Beer after workout better than water
Beer after workout better than water
PTI
LONDON: When you reach for an ice cold mug of suds after playing a game of football, cricket or a long run, you’re not just quenching your thirst, you’re actually doing something healthy for your body — seriously!
Researchers in Europe have carried out a study and found that a glass of beer is far better at re-hydrating the body after exercise than water as the sugars, salts and bubbles in a pint help people absorb fluids more quickly.
“The carbon dioxide in beer helps quench the thirst more quickly, while beer’s carbohydrates replace calories lost during physical exertion,” the ‘Daily Mail’ reported on Friday, quoting lead researcher Prof Manuel Garzon as saying.
In fact, the researchers at the Granada University in Spain came to the conclusion after examining 25 students who were told to do strenuous exercise in temperatures of around 40C until they were close to getting exhausted.
Half of the students were given a pint of beer to drink, while the others received the same volume of water after the workout. Subsequently, the team measured their hydration levels, motor skills and concentrationability.
Prof Garzon said the re-hydration effect in the students who were given beer was “slightly better” than among those given only water. Based on the studies, the researchers have recommended moderate consumption of beer — 500 ml a day for men or 250 ml for women — as part of an athlete’s diet.
It may be mentioned that past studies have revealed that sensible drinking of one or two units of beer a day could help reduce the risk of heart disease, dementia, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.
Team 1 Dubai comments:
So, shall we re-write the old saying and make a new one ” A beer a day, keeps the doctor away”
Do you have any, please post here or reply by email at team1dubai@gmail.com:
Diskeeper Releases the Most Intelligent Real Time Defragmenter Ever Built
Diskeeper Releases the Most Intelligent Real Time Defragmenter Ever Built
Burbank, California, United States, Wednesday, October 24, 2007 — (Business Wire India) — Diskeeper Corporation announced the launch of Diskeeper(R) 2008, the greatest performance enhancement defragmenter ever built. New features include the ability to defrag in the most extreme levels of low free space or the highest levels of file fragmentation. This is all done completely transparently through the highly advanced background processing technology called, InvisiTasking(TM).
Every machine suffers from file fragmentation(1). Past solutions included resource-heavy “one pass” or manual approaches. With advancing technology, these have since become antiquated and replaced by modern background processing technology. Diskeeper 2008’s revolutionary InvisiTasking allows defragmentation operations to take place in real time, as fragmentation occurs. This means no performance degradation is ever caused by fragmentation, giving the user a constant maximum in speed and reliability at all times.
Diskeeper 2008 also introduces the most powerful defragmentation engines ever developed. Even on systems with as little as 1% free space available, Diskeeper can restore performance and reliability. New engines also handle extreme levels of file fragmentation numbering in the millions, as seen at large enterprise sites with massive server traffic.
Diskeeper 2008 also contains an intelligent defrag function that detects and analyzes volume and system conditions and dynamically chooses the most effective software engine to net performance gains on that system. Diskeeper 2008 is the most intelligent automatic defragmenter ever built.
Key Features:
— NEW! Defrag with 1% free space ensures defrag management under the most extreme hard disk conditions.
— NEW! Defrag under the heaviest fragmentations levels including millions of fragments.
— NEW! Intelligent defrag dynamically chooses which software engine will net the most performance gains on any system.
— NEW! Frag Shield 2.0 boosts reliability by automatically preventing fragmentation of critical system files.
— NEW! Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) Compatibility mode leverages the data protection of VSS with the performance and reliability benefits found from defragmenting.
— NEW! Disk Performance Analyzer for Networks in the Administrator Edition provides performance metrics on-demand or emailed.
— I-FAAST 2.0 (Intelligent File Access Acceleration Sequencing Technology) automatically boosts access speeds for your most frequently used files up to 80%.
— True Transparent, Background Defragmentation, unnoticeable to users–except for the newfound performance and reliability.
— Real Time Defragmentation automatically handles fragmentation as it occurs, keeping system speed and reliability at a constant maximum.
All of this takes place using Diskeeper’s innovative InvisiTasking background processing technology. This taps the full power of otherwise idle resources to ensure maximum performance and reliability at all times. Once Diskeeper 2008 is deployed, a system runs better and faster–period.
For more information visit http://www.diskeeper.com.
Notes:
(1) Fragmentation: a condition caused by users writing, deleting and resizing their computer files on the hard drive. This causes the files to be become scattered or “fragmented” into many pieces. The more fragmented these pieces of information, the longer it takes the computer to read them. Fragmentation is a major cause of performance degradation on computers.
About Diskeeper Corporation–Innovators in Performance and Reliability Technologies(TM):
With over 26 million licenses sold, home users to large corporations rely on Diskeeper software to provide unparalleled performance and reliability to their laptops, desktops and servers. Diskeeper Corporation further provides up-to-the-minute data protection and instant file recovery with Undelete(R).
(C) 2007 Diskeeper Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Diskeeper, Undelete, InvisiTasking, Frag Shield, I-FAAST, Disk Performance Analyzer for Networks and Innovators in Performance and Reliability Technologies are trademarks owned by Diskeeper Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Media contact details
CONTACT:
Diskeeper Corporation
Teal Thompson
818-771-1600 x 1616
tthompson@diskeeper.com
CONTACT:
Diskeeper Corporation
Teal Thompson
818-771-1600 x 1616
tthompson@diskeeper.com
Questions to ask your wealth manager
Questions to ask your wealth manager
Go through this checklist before entrusting your wealth to someone, because it is important to ensure that your money is in the right pair of hands
by Moinak Mitra for Outlook Money
The name’s Bond! Plain, vanilla, old-fashioned bond. Or trust. You have worked hard to build yourself a plump financial portfolio, the least you can demand is ‘trust’ from the person or organisation you assign to manage your wealth. Moreover as a busy professional, you might be unable to devote the kind of time needed to take care of the money you earn and would, ideally, like to outsource your money management to a trusted person or organisation. So where do you go?
India is still at a stage where the wealth manager is not necessarily a certified entity and the term itself is used rather loosely. With banks and distribution houses, insurance agents, mutual fund distributors and chartered accountants liberally calling themselves ‘wealth managers’, there is a mindboggling array of people to choose from. So, it becomes imperative to first identify the type of people you can sign on as your wealth managers.
Manager Conundrum
There are wealth managers in banks who will eagerly do your financial planning if you fall in the HNI (high net worth individual) block. The banks assign a relationship manager (RM) to you, who is expected to manage the relationship with you by proactively using his knowledge to tailor unique and innovative financial solutions that will create value. However, he is restricted by the number of distribution tie-ups he has—not all of them can sell all products. Besides, as banks and distribution houses increasingly compete with each other with a similar set of products, an RM may end up just pushing his own brands instead of delivering long-term advice.
The high churn among RMs in banks often leads to sudden breaks in “relationship” building and a whole lot of miscommunication between the customer and the bank ensues. Take the case of Piyush Singhal, 40, managing director at a Delhi-based software firm, Infoedge Solutions. In 2001, an RM from a prominent MNC bank offered to take stock of his investments. Singhal was advised to invest in 15 debt mutual funds (MFs). Within a year he had burnt his fingers and exited when his portfolio crashed. Singhal held on to the bank, but this time opted for another RM. He then fell prey to the New Fund Offer (NFO) churn game that banks play with their HNI clients. From 2003 to 2004, Singhal invested in NFOs recommended by the bank. “There was a 50 per cent churn within the very first year, and there was at least one instance when we sold one fund and bought it back within a month,” he says.
When Singhal looked at his return, net of the short-term capital gains tax and commissions, he found that he had barely made 8 per cent in a market that topped 40 per cent. So, why is Singhal still with the bank? “They are all the same,” he says. His strategy now is to diversify across banks and he has signed up with another bank a year back.
Other ‘Wealth Managers’
Then there is everyone else keen on getting a slice of your pie with assurances to make you richer than you are today. Your friendly neighbours who sell insurance and mutual funds may not always be the right source. After all, their interests in selling you a particular product is the commission that they earn through selling you a financial product. Besides, your accountant or stockbroker may not adopt a holistic approach to all your financial planning needs.
If you strictly go by the book and look for a qualification that befits a wealth manager, then you should go to the 150-odd certified financial planners (CFPs) who have been certified by the Financial Planning Standards Board (FPSB), India. Remember that a true wealth manager uses the financial planning process to help you figure out how to meet your life goals through the proper management of your financial resources.
Once you have identified the category of your wealth manager, it boils down to choosing one. Here are nine questions to ask before you hand over that cheque. And remember to keep asking as you go along.
What is your experience and qualifications?
Wealth management requires hands-on experience and a strong technical understanding of topics such as personal tax planning, insurance, investments, retirement planning and estate planning and, how a recommendation in one area can affect the others. Ask the planner what his qualifications are to offer financial advice and if, in fact, he is a qualified planner. Ask what training he has successfully completed. Ask what steps he takes to keep up with changes and developments in the financial planning field. Ask whether he holds any professional credentials including the Certified Financial Planner certification, which is recognised internationally as the mark of a competent, ethical, professional financial planner. Find out how long the planner has been in practice and the number and types of companies with which he has been associated. Ask about work experience and its relation to current practice. Choose a financial planner who has experience counselling individuals on their financial needs.
What value added services do you provide?
Ideally, your manager should offer complete financial planning. He should be able to give you advice on equity investment, debt, commodities, art, insurance, international investment, which home loans to take and why, tax planning, estate planning, filing tax returns, superannuation, real estate, and do a cash-flow analysis. If you don’t see a mix of different asset classes, it is a red flag. Diversification is the essence of wealth management. Apart from regular services, it would be nice to get some more value out of your advisor to update your own knowledge. Look for the factors that differentiate one wealth advisor from the others. Check whether your advisor organises any client education seminars, gives you free research reports and regular updates on your wealth portfolio.
What plan can you suggest that suits my needs?
It is important that the plan made for you is unique to your income, your financial goals and your station in life. Each person’s financial plan is significantly different from the others. Your financial planner should be able to consult with you, draw out your financial dreams, and make a plan that will help them come to fruition. The plan changes depending on your income, the size of your family, what you consider necessary expenses, your luxuries and others.
Some financial planners have a few blueprints that you have to choose from, with pre-determined asset allocation ratios. While following this financial plan may be better than no financial plan, a custom-made plan that suits just you is ideal.
How much do you charge and on what basis?
It is better to be clear on this one. These charges are over and above any other charges like an entry and exit load charged by mutual funds when you invest in them. Ask if the fee structure is available in writing. They can charge you in different ways.
Fees: They are based on an hourly rate, a flat rate, or on a percentage of your assets and/or income. At times, it is on the nature of the work done.
Commissions: Though commissions are not paid by you, but by a third party (like a mutual fund house or insurance company), it does come out of your pocket. Fund houses and insurance companies use their entry and exit loads to fund these commissions for their brokers and distributors.
Combination of fees and commissions: Here you are charged fees for the amount of work done to develop the financial plan and commissions are received from any products sold.
What is your investment philosophy?
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Spread them around so that a downturn in the life of one asset class does not affect the overall returns of your portfolio. Sure, everyone knows that but your wealth manager should be able to put it down on paper and actually tell you how to do it.
He should be able to tell you the structural risk inherent in a product. For example, he should be telling you that within equities, mid-cap funds are riskier than large-cap oriented funds. In addition to a strategic allocation, your planner should also be able to advise on the tactical allocation of your assets. For instance, within the debt space when the interest rates are tightening, he should advise you to stick to floaters and should be able to tell you to shift your money into gilts in a scenario of falling rates.
If he has not mentioned the words ‘asset allocation’ and ‘risk reward’, stay out. The expected returns from various asset classes he mentions should also sound realistic. If your wealth manager’s promises sound too good to be true, they usually are. Again, if the wealth manager promises no downside, there is something wrong. Since all asset classes pass through varying life cycles, you should ask your wealth manager the downside of investing in a particular asset at that point of time.
Can you give references from existing clients?
You will get one only if there are satisfied clients. Trust is the first and foremost factor that you need to establish before choosing a wealth advisor. Talking to an existing client and knowing his experience will certainly help you take an informed decision.
How can I be assured of good service?
Look for an advisor who has good support staff and a manageable client roster. You also want to get an idea upfront on what his service policy is. How often will he sit down with you to review your financial plan and investments? How will he communicate with you in the meantime? A regular annual review should be the minimum. Semi-annual or quarterly vetting, depending on the complexity of your portfolio, is also important.
Do you recommend your own products?
This might happen when a bank is your wealth manager. If all it is doing is pushing its own group company’s products, there is an inherent conflict of interest. The wealth manager should be able to impartially say which product is best suited for you among a range of them and why. The planner should study the costs and returns of various products and recommend the most efficient among them. He should not recommend a product just because he gets fatter a commission by selling a particular one, or his internal targets are skewed to selling a certain kind of product.
if i am not satisfied, What’s the exit route?
The planner is a pure wealth advisor or broker—so you are never invested in him; you invest through him or on his advice. You have to talk to him and understand the fee structure and other details at the time the relationship is being evolved. That alone can guarantee a safe, hassle-free exit in case you feel the service is below par.
These nine questions should help you narrow your options down to the most suitable wealth manager. Review the answers every once in a while, it helps you keep track of why you hired him in the first place and whether he is still the right manager for your wealth.
How many are enough?
How many are enough?
The more life covers you have, the tougher they are to manage. A smart investor buys a term cover for life insurance and invests in funds independently. But for those who cannot, Ulips are the best bets
by Sunil Dhawan for Outlook Money
Consider the following grim statistics. Almost eight of every 10 Indians are without any kind of life or health insurance. But the irony is that even those with insurance policies, especially life covers, maybe underinsured.
On the other hand, there are individuals who have bought insurance policies for the sake of investment only. Take the case of 38-year-old Minoti Desai, a former member of the Indian women’s cricket team, who is now self-employed. She has 23 life insurance policies, mostly money-back, endowment and Ulips (unit-linked insurance plans) with a total life cover of Rs 40 lakh and an annual premium of Rs 3.4 lakh. She can have the same cover at a premium of about Rs 21,000 in a term plan till age 65, a life insurance plan that only provides your dependents with the sum insured during the tenure of the policy and not returns. The remaining annual contribution could have been invested in a range of pure investment products ranging from low-risk products like public provident fund to high-risk investments such as equity mutual funds (MFs). This combination provides higher cover as well as higher returns.
Why people have too many policies. There are many like Desai who have a portfolio of insurance policies much like a portfolio of MFs. Much of it has been because putting their money in traditional products such as endowment and money-back, has been their preferred investment. “I have been buying traditional plans almost every year for the last 13 years. It keeps a check on my spendthrift ways and helps me save money,” says Desai.
Since traditional products didn’t have the flexibility to adjust to changes in one’s life, such as the need for enhanced cover after the birth of a child, people had to buy fresh policies. There are other reasons as well. Insurance was sold as a tax-saving option and access to it was relatively better, thanks to a larger number of insurance agents as compared to, say, MF agents. Many people treated insurance products as the only investment tool to achieve life’s goals, such as children’s education and retirement.
Problem of plenty. A pile of policies comes with a pile of problems. To name a few, it may be difficult to keep track of premiums, updating nominations and maturing policies even if your agent is helpful. Since you are committed to premium payments, you remain vulnerable if your commitments are large, especially in exceptional times, such as a job loss, or when you want to take a sabbatical without pay. The other major problem arises when you realise that your agent has sold you a policy whose features don’t fit your needs and even the returns are not endearing. Life insurance policies being long-term contracts, the exit costs are high (see The Right Policy: Pick Live Covers, Drop Dead Ones, 15 January), which forces one to stay put.
How Ulips can prevent pile-up. For those who can’t actively track and manage investments and would like to rely on investment-cum-risk insurance products, Ulips are an alternative to holding large number of policies. You can buy a Ulip that ensures adequate insurance cover, gives flexibility in premium payments, and has a decent fund performance. You can even attach a critical illness and a disability rider. This way you could cover a lot of risks in a single policy. More savings can happen in the same Ulip through top-ups. Thanks to this flexibility and hardsell by agents, Ulips have become popular. “I have almost stopped buying traditional plans since 2001; now my insurance pie also features Ulips,” says Desai. If you want greater risk cover or find the premium unmanageable, you can even rely on a combination of a low-premium, high-life cover term plan along with a Ulip.
Even as you search for the best Ulip, you need to be on your guard. This product is meant for long-term investment, since much of administration and other costs are levied in the initial years of the policy term. However, unscrupulous agents have been hawking Ulips to those looking to park money in equity-related instruments and getting them. There have been instances where new Ulips have been sold to the same customer just because the insurer has launched a new fund option at a lower net asset value. Worse, some agents, after having switched insurers, urge policyholders to exit existing Ulips to buy newly launched ones by their new companies. Therefore, zeroing down to the right agent is essential (see Finding The Right Partner, 15 September). Also, check whether the exit costs of the Ulip are manageable.
How many policies should you have? “There is no thumb rule for the number of policies that one should buy,” says Debashis Sarkar, director (marketing), Max New York Life Insurance. Opt for Ulips that give both the sum assured and fund value as death benefit, instead of those that provide the higher of the two. Choose Ulips that offer life cover till age 100. You can increase or decrease the cover whenever the need arises. A periodic review of life risk cover also helps. “Do a ‘needs analysis’ at periodic intervals; it may so happen that one of your risks may increase or decrease and your calculation may change completely,” says Anand Pejawar, country head, Bancassurance, SBI Life Insurance.
What do you do if you have already accumulated a pile of policies that you might now want to reduce? In Ulips, you need to stay invested for the long-term, given the commonly front-loaded cost structure. For traditional plans, depending on exit penalties, you could take a call to minimise your losses. Buying life covers is all about knowing how much cover you need and figuring out when it is enough. The good news is that with the ever-expanding choice in insurance-cum-investment options, you can actually strike a balance.
Text the teacher
Text the teacher
Pragya Kaushika,TNN
Come November and the School of Open Learning (SOL), Delhi University (DU), will launch its welcome gift for the new batch of students enrolling in the BA programme for 2007-08 – a 24-hour query helpline via e-mail and mobiles.
One guest faculty member will be appointed as counsellor and instructor for a group of 20 students, informs H C Pokhariyal, executive director, SOL. He adds, “The basic need for any education system is the availability of teachers who can devote time to students. Distance learning is coming up as an alternative to regular classes as there are many students who do not get admission to regular courses.”
The idea emerged from the SOL’s interaction with the open universities in the UK. Admitting that distance learning in foreign countries has upgraded to a level where it can compete with the regular education system, Savita Dutta, director, SOL states, “We have invited experts from the UK to help us improve our distance education methodology.”
If the experiment with the BA programme manages to achieve the goal with which it has been started, it will be extended to other courses provided by SOL. Says Dutta, “We cannot limit the number of students enrolling in our courses, and since they need tutors just like regular students, we will enhance the teacher-student link to manage them efficiently.”
Apart from helping enrolled students find the right guidance during examinations, this new system will also provide job opportunities for fresh post-graduates. “MA/MPhil students will be invited to join us as guest faculty under the scheme, and this will simultaneously address their employability issues.”
Meeting The Challenge Of Changing Patterns
Meeting The Challenge Of Changing Patterns
Janina Gomes for TIMES OF INDIA
“We once saw a man draw some black dots. We looked and could make nothing of them but an irregular assemblage of black dots. Then he drew a few lines, put in a few rests, then a clef at the beginning, and we saw these black dots were musical notes. On sounding them we were singing”. This observation set me thinking. There are many black dots and spots in our lives. We cannot understand why they come — unexpected bad news, sudden deaths, illnesses, unsavoury encounters, brushes with the uncouth… We wonder why God permitted them in the first place. Then, other experiences come flooding in, equally unexpected: good tidings, experiences of goodness, compassion and mercy.
Maybe God has been adjusting the dots. He has been drawing the lines he wants, separating the good from the bad, lifting us above what is low and unseemly. He puts in the rest in the proper places. The black dots no longer remain an irregular assemblage. They are drawn into a larger pattern, woven into a wider harmony.
When we look down a long avenue of trees, we are amazed to look from one end of the avenue to the other at the rich greenery, the large boughs, the arching leaves. Sometimes, the trees seem to groan under the burning heat of summer, yet they provide shade to the hapless who take shelter under their outstretched arms.
There are seasons, when the trees shed their leaves and remain brown and seemingly barren. Then once again, they suddenly turn green in spring. Fresh new leaves appear. All is verdant, green, inviting once again.
When we look back along the long avenues of our years, our experiences are quite similar. There are good times and bad. There were times for growing roots deep into the ground to withstand the winters of our lives. There were times to shed leaves, experiences, persons and situations that were poisoning our lives. There were times to shift our alliances and allegiances to bring them more in tune with God. There were times to go deeper in search of water and the source of life.
We all have to deal with change in our lives. Change is really an opportunity to grow. The unexpected always comes along. The unexpected could also come in the form of the beautiful and the inspiring. We all know what joy meeting an old friend by chance can bring us.
An unexpected phone or letter that encourages us can light our day. An experience of quiet joy and peace may come to us through a sudden shaft of light from the window. Affirmation from a friend or loved one could lift us, when the lowness of some around us is getting us down.
Change and difference are a part of life and the mystery of being unsure never leaves us. It is no secret that deer, squirrel and owl are not alike, that birds do not fly in lines and fish don’t all float at the same level. We choose the level at which we live our lives, the heights that we touch and the depths to which we stoop.
We cannot determine the times of sunshine and the times for cloud and rain. Our spiritual experiences may not always be pristine and un-diluted light. We all cannot escape the darkness and gloom. But the closer we move to God, the better we learn to handle change.
Management Of Change Brings Stability
Management Of Change Brings Stability
Discourse: Swami Sukhabodhananda
There are two sources of stress, internal and external. Internal stress involves thoughts, values, beliefs and opinions. External stress involves wrong exercises, faulty breathing habits, unhealthy eating habits, pollution and sleep problems.
Nobody can avoid stress in life. One has to minimise stress. That is possible if one can work on both internal and external stress. The most important factor is our mind and how it looks at life.
At the end of one of my programmes, a lady danced for three hours in sheer celebration. Then she came and sat next to me and told me how happy she was. As she was drinking coffee, the beverage spilt on her beautiful saree. Immediately, she screamed, saying her joy from the three-hour dance was gone.
Looking at this incident, i learnt that three hours of happiness was invalidated by a sorrow lasting for a few seconds. If our mind can work like this, the reverse is also possible. The three hours of sorrow can be invalidated by a few seconds of joy.
The secret of being happy is to recollect happy incidents in life. Weaken the effect of unhappiness by distancing yourself from its pictures. Can you undertake the following acts in your life? Understand the mind. Transform the mind. Transcend the mind.
Transforming the mind involves the understanding that there is no complete satisfaction in life; there is only a possibility to improve upon the existing state of affairs. We don’t have to win every time in order to be happy; happiness does not depend only on success. Learn to respond and not to react to events and incidents in life. If one continues reacting, reaction becomes a habit. Then an egoistic and reactive “I” emerges. It will have its own foolish logic.
A dog and a cat had an interesting conversation. The dog said, “I am so lucky that the owner of the house serves me and the children of the house adore me. So i feel they are God”.
The cat also said, “The owner of the house pets me, the children of the house adore me, and the servant maid serves me. So i feel i am God”.
Effective management of change is an art. For this, you need to cultivate leadership qualities. To be successful in life, one has to have the leadership quality to manage change.
In esoteric teaching there is an important law called the law of three. The positive effort you put in is called the first force. As you put in positive force there is a negative force that would affect the positive force.
This negative force is called the second force. If one conti-nuously puts in positive effort, there would be a third force that would descend and transform the negative force into a positive force. This is called the law of three.
If you do not continue exerting a positive force, the negative force will take over. So the law of three urges us to be open to the negative force, but to continue applying the positive.
Afraid? Not us!
Afraid? Not us!
Avinash Kalla,TNN
Is conquering fear the key to success? As Dhoni and his boys swept the T20 trophy, they demonstrated amazing teamwork and spirit. Avinash Kalla unravels the success formula
Say ‘fearless’ and the image of a beaming Mahendra Singh Dhoni, along with his young bunch of enthusiastic cricketers, proudly holding aloft the T20 World Cup strikes the mind.
Dhoni pulled off a victory even as few gave India an outside chance of making it to the finals. So, what did this Jharkhand lad do differently when catapulted to the hot seat that others before him did not? You guessed it. He and his team operated with a mindset of utter fearlessness. “We played without fear. If we play like this, with everyone supporting each other, we’re going to win more matches than we lose. We need to enjoy ourselves whenever we go out in the middle. Let euphoria take the place of fear,” is the newly-anointed skipper’s slogan.
Is losing fear, then, the key to success in both individual and team enterprises? And what is the role of a leader in inculcating this attribute? “There is a tremendous relationship between fear and success,” says motivational speaker Shiv Khera. “There are thoughts of fear and defeat and thoughts of victory and happiness. It’s these very thoughts that direct or misdirect us,” he asserts.
While negative thoughts create an aura of gloom around us, the energy emitted by the positive thoughts is reflected in our actions and body language. Powered by this positive energy, one plays to win in whichever field one chooses to. As Khera puts it, “There is a huge difference between playing to win and playing not to lose. In the former, you play with an inspiration, whereas in the latter, you play out of desperation. And the results are different in both cases.”
When you are fearless, you don’t hesitate to take on the mighty and powerful. The Indian team demonstrated that match after formidable match against countries ranked favourites to lift the prestigious trophy.
Sabeer Bhatia, then a young entrepreneur, set aside fear when he walked in to negotiate with Bill Gates and co. for a whopping $400 million for his venture Hotmail.com. Microsoft offered him a meagre $160 million; Bhatia didn’t give in. He had just one choice ‘take it or leave it’. Undeterred, Bhatia who acknowledges that being fearless is certainly one of the qualities required to be successful in business, played it cool. “I’ll get back to you,” is what he said.
All through the way to clinching the mega deal, he remained firm and fearless. However, he has a word of caution, “You cannot have a weak hand and continue to be fearless. It would be foolish to do so; your spirit has to be justified by a solid platform. In my opinion, being fearless means that one should trust her or his intellect, and not be afraid to go against the norm to try something new.”
And defying norms is no mere feat; it takes a lot out of leaders who are able to turn the tide in their favour. Capt. Gopinath, who revolutionised the way people fly today, says, “We had a class barrier to defy when we entered the aviation business. Nobody believed in my project; some went on and said ‘Tata-Singapore airline never got the licence; you don’t stand a chance to see it through.’ But in my mind there was never a question about will I be able to do it? It was always how I can do it, till I actually did it.”
Individuals like Dhoni, Bhatia, and Capt. Gopi possess what Khera terms as ‘practising mental toughness’ — the mantra he says is, “I play to win but I am not afraid to lose.”
His views are echoed by Dhoni who said, “It really didn’t matter to me if we didn’t win, because we’d given it our best.”
Think for a moment, what if Bachendri Pal had allowed herself to get intimidated by the imposing Everest. She would never have scaled the tall heights she did by becoming the first Indian woman to conquer the Everest. Climbing the mountain must have been a daunting task for her, but she exorcised her fears and went single-mindedly about her mission. Again it was the courage of her beliefs that made environmental scientist Sunita Narain lock horns with a Cola giant, and stick to her guns in the face of immense pressure and arm twisting.
It’s the leader’s attitude and speed that determine the pace with which any team moves and builds the tempo. In Khera’s opinion ‘a bunch of sheep led by a lion is better than a bunch of lions led by a sheep.’
So are leaders born or do they learn to lead? And what is it that the leader needs to do differently to come out tops? “Some are born leaders whereas others acquire leadership skills over time,” says Bhatia. Capt. Gopi adds, “Courage is the most important aspect of leadership; it comes from deep conviction and belief. Second, a leader needs the ability to judge people and manoeuver them ensuring their potential is optimised.”
A formula Dhoni practised to perfection. When Harbhajan Singh showed signs of buckling under pressure, Dhoni decided to give the ball to Joginder Sharma, a player who, the captain felt, had fire in his belly and ‘wanted to make a mark at the international level.’ It was a gamble that paid off.
A leader does not hesitate to take gambles. Capt. Gopi says, “If you can’t create more leaders within your team, you are not a leader worth your salt. Give your people challenges and they respond. They thrive on these challenges and you in turn create leaders who will carry the show on.”
But not everything is always hunky dory for these fearless souls; they too have their lows and face defeats. “In business, you are only as good as your last quarter. It’s not every time that your courage will lead to success. You lose some, but then you need to analyse various aspects and act fast,” says Capt. Gopi. In these defeats there is glory as you go down fighting.
With Chak De being our current war cry, it’s time you believed in yourself and went for your dreams. Remember, fear surrounds us like a cage, break it, and the world is your playground. Now that we are in the game, who are we playing next?
From sheets to pillow cases to dusters
From sheets to pillow cases to dusters
Uma Asher,TNN
Over the years, it has slowly dawned on me that I have learned many things from my parents in years past, without even noticing. They live in an apartment in the overcrowded clutter that is suburban Mumbai. Every day, they buy a handful of flowers and bel leaves for the household altar. The flower woman delivers them to our door, wrapped in a leaf and tied with a piece of string. My mother saves the string, and when it has grown to a fist-sized ball, she returns it to the flower-seller, who re-uses it.
My father would take cloth bags to the market every day, but somehow plastic bags crept into the house occasionally. My mother would collect them, and periodically hand them over to the vegetable vendor, so he could reuse them.
In the days of glass milk bottles, my mother saved the aluminum foil caps. A few caps made a new career as scrubbers for cast-iron cookware like a roti tawa; others were given to our domestic help, who sold them as metal scrap in the slum where she lived. That way she earned a spot of extra money, and the aluminium presumably got recycled somewhere. When the tough nylon fabric from folding deck chairs frayed at the edges, it was taken out and sewn into heavy-duty bags to buy our monthly supplies of grain.
Those bags lasted well over a decade. When I was a child, the fabric of my unfashionable but sturdy cotton school uniforms was ideal for making shopping bags. Our old clothes that were in wearable condition were bartered for steel pots and pans from an itinerant vendor.
My mother rescued old zippers and buttons, and stored them in an old candy box to sew on other clothes. Torn clothes were cut up and saved as wipes for kitchen spills, muddy shoes, and so on. Old cotton bedsheets got cut up, and the ends, less frayed than the centre, were sewn up into pillow cases or dishcloths. If a container broke, the lid was saved, and used when another container was missing a lid.
To this day, gifts are unwrapped very carefully, and the paper stored flat under a mattress for reuse. Resealable plastic bags are rinsed, dried, and reused when possible.
Even though my parents live in a flat, they don’t regard their hoard of old stuff as clutter; it’s well-organised so things are there when they need them. When they need string, a plastic bag, a clean jar or bottle, a lid or nail of any size, a rag to wipe a spill, they know exactly where to find it.
Only when I lived in the US did it even occur to me that stores could sell such items. I have come to recognise and be grateful for how my parents’ little habits continue to shape the way in which I use things. They never use the expression “reduce, reuse, recycle”. When they add some little item to their stash, they simply say, “This will be useful.”
ClicksandWrites 
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