BEN FRANKLIN'S 13 PRINCIPLES OF SUCCESS

Excerpts from one of the most authoritative books written on personal growth ever..

In the year 1723, a seventeen year-old boy arrived in Philadelphia without a penny to his name. At age 42, he retired, wealthy. Few men, before or since have ever been as successful as Benjamin Franklin. He gave credit for his many inventions and business successes to this list of 13 principles. Each of them should be practiced in order, for a week at a time, so that all of them become a habit in your life. They'll work as well today as they did then.

1. Temperance: Eat not dullness; drink not to elevation.

2. Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself, avoid trifling conversation.

3. Order: Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have it's time.

4. Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

5. Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; waste nothing.

6. Industry: Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.

7. Sincerity: Use no harmful deceit; think innocently and justly; and if you speak, speak accordingly.

8. Justice: wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

9. Moderation: Avoid extremes; forebear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

10. Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanness in body, clothes or habitation.

11. Tranquility: Be not disturbed at trifles, nor at accidents.

12. Chastity: Be chaste in matters with the opposite sex.

13. Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

The list. Worli. Mumbai

The list is here.

I am done with 13-14 of them. Wanna know what is transformation, take a dose of 5 in a span of one month and you would be transformed. Its time.

1. Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan (1670)
2. Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1793)
3. Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau (1840s)
4. Horatio Alger Stories (1860-1899)
5. Acres of Diamonds, Russell Conwell (1890s)
6. As a Man Thinketh, James Allen (1910)
7. How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie (1937)
8. Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill (1937)
9. The Power of Positive Thinking, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale (1952)
10. The Strangest Secret, Earl Nightingale (1956)
11. The Magic of Thinking Big, David J. Schwartz, Ph.D. (1959)
12. Psycho-Cybernetics, Maxwell Maltz (1960)
13. The Greatest Salesman in the World, Og Mandino (1968)
14. Man’s Search for Meaning, Dr. Viktor Frankl (1959)
15. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Dr. Steven Covey (1989)
16. Chicken Soup for the Soul, Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen (1993)
17. See You at the Top, Zig Ziglar (1975)
18. The Magic of Believing, Claude M. Bristol (1948)
19. The Richest Man in Babylon, George S. Clason (1926)
20. Books by Dr. Robert H. Schuller

आम्ही एम्. बी. ए. करतो ....

i get up in the morning at 8 reluctantly..
i enter in bathroom and come out in 19 minutes...some activities are done parallel to reduce cycle time;learning from operations management....
then i check facebook if somebody has commented on my status..or sent me friend's request..it feels nice when i see 2-4-6 written my home page...this is Self expression courtesy conB...
then i wear formals...go to canteen..have breakfast in 4 to 40 minutes depending on time available..chances are bright that it would be 4 min...Tea is compulsory..this is the only thing i have incessantly respected in my life.....no! its not addiction..conB prof says you cant call something addiction unless it affects somebody else badly...so on and so forth..the previous statement is one of the cliches used in mba...then i enter in class..mostly 10 min early or 10 min late..depending on the reputation,chilax quotient of prof.Then I go and present something on ppt.If microsoft wouldn't have invented ppt, mba wouldn't have been possible...then i urgue with classmates and prof, to show class participation...then lunch...sometimes i read ET when motivation level is all time high....then i enjoy natures beauty in lavale(pun intended)..I get confused about asset and liability..ledger...capital account convertability,monetary foreign and fiscal policy...and abruptly i come to know that i am wasting time..so i stop whatever i am doing,

Something...

Where "So called "...Life, Jindagi, Jeevan.
Half hour in bathroom...
1 hour of Hindu or Times..News mostly about Pak, China, Obama, Indian education sector and stock market, and of course Sachin and Sehwag..oops sorry about Rakhi Sawant and Rahul Mahajan.
1 heavy meal
1 drowsy afternoon
2 times tea or coffee.
20 emails..mostly about life love friendship and hunger in Kenya
2 good? morning mails...mostly send to all type.
Everyday 3-4 one of the best? mails I have ever read....
one animal named boss and other HOD
some music
some journey..that's the best part
some phone calls...mostly ending with 'aur baki badhiya?'..Aur sunao...aur kaise ho...
dinner
6/7/8/9/10/11/12 hours of sleep
1 hr orkut/facebook/tweeter/linkedIn
1hr comedy circus/hbo/sony.
Good Night?.
Where is LIFE?...

New Year Resolutions....

My first and most important resolution is that I will strictly follow the following resolutions at least till 5th of january. Here we go........ I will spend less than half an hour a day on the Internet. I will check my mails only twice a day. I will not bore my boss by with the same excuse for taking leaves, instead I will think of innovative excuses like,' My dog had fever' or 'My shirt was wet'. I will read sections on MCONNECT other than Fun and Frolic. I will not tip the traffic police with Rs. 50 when he catches me breaking any rule, instead I will pay whole amount , take receipt and hang it in my home as a photo frame. I will wash my handkerchief and socks everyday or at least once in a week. I will speak ONLY good things about my boss even when he is not present or when I am drunk. I will go to malls only for the shopping purpose and NO OTHER purpose. I will not open any window on my system which I may have to forcefully close when boss comes. I will not bore other people like I have bored you right now.

Rain...

Inside the class room of II’nd standard, a stern looking teacher says to a student,” Ajay, recite the poem aloud”. Ajay starts,” Rain rain go away, come again another day”. Can there be more unromantic way to teach these innocent children about most beautiful gift the nature has given us?
My most unforgettable experience of rain is the one I shared with a Children’s camp. We planned to reach the pinnacle of a small mountain in a tiny hill station called Mhaismal in Aurangabad district. All the Bacche, man ke sachhe were bubbling with enthusiasm. No sooner did we reach the top, the harbinger of the rain, the thunder announced,”Be ready friends, time for some fun!”
And the rain came, and the rain saw and the rain conquered us. The sweet sound of rain drops on the earth was very soothing to our ears accustomed to city noise of vehicles and flashy ring tones…. [Thanks to BSNL, I was out of coverage area] That day I came to know the meaning of ‘to rain cats and dogs. The mother earth was showing myriad reasons why it is aptly called as “Sujalam Suphalaam” .In just few seconds we were thoroughly wet. We were surrounded by rain drops from all directions. I felt as if Mother Nature was embracing us, caressing us, conferring us her blessing in the form of drops.
All our little champs were romping about here and there. Some were going on tree and proving Darwin right that human evolved from apes. Some were busy in making paper boats. This trend, very prevalent in my child hood is once again In Vogue due to airtel advert.
But how the things would go smoothly? Murphy will always come in picture. The innate teacher instinct of the camp organizers’ woke up. All children were lined up below a tree so as they don’t get sick due to becoming wet. But fortunately enough, one tourist came and shouted’” Don’t stand below tree. The probability of lightening falling is highest below tree.” Long live that man! All the children and we volunteers were ‘ordered’ to line up in open space and enjoy the rain, since at the top of hill no other shelter was available. Children, now officially ‘ordered’ to enjoy the rains went frenzied. Now we were really going….Singing aloud any songs… teasing the friends…throwing muddy water on each other…there were no constraints…. no boundaries ….only gamboling…They were singing rain poems they have been taught in school. I too was humming whichever rain song I could remember like Pyar huwa ekrar huwa… aaj rapat jaye to hume na uthhayyo…Ek ladki bheegi bhagee si and many more All the teachers too joined the fun brigade. Isn’t falling sick better than dying due to lightening? Children were amused to see this new avatar of their usually rigid teacher.

But during all this, some people were busy in taking photographs in their mobiles. I don’t understand this philosophy. Rather than enjoying the scenic beauty now and here, they like to see it afterwards in their Pc’s. I think ephemeral joy they get after reading comments by their pals on their photography in face book or orkut is important to them than this eternal joy of sweet memories.

And subject about rain can not be complete without Garma-Garam Chai and Pakode. Rainy season is festival time for gourmets. We also enjoyed the rains with victuals like Hot Dal Bhati and Baigan da Bharta. Off course red hot chilly chutney added Char chand to whole menu. And the gossip we did was no less tasty than the savories we were enjoying. The lunch ended with hot ginger tea energizing us…


They say if you want joy, spend time with young guns, I‘ll go a step ahead and say if you want to experience ecstasy play with children in rain!

In the words of Anthony de Mello ‘Happiness is our natural state. Happiness is the natural state of little children, to whom the kingdom belongs until they have been polluted and contaminated by the stupidity of society and culture. To acquire happiness you don't have to do anything, because happiness cannot be acquired. Does anybody know why? Because we have it already. How can you acquire what you already have? Then why don't you experience it? Because you've got to drop something. You've got to drop illusions. You don't have to add anything in order to be happy; you've got to drop something. Life is easy, life is delightful.’
This is the very thing I did that day. I broke away the inhibitions, the inhibitions of looking childish, playing with children in the rains. Dirtying the clothes, not worrying about getting cold or cough… I danced like no one is watching. I enjoyed everything to the content of my heart. I lived the phrase,’Jindagi Khoobsurat Hain!’ ….So throw those raincoats…throw that umbrella... And go in rains... It’s waiting to wash your worries… and calm you to tranquility!

फर्स्ट Blog

फर्स्ट ब्लॉग!