No one believes in me.....

The lecturer threw away my register and said: 'Don’t come to me for extra classes, when you fail in final exams. Look at these guys, they are students, I can give in writing they will get a distinction in this subject, shame on you people'

I replied: 'Ma’am, kindly don't compare with me with anyone else, their marks are not my business'

She said: 'Get out'

I walked away, smiling at my friends, like a celebrity.

---

The subject was genuinely tough and I couldn't get hold of it by them.

That lecturers words didn't hurt me, her words were only a symbol of her immaturity and judgmental attitude.

What did I do?

Nothing, I ignored that conversation, though didn't forget it. Also I studied the subject thoroughly, not one or two times but 5 times. Not to prove anything, but to clear the paper and to understand the subject in depth.

I scored one of the highest marks in that subject, but I didn't go to the lecturer to show her down, because she was irrelevant to me, giving her importance would mean that I would was a bigger fool than her.

---

A year later, the same lecturer came to me (didn't call me) and requested me to select a group of students from our class to give interview in her husband's company, including those students whom she judged to be intelligent earlier, her husband was a senior Director there.

All this because I was the first to be placed, scored good marks, and was heading the placement committee as well.

It was then that I realise that people can easily lose and gain back hope in you, their views are not fixed.

---

I will give just one tip-

When people lose hope in you, it's their problem, and their way of thinking and analysing things.

Never give them over-importance.

-Anubhav Jain

This Type of People will not Succeed in Life. Are You One of These?

Once upon a time a daughter complained to her father that her life was miserable and that she didn’t know how she was going to make it.

She was tired of fighting and struggling all the time. It seemed just as one problem was solved, another one soon followed.

Her father, a chef, took her to the kitchen. He filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire.

Once the three pots began to boil, he placed potatoes in one pot, eggs in the second pot and ground coffee beans in the third pot. He then let them sit and boil, without saying a word to his daughter.

The daughter, moaned and impatiently waited, wondering what he was doing. After twenty minutes he turned off the burners.

He took the potatoes out of the pot and placed them in a bowl. He pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. He then ladled the coffee out and placed it in a cup.

Turning to her, he asked. “Daughter, what do you see?”

“Potatoes, eggs and coffee,” she hastily replied.

“Look closer” he said, “and touch the potatoes.” She did and noted that they were soft.

He then asked her to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg.

Finally, he asked her to sip the coffee. Its rich aroma brought a smile to her face.

“Father, what does this mean?” she asked.

He then explained that the potatoes, the eggs and coffee beans had each faced the same adversity-the boiling water. However, each one reacted differently. The potato went in strong, hard and unrelenting, but in boiling water, it became soft and weak.

The egg was fragile, with the thin outer shell protecting its liquid interior until it was put in the boiling water. Then the inside of the egg became hard.

However, the ground coffee beans were unique. After they were exposed to the boiling water, they changed the water and created something new.

“Which one are you?” he asked his daughter.

“When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a potato, an egg, or a coffee bean?”

---

What kind of people will not succeed in life?

People who blame the everyone and everything for their situation. They blame the government, the technology, the weather, their family, the politicians, they blame their boss, their college, their teachers. They blame everyone and everything.

In life, things happen around us, things happen to us, but the only thing that truly matters is how you choose to react to it and what you make out of it. Life is all about leaning, adopting and converting all the struggles that we experience into something positive.

-Seth Oteng

We are Blind

We all - every one of us - exhibit patterns of behavior that are obvious to everyone but that we ourselves cannot see.

We will deny that they exist.

These are our "blind spots". Carl Jung calls them our "shadow".

Have you ever noticed how you are often involved in situations that are similar across different aspects of your life?

Why does everyone leave me?

Or how you have the exact same fight with different people in different relationships?

Have you ever said - or heard a friend say - things like "why does every person I date end up cheating on me?" or "why does everyone betray me?" or "why doesn't anyone understand me?" or "why do I always end up in long distance relationships?"

These are all the consequence of our blind spots.

"Until you make the unconscious conscious" said Jung "it will direct your life, and you will call it fate".

-Dushka Zapata

You should remember this.....Ask yourself this Question Often...............

Some day, you will walk into your bathroom.

And there standing in the mirror will be an older you looking back.

Imagine that older self looking at you in the mirror today.

Would he or she be proud of the life you are living right now?

Time is a precious resource.

I doubt that older self would wish you’d procrastinated more, watched more TV, played more games.

Make sure you are using your time in a way that supports your own happiness and definition of success.

-Sean Kernan

How To Enjoy Life When You are Young

Just after graduating from IIM Ahmedabad, I was going to Sri Lanka for our post B-School trip.

As I stood in line and instinctively showed my institute card for verification (I had got used to it for the past year and a half), the security guard looked up at me and said in Hindi “Are you from IIM Ahmedabad?”

When I said I was, he looked at me and said:

“Sir, you have stayed awake for the last twenty years so that you can sleep peacefully for next fifty. We slept peacefully for the last twenty years and now will have to stay awake for the next fifty”

As he handed back my card and requested for my passport, I stood numbed by his deep insight. Focus on working hard when you’re young, rather than enjoyment, so that you can live well for the latter part of your life.

I have never forgotten his wise words.

-Aviral Bhatnagar

My 96-year-old grandmother's memory is failing.

She thinks I'm her cousin and asks me about long-gone relatives in pre-war Poland. Or that she's in Europe. Or that she's still in her sixties.

She asks me multiple times if I've eaten already.

But more than anything, she expresses love.

She looks me in the eyes, smiles tenderly, and says, "I love you!"

And when I tell her "I love you" back, she says, "Not as much as I love you!"

It's as if the cognitive and mental frameworks that have held her life together are falling away, and what remains behind them is the bare, foundation.

Which is clearly made of emotions.

Love, warmth, and a strong desire to see the people she cares for happy, thriving, healthy.

I feel immensely fortunate to be able to share these moments with her before she passes on.

But I also see this as a profound lesson in human psychology.

It's emotions that give meaning to life.

A feeling of belonging and security at home.

A feeling of purpose and appreciation at work.

A feeling of self-actualization and progress within.

And, of course, love.

If you haven't done so already, please tell someone close to you how much you care for them.

Ask my 96-year-old grandmother.

She'll tell you that that's what matters when all is said and done.

-Ben Wise

Dont Look Rich.Be Rich.

1. Don’t spend more than what you can earn.
2. Salary you earned can’t make you rich. But the way you spend it will determine your future.
3. If something costs $1,000, and it’s on sale for $750, and then you decide to buy it, you did not save $250 but you spent $750.
4. Don’t buy that $300 bag to have nothing in it, buy that $20 bag and have $280 in it. Don’t go broke trying to look rich.

These are some of my favorite quotes (some are from famous businessmen and some random people) that my husband taught me and really changed my mindset when it comes to earning and spending. I am not millionaire but I’ve reached most of my goals when i hit 30. It’s all about wise spending. Saving as much as you can and most of all initiative to learn investments.

-Donna Leong

So You want to be next Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates ? You must know this and You may not like this

As a teen, Bill Gates wrote his first computer program, a tic-tac-toe game on a General Electric computer.

While other kids at his age were having fun he was coding.

When the school discovered his extraordinary coding abilities, they allowed him to write the school’s scheduling program to arrange students in classes.

According to the Science Museum, Gates altered the code of this software so he was selected to be in classes with a large number of “interesting girls."

Later, by the time he got to college, he had started a business and dropped out of Harvard in 1975 to commit full time to Microsoft.

According to Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers, if you practice anything for 10,000 hours, you will become a world class expert in that area.

Bill Gates had the advantage of being able to access the mainframe computer that the parents’ association of his local school invested in, in 1968.

He started working with it in eighth grade, before just about anyone else in the world.

So, to answer your question, how can I be the next Zuckerberg or Bill Gates?

Start doing. Take action. Stay focused.

It’s not just about the idea, it’s in the doing.

Both Gates and Zuckerberg were doing while others were distracted, having fun, or pursuing a degree to be able to qualify for a job.

-Hector Quintanilla

Cornell Experience

I graduated 7th from the bottom of my high school class (of 173). Got married young, had two boys, worked outdoors. Mowed lawns, cut trees, worked on draggers and lobster boats. Even pumped septic tanks for extra money on Saturdays After observing the older guys around me that were doing the same sort of work, they all seemed bent, busted-up and spent way too early. I remember asking myself as I was mowing a lawn on some expensive waterfront cottage, what did they have that I didn’t? I worked hard, I thought I was fairly intelligent, I was motivated, a good husband and parent. What set them apart? I decided that the answer was a college education.

So, I started a plan to get one. I attended a community college in the evenings, got some experience in learning under my belt, got some mediocre SAT scores, applied to a bunch of colleges and got turned down by every one. By now I’m 23 or 24. Took some more night courses, an SAT prep course and got a better score. 1450 I think? Applied again…This time I got accepted to every one. I was thrilled and terrified. 

Cornell was my first choice, but Purdue, Penn State, or University of Oregon would have been fine. Cornell was willing to take me, but I needed to pass Summer courses in Chemistry, Biology and Calculus first. Night courses again, struggled but made the grade. Started at Cornell just after I lost my father in an accident. A year and a half later, I lost my mom in another accident.

So, there I was. Traumatized. Two young kids, a wife, some income from part-time work from both of us. The courses were kicking my ass. I was way over my head. Everyone was smarter and a better student than me. Looking back on it, the pressure was unbelievable. But failure was not an option. Not after I worked so hard to get there. I think I managed a 2.5 GPA.

The upside was meeting so many people who would be friends for the next 40 years. Cornell continued to open doors for me. I went on to a start-up biotechnology company and made enough money to go back for a Ph.D. I landed a job with a small European biotech company that grew 10 fold ( more Cornell contacts!) I traveled all over the world and became somewhat of an expert in my field.

I finally retired at 58 and my wife and I have traveled the country for 6 to 9 months of the year with an RV and a motorcycle. It’s been 8 years now and we’re still doing it.

We passed thru Ithaca on our travels a few years ago and I felt genuine terror. The place was so big and intimidating. Don’t know why they picked me. Don’t know how I got through it all. But it has been there for me my entire career. And I am so proud to be a graduate of Cornell.

So proud…

Oh, and my high school class? I’m the only one with an Ivy League degree and a Ph.D.

-Rob Everich

Disappointing Parents?

What my father wanted more than anything was grandchildren.

Do you know that deep yearning women feel, to be mothers? That calling?

I never felt that.

When I was a little girl I thought maybe that sensation would come later. I took for granted that when I got old enough I would find my soul mate, get pregnant, become a mother, and make my father a granddad.

I did eventually meet a wonderful man, and we talked about having children and just weren’t sure. Someday, we said. Sure - someday. Just not now.

My friends began having children and I could see the kind of commitment and dedication being a parent actually was. It felt wrong for me - so wrong.

The fact that it felt wrong felt terrifying.

I had never considered I would never be somebody’s mom. I had never thought possible that I would not give my father what he wanted the most.

But, wait a minute.

If I had a child, who would live with the consequences of this decision? Whose life would be forever altered?

My father would be involved maybe once a week.

The life completely transformed would be mine.

On one of the many times he asked me “When, Dushka? When are you going to tell me you are expecting my grandchild?” I finally said “Dad, I don’t think that’s ever going to happen. I am so sorry, but I don’t want children.”

He stared at me. He frowned. Then he smiled. “Well” he said. “They are kind of a pain. They never do what you think they will. It’s like they are their own people.”

This is the most representative example of a time where I disappointed one of my parents. There were many others, both big and small: I was not a good student, I kept secrets, I did not go to a fancy college, I did not become a lawyer, I did not become an artist, 

I married a guy they didn’t think was right for me, my hair was always unruly, I got a divorce, I did not change the world. I could go on.

The summary is this - every time I disappointed them I chose to fully step into the fact that my life is mine and mine alone.

Disappointing people - your parents, your family, your friends and sometimes yourself - is necessary if you want to fully become the person you were meant to.

I hope you never stop disappointing your parents. I hope that with time it becomes less painful. And I hope that in doing so you fall in love with the incredible stranger who lives inside of you.

-Dushka Zapata

The biggest realisation I had about life is.......

The biggest realisation I had about life is:

“Life is what you make of it”.

There are people in this world who think life is hard, and guess what? Life will always be hard to them

There are some people who think life is full of opportunities, guess what? They will have most opportunities in their life.

Some people believe that life is unfair, and co-incidentally life can will be unfair to them.

While this might not sound logical but it actually is, and the reason for this is a lot of how your life will be greatly depends on your perspective.

You can have all the wealth and power in this world, but if your perspective of looking at your life is like “Man! I have all this but yet im not happy and I feel miserable” in that case you will be miserable no matter the amount of wealth or power you have.

On the contrary, if you are a person who is currently struggling in his/her life but if you have the perspective and attitude of a warrior and you think like “Yes, time is not in my favour and nothing is going well, I am in terrible circumstances but guess what? I am a strong person and I have the power and the will to get out of it”. 

Guess what, if you have such attitude you will eventually get out of it sooner or later and emerge as a much stronger person.

Let’s take an example which you might relate to:

Let’s say you are preparing for an exam, or a job interview.

There are two ways you can approach them.

Approach 1:

You can either say, I hate studying, its so boring and I hate prepping for exams/interview however I will force myself to do it and get it done ASAP so that I can later engage in more fun activities like hanging out with my friends.

Approach 2:

Or, you may take an alternative path like “Man! this material seems so interesting, I can get to learn new things, I cant wait to get my hands on that book.”

Different approaches give different results.

The guy who follows the first approach will not only score less or fail at the interview, but the whole process of studying will leave him frustrated.

On the contrary, the guy who chooses the 2nd approach will not only enjoy his work, but he will also ace his exam/interview and there is no chance of getting frustrated doing something you love.

This applies to almost everything in your life, be it work, academics, relationships etc.

The kind of outlook, attitude and perspective you have towards life will determine the kind of life you will eventually have.

-Saurav Sharma