Sunday, October 02, 2022

What you know is not as important as how you think!

 What you know is not as important as how you think! What you do with the knowledge is what matters.

This post is not about giving credit or arguing about Mahatma Gandhi but to learn from a great life.

Mahatma Gandhi was born on this day of 2nd October in 1869 at Porbandar Gujarat India

The word ‘Mahatma’ is made of ‘Mahan’(Great), ‘Aatma’(Spirit/Soul), the great writer of Modern India - Rabindra Nath Tagore(Nobel Laureate who famously said ‘You cannot cross the sea by staring at it’)  gave Mr. Gandhi title of Mahatma. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence(Satyagraha) made him a path breaker, people across the globe respect his philosophy and what he achieved with it. 

Gandhi said You must be the change you want to see in the world.

India was the most coveted and profitable territory for the British Empire and to push them out of the door by convincingly defeating them in their own eyes and to the world requires something out of the world - Gandhi alongwith all other leaders and his followers made this happen. 

There could be many voices and alternate arguments to it and they are ‘what if’  arguments. The fact is he did it, he did it without changing his conviction. 

Mahatma Gandhi was a simple man but one with a lot of strength - 

He was smart(tactful and knew what he was saying - he was a practicing Barrister In Britain, and even practiced it for few year on his return to India, 

full of energy(used to go for cross country march - Dandi March) and mental grit(fasting for long length of time) 

great with communication(used to respond to 90+ letter everyday and published newspaper in South Africa and India)

full of conviction(it all started when he was alone at a Railway Station in South Africa kicked out of his train) - he did not budge till he was allowed to travel in the train.

Gandhi’s quote: Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.

above all carried honesty and integrity to give him strength to face the unknown. 

Gandhi’s quote:

If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.

Men often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn't have it in the beginning.

He did not use any of the usually known ways to reach his mission and objective. He led a simple life in India but one that influenced more and more people. Before coming back to India, it all started at one point

He along with his trusted team members used to respond to 90+ letters everyday - no small feat by any standards.

Here is the approach that Gandhi used for his life:

  1. Know how to do it - he figured it out to good extent in South Africa

  2. Do it! - Execute the Plan

  3. Knowing, repeatable and predictable. Your culture/tribe should have records of everything, so that if it repeats you can make use of old records, identify patterns, and make predictions.

  4. This step is about expertising an idea so much that at its best is not prediction of recurring event, it's such a deep understanding of ideas that you can predict events that have not happened. It's called Theory. Theory is the highest level of understanding of any subject. theory knows what has happened, what's happening and predicts what will happen.

Wednesday, May 04, 2011

Going Crazy

Everybody wants to be insanely successful, but nobody wants to lose their sanity in the process.

Everybody wants the work-life balance, but nobody wants to be a boring nonentity, either.

Everybody wants to have amazing experiences, but nobody wants to make an amazing sacrifice in order to have it.

Everything has a price. Very few people actually want to pay it.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Entrprenuer and MBA - What matters in the end

Recently went through a post at BNET : Why an MBA Is a Waste of Time and Money
Two fairly important points discussed:

* Most important skill for an entrepreneur is that you know your weakness and you can find people to fill in your gaps
* Top ten business schools will not accept you unless you have a clear plan for what you will do with the degree after you graduate. You need to show that you have a propensity for some sort of business and that you need the degree to get where you want in that business. Unfortunately, most other schools will take you if you don’t have a plan even though it’s been shown that people who go to business school with no plan for their career graduate with no plan for their career. And then you look not just lost, but desperate.


Also what matters is that whatever path one chooses - it should add to the personality and character. At the end one's personality or character should improve.