Whom Do You Take Advice From?

Whom Do You Take Advice From?

We all are surrounded by people who love to give advice; all you need is to just introduce your challenge or your idea. Most of the time we as an Entrepreneurs take home their advice and start implementing it in our business.

The people offering advice are not bad people. But they are just a bunch of unsuccessful people who love to give advice on the first opportunity. Every individual knows what the other person should and should not do. But when it comes to their success they don’t have the slightest clue where their own life is headed.

The ideas that they churn out are based on their experience of what they know or on what they have read. They themselves have not done anything on the topic that they are talking about. These people can really be dangerous and we should stop ourselves from approaching these guys for advice.

We should search out and take advice from people who have achieved the success that we aspire to achieve. Listening to people who are still struggling will make you only a struggler in your business.

Look out for people who can actually take your business to the next level of growth. 

To Your Exponential Growth

Rakesh Prasad

The Maverick

Here's How You Can Take Better Decisions

Hi, Welcome back!

I sincerely believe that you have written the thoughts that were running in your mind when you took that one decision that you thought was going to turn right, but it went sour.

Now, if our poor decisions are based on illusions that we believed in, then what are better decisions based on?

Here it is: ‘Our better decisions are based on realities that we recognized before it was too late.’

Interesting, isn’t it?

But we never look at our realities because they are blunt and harsh. They stare at our face speaking the truth. They make us feel uncomfortable.

Illusions on the other hand are like fairy tales. In a world of illusion everything that happens is full of abundance and prosperity. This is the reason we are instantly attracted to it.

Let me share with you how living in illusion can hamper your life: 

I knew this gentleman who wanted to be a producer in the film industry. He met a C - Grade actor who promised to make him a producer. The actor created an illusion in the mind of the producer that he knew big financers who will join hands with the producer to launch a product. The aspiring producer believed him.

Almost every weekend this C - Grade actor would bring along with him couple of C - Grade actresses to the house of this aspiring producer and in the name of story sitting he would ask the producer to prepare lavish dinner. The poor producer from morning will get into the process of preparing dinner.

What he did not realize that he was getting trapped into a vicious web of illusion created by this C - Grade actor.

The weeks turned into months and the months into years, the financers never turned up but the party at the producer’s house and at his expense kept on going.

What wrong did the aspiring producer do?

He made a decision to believe that C - Grade actor that one day he will make him a producer of films.

His decisions were made on the illusions that his mind created for him based on the false promises that the actor gave him.

The aspiring producer thought that his illusions were going to be realities.

Realities which never materialized.

If this aspiring producer had known how to take better decisions he would have seen through the illusion and had saved his time, money and energy that he wasted running behind that illusion.

The fact of the matter is that every person at one point or other in their lives has taken a wrong decision. But they keep on taking wrong decisions because they fail to learn from their wrong decisions.

It is never too late.

We cannot undo our past but surely we can improve our future with better decisions.

We can become better decision makers.

Thereby, we have the power to convert our past loses into profits that can be even ten times the loses we incurred by taking a wrong decision.

The best way to become a great decision maker is to develop the capability to differentiate illusion from reality and take decisions based on reality. All decisions based on reality may not be true but then we are ready to commit a mistake, learn from it and then move ahead to take another decision.

So, what decision are you taking today?

Dial ‘D’ for Decision

Every day we face the challenge of taking decisions. Whether we like it or not, we have to take decisions. The decisions we take can be regarding our professional life or of our personal life. Whatever the case may be but we cannot escape from taking decisions on a daily basis. The quality of our decisions in turn affects the future of our lives.

Like, if we take a poor or a wrong decision it makes us unhappy and can lead us into severe depression.

The question that I want you to ask yourself is:

‘Why do we make poor or incorrect decisions?’

It is not that we consciously make poor decisions. Nobody likes any of their decisions to go wrong; yet most often than not it does.

Once a wrong decision is made by us what do we do?

We start looking at outside factors to blame for our wrong decisions. Most of us might even go to the extent of blaming the neighbor’s wife or even the government for the wrong decisions that we have taken.

Instead of blaming the world we can do better things that can help us grow in life.

To start with we should ask ourselves: ‘Where have I gone wrong?’; ‘What can I do now to change my situation?’; ‘What did I learn from my wrong decision and can I learn to make better decisions in future?’

The great news is that yes, we can really do something about our decision making capability by learning the right way to take decisions in our day to day life situations.

But first let us understand few more aspects about incorrect decisions.

When we go into flashback and look back at our lives, we can see some of the mistakes that we made while taking any decision that went wrong. The mistake can be of looking at just the positive side of the outcome.

Making a decision is just like falling in love with the outcome. When two people fall in love they just focus on the good things of their partner and even though they see some of the not so good traits they choose to ignore it. It is only after they get into relation the not so good traits come in the foreground and it dawns on the partner that after all the decision was not right.

But when we were on the verge of taking the decision everything seemed so right, that is the reason we took that decision. Isn’t it?

Then what went wrong?

Why did my decision fail?

While working to figure out the answer to these questions, I came across a very obvious thought.

Here it is: ‘Our poor decisions are based on illusions on which we strongly believed at the time of taking the decision.’

Just rewind and think of any one decision that went wrong in your life:

What were your thoughts before you made that decision?

How did you feel about it?

Think hard, wasn’t it all an illusion?

Once again, just stop for awhile and study one decision of yours that went wrong. Don’t pity yourself for taking that wrong decision. Analyze it.

Try to remember what was going on in your mind before taking that decision?

Write it down. Stop reading and write it down, what was that one or many thoughts that were going on in your mind before you took that wrong decision?

C’mon do it now.

You don’t have to share this with anybody. Nobody is going to judge you and punish you. So be sincere and honest with your self. Write down each and everything you thought while you were in the process of taking that decision which went wrong.

I know it is painful to remember your past mistakes. I have also gone through a lot of pain to write down what made me take those wrong decisions that almost cost me my life. But it is necessary to understand what we did, so that we are well prepared to learn what we could have done.

Once again, I ask you to stop reading this and take your diary and write down what was that one or many thoughts that were going on in your mind before you took that wrong decision?

You will have to go to my next post after you finish writing.

So, see you there!

Are You Playing the Role of A Caretaker?

As an entrepreneur, we all have to deal with lots of people. They are our internal customers – employees; and external customers – people who give us business.

The question is: Do you take good care of everyone? Do you take pride in taking care of people around you?

In short, have you become a Caretaker?

If the answer is ‘Yes’, then you are in trouble.

I had this young guy as my assistant for more than five years. I treated him like family; I trained him and took good care of his personal needs. I became his caretaker and took pride in it. I shared my business and about my clients with him.

What did he do in return? He stole my concepts and approached my own clients with the same concepts claiming that it was his.

It was a shock for me. I reacted like a normal human being – I was angry!

But when I calmed down and started thinking about his behavior and my behavior towards him I realized that I cannot take care of everybody or even anybody for that matter. I might want the person to change for his betterment but the person might not want to change. I put in all my efforts and take out time to help a person but the person doesn’t want to be “helped”.  He feels happy with his life’s condition.

Today I no longer take initiative to help others. I have learned my lesson the hard way.

Instead what do I do?

I have changed my attitude and have become like a moving light house. Whoever comes in contact the only way I help them is by showing them the path that will lead them to their goals and then I step aside.

They have to become their own caretaker, I refuse to become theirs!!

How Regularly Do You have Coffee with Your Role Model?

Want to hang out and have coffee with Mahatma Gandhi, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.?

The first thing you do is go out and get their books.

Sit down with a cup of Coffee and the book of your role model and read it. Reading the book of your role model is like having a conversation with him. You get to get behind the mind of the author, learn what made him do what he did and how he became for what you look up to him.

It's like: When you enter a coal mine you cannot come out without some coal rubbing off on you. The coal will leave a mark on your body. Similar is the case with great books. The brilliance, the greatness of the book is bound to rub off on you and when you put down a great book after you have finished reading it, you will never be the same again.

Since last twenty years I have been having coffee with great minds like Anthony Robbins, Jack canfield, Jib Rohn, Zig Ziglar and many more in the comfort of my home.

And let me tell you, it really works!

So, with whom are you having Coffee today?