Tag Archives: failure

Recipe for Failure

Strange! Why would I share the reciepe for failure? This is not a failure blog. We’re all born to suceed, its our birth right (Indians love this phrase, don’t we). But as I’ve said before, sometimes its more important to know what you don’t want or shouldn’t be doing, than what you should. I’ve spent the last few days studying how people fail, or call for their doom. They follow what I call the ‘recipe of failure’. These are things that guarantee failure – in ways that may not always be sensed/realized, but things that create long term damage that cannot be compensated by a few benevolent acts. Here 7 things to avoid at all costs:

1. Playing the blame card, always

If you get into a habit of blaming someone or the other for everything that happens in your life, you’re doomed! Trust me, there’s no softer way to put this. You can’t pull-off your entire life scapegoating & harassing others just to feel marginally better for your own irresponsible acts. And neither does that mean you blame yourself for everything, learn to deal with situations. If you work hard, you can get-away with blaming for good & still feel good about your mistakes & failures.

2. Deferring/Avoiding introspection

Sometimes we defer introspection in the fear of reconciling a wrong doing with the conscience. It takes great will to look into your faults or accept criticism, but its the only way to make yourself better for you & others around. Learn to accept criticism.

3. Acting fearless

Yea, everyone wants to be dauntless & reckless. But somewhere you need to fear someone: yourself, God, someone. This is the only check on your actions, and you must stand up to them – right or wrong – in a genuine way that leaves scope for improvement (and not just to show-off your bollocks; and ladies, whatever your counterpart of that is)

4. Lack of Patience

Everything takes time, and when they say ‘everything happens for good’ there is a certain logic to it. If something bad happens, then something good is surely going to happen to keep the natural balance. When it happens, you will feel that its the good that happened out of the bad. Yea, life kinda fools you, but its not too bad either. What you should remember is not to give up any virtue and allow negativity to set in. Because when you, the “goodness” counter is reset, and have to start fresh.

5. Pathological Distrust & Negativity

Quite a few people begin by distrusting people, some never do. This is what Ivan & me had coined few years back. Pathological distrust: what bosses or a company Continue reading Recipe for Failure →

Data & Information, Life & People, Product Marketing, Sales & Marketing, Tips & Tricks

Why ignorance is bliss today & 5 ways to ignore online junk

30 Apr, 11 Prasad 1 Comment

I’m a cleanliness freak – to the extent of cleaning up my Facebook wall. Over the last week, there’s been a lot of spam with wall messages that read: “Hahaha! Mine is hilarious. Check out yours”? Familiar? Yes, that silly app which tells you how you would look in the future. I never tried it, but tired of the requests, I urged friends to avoid it via a FB update. 13 people liked it, but I only hope its the latter of these 2 messages it conveys: how awful I look, and how useless that app is. (I take everybody’s privacy too seriously, hence some masking)

My Status Update — Still wondering what 13 people really liked?

Publicity fail

That application – whatever its name is – is a complete fail in terms of its messaging. Understand the scenario: that app is sending me a persuading message to try it on a friend’s recommendation. The least I expect is Continue reading Why ignorance is bliss today & 5 ways to ignore online junk →

Life & People

Do it, it could just be your last chance

25 Apr, 11 Prasad Leave a comment

I was at the departure area at CSIA – stuffed with Hot Dogs to avoid starving on the low-cost flight. Since I can’t dose off just about anywhere, I knew that my mind would be restless & I had to keep it busy. It was a long journey followed by another leg of train travel. While looking for TTD, I spotted a book store. I don’t read books, in fact I haven’t finished anything other than the Godfather – so this was a bad bad idea! But this was my chance to walk into a book store, flaunt my (non-existent) eclectic taste of business & management books, and trade some hard-earned money for a few useless reward points. Yes, sparing those tied to retail stores, most other reward programs are useless. Moreover, StanChart charges 50 bucks to deliver what you bought out off the few hundred points you gathered after spending a fortune. I did buy Screw It, Let’s Do it & Hacking Work (feel free to borrow & make those unturned pages feel good). I hurried the transaction as my flight was boarding, and I also had to hit the loo. (No no, they don’t charge for pissing on-board, but still)

We’re digressing; so let’s skip loo details and come straight to the point. As I was walking out of the loo, I saw a family friend walk in. Roughly twice my age, I’ve known the man for years – and he’s probably known me since birth. His not being an extrovert and my being bad at small talk made it very difficult to strike a conversation. Besides, all our past interactions have been restricted to exchanging greetings. My flight was boarding and he too didn’t notice me. I moved on, boarded my flight and the rest of that is history, etched here.

I never thought about it again until a couple of days back: I was told the man is no more. He was burned to death in a serious accident – to the extent of being unidentifiable. However high the fetch time of my memory is, I couldn’t ignore the last time we had crossed each other – at the airport. That was my chance – my last chance – to talk to him & wish him well. I tried excusing myself with the ‘flight boarding’ reason & even tried remembering the (n-1)th time we had spoken, which was too far to fetch. I said sorry to myself and prayed for the man’s soul, and the family he leaves behind. That’s all that could be done now.

I’ve always believed that each day could well be the last. We should thus say good bye to loved ones, and smile when we leave our homes. I had skipped something off my own doctrine, and it could not be undone. It has started to make me edgy. So I enforced that policy (much like a network admin does): no matter who, I’m not sparing any chance to greet people or smile. I kept that when I saw a granny in the market today – I went all the way just to say Hello. I didn’t want to repeat that mistake again.

When you die, you don’t want anyone to say: he was good, but the last time he crossed me, he was too busy to notice me! Do whatever it takes to talk to people – you might never see them again. Call people again if they don’t return a call, take a train to meet someone or wait hours in the sun just to see them, or just say a hello when you see people. Kiss you spouse & children every morning, kiss them before sleeping. Take every chance to smile at people & do nice things to them, in your own little ways that affect them. Be your own super-hero. Sometimes life and people remind me of paper boats we sailed in the rains: for some time they’re in your control, but when they start drifting away – they’re gone for good. Do everything you can when you’re in control.