When was the last time you appreciated?

When was the last time you appreciated?

There are two interesting stories and one video reference in this article:

1. My America visit in 2008

2. Food service we receive

3. Video reference to understand the power of appreciation.

Keep reading this article to get some lights on appreciation and its benefits.

Many a times, we keep on waiting for someone, to appreciate us. When was the last time you appreciated someone for something good!

Remember, in your personal life or professional life, are you getting a lot of problems and experiencing failures? One of the main reason is: You invested most of your precious energy in downgrading yourself by complaining to someone about something, instead of investing the same energy on your own growth and success.

If you examine your life, you have made many mistakes, that is the only reason you are what you are today. No one is perfect. But you are ignoring all and jumping to find some mistakes in someone about something. With time, it has become your habit.

In my life many successes are mainly based on very few recognition and appreciations! Which are given by my Parents, Relations, Teachers, Friends and Others. Those are the great boosters in my life during my difficult times, failure situations and confusion states. I'm thankful to all.

There is a saying: Finding faults in others is the easiest and stupidest thing that anyone can do. Stop investing your energy on negative things.

Just appreciate someone for something, this gives you great joy. You don't lose your energy; in fact, you gain energy and happiness. With this you are motivating others to look something good in you and appreciate you for that.

If you observe, any workplace, team or family invests a lot of time in finding mistakes and complaining to someone about something. That workplace or team cannot deliver any tremendous results. Reason is very obvious; they spend their part of life just in finding mistakes and complaining about others. No energy is left in them to deliver great results.

Similarly, in your personal life or family you are not able to live a happy or peaceful life. Because, you are very watchful of others' actions to complain about something. It leads to restlessness, relationship issues and failures.

This is a fact; every person has their own good and bad things. If you find a person with 99% bad qualities, just remaining 1% is enough for you to appreciate someone. Make your heart kinder and loving, just wait for one reason to appreciate someone for something.

When was the last time you appreciated your: Children, Parents, Managers, Colleagues or Co-worker, Shopkeeper, Sweepers, Street sales person, Servant, Maid, Superior and so on? Many of them spent 5 to 10 years, they have never received any appreciation note from anyone. Opposite, they always heard complaints from others. Your one appreciation brings great joy in their life! 

My America trip in the year 2008:

I have been to America for a business trip from office. I was provided one apartment with great facilities, which are almost equivalent to a 4 Star grade and scheduled car with a driver to pick up and drop. I stayed for three months in that fully furnished luxurious apartment. I used to prepare tea. Several times I burnt tea in the tea vessel to get dark color. (Luckily fire alarm did not get activated due to smoke)

That tea stain was very difficult to remove from the vessel, I was reusing it regularly. Every 15 days we used to get servants. They used to just clean the apartment and organise things.

One evening, I came back from the office and was shocked by looking at my tea vessel. It was shining like a mirror and the apartment looked like a brand new one. Regarding tea vessel, it was so sticky that I had given up. But the person who cleaned that day, did the job better than me. It's great to see servants being better than the owner!

There comes the ownership and dedication towards the work. I got their number and called that service team company. They asked me, do you have any complaints about our service? I said; No, I called you to give appreciation to the person who gave service to my apartment. They were very happy and promised me to convey my message and thanks to them.

I can understand service company people’s condition, they only address customer complaints. And my application note brought them new light, good spirit to continue with quality in service.

Your Food Service:

It may be your spouse, parents, servants, children, cook, maid, or hotel. Every day you get some food. When all is good, you eat with no complaints. If you find any problem like baking, salt or spice, taste and so on. Suddenly you jump on them and complain about their mistakes.

Are you daily performing an outstanding job at your work? (Grade 5 [or doing only meeting the expectations grade 3) still you expect grade 5 from your manager or superior. But at home/hotel they always have to perform a grade 5 job in cooking. How frequently do you do a grade 5 job at work? But you want to be identified as grade 5 always.

If your Manager or supervisor reacts, the way you react to the quality of food, you may have to resign on the same day... understand patience and sacrifice of the people who are serving or cooking food for you.

Understand their efforts, no one intentionally spoils the food. By mistake it happens. If they are intentional, they don't need much effort to spoil the food.

Believe it or not, if I feel any of the food items are tasty and good, I personally go to the kitchen and appreciate the cooking staff or person who cooked it. I've been doing it for several years.

Like this there are many people who come in our life, try to find a reason to appreciate someone for something. This is a better and finest way to create a better world.

Stop investing energy in finding faults in others. We all know due to education, parenting, environment, we have different behavior, culture and practices. If they get similar opportunities like you, they might be better than you. Find something good and appreciate it. This is the only way to bring lights. If you keep on complaining, that demotivates them, they will start under-performing. Because no one has seen their struggles.

If you compare everyone’s batting with Sachin Tendulkar and complain, you will not be able to build a cricket team. Sometimes the most unexpected person brings a victory to the cricket team. It happened many times in sports. Understand every person has some great qualities and all are unique.

Difficult people are not difficult by nature. Due to lack of love and appreciation they become difficult people. Try finding a few good things in them, recognize and appreciate them. You will see wonderful results! I’m not joking, it’s a fact. I’m saying this statement with my own personal experiences and results.

Have practice of appreciating 5 people in a day. Please don't end your day without appreciating someone for something. Your one social media like or comments may bring great joy!

Important appreciation notes:

• Appreciate with valid reasons.
• Be truthful in your appreciation.
• Be true inside and outside when appreciating.
• Show genuine interest in your appreciation.
• Don't find or consider logic to appreciate someone for something.
• Timing and situation are very important in appreciation.

 If you are complaining about someone in a team or group of people, that person feels insulted and it definitely brings your reputation down. With those complaints you lose credibility and trust from that person. There is a saying: If you want to appreciate, appreciate on the floor [ or publicly]. If you want to complain, do it personally [one on one in a room]. It enhances your respect and credibility.

Here is a very thoughtful video on appreciation: Joel Osteen - Healing Words

Author: GCV (Vishnuvardhana GC)

• Kannada Blogger

Kereya neeranu Kerege chelli

Author Disclaimer:

I’m not a robot to be constant, consistent and complete, I’m a normal human and my blog will be contradictory like director give multiple movies have different opinions on the same subject or different subjects. I flow like a river, I really don’t look for sand, rock, trees, house, and so on. Intention is helping as many as possible before reaching the ocean. I strongly recommend to consult expert’s advice to follow and adopt any methods. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being.

You have great Potential!

You have great Potential!

If you are interested in creating great things in your work or life, please focus on the things which are explained below...

I'm not telling some imaginary stories or fictions, presenting facts. Here is the awards link which I have received for my contributions in Corporate! [Click to see: My Awards] All my awards are unexpected, because I have not done things to get awards. I have done as I was experiencing joy by doing it. [No force, No Passion, just a Joy!]

Every individual is born with great potential and possibilities. Due to bad surroundings, environment, and people. Either you are demotivated or wrongly motivated.

Many a times you need someone to tell you, about your capacity, about your potential. Later you attempt and get success. If you are self-motivated and believe in yourself? You can create wonders. Let me explain these 4 real time stories:

Story 1: Magic of thinking big

This is taken from Preface of book: The Magic of thinking Big, written by David Schwartz. He motivated me to read the 360 pages book after reading this story..

Several years ago, I witnessed an exceptionally impressive sales meeting. The vice president in charge of marketing for this company was tremendously excited. He wanted to drive home a point. He had with him on the platform the leading representative in the organization, a very ordinary-looking fellow, who earned in the year just ended just a little under $60,000. The earnings of other representatives averaged $12,000.

The executive challenged the group. Here is what he said: I want you to take a good look at Harry. Look at him! Now, what's Harry got that the rest of you haven't? Harry earned five times the average, but is Harry five times smarter? No, not according to our personnel tests. I checked. They show he’s about average in that department.

And did Harry work five times harder than you fellows? No-not according to the reports. In fact, he took more time off than most of you.

Did Harry have a better territory? Again, I've got to say no. The accounts averaged about the same. Did Harry have more education? Better health? Again, no. Harry is about as average as an average guy could be except for one thing.

The difference between Harry and the rest of you, said the vice president, "the difference is that Harry thought five times bigger."

Then the executive proceeded to show that success is determined not so much by the size of one's brain as it is by the size of one’s thinking. That is Magic of Thinking Big!

Story 2: 480 test cases executed in a day

In the year 2010/11, I was working as Sr. QA Engineer. My manager assigned some tasks by sharing one Excel file with Test Cases. I examined and started executing test cases written in that excel. It was a task to certify travel insurance application with and without airlines bookings. Using the Mainframe terminal, I need to execute them and after the execution, I need to collect the output of each test case and save it in the same excel as a proof.

After receiving that task, I decided to complete that on the same day, having known that it takes more than 8 hours’ time.

I rarely stretch my work hours or I complete my tasks within 8 hours. Since work was more on that day, I stretched 20 to 30 minutes extra and skipped one of my tea breaks. Completed 480 test cases execution in a day, sent an updated excel report to my manager. Next day morning, my manager came to my desk and she was in shock. She asked me how you completed that? It was estimated to complete in 4 to 5 days. I told her, as I decided to complete it in a day, so I did it.

Normal Estimation for that task: 4 to 5 days, which was designed and defined by French colleagues. [counterparts] Initial days there (French colleagues) 8 hours estimation, I used to take 12 to 14 hours to complete. Later days, I broke their estimation with my potential. Their 8 hours task, I used to complete in 4 to 6 hours. 

Sometimes work and estimations doesn’t matter, what we decide, that matters!

Story 3: Delivery of Automation Project.

This happened in one of my previous office. I was performing a QA Management role. There was a complaint from the past 6 to 7 months on an Automation project which was not delivered. My director explained to me about the project, its criticality and resource issues. When I joined that organization, I was occupied in understanding products, teams and client. Weekdays I didn't get time to look into the automation project. 

One weekend I spent time developing an automation framework (Using Java, Selenium, Maven) and automated 8 test cases of one product and demoed to the team. Given initial days mentoring, it helped my team on their automation problems. We were able to deliver automation of API (2 projects) and GUI (5 small projects) within 4 months. No change in team, no new automation resource, just my dream and determination, it made me see those results and delivery. Off-course my team's tremendous cooperation, efforts and dedication helped in that success. 

By demonstrating that, we won one more project from the same client. Trust me it was not that easy [First time we are experimenting GUI, API integration with Allure reports, Jenkins Email compatibility and so on]. I made my team to understand their potential and capabilities. They proved it!

Story 4: 500 sit-ups within an hour

During my college days, in the hostel, I did 500 sit-ups. It was a challenge with friends and I successfully completed by giving a few minutes gap for every 100 sit-ups. [in-fact I was having 1-week calf and muscle pain in later days] Now I can correlate Mohammad Ali sit-ups which are explained in Arnold's video. Stop having plan B. Stop doubting yourself, it's dangerous. From plan B you are cutting yourself from the success.  Reference Video: Arnold Schwarzenegger This Speech Broke The Internet AND Most Inspiring Speech- It Changed My Life. 

Last Tequila shot:

In the year 2017, I visited Himalayas. I completed the trucking summit of 15,700 feet above sea level. My friend who invited me is a professional trekker asked me to practice and get ready for the summit. Before 15 days of the Trek, I started 1-hour walking practice, in Girinagar Swami Vivekananda park, Bengaluru. My friend was laughing, we are going for such a big event, you are practicing in a small park. He told me it's not enough for the summit. I told him, that is more than enough, I know my inner potential.

I'm not a professional trekker, that was my first trek experience.

Finally, we started climbing the Himalayas, it was more difficult than what I imagined, but I decided to complete it. I did it. (Detailed story I will explain in my future blog, it is very interesting and mysterious). One of our professional trekkers was disqualified before the last day of the summit, but I did it.  Click to see my Trek Summit Certificate

Remember, your thoughts have great powers, use them consciously and correctly to experience your real potential!

My Himalayas Trek Photos Link: Roopkund Photos  and Videos Link: Roopkund Video and Patar Nachauni

Hindu Sanskrit scripts says: "Aham Brahmasmi" This is one of the main Mahavakyas from Upanishads. It translates to 'I am Brahma' or 'I am divine'. Like God you can also create mysteries. 

Unfortunately, most of humans have not experienced their full potential. Here's what Swami Vivekananda says about human potential:

Never say, 'No', never say, 'I cannot', for you are infinite. Even time and space are  nothing compared with your nature. You can do anything and everything, you are almighty.

If you look back on your own achievements, there are so many mysteries you witnessed in your life. You might have considered them as coincident or luck. Remember, nothing is coincident in this universe, everything is a perfectly designed incident. To understand these facts, increase your awareness and enhance your consciousness.

Nowadays people are busy in their own personal interests. So, don't wait for someone to motivate you. Take in charge of yourself, drive your life, win your dreams. You have great potential!

Author: GCV (Vishnuvardhana GC)

• Kannada Blogger

Thank you to all the readers and supporters of my earlier blogs, I love your comments and consider them with great respect, and continue to give my best.

Kereya neeranu Kerege chelli

Author Disclaimer:

I’m not a robot to be constant, consistent and complete, I’m a normal human and my blog will be contradictory like director give multiple movies have different opinions on the same subject or different subjects. I flow like a river, I really don’t look for sand, rock, trees, house, and so on. Intention is helping as many as possible before reaching the ocean. I strongly recommend to consult expert’s advice to follow and adopt any methods. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being.   

Easy ways to Get Success in corporate!

Easy ways to Get Success in corporate!

Success in corporate! It’s easier than you imagine. Trust me and please read this till the end to get hints and clarity on it.

Every field and sector has lots of competitions. Compared to other sectors, corporate is very easy to get success. In other sectors 90% people are in race, remaining 10% are just out of race. Here in corporate 90% people are out of race, only 10% are in race.

Let me explain how: in cricket 90% of all the players try extra mile, extra innovations, extra effort to get selected or to get success. competition in cricket is very difficult. Whereas in corporate 90% of the people are doing only their given job. Only 10% of people do something beyond their job (doing extra). If you consider this %, only one or two people in your team can give some competition in the race. Remaining are not in the race. In corporate, you don't need to run, just a brisk walk itself makes a difference.

Corporate Success Laws:

1. EGO: Delete your EGO, you are here to help the organisation to make more profit. Don't bring your personal interests. (Example: you are skilled at one paid tool, but using a free tool brings revenue to your organization, just go for it. Nokia is the best example, it stayed with symbian OS or Microsoft by not moving to Android)

2. Dress Code: Follow the office dress code. You may feel casual wear gives you a better look. But organizations don't care about our personal interests and is interested  about its image across the other organisations and clients.

3. Emails: Write every email, as if it gets reviewed by your company CEO, no casual or friendly emails. You never know at what time, which of your emails get referenced to clients or higher management due to the project needs.

4. Hair Style: Yes, it matters. Archimedes and Einstein looks are good for architect or scientists kind, because they pay less or no attention to their looks. But in corporate except scientists, others are expected to be in professional haircut and styles.(Ref: Hair style matters)

5. Time Management: Be on time and punctual, it requires no extra effort, it’s just a time management skill. This will save organisations money. Assume: Team meeting gets delayed by 3 minutes because of  you, as you are running late. 10 of your teammates have to wait, you are wasting 30 minutes of the organization time, time is money in corporate.

6. No Favourites: Have no friends or relationships when you are at work. Because this kills your personal reputation and organisation's discipline. This creates an entry point to gossip and internal politics.

7. Be Transparent: Be totally unbiased when hiring new talents, don't bring: cast, religion, colour, gender, or anything. Organisation trusted you and provided a hiring opportunity. Consider all the quality parameters before recommending anyone.

8. Help all: If your team or other teams approach you for help, just jump in and help them in the most respectful way. It's an opportunity for you to create value to the organisation and you never know when you will need help from them.

9. Respect all: Respect every individual the way you respect and treat the billionaire or wise. It indirectly increases your respect and visibility in the organisation. Never discriminate people by their years of experience, gender, skills and position. Everyone is a very important asset to the organisation.

10. Self-discipline and self-control:  Self-discipline helps to improve your organizing and prioritising skills. Self-control is a great asset; it's based on your emotional intelligence. If you are master in dealing with your emotions, you are good at dealing with others. Humans are emotional creatures, dealing with them is nothing but dealing with their emotions.

11. Be Honest: if you want to build trust with your teams and clients, try being honest. 

12. Learn to accept mistakes: accepting your mistakes requires courage and self-confidence. By accepting mistake, you increase your trust level. It also shows how transparent you are.

13. Learn to say NO:  Never over commit and under deliver, it’s always good to under commit and over deliver. Learn to say NO and have right reasons to justify your NO.

14. Appreciate and Thanks: Today all are busy in getting appreciation, but no one is appreciating others. Find a reason to appreciate someone for something and never forget to say thanks.

My Salary Hike:

Don't ask for a salary hike and promotion, organisation should recognise and give. Why? Let me give my own example.

When I was working in my first organisation, after 2.5 years. My manager called me for a one-on-one meeting. He told me he is going to promote me as lead. I rejected his offer. And said no Sir lead role requires a lot of patience and management skills. By giving my manager (Prabhakar Chigateri, he is my role model) example, I want to be like him to take that role. He did not agreed! He said; No you are already doing a lead role, by observing that only I'm offering this to you. He gave me 3 days’ time to come back and tell my opinion. After 3 days again I denied his offer. He forced me as; how many years you wanted to do what you are doing right now? It's a time for you to move forward and take up the responsibilities and don’t worry I'm with you, accept and move on. I finally agreed.

I don't know how many people do this self-evaluation, before taking roles and responsibilities. I witnessed many are getting a lot of stress and tension to get promotion in their job.

You don't believe, in my career only once I asked for a salary hike in our appraisal meeting. My manager (Prabhakar Chigateri) asked me why are you asking this. I told him, during the weekend meeting with my friends, I got to know; we need to ask and fight for hike in appraisal meeting. (Yes, it was a very transparent answer by me) My manager told me, Vishnu don't get influenced by your friends and others. Be true to yourself. I understood what he meant, till today I never asked for any hikes in any of the appraisal meetings.

Even at the time of recession also, I received a 30% hike in the same organisation. How? As I said, in corporate you don't need to run, just a brisk walk brings you a victory. Because there is no race.

I don't think Sundar Pichai is fighting with his manager to get hike and promotions. Don't demand hikes and promotions, your deliverables and skills should command them.

My Job Promotion:

Only once I suggested myself for promotion with my manager (one of the previous offices) in a very polite way, as I was doing some management role, that was about to get delivered from the 2-level senior designated people than me. To justify my role, I requested that. In a day I got recommended for the promotion and I got promoted as well. But I felt very bad about it. As I said, one should not demand for promotion, their work should command it.

Flowers look beautiful when they bloom on its own. It will look ugly if you forcibly tear and make it blossom. Fruit is tasty when it ripe naturally. If you put chemicals you make them ripe early, it will not be that tasteful and healthy.

Story from Katha Upanishad: Nachiketa (young boy) answers Yama, as Yama offers some money and Wealth to Nachiketa as an exchange to compromise. Nachiketa says to Yama: One is supposed to get, what he is supposed to get in his life. If one earns undeserved money or wealth, it will not stay with him. If one not earned due to injustice or politics or any other reasons? No need to worry, he will surely get them, in one or other way. If you understand Katha Upanishad story, you don't need to worry about your earnings or losses.

It’s very important, one must follow office policies and guidelines:

My office policy guides me to wear collar neck T-shirt. One day I was with round neck T-shirt my HR head pointed that (just kidding way), I was feeling guilt. Never repeated that again. My office suggested to use one email signature, but I like different signature. I just threw out my personal interests and started following the suggested one. You may question, why we need to follow all the offices suggestions or policies? I'm doing my work perfectly; I don't follow other things. This is absolutely against the corporate culture. You never know, your organization is respected and recognised based on their set standard, by denying them you are disrespecting your organization and spoiling organization’s reputation.

How important is it? Assume, one of your most important festival or ritual you have not followed dress code as per culture (ex: your marriage you go with half plants). How the entire community is going to treat you. Same way one should bow down to the office policies or procedures. No corporate ever introduced impossible things in policies.

Again, following all these policies are easy, fact is 90% of them are ignored. Following these itself you make a difference, no extra effort needed. Here you don't need even a brisk walk, just a walk itself makes a difference.

How to treat office work?

Treat your office work, the way you treat your personal work. Assume you need to get passport, they ask your ID proof, photo and so on. If you don't have all those, you go to the places where you get them and act to obtain all required documents. If the photo studio is closed, you go to another one or another one till you get photo. Because it's needed for your passport. Similarly, when office work comes, simply don't throw it into others plate by saying it’s their job and so on. Sometimes it's your duty to follow up and get things delivered.

You may say as, I'm following all the rules and instructions very sincerely but success is to far for me. Remember, following all the examination rules will not get you pass results. You must create value to the organisation. Again, it's not based on how many hours you work, it based on how much value you create from your work.

Again, you may say, I'm 100% disciplined, punctual, hardworking, value creation person. Unfortunately, due to office politics and favouritism, people like me will never get any growth. Here is a solution: Negative thinking and Negative vibrations will push you down. It's a metaphysical fact, [some call as law of attraction] our thoughts are very powerful tools. If you use them to destroy yourself, they will destroy you. Being ambitious and thinking positively will create different frequencies and vibration's in you, they will take you to the success path. Stop complaining and learn to improve your required skills.

If you are blaming or in the company of blaming people, you have no possibility of getting any success or growth. How management supports the people who are throwing negative comments and a lot of disrespect to their own organization. Stop gossiping and keep distance from gossiping people.

By following all the above, still if you are not achieving success in the corporate. Just chill! Real success in life is, one should live a peaceful and joyful life. Examine the life of teachers, doctors, and daily labourer's; most of them are serving only one job and one designation till they get retirement. They are doing wonderful service in their given job. That itself is a success, have no desperation towards success in job, that will lead you to depression and chronic health issues. Being ambitious is not wrong. Make sure you are just celebrating every moment in life.

Author: GCV (Vishnuvardhana GC)

• Kannada Blogger

Kereya neeranu Kerege chelli

Author Disclaimer:

I’m not a robot to be constant, consistent and complete, I’m a normal human and my blog will be contradictory like director give multiple movies have different opinions on the same subject or different subjects. I flow like a river, I really don’t look for sand, rock, trees, house, and so on. Intention is helping as many as possible before reaching the ocean. I strongly recommend to consult expert’s advice to follow and adopt any methods. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being.