Monday, September 3, 2012

Palmistry

I really wanted to write something this weekend, but did not know what...I think I am trying to start a routine to write atleast 1 blog a week, specially on saturday(well I actually started writing this on saturday, but then with few phone calls on and off, had to finally give up and am here finishing it up on sunday)...So here is a short one(atleast I am thinking it is going to be short, before I start writing) on palmistry...

In one of my previous blogs, I had mentioned about astrology fascinating me, well I used to be and still sometimes am very interested in palmistry, and that interest started long before my interest in astrology. Reading the palms and interpreting the nature of the person or some major events in a person's life had been something which I used to do a lot, specially during my high school and 1st few years of my undergrad college...I remember buying a pretty big book on palmistry around my 11th grade and reading it and trying to understand the meaning of different symbols and lines which can occur in individual's hand..My interest had grown so deep into that book, that I would spend my major time reading that instead of my 12th exam books, finally my younger sister found out about it and she literally hid the book, and gave it back to me again when I was in college...During my 11th grade, I would read the books and try to observe my palm and interpret the meanings of various lines..It was during that time I experienced, that though some believe your future or destiny is not written in the lines of your hand, I could still see the lines changing when I was changing, thus motivating me to do something better in my life...I had read somewhere, that, if you choose and concentrate on one particular line atleast for few weeks, you can observe the changes in it and I totally believe that, since I have personally experienced it...Lot of my school and college friends, would show me their hands and ask me what I think about it..I would try to tell them with the little knowledge I had..Some of them felt it was true and others did not...Well, lines only by themselves cannot be used to totally predict the life of a person, but they can still tell a lot about them. My obsession with palmistry had grown to such an extent, that I would actually try to get a glimpse of the hand of any new person I meet, so as to atleast know the true nature of a person...Palmistry has never disappointed me, there were times when I thought it was all "mithya", since it predicted that some of the people whom I thought were so emotional and good, but palmistry predicted them otherwise, actually turned out to be mean and hard hearted...I had almost stopped practicing palmistry when some of my close relatives told me, it is not a good thing to do and it builds up some bad karma, so I should never see people's hand when they ask me to..So now I have stopped seeing or predicting people's hand, but make few exceptions now and then.....

Lessons to be learnt by Alok Kejriwal

Recently came across an article in Times of India by Alok Kejriwal, regarding the Apple vs Samsung Battle and lessons learned.  It was quite a fascinating read, can be found  here
Below is the summary of the 5 lessons Alok talks about:

> Inspiration not imitation
 
Lesson: Inspiration is what creates value. Imitation is what reduces value. Inspire yourself in your business and the world will respond!

This is quite an interesting point, considering I am recently reading a book called CopyCats  by Oded Shenkar which talks about imovators which includes immitate+innovate, but he does make a point, that not all initial innovators are successful. He also talks about some research, which shows as much as 97.8% of the value of the innovation goes to immitators, since they save not only on R&D costs but also on marketing and advertising investments made by first movers. And they avoid costly errors by observing and learning from other's trials.  Maybe the way to go forward is imovate, imitate the best of something, but also innovate to make it excellent!!

 
>Delight leads to design; not the other way around!

Lesson: Focus on delighting your customer in new, meaningful ways. Design will come naturally and easily; almost as if guided by nature.

Build and they will come…


>There was only one Charlie Chaplin
  
Lesson: Don't mimic business DNA. It's unique for each company and should stay that way. Build on your DNA. Don't transplant it.


>Following Pied Piper

Lesson: Track business competitors and market leaders but don't blindly follow them. They will either take you to hell or to the courts — neither of which is the beach you were looking forward to retiring to.


>Saying sorry is what they forgot to teach you at IIM Ahmedabad

Lesson: We all do wrong stuff. But if you get noticed and warned, be smart. Abandon and vamoose.
As the world around us changes, it is going to be increasingly important to imitate through innovating??