Olympics 2021

 Olympics this year, brought some glory to India, though its nothing, considering the population of India. India's Olympics medals over the years:

1896🥈🥈

1928🥇

1932🥇

1936🥇

1948🥇

1952🥇🥉

1956🥇

1960🥈

1964🥇

1968🥉

1972🥉

1980🥇

1996🥉

2000🥉

2004🥈

2008🥇🥉🥉

2012🥈🥈🥉🥉🥉🥉

2016🥈🥉

2021🥇🥈🥈🥉🥉🥉🥉

Never the less it was a moment of pride we had better number of medals both in Olympics and Para Olympics. 

This year we had:

After 12 years, national Anthem being sung at Olympics:

Neeraj Chopra: Gold.🥇

Mirabai Chanu: Silver.🥈

Ravi Dahiya: Silver.🥈

PV Sindhu: Bronze.🥉

Men's Hockey: Bronze.🥉

Bajrang Punia: Bronze.🥉

Lovlina Borgohain: Bronze.🥉

Womens Hockey team, Kamalpreet Kaur and Adhiti Ashok missed my a niche. 

Five years back, in 2016, when we had no medal hopes in Athletics,

Indian Army started Mission Olympic 2020.

Army identified potential kids, employed them, and gave best of diet, coach, infrastructure and incentives. Each medal got these kids promotion

Subedar Neeraj Chopra reached his current rank, after winning many medal at national and international level. On 07th Aug 2021, Subedar Neeraj and Indian Army fulfill their promise

Gold in athletes, first time by Indian to the nation. Once again, Army always delivers. Proud moment for every soldier and citizen of India.

According to Sports Authority of India, the Government spent Rs 4,85,39,638 on Neeraj for his training and competitions overseas in the 450 days  leading up to the Tokyo Olympics.

Dr Klaus Bartonietz was made Neeraj's personal coach following his elbow surgery in March 2019 and the Government has paid him Rs 1,22,24,880 as salary to date.

A total of four javelins have been procured for Neeraj so far at the cost of Rs 4,35,000.

In 2021, Rs 19,22,533 has been spent on Neeraj after he set up camp in Sweden for 50 days to compete in European tournaments before flying out directly to Tokyo.

Apart from this a private firm JSW sponsored him close to Rs.1.5 crores.

A similar amount was spent on the most athletes by the Union Government through a program called TOPS (Target Olympic Podium Scheme). It had started from 2014, with an allocation of Rs 900Crs and today Government has allocated Rs 2,000+ Crores for this program.

Government of India spends Rs 2.5 crore for Olympic medalist Mirabai Chanu in 5 years Mirabai Chanu was one of the premium athletes availing financial assistance from the TOPS scheme.

Especially applause to Orissa Chief Minister for sponsoring and promoting Hockey, which is the national game of India. 

On a different note, we have lot of educated and professionals competing in this years Olympics:

The seven scientists in the Tokyo Olympics

1. Anna Kiesenhofer (Austria) won the cycling route, without a professional coach. She has a doctorate in mathematics from the Technical University of Vienna and the University of Cambridge, UK. She works in research and teaching at the Technical University of Lausanne, in Switzerland.

2. Hadia Hosny (Egypt) finished an impressive career in badmington, but has two gigantic additions: she is a professor at the British University of Egypt, she has a master's degree in biomedicine from the University of Bath, UK, and a doctorate in pharmacology from University of Cairo and has researched and published articles on an anti-inflammatory drug used for various diseases. And she's a congresswoman in her country.

3. Charlotte Hym (France), debuted in the "street skateboarding", when she gets off the board she is a doctor in neuroscience and her current job is to investigate the effect of the mother's voice on the development of motor skills in newborns.

4. Gabby Thomas (United States) was a bronze medalist in the 200 meters of athletics and is already a legend in the discipline for being the third fastest woman in history in that specialty.

Gabby studied Neurobiology and Global Health at Harvard University, is pursuing a master's degree in epidemiology and health management at the University of Texas at Austin, and her work focuses on the investigation of racial inequality in access to health services in USA

5. Louise Shanahan (Ireland) was preparing for Paris 2024 but managed to qualify for Tokyo in the 800 meters of athletics.

She is a graduate of Quantum Physics from the University of Cork, Ireland, and is pursuing her PhD at the University of Cambridge, England. She studies and develops devices to improve cancer diagnosis and treatment.

6. Nadine Apetz (Germany) is the first German boxer in an Olympics.

Nadine has a master's degree in Neuroscience from the University of Bremen and hopes to complete a doctorate at Cologne University Hospital.

Apetz is studying a technique called deep brain stimulation, which involves applying electrical or electromagnetic currents to certain areas of the "gray matter" of the brain: the goal, to help Parkinson's patients.

7. Andrea Murez (Israel) is a swimmer who participated in 50, 100 and 200 meters freestyle and 4x100 mixed relays.

she is also a biologist at the Stanford University, US.

Courtesy: BBC

Onam 2021

 Chingam is the 1st month in Malayalam Calendar called Kolla Varsham, therefore celebrated as Malayalam New Year. 

Though with all that is happening around, and deaths in the family, we did not have Onam at home, there were two striking things:

In office Onam was celebrated after four years. 

Onam collaborated with Avani Avitam, and it was an experience in itself. 

Niche

 

1. Identify your interests and passions.

This may be something you've already done. But, if you haven't, make a list of 10 topical interests and passion areas, immediately.

Business isn't easy, and at some point it will test you. If you are working in an area that you don't care about, your odds of quitting will greatly increase -- especially as a first-time business owner.

This doesn't mean that you need to find a perfect fit. If you are passionate about some aspect of running the business, you will stick with it. If you don’t care about the topic, you may not be able to find the drive within to persevere.

Here are a few prompts to help you determine what your interests and passions are:

• How do you like to spend your free time? What do you look forward to doing when you aren't doing it?

• What magazines do you subscribe to? What topics do you like to learn about most?

• What clubs or organizations do you belong to?

2. Identify problems you can solve.

With your list of 10 topics in hand, you're ready to start narrowing down your options.

With your list of 10 topics in hand, you're ready to start narrowing down your options. To create a profitable business, you first need to find problems your target customers are experiencing, then determine whether you can actually solve them. Here are several things you can do to identify problems in specific niches:

• Have one-on-one conversations or idea-extraction sessions with your target market. Make sure to find or create a framework for asking questions that helps you uncover pain points.

• Peruse forums. Search Quora, or find forums related to your niche, then take a look at the discussions that are taking place. What questions are people asking? What problems do they have?

• Research keywords. Explore different keyword combinations on Google Trends and Google AdWords’ keyword planner. This can help you uncover popular search terms related to pain points.

Related: 7 Steps to Defining Your Niche Market

3. Research your competition.

The presence of competition isn't necessarily a bad thing. It may actually be showing you that you've found a profitable niche. But you do need to do a thorough analysis of competing sites. Create a new spreadsheet and start logging all of the competing sites you can find.

Then figure out whether there's still an opportunity to stand out in the crowd. Can you still rank for your keywords? Is there a way to differentiate yourself and create a unique offer? Here are several signs that you can enter a niche and be successful, even if there are already other sites serving it:

• Low-quality content. It's easy to outrank your competition in a niche where other business owners are not creating high-quality, detailed content that serves the audience.

• Lack of transparency. Many online entrepreneurs have disrupted entire industries by creating an authentic and transparent presence in a niche where other sites are faceless and overly corporate.

• Lack of paid competition. If you've found a keyword that has relatively high search volume, but little competition and paid advertising, an opportunity definitely exists for you to upset the market.

4. Determine the profitability of your niche.

You should now have a pretty good idea of what niche you're going to get into. Maybe you haven't narrowed your list down to a single topic area, but you've likely found a few ideas you feel pretty good about. At this point, it's important to get an idea of how much money you have the potential to make in your niche. ClickBank is a great place to go to start your search.

So, browse top products in your category. If you can't find any offers, that's not a good sign. It might mean that nobody has been able to monetize the niche.

If your search does turn up a decent number of products -- but not an overabundance of products -- you're in luck. Make note of price points so that you can price your own products in a competitive manner.

Also keep in mind that you don't have to start your business with a product offering of your own. You can partner with products creators, advertisers and site owners in your niche to begin generating commissions while you're working on your unique solution.

5. Test your idea.

You are now armed with all of the information you need to choose a niche, and the only thing left to do is test your idea. One simple way to do this is to set up a landing page for pre-sales of a product you're developing. You can then drive traffic to this page with paid advertising.

Even if you don't get pre-sales, that doesn't necessarily mean that you aren't in a viable niche. It could be that your messaging isn't quite right, or you haven't found the right offer yet. By leveraging A/B split testing, you can optimize conversions and find out whether or not there is anything stopping your target market from taking action.

Final thoughts

Once you've confirmed the viability of a niche, start developing a full-fledged website. You'll want to learn how to create a blog, and generate more traffic to your site to boost your revenue and scale up.

But, do keep in mind that there isn't necessarily a perfect process for finding a niche. You'll want to do your homework, but if you get stuck in the planning phase, you'll never actually get around to starting. As an entrepreneur, you need to become a good starter.

Related: 5 Steps to Determine Your Ideal Niche Business Even in an Unfamiliar Market

If you believe you've found a business idea you can invest yourself into, take the plunge. The learning and growth that comes from doing will be far greater than the rewards of just planning.

The Riches Are in the Niches

https://www.entrepreneur.com/video/348961

David Tao, editor and co-founder of BarBend, shares his thoughts on how to identify an underserved niche. (The Playbook)

You should have passion, people can smell what you say.

Sooner or later, the truth comes out. Don’t blow things out of proposition. 

Subconscious – sleep coaching – 

David Tao, an entrepreneur and co-founder of BarBend, talks about how his beginnings in business journalism inspired him to find a niche audience in need of content and shares insight into the process of finding the right mix of content to serve that niche.

Tao and The Playbook host David Meltzer discuss a range of topics, including how to find niches or sub-niches that aren’t saturated and strategies to improve your content. The pair also provide guidance on some of the best ways to create diverse revenue streams once you have built up an audience.

Mindset.

Strength is a broad topic. Everything impact : Sleep, health,

Empower two people, who can empower two people.

Consistency important to address the niche.

Keep sending out to find the niche.

Strength for weight lifting for weightlifters. 

You have to provide lot of content over your niche and 

Monetization is important. 

You know the product and audience, when you know the niche, the pitch is direct. 

Once you stabilize, diversification of audience and revenue stream.

Sponsor contents, build stories around. Podcast revenue, affiliate links.

You tube gets bigger everymonth.

Fastest growing revenue stream, since Jan 2020 increase in traffic, onsite advertising, 

Get broader – produce resources in your niche. Established media brands. 

If you want to get rich, find your niche.

Is Focusing On a Specific Niche Really That Important?

 https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/333695

To specialize or not to specialize, that is the question. (The answer is yes.)

Why Do I Need to Be Niche-Specific?

Practice makes perfect, and that applies in the business world as much as anything else in life. By being niche-specific in whatever your business does, you are constantly getting in repetitions and practice at the same things over and over. It allows you as a business to become an expert at your craft in one particular vertical, often times making you the subject-matter expert for this particular niche.

Niche-Specific Doesn't Mean Turning Away Business

Well, yes and no. First and foremost, you can specialize in a specific niche, but still work with clients in other niches.  Specialization doesn’t mean you only work within that niche. You can also refer that business out to a partner who specializes in other niches. In the long run, however, as you begin to specialize, you will focus your marketing and sales efforts into your niche, which will lead to a decrease in leads outside your area of specialization and a dramatic increase in leads in your new vertical.

How Do I Find My Niche?

You can find your niche through research and marketing into a particular vertical. For example, if you're a marketing agency, pick a vertical that interests you and doesn't have a ton of competition. However, in my experience, more times than not your niche will find you.  

For example, many of my family members are in the legal space. My dad is a lawyer, sister is a lawyer, mom is a court reporter, and many of my friends and their friends are also in the legal space. This naturally has led me to understand this vertical, and over time, I’ve continued to gain more and more clients in this space. This vertical fell into my lap, and once I started to actually focus on it as a target, our agency quickly grew to service dozens of legal clients.

How Will Being Niche-Specific Help My Bottom Line?

One of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs is scaling their business. Being niche-specific and engaging in the same tasks and processes over and over is one of the easiest way to scale. Once you perfect these processes and procedures, it is much easier to train employees to do this at scale when compared to a business that does not vertically specialize.

A business can certainly succeed without niche specialization, but in my opinion, having a particular niche will increase your changes of success, make your business more scalable, make you a subject-matter expert in that industry and, perhaps most importantly, improve your bottom line.  

6 Niche Social Media Networks Changing the Ways We Connect, Collaborate and Discover New Opportunities

https://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshow/317173

In 2008, there were 100 million users on Facebook. Fast-forward 10 years, and 2.19 billion active users are on the platform. It's safe to say that social media has seen ample growth.

However, such rapid growth comes with its own set of challenges. From fake news to data breaches and an incredibly crowded marketplace, sometimes it feels like these platforms are simply so big that the companies can't even control them. Of course, that doesn't mean they're slowing down any time soon. In fact, their rampant growth is actually helping pave the way for other, more effective digital platforms.

These niche social media platforms are tailored specifically to certain groups of people or industries, offering a more personalized approach to connecting with others who share common interests and goals, in addition to discovering new opportunities and receiving curated content.

"The key here is finding the right platform that allows the user to cut through the noise to achieve their intended goal," says Anis Bennaceur, co-founder and chief marketing officer of Mixer, a private network for creatives. "No two industries are created alike. Different user needs require different social ecosystems for professionals to connect, engage and collaborate."

The ROI of Social Media (Infographic)

From Mixer to SERMO, a network for doctors, and Spiceworks, for IT professionals -- more and more niche networks are appearing, each with the intention of offering an easier way to connect with the right people and access the right information. To learn more, here are six niche social media networks.

Mixer

With Mixer, the term "starving artist" might soon be outdated. By providing a private digital network for professionals in art, fashion, entertainment, music and various creative industries, the platform is helping to build a creative middle class by making connections and opportunities more accessible. With a thorough vetting process, a small monthly subscription fee and a digital framework in place that makes it easy for members to personalize their profiles and import work to an online portfolio, the app provides an alternative way for creatives to connect, exhibit their work, post jobs and find new opportunities. "We believe our hyper-focus on the creative industry will drive more meaningful engagements through the Mixer app, making it an intangible part of the creative professional lifestyle," Bennaceur says.

AngelList

AngelList is a niche network geared towards connecting startups and angel investors. After a person or company applies and is accepted, they can begin "swiping right" or "swiping left" on investors or startups.

However, getting accepted might be easier said than done. With an average 1 to 2 percent acceptance rate of startups, AngelList carefully monitors who is allowed to use its platform. Once accepted, a startup is provided a carefully curated list of recommended investors based on market, stage and location. Companies can also search for investors using filters, funding types, activity and more. Investors are also provided the opportunity to filter through startups.

ResearchGate

ResearchGate is a social networking site for scientists and researchers to connect, share research, ask questions and collaborate on projects. It boasts more than 15 million users worldwide.

Like Mixer and AngelList, ResearchGate also has a strict vetting process for applicants, requiring scientists to sign up using their institutional email addresses or undergo an individual process to prove their research activity. In the scientific industry, there's a strong commitment to uncover information and research for the greater good of humanity, which is why ResearchGate's mission is "to connect the world of science and make research open to all." Launched by a group of scientists, the platform not only seeks to help connect scientists from around the world, but provide them an online place to share publications and data, find out who has been citing their work, ask questions, post discussions and find new opportunities.

SERMO

SERMO is a niche social network aimed at connecting doctors around the globe. With a three-stage application process to verify a person's medical credentials, SERMO offers a safe platform for doctors to connect, discuss important topics, ask questions, learn and crowdsource information. Unlike ResearchGate, SERMO creates an exclusive professional community where doctors can connect and feel comfortable discussing confidential information, and to even do so anonymously if they choose.

Spiceworks

Spiceworks, geared towards IT professionals and digital marketers, provides an online space to connect with peers, start conversations, gain access to educational content and take advantage of various planning and management apps. Spiceworks also allows tech companies to join and connect with tech professionals and offer company-backed advice and tips to users. Unlike a number of today's niche social networks, Spiceworks is a public platform, but with its major focus on IT workers and business, there's not much appeal to people outside of the industry.

Sportifico

Sportifico is a network for aspiring soccer athletes and coaches, aimed at helping players and professionals connect with people and opportunities, with the end goals of jump-starting their own athletic careers or building a team. After a person applies and is accepted, they can upload their sports resume and create a profile. In addition, they can import achievements and personal statistics and times to help them get noticed or recruited. Then, users can connect, send messages, search for opportunities and build teams.

Understanding the Concept of 'Niching Down' for Budding Entrepreneurs

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/339399

Chidike Samuelson

ENTREPRENEUR LEADERSHIP NETWORK CONTRIBUTOR

Entrepreneur, Lawyer, Author and Freelance writer

“Find a niche if you want to succeed in business.” This age-old advice has been handed down to entrepreneurs for generations. Finding a niche market is a piece of great advice — as long as entrepreneurs understand what exactly is meant when that advice is dished out.  

The purpose of a niche

For the purposes of marketing and customer satisfaction, finding a niche and sticking to it is necessary for new businesses and/or small businesses. The logic to this is simple: Catering to a larger market or audience will require the investment of more marketing dollars to reach that market, as well as more technology or personnel to satisfy their needs, if and when you do reach them.

This is often difficult if not impossible for new businesses, especially for those who are bootstrapping it. This being said, a new business can reach a wide market if it starts off with significant funding and can afford to acquire the necessary technology and personnel. In essence, the advice to find a niche is a logical one for convenience, but it's not necessarily a strategy for business success across the board. 

Another reason businesses might focus on a specific niche, or niche down, is for the purposes of competition. A niche helps set the business apart and helps it hook customers by catering to very specific needs. This pushes other businesses to either niche down themselves or expand.

A niche market is not the same as a niche product

I have often seen budding entrepreneurs mix up these concepts. When advice is given to niche down, it is often in reference to finding a specific demographic that you can cater to as a business. In other words, it often refers to finding your niche market.  

A category like "males" is a broad market for a clothes manufacturer. However, if the business targets teenage boys, it has found a niche market within the broader one by narrowing it down by age.  

Working with a niche product, on the other hand, is centering your business around a specific product type amid a broader category of the same or similar products. For instance, "jackets" is a broad category, but centering your business around trench coats adds some ease to your production processes.  

Entrepreneurs must understand the difference and also understand where they overlap. It is very possible to find a niche product that also trims down your niche market automatically. An example would be “adult men’s shoes” as a niche product within a greater category of shoes. A business that manufactures men’s shoes will naturally cater to a broad category of adult men. If a business decides to focus on the manufacturing of men’s athletic shoes, this also naturally niches down their market to men who are into fitness.  

This distinction is necessary because it means that small businesses can niche down their market without niching down their product. In fact, it is advisable that businesses offer all the products it can to their niche market. This could translate to offering running sleeves, shin pads, athletic socks, and other ancillary products. In this way, the business might not offer a niche product but is still be catering to a niche market.

Niching down is not a permanent verdict

Facebook began as a platform connecting college students, and now it's a mega-conglomerate with a toe in almost everything the internet has to offer. It has does so with gradual but intentional growth; maintaining a niche can become obsolete once a business has grown enough to effectively move beyond its present audience or niche. 

The niche is comfortable, but it can easily become an enemy to an entrepreneur’s ambitions. Niches are by definition small, and this makes them risky. Better technology, changes in policy, or a search engine tweaking its algorithm can instantly put you out of business. This is why it is advisable for businesses to start with a small niche but aim to grow beyond it. 

That said, it is a significant risk to leave a niche, especially one that has worked well for your business. But it's no secret that leaders are people who take risks, and most are ready to fish where the sharks are when the timing is right.

Whatever stage your business may be in, it's worth it to figure out if you want to market a niche product or stick to reaching your niche market. When you niched down enough to create a business, make the best of it and scale your business within that niche. Only then should you invest growing within that market.

Goals

 Most of us are in a stage where we know what we want but unable to move ahead. 

Its more to do with our inner self than our outer situations. 

Take a pen and paper, ask yourself the following questions. 

1. What are the things I want to do for myself and my family?

(List down Short Term, Medium Term and Long Term Goals)

2. On a scale of 1-10 (10 being highest) list the importance of each of the Goal.

(Prioritize the Goals)

3. Go deeper and ask Why are these goals important to me?

(Every goal has a deeper purpose)

4. Once I achieve these goals, How will I feel about myself?

5. Who do I want to become in my life?

6. What should be my earnings this time next year?

7. What do I need to do to deserve this desired earning?

8. What are the skills and Knowledge I need to learn to reach the next level?

Lets realign and reach our goals.

FB Ads and cooking awesome food

 Here's what’s common b/w FB Ads and cooking awesome food:

A few days back, read this somewhere, not sure where I got this from, but wanted to note it before I forget:

"I was reading an interview of a great chef, and they asked him:

“What’s your biggest secret of making awesome food?”

He said- “it’s all about the ingredients. If ingredients are good and fresh, food will be awesome”

And it got me thinking about FB ads.

Our Ads work the same way.

The BEST ‘ingredient’ for our ads is: MARKET RESEARCH.

If you’ve studied the market well, you’ll know all their HOT BUTTONs. Put all that into your ads, and your ads will do just fine :)

Market research includes things like- what’s your market’s pains, problems, worries, anxieties. What are their desires, what gets their juices flowing? Also, inspired by Expert Secrets, what are their FALSE BELIEFs- vehicle, internal & external.

If you write ads with all this info with you, your ads will ELICIT THE RIGHT EMOTIONs.

Emotions will create more engagements- and the FB algo perceives that as VALUE. The more VALUE you deliver to the audience, the more you’re “buying Facebook’s LOVE”

Afghanistan and Taliban

How could this month end, without thoughts and prayers for the most happening event of the month? 

Afgan - Gravyard of Empires. Land - Filled with minerals - Lithum. 

Afghan is now added to the lists of Uyghurs and Rohingya. 

Uyghurs alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central and East Asia. The Uyghurs are recognized as native to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwest China.

Rohingya people are a stateless Indo-Aryan ethnic group who predominantly follow Islam and reside in Rakhine State, Myanmar. Before the displacement crisis in 2017, when over 740,000 fled to Bangladesh, an estimated 1.4 million Rohingya lived in Myanmar

The Taliban, or "students" in the Pashto language, emerged in the early 1990s in northern Pakistan following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. It is believed that the predominantly Pashtun movement first appeared in religious seminaries - mostly paid for by money from Saudi Arabia - which preached a hardline form of Sunni Islam.

The promise made by the Taliban - in Pashtun areas straddling Pakistan and Afghanistan - was to restore peace and security and enforce their own austere version of Sharia, or Islamic law, once in power.

Taliban Has "Broken Shackles Of Slavery", Says Pak PM Imran Khan

If the Taliban succeeds in toppling the Western-backed government in Kabul, China is prepared to recognize the group as the LEGITIMATE ruling power of Afghanistan, US News reports, citing multiple intelligence sources.

Beijing has publicly pressed the Taliban to continue working towards a peace agreement with Ashraf Ghani’s government, but reportedly sees any sort of stability in the country as beneficial to China’s prior economic investments in the region, including mineral rights in Afghanistan.

For revenge against 9/11 US went after Osama, Al Qaeda, Taliban and Mullah Omar. It didn’t get happy that MOHD Atta is no more as they knew he was just a last mile Pawn. 

We need to strike at roots which nurture this evil poisonous tree.

As on 31st July 2021 MASSIVE LINES as Afghans queue at passport office in Kabul amid Taliban offensive.

Over 10,000 Afghan citizens were reportedly turning to the passport office DAILY in the hope of getting documents to leave the country in July.

The security situation in Afghanistan was uncertain after the Biden admin. and US allies withdrew combat troops.

The Taliban has been gaining territory taking control of regions in all parts of the country.

About 200 Afghan interpreters and their families arrived in the US  - with thousands more set to be evacuated to escape Taliban revenge

MASSIVE LINES as Afghans queue at passport office in Kabul amid Taliban offensive.

The Taliban's senior leadership includes many Mujahideen fighters who were once trained by the U.S. during the Cold War to battle against the invading Soviet Union forces in the 1980s. The Sunni group's membership is drawn largely from the majority ethnic Pashtun population most dominant in the southern part of the country. 

Taliban do not want any foreign dignitaries or reporters stuck in the country so that they have more control over what the world knows. The escorting is also not because they want to make sure the foreigners reach home safe it is to identify the big shots of Afghanistan and making sure they do not flee. Especially the land owners of the opium farms. The chaos of the common people is because they understand the talibanian strategy and can foresee the future based on earlier experiences. It is not because Taliban has done anything yet. It also means that Taliban has bigger plans this time. So nobody is nice here… it is all about power, control and money

Extremist always create havoc. While the Righ wing try to propogae that if they are not active, they would attack and wipe us out, others call the right wing equivalent to Taliban.

All said and done, hate never destroys hate, it would only create more hate.

Peace, Peace, Peace. May there be Peace and Happiness Around!

‘Ex Libris : Confessions of a Common Reader’ by Anne Fadiman

The author is no common reader, but daughter of well known American author, editor and radio and TV personality Clifton Fadiman and screen writer and world war II journalist Annalee Jacoby Fadiman, it is but natural that Anne Fadiman grew up breathing books and words and is married to another bibliophile, and together they have been accumulating books ‘on our shelves and on our windowsills, and underneath our sofa and on top our refrigerator’. This is ‘a collection of 18 essays written over a period of four years.’

Each essay is about one aspect of books, reading, authors, even writing instruments, these are things that we usually think about in a normal manner, taken for granted as part of your routine life. But when someone starts talking about it, each of these seem to have a life of its own. The first chapter, ‘Marrying Libraries‘ is about how two libraries stand apart trying to retain their individuality, slowly start merging together while trying to keep at least their demeanors different, at last to find one day that they cannot distinguish where one ended and the other began. Just like any other marriage, isn’t it?

The hunger for new words – the more difficult, the better – comes out in the next chapter ‘The Joy of Sesquipedalians‘. What is that? How do you pronounce it? There are more like adapertile, agathodemon, opopanax and retromingent. 

She then continues with the ‘My Odd Shelf‘ – where books on subjects totally unrelated to the others that you normally have, tend to gravitate towards – ‘Scorn Not the Sonnets‘ and then “Never Do That to a Book‘. In this chapter she classifies love of books as ‘courtly‘ where ‘A book’s self was sacrosanct to her, its form inseparable from its content’ and ‘carnal‘ where‘a book’s words were holy, but the paper, cloth, cardboard, glue, thread, and ink that contained them were a mere vessel.’

The musings continue with ‘True Womanhood,’ where she talks about a book that was inherited from her great grandmother, ‘The Mirror of True Womanhood:A Book of Instruction for Women in the World.’ The author, one Reverend Bernard O’Reilly, seems to have been reborn in bits all over the world, the thoughts on how a woman should live hasn’t changed much over the years, for this was the bootomline: 

‘Woman’s entire existence, in order to be a source of happiness to others as well as to herself, must be one of self-sacrifice.’

‘Words on a Flyleaf‘ is about the inscriptions that you add to a book that is gifted, and ‘You are There’ about the absolute thrill of reading a book in a place that the book talks about. ‘The His’er Problem‘ is about the cryptic word ‘Ms.‘ that refuses to divulge whether you are single or married, rightly so I would say. Why should you know that about a woman when a man is a universal ‘Mr.‘ ? Its also about how the word ‘man’, is universally considered to be about the human race in general, but how those authors has almost always have a ‘man’ in mind when they write about it.

‘r/ Inset a Carrot e/’ is about her family of compulsive editors who‘can imagine few worse fates than walking around for the rest of one’s life wearing a typo’

In ‘Eternal Ink‘, the author reminisces about and romanticizes the ink pen and its royal ancestor the feather and compares it to their insipid off spring, the computer. As she rightly says,” When you’ve seen one pixel, you’ve seen it all’

 ‘The Literary Glutton.‘ says,‘When I read about food, sometimes a single word is enough to detonate  a chain reaction of associative memories. 

‘Nothing New Under the Sun‘ is a tongue in cheek array of observations on how it is impossible to have anything original in literature. Almost each sentence in this chapter has a reference attached to it. You nod your head vigorously as you read how a compulsive reader will settle for even a catalog that is lying around if she can’t get hold of a book, in ‘The Catalogical Imperative‘

‘My Ancestral Castles‘ is about how strong parental influence is in matters literary as it is in other matters in life. She bares her parents to us in these words,‘My brother and I were able to fantasize far more extravagantly about our parents’ tastes and desires, their aspirations and their vices, by scanning their bookcases than by snooping in their closets. Their selves were on their shelves.‘

‘Sharing the Mayhem‘ recollects the joys and perils of reading aloud and ‘The P.M.’s Empire of Books‘ is about the science of storing books. You have to read it to believe the exact measurements and structure of a library book case to hold eighteen to twenty thousand books. All it needs is a space of twenty by forty feet. You don’t trust Anne Fadiman? So, what if I say the proponent of this theory is ‘that Gladstone: four times British Prime Minister, grand old man of the Liberal Party, scholar, financier, theologian, orator,humanitarian, and thorn in the side of Benjamin Disraeli’

‘Secondhand Prose‘ takes the reader through those quaint and not so quaint shops where you find unkempt desks, dusty shelves that are almost on the verge of breaking down and if you are lucky as the author, you may find about 300,000 used books and also walk out with nineteen pounds of books in your hand. As she says,‘Now you know why I married my husband. In my view, nineteen pounds of old books are at least nineteen time as delicious as one pound of fresh caviar.’

As if all this was not enough, she adds a final chapter of ‘Recommended Reading,’ references of more books about books.

This is 87th of 2021, read 8 to 10 years before, grabbed it again. 

Against The Storm : Sweta Samota

 Had read this a month before, but missed to document, so let this be the 85th of 2021. 11th book by Sweta Samota. 

Have you ever felt tired of your situations? Tired of problems? Enough of facing them everyday? And you go to sleep feeling spent!

And the very next day you are ready to go back to the grind! Back to win the world!

Resilience is finding the congruency. It is finding that balance. And it is working towards that until you accomplish your goals. 

Amazing collection of real life stories and very motivating. Unputdownable. 

Against The Storm: Secrets and Tales of Resilience and Grit.

You vs Your boss

You vs Your spouse 😉

You vs Your neighbour

You vs situations

You vs things not in your control...

Do you ever wonder how you tackle these many versus things in your life?

But, There is a timeout at one stage! And when you reach that, how do you come out of it?

That's when the Secrets and Tales of Resilience come to your rescue.

This book is a joint effort of Elite Authors Club (Dr. Sanjay HR, Geetika Singh, Niraja Bandi, Shashikala Gadepally, Preeti Nair-Nayak, Vinod Kumar Madalla and your coach, Sweta Samota)

Cover credit: Eva samota

China Room - Sunjeev Sahota

 

British novelist Sunjeev Sahota's recent novel, China Room, follows the intertwined stories of the brides of three brothers in Punjab in 1929 and a young man from England who travels to their now deserted farmland in 1999. Traversing through the fabric of time, segregation and empire, the tale explores a family’s trauma and one man’s attempts at breaking free from addiction and racism and his consequent search for home. In conversation with journalist and broadcaster Georgina Godwin, Sahota explores the lives of these prisoners of circumstance and their pursuit of freedom. This was 84 of 2021

“China Room” begins with a gripping and terrifying situation. In the year 1929 three young women are married to three brothers on a farm in rural Punjab that's overseen by strict matriarch Mai. But newly married teenage Mehar (who has been given this name by her new family) doesn't even know which man is her husband. Conjugal visits take place in total darkness and she's not allowed to interact with the men during the day when she and her sisters-in-law must conceal themselves under veils and perform gruelling chores. She attempts to figure out his identity and becomes embroiled in a dangerous situation. Interspersed with her tale is the story of her great grandson who recounts a time in 1999 when he traveled to this family farm while trying to overcome his drug addiction and escape racism in England. It's so touching how details he encounters such a flecks of paint on a wall or a crumbling disused structure have such a potent meaning when we also see them in this earlier story. It builds narrative tension as well as poignancy as we gradually learn the truth about Mehar's struggle to achieve independence and what she desires. The novel beautifully builds a bridge across time connecting two family members from very different generations whose only physical connection resides in a faded photography. 

Triangle is the form of architecture. Meher touch Kho Kho. Book taught Sunjeev how to write it. In 2016, ten thousand words were written, and then set it aside. Started writing another novel in 2018, topple ganga became a version. Then started connecting both the novel. Both were connected by the ideas of freedom, and both find a connection. 

The way Sahota writes about this alienated young man's experiences does make an interesting commentary on issues to do with national identity and the limitations that women face. Though the farm feels quite isolated in 1929, the larger world intrudes when independence fighters arrive looking for recruits. A character named Suraj wryly comments “It's just another idea... That it's better to be oppressed by your own than by the British. It won't change anything for us.” This sadly rings true because although Mehar is horrifically oppressed, the narrator's aunt is also trapped in a marriage where she can't be with the man she truly loves. Equally, though the town is on the brink of the 21st century it is still ruled by gossip that perniciously tries to limit the freedom of a female doctor who the narrator befriends and falls for. This raises meaningful questions about how much progress has really occurred in society – especially when the narrator's father suffered horrific racist violence which prompts the narrator to wonder where he really belongs. 

Sahota's style of writing is beautiful and impactful. So many lines of dialogue or description have a resonant meaning. This novel feels like a personal reckoning with the past but also conveys larger universal ideas about levels of power and our connection with history.

Sunjeev was inspired by his great grandmother marrying into family of four brothers on the same day, and still having the room , which is used as the storage room. There are parallels between Sunjeev and the unknown narrator as well. It's semi Fictional. 

Paying attention, is the hope for the contented life. 

Sunjeev Shota got meaning - reading and writing, when he read Salman Rushdie's novel Mid Night's Children, followed by God of small things. 

Autobiography of a Yogi

 

More than a book it is a  cultural phenomena. He has influenced generations of artist, politicians and industrialist like Jack Canfield, Steve Jobs, This was 83rd of 2021

1920's Yogananda campaigned in US. Power of Meditation to convert heart and minds into Joy with Kriya Yoga, key to fulfilling spiritual life. Wholistic life is prescribed. Exercise, healthy food and worry free life. Experience of a cosmic yogi. Self realization is important,   Merge with nature. 

In the chapter 'Law of miracles' -  Intersection of Yogic signs and Light as the foundation of Universe. 

Thoughts are universally not individually rooted, you don't create thoughts, you let it manifest in the level of consciousness on which you live. When that level is high you are happy, and when it is low we are sad. We come from bliss and we want that bliss again.  God is sachinanda. Every existing, ever conscious. His mission was one, to bring all to God. 

The book is divided into below chapters:

No plagiarism intended, but purely for future references.

Found this in YouTube in two parts:

Part 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKVP4uf4YXE

Part 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htndVQnNuKI

Chapter 1 - 4:35 My Parents and Early Life

Chapter 2 - 31:13 My Mother's Death and The Mystic Amulet

Chapter 3 - 45:49 The Saint with Two Bodies

Chapter 4 - 1:00:05 My Interrupted Flight Toward the Himalayas 

Chapter 5 - 1:30:22 A Perfume Saint Displays His Wonders 

Chapter 6 ' 1:47:53 Tiger Swamy

Chapter 7 - 2:10:56 The Levitating Saint

Chapter 8 - 2:21:59 India's Great Scientist J. C. Bose

Chapter 9 - 2:40:34 The Blissful Devotee And The Cosmic Romance 

Chapter 10 - 2:56:32 I Meet My Master Sri Yukteshwar 

Chapter 11 - 3:19:53 Two Penniless Boys in Brindaban

Chapter 12 - 3:38:20 Years in My Master's Hermitage 

Chapter 13 - 4:48:59 Sleepless Saint

Chapter 14 - 5:06:18 An Experience In Cosmic Consciousness 

Chapter 15 - 5:24:01 Cauliflower Robbery

Chapter 16 - 5:46:50 Outwitting The Stars

Chapter 17 - 6:07:10 Sasi and The Three Sapphires 

Chapter 18 -  0:03 A Mohammedin Wonder Worker 

Chapter 19 -  12:31 My Master, In Calcutta, Appears in Serampore

Chapter 20 - 19:20 We Do Not Visit Kashmir

Chapter 21 - 29:30 We Visit Kashmir

Chapter 22 - 50:44 The Heart of a Stone Image

Chapter 23 - 1:03:27 I Receive My University Degree

Chapter 24 - 1:17:18 I Become a Monk of the Swami Order

Chapter 25 - 1:33:39 Brother Ananta and Sister Nalini

Chapter 26 - 1:44:24 The Science of Kriya Yoga

Chapter 27 - 2:03:28 Founding a Yoga School at Ranchi

Chapter 28 - 2:21:58 Kashi, Reborn, and Rediscovered 

Chapter 29 - 2:30:50 Rabindranath Tagore and I Compare Schools

Chapter 30 - 2:40:56 The Law of Miracles

Chapter 31 - 3:08:33 An Interview with the Sacred Mother 

Chapter 32 - 3:31:00 Rama is Raised from the Dead

Chapter 33 - 3:50:00 Babaji, Yogi - Christ of Modern India

Chapter 34 - 4:07:40 Materializing a Place in the Himalayas

Chapter 35- 4:35:16 The christlike Life of Lahiri Mahasaya

Chapter 36- 5:00:46 Babaji's Interest in the west

Chapter 37- 5:37:10 I go to America

Chapter 38 - Luther Burbank - A Saint Amid the Roses

Chapter 39 - Therese Neumann, the Catholic Stigmatist

Chapter 4- I return to India

Chapter 41 - 6:22:00 An Idyl in South India

Chapter 42 - Last Days with My Guru

Chapter 43- 7:17:30 The Resurection of Sri Yukteswar

Chapter 44- 8:03:00 With Mahatma Gandhi at Wardha

Chapter 45 - The Bengali "Joy-Permeated Mother" (Ananda Moyi Ma)

Chapter 46 - The Woman Yogi Who Never Eats (Giri Bala)

Chapter 47- I Return to the West

Chapter 48 - At Encinitas in California

Chapter 49 - The Years 1940 -1951

Paramahansa Yogananda: A Yogi in Life and Death

Commemorative stamp issued by Government of India in honour of Paramahansa Yogananda

Aims and ideals of Yogoda Satsanga Society of India

Autobiography of a Yogi is one of the famous Spiritual Book of the Twentieth Century which is written by Paramahansa Yogananda. In this book, he explained memorable findings of the world of saints and yogis and also explained science and miracles, death and resurgence. With soul-satisfying consciousness and endearing wit, he lightens the hidden secrets of life and the world opening our hearts and minds to the happiness, splendor and limitless spiritual capacities that last in the lives of every human being. 

About the Author: Paramahansa Yogananda is an Indian yogi and guru whose best-selling spiritual classic Autobiography of a Yogi, has introduced millions of readers to the perennial wisdom of the East. He is now widely recognized as the Father of Yoga in the West. He founded Yogoda Satsanga Society of India in 1917, in Ranchi, and Self-Realization Fellowship in Los Angeles in 1920 for the dissemination of Kriya Yoga.

My worldly anger and frustration have been getting to me. My soul thank you forever. I shall help guide others to this knowledge and harmony

37 Lessons - Siddharth Rajsekar

Lessons 

1. Past does not equal to your future
2. Self Education is more powerful than formal education. Later fortune.
3. You cannot do the same thing and expect different result. That is insanity. Change things
4. To have more than you got, you got to become more than you are. - Jim
5. In every set back, there lies a gift, a lesson to learn and evolve.
6. Intention is everything. People don't care what you say, they will grab your energy and can sense it. 
7. We are not human being in a spiritual journey, but we are a spiritual being on a human journey.
8. We are not this body, but we are the spiritual being. Transmigration process.
9. Just as sweetness is the purpose of sugar, Service is the purpose of the soul.
10. Deeper you work on yourself, the wider the impact will be
11. If you don't fill your day with high priority action, your day will be filled with low priority distraction.
12. Money loves speed. Fire and take action later. Don't get into analysis-paralysis.
13. Learn - do and teach simultaneously. Golden triangle.
14. Time is not the most valuable asset. Focus is.
15. Don't be cheap in your journey towards greatness.
16. Systems work, people fail. Don't reinvent the wheel. Model the best to grow.
17. What goes around, comes around.
18. You are a reflection of your own customers, if you grow, your customers will also grow. Invest in your learning, customers will invest in your teaching.
19. Be Unique. Dont be a copy cat. Model successful people. Only value of your Uniqueness, is its value/use to other people. 
20. Leaders govern from within, followers always need to be guided.
21. When you are able to master your senses, you will master your life.
22. Great teachers are good students.
23. If you don't know where to go, you can go anywhere. Anywhere is not a destination.
24. Success is the progressive realization of a worthy, ideal. 
25. You become what you think about, what you think about will define your life. 
26. Managing your money is more important than making money.
27. What usually comes easy is not worthwhile. What is worthwhile don't come easy. 
28. The illusion of knowledge can sometimes be more dangerous than ignorance. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. 
29. You cant manage time, you can only manage yourself.
30. Your wibe attracts your tribe. 
31. Knowing and not doing, is not knowing. 
32. Change your thinking and you can change your life. Your environment is stronger than your willpower.
33. Humility. It is to think more of your community and tribe and not less about yourself.
34. Be Flexible on the methods and fixed on the goals. 
35. The way you respond to any situation will change the outcome. E+R=O; Event+ Response=Outcome. We have control only on our responses, not the events or outcome. 
36. People don't buy product or courses. But a better version, of themselves. What the product can do.  
37. Great marketers just don't understand tools, but human behavior. 

Advertising 101

 Bring an holistic view. Mindset needed to break the clutter.

We read the same brief and think of different things. Amazing Fathima.

A great deal, depends on the reason. The world Logo means reason. 

Advertisement is logical. Banner, endorser, influencer, OLV, in movie placement, shopping bag, label of product, word of mount, end card, by any other name, will help us sell. 

You are a brand. Thinks you carry, it makes you an advertisement.

It's an action /Communication wanting to sell.

We need to understand why we buy, when there is a shelf full of products. 

1. Need 2. Want 3. Combination

Once AIR on Radio - Now Spotify play list. It's all there.

The power of making product aspirational has changed how we live. 

Sugar is something which no one needed. It was for rich, used in sweets and deserts. Advertising, makes things desirable. 

Diamonds.

Deficit Disorder, Seasonal Affect Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder. These aren't diseases, they're marketing ploys. Doctors didn't discover them, copywriters did. Marketing departments did. Drug companies did. 

Spending power is with men, buying decisions are made by women.  Target Audience - before the journey. Example in schools and colleges, so people will need all through the life. Decided based on:

• Users Journey
• Touch point
• Desired Action

David Ogilvy's - Volswagen. Caters to why we buy, make product meaningful. So he is called father of advertisement. Ogilvy's winning layout:

• Visual
• Caption
• Headline
• Copy
• Signature

Thumb stopper ads. Thought, sensible, easily relatable. Simplicity of the communication.

Few guidelines to be kept in mind in addition to Ogilvy's winning layout:

Advertising through breakthrough:

Rinse. Repeat.

• Strong Brand recall
• A message you can relate to

Advertising Do's

• Brand Early
• Show the Product in use
• One USP at a time

Understand the Medium

• Think Billboard, not display or post ads.
• Strong Opening Hooks for videos
• Think silent movie for social
• Design for the small screen
• Create a call to action immediately and put it there. 

Advertising budgets need not be big, advt. touches need not be big. If you cant advertise full page the right hand corners are that attract attention first. You can do it there. 

Ola boats, during flood. Mug with coffee for new outlet - conversation starter. 

Coming up with a Mascot for a brand needs huge debate and discussion. It should not alienate key session of your audience. 

Good visual, and good short copy - Amul - It is so buttery. Technically as a PJ but the fact is we look forward for it. - 'Utterly Butterly Delicious.' They do not look for grammars. 

The Serpents of Kanakapuram - Sudeepa Nair

 

On a professional trip, Meera Mohan finds herself stuck in the quaint little village of Kanakapuram amidst unprecedented floods in the state of Kerala. She is fascinated by the story of a haunted house, its serpent grove, and cherishes her new friendships.

Bhuvanamma, a gentle old widow who is also an excellent cook, Hussain, the caretaker at the company guest house, Unni and Rani, a young couple torn between their respective ambitions, Leena, an ethnobotanist and Hari, an architect—form the motley gang at Kanakapuram.

She rekindles her love for her native culture through them, until…

… mysterious deaths occur at the house, and Meera gets unwittingly involved. Before she can extricate herself from the investigations, her friend and colleague, Cara, is found dead in the United States.

Between a murderous trio, dangerous serpents and supernatural beings, she finds it hard to choose an appropriate company, never knowing there was still others for company. 

Who can Meera trust? Is the house really haunted? Who are the serpents? This was my 81st of 2021.

Which serpents do we really need to guard against in this world? I wonder. 

Tin Man by Sara Winman

 79th of 2021 was Tin Man by Sara Winman.

The story jumps around through time from the 1960s to the 1990s, and shifts narration between Ellis and Michael. This is an immensely memorable story about friendship, love, and longing, and the blurred lines between those things. The book starts with a picture of Sunflowers, the same painting Van Gogh painted in the French countryside. Dora, pregnant with Ellis wins this copy and against her husband's wishes hangs it in her house. She will look at its sunny face, day after day, whenever things become unbearable. 

This is a story of two boys, Ellis and Michael, brought together by loss and need - loss of loved ones and the need to feel connected. A beautiful friendship grows between them. It’s not just these two that capture your heart, however. The relationships that Ellis and Michael forge with others further ignite their spirits and will take hold of you as well. Ellis’s mother, Dora, suddenly realizes the narrowness of her life when she gazes at that sunflower painting for the first time. With it now hanging on her wall, it becomes a daily reminder of all the wonderful possibilities in life. Mabel, Michael’s grandmother, offers love when it’s needed the most. Her door is an open one and she encourages a friendship between the two boys. And then Annie walks into their lives. Ellis and Michael now become Ellis, Annie, and Michael. The dynamic shifts and a unique and poignant bond is formed between the three.

We hear from Ellis, and then we hear Michaels story. At one point Michael writes in his journal,

"I'm broken by my need for others. By the erotic dance of memory that pounces when lonliness falls."

Sounds like words from a poem, and there is much more of those type of lines. This is a story that is both beautiful and sad. That painting, Van Gogh and the sunflowers will have meaning, threaded throughout this story. 

“... it was my humanness that led me to seek, that’s all. Led us all to seek. A simple need to belong somewhere.”

Ellis is a quiet boy growing up outside London. His mother has always felt a little stifled in their town, so she wanted Ellis to follow his dreams, to keep drawing, and to stay in school, paths that aren't necessarily encouraged in the 1960s. He meets Michael, the grandson of a local shopkeeper, and they become fast friends, Michael's more ebullient nature as a complement to Ellis' thoughtfulness.

As the two grow into manhood, they are nearly inseparable. Their friendship transforms, deepens, but both cannot give what the other wants. Then one day Ellis meets Annie and the two are instantly smitten with one another. Yet this isn't the type of story in which one friend gets discarded when the other gets married—Michael becomes a part of Ellis and Annie, an inseparable companion to each in a different way. They are whole when the three are together, mischievous, exuberant, bold.

But after a time, Michael needs to live his own life, and he leaves Ellis and Annie behind. This challenges the couple, as they find themselves becoming what they always swore they wouldn't be—ordinary. And as Michael sees places in the world he always wanted to, and experiences deep emotion, he feels a hole where his friends once were.

"In those days of my twenties and early thirties, I remember how friendships came and went. I was too critical — a disagreement over a film or politics gave me permission to retreat. Nobody matched Ellis and Annie, and so I convinced myself I needed nobody but them. I was a sailboat at heed to the breeze, circling buoys before heading out to the uncomplicated silence of a calm bay."

When Michael returns, the circle is once again completed. Yet he returns with secrets, secrets that could threaten the delicate balance of their lives. But their love for one another, and the joy they get from their friendship, is as if no time has passed.

Another small sample excepts:

“It was the first of many memories he had, of how Michael sought Dora’s attention in those early days, how he clung to her every word as if they were handholds up a cliff face. He said he had to sit in front on account of car sickness, and he spent the entire journey complementing Dora on her driving and her style, steering the conversation back to the ‘sunflowers’ and the south, back to color and light. He had been able to change gears for her. Ellis firmly believed he would have”.

"'There's something about first love, isn't there?' she said. 'It's untouchable to those who played no part in it. But it's the measure of all that follows,' she said."

And Ellis remembered thinking he would never meet anyone like him again, and in that acknowledgement, he knew, was love.

What a beautiful, bittersweet story about first love.

Art is an important theme, but it doesn't overtake the human and very emotional aspects of the story. From deep discussions with Ellis' mother about Van Gogh and the sunflower painting she keeps hung in their house, to Ellis' passion for drawing that is crushed by his father's insistence that he work in a car factory, art plays a huge role in the story.

Bombay Balchao - Jane Borges

Bombay Balchao by Jane Borges was 78th of 2021. Bombay was the city everyone came to in the early decades of the nineteenth century: among them, the Goans and the Mangaloreans. Looking for safe harbour, livelihood, and a new place to call home. Communities congregated around churches and markets, sharing lord and land with the native East Indians. The young among them were nudged on to the path of marriage, procreation and godliness, though noble intentions were often ambushed by errant love and plain and simple lust. As in the story of Annette and Benji (and Joe) or Michael and Merlyn (and Ellena).

Lovers and haters, friends and family, married men and determined singles, churchgoers and abstainers, Bombay Balchão is a tangled tale of ordinary lives – of a woman who loses her husband to a dockyard explosion and turns to bootlegging, a teen romance that drowns like a paper boat, a social misfit rescued by his addiction to crosswords, a wife who tries to exorcise the spirit of her dead mother-in-law from her husband, a rebellious young woman who spurns true love for the abandonment of dance. Ordinary, except when seen through their own eyes. Then, it’s legend.

Set in Cavel, a tiny Catholic neighbourhood on Bombay’s D’Lima Street, this delightful debut novel is painted with many shades of history and memory, laughter and melancholy, sunshine and silver rain.

What strikes the code was the language used, and how the old buildings were being brought down, for high raise buildings. Loved the letters between Ellena and Michael, the preparation of Prawns Balchao, and thought provoking lines.

Few memorable quotes:

'Our minds are surprisingly gifted with this innate ability to omit events that we do not wish to revisit. But a slight trigger and the mind retrieves them for us, playing them out in technicolor.'

'Some lies are often only said, so that  a few truths are concealed. The bigger the lie,  the more painful the truth.'

'When you love someone dearly, you allow their truth to take precedence over yours.'

'Love makes you dreamy, deaf and dumb - a mute, floaty, gullible victim to the cruelties of that head-spinning feeling.'

'Time heals the broken. Sometimes, the healing is slow. Sometimes, it is slower. You cannot predict how long it will take before one forgets what it all felt like - heartbreak, the pain, the anguish, and that emptiness. Years could roll by, and you'd have done ten million different things to keep yourself from thinking, and yet, the mind would remember that moment when your life fell apart and crushed your whole'.

'What is friendship, if not two people loving each other fiercely and unconditionally.'

'Good thing is that the universe doesn't understand the rules of grammar. Punctuation isn't part of its lexicon.'

'The best part cannot be enjoyed whole, or it will become too much for you to digest.'

'Nothing lasts forever, baby, but it also depends on what your forever is, Is it a day? Is it a month? Is it a year? We make our own forever's.'

You Can Coach - Siddharth Rajsekar

 

"Vitality in life is directly proportional to the vividness of your vision, the articulation of your speech, and the clarity of your mission. That’s the source of your vitality. We automatically plateau when we don’t have a clear vision but when our vision is clear, we have vitality. Vitality is automatically also proportionate to the details you put in your mind. So if you’ve got everything delegated and you’re clear about what you do, your vitality is up. And when you do something you love to do, you don’t age as much. ……….anytime you’re doing lower priority things, you’re more in your amygdala. The amygdala is always trying to avoid pain and seek pleasure and so it tends to subjectively skew your reality. You tend to then have a fear of loss of your infatuations and a fear of gain of your resentments and you are living in phobias, and that ages you. It puts time and space in your mind and occupies your mind and distracts you. That’s what ages you and that’s what entropy is.  – Dr. John Demartini"

An amazing book, in 'You Can Coach', Siddharth Rajsekar decodes how he was able to plan, launch and grow one of the largest communities of coaches, trainers and experts, starting from scratch. This book features interviews with legendary coaches, Jack Canfield, Dr. John Demartini, Blair Singer, and many more.

Books and courses are full of three's and six's : Triangles and Hexagons. 

Part 1 on Plan - Covers finding your niche, designing curriculum, Planning budgets, ; Part 2 on Launch cover Setting up your systems, launching products and attracting quality leads and Part 3 on Growth cover growing sales, tribe and profits. 

Part 1 Pan - (i) Finding you Niche:

'No voice is going to come out from the sky telling you....."Hey I'm God here....this is your niche! Go for it!". You know it's never going to happen that way!'

Bulb On!

A Niche = A Problem. You need to ask yourself which problem you want to solve and why it is so important for you to solve that problem. Only if you have the "Passion", will you have the energy to solve it. 

5 Lessons Before you find your Niche

Lesson 1 : The niche you pick will be your area of contribution to the word. Flow with this. Do not be rigid at the start.

Lesson 2: As your flow, get more congruent with your back story. That's where the passion and magic will come from.

Lesson 3: Marketing to everybody is a formula for disaster. Target people who are just like you.

If you are not sure, look in the mirror.

Lesson 4: You need to be both strategic and congruent when you pic your niche. 

Be authentic, and include the problems you faced in the content marketing plan. You need to have your antennas alert and open wide always to pick up where the big problem in society is and then fill that gap most effectively as a digital coach. 

Lesson 5: If you are rigid in your thinking without evolving personally, whatever niche you pick will not work. Your passion will turn into poison if you are not adaptable. 

Don't be rigid about your ways. You can grow only if the market finds what you are offering valuable. 

Be fixed on your goal, but flexible on how you get there. 

Before selecting your Niche check for these nine things: Passion, natural talent, alignment with purpose in life, experience, core skills, message for the world, who you want to become, need in the market, will you be paid for it. This would set the foundation. 

Six steps to find your Niche: 

1. Pick one Big Problem That you want to solve
2. Pick your Micro-Niche Segment
3. Pick a Method/Tool To Solve that Problem
4. Validate Your Niche Using the 5P system
5. Convert this into a Mission/Purpose
6. Craft a Business Plan around the Mission

People don't care about you, or what you know, or your results, they need  simple solution to their problem. Six problems that people face are:

1. Business
2. Career
3. Health
4. Money
5. Relationship
6. Creativity

Once you identify you Nice, riches are in the Micro - Niches. Become a specialist and not a generalist.

"If you define the problem correctly, you almost have the solution" - Steve Jobs

Once you decide on which problem to solve - Niche and Micro Niche (Step 1 and 2), Pick a method/Tool to solve that problem (step 3); validate your Niche using the 5P System i.e. Passion, Problem, Persona (target market narrowed down), Potential in the market, Payment; Convert this into you mission statement, and craft a business plan around the mission. 

Don't just be a product seller, be a problem solver, Make this your mission.  People can see through your intentions. So get real and deliver value. 

The way you need to construct a business plan should comprise of four main revenue streams:

1. Courses - Basic and advanced
2. Coaching - 1-1/group
3. Consulting - 3months or 12 months
4. Collaborations - alliances and partnerships

Two frameworks that can be used are The 4 stage (Lead Magnet, Trip wire, Core Product, Profit Maximiser) and business funnel and 3-30-90 (concepts - Breakthrough-Tangible milestone) curriculum framework.

If formal education is based on memorization, digital coaching is based on simplification.

"Your product is only a vehicle for your customers to reach their goals. All you have to do is teach them to drive." 

Part 1 Plan - (ii) Design curriculum

10 Principles:

1. There are many paths to achieve a goal
2. People need to buy you before they buy your product
3. Don't sell products.  Sell Memberships. Build Communities.
4. Will you build a great product, the bottom line will take care of itself
5. Quality speaks for itself, you don't have to market quality
6. Find role models when you're designing programs
7. Your Biggest Competitive Advantage in the market place is your tribe
8. It's not about the price, it's about the value you deliver.
9. It's not about your content. It's about delivering results.
10. People who pay money, pay attention

When people realize that your are not there solely for your profits, but you're there for their benefits, that's when the needle will move on your revenues. Take feedbacks and be adaptable to change. 

"Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works." - Steve Jobs.

"Don't try to be original, just try to be good." - Paul Rand

Six step curriculum procedure/design: Self Analysis, set a goal, create a plan, systems and tools, action routine and Analyse & scale. 

Three step content delivery systems are: 3 day course: Concepts, 30 day challenge skill sets and 90 day goal : 1st milestone. Each covering the six steps in various details. In 3 days you can cover 6 steps- 2 each, in 30 days, you can use 5 days to cover each, and 90 days should be worthwhile result oriented goal. 

"Copying others is easy. Being unique is tough. It's your uniqueness that will make you world-class" 

Stack all your products to make it valuable as a bundle. You can use 5-3-1 framework. Level 1-sharing principles, Level 2-Tactics and tools, Level 3- Premium members refine and scale their results. When stacked it will look like a triangle. Level 1 below and 3 the tip.

Share concepts that will stand the test of time. 

Part 1 Plan - (iii) Plan your budget:

"Don't be cheap on your journey towards greatness" - Vick Strizheus

Every minute you spent in planning saves 10 minutes in execution; this gives you a 1,000 percent return on energy!" - Brian Tracy.

Basic expenses would be Tax, Tools, Teams, Advertising, Partners, Learning. You do not need office, employees (freelancers can help). Income will be from multiple sources. Remember 5xROI, need investments. 

Your coaching business grows, only to the extend you do.

Part 2: Launch phase  coveres Systems to set up, how to launch the product, and attract quality leads. 

'Systems work, People Fail' - Vick Strizheus

Tools: Domain, Hosting, Email Marketing, Webinar System, Knowledge portal, appointment systems, Funnel systems,  Link tracking tools, automation tools, private network.

 Payment gateways: Instamojo, Razorpay, Stripe, Paypal, 

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together - Vincent Van Gogh. 

If you already have your course ready, the 10 steps for Launch Webinar are Preframe, nurture, storify, invite, deliver, convert .

To drive people into your funnel, top 33 types of lead magnets are Free webinar, consultation call, checklist, how-to-guide, newsletter, case study, Quiz/online tests, toolkit guide, mini-course, video, workbooks, templates, books or chapter of a book, spreadsheets, softwares, trials, access to groups, cheatsheet, swipe files or scrips, planners/productivity guide, recipes, tutorial, audio file, mindmaps, gifts, coupons, bird discounts, catalogue.

Keep improving.

To know and not to do, is not to know.

Part 3 is Grow. It covers 27 buying triggers,  Top 10 sales funnels, grow your tribe, 

"Management is doing things right, leadership is doing the right things" - Peter Drucker.

You find different tribes everywhere: Spiritual tribe, Musical tribe, Network Marketing tribe, affiliate marketing tribe, business tribe

"Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress and working together is success." -Henry Ford.

Turn your message into a movement. "Your quiet intentions are louder than the words you speak." - Sidz.

Activate your digital tribe, by changing lives. Have three levels of achievements - Finishers, Achievers and Superstars.  Act and Grow your profits. 

Grow your sales, tribe and profits. 

Next part covers interviews with Industry leaders Jack Canfield, Dr. John Demartini, Blair Singer and Vick Strizheus. Insights to digital coaching from Surendran Jayasekar, Rajiv Talreja, Puja Puneet, and nine digital masters.

Worth having both digital and paper back copy of the book. This was my 80th of 2021. Yet to read the interviews part. Waiting for the paperback. 

Animal Farm - George Orwell

George Orwell's Animal Farm is undeniably one of the best short novels ever written in the English language. It is a deceptively simple tale, which even older children could read. Written in the style of a fable, and yet it can be read on so many levels. It is clearly both a satire and an allegory, a dystopian tale.

77th of 2021 was Animal Farm a satirical allegorical novella by George Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945. The poorly-run Manor Farm near Willingdon, England, is ripened for rebellion from its animal populace by neglect at the hands of the irresponsible and alcoholic farmer, Mr. Jones. One night, the exalted boar, Old Major, holds a conference, at which he calls for the overthrow of humans and teaches the animals a revolutionary song called "Beasts of England". 

Beasts of England, Beasts of Ireland,
Beasts of every land and clime,
Hearken to my joyful tidings
Of the Golden future time.
Soon or late the day is coming,
Tyrant Man shall be o'erthrown,
And the fruitful fields of England
Shall be trod by beasts alone.
Rings shall vanish from our noses,
And the harness from our back,
Bit and spur shall rust forever,
Cruel whips no more shall crack.
Riches more than mind can picture,
Wheat and barley, oats and hay,
Clover, beans, and mangel-wurzels
Shall be ours upon that day.
Bright will shine the fields of England,
Purer shall its waters be,
Sweeter yet shall blow its breezes
On the day that sets us free.
For that day we all must labour,
Though we die before it break;
Cows and horses, geese and turkeys,
All must toil for freedom's sake.
Beasts of England, Beasts of Ireland,
Beasts of every land and clime,
Hearken well, and spread my tidings
Of the Golden future time.

When Old Major dies, two young pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, assume command and stage a revolt, driving Mr. Jones off the farm and renaming the property "Animal Farm". They adopt the Seven Commandments of Animalism, the most important of which is, "All animals are equal". The decree is painted in large letters on one side of the barn. 

“The Seven Commandments:

Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.

Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.

No animal shall wear clothes.

No animal shall sleep in a bed.

No animal shall drink alcohol.

No animal shall kill any other animal.

All animals are equal.”

Snowball teaches the animals to read and write, while Napoleon educates young puppies on the principles of Animalism. To commemorate the start of Animal Farm, Snowball raises a green flag with a white hoof and horn. Food is plentiful, and the farm runs smoothly. The pigs elevate themselves to positions of leadership and set aside special food items, ostensibly for their personal health. Following an unsuccessful attempt by Mr. Jones and his associates to retake the farm (later dubbed the "Battle of the Cowshed"), Snowball announces his plans to modernise the farm by building a windmill. Napoleon disputes this idea, and matters come to head, which culminate in Napoleon's dogs chasing Snowball away and Napoleon declaring himself supreme commander.

Inspirational quote:

“Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.”

Napoleon enacts changes to the governance structure of the farm, replacing meetings with a committee of pigs who will run the farm. Through a young porker named Squealer, Napoleon claims credit for the windmill idea, claiming that Snowball was only trying to win animals to his side. The animals work harder with the promise of easier lives with the windmill. When the animals find the windmill collapsed after a violent storm, Napoleon and Squealer persuade the animals that Snowball is trying to sabotage their project and begin to purge the farm of animals Napoleon accuses of consorting with his old rival. When some animals recall the Battle of the Cowshed, Napoleon (who was nowhere to be found during the battle) gradually smears Snowball to the point of saying he is a collaborator of Mr. Jones, even dismissing the fact that Snowball was given an award of courage while falsely representing himself as the main hero of the battle. "Beasts of England" is replaced with "Animal Farm", while an anthem glorifying Napoleon, who appears to be adopting the lifestyle of a man ("Comrade Napoleon"), is composed and sung. 

“This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented himself from it would have his rations reduced by half.”

“It had become usual to give Napoleon the Credit for every Successful achievement and every stroke of good fortune. You would often hear one hen remark to another, “Under the guidance of our leader, Comrade Napoleon, I have laid five eggs in six days” or two cows, enjoying a drink at the pool, would exclaim,

“thanks to the leadership of Comrade Napoleon, how excellent this water tastes!”...”

― George Orwell, Animal Farm

Napoleon then conducts a second purge, during which many animals who are alleged to be helping Snowball in plots are executed by Napoleon's dogs, which troubles the rest of the animals. Despite their hardships, the animals are easily placated by Napoleon's retort that they are better off than they were under Mr. Jones, as well as by the sheep's continual bleating of “four legs good, two legs bad”.

Mr. Frederick, a neighboring farmer, attacks the farm, using blasting powder to blow up the restored windmill. Although the animals win the battle, they do so at great cost, as many, including Boxer the workhorse, are wounded. Although he recovers from this, Boxer eventually collapses while working on the windmill (being almost 12 years old at that point). He is taken away in a knacker's van, and a donkey called Benjamin alerts the animals of this, but Squealer quickly waves off their alarm by persuading the animals that the van had been purchased from the knacker by an animal hospital and that the previous owner's signboard had not been repainted. Squealer subsequently reports Boxer's death and honours him with a festival the following day. (However, Napoleon had in fact engineered the sale of Boxer to the knacker, allowing him and his inner circle to acquire money to buy whisky for themselves.)

Years pass, the windmill is rebuilt, and another windmill is constructed, which makes the farm a good amount of income. However, the ideals that Snowball discussed, including stalls with electric lighting, heating, and running water, are forgotten, with Napoleon advocating that the happiest animals live simple lives. Snowball has been forgotten, alongside Boxer, with "the exception of the few who knew him". Many of the animals who participated in the rebellion are dead or old. Mr. Jones is also dead, saying he "died in an inebriates' home in another part of the country". The pigs start to resemble humans, as they walk upright, carry whips, drink alcohol, and wear clothes. The Seven Commandments are abridged to just one phrase: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." The maxim "Four legs good, two legs bad" is similarly changed to "Four legs good, two legs better." Other changes include the Hoof and Horn flag being replaced with a plain green banner and Old Major's skull, which was previously put on display, being reburied.

Napoleon holds a dinner party for the pigs and local farmers, with whom he celebrates a new alliance. He abolishes the practice of the revolutionary traditions and restores the name "The Manor Farm". The men and pigs start playing cards, flattering and praising each other while cheating at the game. Both Napoleon and Mr. Pilkington, one of the farmers, play the Ace of Spades at the same time and both sides begin fighting loudly over who cheated first. When the animals outside look at the pigs and men, they can no longer distinguish between the two.

Few more quotes:

“The only good human being is a dead one.”

“Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished forever.”

“Four legs good, two legs better! All Animals Are Equal. But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others.”

― George Orwell, Animal Farm

Critical Thinking & Problem Solving

 Keeping it logical and depending on experience.

This concept is available for ages. 

Kids today ask, why when told something. 

It's deep questioning, communication,  differentiates thinking from Critical Thinking.

Socrates, Aristotle, Plato – 3 famous Greek Critical Thinkers.

Too much of Analysis will lead to paralysis. Deep thinking helps. 

'Jugad' is not Critical Thinking. 

Plenty of schools of thoughts around what critical thinking means!!

Critical thinking is the intellectual disciplined process of actively and skill fully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter division: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reason, depth, breadth and fairness. - Michael Scriven & Richard Paul - 1987

Why is it important?

Based on objectively looking at the information sources, deep questioning, communication and analysis to arrive at logical reasoning to derive actions for decision making.

Simply put, the emotion factor and intuition based on experience will not allow for anyone to jump in to a problem and find the path to solve. 

So Critical thinkers have an approach and will not need nearly the experience and intuition but just the approach. 

Visit: https://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/defining-critical-thinking/766 

Ignore learning, experience, stay true to the problem. Use mind mapping, it will help. Cases on Corner stone are great.