Great Techniques To Self Mastery

Logesh Paul — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 14:43:27 +0000

Originally posted in my blog here

I finished reading a book named "A Monk Who Sold His Ferrari" by Robin S. Sharma, It was a great self-help book I ever read after Eat that frog. This post highlights the key elements covered in the book

Follow below 7 techniques to self-mastery your destiny(Nirvana). Life is all about choices, One's destiny unfolds according to the choices one makes

Master your mind

Mind comes first and foremost important aspect to any self-improvement. Nourish your mind with positive thoughts and keep your mind healthy. When you form the habit of searching for the positive in every circumstance, your life will move to its highest dimensions. This is one of the greatest of all the natural laws. Remember, either you control your mind or it controls you

Imagination is more important than knowledge - Einstein

Follow your purpose

Once you have a clear mindset define goals, without goals you will just drift. So write your goals read it every day. The human mind is the world's largest filtering device. When used properly it filters out what you perceive as unimportant and gives you only the information you are looking for at that time. When you decide to start concentrating your mind on your life's main aims your mind starts to filter out the unimportant and focus only on the important.

I am an artist at living — my work of art is my life. - Suzuki

Practice Kaizen

Kaizen is a Japanese technique to constantly improve oneself. Keep improving yourself and never stop learning. You do not have the time to improve yourself, whether this mean improving your mind or nourishing your spirit, is much like saying you do not have time to stop for gas because you are too busy driving. Self-mastery is the DNA of life mastery.

Good people strengthen themselves ceaselessly — Confucius

Live with Discipline

Willpower is like a muscle, the more you use the stronger it becomes. Don't fall for time wasting / non-important work / bad habits. Wage war against the weaker thoughts that have crept into the palace of your mind. They will see that they are unwanted and leave like unwelcome visitors. Stick with good habits and live a great disciplined life.

Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment — Jim Rohn

Respect your time

Time is non-renewable resource, once lost is lost forever. So utilize time wisely. Great leaders/legends seek learning over entertainment. Have some entertainment don't let it eat the most valuable resource (time). Those who use time wisely from an early age are rewarded with rich, productive and satisfying lives. Those who never been exposed to the principle that 'time mastery is life mastery' will never realize their enormous human potential. Time is the great leveler.

Well arranged time is the surest mark of a well-arranged mind. — Sir Isaac Pitman

Selflessly serve others

The quality of your life ultimately comes down to the quality of your contribution. To cultivate the sacredness of each day, live to give. By elevating the lives of others, your life reaches it's highest dimensions. Practice daily act of kindness.

The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity — Leo Tolstoy

Embrace the present

Happiness is a journey, not a destination. Practice gratitude and be thankful for what you have. Enjoy the tiny little beauty around you and live in the "now" moment to the fullest.

When I admire the wonder of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in worship of the creator — Mahatma Gandhi

Small victories lead to large victories, Tiny, incremental changes, and improvements such as those I have suggested will create positive habits. Positive habits will create results. And results will inspire you towards greater personal change. Begin to live each day as if it was your last. Starting today, learn more, laugh more and do what you truly love to do. Do not be denied your destiny.

"You sow a thought, you reap an action. Reap an action, you sow a habit. Sow a habit, you reap a character. Sow a character, you reap your destiny."

Learning From My First Startup

Logesh Paul — Mon, 30 Apr 2018 06:32:41 +0000

I always had these sparking thought in my mind about starting something new to serve the users right after I gained 2 years of experience in software industry, I discussed many times with my friends to come up with something to start own and run a business.

Ideas like "Project Management Software - like basecamp 😉", "TechyTees - E-commerce to sell tech printed tees", "Curated best products only e-commerce website", "A Todo App", "Automate House - Refill groceries, clean house, laundry all in one", "Employment School - that teaches what's needed for work than random theories", just to mention a few.

Some of the ideas seem vague now; where I stand with 10 years of experience, but that's okay I'm improving and learning in my own phase.

Note that I used the word idea because I only discussed with few people and it didn't fly. The first startup/side project I worked along with my friends & was able to successfully launch a workable product to market was TaxOn, without there support this would have been just another idea. So big thanks to Uthira Moorthy, Saravana, Adithya, Deepak, Anuj & Thiyagu who worked really hard to get the product out.

It wasn't well received as I thought it would be, So I'm writing this post to track my understanding & learning about it.

Failure Reasons (In my opinion)

We haven't done proper user research & market fit validation.
User will only use the app if they want to see the tax calculation (which happens only 2-3 time in a year).
The bot which we introduced to keep the user retention isn't helpful as many people are not interested to learn about tax saving, finance planning, etc,
We haven't considered post-release marketing, post-release development to give regular updates. I didn't have the money/time to — market, keep the team working, polishing the product to customer needs.
Our revenue factor/business model to create "tax saving services" is not that intuitive.

Things to consider before startup (Again, In my opinion)

Think big, Start small: Your idea should scale, if your idea can benefit only a few users then it's not enough. So imagine your business can benefit big user base but validate that with a minimum viable product (MVP).
Validate idea from random users: Your idea will seem so fascinating to you & and to your close friends. So don't validate your idea with close friends/relatives; they will say it's awesome anyway. Do proper user research — a) choose your end user b) prepare a list of questions to ask your end user c) go talk to them and collect feedback about the problem your idea solves d) analyze the feedback received and see if people are really interested.
Build product for today: Don't think more futuristic, There are many startups which build awesome IOT products but customers are not really ready to use it today. Create something which users can use today.
Solid execution Plan: There is no such thing as overnight success, success takes years. Be prepared to afford a solid working team for your idea (Starting stages are experimental, you never know which will work)
First 20 users: Try to create a minimal viable product & try to acquire first 20 users(again friends/relatives doesn't really count here). Work with them to get feedback and acquire the next set and keep going. Continue solving user problems and you grow big eventually.
Fail Fast: If you think your idea isn't good enough and not working as expected, don't hold it on your back. Use your time & energy wisely. Shutdown your unsuccessful project.

I hope this might give some insights to you & I wish you all the best for "idea → startup → successful product".

Thanks for reading and share it with your friends.

Forem: Logesh Paul