WHAT WE NEED IS A CHARACTER LIKE 300 SPARTANS

You might have watched the movie “300” and I m sure you might have liked the movie too. I liked it very much and I liked it not just because of the nice graphics in the movie or not just because of the muscular bodies of the 300 Spartans but because of the few other reasons, which I found really interesting. I think if we pay our attention to those interesting things in the movie, it might just turned out to be a life transforming experience for all of us. So, let me just point out those things one by one but before I do that I request you to see this video called “Glory for the 300 Spartans”(press play to watch the video below) then we will continue to our discussion and my special thanks to MVEGGIA, who is also a 300-SPARTA(Spartans) fan, and he is the one who loaded this video to YOUTUBE.



Nice video, isn’t it? Ok but what all things did you notice in this video, anything?
Ok Spartans, their bodies, their weapons, the lightening, alright you did notice many things but other then that anything else? Let me tell you that there were 5 major qualities of the great 300 Spartans being shown in this video; did you notice them?? If you could make them out it’s great but if you couldn’t then don’t worry because I m going to let you know all of them.

BRAVERY: You should not have any doubt about that after watching this video, isn’t it? How brave were those 300 soldiers who took on enemy’s huge army without anybody’s help. Not once they had a fear of loss and they attacked the enemy with full throttle and zealot. What a display of BRAVE character!!

TEAM WORK & UNITY: You know that they were 300, the team of 300 men, the 300 soldiers together united as one team. They have almost proved the exact meaning of the word “TEAM”, which I reckon is T= Together, E=Everyone, A=Achieves, M=More. Yes, the Spartans showed how as a team it becomes so easy to achieve the unachievable. How easy it is to face your task as a team as every single person performs its own task and contributes to the Team’s victory. Now that is one team which I would love to be a part. Here is one more clipping from the movie which showcases the Spartans as a “TEAM”. I request you to roll this video too.



COURAGE: I believe courage and bravery are inter-related. Courage is one thing which help us or make us do the un-doable and when that undoable is done it’s termed as bravery. That is what exactly being depicted by those 300 warriors in the movie. The courage to challenge the toughest of the opponent’s for the freedom of their people. They say- if people have courage to do something that is more important than doing that thing perfectly as courage is the real character, the real thing in a person. It’s the determination of doing the thing, which one wants to achieve, in spite of unfavorable conditions. I salute the courage of those 300 Spartans.

PASSION: Passion is the essence of doing anything, if one doesn’t have a passion of that thing than one cannot do it. Passions drives you towards the things, which you want to in life. Passion has a strong connection to satisfaction and peace. As an individual do something passionately, he enjoys it and loved to do it and most importantly it brings a lot of satisfaction and peace to his soul. You feel happy about doing it. The Spartans had the passion of victory, the passion to defeat their enemies so each battle won brought them satisfaction and peace, and to do better in the next. It gives birth to that drive, which inspires one to pursue something with heart.

SELF-BELIEF & FOCUS: It’s very necessary for an individual to have a strong focus to do anything and most importantly, the self-belief that one can do that task. The video showed the Spartan’s were focused at their goal and they had a strong self-belief that they can win the battle. The self-belief gave them so much confidence that they focused on just one thing called Victory i.e. what focus and self-belief can do to a person. They can make a person achieve the goal and motivates the person to do the undoable.

These were the 5 things, which Spartans have pointed out and that’s the character one should ideally have. The 300 Spartans inspires us to be BRAVE, to be COURAGEOUS, to work as a TEAM, to work with PASSION, and to work with full SELF-BELIEF and FOCUS towards the goals and dreams of our lives. If we do it then I m sure we will achieve whatever we want in our life.

GOING AGAINST THE LAW OF ATTRACTION FOR BETTERMENT

Sometime back I read this very interesting book, named “THE SECRET”. The book is written by Rhonda Byrne. The Secret claims to reveal the most powerful law in the universe. The Secret also claims that with the knowledge of the most powerful law in the universe great men and women at present and in the past, attained glory and accomplishments in their lives. The Secret reveals the natural law that is governing everyone. By applying this law one can change every aspect of his life. The law which I m talking about is the LAW OF ATTRACTION.

They say that the law of attraction is so powerful that an individual can attract anything in his life by properly implementing it. They say this is the secret to prosperity, health, relationships and happiness. This is the secret to life. Rhonda & Co. has launched audio and video prints of the book too and I must confess the movie “The Secret” was really inspiring and influential. But let me just try to give you what “The Secret” has tried to convey, the core message behind “The Secret” or let’s just say, let me try to reveal the secret behind the book, “The Secret”.

The main idea of secret is law of attraction as I have already mentioned so let’s discuss a bit about what is it? They say when an individual wants something or wishes something in life, one has to think about that one thing with utmost passion and feel if this something is going to be one’s own thing soon but the catch is your wish or your demand should be so much intense and pure, along with a little practicality, so that nature attracts that something towards you. They say universe is like a genie, Aladdin’s genie and it works for you in the same way by saying one-thing- “Your Wish is My Command master” and it just brings that thing for you. So, how can one so intensely and passionately attract something in one’s life? Well there are tons of ideas to attain that pure thought of demand to the universe. The book illustrates many examples and one of the core main ideas of the book is that one should always think positive. It says if someone is not happy at job for instance, he will always think about how bad is his job, how bad is the environment, how bad are they paying me, why the hell m I stuck here and many more negative thoughts; hence, it’s a blend of all sorts of negative thoughts, negative vibes and not even a single good peaceful thought afloats our minds. But since we thought in a negative manner and we are only talking negative, our genie, our nature, takes our command and fulfills it in the same manner, the negative manner. As a result, for all the bad thoughts we got more bad thoughts/things we got in return as “Your Wish is Natures Command”. The book illustrates if we think positive and think continuously with passion about the things what we want, those thing will come to us like the way negative things come when we think negative.

I got really influenced by the book and I tried applying this secret. The results were really good, I was able to reach to great motivational levels in my job without even good hikes, due to recession and sometimes because of the corporate politics. I almost gave up all the frustrations I had with the management and reincarnated to a new found enthusiasm. All of a sudden there was a fresh air all across and I felt like working in my first job with full of energy and zealot. I experienced that the positive vibes have really worked and the law of attraction is making me feel happy and in peace at work.

I kept on working and kept on slogging myself with feeling better about myself and yet without monetary gains. One day I realized that some how all these positive vibes, the law of attraction, in me has made me adaptive to the work environment, which I used to think was never conducive as my hard work was never praised but now I was not bothered about it. I worked for self and I worked for myself, which is good as well as bad and when I really tried analyzing it, I realized its actually bad for me as somehow I have compromised to something, which I don’t want. This was the moment of truth for me as a new secret was revealed to me, where until I wont feel really bad about something or I wont feel the discomfort of something, how can I come out of that thing? This new found theory of mine was in clear contradiction to the law of attraction, the positive thing about it and here I was really agrees to the fact that if I keep on thinking positive I may not actually move ahead in life that will give me the unwanted comfort zone, which is actually not making me work out of the bad things. This is why I think sometimes its really important to work against the law of attraction to better your life.

THE FUTURE OF CONSULTING FIRMS

Over the years, the consulting industry has come up with the creative and innovative solutions to the ever changing demands of the clients. It’s a well proven fact that –Consulting companies are inventors and creators of their own markets and their own future. The future of consulting companies has readily shrunk or grew in response to client’s demand. Some of the famous consulting gurus derive an analogy by saying - Consulting is similar to banking. Just as banks provide the financial capital, consulting provides intellectual capital. As inventors and creators of their own markets and future, consulting firms rely on their knowledge base and economic conditions. Yet sometimes, even after being the best in the domain may not fetch the business to a consulting company. Undoubtedly, the future of consulting companies is at client’s mercy. It is a customer focused industry where client is the God.

The real outburst of the success of the consulting companies was clearly visible in the year 2006. The M&A market was suddenly in so much action and the “consulting firms” were the hot cakes for the taking. In fact, 2006 saw a 40 percent increase over 2005 in acquisitions of consulting companies, and the market was more active than it’s ever been. Based on the market research, the average pre-tax profit (EBIT) multiple in 2006 was 10, this compares to an average of 7 over the previous five years. So the market was quite hot for sellers at that time with lots of demand.

Post 2006, the global economy started dipping with the US economy shrinking to its worst by 2009, the world is now clearly suffering from global economic recession and slowdown. The consulting industry is at no spare to the wicked recession. Suddenly, the all competitive industry of “Consulting” became far more competitive to win a business in an adverse situation of crisis like this. Now the clients want greater specialization and a clearer view of what consultants do. The client pressure has become so enormous that the consulting firms are worried about being under priced. Clients are much more interested in getting the most value for the price than anything else.

Though, the competition and the global economic recession are giving the dark pictures of consulting business yet it has opened several doors for it. Now when the world is in economic crisis, the companies across the world are looking for better solutions to not just only sustain the slowdown but to come up with better ideas to grow and again for that reason, the phone-bells are ringing hard at the offices of consulting firms. Yet the clients are not at so much of ease with the consultants. The main reason for this is – Clients worry that consulting firms are trying to sell them things they really don’t need. But this is something which the consulting industry has to take blame for, as with the given competition and greed, consulting firms have tried to sell too many services to client which were not required.
It is a need of an hour that consulting companies provide the specific specialization to the clients with utmost expertise. The client’s who require multiple expertise in various domains are looking for consulting firms who has some similar alliance as partner group. This is a situation which is kind of hard to come in consulting industry because of two reasons:-
1) Due the competition within the consulting firms, they don’t want to work with each other.
2) Even if they are working together, they hardly trust each other and that further creates more problems.

So, in a present scenario it’s very much required that consulting firms having expertise in different domains form an alliance and together provide services to the clients. In the future, this is only going to be a win-win situation for both client and consultancy. In the era of competition and with the need of getting the business, consulting firms are trying to make all its consultants billable. By making a consultant billable it means consultancy is getting money from the client. While doing so, consultancies are over looking the quality and fooling the client’s by placing a consultant with different or no expertise. In the long run such practices are going to cost business to the clients.

It is crystal clear that the future of consulting companies will depend upon its focus on maximizing their clients. Additionally, those firms which are willing to and able to partner with clients in the common interest of both the parties will survive. Today, if the consulting firms keep the momentum of aligning with the other firms providing the complimentary services will boost the business to a good extent. Again, the consulting firms which have set the example for the same are doing well.
It is also very firmly believed that consulting industry is like a one family under a single glass roof and if something has hit the glass then it’s going to affect everybody under it. So, if a single consulting firm is engulfed in a scandal it affects everybody else too. To avoid a situation like this it’s very essential that each consulting firm should try to differentiate itself from the others. In other words, it’s the only possible way by which a consulting firm can put a barrier between their brand and the wider industry brand.

Now the question arises, how a consulting firm can distinguish itself from others in the market? Practically, there can be only one answer for it, which is- the value of work done by the consulting companies. By value of work means it’s the consulting inputs provided to the clients with full innovation and creativity. The core is consulting companies need not do the talking about it but they have to actually provide it.

It’s visible that after the over hype of business and post global recession the consulting business is in phase of reconstruction and restructuring. Since, the industry purely revolves around one word called “Innovation”, it requires a special studies, research and well qualified people to be part of it. It is required to grow deep practices where there is enough market penetration to create an unrivaled critical mass of skills in that area.

This is the time when the large brand names of consulting industry need to buckle-up to avoid loosing business to the mid or small sized companies. The clients are in dilemma whether to have a less experienced resource at low cost with more in numbers or a highly experienced resource at high cost. If a consulting company is able to provide the panacea to the client’s dilemma then it’s their project. Basically, it requires for consulting firms to generate that confidence in client that they can do their business in the best possible way, once this happen the client is not bothered if it’s a big consulting brand or some small consulting firm.

In current global scenario, gone are those days when the team of business consultants will fly to client sites. All clients want to cut the cost incurring in travels but still they want their problems to be resolved at ease. Consulting firms are coming up with new ideas and one such solution is consulting through WEB applications. There are almost all the application and tools available which are vastly helping in consulting in some of most critical areas like – Proposals (tools like BigMachines, Access Commerce), Project Planning and Collaboration ( tools: BaseCamp, QTask, Microsoft Live Meeting, Skype), Research ( tools: Web Harvesters, Mozenda, Fetch, Google Docs), Consulting Methodologies ( Tools: RapidBI, NetMBA) and Presentation Builders ( tools: Presentia, XCelsius, NetXpression).

There was a survey on the European consulting industry a few months ago, which brought in limelight on of the most ignored area of consulting industry called Change Management. The survey revealed that Change Management is a very big market that is inadequately addressed. The clients have shown very serious concerns on consultants leaving them with projects causing the difficulty to the organization in integration and assimilation. The clients want help on a wider scale i.e. with organization wide-change. There are people working in the change too but the numbers are niche. It’s in small scale and consulting firm should try to up their best foot forward in this direction, as it will be very handy for them in the future. This is one area which can bring the fruitful results for the consulting firms in the future.

For securing the future of consulting companies, it’s an essence for companies to invest more in studies and research activities. They have to bench mark their practices and exercises to really prove that consultants are pretty much the part of this Industry and the economy. They have to demonstrate that consultancy really raises the standard and productivity of the economy. Consulting companies need to prove a point that without the consulting firms, the activities like – market analysis, research and solutions will never be at par to what economy demands.
It’s clear that though the economic conditions and global environment is in bleak state but yet there are several doors opened for the consulting companies. Hence, there are several areas which are unaddressed and waiting to be capitalized in the market. The future of consulting companies is for sure in their own hands and its all revolving around how beautifully can the innovation be put into practice. Innovation is the key to prosperity.

BEATBOXING:THE RISING MAIN STREAM MUSICAL ART

Thanks to all the reality shows hitting the Television like a storm as a result every single channel on-air has a reality show of its own. Among all these everyday reality shows there is one called "MTV ROCK ON". The Show is about the nation wide hunt for the ROCK BAND with the DESI(Indian) touch. The show is something really different and the talent is a treat to watch. I really like watching this show and the best part is its increasing my knowledge about the music. The judges are great, singer Kailash Kher is a genius; my reaction to his talent is just “WOW”. Ram Sampat is a great mentor and VJ Nikhil Chinnappa is an awesome entertainer.



Seriously, for the first time I felt that MTV has come up with a show, which is with sheer class. Otherwise, the shows are more or less concentrated on one single thing i.e. negative marketing, which includes politics, cat fights, controversies etc etc. Well this was about the show, which I really did not want to emphasize on because MTV is not paying me for it. But I certainly don’t want to take away the credit from the show as this has introduced me to a new kind of music, which I thought was never existed. Ok lets not create suspense here, I m talking about the BEAT BOX MUSIC.

What is a BEAT BOX? I m sure if you are an Indian you might be really scratching your head just now. Well even I did not know “what is a BEAT BOX?” before I watched a guy performing on this very own desi Rock Band show. Technically, BEAT BOXING is vocal imitation of various instruments by a human being and to my surprise as per sources on the internet- this form of music was originated in India several thousand years ago through the tradition of bol(It is used in Indian music to define the tala, or rhythmic pattern, and is one of the most important parts of Indian rhythm) but unfortunately, even though people do practice this art of music they still don’t know that this is classified as separate main stream music called BEAT BOXING. As a result, it’s not practiced by any musician in the country as one’s primary music talent.

BEAT BOXES are human musical instruments and it involves them to produce beats, rhythms and musical sounds from one’s mouth primarily. It may also involve the imitation of singing, vocal simulations and imitations of other things present around us, it could be a sound of horn or sound of birds flying away or anything. This art has no limits or boundaries. It’s about how creative you can be and how many different sounds you can generate to make nice music.

Mostly, DJ’s are the one who primarily consist of the BEAT BOXES major population across the globe. DJ’s are good at simulating the same sounds, which they are able to do with their DJ-ing musical instruments, the sound mixers and the remixes, and that adds to their talent. The Hip-Hop origin of BEAT BOXES is expected to be happened in 1980’s and for records it’s believed that Doug E. Fresh was the first self proclaimed "HUMAN BEAT BOX”. The term "beat-boxing" is derived from the mimicry of the first generation of drum machines, then known as Beat Boxes.

It’s a fact that the legendry pop star Micheal Jackson who started to add his own sounds to his music in his famous songs “Cry” and “Who is it” did beat-boxing. In 2005 the world championship of beatboxing was organised in Leipzig, Germany and Joel Turner of Australia won the world championship. Few of the famous artists who are making efforts to make this world popular all across the globe are- Rahzel, Kenny Muhammad, and Matisyahu, and they have an official website- http://www.humanbeatbox.com. The BEAT BOXING as a music is vastly popular in Europe and America but in Asia, it is still in very initial stage of converting to a main stream music. Though it is supposed to be originated in India but its never been recognized as a major main stream music.

I hope the BEAT-BOXING becomes more famous because creativity has no limits and I want to enjoy it to the fullest.