Attitude Deretmines Attitude

I woke up early today, excited over all I get to do before the clock strikes midnight. I have responsibilities to fulfill today. I am important. My job is to choose what kind of day I am going to have.

Today I can complain because the weather is rainy or I can be thankful that the grass is getting watered for free.

Today I can feel sad that I don't have more money or I can be glad that my finances encourage me to plan my purchases wisely and guide me away from waste.

Today I can grumble about my health or I can rejoice that I am alive.

Today I can lament over all that my parents didn't give me when I was growing up or I can feel grateful that they allowed me to be born.

Today I can cry because roses have thorns or I can celebrate that thorns have roses.

Today I can mourn my lack of friends or I can excitedly embark upon a quest to discover new relationships.

Today I can whine because I have to go to work or I can shout for joy because I have a job to do.

Today I can complain because I have to go to school or eagerly open my mind and fill it with rich new tidbits of knowledge.

Today I can murmur dejectedly because I have to do housework or I can feel honored because the Lord has provided shelter for my mind, body and soul.

Today stretches ahead of me, waiting to be shaped. And here I am, the sculptor who gets to do the shaping.

What today will be like is up to me. I get to choose what kind of day I will have!

Non IIM Graduates to take up OFFBEAT JOBS

BANGALORE: Sweta Tiwari, who will soon get her MBA degree in finance from Thakur Institute of Management, made chocolates on Valentine’s day which

fetched her Rs 20,000 in just three days. Interestingly, she earned Rs 22,000 while test marketing her products — the highest earned by any student in her 180-batch class. She plans to open a retail outlet and aims it to be a Rs 100-crore company in five years.

It’s just not IIM graduates who are taking the entrepreneurial plunge. Students from tier-1 and tier-2 management institutes are also increasingly joining the entrepreneurial tribe and their businesses range from making solar streetlights, robots, solar mobile chargers, painting murals and walls, mushroom cultivation, making eco-bricks out of cow dung to offering homemade tiffins.

Sweta was among the 6 lakh students from business schools and engineering colleges across 30 cities who participated in Entrepreneurship Week (E-Week) India conducted by the National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) this year. “We saw the number of business propositions and the number of participants double compared to last year,” said Laura A Parkin, executive director, NEN, and Wadhwani Foundation, which supports E-Week.

One of the aspirants was Danny D’Cruz from the VLB Janakiammal College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore. He started a wall and mural painting business, taking up an average of four projects a month, which helped him earn Rs 8,000 per project. D’Cruz started this business when one of his artist friends lost his BPO job during the recession. “We go to houses and paint their walls with different pictures as per customer demand,” says D’Cruz.

Students like Praveen Kumar and Ashwin Dange from the National Institute of Engineering, Mysore, who learnt about the shortage of mushroom supply in Mysore, started cultivating it. They plan to brand their products soon and sell them directly to hotels and restaurants. And Ashutosh Pandey (25) from the Thakur Institute of Management in Mumbai plans to launch a startup that offers homemade tiffins along with four fellow students. “We hope to sell 1,000 tiffins per day after six months,” said Mr Pandey.

G Ramachandran (22), a Btech final year student at the PSG Institute of Technology, has plans to launch solar streetlights and solar mobile chargers. He plans to raise funds by conducting workshops on solar robots.

Going the eco-way is another student, Kumar Saurav, from the Vidya Vardhaka College of Engineering, Mysore, who has plans to make eco-bricks made of cow dung for homes. These bricks are a mix of cow dung, silica and clay which can be baked in sunlight and don’t need kilns or large ovens. Mr Saurav is talking to contractors and the construction industry to supply these bricks. “With an investment of Rs 50,000, I am planning to produce 20,000 bricks to do a trial run,” he said.

Rahul Kamath (24) from PSG College of Technology in Coimbatore has started a company which makes steam boilers used for different industries instead of furnaces.

“The steam has got higher temperature than fire and can be used for different purposes such as cleaning and won’t burn objects,” he said. Mr Kamath is also starting a plant for organic fuel sourced from agricultural waste, with an investment of Rs 5 lakh.

Attitude Is Everything

--- By Francie Baltazar-Schwartz

Jerry was the kind of guy you love to hate. He was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins!" He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to restaurant.

The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him, "I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?"

Jerry replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, Jerry, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.

I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life."

"Yeah, right, it's not that easy," I protested. "Yes it is," Jerry said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations.

You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live life."

I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers.

While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local trauma center.

After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body. I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins. Wanna see my scars?"

I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place. "The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door," Jerry replied. "Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices:

I could choose to live, or I could choose to die. I chose to live."

"Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked. Jerry continued, "The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared.

I read, 'He's a dead man.' I knew I needed to take action." "What did you do?" I asked. "Well, there was a big, burly nurse shouting questions at me," said Jerry. "She asked if I was allergic to anything." "Yes," I replied.

The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled,"Bullets!"

Over their laughter, I told them, "I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead."

Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully.

Attitude, after all, is everything.