Next Inspiring posts

I found it interesting and useful podcasts.

Every Problem is an Opportunity
Work with Smart People
Creativity Loves Constraint
Think Big and Act Small
Learning from Failure
Luck and Success

I did come across some interesting VC sites 84ideas.com. Web Strategy firm. Check out the below two interesting posts on Basic Website communication Framework V 1.0 and Web Strategy

Updated 17/01/10

Do not let others decide for you
Changing Your Personality Traits
How to Stop Being a People Pleaser
Good Decision Making Strategies
Leaving Your Comfort Zone
Visibility, the art of being noticed.

Get Inspired

"Admire-Aspire-Inspire".. "Learn-Share-Grow"....

For MSFT Interviews I was asked to check site careercup.com by most of my colleagues. Gayle Laakmann is the person who runs the site. She also runs a blog. Lots of Interesting and inspiring stuff posted in her blog

3 Business Ideas: Experiment Often, Carefully, and Singly
Top 10 Best Microsoft Interview Questions
Why I left Google

Kinds of Friendship

A Nice Article which distinguishes kinds of friendship and clear examples link

Garden of Mind - James Allen

Page 50 of James Allen Book "Garden of Mind" Carries a beautiful learning. Learn to overcome the obstacles we face in our surroundings. Great Words....Need to Practice..its worth to understand its the fact...

Outward conditions are necessary for our development and only by meeting and overcoming them you can grow, learn and ripen.

Why relationships a Nice Video from Sadhguru link

Quotable Quotes

"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful." - Albert Schweitzer

"If you're winning, you don't need them. And if you're losing, they can't help you."

"A paper flying in air is due to luck…… But, a bird flying in air is its effort. So, be a bird and struggle with hurdles to become successful person.."

"A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes -Hugh Downs"

"The happiest people don't have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything they have..."

"Your Job tests what’s in your head. Life tests what’s in your heart."

Don't look to money for happiness

A good news I read it in link

Important words to quote out here
  • Pleasure is not happiness because it doesn't last.
  • Other people can't make you happy -- only you can do that.
  • And while you may think a permanent vacation will make you very happy indeed, it likely wouldn't, he says.
  • Happy people are those who have a sense of meaning and purpose in their lives and a life of endless leisure won't provide that. 

Why do you expect people to change as per your expectation

I found this Zen Story Inspiring.

The Turtles

A turtle family decided to go on a picnic. Turtles, being naturally slow about things, took seven years to prepare for their outing. Finally the turtle family left home looking for a suitable place. During the second year of their journey they found a place ideal for them at last!

For about six months they cleaned the area, unpacked the picnic basket, and completed the arrangements. Then they discovered they had forgotten the salt. A picnic without salt would be a disaster, they all agreed. After a lengthy discussion, the youngest turtle was chosen to retrieve the salt from home. Although he was the fastest of the slow moving turtles, the little turtle whined, cried, and wobbled in his shell. He agreed to go on one condition: that no one would eat until he returned. The family consented and the little turtle left.

Three years passed and the little turtle had not returned. Five years... six years... then on the seventh year of his absence, the oldest turtle could no longer contain his hunger. He announced that he was going to eat and begun to unwrap a sandwich. At that point the little turtle suddenly popped out from behind a tree shouting, "See! I knew you wouldn't wait. Now I am not going to go get the salt."

Some of us waste our time waiting for people to live up to our expectations. We are so concerned about what others are doing that we don't do anything ourselves.

Quotes for the Day!!

"Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway." — Eleanor Roosevelt


"I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday" — Eleanor Roosevelt

"Life is what you make it. Always has been, always will be. " — Eleanor Roosevelt

Leo Tolstoy Inspiring Short Stories

I found below 3 stories inspiring and interesting..

God Sees the Truth, But Waits

Work, Death, and Sickness

How Much Land Does a Man Need?

Beautiful Life Quotes

"Try and expect nothing,
but be OPEN for anything.
Don't look far for happiness,
but never settle for anything less."

"People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be." — Abraham Lincoln

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." — John Lennon

"We love the things we love for what they are." — Robert Frost

"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself." — Robert Frost

"These woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep." — Robert Frost

""You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough"" — Mae West

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined." — Henry David Thoreau

""The best way out is always through."" — Robert Frost

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." — Eleanor Roosevelt

"Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people." — Eleanor Roosevelt

"If someone betrays you once, it’s their fault; if they betray you twice, it’s your fault." — Eleanor Roosevelt

To make money we lose our health, and then to restore our health we lose our money..We live as if we are never going to die, and we die as if we never lived..

Recharge Your Mind

Recharge Your Mind site has two good articles worth reading.

How To Increase Happiness
4 Tips to Practice Mindfulness

Notable Quotes

[This one is excellent quote] - A small trouble is like a pebble. Hold it too close to your eye and it fills the whole world and puts everything out of focus. Hold it at a proper distance and it can be examined and properly classified. Throw it at your feet and it can be seen in its true setting, just one more tiny bump on the pathway to life. - Celia Luce


Feeling happy and feeling good is a choice that we make

Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn’t stop to enjoy it. ~William Feather

Kiss your life. Accept it, just as it is. Today. Now. So that those moments of happiness you’re waiting for don’t pass you by.

What really leads to Success

Richard St. John's 8 secrets of success

Beautiful lines to note
"Do it for love money comes anway"
"Get Damn Good at It"
"Focus on one thing"
"Shyness and Selfdoubt - Get rid of it"
"Ideas, Ideas, Ideas"
"Persistence through failure, CRAP - Find more in Video"

Beautiful Quotes from Mark Twain

"Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it." — Mark Twain

"Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow." — Mark Twain

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." — Mark Twain

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." — Mark Twain

Beautiful Quotes by Helen Keller

Couple of interesting quotes I found in goodread site

 "When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us." — Helen Keller

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart" — Helen Keller

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved." — Helen Keller
 
"Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them; but do not let them master you. Let them teach you patience, sweetness, insight." — Helen Keller
 
"Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows." — Helen Keller
 
"Change: A bend in the road is not the end of the road…Unless you fail to make the turn. " — Helen Keller

Money is not Happiness !!

I got answer from the link. It is practical. I like the below paragraph

"By and large, money buys happiness only for those who lack the basic needs. Once you pass an income of $50,000, more money doesn’t buy much more happiness, [according to a happiness studies]."

Money matters but less than people think


:) :) .....

Inspiring Zen Stories

Please do check 10 good Zen Stories Here
Below two are nice stories from link

1. A Cup of Tea

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen. Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"
"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"

2. The Burden
Two monks were returning to the monastery in the evening. It had rained and there were puddles of water on the road sides. At one place a beautiful young woman was standing unable to walk accross because of a puddle of water. The elder of the two monks went up to a her lifted her and left her on the other side of the road, and continued his way to the monastery.
In the evening the younger monk came to the elder monk and said, "Sir, as monks, we cannot touch a woman ?" The elder monk answered "yes, brother".
Then the younger monk asks again, "but then Sir, how is that you lifted that woman on the roadside ?"
The elder monk smiled at him and told him " I left her on the other side of the road, but you are still carrying her."


I took it from the above link mentioned, Thanks to the blog author.

A good forward I got to motivate myself

The Japanese have always loved fresh fish. But the waters close to Japan have not held many fish for decades. So to feed the Japanese population, fishing boats got bigger and went farther than ever. The farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring in the fish. If the return trip took more than a few days, the fish were not fresh. The Japanese did not like the taste.

To solve this problem, fishing companies installed freezers on their boats. They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea. Freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer. However, the Japanese could taste the difference between fresh and frozen and they did not like frozen fish. The frozen fish brought a lower price. So fishing companies installed fish tanks. They would catch the fish and stuff them in the tanks, fin to fin.
After a little thrashing around, the fish stopped moving. They were tired and dull, but alive. Unfortunately, the Japanese could still taste the difference. Because the fish did not move for days, they lost their fresh-fish taste. The Japanese preferred the lively taste of fresh fish, not sluggish fish.
So how did Japanese fishing companies solve this problem? How do they get fresh-tasting fish to Japan?
To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies still put the fish in the tanks. But they also add a small shark to each tank. The shark eats a few fish, but most of the fish arrive in a very lively state. The fish are challenged.
Have you realized that some of us are also living in a pond but most of the time tired & dull, so we need a Shark in our life to keep us awake and moving? Basically in our lives Sharks are new challenges to keep us active and lively.....

What is Recession Exactly? - One More Good Forward I got

What is Recession Exactly?


This story is about a man who once upon a time was selling Hotdogs by the roadside. He was illiterate, so he never read newspapers.. He was hard of hearing, so he never listened to the radio. His eyes were weak, so he never watched television. But enthusiastically, he sold lots of hotdogs. He was smart enough to offer some attractive schemes to increase his sales. His sales and profit went up. He ordered more a more raw material and buns and sold more. He recruited more supporting staff to serve more customers. He started offering home deliveries. Eventually he got himself a bigger and better stove. As his business was growing, the son, who had recently graduated from college, joined his father.

Then something strange happened.

The son asked, "Dad, aren't you aware of the great recession that is coming our way?" The father replied, "No, but tell me about it." The son said, "The international situation is terrible. The domestic situation is even worse. We should be prepared for the coming bad times."

The man thought that since his son had been to college, read the papers, listened to the radio and watched TV. He ought to know and his advice should not be taken lightly. So the next day onwards, the father cut down the his raw material order and buns, took down the colorful signboard, removed all the special schemes he was offering to the customers and was no longer as enthusiastic. He reduced his staff strength by giving layoffs. Very soon, fewer and fewer people bothered to stop at his Hotdog stand. And his sales started coming down rapidly and so did the profit. The father said to his son, "Son, you were right". "We are in the middle of a recession and crisis. I am glad you warned me ahead of time."

Moral of the Story: It's all in your MIND! And we actually FUEL this recession much more than we think.

Mindset - Nice Forward


TWO WOLVES - This is probably the best I have ever heard life explained!!

One more story I got in one of my groups in my office

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all.

"One is Evil - It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. "The other is Good - It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed"

Heaven and Hell, The Real Difference

Heaven and Hell, The Real Difference

Ann Landers

A man spoke with the Lord about heaven and hell. The Lord said to the man, "Come, I will show you hell."

They entered a room where a group of people sat around a huge pot of stew. Everyone was famished,
desperate and starving. Each held a spoon that reached the pot, but each spoon had a handle so much longer than their own arm that it could not be used to get the stew into their own mouths.

The suffering was terrible. "Come, now I will show you heaven," the Lord said after a while.

They entered another room, identical to the first - the pot of stew, the group of people, the same long-handled spoons. But there everyone was happy and well-nourished.

"I don't understand," said the man. "Why are they happy here when they were miserable in the other room and everything was the same?"

The Lord smiled.

"Ah, it is simple," he said. "Here they have learned to feed each other."

Good Advice from Steve Jobs Apple CEO

I have bookmarked Steve Jobs, Apple CEO graduation speech at stanford. Its good. Please check it.

One More Azim Premji: 'Take charge of your career destiny'

New List of Quotes

From quotes listed here, my favourite list

“Fall seven times, Stand up eight.” - Japanese Proverb

“Energy and persistence conquer all things. “ - Benjamin Franklin

“Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.” - Tony Robbins

“Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successfull personality and duplicate it.” - Bruce Lee
"Fight for you. Believe in you. Bleed. Cry. Conquer - Dan Waldschmidt"