The man who waited for God and missed the boats.

Other day I went to a Mobile Conference downtown, Toronto where keynote speaker was Professor Iqbar Qaudir. Professor Quadir is the founder of a telecom provider in Bangladesh called Grameen Phone. To put it in perspective Grameen phone is the equivalent of AT&T in US, Bell in Canada and British Telecom in UK with over 70 million subscribers. After the lecture,  two of my other colleagues and I were outside the hall where we met the professor and asked him if he wanted to join us for dinner. The professor surprisingly said yes.

During our dinner professor shared a nice Bangladeshi story with us which I thought was very deep and profound. The story was about religious man in Bangladesh.  In the story, there was this flood, which Bangladesh is notoriously known for. During the flood everyone was evacuating a village by boats except for one old religious man.  Water was knee deep when one small boat came and asked, why don’t you jump in before you drown?, No the old man replied, for I have God. I am praying, my prayers will save me.  I have been praying to God all my life, he’ll come and save me.  Now the water was hip deep, when another boat came and offered to help. The old man responded the same way, telling the people on the boat not to worry, as he’s been praying all his life, God will come from the stars and will save him. Now the water was neck deep. Came another boat and told him if you don’t jump in, you are sure to drown. The old man again declined the offer and advised them that he’s waiting for God to come down from the heavens and save him. God has to he said, he’s been a good religious man all his life. Eventually the old man drowned.

In the heaven God was greeting and welcoming everyone. Everyone was cheering and just simply happy, except for the old man. God came up to him and asked, what’s wrong, why are you not happy? why are not bowing down to me?. The old man replied, I am very disappointed in you. I prayed to you all my life, I asked for your help and waited for you to come and help me. You didn’t. You let me drown. The God was shocked, God asked, what you talking about? I sent three boats.

This is story everyone can relate to. We have this tendency to wait for a break in life, a grand defining moment. We are waiting for something big to happen. Reality is life usually send a lot of opportunities, it’s for us to seize those moments. Usually in the form of adversity, tragic incidents, trouble times just like that flood in that story. The problem is, we become so occupied with the problem(flood) that we don’t see the solutions or the opportunities ( the boat). So next time when your facing a problem or a challenge, ask yourself, where’s the opportunity to learn, where is the chance to grow? . Keep this story in your mind and hopefully you and I won’t miss the boat.

My gratitude to Professor Quadir for sharing this story.

Bruce Lee and being limitless

I got this bit of a story from another blogger and life coach, Greg Swansson.  This story was originally taken from Bruce Lee’s book narrated by one of his close friend.

“Bruce had me up to three miles a day, really at a good pace. We’d run the three miles in twenty-one or twenty-two minutes. Just under eight minutes a mile [Note: when running on his own in 1968, Lee would get his time down to six-and-a half minutes per mile]. So this morning he said to me “We’re going to go five.” I said, “Bruce, I can’t go five. I’m a helluva lot older than you are, and I can’t do five.” He said, “When we get to three, we’ll shift gears and it’s only two more and you’ll do it.” I said “Okay, hell, I’ll go for it.” So we get to three, we go into the fourth mile and I’m okay for three or four minutes, and then I really begin to give out. I’m tired, my heart’s pounding, I can’t go any more and so I say to him, “Bruce if I run any more,” –and we’re still running-”if I run any more I’m liable to have a heart attack and die.” He said, “Then die.” It made me so mad that I went the full five miles. Afterward I went to the shower and then I wanted to talk to him about it. I said, you know, “Why did you say that?” He said, “Because you might as well be dead. Seriously, if you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it’ll spread over into the rest of your life. It’ll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being. There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.. 

Absolutely love the story .  2012………. The year of Limitless.

 

Fahad

Improve your luck by meeting new people

Here’s a nice little tip. If you want to improve your luck, meet new people. I just read an article about this on another blog and was really impressed by this idea.

Now your thinking, how does meeting new people improve my luck?. Well think about it this way, people are a great resource. Resource for information, experience, contacts, and accessibility. For example, you can meet someone who’s good with money, who has made money. Now he might not give you money, but he might give you valuable information on how to make and save money, hence improving your odds with money.

That goes the same for jobs. By meeting people you improve your odds of landing one. Maybe the person you meet might not be able to find you a job, but he might know someone else who does. Hence once again, improving your odd.

There’s something called the probability theory. This theory suggests, the more the probability better the odds, common sense right?. Insurance companies use this theory to calculate probability vs impact. Well meeting new people, you do just that, you improve your probability, hence giving you more odds.

What’s best way to meet new people. I know what doesn’t, Facebook. I find it to be the most overrated site ever built.

Best way to meet new people is actually getting out there. Take a new class, volunteer, join a sports team, join a service club like Rotary or Toastmasters.

Monkey Business.

Here’s an interesting story I read the other day in this book called Wild Idea Club. I forget what’s the books about but this particular story stuck in my mind. It’s about a monkey’s clang.

A group of scientist, psychologist and zoologist studying a group of monkeys. They found something striking, a unique behavior. They found that in any group of monkeys, 10% of the population were pessimists, the negative thinkers, the risk adverse type. So the panel of experts decided that if we remove those 10% of the negative monkeys, it should automatically improve the efficiency of the entire group. It will remove the barriers hence making the group more effective. So they removed the 10% of negative monkeys.

The experts came back in to the wild about after about 7 months, and what they found was astonishing. The entire clang had died. What was supposed to increase efficiency, ,make the group more connected, had in fact had an averse effect. Why did the entire group of monkey died since the removal of the pessimist or negative monkeys?

What they found was not any different from groups of humans. What the experts found was that although one might think that the negative monkeys or pessimistic ones would slow the group down or make it more efficient, their existence was just as important as normal ones. Why you ask?

Simple. Negative and pessimist monkeys kept the rest of the group in check. They worked as a radar, keeping rest of the crew in check, keeping everyone grounded.

I think this is relevant to us human as it is to monkeys. We think if we get rid of all the pessimists, the risk adverse or the nay Sayers out of our lives, we are better off without them. As you noticed from this scenario, it’s not necessary true.

Food for thought.

Progressive Elaboration

Here’s something I learned from my Project Management Exam. I was studying for my PMP Exam the other day and made me think about a term called Progressive Elaboration. It’s a Project Management (PM) term meaning most project plans continuously needs to be updated, revised and refine as the project progresses. In projects conditions, circumstances change and the plan must change with it. Maybe a Project member quits, law changes, cost overrun, various things can go wrong or change.

The point of this article is that, that’s kind of how life works too. Circumstances will change, you too will run out of money, people will come and go. As all those changes are being made, your life plan stays in tact, just continuous refinement and tweaking. End goal, objective doesn’t change, what does it’s how and when you get there. 

Life lessons from the movie Megamind.

I was watching this movie on my way from Bangkok, Thailand last month on Qantas Airlines. Speaking of Qantas Airlines, great service.  The main character in the movie is Megaman played by Will Farrell. Who in the movie is an epic failure. Everything he ever started, every project, every initiative, he somehow managed to fail.

Without telling you too much about the movie, there’s this one scene where he’s battling it out with another tough villain.  The tough villain tells Megamind, give up, your going to fail, you have always failed. Megamind tells him, you know there’s something about always failing. Is that you learn from your failure, you gain experience.

I bring this particular topic up because I was reading this other article where Og Mandino, one of the great business man was asked the secret to success. Og said, you want to success, then triple your failure rate.

Something to think about.

Great ideas…….and it’s myth about success

One of the greatest myth about success is that you have to have a great idea. In actuality, it couldn’t’ be further from the truth. Everyone had “great” ideas from time to time. Ask anyone and they’ll tell you they too had a similar idea like Youtube. Yet nothing was done about it.

It’s actually the follow through, the execution is hundred times more important than a great idea. If the execution is good, it won’t matter what the idea really is. It all comes down to execution.

The Gold Fish theory from the movie Big Fish

I was watching the movie The Big Fish yesterday with Ewan McGregor. The story of a dying man telling his son his story.

In one of the scene Mcgregor during his childhood from a small town gets into an accident and in bed. While in bed he’s reading this book about Gold Fish. The book reads, that a Gold Fish growing up in a pond will grow moderate size. However, the same Gold Fish growing up in an ocean will be twice the size. Thus making Gold Fishes very environmental centric. Their shapes and size are largely dependent on where they are raised.

In the movie, this particular reading lights a bulb in Mcgregor’s thinking. He realize that human beings are very similar to Gold Fish. That if he’s to grow bigger and become more, he would need to move and change to a bigger environment.

I guess what we can take away is that sometimes it’s important or best option is try to a different scene, maybe a different friend circle, new company, new team, new city or even a country.

It may not be your fault…..But it is……

Your responsibility, words of local business coach Warren Caughlin. During his seminar Warrant talks about some characteristics of really successful people.  One of them is taking personal ownership.  You’ll find highly successful people have the same wind blowing for them as anyone else, they face the same life obstacles as most of us. In fact, in most cases they have faced more. What makes them different is their ability to take ownership of situations. 

Warren suggested that whatever happened to you up this point in your life, good or bad, may not be your fault, but it’s your responsibility.  Most people love to blame others, maybe blaming it on parents and their up bringing, perhaps God, or even bad luck. Successful people make it their personal responsibility to handle and manage the situation. They take ownership.  They hold themselves accountable. So should you and me.

My top goals for 2011.

Another year has gone by. To say 2010 was the best year of my life would be a complete lie. It wasn’t. However, none the less it was an interesting year. A year that started off poorly, carried on for most of the first half.  It was during the second half things finally picked up and was building momentum.  It was a year where I planted a lot of seeds, hopefully, in 2011 I’ll see the results.

Here are some highlights from 2010 that I am proud of and should carry on to 2011.

-Started this blog site.

- Joined an investment club. Still learning a lot about stocks and options.

-Completed 2 Project Management courses

-Finally got qualified to write the PMP exam

-Joined Toastmasters and Rotary Club

-Started UC-Tel

Here are some of my top goals for 2011.

- Complete the PMP Exam

-Travel to at least one country that I have no been to. Thinking Africa. Yes Africa

-Continue my development through Toastmaster, Rotary and Evening classes

-Learn sign language and maybe a foreign dance, thinking Salsa

-Blog every other day

-Complete 2 books a month

-  Travel within Canada

 

If your reading this, do hold me accountable. Also, do share your goals.

 

For things to change, you must change

Once again something I picked up from a great speaker, Jim Rohn. Jim says, for things to change you must change. Politicians are not changing, the social structure where you habit isn’t changing, nor is the weather. It’s you that can and should change if you want things to change. Changes can be very daunting and difficult. However, you should start small. Start by cleaning your room, then your closet, build some momentum. Next thing you know your making changes on the fly.