Tuesday, March 17, 2015

16 Mahabharata Quotes That Continue To Define Life

16 Mahabharata Quotes That Continue TIf there is any Indian epic that comes the closest to reality, it is Mahabharata. Each character with its own strengths and vices, circumstances and situations that control fate, the co-existence of love and hate in every soul - it is startling how Mahabharata understand the real world so well. Here are some words of wisdom from Mahabharata that may have been written in a time when nothing existed, but still make so much sense in the present world.

Mahabharata is one of the most interesting texts ever! Find out which Mahabharata character you resemble the most, right here.o Define Life

Friday, March 13, 2015

9 Free Business Productivity Tools For Startups

Starting a business can be a daunting endeavor, especially if all you have is a cool product and not enough capital. In the tech world, or in any other niche for that matter, most startuppers fail not because they have bad products but because they are unable to generate enough consumer interest in their products.

Considering overheads and other back-office expenses, this scenario doesn’t come as a surprise. So if you’re still starting out and find yourself strapped for much needed funding to keep your startup afloat, the following free business productivity tools are worth checking out.

9 Free Business Productivity Tools For Startups

# 1. Bitrix24.com

If you need a collaboration tool your staff are most likely to adopt with relative ease and minimum training, take the social intranet route.

Bitrix24.com is the fastest growing social intranet that’s free for businesses with 12 employees or less. The application comes as a combination of several different work tools like CRM, project management, real-time streaming, activity planner, file sharing, to name just a few. As it is cloud-based, access can be anywhere, whether using your computer or smartphone. An upgrade to unlimited users starts at $99 per month.

# 2. GotFreeFax.com

In this era of e-mail and instant messaging, you’d think fax machines are no longer relevant. But if aLinkedIn survey as reported by Mashable is to be believed, fax machines are still in until 2017 steps in.

As you might have already guessed from the site’s name, GotFreeFax.com is an online service that allows you to send up to three pages of fax for free (maximum of two faxes per day) to any number in the United States or Canada. The site also offers premium pay-per-fax service should you need to send more.

# 3. RememberTheMilk.com

RememberTheMilk.com is an online productivity tool that assists in task and time management.Remember The Milk essentially functions as your all-in-one task manager, electronic calendar and to-do list. Aside from allowing you to share and split tasks with other people, the application can be integrated with GMail, too.

The pro account is priced at $25 for one year and comes with exclusive mobile app features and Microsoft Outlook integration.

# 4. Kolab.org

Kolab.org is an open-source group collaboration server that allows for sharing of notes, e-mail access, calendar organization, task management, address book maintenance, news aggregation, phone sync and journal integration. Kolab is secure, scalable, reliable, mobile and professional, ensuring productivity every step of the way. As a whole, the application requires some getting used to. But once you get the hang of it, the hassle can be all worth it.

# 5. WaveApps.com

Formerly WaveAccounting.com, WaveApps.com is an accounting software that’s fast, simple and easy to use, offering unlimited invoicing and expense tracking. 100% free for small businesses with nine employees or less, it’s accountant-approved and specifically designed for non-accountants. You can also securely connect your bank and PayPal accounts or other sources of data, and your transactions are automatically imported into the accounting software.

# 6. PRLog.org

To make your business presence known, one surefire route to take is through the distribution of press releases. PRLog.org is a site where you can dispense press releases for free. And if you feel you don’t have the necessary expertise to create a killer press release, the site provides instructions on how to write one, even how to embed videos where necessary.

# 7. Weebly.com

One cardinal business rule is that businesses should have their own websites to boost their market presence online. Weebly.com is a free website creator that doesn’t require website creation expertise. Until you’re ready to go for more complex and/or self-hosted sites that would require monthly or yearly payments, Weebly.com is a good alternative.

# 8. Join.me

For those meetings or web conferences on the fly, Join.me is a simple-to-use teleconferencing application that allows you to review documents and designs, train staff, do product demonstrations – basically to get everyone apprised of company updates. You can do transatlantic web conferences and presentations, too.

# 9. IFTTT.com

IFTTT.com, which is short for “if this, then that,” functions like a computer program repeatedly uttering if/then logic all day long. With IFTTT, you set up “recipes” to assist you with task automation. For a recipe to work, you have to have a channel, a trigger and an action. Examples of channels are

Facebook

, e-mail, Evernote, LinkedIn, just to mention a few.

For instance, if you’re tagged in a photo on Facebook, you can create a recipe that would automatically download the image into Dropbox.

What other free business productivity tools can yo

Why Did India’s Mars Mission Cost So Little?

The 114th: CQ Roll Call’s Guide to the New Congress

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Mosaic of Mars, made up of 102 Viking Orbiter images. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

On Wednesday, India’s space program signed an agreement with NASA for a joint Earth-observing satellite mission as well as a charter to establish a working group for cooperation on Mars exploration. That comes on the heels of India’s Mars orbiter reaching the red planet’s orbit last week. India’s Mars spacecraft’s relatively cheap roughly $74 million cost has drawn attention and in case you missed them, here’s a look at a couple of articles from the past week or so that break down why it cost so little compared to other efforts.

NPR’s Geoff Brumfiel has reported that there are several reasons. Among them, according to Brumfiel’s article: less sophistication of the spacecraft compared to NASA’s MAVEN, which also reached Mars orbit last week, the orbiting path it chose and much lower labor costs. From the story, which quotes Earth 2 Orbit’s Amaresh Kollipara:

First, the spacecraft itself is a lot less sophisticated than its NASA counterpart, and is not designed to last as long. “It’s essentially buying a Honda Civic verses buying a Mercedes S-Class,” Kollipara says. The Indian craft has fewer cameras and scientific doohickeys.

On the chosen orbiting path:

It is orbiting in a big oval with Mars at one end. The downside of that path is that the Indian spacecraft only gets close to Mars once every few days. But fewer firings of the engine meant the Indian spacecraft would need less fuel. That helped keep the weight down to nearly half that of the NASA mission — and that lighter load made it much cheaper to launch.

A Wall Street Journal story also points out that India’s mission cost a fraction of NASA’s $671 million MAVEN mission and points to payload, labor costs and other reasons:

To hold costs down, India relied on technologies it has used before and kept the size of the payload small, at 15 kilograms. It saved on fuel by using a smaller rocket to put its spacecraft into Earth orbit first to gain enough momentum to slingshot it toward Mars.

And this Vox story says the spacecraft is mainly a “demonstration of the fact that India has the technology to reach Mars,” but adds that some science will be conducted:

In addition to cameras that will photograph Mars’ surface, it’s equipped with a few different instruments that will analyze the planet’s atmosphere, looking for methane in particular. Scientists believe that, if methane is present, it could be a sign of microbial life. Some previous crafts have detected traces of methane, but the Curiosity rover has failed to find any.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

5 Life Lessons From Ravana

dian mythology is quite fair, so to speak - as in, it doesn't delineate good from bad so starkly, as it is made to believe. The most righteous of beings, like Guru Dronacharya, Sri Krishna, Arjun or Lord Rama, are demonstrated to commit sins or taking biased decisions. While on the other hand, characters pictured as disgraceful throughout the course of their lives, are written as dying with honor. Just like Chinese philosophy of Yin and Yang, even our scriptures have emphasized that good and bad lie within us.

This Dussehra, as the whole of India gathers to burn effigies of Ravana, it might do us an ounce of good, if we introspect exactly what kind of a man was Ravana, and burn not the man himself, but the evil qualities that took the better of him.

"The heroism of the hero is directly proportional to the greatness of the villain." In that sense, it is fair to say that Ravana was no ordinary villain. In fact, it is wrong to categorically certify him a villain. In Hindusim and its epic stories, the protagonists and antagonists have never been unidimensional. They have multiple shades to their personality. Periyar, the Tamil political leader of the 20th century, called him the ultimate Dravidian hero. Here are 5 things we can learn from this utterly misunderstood character in the Ramayana:

1. Power Of Faith

Ravana performed an intense penance (or tapasya) to appease Shiva, lasting several years. During his penance, Ravana chopped off his head 10 times as a sacrifice made in the name of Shiva. Each time he sliced his head off, a new head arose, thus enabling him to continue his penance. At last, Shiva, pleased with his austerity, appeared after his 10th decapitation and offered him a boon. Ravana asked for immortality, which Shiva refused to give, but gave him the celestial nectar of immortality. Ravana also asked for absolute supremacy over gods, heavenly spirits, other rakshas, serpents, and wild beasts. Contemptuous of mortal men, he did not ask for protection from these. Shiva granted him these boons in addition to his 10 severed heads and great strength by way of knowledge of divine weapons and magic. Faith, it seems, can move mountains!

2. Power Of Knowledge

Ravana belonged to an august lineage, having been born as the grandson of Brahma, the creator of the universe, and the son of the sage Vishrava and younger brother of Kubera, the deity of wealth. Ravana was a scholar and connoisseur of arts. Ravana possessed a thorough knowledge of Ayurveda and political science. His ten heads represent that his knowledge of the six Shastras and the four Vedas. "While Ravana was aggressive and arrogant, he was also an extraordinary scholar. Under his father's tutelage, he mastered the Vedas, the holy books and also the ways of Kshatriyas (warriors). He is even credited with writing a commentary on the Vedas and verses on medicine. An excellent Veena player, he also composed the Ravanstuti," said Satkari Mukhophadhyay, noted Sanskrit scholar, Ramayana expert and consultant with the National Mission of Manuscripts at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts.

Thus, even Ravana's life story tells us that knowledge can win you praise, even from your staunchest enemies.

3. That Everyone Is A Consortium Of Multiple Layers

Ram once addressed Ravana as a "Maha Brahman". Ravana was a villain, but that notwithstanding, he was a man of honour. In Kampan's version of Ramayana, Ravana was praised for his talent, knowledge, and strength. In the words of Kampan himself, "Ravana had been an invincible hero in many a battle." Ravana was also the only Brahman in the whole wide world who had the strength to lift Shiva's Mt. Kailash on his shoulders - a power bestowed to him by Shiva himself.

In another tale that shows Ravana's myriad personality, Rama was wanting to please the Gods with a Yagna before going to battle with Ravana, so as they may bless him for the war. As an elder was needed to bless the proceedings, he asked one of the Vanaras to request Ravana himself. Ravana agreed and, ironically, blessed the offerings of his enemy-knowing full well the ramifications of this pooja. This shows a more magnanimous side of the character whom all Hindus love to hate.

The beauty of Hinduism, to me, is that it presents its characters in shades of black and white. Thus, honoring the true spirit of this religion, we must uphold the belief that no one can be typified as 'good' or 'bad'. All people are a complex mechanism of emotions and characteristics, and it is best to see the good in everyone, and ignore the negatives.

4. To Be A Good King

Ravana was a very efficient and just ruler, acknowledged even in Valmiki's Ramayana. In his rule, Lanka was called Sone ki Lanka, and entered the golden and most prosperous period in its history. He assumed leadership over the army of demon king Sumali and established a golden rule over Lanka. According to Hindu mythology, Lanka was built by Vishwakarma, the best of all architects. Ravana was also a caring ruler, who looked after his subjects well.

5. One Must Never Forget That Ego Kills

An insatiable, all-consuming ego turned out to be Ravana's Achilles'Heel that negated all his otherwise divine qualities. In this respect, he is, and will forever, serve as a lesson to illustrate that even though one is well endowed with good qualities, a single frailty in character is enough to drag you to your end.

10 Tips To Save Money Like Warren Buffett

Guest Post by Michael Vincent

Most people, if asked about their financial goals, would instantly say they want to be rich, or to have the financial freedom of being able to buy or pay for anything their heart desires. Saving money is rarely ever on the top of anyone’s list.

10 Tips to Save Money Like Warren Buffett

Investor Warren Buffett himself strongly believes in the value of saving, despite having billions of dollars to his name. You might want to pick up a pointer or two from one of the world’s richest men…

1. Be careful with your investments

Buffett has been quoted as saying that the first rule of investing is to “not lose money”. The billionaire has placed so much emphasis on this rule of investing, that his second rule is “not to forget rule number 1″. Do not get into debt unless you are absolutely sure that you can profit later on, he advises.

2. Do what you love

Another tip from Buffett is to do something you love. Only then can you find satisfaction from work or your job. If it’s not so easy to just pack up and quit your current job, why not make a hobby out of what you love doing? And maybe try making just a little money out of it? Pursuing your passion can bring lots of fulfillment—and that is something no amount of money can buy.

3. Don’t purchase expensive toys

Some people who successfully earn their first million dollars immediately purchase a luxury vehicle or an expensive toy. As a practitioner of frugal living, Buffett avoids luxuries such as yachts and luxury cars. For him, these expensive “toys” only cause headaches. Buffett advises investing extra cash in investments that can yield good interest rates instead.

4. Do not waste time

To the Berkshire Hathaway CEO and founder, time is as valuable as money. When doing business negotiations, Buffett advises researching and making a decision in advance. He advises against any unnecessary talk, which he likens to “thumb sucking.” If you are making a business proposition, be straightforward and name your price straightaway. Buffet says he won’t talk with anyone unless they give him a price. He also makes decisions right on the spot.

5 Evil People Whose Past May Surprise You

For history buffs, the fact that an aspiring artist named Adolf Hitler was, as a young man, rejected by the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts is a stark reminder of the tantalizing contingency of historical events.

A nascent megalomaniac may wear many hats before donning the service cap and shades of a despot.

But would Hitler’s dangerous ambitions have been contained, or his malevolence deflected, had he become an accomplished artist? As history reminds us time and time again, the road to evil often contains some rather surprising detours along the way. And, as the following cases show, a nascent megalomaniac may try on many — unexpected — hats before donning the service cap and shades of a despot or mass murderer.

1. Pol Pot, Parisian Student

Three decades before his anti-intellectual regime imposed a monolingual, agrarian socialism on the people of Cambodia and claimed the lives of more than 1 million people, Pol Pot was a bilingual foreign student and bon vivant living in the City of Light. In 1949, the 24-year-old future dictator earned a scholarship to study radio electronics in Paris, where, like many student activists, he enjoyed dancing and discussing politics over vin rouge in his Latin Quarter apartment. His study-abroad experience ended after he failed his course three years in a row, forcing him to return to Cambodia in 1953, the same year that the former French colony became independent.

2. Jim Jones, Human Rights Crusader

Jim Jones, the charismatic American religious leader and founder of the People’s Temple, is best known for his role in the group’s cult murder/suicide at Jonestown in 1978, including the poisoning of more than 300 children. But prior to becoming a cult leader, Jones was an avid community organizer and integrationist who was appointed director of the Indianapolis Human Rights Commission in 1961. That same year, when an ulcer-suffering Jones was mistakenly placed in the black ward of a local hospital (because his doctor was black), he refused to move, and his subsequent agitating led to the integration of the hospital.

3. Idi Amin, Heavyweight Champion

Nelson Mandela was not the only former big-name African leader to have spent a great deal of time in the ring as a young man. Just a decade before he staged a 1971 coup to seize power in Uganda, a 6-foot-4-inch, 270-pound Idi Amin was the nation’s heavyweight boxing champion for more than eight years. A former officer in the British Colonial Army before turning tyrant, Amin was also a capable rugby player, though not the sharpest tool in the scrum. Army officials observed of Amin — who would later be responsible for the deaths of up to half a million of his people — that he was “a splendid type and a good (rugby) player … but … virtually bone from the neck up, and needs things explained in words of one letter.”

4. Ayatollah Khomeini, Philosopher and Poet

For most of his adult life, Ruhollah Ayatollah Khomeini was a teacher and lecturer, primarily of Islamic mysticism and philosophy. Prior to embarking on his mission to turn Iran into an Islamic theocracy, Khomeini, influenced by Aristotle and Sufi mystics, penned at least 25 books and treatises, and even some original poems. One poem, published in an Iranian newspaper just four months after Khomeini issued a fatwā against author Salman Rushdie in 1989, begins:

I have become imprisoned, O beloved, by the mole on your lip! / I saw your ailing eyes and became ill through love.

While it appears the Ayatollah is adopting a poetic persona to express a more mystical love of God, his ardent words are not what you’d expect from your average mullah.

5. Timothy McVeigh, Decorated Veteran

Four years before the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 that killed 168 and left hundreds more injured, terrorist Timothy McVeigh was a uniformed member of the U.S. Army participating in Operation Desert Storm. On the second day of fighting, McVeigh decapitated one Iraqi soldier and killed another, firing from more than a mile away, actions that earned him a Bronze Star. In 1997, after McVeigh was sentenced to death for his crimes, President Bill Clinton signed special legislation to prevent McVeigh from receiving the military burial and honors concomitant with his service.

The good news — and there is some — is that, according to Harvard’s Steven Pinker, in his book The Better Angels of Our Nature, recent declines in levels of human violence suggest that the correlative journey from artist, poet or scholar to mass murderer is not as achievable a career goal as it once was thanks to the growing number of social, moral and political obstacles in its path.

Still, even today, we might want to keep an eye on a former ophthalmology trainee (Bashar Assad) or a Jesuit-trained secondary school teacher (Robert Mugabe), among many others. You just never know what they may want to do when they grow up.

The 50 New Rules of Work

By Robin Sharma
Author of the #1 bestseller The Leader Who Had No Title

The global economy is in a state of acute disruption. Competition has never been more fierce. Consumers have never been so well-informed and loudly demanding. And what worked yesterday just might be obsolete today.

But this time is also a great time, for the astonishing few who are ready to show leadership. Leaders are at their absolute best during messy cycles versus during the easy ones. And messy cycles bring with them gorgeous opportunities.

As I sit quietly on this airplane at 40,000 feet, away from the rallying cries of a wired world filled with endless interruptions, I’ve distilled what I’ve been sharing in my presentations to clients across the planet over the past months, from Kuwait and Dubai to Paris, London and Dusseldorf.

Here are 50 powerful rules to amp up your game so this business cycle is one of your best business cycles yet.

The 50 New Rules of Work

You are not just paid to work. You are paid to be uncomfortable – and to pursue projects that scare you.
Take care of your relationships and the money will take care of itself.
Lead you first. You can’t help others reach for their highest potential until you’re in the process of reaching for yours.
To double your income, triple your rate of learning.
While victims condemn change, leaders grow inspired by change.
Small daily improvements over time create stunning results.
Surround yourself with people courageous enough to speak truthfully about what’s best for your organization and the customers you serve.
Don’t fall in love with your press releases.
Every moment in front of a customer is a moment of truth (to either show you live by the values you profess – or you don’t).
Copying what your competition is doing just leads to being second best.
Become obsessed with the user experience such that every touchpoint of doing business with you leaves people speechless. No, breathless.
If you’re in business, you’re in show business. The moment you get to work, you’re on stage. Give us the performance of your life.
Be a Master of Your Craft. And practice + practice + practice.
Get fit like Madonna.
Read magazines you don’t usually read. Talk to people who you don’t usually speak to. Go to places you don’t commonly visit. Disrupt your thinking so it stays fresh + hungry + brilliant.
Remember that what makes a great business – in part – are the seemingly insignificant details. Obsess over them.
Good enough just isn’t good enough.
Brilliant things happen when you go the extra mile for every single customer.
An addiction to distraction is the death of creative production. Enough said.
If you’re not failing regularly, you’re definitely not making much progress.
Lift your teammates up versus tear your teammates down. Anyone can be a critic. What takes guts is to see the best in people.
Remember that a critic is a dreamer gone scared.
Leadership’s no longer about position. Now, it’s about passion. And having an impact through the genius-level work that you do.
The bigger the dream, the more important the team.
If you’re not thinking for yourself, you’re following – not leading.
Work hard. But build an exceptional family life. What’s the point of reaching the mountaintop but getting there alone.
The job of the leader is to develop more leaders.
The antidote to deep change is daily learning. Investing in your professional and personal development is the smartest investment you can make. Period.
Smile. It makes a difference.
Say “please” and “thank you”. It makes a difference.
Shift from doing mindless toil to doing valuable work.
Remember that a job is only just a job if all you see it as is a job.
Don’t do your best work for the applause it generates but for the personal pride it delivers.
The only standard worth reaching for is BIW (Best in World).
In the new world of business, everyone works in Human Resources.
In the new world of business, everyone’s part of the leadership team.
Words can inspire. And words can destroy. Choose yours well.
You become your excuses.
You’ll get your game-changing ideas away from the office versus in the middle of work. Make time for solitude. Creativity needs the space to present itself.
The people who gossip about others when they are not around are the people who will gossip about you when you’re not around.
It could take you 30 years to build a great reputation and 30 seconds of bad judgment to lose it.
The client is always watching.
The way you do one thing defines the way you’ll do everything. Every act matters.
To be radically optimistic isn’t soft. It’s hard. Crankiness is easy.
People want to be inspired to pursue a vision. It’s your job to give it to them.
Every visionary was initially called crazy.
The purpose of work is to help people. The other rewards are inevitable by-products of this singular focus.
Remember that the things that get scheduled are the things that get done.
Keep promises and be impeccable with your word. People buy more than just your products and services. They invest in your credibility.
Lead Without a Title.

I encourage you to share + discuss + debate these with your team and throughout your organization. Within a quick period of time, you’ll see some fantastic results.

Keep Leading Without A Title.

Yours
www.v4all.org