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Parallels Between Olympians & Business Leaders

The Olympic Games test the sporting spirit and mettle of athletes all around the world. It is a time for years of their hard work and dedication to finally pay off in an international arena. But they are not alone in their journey towards glory. As Aristotle was to Alexander so is a coach to an athlete. And much like sports, coaching forms an important aspect of a high potential leadership development program.

Olympic athletes and successful business leaders have quite a lot of things in common which makes them stay at the top of their game. Mentioned below are some such attributes:

Partnership with the coach - A successful coach - athlete relationship is highly instrumental in overcoming challenges in sports. Similarly, executive coaches and their coachees must form a bond of understanding, expectations and trust to achieve the highest form of leadership attainable. With the right guidance and direction of the coach, athletes and corporate leaders develop the power to “Go for the Gold”. Dedication & Perseverance - Commitment is the word ringing out loud in the countless hours devoted by athletes in training, to become truly world class. Dedicated leaders also hone their skills and abilities everyday to be perfect in their sport of leading corporations. Self-Awareness - Similar to Olympic Champions, successful business leaders become aware of their individual strengths and areas of improvement, through constant interactions with their coaches and gaining feedback in return. A great leader with enhanced self-awareness is able to perform under any condition. Lifestyle - Health, relationships, support network all have an important role to play in delivery of high performance in sports as wells as business. Maintaining a well-balanced and managed life is of paramount importance to stay at the top of the game. Proper Equipment - Successful athletes excel in their respective games by making use of proper and quality equipment. Similarly, the strength and efficiency of business leaders lie in the resources, books, activities, tools, assessments offered by their executive coaches. 

For leaders and athletes to become Olympians in their areas of expertise, it is necessary to keep in mind these aspects of ‘The Game’.  Champions aren't made overnight. To become one, it is essential to put in time, effort, sweat and focus.

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3 Ways To Build A Solid Cybersecurity Team

With information & data security becoming a burning concern for organizations worldwide, hiring and retaining skilled information security resource is turning out to be quite a challenge for today’s companies. According to a report released by the International Information System Security Certification Consortium and Frost & Sullivan, the global shortage of security professionals is expected to hit 1.5 million by 2020. 87% of the respondents in the current, as well as 2015's survey, have expressed the same issue as the major factor which is affecting their organization’s security greatly.

This calls for a crying need in companies to make a sustained effort towards finding new information security analysts and training existing employees in security roles with skills necessary to succeed as an analyst. The following three ways can be utilized for building a solid security team:

·         Strength & weakness analysis of the existing security team

·         Creating a skill-development plan for analysts

·         Supporting analysts with their career paths

Organizations need to realize that the road to establishing a strong security team is a long one, as the training process takes a lot of time. However, by focusing on the overall team's capabilities and individual team members' personalities and knowledge, and by developing a path for career advancement, most companies can churn out strong security groups.

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Focus is Everything

Alfred Nobel invented the dynamite, and was called “the merchant of death”. But inherently, the Swedish chemist and inventor was a believer of peace in humanity.  He was benevolent enough to leave behind his fortune to prizes that would recognize accomplishments in science, literature and peace.

His “focus” was on making the world a better place to live in. In spite of lacking a high level of education, he could speak six languages, write poetry, and invent.

How could he do it all? Through his philosophy of thinking and working, which more than a century after his death, is surprisingly relevant, and can help us stay focused in a world of distraction.

One of the reasons so many of us lack focus, is that we spend our days worrying. Millions worry about money, work problems and an uncertain future. The mind’s preoccupation with things unlikely to ever occur deprives it of the concentration and discipline required for success. Worry is the stomach’s worst poison and its cure lies in mindfulness – the ability to think on the matter at hand. When worrying is replaced by a creating & problem solving attitude – our lives are enriched, our careers take off, and we discover a purpose.

But let’s consider that worry is taken care of, what about workplace distraction? Because focus comes only when we’re in the right working environment – a place free of distraction. And that’s why for many of us, especially freelancers and contractors, the office is a laptop in a coffee shop one day, and on a smartphone at the beach, the next.

The key to successful completion of a project or developing a plan is a friendly, comfortable atmosphere which is conducive to relaxation of the mind.

Ok. Worrisome thoughts and a distractive ambiance, Eliminated. Are we good? Are we content? No? Then what will it take to achieve contentment. Although Nobel was financially rich, not just from inventing dynamite but also through investing in oil fields owned by his brothers – he believed that money was something to be ultimately given away. One of the world’s first great philanthropists – Nobel believed that leading a contented life was the highest form of wealth. That belief allowed him to focus, not on the pursuit of money, but rather, on his inventions.

Today, we chase the almighty dollar. The irony is that by doing so, we lose focus on the very work that could improve our income. Focus not on the money, but on excellence in your craft.

Alfred Nobel is long gone, but his ideology continues to put the focus on a better world.

While filing his U.S. Patent 78, 317 in the year 1868, he said: “Be it known that, I, Alfred Nobel, of the city of Hamburg, Germany, have invented a new and useful Composition of Matter, to wit, an Explosive Powder.” Nobel left a fortune to promote peace but once said, “I am skeptical as to its results.”

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Bitcoin to the rescue of India’s unbanked

According to the World Bank’s Global Finex Database released in April 2015, approximately 2 billion or 38 percent adults worldwide, remain excluded of the financial system today. Out of which 21 percent or two-thirds of South Asia are in India, with China and Indonesia standing at 12 and 6 percent respectively. Together they are home to 7 out of every 10 unbanked adults living in East Asia and Pacific regions.

The numbers are pretty staggering without a doubt, especially when it comes to the portion of the pie concerning India’s unbanked adults. But, there is a silver lining to the story.

Smartphone ownership has become widespread in the country. And it’s pretty evident from ‘Freedom 251’ which made its way earlier this year into the market with a 251/- rupees price tag making it affordable to almost the entire population.

Mobile subscriptions have been on the rise, and as per a report put forth by Ericsson, the growth was the most in last year with an estimated net addition of 21 million users in the last quarter. Also a separate report released by the company, known as India index of the Ericsson Mobility Report in June 2015, the country has experienced tremendous growth in wireless subscribers in recent years.

“The total number of mobile subscriptions in India is expected to increase to approximately 1.4 billion by 2020, resulting in a population penetration of 100 percent. This growth will primarily be driven by the increasing affordability of devices and services.” – the company says.  

On top of this cryptocurrencies have taken the financial and economic world by storm, since the inception of Bitcoin in 2008 and the currency’s underlying technology called the ‘blockchain’. All the more because of the ‘millionaire’ stories circulating around due to its roof-spiking dollar value couple of years ago.

India too has not stayed away from the ‘crypto frenzy’. Bitcoin wallet companies like Unocoin, Coinsecure, & Zebpay have given people the frontier to buy, exchange and sell Bitcoins with Zebpay, registering a ‘100 crores plus’ turnover in just 10 months of its operation, and Unocoin announcing its partnership with Mobikwik, the Indian mobile wallet heavyweight for providing Bitcoin payment support for its recharge transactions.

With Bitcoin gaining traction in India and the subsequent rise of mobile subscriptions, it’s the people devoid of banking facilities who are at the receiving end. Frankly speaking, many of them having a valid ID, passport or driving license are not even be interested in opening a bank account. Majorly due to the reasons concerning high interest rates, numerous confusing and mind boggling services and their associated charges.

For these people simply downloading a Bitcoin mobile wallet application on their smartphones instead of owning a traditional bank account can get them going financially. To add to this, Bitcoin ATMs or Bitcoin Transaction Machines (BTMs) have been gaining popularity among the unbanked in US and Europe . The service itself has seen steady growth in the two years since the industry’s first BTMs were installed.

The machines are nothing like the traditional ATMs instead more of a vending machine or bitcoin exchanges bound in steel and electronic mechanisms. There are approximately 600 of these BTMs in operation worldwide with new machines being deployed as soon as some of them go offline. According to Karel Kyovsky, CEO of Czech-based company called General Bytes, the third largest BTM distributor in the world, the industry has grown so large that operators in Europe employ armory cash pick up services.

For now, it’s highly unlikely for these BTM’s to see the daylight in India due to vast majority of the population’s dependency on ATMs for their ‘fiat needs’. But on the bright side, going with the rising smartphone user base & a company like Reliance Jio Infocomm with its offer of data plans at as low as $0.75 per GB, the financial future of the country’s unbanked population looks shiny and promising than ever.

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Money – Exchange Commodity or a Social Technology

Over the past hundred years, it has become pretty normal, and our second nature to associate ‘money’ with a ‘commodity’ of exchange which is accepted universally in payment for availing numerous goods and services. Nowadays apart from coins and promissory notes, its majorly seen in the form of numbers on our computer and smartphone screens, thanks to the revolutionary phenomenon called the ‘World Wide Web’.

Money and ‘currency’ are used interchangeably at blinking rate of an eye in our day-to-day lives to denote one and the same thing. It’s surprising, as to how we have come to believe their origin story based on theories by the likes of Aristotle, John Locke, Adam Smith, and so on. So much so, that these theories have become the only yardstick in our understanding of money. Emerged out of barter system to ease out our lives by standardizing a mode of transaction for purchase and sale of products.

Something doesn’t seem right. Because, the idea with which we have convinced ourselves of the advent and existence of the monetary system seems too good to be true! More of a misconstrued reality than the actual fact. Let’s find out a glitch if there’s any in the barter story.

According to Mr. Smith, in his chapter ‘Of the Origin and Use of Money’ from the ‘foundation’ text of modern economics An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations the above theory is based out of pure deductive logic. Just because it somehow ‘seemed possible’ that such a system might have been in existence, safe it was to assume that it would have been so unsatisfactory that someone would have tried to invent a way to improve it.

All the more, his agnosticism as to which commodity would actually be used as money is pretty much visible from his mentioned probabilities regarding the same: cattle, salt in Abyssinia, dried cod in Newfoundland, tobacco in Virginia so on and so forth.

Which is bluntly but accurately retorted by Alfred Mitchell Innes, author of two neglected masterworks on the nature of money:A moment’s reflection shows that a staple commodity could not be used as money, because ex hypothesi the medium of exchange is equally receivable by all members of the community. Thus if the fishers paid for their supplies in cod, the traders would equally have to pay for their cod in cod, an obvious absurdity.

Apart from this, by the 1980s, some of the leading anthropologists of money had ruled out the standalone existence of barter as a system of moneyless market exchange in any past or present economic scenario. ‘No example of a barter economy, pure and simple, has ever been described, let alone the emergence from  it of money; all available ethnography suggests that there has never been such a thing,’ concluded the Cambridge anthropologist Caroline Humphrey.

Thus, the above mentioned proofs stand in complete antithesis to Mr. Smith’s theory. But then, what is the reality? How would we know what money ‘actually’ means? In such a case, adventurer William Henry Furness’ travelogue from 1903 shall be our source of enlightenment.

According to the survey reports published by him from his two-month stay in the Pacific island of Yap in Micronesia, the inhabitants had a currency made of stone called the ‘fei’, which was circular in shape with diameters ranging from a foot to 12 feet with a hole in between through which a pole could be inserted to facilitate transportation. But the people didn’t bother much about ‘possession’ of the fei.

In case of a transaction where a settlement was required, the debts incurred were typically offset against each other with any outstanding balance carried forward with an expectation for future exchange. And the exchange didn’t always have  to result in exchange of the fei. Parties in a transaction were content with mere acknowledgement of its ownership rather than physically owning the stone currency.

So in contrast to our idea of money and currency the primitive Yapese, well not so primitive after all had a better understanding. To them it was a system of credit and debit accounts and their subsequent clearing. A ‘social technology’ advanced in ideology and currency just a ‘token’ of acknowledgement of clearance.

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Album of Masks

Once there was a puppeteer in town, Whose friends lived with him in his home, They used to watch him work in his workshop, One of them got curious once.

"My friend, what is it that you are working on?", he asked, "Something grand for an audience widespread", he said, Only I wont be pulling the strings on my own, You will be with me in setting up the stage.

Where puppets wearing masks, Will go about their daily tasks, In turning pages of an album, Life itself will come alive in stop motion, With each of them having a notion about anyone & everyone.

The mask is important you see, To look gleeful for others to agree, But even if the puppet is not happy, It can show up with a basket for collecting sympathy.

'Album of Masks', I would like to call the show, And my friends I assure you, With every passing day it will grow bigger, Which in turn will fill up pages of our ledger, Making us all the more happier and merrier.

"And, hey! I didn't tell you about the audience, did I?" "No! Tell us who will come to the show to descry?" Ha Haaa Haa Haaa... the puppets themselves, Who just passed the stage by!

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A Conversation

I take time out for my consultation, A usual meetup for a conversation, With the one who knows everything, About the show ongoing.

The show called life, Which is nothing less than a strife.

The stage of crisis He calls it, Where actors are shown the way to the pit, Towards their way out through the exit, If business doesn't see them fit.

Only the ones who choose to comply, Are taken into confidence & sworn by, To be taken higher than where Icarus could fly.

He was kicked out of the driver's seat, Long back He says, By self professed runners of the show, Who put this land to a ruthless mow, To do anything & everything, In becoming the leaders of today, And the Gods of tomorrow.

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The Staircase

It begins right after the eyes open up, To this stage called life, The beginning of a period of illusory strife, A huge flight of steps to climb, Lies ahead of the soul divine, Devoid of any other choice, Begins the ascent up the staircase, And thus begins the search for an external light, For the path to be shown ahead, Emanating from the ignorance of the lamp lit inside, Akin to the search of musk by the deer, Which has turned a blind eye to the way interior

From childhood to adulthood, There is no discontinuation in perpetual escalation, Not even for a moment of reflection, To question the nature of ascension, Whether or not there is a destination, Or is it just an exercise in futility, To escape the past ramification.

It seems the answer is clear, Clear as the sparkling water, Of an endlessly flowing river, Such a river flows between the spiral staircase, Whose water reflects memories from the past, And projects a mirage of the future, Eventually it flows into the reservoir of eternity, Drinking from which will bring a never before felt sanctity, Of the mind and of the soul, And a freedom from the act of ascension, Which has bounded life in the walls of paucity.

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Vicarious Disposition

In the mind, the center of thoughts, Where there are no plugs, no stops, Where reactions simulate ripples in a pond, Bringing forth a storm in a sea across borders, In those sealike depths, the soul wanders, Wading ceaselessly, Looking for a bank to camber on, Satiating its quest for another cognizance to ruminate on.

Like embodiment of water in a tumbler, To becoming the shoe of the wearer, The metamorphosis of thoughts, Never seems to take a step down on the ladder, The acceptance of being a shape shifter, Comes without a shudder, Seldom is it found in its normal form, Antithetic to the usual mundane norm, The impulsion to pass into outside cognition, Without any sanction, Has given it the character of a vicarious disposition.

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Perched Birds Stencil Design.

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Perched Birds Stencil Design. 

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Hand Drawn Graphic Stencils for Print and Border Design 1

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Hand Drawn Graphic Stencils for Print and Border Design 2

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Motif Patterns Graphic Stencil

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Hand Drawn Zodiac Graphic Stencil Templates

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Wolf Act

It is not always that a monster, Has a face which is hideous, A mind of devious intentions, Can exist in image of the Holiness.

The horns of the demon may stay hidden behind the halo of the saint, Might as well be putting up a sheep's creep, And the wolf's garb may never even be seen.

We were warned of prophets & vile healers, Swaying to the jingling tune in their pockets, The tune must go on & on, And as for the pockets, They ought to be deeper than ever, Taking lives for that matter, May seem all the more proper.

The hands blessing the believer, And the ones treating the diseased, Have done things enough to make the One, Feel ashamed of His Creation, This is not the world He imagined to be, His children have gone too far He thinks, In the quest to understand the things He does, He never had a problem with that, But the means taken, The road laden not with stones but with bones, The river of flowing water dried up, To make way for the one of rushing blood, Unable to take it anymore. Long ago He left the shore.

There is a Shepherd somewhere, Who knows the wolves all too well, Who can feel their presence, Among the herd, Can see them coming from a distance, He needs to find us in our darkness, In our hour of distress, So that this place called Earth isn't a bloody mess.

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Digital Plantation

(the idea is credited to a very good friend of mine Nikhil Lengade)

Dressed in white collar linen & a pair of trousers, With badges dangling down their necks, They stand lined up in broad daylight, Waiting for carts to haul them, To the farms of their masters, Like a dog without a bone & a bum without a home, They don't seem to have a choice of their own.

And so they are carried away, To serve without questions, just to obey, To reap emoluments for their lords paramount, And to aggrandize their already inflated pride, Their lords often become gods to their very own existence, "Indulge me and ye shall be happy and appeased," they say.

Slogging on digital plantations, With binary tools to rack up results on aluminium platters, Lashed on often with whip of words for not being quick enough, The ghosts of Africa get reminded of their times too tough, Accept it as thy way of life they propose, Ye shall see thy children approaching the same fate as they grow, Under thy nose.

Unless your earnest desire to be free, Breaking all rules of the decree, Is colossal enough for your lords to surmount, Bringing forth the moment of justice, When its time to put their sins to count.