Showing posts with label inspiration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label inspiration. Show all posts

Monday, 14 November 2016

The Power of Giving

Hello, mates! Long time no see from my side? Yeah! October kept me very busy. Okay then here I am with another useful share for you. This time it’s a very simple yet logical post for my readers. This post is NOT written by me but actually, I have read it somewhere and it is so beautiful and mind-blowing that I just want to share it as it is. So here it goes. Chapter Eight, Point # 10, Book: Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.

Both of my dads were teachers. My rich dad taught me a lesson I have carried all my life, and that was the necessity of being charitable or giving. My educated dad gave a lot of his time and knowledge, but almost never gave away money. He usually said   that he would give when he had some extra money but Of course, there was rarely any extra.

My rich dad gave money as well as education. He believed firmly in tithing. "If you want something, you first need to give," he would always say. When he was short of   money, he simply gave money to his church or to his favorite charity.

If I could leave one single idea with you, it is that idea. Whenever you feel "short" or in "need" of something, give what you want first and it will come back in buckets. That is true for money, a smile, love or friendship. I know it is often the last thing a person may want to do, but it has always worked for me. I trust that the principle of reciprocity is true, and I give what I want. I want money, so I give money, and it comes back in multiples. I want sales, so I help someone else sell something, and sales come to me. I want contacts and I help someone else get contact, and like magic, contacts come to me. I heard a saying years ago that went, 
"God does not need to receive, but humans need to give."

My rich dad would often say, "Poor people are greedier than rich people." He would explain that if a person was rich, that person was providing something that other people wanted. In my life, whenever I have felt needy or short of money or short of help, I simply went out or found in my heart what I wanted, and decided to give it first. And when I gave, it always came back.

It reminds me of the story of the guy sitting with firewood in his arms on a cold freezing night, and he is yelling at the pot-bellied stove, "When you give me some   heat, then I'll put some wood in." And when it comes to money, love, happiness, sales and contacts, all one needs to remember is to give first.

Often just the process of thinking of what I want, and how I could give that to someone else breaks free a torrent of bounty. Whenever I feel that people aren't smiling at me, I simply begin smiling and saying hello, and like magic, there are suddenly more smiling people around me. It is true that your world is only a mirror of you.

So that's why I say, "Teach and you shall receive." I have found that the more I teach those who want to learn, the more I learn. If you want to learn about money, teach it to someone else. A torrent of new ideas and finer distinctions will come in.

There are times when I have given and nothing has come back or what I have received  is not what I wanted. But upon closer inspection and soul searching, I was often giving to receive in those instances, instead of giving for the joy that giving itself brings.

My dad taught teachers, and he became a master teacher. My rich dad always taught young people his way of doing business. In retrospect, it was their generosity with what they knew that made them smarter. There are powers in this world that are much smarter than we are. You can get there on your own, but it's easier with the help of the powers that be. All you need to be is generous with what you have, and the powers will be generous with you. 

Monday, 7 November 2016

We Rise by Lifting Others

Hello mates! I hope you all are reading this article in the best of your health. I was badly stuck in some of my bad habits and still trying to recover from it, meanwhile, I am writing this article after a very long time. I feel really glad that some of you asked about the next article which keeps me motivated. I feel like if I am helping a single person in this world changing his lifestyle or habits, or bringing any positive change in any person’s personality or in the society, then I am playing my part and I want to take this to next step to help bring a change in the society/community.

The way we are is the way we see the world.
Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, 'What's in it for me?' - Brian Tracy

There always comes a time in our lives when there comes an opportunity and just when the time ran out we get to know about that opportunity and then we ask ourselves why anyone didn’t tell me about this opportunity, whether it be a job opportunity, participation in any competition, registration for any startup, showing up for free course or seminars etc.. But do you know the pity part? Most of the time, a friend of ours, sitting next to us, partying with us whom we consider our BFF buddy, ditch us and don’t let us know that an opportunity came and he/she applied or cashed in the opportunity. I know you must be smiling and remembering those friends and people around you who have habits of this genre. But trust me, in this competitive world, it is so common in our daily lives, everyone is competing against each other for no reason, we are in a race that will take any of us nowhere. We need to believe that we only rise by lifting others. We need to share, share and share whether it be a smile. We are so wicked and hateful people that we can’t see someone taking the success steps. All we love to do is to drag every other person, whom we fear will get ahead of us.

Back in October 2014, I published an article on my LinkedIN profile with the name of IMEI awareness for smartphones because I was quite into gadgets thing at that time and my network used to consult me for that so I thought of writing an article to help people. Now today I got a notification and according to stats, that article has been viewed 141,000 times. And yes! I feel satisfied, obliged and contended. How come any of you not feel it helping others?

When I got to know about Google Local Guide a few months earlier, I started posting pictures and reviews on the google maps, I started adding missing places that were not on the map. Yesterday I got a notification that your pictures have helped over 50,000 times. You start by doing small things that what I believe. You start by helping others

What goes around comes around! Easy peasy rule. Sooner or later, this society gonna pay you back no matter what you have done for it. Whether the good you spread or was a part of conflicting motives, at the end it is coming to you. Certainly, I am not bragging about myself, I am just letting you know how little things can make a difference in other’s life as well as in yours. I want to shift the paradigm and change the lens through which we see and think.

Let’s pick a name, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page. We don’t know them personally, but yet we know them. Do you know why? Because they have done something for us, they have given this society what no one had. We use Skype, Facebook, Amazon, Windows and all the products that they made. Have you ever paid a single penny to them? At least I never did. They are successful, you know why? Because they have done something for the humankind and that is how you leave your impact in this world. I think everyone wants to be remembered. Right? Then, in this case, I would recommend start by changing people lives. Start by small things that make a difference for others, things that matter for others. You will feel satisfied and the best part is you are helping yourself and this world will remember you. J

I am going to share with you some of the opportunities that I get to know about recently and rush towards writing this article to share it with you guys before the time runs out. These opportunities are about fully funded Masters in the UK. Yes, you got me right! I am talking about Full Scholarships for Masters in UK/US.

Following are the scholarships are available and currently open to apply:-

You can find all the scholarships details on the website scholars4dev.com. All the new scholarships listing from all the world renowned universities are updated on this site weekly. 

Monday, 24 October 2016

The more you pay gratitude, the more you have

Hola! Dear colleagues, mates, seniors and juniors! How was your Eid? One of the best? Or may be the busiest one. I hope you people spent a wonderful Eid with your families. Today I am going to share one of the habit of ultra-successful people, a habit that is practiced by most of the successful businessmen in the world whether he is Jeff Bezos, Howard Schultz, Larry Page, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates or whoever he is, a habit that everyone must need to develop and I am hardly working on it and I cannot do this without sharing with you people.

Gratitude is one of the most powerful emotion that you can practice in your everyday life. But unfortunately, we are quite unaware of the benefits of paying gratitude. We are so taking everything for granted that we have almost totally forgotten to accept what things we actually have. The biggest dilemma is that we keep on crying on the things that we don’t have rather than thanking and showing gratitude to the things we have.

I have been studying about habits of ultra-successful people for few weeks and from many habits, what I found the most common habit among all these people is the habit of showing Gratitude. Showing gratitude is no rocket science. It is so simple as walking in the park, but the urge to show is what matters the most.

Gratitude turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity...it makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow - Melody Beattie

We live our life at our fullest, I still remember when I first started my job here at CMPak, and one of my very close and old friend who knows me from childhood, asked a wonderful question which brought tears to my eyes. His question was “How it feels like to see your wallet full?” and I replied him with a beautiful smile. Because when I recall, I didn’t have wallet even and now I hardly see it empty ALHAMDULILLAH. In our everyday life, we have uncountable things to pay gratitude.

Let me recall and remind the things which we are taking for granted from years,
  • -          We open our wardrobe and see it full of clothes, even at times we get ourselves confused what to wear
  • -          We have sincere friends whom we discuss and share our personals
  • -          We wear everything branded (Clothes, shoes, perfumes)
  • -          We maintain clothes like formal wear, semi-formal wear, casual wear
  • -          We maintain shoes like, for running, for formal wear, for hiking, for sports, casual, semi-casual
  • -          We open our refrigerator and find so many things to eat and sometimes few of them goes wasted even
  • -          We breathe, we walk, we play, we see, and we have all the senses gifted by ALLAH without even asking
  • -          We have electricity, gas, and air to live with
  • -          We have fresh clean water to drink, cleanse & wash
  • -          We are educated, knows good people, works in a good company
  • -          We have flow of cash, we earn, spend, save, invest
  • -          We have beautiful relations like (siblings, friends, parents, spouse, children)
  • -          We live in big houses, sleep on comfortable beds, eat hygienic breakfast, lunch and dinner, play sports
  • -          We own cars in which we travel and go to places whenever & wherever we want to
  • -          We have the internet to learn so many things and stay connected to the world
  • -          We hangout, we spend on luxuries, we spend on tourism
  • -          We see our wallet empty, we go to atm machine and fill it up

I mean I could have made this list as long as I could but it would then be too long for one to read. Observe yourself, and your surroundings and you will feel all the amazing things which we are taking granted for years. We not only have necessities, but we have a rich lifestyle.

How to pay gratitude?
As I told you, every successful person has a habit of paying gratitude daily, some do it by simply reminding themselves, some do it by keeping a journal, some do it by daily spending 5 minutes to think on for what they are grateful today and writing on a notepad. There are also multiple apps available which remind you of daily to write for which you’re grateful. But after reading from different blogs, articles, and other sources, I have developed my own way of paying gratitude. One of its kind. I call it WALL OF GRATITUDE. It is as simple as a wall covered in white paper.

Cover one of your bedroom wall with a white paper fully. And on daily basis, whenever you spare few minutes, write 2 – 3 points for what you are grateful for. This way, every time when you look at your wall, you will have a sense of humility, thankfulness, and you will feel more grateful towards your life. Researchers at Princeton University and UCLA found that those people who write in longhand appear to learn better, retain information longer, and more readily grasp new ideas, according to experiments by other researchers who also compared note-taking techniques. The process of taking hand written notes encoded the information more deeply in memory, experts said. Keeping in mind the research I have developed this way of showing gratitude. Others reason of showing gratitude on WALL OF GRATITUDE is once you write on the wall, it will remain in front of you all the times and will keep you reminding of the things on the daily basis that you have and keep you more focused and energetic. And the lastly, it will be a great addition to your room decor as well. J

Why should you pay gratitude is the question now?
Detailed benefits of gratitude can be found in the link below, highlights of which are following
1. Gratitude makes us happier
2. Gratitude makes people like us
3. Gratitude makes us healthier
4. Gratitude boosts our career
5. Gratitude strengthens our emotions
6. Gratitude develops our personality
7. Gratitude makes us more optimistic
8. Gratitude reduces materialism
9. Gratitude increases spiritualism
10.Gratitude makes us less self-centered
11.Gratitude increases self-esteem
12. Gratitude improves your sleep
13. Gratitude keeps you away from the doctor
14. Gratitude lets you live longer
15.  Gratitude increases your energy levels
16.  Gratitude makes you more likely to exercise
17.  Gratitude helps us bounce back.
18.  Gratitude makes us feel good. 
19.  Gratitude makes our memories happier. 
20.  Gratitude reduces feelings of envy
21.  Gratitude helps us relax
22.  Gratitude makes you friendlier
23.  Gratitude helps your marriage
24.  Gratitude makes you look good
25.  Gratitude helps you make friends.
26. Gratitude deepens friendships
27.  Gratitude makes you a more effective manager
28.  Gratitude helps you network. 
29. Gratitude increases your goal achievement
30. Gratitude improves your decision making
31. Gratitude increases your productivity. 

Source for 31 benefits: http://happierhuman.com/benefits-of-gratitude/ 

Sunday, 16 October 2016

49 best free websites and apps to learn something new

Once upon a time, if you wanted to learn something, you had to a) pay a bunch of money, and b) go to a school or classroom, a place specifically dedicated to learning. Those days are over.
Now, a profusion of apps, websites and institutions offer us a wider variety of (often superior) educational experiences than ever before- and we can access them from anywhere in the world, often for free. The apps and websites on this list can teach you practically anything- from coding and cooking, to surfing and negotiating.
In this day and age, there is simply no excuse to not know something you’d like to know. You can learn anything, for free, at your own pace, anywhere you can access the internet. We’re out of excuses not to educate ourselves- short of downloading knowledge directly into your head, this is as easy as it gets.
This time, I am going to share inspiring apps, websites and tools that you can use to ease your life and take full advantage of without paying a single penny. The era in which we are living is completely digital and full of knowledge that we must keep on learning in order to move forward. So take a look at the list below and don’t forget to share if you find it valuable J
Take free online courses on a variety of subjects
Khan Academy- High-quality free courses on a variety of subjects
Alison- Free online courses from the world’s top publishers.
CourseBuffet- Free online courses created by universities.
Edx.org – Free/Paid online courses from World top universities (Harvard, MIT, UCBerkeley, Dartmouth, Cornell, Columbia etc)
Udemy- Huge selection of free and premium courses- mostly on technical skills.
Highbrow- Free 10-day courses, divided into 5-minute daily lessons and delivered by email.
Academic Earth- Free online academic education for everyone.
Learnist- Print and video content, crowd sourced and curated by experts.
Degreed- Unlimited learning. Free forever.
Get healthier, be more productive, and learn faster
MemriseLearn a variety of subjects via digital flashcards and crowd sourced mnemonics.
Greatist- Articles on becoming healthy and happy.
ZenHabitsMinimalist productivity advice, with a focus on psychology.
Anki- Free flashcard software.
Hello Healthy- Short, actionable health weight loss and fitness articles.
Fitocracy- Free workout, fitness tips and fitness tracking.
Learn coding and other technical skills
Codecademy- Learn Javascript, HTML, CSS, Python and more.
Free Code Camp- Learn to code, meet other coders, build projects that help non-profits.
Code.org- Introductory coding lessons, designed for k-12 students.
Data Camp- Free and freemium courses on R, Python and data visualisation.
CodeCombat- Introductory coding lessons, in the form of a fantasy RPG.
Lrn- Phone app with free interactive coding mini-quizzes.
Learn a new language
Duolingo — Learn over 20 different languages, including Klingon for some reason.
Babbel- Free language learning with integrated speech recognition.
Drops- Study a language on your phone for just 5 minutes a day.
BusuuCommunity-base language learning. Interact with native speakers.
CoffeeStrap- Practice a new language by voice chatting with native speakers with whom you share common interests.
Lingvist- Learn a language in 200 hours.
Sharpen your social and career skills
Improve Your Social Skills- Free social skills guide from a guy who overcame Asperger’s.
Succeed Socially- Free social skills guide for awkward people.
Job-Hunt.org- Free articles on job hunting, getting promoted, freelancing, personal branding, and other career skills.
Mind Tools- Free tools and videos for improving career, management and communications skills.
Make something
MakezineOnline magazine for makers with guides, projects and news.
Snapguide- Free user-created guides for makers.
ChefSteps- Mix of free and premium cooking classes.
Instructables- User-created guides for making everything from cookies to buildings.
Allrecipes- The web’s largest collection of recipes.
Become a human encyclopedia
InstaNerd- Read a never-ending series of random factoids.
TED-Ed- Curated, high-quality educational videos.
Brain Pump- Watch a random educational video.
Now I Know- Fun facts delivered in a daily email newsletter.
Curiosity- 5 fun new facts, delivered to your phone every day.
ZidbitsHuge collection of articles on fun and unusual (mostly scientific) topics.
Big Think- In-depth videos by experts.
Curious- Sharpen your brain with daily “workouts”
Do something fun
YousicianLearn your favorite guitar, bass, piano and ukelele songs.
Parkour & Freerunning World- Free Parkour and Freerunning video tutorials. Be careful!
Chesscademy- Learn chess from the masters, and solve chess puzzles.
Pianu- Learn to play piano online.
Surfedukators- Free surfing videos, tips and tutorials
Flowkey- Free piano training app.

Source:- medium.com

Thursday, 13 October 2016

What determines your future is what you do in your spare time, not what you do in office time!

Hello, colleagues! Good Evening! I hope you’re doing good and spending life at your best. So, how are your weekends going? Healthy, productive or just into bed all day long? To be very honest with you, I faced a lot of time management issues few months back because I have been managing my time very pathetically and it was like eat-sleep-office-repeat and then I worked on my time and found the thing that induced me to quit habits that I was doing irrelevantly and without any purpose. And this is what I want to share with you today. Time is a precious resource and unless time cannot be managed, nothing can be managed.

Too many people believe that career is determined by the 8 hours of hard work and effort we put into the office and our future and career progression depends on the boss and the company. But the reality is a bit harsh, you are on your own. Let’s discuss another matter! You finish your work at 6pm and go to bed at 12am midnight, how do you spend these six hours. Let me guess, watching TV/movies, playing sports, gaming, or just into bed? What if I say, the activities you do within these six hours are the most crucial and important beyond your imagination. “Cultivation” is forever dependent upon yourself, if you find yourself not progressing in life, you cannot blame and put the responsibility on your company for not grooming you. Solely, you are the one who is responsible and accountable for your life!

1.       What you do after office is important

Clearly, we need to have work life balance. If you have a family, you have to spend time with them. Even if you are single, you also need a reasonable allocation of time to go to gym, to meet with friends, or be alone to meditate and so on. Of course, watching movies, playing games are good. But there are things you do not need to do. For example, watching new Netflix season, 10 hours per week (average time watching TV season), the time spent on playing the game Candy Crush, or spending time stalking your friends on Facebook, it does not seem to be good or productive.
So what should you do? And how can you be more productive?
Let’s start with “why” factor. Why you need to play candy crush or stalk someone on FB, for sure you don’t know. I know most of us do many activities which are totally irrelevant and play zero role in our life so ask these questions before you move on and decide to spend your time. Mind you! Time is money!

·         Does it add any value to your skills?
·         Does it increase your productivity?
·         Does it help you ease your life or make it more complex?
·         Is doing that activity necessary to spend hours of your life into it?
·         Does it contribute towards your life goals or life’s mission statement?
·         Does it help you achieve your definition of success?

If answer to any of 3 to 4 questions is NO, then seriously, you need to re-think before doing that again. How can you stay productive and make the most out of it by staying productive is what I will write in my next article. Don’t miss it out!

2.       Read, Read & Read!

Reading can give you a good head start, this is often what your peers cannot obtain. Compared to others, you are more likely to know other industries strategies and tactics, and that may be helpful to you. You can transfer your knowledge within the organization or within your social network, create new possibilities for yourself, and learn about what and how’s happening in the world. Moreover, your conversation will become more interesting and will encircle around the things you’re reading. Anthony Robbins said, “If you spend one hour a day to learn about a topic, a year later, in this regard, the knowledge you gain will be more than 99.999% of the world’s people.” Even if you have 30 minutes every night, each week you can easily read a book. You may not be an expert, but I promise, you’ll know more than what your peers know.
I would suggest you to google advantages of reading and know yourself.

3.       Do some projects

You can apply the knowledge learnt to real work scenarios, this is only an ideal state. If your company did not give you this opportunity, create opportunities for yourself. Working with a team, you’ll understand how things work in the practical application of the industry, and how it ultimately affect actual customers. You’ll learn how to perform the task and meet deadlines and get feedback on what you are doing and benefit from it. When you are not strong enough, these experience may not have any value to you. But you are still a novice and these experiences are far more valuable than the pay you are getting if you can really convince others to spend on your product.

You can do some volunteer projects. Start doing some DIY projects, you can even make a product out of it. Like currently, as we all know Independence Day (14th August) is coming, I am working to place my stall in Blue Area and you will see me standing there offering badges, flags, face-painting and all the other patriotic attractive stuff you see around these days. Do come and say Hello to me there!
So take the first step towards your volunteer project and try something new out of the office. But do not let these private jobs affect your work.

4.       Actively build your connections

In your career path, a strong network of connections will make everything accelerate. If you have not set up your own personal connections, you’ll need to divide a portion of your time to do this.
A strong network of relationships, can enable you:
  • contact smart friends, and learn their opinions
  • get information and knowledge that are difficult to obtain
  • income generating opportunities
  • help you see the world from different perspectives
  • help you identify your strengths, weaknesses & opportunities


Go get to know your work colleague or boss. If you are an entrepreneur, your network connections will be your early customers, your staffs will be your source of capital so rather than going home you should find some inner circles. There are many small groups which are highly relevant to your career. You should try to integrate into these circles. Every week, you can drink coffee together with new friends, or having breakfast or lunch with new buddies will definitely help you expand your circle. 

You can also look into everyone’s career developments on LinkedIn and establish a network with mentors in those professional industries. Who knows they will be your next employers? Your connections will be your most powerful asset in the workplace. Since you have time to watch “Game of Thrones”, you have time to build a social network.

Let me suggest you a very useful yet very amazing social app, a lot of you may already know about it. An app named CouchSurfing. It can help you make friends from different parts of the world in different countries. If you plan to visit any country, you can ask for some local host there and stay with him or you can be the guest of any foreigner in your country. Would you believe, I have been able to make 132 international friends from 54 different countries with the help of this app.
  
      Your life change starts tonight
6 pm to 12 am, you go home, though physically and mentally tired but you are free to do anything. During this time, you can switch off like switching off your computer at your workplace and do something that aspires you, make you smarter, stronger, and have a wider network of people and stop doing those ridiculous things that play no part in your career progression.
From tonight, take an hour a day to do these things just for yourself! Company pays you monthly for 8 hours of daily work, what do you pay yourself for 6 free hours? You want to get paid higher from your employer, in return, how higher can you go to pay yourself in spare time? Decide yourself!