I was back at NYU Stern campus last night after almost 3 months. For the first time, I was visiting as an “Alumni”. Ah! just to say it feels nostalgic. I met a few of my classmates and a bunch of Alumni and almost all the 08 graduates were just excited that we are done with it! but still figuring what next to do…

In my chats with another alumni, I heard about “Echoing Green“, an organization that selects and funds social entrepreneurs targeting social issues around the world. I am writing about it now because I took up social entrepreneurship as one of my specializations in business school and took up a very eye-opening course with Billy Shore and Sarah K. Chiles. It was an excellent exposure, especially to Bill and his thought process. He is the visionary behind the non-profit “Share Our Strength” and the author of “The Cathedral Within”. Apparently, Echoing Green supported Billy Shore and Share Our Strength in its early development, through another grant program.

The 2008 fellows of “Echoing Green” sounds like a promising list and at least one of them matches with one of my core desires to make a difference. I will be reaching out to them soon to help in any way I can. If you like any of the ideas, You shoud too!

As an end note, this quote from Echoing Green website grabbed my attention and is worth mentioning here.

“…it is important to realize that the world does not depend on you. It will go on its own way, and you shouldn’t expect anyone to be thankful for the work you’re doing. If you decide to do something, it is because you want to do it, and nothing more” - as mentioned by Rahul Panicker here.

A few months ago I was browsing through a ReadersDigest at the OBGYN’s office and stumbled up on an article about Randy Pausch and his “Last Lecture” and his book, under same title. Stuck with pancreatic cancer since September 2006, Randy braved through the last two years like a true hero. An accomplished engineer, professor and a humble man with many dreams and wishes, Randy delivered the “Last Lecture” not so much for the namesake or even for the thousands of people who showed up to see it live and the millions who are still watching it in YouTube, but just for his three kids! I can now relate to why he would have done better than I would have 7 weeks ago (our son was born on June 2nd). The hardest thing in life is to be upbeat when you know you are dying. I remember reading a small and wonderful book called “Tuesdays with Morrie” and felt the exact same emotions for Randy as well. I am sure hundreds of others like Randy and Morrie pass everyday without much fun fare, leaving their legacy with people near and dear to them. Randy was in a place and position from where he could make a difference in the world by giving back whatever he could, with the little time he had. And he did!

Time magazine declared him as one of the 100 most influential people in the world! If you watch the lecture (knowing his background), you will be influenced as well.

He died last night. May his soul rest in peace! May his legacy live forever!

I was looking through some of the online short film contests and came across Big Picture TV. It is a neat project conceived and executed by Marcus Morell. Simply put, he has reached out to some of the leading thinkers and advocates working on environmental and social causes to share their insights. It is a worthy cause and demonstrates the power of new media and how it is leveraged to connect the movers to the masses. The website is neat and elegant though I was having problems with playing the videos.

Most of the people speaking are unfamiliar to me. Not surprising, I haven’t heard of many of them, given the momentum and breadth of support that environmental movement has and of course, my lack of awareness too!. I guess what matters is their insights and ideas more than who it is from. If you have heard of Cradle to Cradle, you should listen to Bill McDonough. I have read that book through my brothers recommendation and his ideas are fascinating and much needed. You should also check out his speech at the TED conference.

Kudos to Big Picture TV for bringing ideas into action! It goes into my favorites!

I am in the middle of reading Small Giants. This is a great find and I am so glad I stumbled upon this book. A part of me wants to be an entrepreneur badly. I really want to be in the media business producing content for children’s education and entertainment and I always search for how other successful entrepreneurs started from scratch. Small Giants not only talks about that but also talks about the principles these small private companies live by to stay small but stay great social citizens!

The book profiles a bunch of small companies and their entrepreneurs (some of them great leaders too) and how they started off and how they either resisted the temptation to grow and remained successful or gave up to the growth syndrome only to learn the lessons the hard way. Its a good read if you aspire to have your business one day. It will be of immense use to know what you will go through, once you become successful, which you will, if only after a failure or two. Good Luck!

If you havent read this book, Getting Things Done by David Allen, I strongly recommend you read it as soon as you can. But if you are like me, you will read it…and….do nothing about it. Dont, this book is meant to be read and acted upon by following the personal productivity workflow model that David recommends. I was totally impressed with the book when i first read it and was pretty confident that it will work…I just didnt have the will to do it. But that was then.

In the last two weeks, I have gotten into a serious act of following david’s GTD ( famous shorter version for Getting Things Done, search google for GTD you will know).

To start with, I bought David’s second and latest book, Ready for Anything. A small book, easy to read, contains good zen-like thoughts on getting and being ready to do anything, right from daily chores to taking on the challenges of future. It also is dispersed across the book with precious sayings by some great minds. As an add on to that book , I also bought, The Power of Focus. Another insightful, down-to-earth commentary on why our habits are important and why we need a purpose and how habits combined with purpose help us focus on anything we do. Finally, I grabbed from my local library ( Somerset county library, I love it) another tiny book, but of great value to me, Motivation & Goal Setting by Jim Cairo. If you cant anything else, just get this 100 page book that you can read in half day and follow what it says. Come throw stones at me if it doesnt change your perspective on life/work/goals etc.

Another inspiration for this came via CBS 60 minutes. Harini and I had a healthy debate this past sunday on something called AADD (Adult Attention Deficit Disorder). Watching this show on CBS about AADD and how it has been gaining more attention, I was debating if I have this disorder. Dont be alarmed with the term “Disorder”. The very argument thats happening today is if this should be classified as a Disorder or a “Lifestyle”. AADD simply put is doing zillion things at the same time and not spending enough time with enough attention and focus on one thing at a time. If you are reading this, while chatting with someone on an IM, while also listening to music, while your husband is talking to you from behind, while you also take an occasional look at the window to see who is standing outside, you will most likely be classified as having symptoms of ADD according to the medical definition of AADD[Look at this survey, if you answer "Sometimes" to atleast one, You got it!]. Isnt that funny? Thats what the CBS 60 minutes show alluded to and which is why I argued that we all have this. Now this is all about money for some pharma companies, expanding the simple definition of a disorder to as many poeple as they can and so excited to see their customer base increase 10 fold for tablets (Strattera Pills) that help is Focusing. Later in the program, it made more sense when they talked about how its about lifestyle and not necessarily a disability. I also learnt that great minds like Da Vinci, Thomas Edison, Einstein and few others had ADD. So we all should be proud to be distracted. After all, it juices up our creativitiy.

Here is my take on it: Its not abotu AADD or other crappy medical terms, its all about the distractions and priorities. Today, there is just too many distractions. Cell phones, Pagers, telephones, internet, emails, TV, radio, music, noise, books, cooking, cleaning, health concerns, relationship issues. Its tough to “focus”, if you go by the definition of the word focus. All is required is planning, prioritizing and committing to doing thigns a certain way.

If you have used emails/Instand Messagers at work, like Outlook or Notes or Yahoo IM or MSN, there is cool little feature that pops up and blinks everytime a new email or message comes in. Thats a distraction. Do you pick up your cell phone or land line as soon as it rings, thats distraction. The first thing I did after reading those books and looking at the CBS 60 minutes was, disable that notifier in Lotus Notes and Yahoo IM. I check my email only twice or thrice a day. A new email waits there until I get to it, I dont read them anymore as soon as I get them. Next, I lowerd the ringer on my work phone to bare minumum and dont pick up the phones everytime it rings. Changed the message to say like “I may be working on something important, leave a msg, will call you back”. And last, I committed myself to NOT open more than one browser window at the same time and read more than two things at the same time. Finish one, get to next. No 7 windows at a time and Alt tabbing between them. These three things, have changed my style quite a bit in the last few days. I already feel I am getting some things done better than before. But I am sure this is just the beginning. I am waiting until I completely “set up” my David allens’ GTD workflow at home/work.

To get another bloggers take on GTD, read this very well written overview blog by David Pollard. I agree with Pollard that for folks like who get most of their work done in a computer, a manual file folder based GTD workflow[A quick overview here], may not be appropriate. So i am going to try out the software tools. Check these GTD tools.

gyronix - Turns Ideas into actions.

GTD at OfficeZealot - Lots of articles/tools on Getting Things Done!

Life Balance

EccoRocks another free personal productivity tool.

I find all this helpful and am psyched to try them to to become a better person. By the way, its been widely accepted in the self-development industry, that its the brightest people who need GTD workflow and tools. So you got more reasons to feel good to try it out.

As Dave Pollard says, I also hope the David Allen puts this book for free on the web so millions of others can realize their fullest potential. There is also an audio downloadable version of the book at Audible.com.

Life seemed to have run too fast since the last time I was typing something here. Inbetween those days when I thought I should write something, I was inflicted with a sense of mental block. Right at that moment, I feel there is literally NOTHING i could write about. You know that kind of feeling ‘You suck Dude, Go shoot yourself!’ sometimes flashes to me…thats what I mean….So with all the other stuff happening around us, no wonder the left over time from work/eat/sleep is hardly enough to ‘think’ about anything else. I know a lot of people out there love their work because they work everyday in something they are really passionate about. Not everyone is that lucky. Do I belong to that? Hmm…I should admit partially no, but sometimes the search never ends. Reminds me of something I heard from someone..Where ambition ends, Success begins…How true?

We saw Bourne Supremacy last weekend. I am a fan of Matt Damon ever since I saw movies like Good WIll Hunting and Talented Mr.Ripley. I dont know what made Matt/Ben refer to Ramanujam in Good Will Hunting, but I was totally impressed with that thought. The Bourne sequel, Bourne Identity stood out to be different from the type of international spy thrillers. Supremacy didnt let us down and kept us the edges very much. The stunning scene sequences truly keeps you wondering whats next to come, while the car chases were riveting (gave me what I payed for :)). The background score especially the fast percussions pumps your heartbeats a bit up so you are in sync with the gravity of the chases. Good Job. If you are wondering what the story is about, remember the tamil flick ‘Vetri Vizha’, Kamal/Prabhu starrer? Sometime last week we caught up with Bollywood world with ‘Main Hun Na’. If this movie can become a super hit, I think I will direct a movie someday and rest assured that it will become a superhit. The word Pakistan just a bit overused. A scene where a psycotic former Indian army officer(Sunil Shetty) mercilessly shoots an poor pakistani lad is unnecessary. Even though the story clearly intends to befriend pakistan, such scenes even if for just a secon, furiates everyone. The bad but true face of terrorists & millitants were far better as shown in Roja(and even kannathil muthamittal), here it was more kiddishly comical than anything else. I would blame it more on Farah Khan than Sunil. Also, for heaven sake, why dont Shahrukh change his style? He can do better movies than helping Farah Khan. Sushmita was tough sell, i am not sure if shes got the looks anymore?. Anyway, my opinion doest matter, the movie apparently is a super hit. What can I say, Indian audience will remain as unpredictable as always. And the last in our movie week, this friday, Harini didnt miss a chance to pick up ‘50 First Dates’ starring Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore. Simple story line, Adam falls in love with Drew with love at first sight. He realizes the next day that she has strange type of amnesia where she forgets everything that night and always wakes up to remember the day before her fatal accident. So he flirts around her everyday trying different things to impress her and date her. Of course, noone would do it but for Drew barrymore and Hawaii! This will make a perfect story for an Indian (tamil) movie! There was only one good thing in the movie…it was the spectacular Hawaii. Niether was anything funny in the movie nor emotional. Sandler has become so famous and rich he will make such movies for his own fun, out of his vacation in hawaii.

Gladly wrapped up ‘Writing down the bones‘ but was desperate to read something refreshing, I picked up Illusions from my shelf for yet another read. Some of you might know Richard Bach from Jonathan Livingston Seagul, if not, dont miss your next chance to read this very short masterpiece by Bach. Illusions is one of his follow-ons to Seagul. Though I believed (more now) in subconscious thoughts and their powers, Bach rejuvenated my thinkings on parallel universes and oppurtunities to realize its values. Bach describes our fears/skills/character/dreams and other such traits of human mind as having connections to parallel universes, where we might be seeing and talking to others(in their parallel universes). Like this as he goes, it is an interesting phenomena and so he has a cult following in the meta physical readers.

I finished listening to this book very recently. I picked it up casually from the free local library…just curious to find out if he can really say anything about truly connecting with people? I thought, even if he said one thing I didnt know, i would be more powerful as an individual that without it isnt it? Surprisingly, this is a wonderful book and I recommend to everyone as a casual read or listening. Some things I learnt/liked from this follows.

Three most important qualities that anyone should develop : Enthuisiasm, Curiousity and Humility. As he says, Enthusiasm is such a great addictive quality. Being enthusiastic will only take us further beyond and will never drag us down. Such a person would never be low in morale and will always be looking forward to next good thing. Curiousity, Nicholas rightly points out that is somethign we all had as kids, but we let it go when we become ‘educated’ and ‘civilized’. Kids never hesitate to ask questions and so should we all be. Never stop to seek. if we do, we stop to learn and stop to know and eventually stop to grow as a person. The third quality, Humility is the ultimate. This is also the toughest to practice. Its the ability to under represent ourselves as opposed to over projecting us. Just imagine, the first two qualities combined with the third, isnt it truly an ultimate combination of a true leader? Think of any great personality you know and they virtually will have these three in them.

Looking right into the eyes! Nicholas stresses this every few pages. Its partly scientific partly phsycological. I kind of agree when he says looking straight on to the other person’s eyes is the most direct connection between the two hearts. As I read this, I thought about this? How many times do we really see another persons eyes, right into it, right in the middle when we talk to anyone? Surprisingly we do it very least. We see their nose, chin, temple, eyes as a whole, lips, face, around the face but not many times right into the eyes for extended duration. Check yourself the next time you talk to someone. Besides, when you start looking right into the eyes, it tends to reflect you off. You will feel it when you practice it. You cant hold it for too long there. He suggests a great tip to practice looking into the eyes of anyone we meet, to make that first heart to heart connection. Look at their eyes for atleast 5-10 seconds, note the color of eyes but just note, dont have to remember. The effort you take to note the color of their eyes will keep you looking at their eyes for few seconds thereby connecting your hearts. It works for me. Try it.

Few other simple ideas from nicholas that are truly wonderful :

Always keep your hands “out” when meeting someone new. never put them in your coat pocket or trousers or in your back. The animal instincts in all of us wants to make sure we are safe and the only way we know for sure, atleast instinctively, is if the other person has nothing in their hands.

Try to mimic the other persons tempo, tone and style of speech and behaviour. This is again natural instincts I guess. He uses a fantastic way to describe this: When you say ‘I like you’ we actually mean ‘I am like you’. Do you see the subtle difference? Its like saying you and I are very similar and you do everything the way I like you to do. With this concept, if you read the last tip again, you know why its a good idea to imitate the other person when talking to them. Don’t overdo it. It must be very subtle. The other person based on your supposedly natural action and behaviour should like you and so will listen to you and hence will ‘agree’ with you. If they speak fast and loud, you also do that, but sneakily. To do a better job with this, listen and watch for a while before jumping in, this will give bit of a time for you to comprehend the other person and adjust yourself to present yourself in the best convincing way.

There is more I would want to share, but steal the book if you get a chance and experience it for yourself. If it works, lucky you!

A great note from the book : “Before people buy anything, they have to buy YOU”

Yes, I have completed ( in full ) atleast three books in the past two months : Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, Management Challenges for the 21st Century by Peter F Drucker and the once famous, Business @ the speed of thought by Bill Gates. Its pretty amazing considering I had read no book in full in past few years(But I sincerely and regularly buy more every year and read few chapters!). But as much as I say its a big deal, it was equally easy…why? For I didnt read them, I listened to them. All of them were audio books, that I smartly grabbed from the local library and listened during my 40 minutes each way commute to work. It doesnt matter, I am very glad I did and encouraged to listen to as much as I can. The one consequence was I missed listening to NPR, a great company on the air, when I am left in the traffic.

One of the books I have always wanted to read is the autobiography of Gandhi. While that thought remained in the back of my mind, I never really came across this book and never gave a thought to find out if this would be sold today in real bookstores, though I knew I can definitely find one on the internet.

The moment dawned when I was given a $10 complimentary Barnes&Nobles gift card for offering to donate blood ( they didnt accept me since I had made a trip to India, a country black-marked for dangerous contagious diseases, in the past 1 year). As soon as I realized that the compliment was a gift card to an online book store, I started wondering what I could possibly buy for $10. Obviously no book worth reading sells in that price range. A enticing thought ran thru my mind…why not buy a used book? Well, on such moments mind works faster by flashing more thoughts that you want, I remembered Gandhi immediately followed by a reminder not to forget Nehru, Akio Morita, Abraham Lincoln, followed by few others whose autobiographies I had been wanting to read. Within a few minutes of search on the used books section of the site, MK I encountered Gandhi somewhere in a community library in wichita, kansas and Morita with someone in boston. Each of them were trading at throw away price of less than $2. I was elated and acquired them instantly. Unfortunately because of their remote existence, I had to pay more than their price for shipping, to see them united with me. After a patient daily examination of our mail box for 10 days, they both arrived safely and coincidentally wrapped in a local news paper. While the Sony creaters edition was more recent, Gandhi’s was too precious to be sold for that price. It was the first american edition printed in 1957. Somehow I sensed a strange feeling within me when I held the book out of the newspaper wrap. The papers were too old to be flex anymore, they were hard and would break into pieces if I held the book stronger or drop it. Perhaps it was the first owner of the book, who had underlined those sentenses throughout the book. I have one less thing to do when I read it myself. They both are eagerly resting, sometimes in the bookshelf, sometimes on the coffee table and yes sometimes in the bathroom, for me read their life, that just simply rewrote the future of two nations.

Reading has become one of best pastimes ( passion too! ) in the past few years. As an eventuality, writing has gotten into my wish list. The issue is its far easier to read (anything) while its not an easy to job to write about anything, not to say, that will be read and likened.

I found this small, wonderfully written and extremely useful book in Santa Fe, New Mexico, when we were there for new year 2004. Its ‘Writing Down the Bones’ by Natalie Goldberg. It was written a few years ago and I found this just at the last minute on the last aisle after I spent 1/2 hour going around the store on full round. I think I am lucky to have sighted it. Its a great book and I attribute the book for the most part, in encouraging me to reopen my web log. I encourage anyone hesitating to write to read this one. If you dont start to write atleast a few lines at the end of first 3 or 4 chapters, I think Natalie failed!

I also just finished ‘Life of Pi’. I will spend another tail end of another good day like today, to write about it.