They never can give us permanent happiness that we seek in our lives.

The ultimate point here is the moment we take charge of our happiness, nothing external can control it. Happiness will no longer be something that we pursue all through our life. Happiness will always blossom within us.

"Let's not give away the power of deciding our happiness to someone or something outside us"

With Love,

Anbusivam

Bangalore Marathon Open 10K in 68mins.

Hello Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam's Blog Page.

Hurray......I could complete today's Bangalore Sunfeast Marathon open 10K in 68mins.

Though never had any timing target eariler, I thought that I'll not take more than 1hr 30mins. But completing in 1hr 8mins was really a great achievement. I was just jumping with joy and happiness at the finish line. Now I know my limits. Next year target would be 10kms in 40mins.

My daily treadmill runs for the last 2 weeks gave me lots and lots of endurance to keep myself going especially in the last 2kms of the circuit. Adding to that my morning trainings on the road too helped me a lot to get used to the kind of terrain we ran. The great levels of enthusiasm and energy in the air is an another important factor for me to make it. Cute little childre, elders and lots of people were cheering up on the sides of the road all along the run. Whenever I slowdown or start walking I came across these people who  encouraged to run. Many Thanks to all those unknown good hearts.

Ultimately it was a great fun, elated feeling, boost for self-confidence and I knew my limits now.

With Love,
Anbusivam

PS: Hope to share some race day photos soon.

Power of Aiming High

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Welcome to Anbusivam's Blog Page.

Few weeks back I got a mail on Bangalore Sunfeast Marathon and I decided to take part in that. When I had to choose between 2 options I went ahead with the second one. First was to run 5.7km Majja Run and second was to 10km in Open 10K Run. When couple of my friends insisted to join them on Majja Run, I was interested only in 10km run. At that time I was not very sure if I would be able to complete 10km with some of my irregular running experiences. I had my own apprehensions and self doubts, but something inside me pushed towards 10km.  I was also fully aware that its going to be a big task for me with the limited time available to train from then.

The important point to note here is, if I had taken up 5.7km run then I am sure all my trainings these days would not have crossed even 3km. Now with my enrollment into 10km run, all I see in front of me is "How am I gonna complete 10k...?". Obviously when my target is 10km, running more than 5km every day seems to be too less for me. I am pushing myself to reach atleast 8km this week and then to hit my target of 10km on the Race day i.e coming Sunday, 31st May 2009.

When I was thinking on this simple experience in my life, I realised that keeping a greater goal and aiming high will always make us reach greater heights than having some mediocre goals in life just for the sake of having it. I have a great hope on myself that I will be able to complete this 10km run. I don't have any timing targets, all I want is to complete 10km run successfully. That would surely give me lots and lots of confidence to take up much higher goals. 

I sincerely think this "Power of Aiming High" works pretty well in almost all areas of our lives. What's the worst thing than can happen in aiming high...? may be we will not meet our aim or target. But at the end what we have accompolished would be surely much more than what we could have otherwise.

Would you like to share some great acheivements in your life with this wonderful "Power of Aiming High".

Thanks for visiting my page.

With Love

Anbusivam

P.S: I'll let you know my run details this Sunday evening.

Quotes from Heraclitus

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Welcome to Anbusivam's Blog Page.

Reading my earlier post on Change, one of my good friends with whom I used to work some five years ago introduced me to Heraclitus. Heraclitus(535BC - 475BC) a Greek philosopher, known for his doctrine of change being central to the universe.

I found his quotes greatly though provoking, and I am really amazed by the relevance of each and every word said even now at present. Here are some of them,

The one I liked the most is:

Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.

The one my friend liked the most is:

If you do not expect the unexpected you will not find it, for it is not to be reached by search or trial. If we do not expect the unexpected, we will never find it.

And some of them are:

Character is destiny.

Nothing endures but change.

This universe, which is the same for all, has not been made by any god or man, but it always has been, is, and will be an ever-living fire, kindling itself by regular measures and going out by regular measures.

You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.

The road up and the road down is one and the same.

Even sleepers are workers and collaborators on what goes on in the universe.

Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony.

Thanks for visiting my page.

With Love,

Anbusivam

Change is the only changeless

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Welcome to Anbusivam's Blog Page.

Every time I think about some change....I always remember 2 famous quotes I've come across. First one is "Everything changes, only change is changeless" don't know who said this and the second one from Mahatma Gandhiji "Be the change you want to be". Many a times we tend to bend and mend others into our own ways. Trying to change others always ends up in vain and leads to a lot of pain and displeasure. We are not comfortable in changing ourselves as there is a lot of risks involved in that, mainly stepping from the known to an unknown is always fearful, scary, and anxious.

Let's think for a moment how important is "change" in our lives. Neither sorrow, nor happiness is going to be permanent in life. Anything and everything in this world has to undergo the process of evolution and hence change is inevitable. If at all change has not happened, this world would have reached a state of stagnation and no progress would have happened all through these years. In spite of seeing so many changes every day in this world, we are still skeptical about change.

Change at first frightens us, as we have to come out of our comfort zone. and then the fear of uncertainties that would show up. Any change that has to happen outside is most of the times pretty easy, where as any change that has to happen within us is the most difficult thing to happen. But the beauty is when a moment had come for an internal change within ourselves, nothing can stop that. Once we are fully convinced about the change, our mind automatically lookout for ways and means for the change to happen rightaway. To reach that state is the most difficult task in life, as our mind will always put forth number of excuses in the name of valid reasons so as to oppose the change. Once we gain the ability to understand the trick that our mind would play, it will be lot easier to appreciate and embrace the change.


Some of the statements I hear when a change is imposed from outside are:

1. It's too difficult.
2. It's not gonna work.
3. We've tried this before or we've never tried something similar.
4. This too visionary or lacks vision.
5. We've always done it this way.
6. We already have a proven method in place.
7. I am not sure, if this will be good for us.
8. I don't think this is logical.
9. We don't have enough time and resources.
10. It just doesn't make sense to change.
11. ... and many more.

Some of the statements I hear when a change is embraced within are:

1. Wow....it's an excellent change.
2. I am sure its gonna to be good for us.
3. We are bored of doing it the same way.
4. We should try something new.
5. This is the right moment for change.
6. To change is for a greater vision.
7. We should take a chance.
8. Let's try it out.
9. We should explore new avenues.
10. It's challenging to experiment.
11. ... and many more.

As we noticed, it's all the mind's smart play. All these statements are more subjective to the individual and his/her perception towards the change. We come up with any of the first set of statements if we are forced to change and we bring forth the second set of statements in case we are fully convinced that the change is essential at that point of time. We always see these two different groups of people in this society and I am not here to say which is good or which is good to be in.

All I can say from my little experience, is if we are a person who would take some time to think with a larger perspective before jumping into conclusions we would always belong into the second group. It does not mean that we should happily accept and appreciate all the changes that's happening, instead we should have the ability to discriminate the good and bad, not based on our own personal likes and dislike, but purely from a holistic point of view.

Thanks for visiting my page.

With Love,
Anbusivam

Attitude + Action = Achievement

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Welcome to Anbusivam's Page.

Attitude, with Action is everything……and that’s what I’ve learnt last week from a simple person at our office gym.

We had a trainer in our office gym form “FitnessOne”, a city based fitness centre till last month. This man whose name I don’t want to mention, no doubt was physically fit to be a gym trainer. But, his attitude I am sure was not very useful either to himself or to us the gym users. He used to come down to our office every evening at 4.00pm till 7.00pm. He was least bothered about who is coming in there and what people are doing inside. He just comes and will sit on the chair, would just relax watching people working out in the gym. When some of us voluntarily started talking to him, he only talked about the money he earns by training people individually in the city centre where he worked in mornings. He never used to help or guide us; instead he will not even answer properly when any of us ask about the way of doing some exercise. Once when I asked about the usage of cross ramps, he gave me some answer and added that he’ll charge so much of money for individual training in his centre. He also had an attitude of looking us at someone who is using our office gym facility free of cost as if he is running our office. Fortunately end of last month he just vanished off and we got a new trainer from FitnessOne in the interim only for a month.

This gentleman is Bala, from whom I learned attitude and action are two key things of achievements in life. Bala would quietly come in and would do nothing for first days except looking keenly on to the entry register, figuring out are coming regularly to the gym. Slowly he started voluntarily coming down to the users and correct their mistakes while exercising. He would tell this is not the way to this particular exercise, what would be the issues if done wrong, will also teach them what is the right way of doing that and benefits of that as well. Slowly people building trust on him, and he started concentrating personally on almost every one helping them to chalk out a weekly workout plan. Yesterday he called me to teach some specific abdomen exercises as his interim period of one month is coming to an end by next week. He wanted me to learn them properly before he leaves us. We’ve requested FitnessOne to post Bala as a permanent trainer in our office gym and waiting for their reply.

Bala could have taken his role as a trainer very lightly as done by our previous guy as he is going to be here only for a month. But he had chosen to take it seriously and sincerely. He was so simple, straight forward and down to earth with us. His wonderful positive attitude along with his committed action gained all our trust and support for him. I think this is his great achievement.

Attitude + Action = Achievement

Thanks for visiting my page.

With Love,
Anbusivam

Prolific Power of Anger

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Welcome to Anbusivam's Blog Page.

In most of my counselling sessions I find people, either unable to identify or totally unaware of their own feelings and emotions. I wonder how will they be able to relate themselves with their family and friends, being ignorant of one's own emotions. One of the key emotions that dominate us more than often is "Anger". People say "I shouldn't be getting angry at all", once a young boy told me "My parents should suddenly forget that there is an emotion called anger", one girl student said in a workshop "One thing I want to get rid off is, my anger". Most of us strongly believe that anger is a negative emotion and is to be suppressed. We tend to hide it from others and from ourselves too. I remember my childhood when I was clearly told not to get angry when elders are there around. I was even told getting angry is a worst thing a child can do and for many years I believed that, neither it is good get angry nor it is good to express my anger..

Do you think anger is such a dangerous and unwanted emotion that is to be totally get ridden off...? Remember last time when you were angry...?

I surely don't think so. Anger is one of the core emotions that is of most necessary to the man kind. All the problems we see around are not because of anger or getting angry, but only because of the way we express our anger.

Can you think of the ways you would choose to express your anger..? What do you do when you are really fired up...? what do say when you are fuming in anger on anyone or anything...? what would be the reaction of your friends and family around...?

Anger, not handled properly may lead to dangerous consequences like verbal/physical abuse, road rage, aggressive behaviours, threat to life, mental depression and so on. Yes, in some extreme cases anger could be totally destructive and irreversible, to the extent of murder. We all know that anger is such a powerful emotion that can reach its peak in spur of a moment within no time. Most often anger comes out with an outburst of enormous energy, which is generally expressed in a not very useful way either to us or others.

I think the best way to handle anger in a more efficient manner is to deeply understand the way it is triggered up in us and how do we express that. It's important to divert that outburst of energy in to a more productive and useful one.

Here are a few steps to make the best use of the Prolific Power of Anger.

1. First and foremost, accept and acknowledge that you are angry, when ever you are.


2. Learn the truth that, anger is a most common human emotion and indeed its good to get angry being a normal human being.


3. Introspect to identify you own anger spots (identifying everything that can trigger anger in you, by looking back into your own past when ever you were angry)


4. Think from an objective point of view, what are the ways you've been expressing anger in all these years from your childhood till now.


5. Evaluate them, are those ways of expressing anger is really useful or do you really feel sorry and regret for what you have done...?


6. Think of what could be the alternate ways and means that your anger could be expressed with out any harm to you or others around...?


7. Think of how can be the energy outburst diverted into a positive, more useful purpose of getting things done in a diplomatic way...?


8. Learn to express your anger in a very calm, yet aggressive manner without loosing your temper, while holding the ability to stay with your rationale thinking.

Anger, is an excellent emotion nature has given to the man kind. It sometimes protects us, helps us in making decisions, it gets things done, comes handy to make our point and many more.

Anger is always a good emotion to have, if we know how to express it and handle it effectively. Go ahead, Get Angry.

Thanks for visiting my page.

With Love,

Anbusivam

Experience - The Best Teacher

Hello Friends.

Welcome to Anbusivam's Blog Page.

While I was travelling from my home town to Bangalore last night, numbers of thoughts were rambling in my mind due to couple of comings and goings in my life. I was thinking of my recent experiences and lessons I am taught by them…therefore got a thread for this post.

Yes, I am absolutely convinced that experience is the best teacher in our lives. First Person Experience in particular is the “Bestest” teacher. I agree that its always good learn lessons from others experience and not to burn our finger once again to learn things. Yes reading biographies, listening to experiences, seeking wisdom from our elders are all means of taking lessons for us to make our lives easier. What we learn through experience is more lasting than that acquired through reading. It is accurate, complete and permanent. It is first-hand knowledge. But, nothing can teach us as good as our own personal First Person Experience. I’ve learnt that, grueling experiences at some point of time will always be a great saviour at some later stage in life and I am sure it’s pretty much true for all of us. A child does not stop playing with fire till he burns his fingers. He learns from his own experience.

Moreover, involving as a first person brings in all the senses of ours into the situation and our brain precisely records that experiential learning so that, it would be readily available for us in future at the right moment when needed. Before crying out “Why Me…?” we should understand that the experiences we have had all through our life is not just to test our faiths in some unknown beliefs, but only to make us as strong as what we are today. We should be thanking the experience and feel blessed for having given this wonderful opportunity to learn. There is profound meaning and purpose to everything that happens to us. May be we are not aware of the purpose right when things are happening to us, but certainly looking back we can very well understand that, its all well connected to our present:

Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer said,
You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.

It’s also interesting to know that, two of us exactly experiencing a similar experience may feel entirely different based on so many factors. It may depend on our child hood, up bringing, society, family values and many more. Hence it is important to experience the experience personally in first person to get the best out of it.

Experience is the "bestest" teacher that always results in the most enduring lessons.

Thanks for visiting my page.

With love,
Anbusivam