Jack, my best friend

It's very rare to get such a good & right companion. Jack is one such rarity to me. It was a winter evening in Minneapolis few years ago I was introduced to Jack by few of my friends when we were in a saloon having some fun. Initially I was not very keen with Jack. I had to stuck with him because of peer pressure. Later a week after I met with Jack since then our friendship started. He is very light but strong. He doesn't hang over with me all the time, an important character that I like about him a lot. I have introduced Jack to quite a number of friends. Most of them have liked him and even praised me for introducing him. His last name is Daniel's and he is from Tennesse.

Note: I dedicate this post to Sivasubramanian who has sent my friend to my home for a great rendezvous after a pretty long time.

Has this happened to you?

Two people are travelling in a car on a highway. Both are maintaining silence. One person breaks the silence and starts humming or singing a nice song. The other person immediately reaches to the audio player & starts playing a song. The first person is left with confusion whether it was spontaneous action or intentional action to stop this person from humming/singing any more. Has this happened to you? I seem to experience this quite often with many different people. I am not that bad a singer though.

That one skill - Continued

Follow up on my earlier post

I have just started reading "Leading with Questions: How Leaders Find the Right Solutions By Knowing What To Ask"

Excerpt of description from here goes like this:

In Leading with Questions, internationally acclaimed management consultant Michael Marquardt shows how you can learn to ask the powerful questions that will generate short-term results and long-term learning and success. Throughout the book, he demonstrates how effective leaders use questions to encourage participation and teamwork, foster outside-the-box thinking, empower others, build relationships with customers, solve problems, and much more. Based on interviews with twenty-two successful leaders who “lead with questions,” this important book reveals how to determine which questions will lead to solutions in today’s complicated business world.

I think this book will help me to educate myself to solve my problem. Will share the outcome later.

Oh Patience, where art thou?

In my recent visits to passport office and BSNL office looking at the way they worked I analyzed how they could improve their productivity. That did help me in passing my wait time though. It was so visible that they were not being productive at all. In my few hours of observation I had hundreds of suggestions to improve their productivity. I was wondering whether did they have boss and did they really care about the employee productivity and etc.

Fast food, instant photos, online ticket bookings, faster time to market projects....I think with the way the world is evolving we are losing out the patience to wait. I could observe that evidently from the crowd when I was waiting in line at the passport office (even after an online appointment). Of all I did not have the patience at all. I wanted to slap the old lady sitting behind the desk and yell 'do you know what efficiency really mean?'. I didn't do it as I did not want to mess with my kid's passport.

A wise man in the line commented that these officies teach us how to be patient.

jack welch to JACK WELCH

Wouldn't it be nice to read a book that analyzes the commonalities of successful CEOs and what made them really tick. "What Made jack welch JACK WELCH" by Stephen Baum does that. Does that very nicely. With lots of stories from CEOs succeeded and failed it was an interesting read.

Bottomline is that only the 'shaping experiences' made the ordinary people to become extra-ordinary legends. Almost all the great CEOs had a very ordinary childhood and normal brought up. Small leadership responsibilities that they took up during their school and college days did really shape them up well. Learnings that they got out of those small responsibilities did play a major role in their career indirectly later. Very inspirational. I did reminisce my good old school & college days.

Strongly recommended for reading. (At least the stories would help you to make a great conversation in a gathering).

Losing Touch

Me: I think I am losing touch. Frequency of my blog postings has reduced a lot. I am losing all my creativity to think and write. Guess it's time I called it a day & wound up my blog.

Myself: Whoa...whoa...hold on pal. That's a hasty decision. I know that you have been busy with both personal and professional life. Now that you have got the breathing time you can restart where you have left.

Me: No, I think I am losing the creativity. Last one week I have been thinking of what should I write next. In fact I did start writing a few posts but they were not so good that even I wont read them. I had to scratch

Myself: Buddy, you say that you are 'losing' not 'lost', there is still hope.

Me: Huh...you are playing with verbs, smarty pants. Bottomline is the same. At least I should work on improving the creativity. I must surf net for the ways to improve the creativity.

Myself: You are trying to attack the symptom rather than the problem.

Me: What do you mean?

Myself: Lately your reading habits have almost vanished. Not even news papers. (I know that you are even ignoring emails that have more than a few sentences). That's the problem that you should attack first. More you read more you think and more you think more you write.

Me: oh yeah...I realize now that it's been sometime since I read something. What is happening to me?

Myself: You and your stupid 'Home Video' rental membership and the plan of 'catching up' the missed hollywood movies. That's the problem. You are spending your life in front of the idiot box watching all those movies that you rent out. You must stop it and get a real life.

Me: You are right. Let me quickly watch the 'Scent of a Woman', 'Bommarillu' and 'Scar Face' and come back soon. Thanks for the help man. I will rethink about winding up.

Corporate Ladder

With an average of 3 years in each designation, to climb to the top position (CEO) at my organization I would have to spend a quarter century from now. By that time I would be in my mid fifties losing out to competitors and might not become a CEO as I would be too old & on the verge of my retirement.

What should I do?

INR vs USD, GBP, EURO, YEN

From end of Jan to end of Nov of year 2007 INR has
- gained 10.19% against USD (see chart INR vs USD below)
- gained 5.63% against GBP (see chart INR vs GBP below)
- LOST 2.11% against EURO (see chart INR vs EURO below)
- gained 1.29% against YEN (see chart INR vs YEN below)





Data source: Reserve Bank of India

Malaysia

Another country off from my list of places to visit.

My Choices

1. MF or FD? MF
2. RD or SIP? SIP
3. Debt Funds or Equity Funds? Equity Funds
4. Growth plan or Dividend plan? Growth plan
5. Fixed or Floating? Floating
6. Penny stocks or Index stocks? Index stokcs
7. Rental house or Own house? Own house
8. Apartment or Independent house? Independent house
9. Futures or Options? Options
10. Long term or short term? Long term

This is purely based on my research and based on what has worked best to me. Five years from now my investment strategies may not be the same as above.

What's yours?