10 Simple but Powerful Secrets....

The following 10 simple but powerful secrets of success can dramatically change your life for the better.

When you infuse these secrets into your life and make them part of your daily life, you are bound to succeed in whatever you set yourself to do.

The secrets are hereby revealed!


1. Follow your passion.
Passion is a strong feeling of excitement about something or someone. If for example you are passionate about your job you tend to do it better than anyone else. You add your own flavor or signature and others are bound to notice. Successful people all over the world, in all industries and all types of sports or arts have managed to find their passion. In so doing they tend to rise above ordinary achievers.

Do yourself a favor by striking conversation with anyone that you consider to be successful. Direct your conversation to what they do. You will feel the positive energy when they start telling you about what they do. This positive energy is fueled by passion.


2. Use you talent or talents.
Every one of us has at least one thing that they can do better than anyone else in the whole universe. Like our finger prints we are all unique in one way or the other. Successful people have managed to identify their unique talent or talents. They use their talents not only to advance themselves but also to provide service to humanity.

Some people are fortunate to have managed to identify their talents earlier in their lives. Some do manage to find their talents in their senior years. Irrespective, it is never too late to identify your unique talent and use it to benefit yourself, your family, you community and everyone else.


3. Find your niche.
You have to offer your clients, recipients or consumers of your services something unique. Copying or imitating someone else it has never been a good strategy. After all you will never be able to comprehensively understand and implement other people's ideas without them revealing their secrets to you.

When you persist on the road of imitation you are not only cheating yourself but you may get hurt in the long run. By the way imitators live other people dreams and successful people bring their own flavor to the market.


4. Habitually think positive thoughts.
Nothing positive will come out a mind full of negative thoughts. If you continuously think of failure, you bound to find it at your doorstep. Put yourself in a state where your mind is full of positive thoughts.

Successful people are the most positive people you can ever come across. Their positive outlook is not only confined in what they do, they have a general positive outlook in politics, economy, relationships and so forth.


5. Know what you want.
Get into the mode of setting your own goals. Know exactly where you are going, how you going to get there and when are you going to get there. Your goals must be SMARTE i.e. Simple - Measurable - Achievable - Realistic - Time based - Exciting.

Just like successful people, get into the habit of setting SMARTE goals and you will be amazed at what you can achieve.


6. Take action.

It is commendable to have plans, "smarte" goals and dreams but if you are lazy to act, you are going nowhere. You have get out there and make things happen if you want your life to change for the better. However before acting you must have a clearly defined plan. Without a plan your action will yield nothing desirable to you.

Successful people work smart, follow their dream and are guided by their goals. Some of them work long hours, but that is only because they enjoy what they do.


7. Be persistent.
History is littered with intelligent, talented and highly educated people who amounted to nothing. Most of these people came up with brilliant ideas or were involved in ventures that could have revolutionized our history. Their only downfall is lack of persistence; they gave up too easily, too soon.

The world over, successful people are persistent. It is easy too see why. They are passionate, they operate within their niche and they use their unique talents well.


8. Have integrity.
Integrity is the most important character or trait of successful people. You have to be honest, upfront and upright in your dealings. In this way you live with clean conscience. Successful people have mastered the art of communicating their vision well to others, e.g. employees, financiers, customers or family members. They have done so because they have realized that in order to succeed others have to buy into their vision.


9. Learn the art of communication.
Experts tell us that communication consist of 7% words, 38% tone of our voice and 55% body language. Learn to hear, see, understand and use all components of communication to your advantage.


10. Continuously improve yourself.
Life long learning is the key. The biggest challenge of our times is not literacy or the ability to count, but is the ability to learn, unlearn and re-learn always. To stay on top of your game, you have to consciously improve yourself in order to stay abreast of the changes in your operational area.

Successful people can foresee change in their niche long before ordinary people experience that change. In this way they manage to plan and benefit from changing conditions in their niche.

My Lessons in Life- Shaping Young Minds By Azim Premji

Following is the speech of Azim Premji, Chairman, Wipro Corporation, in the "Shaping Young Minds Program" organized by the All India Management Association (AIMA) in collaboration with the Bombay Management Association BMA) on February 9, 2004 at NCPA in Mumbai:

I am very happy to be here with you. It is always wonderful to be with young people. The funny thing about life is that you realize the value of something only when it begins to leave you. As my hair turned from black to salt and pepper and finally salt without the pepper, I have begun to realize the importance of youth. At the same time, I have begun to truly appreciate some of the lessons I have learnt along the way. I hope you will find them useful when you plan your own career and life.

The first thing I have learnt is that we must always begin with our strengths. While it is important for us to know what we are not good at, we must also cherish what is good in us. That is because it is only our strengths that can give us the energy to correct our weaknesses. From the earliest years of our schooling, everyone focuses on what is wrong with us. There is an imaginary story of a rabbit. The rabbit was enrolled in a rabbit school. Like all rabbits, it could hop very well but could not swim. At the end of the year, the rabbit got high marks in hopping but failed in swimming. The parents were concerned. They said, "Forget about hopping. You are anyway good at it. Concentrate on swimming." They sent the rabbit for tuitions in swimming. And guess what happened? The rabbit forgot how to hop! As for swimming, have you ever seen a rabbit swim?

The second lesson I have learnt is that a rupee earned is of far more value than five found. My friend was sharing me the story of his eight year-old niece. She would always complain about the breakfast. The cook tried everything possible, but the child remained unhappy. Finally, my friend took the child to a supermarket and brought one of those ready-to-cook packets. The child had to cut the packet and pour water in the dish. After that, it took two minutes in the microwave to be ready. The child found the food to be absolutely delicious? The difference was that she has cooked it! In my own life, I have found that nothing gives as much satisfaction as earning our rewards. In fact, what is gifted or inherited follows the old rule of come easy - go easy. I guess we only know the value of what we have if we have struggled to earn it.

The third lesson I have learnt is no one bats a hundred every time. Life has many challenges. You win some and lose some. You must enjoy winning. But do not let it go to the head. The moment it does, you are already on your way to failure. And if you do encounter failure along the way, treat it as an equally natural phenomenon. Don't beat yourself for it or any one else for that matter! Accept it, look at your own share in the problem, learn from it and move on. The important thing is, when you lose, do not lose the lesson.

The fourth lesson I have learnt is the importance of humility. Sometimes, when you get so much in life, you really start wondering whether you deserve all of it. This brings me to the value of gratitude. We have so much to be grateful for. Our parents, our teachers and our seniors have done so much for us that we can never repay them. Many people focus on the shortcomings, because obviously no one can be perfect. But it is important to first acknowledge what we have received. Nothing in life is permanent but when a relationship ends, rather than becoming bitter, we must learn to savor the memory of the good things while they lasted.
The fifth lesson I learnt is that we must always strive for excellence. One way of achieving excellence is by looking at those better than ourselves. Keep learning what they do differently. Emulate it. But excellence cannot be imposed from the outside. We must also feel the need from within. It must become an obsession. It must involve not only our mind but also our heart and soul. Excellence is not an act but a habit. I remember the inspiring lines of a poem, which says that your reach must always exceed your grasp. That is heaven on earth. Ultimately, your only competition is yourself.

The sixth lesson I have learnt is never give up in the face of adversity. It comes on you suddenly without warning. One can either succumb to self-pity, wring your hands in despair or decide to deal with the situation with courage and dignity. Always keep in mind that it is only the test of fire that makes fine steel. A friend of mine shared this incident with me. His eight-year old daughter was struggling away at a jigsaw puzzle. She kept at it for hours but could not succeed. Finally, it went beyond her bedtime. My friend told her, "Look, why don't you just give up? I don't think you will complete it tonight. Look at it another day." The daughter looked with a strange look in her eyes, "But, dad, why should I give up? All the pieces are there! I have just got to put them together!" If we persevere long enough, we can put any problem into its perspective.

The seventh lesson I have learnt is that while you must be open to change, do not compromise on your values. Mahatma Gandhiji often said that you must open the windows of your mind, but you must not be swept off your feet by the breeze. You must define what your core values are and what you stand for. And these values are not so difficult to define. Values like honesty, integrity, consideration and humility have survived for generations. Values are not in the words used to describe them as much as in the simple acts. At the end of the day, it is values that define a person more than the achievements. Because it is the means of achievement that decide how long the achievements will sustain. Do not be tempted by short cuts. The short cut can make you lose your way and end up becoming the longest way to the destination.

And the final lesson I learnt is that we must have faith in our own ideas even if everyone tells us that we are wrong. There was once a newspaper vendor who had a rude customer. Every morning, the customer would walk by, refuse to return the greeting, grab the paper off the shelf and throw the money at the vendor. The vendor would pick up the money, smile politely and say, "Thank you, Sir." One day, the vendor's assistant asked him, "Why are you always so polite with him when he is so rude to you? Why don't you throw the newspaper at him when he comes back tomorrow?" The vendor smiled and replied, "He can't help being rude and I can't help being polite. Why should I let his rude behaviour dictate my politeness?”

In my youth, I thought of myself as a rebel and was many times, a rebel without a cause. Today, I realize that my rebellion was another kind of conformity. We defied our elders to fall in line with our peers. Ultimately; we must learn to respond instead of reacting. When we respond, we evaluate with a calm mind and do whatever is most appropriate. We are in control of our actions. When we react, we are still doing what the other person wants us to do. I wish you all the best in your life and career. I hope you achieve success in whatever way you define it and what gives you the maximum happiness in life. Remember, those who win are those who believe they can. «