Aditya Kothadiya’s Blog

Read it before you need it!

Targeted Audience: Students

I always put this discipline at the top of my all academic disciplines – read it before you need it. In my school days, I failed to fulfill it numbers of times. But whatever few numbers of times I accomplished it, it helped me tremendously. I highly recommend following this discipline in your daily school routine. I know sometimes it gets really hard to be consistent because of some other study or work load. But it is okay if you fail to achieve it always. It is more important that you try to follow it again whenever time permits.

Now classes must have started in full fledge and all professors must be bombarding tons of knowledge, bunch of assignments, and deadly projects on you with an insane rate. In this race of achieving the deadlines, most of the times, we forget to understand the basic concepts and hence the subject thoroughly. Reading it before you need it will help you tremendously to grasp the understanding of the subject at very early stages and very efficiently.

The discipline is simple. You just need to read some of the topics, which will be getting covered in the next class. You do not need to understand it completely. It is just to get familiar with the terminologies, the flow of the subject, and to know what to expect next in the class. I personally found that pre-class preparation always helps to grasp the subject immediately.

Also if you understand what you read before it is been taught in the class, then you have an added advantage to answer the questions being asked in the class. Based on your understanding, you can also discuss some of the advanced concepts in the class.

Now you may ask that how do you know what to read next. I believe most of the times the detailed schedule is already posted in the beginning of semester. In case of doubt, ask your professor at the end of class that what he or she is going to cover in the next class. In worst case if you don’t attend the class or if you forgot to ask, send an email him or her.

Your this behavior will also show your sincerity towards your preparation of the course work. There are very high chances that your professor might get impressed by this sincerity, which will help you during evaluation of your assistantship application.

Once again, before sleeping, just browse through the chapters that you know will be covered in the tomorrow’s class.

To read more articles from this series, please visit Beyond Intelligence.

I am excited to announce a new initiative of my blogging effort. One of my new year’s resolutions is to read at least one book per month. But I don’t want to just read it and leave it in the shelf. I want to share what I learned and add some value to the reader community. In this regard, I am starting a new project, called ‘Adeologue – One Page Book Review’. I will be writing an one-page excerpt of the book I read.

One thing I found is that people don’t have much time to read multiple-pages excerpts of the book. And it is hard to understand which book should we read before knowing about its content and theme. So before buying a new book, reading this "one page" excerpt will help you to invest your time and hence the money in more efficient manner.

To start with, I am publishing one page book review of the book – “Soar With Your Strengths” – By Donald Cliffton and Paula Nelson.

You can download this review at following link:

Download Review for Soar With Your Strengths

To start with, I am publishing these reviews for FREE. Feel free to download and forward it to your friends to gain more in less time. Also it will help me to spread the word.

I sincerely thank my mentor, Rajesh Setty for the initial inspiration and motivation of this idea. I also thank my friends, Vinay and Rohan for their comments and suggestions on the initial version of this document.

Please feel free to leave feedbacks and suggestions in the comment section. Let me know how can I improve so that it can help you more.

Wish you happy reading!

Guru, the latest Bollywood movie from director Mani Ratnam, begins with the usual disclaimer that this story does not resemble any real life individual character and any similarities found are purely coincidental. But I believe almost everyone in the theatre already knew or atleast at the end of the movie could relate this story to an Indian business tycoon and founder of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), Dhirubhai Ambani.

RIL is the India’s largest private sector company with a turnover of US $19.976 billion and profit of US $2.033 billion for the fiscal year ending in March 2006. It has a wide range of products from petrochemicals (its major product), to garments (under the brand name of Vimal). Additionally, the company held interests in textile manufacturing, telecommunications and financial services. [Source - Wikipedia]

Mani Ratnam fictionalized this story of Dhirubhai Ambani in Guru, which profiles a man driven by a dream to succeed. The main character, Gurukant Desai, brilliantly portrayed by Abhishek Bachchan, known as Gurubhai, tells that, his father always told him not to dream, as dreams never come true. But he dared to dream and he succeeded in making it a reality. He grew up in rural upbringing as the son of the local headmaster to the business tycoon of India.

Dhirubhai was a famous figure in Indian business history and was acknowledged as ‘Man of 20th Century’, ‘Greatest Creator of Wealth In The Century’, and ‘Power 50 – the most powerful people in Asia’, and many more. But he was never appreciated as a value based or ethical businessman.

When he was 16 years old, he moved to Aden, Yemen. Initially he worked as a despatch clerk with A. Besse & Co., which was a distributor for Shell products. In the 1950s the Yemini administration realized that their main unit of currency Rial were disappearing fast. Upon investigating it was realized that all Rials were being routed to the Port City of Aden. There a young man in his twenties was placing unlimited buy orders of Yemini Rials.

During those days the Yemini Rial was a pure silver coin and was in much demand at the London Bullion Exchange. Young Dhirubhai would buy the Rials, melt them in pure silver and sell it to the bullion traders in London. In the later part of his life while talking to reporters it is believed that he said,

“The margins were small but it was money for jam. After three months, it was stopped. But I made a few lakh of rupees. In short I was a manipulator. A very good manipulator. But I don’t believe in not taking opportunities.” [Source - Wikipedia]

Well, I am not going to review the movie in detail, but definitely it’s a must watch movie if you live an entrepreneurial passion. In all, it was a good movie, and here are my learning out of that movie from an entrepreneur’s point of view:

1. Dream big. Literally BIG. But act small and steadily.
2. Think big, think fast, and think ahead of time.
3. Take risks to be creative, different, and innovative. It will pay off better than being bland and monotonous. In other words, safe is the new risk, and risk is the new certain.
4. Believe in your idea, and do not bother about ‘NO’ from bozos.
5. There is no alternative for hardwork. With bigger dreams, higher ambitions, have deeper commitment and greater efforts. With determination and perfection, success will follow.
6. Don’t give up. Believe in changing the system if it is not working for you.
7. Get a good mentor, to get guidance not only on knowing how to grow the business, but also on how to grow as a person.
8. People is the key. Let it be your loyal employees, or sharelolders or customers. Think people, always.
9. Theory knowledge can be useful, but real life experience is the best teacher. Education is never a requirement to make profits. It is the power of observation and foresight thinking, which helps to grow the business.
10. Family, and close relationships are always rated at the top in the war of business. Do not let your business decision spoil your relation.
11. Take time for your family, for your beloved ones, and care for them.

Once again, it is a must watch movie for entrepreneurs. Its truly an inspiring real story.

Their Patience!

Norm Brodsky, Senior Contributing Editor, Inc. magazine describes how budding entrepreneurs often make poor business decisions because they are too impatient to think them through. Norm’s advice for entrepreneurs is similar to what I have written in my previous post on ‘Patience: The companion of wisdom’.

Most entrepreneurs are impatient people by nature and this article explains why patience is important to become successful in long run of entrepreneurial journey.

Everybody who goes into business wants to make things happen, but you are heading for trouble if you let your sense of urgency dictate your decisions.

The common behavior of young entrepreneurs:

• they are in a big hurry to achieve something
• most of them have already decided on their next step, and they’re on the verge of taking it
• all they seek is encouragement for their urgency

Suggestions by Norm to young entrepreneurs:

• to pause and think
• you should never make important business decisions when you’re feeling driven by urgency
• it does not matter if urgency is coming from your own impatience or from other people putting pressure on you, dont fall for it
• if you feel as though you have to make the decision right away, don’t

Many times our passion to make something happen, passion to make it big drives us to be impatient. There is a sense of ego, which drives us to take impatient steps, which might be against of our logical reasoning. We want to drive fast and want to make it successful in short span of time. We override our good instincts. We make excuses and we tell ourselves what we want to hear. Generally, entrepreneurs are strong-willed and aggressive in nature and look for instant gratification.

Norm advises entrepreneurs to slow down when they are taking big step impatiently. You need to give time to think through the decision, to hear what other people have to say. You may be doing the same thing after thinking on your decision and talking to other people, but this time you will do it with the confidence of having gone through the right thought process.

It is not about procrastinating your action, but it is about giving your unconscious mind a chance to work on the problem. For successful entrepreneurs, nothing is urgent for them. They don’t rush into decisions prematurely. They have learned how to take four steps back, weigh all the factors, and decide calmly how to proceed.

Norm says, stepping back doesn’t come easily to young entrepreneurs who are eager to get ahead. The fear, of course, is that they will lose the opportunity in front of them. They think that the opportunity they are offered today won’t be around tomorrow, and then they use their sense of urgency to take a fast decision.

Norm’s golden words for entrepreneurs are:

• that the world is full of great opportunities, more than you can ever take advantage of
• that real opportunities don’t disappear

The bottom line is, we need to go for our passion, but with patience. As I said earlier, patience is the companion of wisdom.

#1. Turn strangers into friends.
Turn friends into customers.
And then… do the most important job:
Turn your customers into salespeople. — Seth Godin

#2. Don’t be afraid to take one large step because you can’t cross a chasm in two small leaps.

#3. Life is really simple as far as I’m concerned. There is no luck, you work hard and study things intently. If you do that for long and hard enough you’re successful. — Jason Calacanis

#4. The person who does not read good books has no advantage over the person who cannot read them.

#5. Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what other thinks you are. –John Wooden

It’s still not paperless!

Targeted Audience: Students

I believe that you can score very high in your academic career by practicing certain disciplines irrespective of your intelligence level. Of course, if you are a super-intelligent person, then it is a no brainer that you can score high. But please note that, I said, you ‘can’. It is not guaranteed that you ‘will’. I have seen few of my genius friends getting C grades in graduate classes because of their lack of discipline. The problem is not when you are a super-intelligent person and rest of the class is intelligent. The problem is when even a single person from rest of the class is as super-intelligent as you are. It is the discipline of a person, which will distinguish the final performances of both.

It takes tremendous discipline to control the influence, the power you have over other people’s lives. –Clint Eastwood

When I say beyond intelligence, it means your systematic hard work and discipline you follow in your day-to-day life. There are some key ways to develop discipline patterns in your daily routine. In this series, I will cover each of these disciplines, which are essential to excel in student life. Many times, they may sound trivial, but believe me, I have experienced that sometimes these trivial traits help tremendously in unseen situations. But if you follow these practices, you will see its fruition in long run in any walk of your life.

Go Paper

As the semesters are starting, let me start with the very first discipline. This is the first thing you should do when you are registering for any course. Buy a separate notebook for that course and write down following details on the inner side of the front cover of your notebook:

• Course number and name
• Class timings and location of class
• Professor’s office hours and detailed contact information
• TAs’ office hours and contact details
• Important dates of midterm and final exam of all courses you have registered

Of course, I am assuming that you are writing your full details like name, contact address, phone and email address on the first page of your notebook in case it get lost. You cannot imagine the panic you may have to face during the exam period when you will find out that your class notebook, in which you have written down the golden words of Professor, is not with you.

Even though you will get all this information on the web, it is highly advisable to write it down on handy paper (internal notebook cover). You just cannot guaranty the availability of resources like computer, internet access at any given time at any place. It’s very essential to have all these details available when you need it the most.

I still remember following incidence. During one of my classes, Professor wanted to postpone the midterm exam. And as you know that, the dates of midterms are decided way early to avoid clashing of multiple exams on the same date. During that class, Professor took the vote to postpone the exam to certain date and asked if anybody’s exam is clashing on the same date or not. Well, I had taken three courses during that semester so the probability was little high that one of the other exam dates may clash. But when he asked for it, I was not having any clue that I was having another exam on the same date. In the class, I voted for ‘Yes’ but then had to suffer for it on the day before exam. It would have been very helpful to have other exam dates handy in my notebook.

The bottom line is, keep the critical information handy, and do not rely on internet everytime. Use of smart mobile devices can be another alternate to this discipline.

For working people, please read my previous post on similar subject.

To read more articles from this series, please visit Beyond Intelligence.

Few weeks ago, I had a chance to talk to Senior Vice President of my company. He is one of the most impressive personalities in my company. I was very eager to talk to him on one-on-one basis since the day I first listened to him in one of our department conferences.

During our small conversation, I asked him few questions in general regarding his career path and preparations one need to take to achieve that kind of career path. At the end of the discussion, he said, “Aditya, I would like to give you one piece of advice which is applicable to your young generation.” I was very curious to know his mantra of success. “Be Patient”, he said.

“It is easy to switch jobs and get vertical promotion both in terms of money and position. You can switch jobs from big companies to startups and get higher roles. You will become successful from society’s perspective in very short span of time. But believe me, that model is not sustainable in long run.”

I couldn’t disagree with him anymore. He continued, “Stay in one role, learn as much as possible from many different dimensions, make sure you know enough about your assigned role, and then seek for the higher role.” For me, it hit me right at the point blank. I had this tendency to keep dreaming about the next big thing I will be doing. Very recently, I learned the Present Theory. It emphasizes the concept of living in Present, learning from the Past and planning for the Future, which taught me how to focus on my present work.

He said, “I was in design engineering for first 11 years of my career, and then I started managing the people.” By today, he must have completed 20 years of his professional career and he is heading the Engineering department. He informed that he did not take any formal management education and came purely from an engineering background. “Be patient”, he again insisted, “But learn a lot.”

Well, many of you may take this philosophy in negative terms. You may argue that he sounds less aggressive and in today’s highly competitive world it is sin if you are not aggressive.

However, I learnt that patience is the companion of wisdom. You need to be aggressive in learning from your current role, but need to be patient before jumping for the next position. What do you think? Do you believe in patience and time? Or you feel that world is changing at faster rate than ever before, and now it is harder to wait than to work.