Success comes with a Great Vision

“Every business and household must have a computer and must run Microsoft software”, was the basic guiding vision of Bill Gates. When everyone in the world were not even aware of the software industry’s future here was a man who trusted on his gut feel and passion decided to take the vision the farthest possible way. He was almost there achieving his vision. This clear vision of him won him several laurels and went to be the richest person in the world for 13 continuous long years.

“Do what you are Passionate about, the rest will Follow” – Praveen Sherman

This is something that I learnt from Bill Gates even as an young lad. I grew up seeing the success of Bill Gates and I was for a long time under the impression that he was just making lots of money by luck. But what Bill Gates proved was different. There is no one who could write software code as he could. When as a student at the Harvard university, every single student would have wanted to be part of the great institute and graduate to be successful, Bill Gates decided to stop studying and pursue his dream of writing softwares for every computer in the world. Just started the agreement between IBM and Microsoft, Gates along with friend Paul Allen was to write an interpreter for the IBM PC. He was not ready on the date that was announced for the installation and the good news for Gates was that the party at the other end too were not ready. This got the fire in him to write that piece of software and bundle with every IBM computer in the world. He was just passionate about software, coding and technology that incidentally also made him the richest man in the world

“Intellectual property has the shelf life of a banana” says Bill Gates that has made him a great innovator too. Focusing on taking the computer to every single house hold made him an household name too.

Failures are learning lessons:

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” - Bill Gates

Bill Gates was never afraid of losing and went on to win a lot of deals because of this. While the Microsoft windows operating system is the widely used in the world, there are a good number of criticisms and unhappiness about the software among the users. While many of them used to get bugged using Microsoft products, Bill Gates did not easily give up. He took all those as nice lesson and is improving every single day. When critics were talking about infringement of laws by Bill Gates, he struck on and was giving the best the employees and the users of Microsoft Software products.

“It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” - Bill Gates

Higher the Self Esteem the better it gets

When you start achieving something big, there will be people who would want to make fun of your efforts, pull you down and so on. The stronger you stand the bolder you get the faster these negatives wither.

When IBM pulled out of the contract for the operating system to be bundled with the IBM Clone PCs, Bill Gates stayed on and started focusing on the creating Windows amidst lots of hiccups that will hamper the company. Inventing the MS Access database system, was a relevant owing to the failure of the Omega Database with IBM. He saw an opportunity at every single place that helped him to achieve greatest heights. He did not allow others to deter him by inventing many thins to the public and still reaching his top most Goals and vision.

“Whether it’s Google or Apple or free software, we’ve got some fantastic competitors and it keeps us on our toes” – Bill Gates

Opportunity knocks once:

Bill Gates took up the responsibility of being the Chief Software Architect, Bill Gates was nurturing Microsoft by building a broad range of products. This was not just capitalize on the knowledge but provide the best by understanding the need of the people. He did not sit back and wait for people to ask what they wanted and instead made a revolution of creating an opportunity for himself and his company by innovating. He did not sit and do something that anyone could, but he took the reins into his hands to almost single handedly take Microsoft to this great heights.

“I believe that if you show people the problems and you show them the solutions they will be moved to act.” – Bill Gates

Action Speaks Louder

This is one never mentioned secret of success. Action is the key word. When logic never drives us its emotions. We must have that emotional strength in us to take action. Bill Gates as a small young boy never had anything to lose which he kept telling his good friend Paul Allen. When he had several odds again him such as the American Law and several cases against him, he still consistently took action by developing more software which the people wanted. This made him a super star overnight. If not for Bill Gates, Microsoft would have not seen the light today of what it gets. This was because of his constant delivery of ideas to his Goals and vision.

He was a drop out from one of the worlds best universities the Harvard and not everyone from there went to achieve great heights like Bill Gates did, which proves the basic fact that education is just a tool for success and does not define success itself. During the convocation address at the Harvard university, Bill Gates mentioned that good he came when they were graduating and not when during the time when they joined the university else they would have changed their mind.

“We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don’t let yourself be lulled into inaction.” – Bill Gates

Trust- An unwritten rule for great leadership wisdom

Right from day 1 at Microsoft, Bill Gates was very open to the ideas. This he also proved later when Steve Balmer stepped into the shoes of Bill Gates and became the CEO of the company. He always believed that there is no end to learning from people, from books and so on. “I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think a great deal of that grew out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot”, says Bill Gates ready for more ideas to float around which will make sure that the same culture of innovation continues in Microsoft even without his presence.

“At Microsoft there are lots of brilliant ideas but the image is that they all come from the top - I’m afraid that’s not quite right.” – Bill Gates

Success must never get on to the head

This is by far the best lesson what we learn from Bill Gates. At a tender age of 21, Bill Gates had achieved many a things including having money and fame. This did not allow him to stop achieving and always had the drive to achieve great heights. “If I’d had some set idea of a finish line, don’t you think I would have crossed it years ago?” quote Bill Gates with utmost passion and determination.

“Microsoft is not about greed. It’s about Innovation and Fairness.” – Bill Gates

Never stop learning was the Mantra of Bill Gates which he follow till date. This empowers him to be a Great Leader of our times. He will always be remembers as an Icon and even without his presence in Microsoft he would still be regarded as a great inventor and a real genius in every regard of Business, Technology and Entrepreneurship.

Firstly, in a Game there is a Goal. Imagine in a game of soccer there are no Goal posts and how would the game be? It will be boring and every player of the game will have not motivation to win the game. The very fact of a Goal is to ensure that which direction every player must have to move and where to go so that they target victory.

Play Life Like a Game: Set GOALS to Motivate Yourself and Get the Drive of Life.

Every game cannot start without a Strategy. This will make the game worse and will not get the needed results. No guarantee that after having a strategy, you will get the desired results but you will at least have some measure to understand what went wrong or what went right and how to change the strategy so that you get the desired in your Next Attempt.

Play Life Like a Game: Plan Your STRATEGY to Achieve Your Results.

Is it that you start playing your life with just a Goal and a Strategy? Not all the time. In a game of soccer there are various positions and how does one decide the position? Based on the strengths of the person. If as an individual is excellent in Striking the ball then, they become the striker and start playing in the Forward positions. If an individual understands that they are only good at defending and can stop anyone from moving ahead of them, they become the Defense.

Life is very similar where you need to identify what are your strengths. You need to work towards understanding that what is that you are indispensible at. Not that every one invincible, but definitely you must atleast feel that way. You must carry the feeling that you are indispensible and carry on only with those activities where you think you can create the highest value.

There are many ways in which you can identify the strength or even create them. First one is simple, just check for yourself what is that you are strong at and what do you do well and then start focusing on that, master the same and take your life to the Next Step.

If you are yet to identify the strength, then look for what you are passionate about and spend most of your time in doing the same thereby it becomes your strength. Once it becomes your strength move towards excellence and make yourself Indispensible.

Answer these questions and you find the answer for your Strengths:

When you Feel at your Best?

What is that you are good at Teaching others?

What you Like the Most about Yourself?

What are your friends, Parents and Others Proud of You for?

Strength is a combination of skill, knowledge and attitude. While we spend most of the time on developing our skills and improving our knowledge, we never look at having a better attitude. The attitude that I am good at something and I can do my best in that area is something that we need to develop more. The certainty is the most important feel that we must have to so that we can handle anything in life!

David Beckham, class player understood his passion and his strength and went out to be a successful soccer star. In your life too, you must carry the same momentum once you identify your strengths.

So Start Your Life, Play it Like a GAME!

I always wanted to find out what it takes to be an Entrepreneur and a Great Leader. The most fitting person was Ms. Vandana of the The Banyan. Having a “Bigger Purpose” of helping the society and also wanting to build an organization around the same purpose is not dreamt of by many people and she was a visionary. Starting with her friend Vaishnavi (See below for her interview) Vandana, carved a niche for herself and went to be a great leader.

She has mentioned in the interview that “A leader must attract respect”. We went on to discuss about lots of things, like how to motivate employees and so! Listen to it and drop in your comments.

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There is another set of people who say that “I have been wanting to achieve lot of things in life but I don’t feel to have that fire, determination and will to achieve”.

Like I always say, the Mind, Body and Soul must have to act in tandem and achieve excellence in life. When you are not able to find a solution to achieve something in life, it is because that you do not find the congruence of the mind, body and soul. Why do they not be in line? Simple, what drives us every day it not logic, but EMOTIONS.

So what are these emotions? Do you find a lot of people who work hard, travel a lot and have a lot of money, luxury and yet do not find the answer to the all persuasive question ‘Why am I doing this’.

Do this exercise: Write down the list of all the positive feeling, emotions that you would like to have in your life. What do you want in your life? What is most important for your in Life. List down at least 5 of them. (e.g. Career, Family, Health, Money and so on)
As you do it, also list down 5 things that you want to avoid in your life, what you would not want to have in your life (e.g. Embarrassment, failure and so on)

Look at the first list of what you want. Say for example, for you Family is very important in life, then everything that you do would be for them only. And in this situation if you were to not spend time with your family you may feel guilty about it. So there is no Congruence between the mind, body and soul. And hence you would feel drained and de-motivated to work on things.

In fact its these values that drives people to achieve things. It acts as a fuel to an engine. And if the fuel is not effective, the performance also is not great! Which means that if your values are not aligned then they do not act as a driving force but acts as friction while taking Action to reach your Goals.

If you find that the values do not match to what you want to achieve, then either change the values or understand yourself more and then based on that decide what you must have to do. This will be a big driving force for your every day where you can act with motivation and the fire in you!

“and my second question is how can i install belief from success people in an effective way , like for example there is no failure only feedback , but in a real that i would feel that as real , not as a great idea.”

I understand that you want to internalize these belief of Super Achievers. There are many ways of doing this.

1. Visualization: Whenever you want to install certain beliefs, you must have to visualize the same. For example when you want to internalize “There are no failures, only feedback”, you must first think of a time in the past when actually set a goal for yourself and you did not achieve it and hence it was a failure. Look the way you reacted to this event. You would have either treated it as a failure or you might have told yourself that “come on let me move on”. You would have internally voiced the belief that “there are no failures only feedback”. So you can intensify the same more and recall it many time till such time that you are completely sure and if you had not taken it in the same sense then you must have change the emotion inside of you and call it as a “Feedback” and see the way you change and adapt to the situation based on this. This is one of the best ways to internalize the beliefs.
2. Incantation: This is a powerful way to install beliefs. Incantation is the recital of words that will create a powerful effect in your subconscious mind. Incantation is done by repeating a particular phrase that you want to install in you and thereby internalize those much more stronger. Keep repeating the belief that you want to install as loud as you can. The moment you use your physiology (the body) and the mind the process of internalizing a belief is made faster.

Powerful Beliefs that you can carry which are also Pre-Suppositions of NLP are:

1. Past =/= Future
2. There are not failures only feedback
3. All of us have the same neurology, if it possible for others it is possible for me
4. Anything is possible it is the question of right strategy!

And Much More.I will be Discussing about this a lot in the upcoming days.Do visit the page and learn more.Also Don’t forget to let me know what do you think.

“No Money….No Experience…….”. Sounds familiar?? These are the very reasons or EXCUSES people give towards not living their Dreams. Can it get them somewhere??.

But there is a different set of People who say “So What???” loud and clear and act with their Strengths to achieve Success in their life. More importantly they live a fulfilled life and life rewards them with abundance. Listen to one such person, Vaishnavi Jayakumar of The Banyan (www.thebanyan.org). Vaishnavi is one such person for whom “Success is the only choice Left even for survival“. Listen to this amazing interview. Actually the conversation was so interesting that we went on and on. I just could not stop. Somehow I managed to present it to you in two parts. Listen to this and let me know your views.

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Where does this Change come from? A realization is all its takes to Change your Life. The change of Life is an Inner Journey. The heart, soul and mind in tandem decide what, when and how to Change. A small difference in the way we operate our mind and the inner self can make a huge difference in the quality of our lives. Life of Excellence is the race towards bringing about this change.

If you are bogged down with day to day Problems and Challenges that stop your growth in all areas of life, this is the place to be. Life of Excellence will help you to make smart choices in life, break through barriers of success and help you to continuously grown in all areas of life, career, business, health, wealth and knowledge.

Discover Ways to improve your Life! Using Powerful and Proven Simple techniques, Praveen Sherman will share with you the secrets of Success and Excellence. Expert Strategies to Change your Life that can be used immediately is the need of the hour. This being the Vision of Life of Excellence, Praveen’s creates a positive impact in the mindset of people.

I have thousand of hits every day and more than 60% of people write to me on how they use the techniques and strategies and got the right results. Wondering what happens to the remaining? They are passive onlookers who just read and do not participate in taking ACTION. Action defines Success and if you fall in that category of Onlookers, please do not waste your time here.

This is not to discourage you but that the fact of life! If you just dropped into to the website because someone referred you here, it means that they have had an impact in their life because of the techniques learnt and because they put into action. This just means that you too make the same difference in your life as long as you are interested to. So please do so…

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I Believe that however high you are in life, you need the push to produce results consistently. So this set of Leadership Lessons is created specially for you in an universal format (PDF).

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Few habits which I feel that you must have to develop (if you have not done so yet) that will for sure improve the quality of your life and take your like to the next level.

1. Be an Early Bird: I really mean it. The energy that surrounds you early in the morning is so refreshing that it gives you the momentum to go higher.I know there are a few of who say, “Hey listen I work late in the night and how do you expect me to wake up early in the morning”. If possible do change your schedule of working, else atleast wake up atleast 3 to 4 times in a week to start with. There is a specific reason why the Sun always rises in the east at a specific time in a day. We don’t need to understand the reason but just use it with the blind faith and belief that there is a purpose and will do a lot of good for us.

2. Move your Body and Exercise: Motion means emotion. Any super achiever is so because of the mental state they are in and the way you use and drive the body physiology determines the mental state you are in. if you feel lousy you can never step out to take action and action means results.Your body needs to be more tuned to your work, your breathing and your beat must be in harmony with the thoughts and action and the way to do so is by exercising. Take a brisk walk for 20 mins or practice yoga, play a game of tennis or volleyball.

3. Grow your Brain with Mental Activities: Read a book per week. Do your best to finish it or at read 20 pages every day. Once you do it for 3 days increase to 40 pages per day. Visit personal development websites like Life of Excellence.

4. Don’t Worry Be Happy:– The choice of being happy is always with you. There is no reason for you to celebrate and be happy. As you wake up in the morning just decide to be happy. Smile every day. For the first 4 hrs of the day whomever you meet, you must have to smile at them first even before you start work with them. A smile move a million cells, a thousand nerves and few hundred muscles and as said before motion creates emotion and would make you feel energetic and perform better.

5. Say thanks with a Sense of Gratitude: You must be thankful for many things that happen in your life. First thank yourself for what you are. As you do so your self esteem too increases. Thank the people around you for making a difference in your life. Your family, colleagues, friends and many more. Thank many unknown people who are making your life better. You might not have seen them but the person plants the tree which bears fruits makes a difference in your life. Do this every day in the morning and before bed. You would push yourself to achieve more.

6. Goals and Small tasks for the week: I am sure you would have seen my video on achieving Goals in 2008.Once you have the bigger goals, you must have to chunk them down to smaller tasks. This will make you achieve your targets faster and makes it achievable. Small tasks are always easy to achieve.

7. Action towards goals and strategies: Failure is not when you do not get the results you want. Failure is when you do not take action. Once you set your goal, if you do not take any action on that I don’t think you would ever achieve it. Kill Procrastination this moment (Listen to my audio on Kill Procrastination). Successful people are so not because they were lucky. Have that momentum in you so that you can move faster to achieve what you want.

8. Spend time with Successful people, Energetic people: I believe that if you surrounded with energetic people you too tend to be energetic. If you move with wealthy people you too carry the same mindset. Many times you hang out with friends and you tend to have the same ideas as theirs.You have common likes and dislikes. Have certain common attitude about things. Can you do the same in the area you want to excel? If you want to be healthy move with people who care about fitness they will talk about your body, the food you take and so on and then you too become aware of the external world around you. If you wish to be a successful entrepreneur you must move with the like minded people. If you want to be a great public speaker, you must have to be with people who are excellent in that area. So start now, catch hold of people who are the best in the area you want to excel in, make friends with them and spend more time with them.

9. Watch the calendar, be more organized: I believed always, an unorganized person can only attract unorganized and unexpected results. You can achieve anything in life as long as you have the strategy. Your outcomes have to be time bound and achievable. I know how difficult it is for your follow time table but remember what happened in school. Your teachers followed a specific schedule so that she can give the best you and achieve the outcomes. If you need to achieve the outcomes then you too need to be organized. Life definitely has become easy today with all the automated beepers, schedulers etc. I have also shared some tools on Time Management and listen to the Podcast on Time Management.

10. Eat Healthy, Feel Healthy: Remember your body determines the actions that you take. How it would it be when you stuff yourself with all possible foods, junk, high calorie food? You go on a party and since it has to be enjoyed, you eat whatever you feel like. You wake up in the morning how do you feel? Never feel like getting up from the bed. A day of this happening is fine and if the same happens everyday what kind of results can you produce? It is better to eat right. Eat right and feel great. You must eat to feel energetic. And all that you need is a small, balanced light meal.

11. Keep up your Money Matters: Is this a habit that you must develop? Definitely yes! You ruin yourself because you do not manage your money matters in the right way. Never spend more than what you want. Start using a chart to analyze your saving, your expenses. Target to reduce your expenses and increase your savings. Now why? Is it to have a better life? Probably yes but even more important thing that you must do is to avoid wasting money and use it for a better purpose. Give it to charity and the satisfaction that you will achieve is much more than you owing a Mercedes Benz. If you wish to help under privileged, orphaned children for education you can visit www.onlysuccessfoundation.org (A 100% non profit organization) where I participate actively.

12. Family Time: If you need to energize yourself then you need to spend time where there is lot of love. The place where you can get this is at home and no where else. Have a small time with family every week when you sit together and make decision relating to the entire family. You can follow the technique that is explained by Mr. Jack Canfield (Author of best seller Chicken Soup for the soul), in his book Power of Focus. Grade the family members on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being least and 10 being high. Tell them why you grade them so. What nice things they did and what did they not do and so on. You might think in family do I evaluate? What happens is there is lots of transparency between every member in the family.This makes sure that the communication is better between you and every one in the family. The love, care for them would definitely increase and they would feel more connected as they know more of you and you know lots of them.

13. Pursue your Hobby: Passion always gives motivation. Do something you love and you would be motivated to do more of everything. Your stamp book might be in the cupboards, the paint brushes need to be dusted. Start tomorrow (why not today, you can). Never say you are bored, you don’t have time. They are just excuses.

14. Throw out your lame thoughts: This is probably the best habit that you must have to develop. You run too many thoughts and most of them are negative. Apart from being a positive thinker begin to focus on things that are useful for you that would drive you achieve more. Do listen to my podcast on Power of Subconscious mind where I share more on what is the power of your mind that would affect the results in your life. Throw the junk away from your mind so that you will be stronger in your life. Garbage is not good and hence dispose them from your mind. Its as easy as focusing on something nice.

With these 14 habits that you develop, you can be 100% sure that your life will be much better.