Happiness No comments yet

Being Right or Being Happy

By anbusivam on August 12th, 2009

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Dear Friends,
Welcome to Anbusivam’s Blog Page.
When I wrote about being right or happy in my previous post, many of my readers were keen to know more about it. Here comes my thoughts and understandings on one of the key learning’s from my counselling course.
“Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy…?”

Think for a moment when you were in an arugment and want to be right, don’t you remember that you had to compromise on your happiness. I realised this when I was in an argument with one of my friends few weeks ago. I obviously wanted to make my point, knowing that he is not correct. But he was not in a mood to accept that he is wrong, which would be a blow to his big ego. After long arguments and counter arguments, I suddenly realised that the discussion had stuck into an endless circle, without any further progress. I started playing devil’s advocate, carefully changing side to accept his point knowing very well that it’s not right. I decided to do this only to stop those endless arguments just to prove a point. When we departed he was really happy that his point was accepted and finally he had won the argument. But I am sure that he himself had a doubt on the entire discussion and the point he was conveying and trying to convince me.
Later in the evening when he was little relaxed, I approached him with a clean reference supporting my argument stating that I was right in the morning. In no time he accepted the truth and apologised for being adamant during the morning discussion. I felt happy and he too was.
When I was thinking about the day that evening, it did strike to me that, though I was not right in the morning ultimately I was happy at end of the day. Many a times we tend to stick to our point in arguments and discussions with our loved ones, friends and colleagues without even thinking about the real purpose of the argument.
We should be courageous and courteous enough to give up something, though we know we are correct, while letting the other person win over us. This will be of utmost important especially with our family and loved ones, where the relationship and bonding is of highest priority than being right in a petty issue. Moreover these kinds of heated arguments and discussion always lead to fights shifting focus on the person instead of the real issue. When we are discussing an issue with another person, let’s better put our focus on where it should be, on the real problem, not the other person.
When we choose being happiness over the need of being right, obviously a great relationship blossoms over there.
Whenever we are stuck in an argument with our loved ones, we should ask ourselves.

Do you want to be Happy or do you want to be Right…?

Thanks for visiting my page.
With Love,
Anbusivam
Inspiration, Leadership No comments yet

Looking Front and Marching Ahead

By anbusivam on August 6th, 2009

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Dear Friends,
Welcome to Anbusivam’s Blog Page.
After my previous post on Looking Back, I lately realised that I had almost forgot to look front. Now, I’ve decided to march ahead with newer learning’s and experiences in life.
At this juncture both in my Personal and Professional life, big changes are taking place that’s going to bring in more responsibilities with greater expectations. At personal front I’m getting married on 2nd September. It’s taking up most of my time after work and that’s the main reason for no regular updates here in www.anbusivam.com.
I am sure Life is going to be colorful with lots of new experiences and learning’s particularly in terms of understanding personal relationships. I am used to live alone, away from my parents now for almost more than 5 yrs. I think I’ve become less sensitive to the under currents of actual feelings and emotions expressed to me in all these years. May be I should spend some more quality time looking within myself to understand me as a person first and next relationships with my near and dear ones. I am trying to be more sensitive to the feelings expressed and unexpressed sometimes.
My DCS (Diploma in Counseling Skills) would be of greatest help to make my life really fruitful and joyful. I can never forget one question that I’ve learnt on relationships, which is “Do you want to be correct or do you want to be happy…?” Mot of the times we want to be correct, want to be perfect, continue the argument just to prove that other person is wrong and at the end what remains is not happiness, but a bitterness in relationship. The moment we let go those compulsions to prove a point or to be perfect always, close relationships would bloom into flowers of happiness.
Off late I am getting comments from my friends that most of my recent posts are based on emotional and psychological factors. Yes, after my counseling course and little experiences with the few clients I’ve got, I think mental wellness is utmost important than any great leadership qualities in life. Sound mind in a sound body is the basic stepping stone to any great journey in life.
I am starting to look forward and march ahead with new thoughts, ideas and experiments in life to understand ultimately “What makes us do what do we do…?” that is “Motivation” in life.
Thanks for visiting my page.
With Love,
Anbusivam
Leadership 1 comment

Leadership & Motivation – Looking Back

By anbusivam on July 5th, 2009

>Dear Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam’s Blog Page.

Last evening, I was just looking back into all my earlier blog posts and it’s amazing to see the amount of information that’s been collated here in one place over the period of more than 2 years with 84 articles as of now. Yes, when I started this blog with my first post on a fine morning of May, 2007 this was the only intention. All I wanted was to bring in the interesting and useful details that I come across on my most favorite topic “Leadership & Motivation” in one single place. Moreover the best part is the encouragement I get from you the Readers of this blog that keeps me on my toes to get in more and more useful articles that will help us make our lives better.

I still remember what I said on one of our early Bangalore Bloggers Meet, “I’ve started this blog just for myself to collate some of the useful information I come across, read, experiment, and learn on Leadership & Motivation at one place which, I would be able to look back in future just by click of a mouse. Adding to that it would be great if I can get some sincere readers to this blog and the greatest happiness would be if my thoughts and ideas here in my blog can help them in making their lives better”.

Of course I like all my articles, but some are worth mentioning here again. Find here some I liked the most when I looked back yesterday.
Being an ardent lover of nature, I loved these two when I worte and even now when I read after almost 2 years.


Leadership = Gardening


Human’Culture’ Vs Agri’Culture’

This one is my favorite as many of my visitors coming from search engines lands up in this page.

Why do we need motivation…?

I like this as I talked about enjoying the present, while getting ready for the future.

Doing What We Love Vs Loving What We Do

I love this only because I get lots and lots of visitors searching for the quote “God made the Earth, but the Dutch made Holland” and also I like my quote “God made me in the Earth, but I made my Life”.


Dutch Made Holland – A Lesson for Life

This talks about my own personal fear of starting this blog, writing in English and how I did overcome that. I am really happy for starting this blog (Inspired by my friend Himanshu Sheth ) that has become a great platform to express and share my learning’s to the world around me. This also keeps me on to read, learn, experiment and share much more in my life.

Where does the strength to work on weaknesses come from?

This is one of my most favorite, as I wrote this after a home work of little survey asking the question “What is that, ultimately you want in life…???” to people I come across everyday.


Choosing to be Happy :-)

This was written after realising the power of encouragement to achieve, from the Indian Premier League Cricket season 2008. And these lines I like the most “Close your eyes and imagine a cheerful group of cheerleaders in front of you with “Whoos-Hoos” and “Shake Ups” for all those commendable things you’ve done in your life till this moment.”

What about becoming our own cheerleaders?

This article was based on Indira Nooyi, PepsiCo’s CEO. According to her there are 5 skills that’s the hallmark of a good leader that leads to “Performance with Purpose”.

PepsiCo’s Leadership Philosophy of Performance with Purpose

I wrote this after my NLP(Neuro Linguistic Programming) lessons, all about Getting into and Getting out of our emotional states/situations.

Power of Association and Dissociation.

Greatly inspiring experience sharing from my visit to Spastic Society of Karnataka and my interactions with those special children with special needs and abilities.

Motivation from Special Children

One another unforgettable inspiration from Prof.Raundy Paush

Brick Walls Are Not There To Keep Us Out

My latest one on similar lines….”Brick walls are no there to keep us out”

I Will Not Quit

Yes indeed its very true that, “A Small Change Can Make Big Difference” most of the time in many areas of our life.

Small Change Can Make Big Difference

Experience is the “bestest” teacher that always results in the most enduring lessons.

Experience – The Best Teacher

I am sure I would like to list all my 84 articles here, but that may not be possbile. Every article or post had its own significance at that time of writing and some like mentioned above are very relevant any time in the past, present and future as well.
At this juncture. I would like to thank all the good hearts that keeps me encouraging in keeping this blog most interesting, informative and above all the most useful in daily life. Many Thanks to all my good friends, kind well wishers and sincere visitors/readers of this blog. My heartfelt gratitude to each one of you those help me, support me and inspire me to go on in life with a passion towards “Leadership & Motivation”.
Thank You All. Keep visiting, give your most valuable comments and feedbacks.
Thanks for visiting my page.

With Love,
Anbusivam

Leadership, Quotes 1 comment

I Will Not Quit

By anbusivam on June 25th, 2009

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Dear Friends,
Welcome to Anbusivam’s Blog Page.


“When faced with a huge mountain, I will not quit, I will keep on striving until I climb over, find a pass through, tunnel underneath or simply go around to get past. Yes, nothing can stop me.”

I came across this saying few days ago and was thinking of writing on this yesterday. As I am getting busy with few of other things in life, writing a blog post had almost taken a back seat. Last night I made a point to wake up early to write this and here I am.
Quitting is something that’s so easy for some and way too hard for others. One of my friends is such an expert in quitting; he quits and comes out of almost every thing that he starts within few weeks time. Another friend of mine is struggling so hard to quit something in his life, which he is not able to in spite of all his efforts. Normal human tendency is to find blame excuses to stay away from hard working, time consuming, effort taking tasks.
Why do people visit this blog? or why does self-help a big business all over the world? We all need a strong push at times when we are stuck in front of a huge mountain. The moment we encounter it, we stumble with fear of failure and we convince ourselves to quit the journey. Very few strong minds determined to reach their goals, having great persistence will obviously not worry about these obstacles in the journey of life. They very well know that quitting is not the solution to problems in life and the very problems will make them better in life. Imagine a life without a single problem, I am sure it’s not going to be interesting for long time. It will make a routine and boring life.
As I’ve written in one of my earlier posts, “brick walls are not there to keep us out“. Obstacles, brick walls or mountains what so ever we call, they are there only to check and evaluate how badly we want things in our life, it’s just there to see the validate the sincere determination of our journey in life.
Yes, of course quitting is not the solution always but in the same time it should be okay for us to give up and let go at times. Our persistence shouldn’t disguise into stubborn-ness over time. This should be a very careful process, we should not misunderstand giving up out of weakness, procrastination, fail to put in sincere efforts and to be in our comfort zone. We should be quitting after a careful study of all possible situations saying “Hey, you know what? this is definitely not going to work, there is no point to sticking to it anymore, it’s better to quit, spend our time and effort in other goals of life.”
And I think quitting, should always be last possible option in life’s goals and journeys.
Thanks for visiting my page.
With Love
Anbusivam
Happiness 1 comment

Power of deciding our happiness.

By anbusivam on June 14th, 2009

>Hello Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam’s Blog Page.

“What is that, ultimately you want in life…???”

When I asked this question to people I know from all walks of life, starting from a grade 5 student to as elderly as 95 yrs old. The final answer always lead to someting like this,

“I want to be Happy in Life, Happiness is what I want.”

I am sure each and every single action we perform in our lives is to seek happiness. Be the CEO of a million dollar corporate or a floor boy in a small office, irrespective of caste, creed, status and religion, happiness is what we all seek all the time. Unfortunately we seek something all over the world that is actually hidden within ourselves in abundance.

With few personal experiments in my own life, I am completely convinced that we can never find real happiness outside us. If we happen to find happiness from something or someone outside us, then its never going to be a permanent one. May be that will last for a second or a minute or a day or for few months. Never can one get a permanent happiness from the external things outside in this world. We human beings are creatures of choice. We have got the great boon of choosing to be happy irrespective of what happens outside. This may sound too philosophical on the first go, but actually this is the ultimate truth that we need to understand.

For example, you have a simple mobile phone with which you can make only phone calls, that being your basic requirement. You feel miserable, seeing yourself in the midst of your friends who are gadget geeks playing around with their high tech phones with which calls could also be made. Now, thinking that you will get happiness with a brand new phone, you buy a new phone with all possible features in it. You think that you are the happiest person in this world with your new gadget, only until you come across an another friend having a device better than yours. At that very moment your happiness ceases to exist and you start thinking you could have bought this one. You feel miserable again.

Here your happiness is fully based on a mobile phone. You the intelligent being had given out the power of deciding your happiness to a lifeless electronic instrument.

We all have made and heard the following statements in our lives:

“You make me unhappy”

“You are making me furious”

“I’ll be happy, if you love me”

“I am always upset because of you”

“I don’t like to see you”

“I hate this traffic”

The moment we start fixing things outside to make ourselves happy, its going to be a never ending process. Instead we should be fixing things within us. In the sametime, we shouldn’t be neglecting the external things that will make our living comfortable and easy in this world. No doubt the world has become a better place to live with all the scientific and materialistic advancements. All those material stuff should be seen as something that will only make our physical existence little easier. They never can give us permanent happiness that we seek in our lives.
The ultimate point here is the moment we take charge of our happiness, nothing external can control it. Happiness will no longer be something that we pursue all through our life. Happiness will always blossom within us.


“Let’s not give away the power of deciding our happiness to someone or something outside us”

With Love,
Anbusivam
Cycling, Motivation, Uncategorized 6 comments

Bangalore Marathon Open 10K in 68mins.

By anbusivam on May 31st, 2009

Hello Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam’s Blog Page.

Hurray……I could complete today’s Bangalore Sunfeast Marathon open 10K in 68mins.

Though never had any timing target eariler, I thought that I’ll not take more than 1hr 30mins. But completing in 1hr 8mins was really a great achievement. I was just jumping with joy and happiness at the finish line. Now I know my limits. Next year target would be 10kms in 40mins.

My daily treadmill runs for the last 2 weeks gave me lots and lots of endurance to keep myself going especially in the last 2kms of the circuit. Adding to that my morning trainings on the road too helped me a lot to get used to the kind of terrain we ran. The great levels of enthusiasm and energy in the air is an another important factor for me to make it. Cute little childre, elders and lots of people were cheering up on the sides of the road all along the run. Whenever I slowdown or start walking I came across these people who  encouraged to run. Many Thanks to all those unknown good hearts.
Ultimately it was a great fun, elated feeling, boost for self-confidence and I knew my limits now.

With Love,
Anbusivam

PS: Hope to share some race day photos soon.
Inspiration, Motivation No comments yet

Power of Aiming High

By anbusivam on May 26th, 2009

Hello Friends,
Welcome to Anbusivam’s Blog Page.
Few weeks back I got a mail on Bangalore Sunfeast Marathon and I decided to take part in that. When I had to choose between 2 options I went ahead with the second one. First was to run 5.7km Majja Run and second was to 10km in Open 10K Run. When couple of my friends insisted to join them on Majja Run, I was interested only in 10km run. At that time I was not very sure if I would be able to complete 10km with some of my irregular running experiences. I had my own apprehensions and self doubts, but something inside me pushed towards 10km.  I was also fully aware that its going to be a big task for me with the limited time available to train from then.
The important point to note here is, if I had taken up 5.7km run then I am sure all my trainings these days would not have crossed even 3km. Now with my enrollment into 10km run, all I see in front of me is “How am I gonna complete 10k…?”. Obviously when my target is 10km, running more than 5km every day seems to be too less for me. I am pushing myself to reach atleast 8km this week and then to hit my target of 10km on the Race day i.e coming Sunday, 31st May 2009.
When I was thinking on this simple experience in my life, I realised that keeping a greater goal and aiming high will always make us reach greater heights than having some mediocre goals in life just for the sake of having it. I have a great hope on myself that I will be able to complete this 10km run. I don’t have any timing targets, all I want is to complete 10km run successfully. That would surely give me lots and lots of confidence to take up much higher goals. 
I sincerely think this “Power of Aiming High” works pretty well in almost all areas of our lives. What’s the worst thing than can happen in aiming high…? may be we will not meet our aim or target. But at the end what we have accompolished would be surely much more than what we could have otherwise.
Would you like to share some great acheivements in your life with this wonderful “Power of Aiming High”.
Thanks for visiting my page.
With Love
Anbusivam
P.S: I’ll let you know my run details this Sunday evening.
Quotes 2 comments

Quotes from Heraclitus

By anbusivam on May 17th, 2009

Hello Friends,
Welcome to Anbusivam’s Blog Page.
Reading my earlier post on Change, one of my good friends with whom I used to work some five years ago introduced me to Heraclitus. Heraclitus(535BC – 475BC) a Greek philosopher, known for his doctrine of change being central to the universe.
I found his quotes greatly though provoking, and I am really amazed by the relevance of each and every word said even now at present. Here are some of them,
The one I liked the most is:
Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.
The one my friend liked the most is:

If you do not expect the unexpected you will not find it, for it is not to be reached by search or trial. If we do not expect the unexpected, we will never find it.

And some of them are:


Character is destiny.


Nothing endures but change.


This universe, which is the same for all, has not been made by any god or man, but it always has been, is, and will be an ever-living fire, kindling itself by regular measures and going out by regular measures.


You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.


The road up and the road down is one and the same.


Even sleepers are workers and collaborators on what goes on in the universe.


Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony.

Thanks for visiting my page.
With Love,
Anbusivam
Attitude, Happiness 2 comments

Change is the only changeless

By anbusivam on May 10th, 2009

Hello Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam’s Blog Page.

Every time I think about some change….I always remember 2 famous quotes I’ve come across. First one is “Everything changes, only change is changeless” don’t know who said this and the second one from Mahatma Gandhiji “Be the change you want to be”. Many a times we tend to bend and mend others into our own ways. Trying to change others always ends up in vain and leads to a lot of pain and displeasure. We are not comfortable in changing ourselves as there is a lot of risks involved in that, mainly stepping from the known to an unknown is always fearful, scary, and anxious.

Let’s think for a moment how important is “change” in our lives. Neither sorrow, nor happiness is going to be permanent in life. Anything and everything in this world has to undergo the process of evolution and hence change is inevitable. If at all change has not happened, this world would have reached a state of stagnation and no progress would have happened all through these years. In spite of seeing so many changes every day in this world, we are still skeptical about change.

Change at first frightens us, as we have to come out of our comfort zone. and then the fear of uncertainties that would show up. Any change that has to happen outside is most of the times pretty easy, where as any change that has to happen within us is the most difficult thing to happen. But the beauty is when a moment had come for an internal change within ourselves, nothing can stop that. Once we are fully convinced about the change, our mind automatically lookout for ways and means for the change to happen rightaway. To reach that state is the most difficult task in life, as our mind will always put forth number of excuses in the name of valid reasons so as to oppose the change. Once we gain the ability to understand the trick that our mind would play, it will be lot easier to appreciate and embrace the change.


Some of the statements I hear when a change is imposed from outside are:

1. It’s too difficult.
2. It’s not gonna work.
3. We’ve tried this before or we’ve never tried something similar.
4. This too visionary or lacks vision.
5. We’ve always done it this way.
6. We already have a proven method in place.
7. I am not sure, if this will be good for us.
8. I don’t think this is logical.
9. We don’t have enough time and resources.
10. It just doesn’t make sense to change.
11. … and many more.

Some of the statements I hear when a change is embraced within are:

1. Wow….it’s an excellent change.
2. I am sure its gonna to be good for us.
3. We are bored of doing it the same way.
4. We should try something new.
5. This is the right moment for change.
6. To change is for a greater vision.
7. We should take a chance.
8. Let’s try it out.
9. We should explore new avenues.
10. It’s challenging to experiment.
11. … and many more.

As we noticed, it’s all the mind’s smart play. All these statements are more subjective to the individual and his/her perception towards the change. We come up with any of the first set of statements if we are forced to change and we bring forth the second set of statements in case we are fully convinced that the change is essential at that point of time. We always see these two different groups of people in this society and I am not here to say which is good or which is good to be in.

All I can say from my little experience, is if we are a person who would take some time to think with a larger perspective before jumping into conclusions we would always belong into the second group. It does not mean that we should happily accept and appreciate all the changes that’s happening, instead we should have the ability to discriminate the good and bad, not based on our own personal likes and dislike, but purely from a holistic point of view.

Thanks for visiting my page.

With Love,
Anbusivam

Attitude 4 comments

Attitude + Action = Achievement

By anbusivam on April 23rd, 2009

>Hello Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam’s Page.

Attitude, with Action is everything……and that’s what I’ve learnt last week from a simple person at our office gym.

We had a trainer in our office gym form “FitnessOne”, a city based fitness centre till last month. This man whose name I don’t want to mention, no doubt was physically fit to be a gym trainer. But, his attitude I am sure was not very useful either to himself or to us the gym users. He used to come down to our office every evening at 4.00pm till 7.00pm. He was least bothered about who is coming in there and what people are doing inside. He just comes and will sit on the chair, would just relax watching people working out in the gym. When some of us voluntarily started talking to him, he only talked about the money he earns by training people individually in the city centre where he worked in mornings. He never used to help or guide us; instead he will not even answer properly when any of us ask about the way of doing some exercise. Once when I asked about the usage of cross ramps, he gave me some answer and added that he’ll charge so much of money for individual training in his centre. He also had an attitude of looking us at someone who is using our office gym facility free of cost as if he is running our office. Fortunately end of last month he just vanished off and we got a new trainer from FitnessOne in the interim only for a month.

This gentleman is Bala, from whom I learned attitude and action are two key things of achievements in life. Bala would quietly come in and would do nothing for first days except looking keenly on to the entry register, figuring out are coming regularly to the gym. Slowly he started voluntarily coming down to the users and correct their mistakes while exercising. He would tell this is not the way to this particular exercise, what would be the issues if done wrong, will also teach them what is the right way of doing that and benefits of that as well. Slowly people building trust on him, and he started concentrating personally on almost every one helping them to chalk out a weekly workout plan. Yesterday he called me to teach some specific abdomen exercises as his interim period of one month is coming to an end by next week. He wanted me to learn them properly before he leaves us. We’ve requested FitnessOne to post Bala as a permanent trainer in our office gym and waiting for their reply.

Bala could have taken his role as a trainer very lightly as done by our previous guy as he is going to be here only for a month. But he had chosen to take it seriously and sincerely. He was so simple, straight forward and down to earth with us. His wonderful positive attitude along with his committed action gained all our trust and support for him. I think this is his great achievement.

Attitude + Action = Achievement

Thanks for visiting my page.

With Love,
Anbusivam