Goals update 2d) - Job

Now to my Achilles heel, Job search. In my view one of the major reason for lack of my personal growth is that I’m very bad in job searching. Even after around 10+ years of working experience. I’m still in my third job only. The story is very simple.

1)      First job – Campus placement from college itself.  (duration 1.5 yrs)

2)      Second job – Need to come back to my hometown due to family reasons. One of my senior from college was already in that particular company. He called me; arranged an interview which was more of the formality and I was selected. (duration 6 yrs)

3)      Third job – After six years in my second job. I was looking for better growth prospects as my current employer was a small proprietary based company with limited growth opportunities. One of my batch mate was in a company in Gurgaon who was looking for candidates (same story repeated, An interview which was more of a formality and I was in) (duration 4 yrs and still counting)

In both the companies (second and third), I got good recognition. Some training abroad and best employee award as a proof. But my problem lies somewhere else. In today’s scenarios and my friend circle is proof of that. The quickest path of growth is through job hopping. And I’m hopeless as that. My old fashioned method of working very hard at a same company does not bring up required dividends. And that is the reason that I’m lagging behind.

There are some other missing parts of this jigsaw puzzle too like having an unorthodox degree and unorthodox line. But still the major share of blame lies with me only.

My experience shows very clearly that the easiest way of landing very good job is through networking. And due to very shy, sober and introvert nature. I’ve been very bad in this.

Secondly again due to this nature only. I’m not very aggressive in constantly looking out for jobs and also not very confident in facing interviews.

That was one of major reasons for my joining toastmasters.

My last experience shows that If you don’t move out of companies that are not doing great in 3-4 years. Then you can get stuck very badly.

Since I’ve already reached that point and moreover my company is also having some serious issues due to merger. I have to change job lest I’ll be in a very depressing situation.

That sums up why one of my major goals for this year is to find a new job.

As with all my other goals. I’m also going to make and follow a plant to achieve this goal as below.

1)      Competitors

2)      Engineering consultants

3)      Placement consultants

4)      Networking

5)      Entrepreneur

6)      Higher education

7)      Technical skills /3D modeling

8)      Communication – mock interview

Goals update 3g. Books

My fetish for books can be described with the kind of attraction some people have towards food.

Just like some people cannot control themselves against mouthwatering foods, without giving any thought regarding their possible ill effect. In the same manner I’m hungry about books. My reading list includes all sort of opposites. From autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi to books of Khuswant Singh and 50 shades of grey. From Harry Potter to Paul Coelho. From Chetan Bhagat to Mark Twain. From Angles to Ayn Rand.

But what irritates my wife most is that I even read newspaper pieces and brochures etc. used while serving street foods at vendors. My appetite for reading is never ending.

But of late, I’m trying to change this habit.  Two quotes were the reason for this. One was “What you eat / read is what you become.” (I don’t remember exactly where I read this but it stayed in my mind.)

Second I read in the school where I used to go for attending Toastmaster’s meeting. It says “Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.

So enough is enough, I thought and decided I’ll be more prudent and selective in deciding what I’ll read.

After digging the internet for quite some time, I came across following illustration for Books (above) everyone should read.

There are a few books in this chart that I have already read.

Namely Harry Potter, Atlas Shrugged, Pride and Prejudice, Kite Runner, Life of PI, The Fountainhead, The Picture of Dorian Grey, The Da Vinci Code.

Some more that I have tried and could not read due to complicated Victorian English or did not like the flow.

Nonetheless the list gave me quite a few options of books to read.

So I started with Siddhartha. One major reason for that is that I’m really feeling inclined towards spiritual books right now.

Have already finished this book at the time of writing this post but the review of this book will be in another post.

PS: Again just missed my deadline with writing a blog post every 2 weeks by just a whisker. From now onward will change it to one blog post every alternate Sunday.

Goals update - February 10 2015

On to the most difficult part now.
Once the initial euphoria fades, comes harsh reality.

After 26th Jan. I was at customer site for two weeks (Schedule was very hectic), Once there I had an accident on my right hand.

To cut it short , No real progress for last two weeks,

This is the usual phase after setting big ambitious plans, You seek excuses in circumstances .

Once the initial tempo is lost. As its not possible to catch up, therefore whole activity is dropped,

Anyway at least I'm keeping with goals of one blog entry every two weeks. (even with injured hand)

Goals (New Year Resolutions)

That very well sum up the story of my life. Bit late for everything. In fact; in some areas more than a bit late.

So here I'm making a list of New Year resolutions on 26^th of Jan whereas that is something which should be done on 31^st of Dec.

Find below my list of goals (or resolutions) divided into broad categories

1)      Health – One of my Achilles heel for many years now. An area of which I want to improve for quite some time. Only thing stopping me (apart from procrastination) is series of health issue back related, stomach related and some spasms etc. The sub categories as below

a.       Exercise / Gym

b.      Running / Delhi half marathon

c.       Yoga

d.      Abs

e.      Swimming

f.        Waking up early

g.        

2)      Professional Growth –

a.       Entrepreneurship

b.      Education / degree

c.       Designing (3D)

d.      New job

e.      Networking

f.         

3)      Personal grooming –

a.       Eye Contact

b.      Communication / Toastmasters

c.       Confidence

d.      Guitar

e.      Journal

f.        Blog / website development

g.       Books

h.       

4)      Misc.

a.       Financial

b.       

Now that is a pretty comprehensive list. With this I finished the easy part. Now the most difficult part (implementation) starts.

Talking about corporate jingo. Now it’s end of forth week. With 53 weeks in this year, there are 49 more weeks to go. I shall endeavour to track the progress on these goals on weekly basis; with half yearly review (another idea from corporate life) after 25 weeks have elapsed.

PS: One of the goal is to write at-least blog entry every two weeks. So let’s see if I can meet this goal.

Preparing humorous speech toastmaster

Once bitten twice shy,  goes the adage
But I'm someone who refuses to learn from mistakes (own or others)
So I've decided to participate (again) in toastmaster speech contest (humorous) even though my last attempt was a complete disaster.
One of my invented excuse for last time was lack of time for preparation. This time I have more than a month to prepare (you can read about the last failure below)
The tentative topic finalized is (not) buying own house. Few reasons for selection of this topic as below
1) maximum people can relate to it
2) pain area for everyone still everyone has a funny anecdote to tell

Graffiti

Treat your employees like you want them to treat your best customer
Stephen covey

Toastmaster Seven Project

Today on February 16, 2014. I gave my 7^th project in Toastmasters.

It took me a long time to deliver this speech (my last speech was in…. hold your breadth march 2013)

Needless to say. This long gap did not do me any good. It was almost an Icebreaker (my first speech of Toastmaster).

To top it all. One, I could not prepare it well due to hectic office schedule. And Second, I went way over time (timing device malfunction involved) and have to cut down my speech abrupty.

But more about that later. For now here’s my speech draft below -

I was ecstatic. Riding on the wave of euphoria, I felt like I was part of divine consciousness.

The Feeling was all powerful like I have attained Nirvana. ………And then….. All of a sudden I heard

                    

“Ashiiiiiiiish, wake up now (Louder). You’re getting late for school. Just look at the time.

In that golden age, I just can’t wait to grow up so that I don’t have to wake up so early. I mean it’s so unfair that the grownups office starts at 9 and our school starts at seven in the morning.

But alas, growing up comes with a wife ….. I mean price.

Even after all those year. Now I have to wake up early as my daughter’s school starts at seven.

Even now, in my present situation had to do a comprehensive study on Benefits of sleeping that I’m going to share with all of you.

Let’s define sleep first. It’s a physical state wherein a person is very still and relaxed. Totally silent apart from some incomprehensible sound uttered from time to time. Now this is very important. Relaxed is the main keyword here because the other parameters; silent with incomprehensible muttering are classic signs of normal behavior of any married man.

In fact jury is still out on whether a married man is relaxed even while sleeping too.

Since time immemorial. Sleep has very prominent place; even in our ancient texts. In Hindu mythology. Out of the holy trinity, the great god Vishnu, god of sustenance is depicted as reclining on Sheshnag in the holy ocean known as Sheersagar. Sleeping has been a form of meditation in our culture. In fact we interpret it as meditation but actually they were emphasizing the power of sleeping. My childhood was spent in state of Punjab, And back in our village. We don’t had any temple. So we used to go to the Gurudwara and ask our demands from Babaji. What I still remember is that Babaji was always smiling and looks like sleepy.

In fact spiritually also it’s very difficult to feel any negative emotion like anger, frustration etc. while feeling sleepy.

Even our elected leaders also tried to draw on this ancient wisdom and to utilize this benefits of sleeping, they try to catch a nap time and again in the parliament. But as a part of a larger conspiracy. The scheming media-persons don’t allow them to do it.

With the advent of science. Even researchers all over the world are also reconfirming the benefits of sleeping .In a recent study, researchers at NASA showed that a 30-minute power nap increased cognitive faculties by approximately 40 percent! Tests carried out on one thousand volunteers proved that those who continued working without rest, made lower scores in intelligence tests like the IQ test. More importantly, their capacities to work and memorize decreased in comparison to those who napped after lunch.

[ http://ririanproject.com/2007/09/05/10-benefits-of-power-napping-and-how-to-do-it/]

Some people says that sleeping leads to procrastination. But if you analyses closely. Actually sleeping enables you to complete your target in very short period of time. The Japanese concept of just in time also owes its origin to sleeping.

We owe many of our great inventions to sleep. Had Newton not been in sleepy state one fine morning, taking a short nap? We would not have discovered gravity.

Even in our corporate world, Speed can help us in many hidden ways. I’ll recount a short story to illustrate this point.

It happened in the graveyard….. shift in our training session. Just after the fullsome free lunch. We experienced that all of sudden, gravity in the room has increased manifold. Our head started deviating towards ground. Just then we are jerked awake out of our sleep. Something unimaginable has happened. Rubbing our eyes in dis-belief . We just realized that someone has actually asked a question. Giving dirty looks to new favorite of bosses or rather our new bosses. We failed to realize the secret. Friends I going to tell you his secret. His secret was Somniloquy or talking in sleep.

We are obsessed with speed and crossing milestones – However useless they might be.

The hour hand got this anxiety that it’s not moving as fast as the minute hand even its movement carries much more weightage than her.

The minute hand wants to compete with second hand. I mean look how slim and fast it is.

Caught in this meaningless rat race. Nobody has the time to take a step back to look at the broader picture. If they could pause and look back. They could realize that they are moving in circles and this frantic race will not take them anywhere.

In the hindsight I would much rather prefer to waste my time in sleeping than running in circles in this mad rat race.

As you can see above. It was a long speech at around 900 words. There’s no way I could have finished it in 7 mins. My speed as I’ve come to realize is 100 words / min. Originally this speech started at around 700 words but some late minute additions swell it to 900 words.

But what is even sadder is that even after that ,the transitions and conclusion were up to my satisfaction.

Summary of evaluation comments as below

1)      Transitions could be better

2)      Lack of emotional comment with audience

3)      Lack of pauses

4)      Face totally flat (without emotions)

5)      Clasped hands