The Power of You (The You)

This is The Second Part of “The Power of You (Positive Attitude)“

I know you’re serious about your mindset.
We’ve already talked about the unstoppable force of a positive attitude, the battle between our two inner natures, and why some people break records while others break themselves.
But trust me, it’s just the surface!

Now, let’s go even deeper.
And of course, there will be more stories to keep things interesting!😜

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Accidents are Not Accidents

Mark Twain once said, ‘It is better to be careful a hundred times than to get killed once.’
Consider the statistics that eight out of ten accidents take place not because of unsafe conditions, but because of unsafe actions of the persons involved.
Whenever accidents take place the most common tendency is to look for ‘who to blame’ rather than looking for the root cause.

I am sure we all have been guilty of such an attitude or behavior in our lives. If we continue with the same attitude, we may not be as lucky as we’ve been in the past.

A typical example of violating safety norms is texting or talking on a mobile phone while driving.
Texting while driving is like drinking and driving.
What an Open invitation to an accident!
‘Every year in the US approximately half a million people are injured or killed in traffic accidents because of texting and driving!’
According to Dailymail.co.uk, ‘Drivers are more distracted than ever before—and taking your eyes off the road for just two seconds increases accident risk by 24 times.

Those two seconds are long enough for a vehicle traveling at fifty-five miles an hour to cover the distance close to two football fields. It is like driving with a blindfold.

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Avoid Causality

Once a ticket checker got into a train and began inspecting tickets from the passengers. When he saw the ticket of the first passenger, he discovered that the passenger had the wrong ticket. The checker said, ‘I am sorry Sir, you’ve taken the wrong train. You will have to change at the next station.’ Then he went further. He collected some more tickets and found that teach of the passengers was carrying the wrong tickets. He was surprised to see so many people making the same mistake until he realized the truth that he himself was on the wrong train. He was checking everybody’s tickets not realizing that he hadn’t checked if he was on the right train.

Don’t we face similar situations in life when we realize that it isn’t life that has created the problem, but that we ourselves are looking at life through the wrong end of the telescope.
We are the problem.
Before looking for answers, we need to ascertain that we have the right questions.
The greatest ignorance is when one is not aware of one’s ignorance.

“God Doesn’t Help Those Who Don’t Help Themselves.”

The Following Attitude Leads To Casualty:

1. Lack of concentration: Distractions can lead to accidents. Absent-mindedness, and thinking of home while at work and work while at home destroy proper actions on both sides. Dragging on a problem or brooding over something bad that happened leads to a lack of concentration and causes accidents. We must learn to put a stop. Distractions or taking eyes off even to respond to a friendly social call may lead to an accident.
2. Failing to follow safety procedures: An indifferent attitude or anon-caring attitude could endanger people’s lives. A casual attitude about safety procedures can lead to casualty. Ignoring safety procedures is a bad attitude. This is not innocence, it is indifference. For instance, people don’t wear safety belts in the car.
3. Ignoring or incomplete instructions: Haven’t we seen a person in our office being asked to do a task, but given only incomplete instructions? Such behavior only compromises safety and output. The receiver should always ask and clarify instructions. It is not foolish to ask questions; it is always foolish to start a task without instructions.
4. Complacency or over-confidence: Overconfidence brings arrogance. It brings the attitude, ‘It can never happen to me.’ Such an attitude can lead to indifference. It is a recipe for inviting accidents
   Oand injuries. Confidence leads to good output; overconfidence leads to bad outcomes.
5. Being disorganized and unplanned: Not thinking through a process can create major challenges. Starting something in haste without proper planning could lead to disaster. Hence, effective planning is a smart way to safety.
6. Not taking pride in performance: Pride in performance results in good performance and safety. It avoids all kinds of hazards. It sets standards for a good environment.
7. Looking for short-term gain at the cost of long-term pain: Everybody is looking to cut short on lead time or gestation, hence they look for shortcuts. Shortcuts that reduce safety are classified as short-sightedness. All of us like to work faster and more effectively. But shouldn’t we ask that in the process of saving time, are we compromising on safety? If we don’t ask this important question, we may be increasing the chances of casualties.

When there is carelessness, an accident is not a coincidence.

Arrogance Leads to Casualty

One of the greatest tragedies that took place out of sheer arrogance and casual attitude was the sinking of the unsinkable ship, Titanic. It happened in 1912. Titanic was at that time the world’s largest ship weighing 46,328 tonnes, 882 feet long carrying almost 2,500 passengers. It was equipped with all the luxuries including a pool, gymnasium, mini-golf course, lavish dining rooms, etc. The Titanic struck an iceberg in the middle of the night ripping a hole through five of its sixteen water-tight compartments. It sank in a couple of hours killing 1,513 people.
The most unfortunate part of this tragedy was that the crew and the captain were warned that they were heading into ice fields. They were warned time after time, but they totally ignored all warnings, completely preoccupied with petty things.
The Titanic brushed off the warning rather arrogantly by saying, ‘Shut up, you are jamming my signals.’
Could this tragedy have been avoided? A hindsight answer is, yes.
The Titanic crew not only disregarded the warning but also did not carry enough lifeboats and the unthinkable happened. The sinking of the Titanic was the price paid for arrogance and a casual attitude.
What a sad example of a casual attitude leading to casualty.

“If You Want To Achieve More, Don’t Let Casual Attitude Leads To Casualties.”

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WEALTH?

It would be a fair statement to say that every human being’s ultimate aim in life is to be happy.
Happiness can only be achieved if we have the following three things:
1. Health
2. Wealth
3. Good Relationships
In this Section, we are going to cover Wealth.
To lead a happy and fulfilling life, one of the most important ingredients needed is wealth.
Wealth is not seen only in terms of a bank balance. It is physical wealth and relationship wealth put together.
Wealth corresponds to Financial Health and Financial Independence.
It is difficult to have spiritual, emotional, and physical health without financial health.
Every society is divided into three groups of people— Prosperous, Poor, and mediocre.
The poor and the prosperous can also be divided further into super poor and super prosperous.

Each group has a different mindset around money and goals.
Our mindset and belief system have a lot to do with the physical manifestation of wealth.
Each group gets exactly what it thinks about.
An old saying, ‘Seek and you shall find’, holds true in our physical lives. The goal for ‘freedom’ is primarily driven by the ‘abundance mindset’.
The goal for ‘survival’ and ‘comfort’ is primarily driven by a ‘scarcity mindset’. With a ‘scarcity mindset’, one can only seek survival and comfort and nothing more.

• An article published in Cleveland.com said ‘“About 70 percent of people who win a lottery or get a big windfall actually end up broke in a few years”, according to the NationalEndowment for Financial Education.’

They had a windfall but mentally, for whatever reasons, they could not accept that they were millionaires.
People with a scarcity mindset cannot hold their money.
They imprudently invest or spend it, or it just gets squandered, wasted or lost.

It is well said that if you took the entire wealth of the world and distributed it equally among all people— in less than two years, it will probably come back into the same pockets again.
Obviously, it’s something to do with mindset.

Poverty Mindset

There was once a beggar who would sit right in the middle of a busy street with a signboard that read, ‘I’m destitute, please help.’ He would beg religiously. A young marketing executive used to pass by the beggar every day and occasionally drop some money into his bowl. One day he asked the beggar how much money he made every day. The beggar said, ‘Close to about $35.’ It occurred to him to change the signboard to something more compelling for the passer-by to donate. He created a new placard thatread, ‘In case you have charity on your mind once a month, why not do it there? ’The signboard worked. People stopped to read and started donating. Within three hours, the beggar collected close to about $50 and interestingly, wrapped up, packed u,p and was gone. Had he stayed there for the whole day, he might have been able to collect close to $100. Who knows?
Mentally, he had set up his own limit.
He had conditioned himself to collect only so much and no more.

Let me narrate to you a real-life story.
In the mid-1970s, the president of Uganda, Idi Amin ordered the expulsion of his country’s Asian people. These people, who were settled there for generations, became refugees overnight and fled the country, leaving all their assets behind. A few thousand took refuge as migrants in Canada. All of them literally started from ground zero.
Interestingly, Those who were doing well in Uganda were the same people who started doing well in Canada as well. They worked hard. They were putting in long hours—twelve to fourteen hours a day was a common practice. Some of them who started working at shops eventually ended up buying those very shops.
These people not only became financially stable but also helped others to grow. Similarly, those who were moaners and groaners in Uganda were also the moaners and groaners in Canada too. People who started doing well in Canada, despite obstacles, had a mindset to go beyond survival to become financially independent and then they did. The above example clearly establishes a relationship between mindset and prosperity.
It’s all about the mindset.

Prosperity Conscious, Poverty Conscious and Mediocre

1: Prosperity Consciousness
The prosperity conscious has a mindset to seek freedom.
The prosperous always think of abundance.
They think that the universe provides ‘in abundance’ for everyone.
Prosperity consciousness is a state of mind.
By bearing the ‘prosperity mindset’, one can attain financial well-being and live a happy life.
Those who seek freedom end up achieving financial health and much more.

2: Poverty Conscious
Those who are poverty-conscious have a mindset that seeks only survival.
They are the ones who have a sea of opportunities but choose not to go out to achieve them.
Poverty consciousness is a state of mind.
By bearing the ‘poverty mindset’, one can never attain financial health and continue to live a sad life.
Such people believe that there is a scarcity of things or there is not enough.

3: Mediocre
The mediocre have a mindset to seek comfort.
The mediocre think only of comfort.
They do not want to strive too high nor do they want to be left out.
However, the word mediocre has negative undertones.
It implies that the person is average with moderate abilities and that he is capable of achieving more than what he actually does.

Prosperity Conscious Busy Themselves in Attaining Financial Independence

The prosperity conscious choose their advisors very carefully.
They are willing to pay for good advice.
It is not unusual that many times, the free advice ends up being the most expensive one.
Free advice by and large is not expert guidance. Generally, it is given by those who give their opinions without any knowledge or experience.
Prosperity-conscious people choose to take advice from those who have done something worthwhile while not from ‘living failures’.
Prosperity-conscious people seek freedom, which is achieved through financial independence.
They realize that consistency and self-discipline go hand-in-hand resulting in freedom.
Let’s look at what financial independence is.

Financial Independence

We need to qualify the term Financial Independence.
Financial independence by some means, is ‘having enough financial reserve for contingencies and retirement’.
This is called a ‘nest egg’, but it is not financial independence.
Financial independence is ‘Creating a big enough net worth that generates enough passive income that allows us the freedom to do what we want to do, or work because we want to work not because we have to’.
This is called creating a goose that lays ‘golden eggs’ and that’s what prosperity-conscious people work towards.

Prosperity Conscious People Create Assets

What’s an asset?
An asset is defined as an investment that generates a passive income.

Passive income is money that is automatically generated: it is like a perpetual inflow without your active involvement of skill, labor, and time.
If you ask anybody, by and large, people will say a house is an asset.
It is an asset if it’s generating a rental income, not otherwise.

Think about this.
If you’re living in a house, is it giving you any income? The answer is—NO, it is not. It’s a liability.
There are upkeep and taxes—you’re putting money out of your pocket.
It is a part of your wealth, but not your asset in this case.
It could be a part of your net worth upon liquidation though.
We should look at creating ‘Real Assets’.
If you have savings, always buy a second home rather than a second car as the first home could be your residence and the second one could generate an income.
In such a case, the second home automatically becomes your real asset.

Besides, the value of the house could appreciate, whereas the value of the car, invariably, depreciates.

“Prosperity-conscious people prefer freedom over comfort, whereas mediocre prefer comfort over freedom, hence, they stay limited to comfort and never achieve freedom“

Instant Gratification

The world is suffering from instant gratification.
Instant gratification says, ‘I want it and I want it now’, whether I can afford it or not.
We pay with credit cards even when it is beyond our means.
Even the governments of many countries are spending beyond their means.
We keep buying things that we don’t need with the money that we don’t have to impress the people we don’t like

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Accountability

“Every sunrise brings new opportunities and every sunset demands results and accountability.”

Many times, we hear, ‘People are our greatest assets.’
This statement is not really true.
People are not assets, only ‘good people’ are assets, and the rest are all liabilities.
Goodness always needs to be cultivated, evil happens.
If we want to have a good garden we must consciously plant seeds of good flowers and fruits.
Weeds keep coming automatically, but cultivating goodness takes hard work and conscious effort.

I Can Sleep When the Wind Blows

Once upon a time, there was a farmer who desperately needed a working hand at his farm. Good help was hard to find. He had hired and fired many people. Eventually, he interviewed one and asked, ‘What can you do at the farm?’ The man very confidently replied, ‘I can sleep when the wind blows.’
The farmer did not understand what it meant, but out of desperation hired the man. Every day the man did his job well. One night, it seemed like a major storm was coming. The farmer got concerned about his harvested crop and cattle. As the storm got worse, he quickly ran to his help, who was sleeping, woke him up, and said, ‘Get up quickly, and let’s prepare to handle crops and shelter the animals.’ The help said, ‘There is no need to get up. I am sleeping and you can also go to sleep.’ Hearing this kind of a callous and non-caring answer the farmer got very angry. Time was running short and he ran outside to take care of things. What he saw stunned him—the grain was all well covered with tarpaulin and the animals were all protected in the barn. He had to do nothing. He went back to his home to relax and sleep. Now he could understand the true meaning of what his help said when he was hired, ‘I can sleep when the wind blows.’

What is the moral of the story?
The moral is that the person who was hired was a good person, he was an asset and not a liability, someone who owned his responsibilities well—he knew he ‘could sleep when the wind blows’, because he would have taken care of the situation ‘before the wind blows’.
His preparedness became an asset for the farmer.
The above story is literally a lesson for life. It’s a philosophy to live by.

The following are effective ways to teach accountability to our teams:

1. Holding people accountable. Do not be afraid to ask for an explanation. Ask them when will they keep their commitment. Look into their eyes and ask them, ‘You said you would, but you didn’t. When are you going to do it?’ Don’t be afraid to confront.

2. Ask questions, without making it personal. Tell them that we have nothing personal against them. Do not accept vague answers. Question their explanations. If you ask someone at the office, ‘How many times did you read the script?’ and his reply is, ‘Around twenty times’, then you need to be sure what is around twenty times. It can either be eighteen, nineteen, or twenty. It’s a number and it cannot be ‘ around’. Similarly, if you ask the executive, ‘How many sales calls did you make last week?’ and he says, ‘around fifteen’, then what does it mean? Did the person make eleven or twelve or thirteen or fourteen calls or maybe just one or two? Do not let them get away by being evasive.

3. Be specific in your communication. Stop making vague statements. Specific statements have the power to move people. ‘What can I expect from you?’ Be specific. What moves people are deadlines. Just like there are deadlines in sports, there are deadlines in business. There is a deadline to our existence as well. Minimise generalised statements.

4. Make expectations clear and measurable. Haven’t we heard people say, ‘I am working hard, but nothing is working out?’ This statement is mathematically wrong and factually false. It only makes logical sense that I have to improve. Numbers do not lie. Learn to make realistic expectations and stick to them.

5. Establish consequences in case of failure. Does that mean threatening to fire people? Can CEOs get fired? The answer is yes. Customers can fire them. The employees can fire them. The stockholders can fire them. Even vendors can fire them. Consequences of non-performance have to be borne by the CEO just as much as others.

6. Coach your people. Giving people the right skills is imperative. This can be done by:
i. Teaching theoretically with explanations and examples
ii. Demonstrating
iii. Practically making them do it
iv. Testing for understanding
v. Repeating to reinforce
vi. Practising to internalize

the best way to coach your people is to become a role model for them. What they see, they learn.

7. Close all conversations on a positive note. Build their self-esteem and Hold them accountable. A boosted self-esteem acts as an encouragement to repeat positive behavior.

100/0

In 1998, the Fortune magazine named Synovus Bank as the ‘most desirable’ bank to work for in America. On walls, badges, and their desks, they had signs everywhere stating 100/0. Somebody asked the meaning of that sign. He was told that the ‘100’ stands for a hundred percent responsibility. Nobody says, ‘It’s not my job.’ Nobody says, ‘I was late’ or ‘I got stuck in traffic’. A hundred percent responsibility is taken by everyone for the success of the company. It is each one’s responsibility to keep the company great.
Here ‘0’ stands for zero excuses. It means that they give great service to every customer for every transaction. There is no excuse for not doing their best. Everybody is an ambassador for the organization. Holding someone accountable can also be unpleasant.

Many times, we are afraid to hold others accountable. It appears like a let-down or a put-down. People want to avoid friction as accountability does bring friction.

Where does it bring friction?
It brings friction where one or both parties are not willing to accept responsibility and be accountable. That is where people feel let down and friction erupts.
If we want to grow, the only way is to become accountable and to hold others accountable

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TAKE OWNERSHIP

This is the story of a man named Steve who was working under the hot sun as a laborer for a company. A limousine stopped by and a man shouted, ‘Steve come inside.’ Sitting in the limousine was John, the president of the company. Steve left all his work and sat inside the limousine. He exchanged pleasantries and had some cold water to drink. After a few minutes, they said goodbye to each other. Steve went back to work in the hot sun and John left. All Steve’s co-workers were rather impressed and asked him enviously, ‘How do you know John?’ Steve replied, ‘Not only do I know him, but both John and I started working together in this company, on the same day at the same position twenty-five years ago.’ Everyone was left even more surprised. They asked Steve, ‘How is it that both of you started working on the same day at the same position twenty-five years ago, and you are still working out in the hot sun and he has become the president of the company?’
The answer Steve gave says it all. He said, ‘Twenty-five years ago, John started working for the company and I started working for a dollar and twenty-eight cents an hour.’
No wonder, John rose up to become the president and Steve was still working as a laborer. John took ownership. He had a larger picture in mind—he worked towards making the company grow bigger rather than making only himself grow. He understood that the more he contributed towards the growth of the company, the more he would grow.

“Achievers Take Ownership And Become Unstoppable”

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Tame Your Time

“Achievers think in terms of seconds and minutes, non-achievers think in terms of hours and days.”

I wish I had more time—I bet we all have said this at some point in our lives.

• What if we had twenty-five hours in a day, or twenty-six?
• What would we do with those one or two extra hours?
• How would we utilize them?

Take a moment to jot down your answers — in your notes or on paper.
If you skip this step and keep reading, you might miss out on the real impact of this exercise!

Myths about Time Management

Myth 1:
Is there anything called time management? The answer is, ‘no’. Why?
Whenever we waste time, what are we wasting? We are wasting our lives.
Most people don’t waste time. They only waste their lives.
Time management is only a name given to life management.

Myth 2:
We keep hearing, ‘Time comes and goes away.’ Again, it is not true. Why?
Because time is eternal. We come and go away.

Time Wasted is Life Wasted

Just the way we can only do two things with money; Money can be used or abused, invested or spent.
Invested money gives a return, spent money is lost forever.
Similarly, we can only do two things with time.
TIME can be either invested or spent.
For example:

Invested	Spent
Education and health	Unnecessary socialising
Skill and self-development	Idling away watching TV
Relationship building	Social media binge

“If we waste time, time will waste us”

Why is time more precious than money?

• Time invested can create money, money invested cannot create time.
• Money can be borrowed, stolen, or transferred; time cannot be bought, sold, traded, or transferred.
• Money can go and come back. Time cannot.
• Money can be gifted, but time cannot be.
• Money fluctuates but, time does not.
• We can measure money-balance till the last penny, but time-balance cannot be measured. Nobody knows how much time balance we are left with.

Make a Habit of Doing It Now
He slept beneath the moon
He basked beneath the sun
He lived a life of going to do
And died with nothing done.
– James Albery

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Make Decisions

In order to get started effectively in the journey of life we need to define:
1. Our values
2. The quality of life for which we need to make wise decisions
Make timely decisions and take timely actions.
But before we start playing the game, we should decide three things:
1. The rules
2. The stakes
3. The time to quit

Assumptions Mess Up Decisions

Once the Chairman of a billion-dollar company was to hire a CEO. After the initial screening process and series of interviews, their HR Headshortlisted one person who was well qualified in his opinion. The stage was set for him to get the letter of appointment. It was customary for the chairman to hand over the letter at a special lunch. After they were seated comfortably, they both ordered soup. When the soup was served, the prospective CEO started sprinkling salt on his soup without tasting it. The lunch was over and nobody spoke about the letter of appointment. They shook hands and parted with the Chairman’s words, ‘Our HR will be in touch.’ Upon his return, the Chairman informed the HR Head that the candidate was rejected. Everyone was surprised, but who could question the Chairman’s decision? The HR Head, out of inquisitiveness, asked the Chairman just so he could understand the reason for the rejection of the preferred candidate. The chairman narrated the entire incident of the luncheon meeting and said, ‘I question the maturity of the decision-making ability of a person who would add salt without first tasting his food. Why would a person do that? What kind of decision is this? I can understand somebody adding salt after tasting his soup, but I cannot understand adding salt without tasting it. This just shows that he took a decision without getting his facts right in the first place. The question is, is he the kind of person we want to head our organization? If not, then we are heading for disaster.’ The HR Head asked, ‘Do such little things matter?’ The Chairman said, ‘Do you really think this is little? If this is little in your opinion, you should be the next to go.’

The moral of the Chairman’s message is very clear:
1. Get your facts right before taking a decision.
2. Do not make assumptions as this impairs your decision-making ability.

Every morning we wake up and whether we realize it or not, we make hundreds of decisions including which side of the bed we want to get to, what clothes we want to wear, what breakfast to eat, which route to take to the office, etc.

Why don’t people take decisions? It’s due to the fear of making a mistake or making a wrong decision. Hence, they maintain a status quo, or in other words, do nothing. They become inactive not realizing that, in life, we are not only penalized for our actions, but also our inactions. Inaction leads to indecision. Whether we realize it or not, indecision is also a decision by default. I decide not to decide. That’s what it means.
The window of opportunity does not remain open forever. It requires the right decision at the right time.
Indecision is called mental paralysis, which comes out of a lack of confidence, a non-committal nature, and sitting on the fence. A successful life is full of decisions.

A journalist asked a very successful business executive, ‘What is the secret of your success?’
He said, ‘Two words—good decisions.’
Then the journalist asked, ‘How did you learn how to make good decisions?’
The business tycoon said, ‘One word—experience.’
So the journalist asked, ‘How did you get the experience to make good decisions?’
He said, ‘Two words—bad decisions.’

Successful people don’t look to avoid making decisions. When we take ownership, decision-making becomes easier.

Have a Vision!

Vision is the ability to see the invisible.
If we can see the invisible, we can achieve the impossible.
All great achievers had a vision as well as the ability to see the invisible.
Vision is the starting point for any accomplishment.
A visionary person is the one who can see what others cannot.
People with narrow vision can never be large-hearted.
People with narrow spirits can never achieve big things in life.

It is said that Walt Disney wanted to create Disney World in Orlando, USA. Construction went full steam ahead, but before the opening, Walt Disney died. On the opening day, two of the executives were talking between themselves and one said, ‘Too bad Walt Disney is not alive to see all this.’ The other replied, ‘He already saw all this, that’s why you and I are here.’

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So that’s it for this part! I hope you like it.
It’s not the end but just the start!
I’ll write the next part ASAP.
Till then, keep learning and stay positive!