Make your Competition Irrelevant!

Howdy my fellow Readers.

I am taking this time to write something I stumbled upon recently. After digging deep into it and decided that this is worth writing. What is it? well it is something that made me to think twice on how I handle challenges in Life, both personal and professional.

Lets go to the Topic "Make your Competition Irrelevant" this is an adaptation of so called the "The Blue Ocean Strategy". Business who thrive in success have this characteristic in how they do business, rather than competing in the market they create new markets of fresh Revenue. According to "Renée Mauborgne" there is an indefinite pattern how they do business in the market place. The thinking process of this strategy is much different than typical business models. One Great example that comes to mind is Apple Inc. Steve Job's passion to be different and unique has driven the company a Multi Billion Dollar Business and making its customer loyal to the products. They have made competition irrelevant. That is a very powerful statement to make.

I encourage my fellow readers to do some research on this method of strategy, this thinking process can have a viable out come, I strongly believe. 

Please check out this Video and see if you are the Innovator you ought to be :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rwsuXHA7RA

Humility! is it a key ingredient for success?

Greetings from Sri Lanka to my fellow readers!

Is Humility an ingredient for the road of success in a persons life? Well this is what I have to say about, Absolutely YES! Why do I say that, well in all my experiences life has shown me I have seen this trait in all the very successful people I have met.

Let me share you with an instance where I met Mr. Ken Balendran, he is one of the most renowned business personal in Sri Lanka. I had the opportunity to fix his computer at his house, back then I was working as a computer technician. His desktop computer was not connecting to the internet thus he had called for help and there I was.

The housemaid escorted me to the study room and directed me to the faulty computer, initially Mr. Ken was not to be seen. I was overwhelmed to see his study room. All those medals and achievements in the world of business. I came to an understanding that he is a person with an unbelievable wealth and recognition. However after sometime there he was the Great Mr. Ken. What a presence of reverence and integrity. Without any hesitation he engaged with me for a conversation, I was surprised that man of such success and high presence in society would have a casual chat with a person like me.

I knew this was the best and maybe the only opportunity for me to have a conversation with the great Mr. Ken. The conversation lasted maybe 10 mins all he asked was how I came to the field of computers and how I had joined this company. It was inspiring and his passion for persuasion was clearly seen in his story of success. It was so contagious, I saw my self being him one day.

Well what am I trying to tell is that he demonstrated the "Interest to Purpose" in me. He actually communicated with me in a very personal way where at the end of the conversation he has demonstrated the humility he has on a person regardless of the background.

Humility is when you are prepared to learn and connect with the other person regardless of your status or his status. If you closely look at people with traits are constantly "Learning Adapting and Comprehending" isn't this true!

One can argue that Humility can be taken for granted as weakness of a person. Let me tell you this, if you know who you are, no one can define what they think about you. If you be yourself and be content of what you are there is nothing that can make you feel weak. 

Finally let me leave with you a Quote that I found very true to be in my life "Pride is concerned who is right, Humility is concerned in what is right" - Ezra Benton.

You certainly can be successful without humility but you will never enjoy your success without humility. - Damian :-)

Cheers

Are you a super Hero?

Greetings my fellow Readers,

It has been awhile since I have written anything, much has happened and I have earned valuable experiences that time has shown me. They say "Time is a healer" it is very true. It does mold you and make you to be stronger than the day, the hour, and the minute that has passed.

What can I say, all the secret struggle all the secret pain all the secret tears has finally turned into the life I envied in my dreams to be the reality I am now. When I look back at the rugged life, I am amazed how God can do so much of change in a person’s life. He has always been the director of the movie I am in, titled Life!

When you keep fighting all your life to just to make it, keeping your head up is not easy, sometimes it feels impossible. However if you don't face your trouble, pain and all the hurt you will not be able to see the tracks you have paved through to be the Super Hero you have become. 

I have learned and experienced that with you it’s one person but if God is with you then you are the Majority. Who can come against you :-) Amen!

Today I want to share a beautiful story of two kids who just wanted to eat a Pizza! It sounds just a simple thing right. But wait till I tell you the story... This heart whelming story is taken from true events. I saw this on a Tamil Movie I watched recently "Kaaka Muttai".

The story starts showing how two brothers who live in the poorest place in the city of one of the Indian States, Chennai. The slumps is their home, living in just one small room. They share it with their Father, Mother and Grandmother. They live life care free. 

One fine day, the kids witness an opening ceremony of a Pizza Restaurant, with great curiosity they find out that a Pizza Cost 300 rupees (about 5 US Dollars). This sum is not affordable, not even their parents can give.

So these kids decide to earn this money by working. They save 10 rupees per day, they collect coal rubbles from railway tracks and sell them. It’s a hard job but their will to eat that Pizza makes them invincible. Finally they collect the money, the big day has come. So they approach the Pizza restaurant, however the security guard stops them entering the restaurant he chases them away. The kids are upset and ask one of their friends why they have been chased out. The kids find out because they look so shabby and dirty they are not allowed, it’s not their fault and makes them frustrated. 

The Kids did not lose hope, if new clothes is what’s needed to buy the Pizza then they will earn that as well. It takes another month of hard work and finally they buy the clothes. All geared up now ready to buy the Pizza, this time when they get near the entrance the same security guard stops them. They are not allowed to enter, the kids are upset and question the security guard. Then the Manager of the restaurant comes and beats the Kids and say "this is no place for people like you". The two brothers are chased out, this makes them really upset and sad. 

This incident gets caught on camera and the media makes a story out of it. Fearing the consequences that the restaurant may face, the kids are called back to have any Pizza they like and it’s free for them.

Finally the kids get to taste the Pizza, after all that turmoil and hardship the kids get to their destination. After having couple of bites of the Pizza the brother tells the other brother "It does not taste that well, I don’t like it. Don’t know how people eat this" the other brother replies " I agree" and smile to each other.

The End. 

The story has much more details in the movie, I just took the base of the movie to show the readers of this blog to know. If you have the time, please do take a look at this movie, it’s worth the time. You will realize all the things we take for granted in life. 

I know I have gone away from the Title of this Blog ;-) but let me show how it connects.

If you have been walking in all the broken dreams in your life and realize that you have been fighting all your life to see them come true. Let me tell you that "Don't give up the Fight" things will come to pass. Just keep paving your way through. When you look back at your tracks, you will find out that only a Super Hero can do what you have done. 

An inspirational music video for you, 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIm1GgfRz6M 

"Don't Stop Believing!!!" 

God Bless...........

Why? or Who?

Greeting my Dear Friends,

After a long break, I have taken time to write something that you might find interesting... It’s a story from the Bible which I believe is one of the most encouraging and meaningful piece of literature. 

It’s the story of Job, one man who went through the most drastic circumstances in life a person can bear. He was desolated for being faithful to God, which contradicts from the majority of the belief we have in common, the “Retribution Theology”, which means “Do Good => Get Blessed” or “Do Bad => Get Blasted”.

Job did everything good and righteous in Gods view, however he did not know why he was put into so many trials and tribulations. The Bible tells us that Job was an upright and holy person and did what pleased god. However when Satan questioned God of the faith of Job in him, God allowed Satan to test Jobs faithfulness to God.

As a result Job had the extreme of tribulations in his life, Family, health and wealth, he lost them all but still he hanged on to God. He was trusting God when faith was taking a fumble. It’s easy for us to read the Book of Job and understand how much of faith a person can have in God under severe situations.

If we put ourselves in Jobs shoes, we can only imagine the pain and suffering he had to go through.

Take a deep breath, and look around you, see how much you are blessed with, yet we have always reasons to be unhappy or to complain. Let me introduce you to a modern day Job, from a very young age he had to realize how much less he had to do, but now he is the unthinkable. I encourage you to Google and YouTube this guy and see about his story to tell.

Nick Vujicic, do a search and see what you find. I will not type anymore words, just check out one of the videos and you will know what I am talking about.

Finally something to ponder: We always think of the “Why” questions in our lives, however if you replace it with the”Who” is our God answer, we can take refuge and hope blossoms. This is how God revealed his mighty awesome power to Job.

“The worst despair is, suffering without meaning” – Philip Yancy.

Nick Vujicic - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrV_ZvwZRvw

Taking a turn in a corner

Hi my dear fellow friends thank for being nice to me by visiting my site maybe even you took the time to read J, I can tell because there is a statistic reader for each page visit, just in case you were curiousJ.

It has been sometime since I have written, so the urge and maybe the interesting events that taking place in my life at the moment inspires me to write what I am writing....

Taking a turn in a corner

Life is has own way of teaching us of life itself, hope It make sence... Time is a healer but the craziest part is it will not wait for anyone. So I guess patience is one of the keys in life’s unrelieved doors to open.

I can say with many agreeing with me that life does not turn out to be exactly what we expect from it to be (Our Dreams in Life) the good or the bad.

It’s a thin line between the dreams we have in life and “Life” itself. If you believe enough I think your dreams are not too far away from you.

Today I had a conversation with a very “interesting” person, I have been having on and off conversations with this person but today it was very different.

I really believe I have a met a very honest person, even though we have our diplomatic ways of keeping our distance but even through that I saw a person who was very genuine.

Taking decisions in life is very important, it’s no mystery for anyone and however the trick is taking the correct one. For me it’s easy, because I believe in God the saviour Jesus Christ who does all my “Taking turns in any corner” he has always beeen right, and when I look back of the mess and heartache I went through, It is very vivid that God had a plan for me, it’s like putting the puzzles in the correct places.

Life has given me a second chance just because of My God Grace and mercy. I really hope I can cherish this with integrity and sincerity towards My God, Jesus Christ.

As Always I want my readers to understand the moral of something I believe is true and is within us. This Time I chose to Tell you about a movie called “ The Impossible” I encourage all my fellow readers to watch it.

Just to highlight, one scene from the movie which really stirred my conscious. The Scene as follows:

A Family who happend to spend their vacation in Koyo which I believe is close to Japan or Indonesia. On a Christmas even in 2004 when the tsunami occurred where hundreds of thousands of people were killed. Anyways getting back to the story this family also got strangled to the tsunami, in one particular scene where out the family only the son and mother who survive during the that part of the movie scene, the relentlessly effort to look for a safe haven before the next wave come in. They spot a huge tree which is the only safe place they had, they knew they didn’t have much time so they had to hurry for the tree to climb up. With wounds and blood spilling injuries they were making their way through, however while getting to the tree, they hear a scream from a distance, it’s  maybe 3 or 4 year Childs voice. Realizing that they don’t have enough time and the tension of another wave, the sons tries to convince the mother to ignore the Childs scream and head for the tree, but this where it gets very interesting. The mother looks right into her son’s eye and says “We have to save the child, even if it’s the last thing we do.”  For me it was a real wow factor, I very rarely come across people who have attitudes /character like that but you do find people like that.

Also guys this movie is based on a true story J

I doubt in our daily lives how much we do to go out of our way to help or talk some kind words to people who really need them. Just give a thought; I am sure there is a Good person in everybody in this planet.

It’s the initial step we take, rather than telling ourselves, “I almost helped that person/spoke to that person in need” why don’t you for change actually trying doing it. Start somewhere big or small I promise you will not regret it at all!!

God Bless you my friends,

Leaving you guyz with the movie trailer “The Impossible” if you have the free time just watch it, might be an eye-opener for you, who knows J

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgw394ZKsis

God Bless and take care of yourself so that you can help someone elseJ.

Damian

“Inattention Blindness”

Hi All,

Greetings to my fellow readers....

After very hectic month at work, finally got some time to write. So much of things happened during the last month, I experienced, learned a lot of things also meet very interesting people as well.

So thought might share some incite/information of these encounters I had, pretty sure you will find it interesting.

This Blog is more or less like a life journal for me, cos me being an IT professional not having a Tech related blog is "A Thing" :-)

Anyways let me start off with this person I met during this last month, This person is a Christian and the belief in God is very strong.

We had a long chat one day, this person opened up to me and told the things "this person :-) " has gone through. While this person was talking or rather telling me about the life this person went through, I was very much emotionally triggered, in the sense with empathy and admiration.

Just to tell you the story in a nut shell, this person had, life and death situations, rejection, helpless, sickness, not much of opportunity even though this person had all the talent to achieve and finally this person was an orphan.

But Now this person is full of joy in the lord. Living without any regret and trusting God for only for today (The Present) not worried about the future.

After hearing this persons life story, it made me humble myself and made me to look life in a very different perspective.

I know you must be wondering where are the details of the story.... Well guyz I need to respect that persons confidentiality that's why.

What I am trying to say is Life can be very fun or even the opposite, I believe the core element of having a Happy life is understanding who we really are and what really can give others rather than what really want, because the confusion starts when try to figure out what really we want...

I believe Jesus Christ the Son of God has saved us from all our sins and sharing a Christ Centered life with our Family, Friends and Loved ones are very Important.

The Story of the person had a very strong relationship with God, "This Person" had a "never give up" attitude towards the things faced, meanwhile clinging on the Best Help a person can get from "The Lord".

Finally going to leave you with clip I found on You tube. Its very interesting how easily we can be distracted/blinded. This can be true in our daily lives too. Keep the good Fight on Guyz, for God is Good All The Time, All Time God Is Good!!!

Cheers!!!!!

“Inattention Blindness”

                   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4&feature=player_embedded







 

6 Tips for Handling Criticism

Hi Guyz,

Came across a very interesting article, the writer has very practical perspectives of the heading she's writing about. Thought to share with my very few fellow readers :-)

 

 

As an Upholder, I have a tough time being criticized, corrected, or accused – of even the smallest mistakes – and I react very angrily.
Yikes, how I struggle to keep my sense of humor and light-heartedness! Here are some of the strategies that I try to use to accept criticism.





1. Listen to what a critic is saying. Really listen, try to understand that point of view, don’t just nod while I formulate my retorts. Accept just criticism.

2. Don’t be defensive. This is the toughest step for me. With my writing, for example, I always have to take a deep breath before reading an edit letter or meeting with an editor, to remind myself, “I welcome criticism. This person is helping me. I’m eager to hear how to improve my book/article/post.” Along the same lines…

3. Don’t expose myself to criticism from people I don’t respect. I pay a lot of attention to criticism from people I respect, but I try to shield myself from criticism from people I don’t know or don’t respect, because I fear that I’ll react to it, even though it may be unfounded. So when I get trustworthy criticism about my writing, I act on it, but I try to avoid reading drive-by snarkiness. The means that bad affects us more strongly than good, and I fear that I’ll change my writing in response to some person’s thoughtless comment, in ways that won’t make my work stronger. I need to stay creative, open-hearted, adventuresome, and honest, and if I feel defensive and apologetic, I won’t maintain those elements.

4. Delay my reaction. Count to ten, take a deep breath, sleep on it, wait until the next day to send that email…any kind of delay is good. A friend told me her rule: when she’s upset about something that happened at her children’s school, she won’t let herself do anything about it for three days – and usually she decides that no action is better than action.

5. Admit my mistakes. My father gave me an outstanding piece of advice when I got my first real job. He said, “If you take the blame when you deserve it, you’ll get the responsibility.” I’ve found that to be very true. Difficult, but true. In my experience, until someone in a group (or in a family) accepts blame, everyone stays very anxious and focused on fingering the person at fault. Once I raise my hand (if appropriate), then everyone else can relax. And then we can all focus on what needs to be done.

6. Enjoy the fun of failure. Fact is, trying new things and aiming high exposes me to criticism. I remind myself to Enjoy the fun of failure to try to re-frame failure and criticism as part of the fun. Otherwise, my dread of criticism can paralyze me. Once, when I told my husband that I was upset because I’d received a mean comment here on the blog, he said, “Remember, this is what you want. You want to put your ideas out there. Not everyone is going to be nice.” That made me feel better.
The discussion of criticism reminds me of a passage from Stephen Spender’s autobiography, World Within World:
To overhear conversations behind his back is more disconcerting than useful to the writer; though he can perhaps search for criticism which may really help him to remedy faults in style. But he should remember that the tendency of reviewers is to criticize work not for what it is but for what it fails to be, and it is not necessarily true that he should remedy this by trying to become other than he is. Thus, in my own experience, I have wasted time by paying heed to criticism that I had no skill in employing rhyme. This led me to try rhyme, whereas I should have seen that the moral for me was to avoid it.

This passage is a good reminder that criticism should help us do better what we want to do, and to be more wholly ourselves, and criticism that doesn’t serve those goals isn’t helpful.

Source : http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130117160355-6526187-6-tips-for-handling-criticism