Best Quotes in under 10 words!

I was actually searching the internet for a quote to put up on my Skype page, and I found this gem!

With all credit to the site from which I am picking this up, here are the ten most awesome quotes of under ten words each.

Source - http://www.careerlab.com/comments.htm

Inspiration: "The World's Best Quotes in 1-10 Words."

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I've collected thousands of inspirational quotes. It seems that nearly everything that can be said, has been said, simply and eloquently, in a way that can seldom be improved. Winston Churchill wrote, "Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all." So, I collected "The world's best quotes in one to ten words." These are the quotes, and my comments:

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1. Love. —The Prophets
   Jesus, Gandhi, Buddha. All the world's religious saints and prophets hold love as a central value, the glue that anchors the universe.
   We hear, "Love makes the world go round," and "Love heals all wounds." These are familiar themes: love of friends, ideas, and self. Love of God and of country. Even love of life itself. If I could only have one word for all eternity, love would be my choice.

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2. Know thyself. —Socrates
   In college I studied philosophy under Professor Don Crosby, and met Socrates early. In career development, self-knowledge is everything. In a career, you can be two or three degrees off course and walk into a wall, instead of through a doorway. You don't have to be far off to have it fail.
   Career unhappiness often results from lack of focus, and lack of focus stems from limited self-knowledge. But self-knowledge takes time, introspection, and effort. So it's easy to avoid.

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3. Inches make champions. —Vince Lombardi
   Under Vincent Thomas Lombardi's direction, the Green Bay Packers collected six division titles, five NFL championships, two Super Bowls, and record of 98-30-4. Lombardi knew a lot about winning. If football is a game of inches, so is career success. In the competitive world, you seldom win by a landslide.
   Buzz Sullivan, my high school diving coach, told me, "A champion is someone who goes so far they can't go another inch—and then they go that inch." I wondered why that was important. Now I know. Winning in business or in personal life is all about inches: going small distances successfully, then going farther still.

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4. Nothing gold can stay. —Robert Frost
   We are swamped in change. And we had better get used to it, or at least figure out how to deal with it. In our parents' day, career change was uncommon. The norm was lifetime employment. Now CAREER = CHANGE. You'll have five careers in a lifetime, maybe six. Perhaps you'll do part-time, project, interim, or consulting work. And even if you're in your ideal dream job today, that might change tomorrow. Nothing gold can stay.
   Martin Bucco taught English literature at Colorado State University, and first brought my attention to what words could mean. Bucco spoke of what he called "the great dead minds," those who have come before us and written their thoughts. He also said, "Time in life is short. You can only read so many books, so choose wisely." We spent many classes unwrapping Robert Frost's genius, and this is one of the poems that hit home:
   NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY — by Robert Frost
   Nature's first green is gold,
   Her hardest hue to hold.
   Her early leaf's a flower;
   But only so an hour.
   Then leaf subsides to leaf.
   So Eden sank to grief,
   So dawn goes down to day.
   Nothing gold can stay.

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5. Work is love made visible. —Kahlil Gibran
   About 80% of people are unhappy at work, and 20% are happy. Our culture has separated work from passion, and taught us to prefer a higher paycheck to higher happiness. That mistake costs us our souls. The goal of career development is to uncover one's gifts and passions, and to link them to the practical needs of the world. We call that "being in the right place," "finding a good fit," or "making the best use of one's talents."
   In What Color Is Your Parachute? my mentor, Dick Bolles, quotes Fred Buechner, who writes, "There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work . . . (and) the place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." [2001 Edition, page 57.]
   High compensation and high happiness are not incompatible. It's not that we shouldn't seek money, and lots of it; many of our clients do. But we should first seek to love, or at least to like, what we're doing. That's the realization of our highest calling.

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6. No great thing is created suddenly. —Epictetus (A.D.200)
   We live in a McDonald's culture. We want everything instantly and without effort. And we bristle when others around us appear to be getting more, sooner. Waiting for rewards or results is out of favor. It is so uncool.
   Many things are created suddenly: the two-day house makeovers on HOME & GARDEN TELEVISION, for example, but they aren't great. They are adequate, functional, or practical improvements. Greatness requires thought and time, effort and sacrifice. Especially sacrifice.
   Stellar careers aren't built overnight. Take the orthopedic surgeon, whose education extends 15 years past high school. Take the country western star on Grand Ole' Opry. Take the NFL quarterback or wide receiver, the CEOs, CFOs, and Vice Presidents of brand-name companies. Think about Edison, Einstein, or Galileo, or anyone else you might admire. None of them got there overnight.
   Great careers are built upon hundreds of thousands of small efforts, undertaken daily, that eventually grow into a series of satisfying wins. An ad for Paul Masson Vineyards picturing a bottle of wine said, "Nothing good happens fast." I framed it, and hung it in my office.

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7. Well done is better than well said. —Benjamin Franklin
   This is a variation on "Actions speak louder than words" and on Shakespeare's superb quote, "Talkers are no good doers." An executive search consultant who recruited 500 bank presidents told me, "There are two kinds of candidates: tap dancers and superstars. Tap dancers go through the motions and superstars get the work done. I recruit the superstars."

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8. No wind favors he who has no destined port. —Montaigne
   The cliche, "If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there," is valid. And many careers are broken by lack of direction. Corporations define this concept as having a mission or vision, and organizations lacking vision usually flounder. "Career Planning" speaks to the idea of creating a blueprint for your future. That is, having a goal, a destined port—fulfilling your destiny. Stephen R. Covey said it well in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People when he advised us to "Begin with the end in mind."

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9. Sometimes even to live is an act of courage. —Seneca
   I've been there. You've been there. Sometimes life is hard. You hit a career roadblock or dead end. Nothing seems to be working. You're fired or laid off. Or worse yet, you and your spouse are both unemployed. It happens. And it happens more frequently than you might imagine, to good people, qualified candidates, because of circumstances beyond their control. I like Churchill's words, "Never give in, never, never, never, never; in nothing, great or small—never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense." And I especially like the quote by Edmund Burke, who said: "Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair."

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10. Do first things first, and second things not at all.
    —Peter Drucker.
    It's so easy to do what's familiar, comfortable, or fun. It's so difficult, sometimes, to tackle the highest priority. And sometimes it's difficult to even know your top priorities; hence, the phrase, "I can't see the forest for the trees."
    We suffer from over-choice: 67 varieties of toothpaste, 487 styles of shoes, 186 brands of cell phones with 137 telephone companies. We demand more variety than we could possibly need or want; and as a result, we get lost in options, opportunities, and choices. There are 87 varieties of lawyers, and 75 specialties inside medicine. The world of work can be a confusing landscape.
    When you're flooded with career possibilities, or "swimming up Niagara Falls," it's good to spend time answering questions like, "What is the best and highest use of my talents?" and, "How can I make a bigger impact?"
    If you can't establish clear career priorities by yourself, use friends and business acquaintances as a sounding board. They will want to help. Ask them to help you determine your "first things" and "second things." Or seek an outside coach or advisor to help you focus. Because if you don't know what your "first things" are, you simply can't do them FIRST.

Gone for Good – My Review

Actually, I’ve been quite lazy. After Blink, I’ve finished another 4 books, but have been too lazy to write a review here! But after reading Gone for Good, there is absolutely no chance that I escape writing one.

Among all the thriller books I’ve read, this one is quite at the top! And to think that I’ve not read any of Coben’s other books before!! While browsing through the bookstore, because I could find nothing else, I took a look at this one, and the reviews on the blurb caught attention.

Once I started reading, this one absolutely caught hold and made me finish it (took 2 days though).

Gone for Good is the story of two brothers – Ken and Will Klein. You can read an excerpt from Amazon here. I won’t divulge the plot, but here’s what made the book so irresistible.

Coben’s writing style – weaving between first person and third person is a real treat to read, and gets the reader truly absorbed into the story. As the book moves on, we suddenly realize that none our of normal ‘reader instincts’ are proving true! There are so many twists and turns all around, that it gets impossible to anticipate what’s coming next. After a while – once a few chapters are done – we actually give up guessing, and that makes the book even more interesting.

Another very interesting thing about the book is the way Coben takes us in and out of flashback. It is not like he finished the flashback and comes back to the future, but keeps weaving; and the effect is quite stunning. It is like the ‘need-to-know’ thing James Bond movies taught us! As the story moves on, we keep getting glimpses from the past of the characters which makes the story much more exciting.

If you are a fiction / thriller / action / crime genre aficionado, this is one book you should certainly not miss!

I’m hunting for Coben’s other books, but none seem available in our city! :(

It’s official – The Sun is out!!

All these days, I was still in a dilemma whether the Indian Recession has officially abated or not. That thought has been laid to a positive rest today, and yes, it is official that the Sun is out!!

Whatever people have written about in the business dailies, and whatever the finance minister has said in the budget, as citizens we all have our own calculations. We call them ‘inner voice’, but sometimes it takes something from the outside to trigger that voice. For me, it was a telephone call yesterday.

After all these months, I finally got a call from a financial company asking if I had need of a personal loan! For me, that is the end of recession!!

If you have a mobile phone (read as ‘if you are considered to be alive’), you would also have missed the fake politeness, the laughs that suddenly cut off when we picked up the call, the voices that tried to be confident, and the pressure evident on month-end calls (which by the way start from the 15th). Not one, but two calls came through yesterday from two different companies – both offering personal loans.

And then I saw a banner strung outside a major nationalized bank announcing that this is ‘Credit Card Utsav month’. Ah!

Finally, we got a call this morning at the office mentioning that a client wanted 5 executives to disburse small ticket loans in rural areas.

The Sun is out, and it is a-shining! How nice it is to look forward once again to bounced cheques, threatening calls, atrocious interest rates, rude customer service executives, streams of calls and messages, and so much more which I cannot recollect in this excitement! Actually, I am not being entirely cynical. If this is a solution to an awakening of spirits in the country (the human variety, I mean), and of a rekindling of the feel-good factor, the big comeback of retail credit is truly welcome!

Wear sunglasses (and get your do-not-disturbs activated) once more!

Next is this!

Ever since Aamir Khan started promoting the Samsung brand, there has been a lot of change the brand has undergone – and that is certainly something which would have been done wontedly by the company. Starting with Mobile Phones, the tech revolution was evident through all the launched products, and now it has finally reached Laptops.

To be honest, Samsung was never a hot favorite in laptop computers, and a lot of us (me included) would not even know that they were into this market! However, after seeing a review on a third party site, I realized that not only do they make laptops, but they have some amazing models in store.

I was actually searching for a mini-model which is quite the rage nowadays; and though I am convinced that no mini will survive with my horrendous usage, I still love to look around (as everyone does). The Samsung N110 is a mini laptop, yes, but it packs quite a punch. For instance, there is a 6-cell battery that  lasts for almost ten hours (and that is much more than my current LARGE laptop can take); a keyboard that is 93% the size of a large keyboard; integrated 1.3 mega pixel camera; and a 10.1” LED display. The weight of this little super star is just 1.26 Kgs and that is less than 40% the weight of a normal laptop.

I was also looking at other laptop options in the ‘mini’ category, and find that this one certainly is among the top options in the market today.

Guess Next is Samsung Laptops now!! If you have used / seen a Samsung Laptop, do share your opinion by commenting on this post.

Blink! – My Review.

Malcolm Gladwell is a genius.

It is extremely difficult to make science appealing to the layman, and there are only a couple of authors who can write science like a novel – without missing the point. The other writer I can think of in that genre is Bill Bryson; whose ‘A short history of nearly everything’ has taught me more about science than my school science textbooks! Anyway, that’s a different story.

Blink! – The power of thinking without thinking – is a book which takes us through something that we are all truly experts in – thin-slicing. This is the process of taking decisions in an extremely short duration of time, and if you think about it; each of us goes through that process several times in a day. This book analyzes this process of taking really fast decisions, and Gladwell guides us through the whole scientific jargon like a traffic constable at a busy junction. Another reason why I simply loved this book is because Blink! does not just talk about science – it is equally steeped in psychology, and that is an even more difficult topic to write a blockbuster about!

Malcolm Gladwell has written an earlier bestseller – The Tipping Point (which I have to read now) which is another book that takes the reader into the depths of the human mind without losing us!

Blink! is a book that reminded me several times that I am more than the average Joe – as a lot of things the author talks about were things I noticed at various situations. The book can do that to you – to make you feel really good (even the average Joe) by letting you know that you are an expert in psychology, an expert in decision making (unless you are autistic – about which there is an example in the book), an expert in thin-slicing, and so on.

Finally, a big thanks to the researchers whose findings are mentioned in the book – these guys (and gals) have spent countless hours in trying to decipher the strange ways our mind works, and if we are somewhat closer to the secrets of the mind, it is thanks to them. But Blink! will also tell you that there is a very long way to go yet in understanding the complete works of the human mind.

This is a book you simply have to read. If you are a fan of general writing or science, you will relish this book. If you are a fan of fiction (like me), you will still relish this book, and feel better for it.

Blink! – The power of thinking without thinking – is being adapted into a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and is expected to be released in late 2010.

A Unique Phenomenon!

I was looking at some pictures from Santorini island in Greece, and one thing that struck me immediately was the very unique way of construction.

I don’t mean construction in terms of architecture or in terms of materials used. What we will notice is the unity in the people to preserve their heritage. Look at the picture here, and you will observe that the colors used by most of the people are white and blue.

For a very long time, the Greek isles have been synonymous with usage of Whites and Blues, and whether it is apartments, villas, or hotels, they all try and use these colors as much as possible. The effect that it gives is simply stunning! When one sees the white spires and blue domes rising over the deep blue of the Mediterranean, you simply can’t turn your eyes away! Search Google for more pics of these isles and you will notice that even from the pictures.

Now, coming to our part of the world, it is variety that rules! If my neighbor has painted his house Brown, I have to ensure that I paint it Green!! No two houses are in similar colors. With new colors including fluorescent ones popping up with alarming regularity in our streets, it is fair enough to say that we are at the other side of the world from Greece!! Everything – arches, materials used, colors, designs and even landscaping will be different from home to home in our region!

But in the picture, you will also notice that there is one single house (at the top right hand corner - in brown) that has begged to differ. It must have been built by an Indian!

The Accor City Super Sale - Is it the recession or what?

Hotels have been one of my primary interests ever since I got into Hotel Management several years ago. 

So whenever there is a banner ad or an article talking about something to do with hotels, my interest automatically gets piqued.

And this time, it is for an offer that can quite simply be termed as 'unbelievable'. Accor Hotels has been a world leader in business and luxury hotels for quite a while now, and the only thing that puts ordinary people off is the prices. We went for a dinner to Hyderabad Novotel a couple of years ago, and paid about 700/- per head for a simple dinner!!

Anyway, I got whiff of this new offer that Accor hotels was putting out, and after checking it out, I seriously am thrilled! So much that I had to blog about it.

This new 'City Super Sale' offer brings the prices down to between 1200/- (for an Accor hotel in Bangkok) to 6118/- to one in Vietnam. All Indian Accor hotels - Bangalore, Hyderabad, Gurgaon, Mumbai and Pune are priced at 2400/-. Chinese Accor hotels - in Beijing and Shanghai are even more affordable!

Is this the impact of the recession or is Accor trying to woo the low budget business traveler (which most of the people are nowadays)? Whatever the reason is, the offer is absolutely block-buster. Never a better time to travel in the Asia-Pacific region. Airline prices are at an all-time low, superb hotels are taking reservations for unbelievable prices, and the monsoon is just setting in! What are we waiting for??

Accor hotels include the Novotel, Sofitel, All seasons, and a few other brands.

Here's more information about the offer from the Accor website - City Super Sale.