Know the “UN” Words to Lead and Succeed

A great articulation by one of my mentors - Thomas M. Nies, the founder and CEO of Cincom Systems, Inc. The longest actively serving CEO in the computer industry, that thought to share with all.

Successful entrepreneurial leaders create a compelling vision of where organizations should head. They continuously communicate how to proceed, and energetically guide and encourage the development of the organization’s capabilities to advance that vision in a relentless pursuit of success.

THE UN WORDS

Unshakeable will, undaunted determination and a relentless pursuit of desires and goals are key hallmarks of these endeavors.

It’s hard to foster the entrepreneurial spirit over time, many are born with the desire to create, to innovate, to differentiate and to lead.

But what does it take to be the entrepreneurial leader of tomorrow today?

Self-Confidence, Not Arrogance

I think that all truly great leaders are marked not only with an exceptional sense of self-confidence, which encourages and stimulates others, but also with a sense that penetrates deep into the subconscious of a leader and permeates all that a person is or does. I do not think it is possibly to overstate the power of such a type of conscious and subconscious self-confidence.

The entrepreneur’s self-confidence cannot be merely bravado or arrogance, but must be infectious and inspiring to their followers. This self-confidence makes it easier and more natural to bear the responsibilities of leadership and to make the tough decisions essential to leadership.

Focus on Differentiation

Being self-confident is only one piece of the puzzle – an entrepreneur’s idea or product must be viable as well. They can’t rely solely on innovation either, as differentiation is just as important.

Innovation focuses upon the provider’s offerings. Differentiation, on the other hand, focuses upon the value, satisfaction, utility or delight that the innovation uniquely provides to the customer. Innovation without the differentiation that entrepreneurial energy generates, seldom produces optimal appeal and value to customers, nor does it create the optimal advantage and preference for the seller necessary for success.

When these differentiations are significant, whole new categories of business opportunities can be, and are, created. It only takes one person to begin a category before it can boom as new opportunities are provided to others to improve and expand the possibilities spawned by the original entrepreneurial leadership.

Play Nice with Others

Burning bridges isn’t recommended in any business setting regardless of job title, but it is especially important for entrepreneurs to not do so. All entrepreneurial activity involves a number of human beings.

Engagement is crucial as like-minded individuals can help troubleshoot challenges and difficulties and stimulate positive constructive responses to help leaders expand themselves, their business and their ideas.

It is also important to understand that each person has strengths and weaknesses. Each person is as good as the best that they have done and bad as the worst. A successful entrepreneur will recognize that people are a mixture of an almost endless variety of contradictions. The best will develop a realistic view of humans and learn to take a person as they are rather than as they may wish or imagine them to be.

Follow Your Rules

While everyone would love the liberty and freedom to pursue our own heart’s delight, there must be public laws, rules and codes of conduct that restrain and regulate us lest we damage the freedoms and liberties of others. However, there are also personal regulations.

Honor. Integrity. Conscience. Ethics. Values. Morals.

Successful entrepreneurs understand that these personal regulations and codes of conduct are at the same time both regulators and energizers. Acting contrary to your personal beliefs will only cause delay as doubt or guilt sets in.

With these few thoughts, I’ve only tried to offer some ideas, which may help in your various leadership and entrepreneurial endeavors.

I hope these ideas will help, even if only in some small ways, to aid all of us to change our world for the better.

Decoding the + in Google

Google recently launched its new Facebook thing: Google Plus. And it's invite-only. Google Launches Google+ To Battle Facebook.

Plus One will initially only be accessible to 2% of Google's English-language users in the US, but it will be seen as a rival to Facebook's increasingly ubiquitous 'Like' tool which appears on hundreds of thousands of third-party sites. Even D-List Celebrities Are Too Good for Google Plus.

The search giant’s new social project will be omnipresent on its products, thanks to a complete redesign of the navigation bar. Google is also planning to extend the service to news publishers so that they can integrate Plus One on story pages. Google plus takes a different approach towards social sharing and this guy has better privacy control on the features provided.

Even the First Night With Google Plus: This is Very Cool. Though, While tech pundits are widely praising Google’s new Plus product, Nick O'Neill found the one feature that could take away from Facebook where it’s most dominant: Time on the site and this is something that The One Google Plus Feature Facebook Should Fear.

It was good to know that Google Plus has an Indian face behind it. Google realizes that it needs to use social, location and other signals to enhance its core search platform is welcome. “Google needs to understand these relationships and basically use those to make search better,” said Vic Gundotra, Google’s senior vice president for Social. Though Om Malik believes that Google+ won’t hurt Facebook, but Skype will hate it.

You can Check out 9 things you need to know about Google+ here then take a visual tour of the new social network here. You can even make an attempt to register though the LINK, but mind it that it users reached its limited within the first 48 hours or launch.

But then they say….its worth try…Register for it by clicking the LINK.

The 10 Financial Doctrines of Wise Retirement Planning

Let’s begin on planning finance for retirement:

It is usual for many of us to aspire for a financially secure and happy retired life. However being financially prepared to meet the demands of retired life by saving and investing requires considering and following the 10 doctrines of wise retirement planning.

A look at the 10 doctrines to wise retirement planning:

1) Provide for contingencies

Most of us tend to underestimate our retirement needs. Provision for medical emergencies with inadequacy of medical insurance in old age requires financial provision. Lack of government social security schemes and retirement benefits to self-employed and private sector employees creates requirement for more provision for contingencies after retirement.

2) Think that you will live long:

This is true with increased life expectancy. Now you will have more years of life after retirement. Thanks to medical advancements. So it is better to plan for the additional years and avoid living frugally in old age.

3) Plan that you will retire early:

It is wise to provide for contingencies arising that require you to retire early. You could suffer ill health, lose your job, or need to care for a sick or elderly member of the family. Women may have to opt voluntarily to look after the family needs. All this requires more savings for retirement needs.

4) Beat the inflation before it beats you:

Inflation affects the personal finance needs of the working class, but pay rises could help them resolve it to a certain extent. However the retired have to save more to reduce the impact of inflation. Investing in modes that give you extra returns could help greatly.

Investors come to me and say “I would like to accumulate 2 crores and retire”. But when we really work out the inflation adjusted retirement corpus, the 2 crores would not be sufficient for him to have comfortable retirement. 2 crores may feed you enough in the first year after your retirement. The returns from the same 2 crores will not be sufficient for you take care of all your needs on the 10th year after your retirement because of the skyrocketing inflation figures.

5) Provision for increased medical expenses after retirement:

Most of us underestimate medical expenses after retirement, with these expenses being inevitable in old age. Hence more provision for medical insurance helps. A consideration of your family’s general health, family history of certain genetic disorders, and the class of hospital you get treated would help in proper estimation for medical insurance.

6) Provide for your spouse and dependents who may outlive you:

It is inevitable that this need should not be overlooked. Your spouse and dependents need to live a secure financial life after your lifetime. Taking up insurance policies during your working life and well thought out retirement planning will take care of your dependents and spouse financially.

7) Realize you need to be vigilant about sources of retirement income:

Sometimes we may be ignorant of benefits on retirement like provident fund, gratuity and other benefits. In India the lack of social security schemes after retirement makes it necessary to invest more in good income generating sources for steady flow of retirement income. The advice of investment consultants, along with financial education and information contributes to good financial standing after retirement.

8) Educate yourself about retirement savings plan management:

When the majority is relying on the pension schemes in the form of ulips offered by various public and private insurance companies, as a smart investor you need to understand the hidden charges of these pension policies. These policies are all heavily front loaded.

So you need to evaluate various investment options available for retirement. You need to accumulate sufficient knowledge in this regard. In addition learning to keep track of them with professional help makes these saving plans work for you.

9) Plan for an income for life:

Your retirement plans need to be financial plans to make income last you a lifetime. Pensions or annuities providing best income need to be safeguarded, as withdrawing large sums from them could end you in financial insufficiency in the final years of your life.

10) Take professional investment advice that works:

Many do realize the importance of financial advice from professional financial advisors, but in practice seek it from family, friends and colleagues. A right financial advisor could give you good investment advice to have financially secured retirement ife.

A final note:

I am sure you want to emerge financially secure for your retired life and will follow these 10 financial tenets to wise retirement planning.

The author is Ramalingam K, an MBA (Finance) and Certified Financial Planner. He is the Founder and Director of Holistic Investment Planners (www.holisticinvestment.in) a firm that offers Financial Planning and Wealth Management. He can be reached at ramalingam@holisticinvestment.in.

Love and Have a Ice Cream

For some specific reason felt like revisiting this story. Hence doing so……

Waiting at the hospital, I saw a couple, both must be in their 80’s. Wife on stretcher, husband holding her hand and just talking. While talking, the wife was having a sudden burst of pain, but otherwise these two people just went on chatting. Curious as usual, I wondered what they are talking and how much they have to talk even after years of marriage, and also while in hospital with a condition like that. I went near to them and sat on the seat.

Well, it seems she was suffering from some disease which was not quite visible however her condition suggested that she was really ill. So with my curiosity, I started listening to them, wondering what is so important that it can’t wait. Is it that she (the wife) is fearing about the disease, is the husband trying to consol here wife…what it is.

Surprise, surprise….they were debating about the checklist of food items that the wife will be able to have with the medication and with the disease. Above all, in certain case or food items she was trying to convince her husband that it will be a ok to have certain “banned” (by the doctor) things sometime.

Well, they did not had anybody else with them. Both holding each other hands and watching in each others eye and talking about food checklist. Well sometime when people ask me what is love, its really hard for me to define. But today I can say that I saw a living definition of it.

The husband every now and then had tears in his eye and was trying to convince her wife that it is due to cold. But then wife tells him back that “main kithe nahin jandi” (I will not go anywhere) and then quickly coming back to the main topic “food checklist” with a question “Will you let me have an ice cream”?

I am sure my words will not be able to justify what I saw, a definition of love. I hope and wish that one day I may be able to give love a new definition.

I am sure this post is nothing near to marketing or technology, but this is near to my heart.

So Love and Have a Ice Cream! 

Are you up for these 3 Financial Challenges?

My friend Ramalingam K sharing some simple techniques to overcome the 3 very basic financial challenges.

Let’s begin learning:
The safest way to double your money is to fold it over once and put it in your pocket. ~ Kin Hubbard

Kin Hubbard is right in saying that if we do not spend money unnecessarily we would be able to save money and double it. However most of us like to spend and would find it difficult to not spend at all. We feel that it could stress us further.

Accepting the3 financial challenges could help you in controlling unnecessary spending. Once you control and avoid unnecessary spending you can save more and invest more. So you can achieve your financial goals easier and earlier.

Here are the challenges:
A Day Away from spending
The challenge of not spending for a day could be difficult, but could help save and render some important life lessons.  It is true as most of us have regular daily expenses on coffee, tea, lunch, and snack at regular intervals and fuel to travel to and from work.

Effective planning with implementation of this challenge involves ensuring that your fuel tank is full on the earlier day. Then setting the coffee vending machine the night before could ensure you refreshing brewed coffee to enjoy before you leave for work. Similarly, carrying homemade lunch and healthy snacks like salads, nuts, seed and snack bars could help you eat healthy and save money.

It is not as difficult as it appears. Once you start practicing it, it becomes part of your habit like fasting. It opens new ideas to you on saving on daily routine expenses.

A Week Away from Credit Cards
We all tend to spend a lot on small and big purchases with using the credit card. Credit card tends to make us spend excessively on unwanted purchases.
Buying things on cash would only make us spend on things that we absolutely consider necessary. It is found that sometimes postponing the purchase and preferring to pay cash could make us realize that the need was just momentary.

During the week away from credit card, you will be able to understand some of your spending pattern. You will come to know on what items you make impulsive buying and on what items you make need based buying.

As you are using cash to buy and not plastic money, you may want to negotiate the price. This develops your negotiation skills.
It is also true that buying unnecessary things with credit cards causes financial stress and spoiling of important life relationships. So avoiding credit card for a week could make you a need based buyer and better negotiator.

A Month Away from Eating Out
The last challenge of not dining out for a month could be difficult for many today. This is difficult but you would realize on implementation that it saves you a lot of money that is usually spent eating out in restaurants and cafeterias.

Avoiding eating in restaurants would not only create huge savings, but also would help you avoid excesses in foods. In addition eating out only on special occasions as a family would help you enjoy the food. It would make the family realize the value of spending money lavishly.

When we have a kid around one year old, we won’t offer any outside food.  We will pack the home made food or snacks for the kid. You can follow the same for the grownups.

Again this is not as difficult as you think. Think of having a homemade food as a family in a park or beach. This will bring a different experience and enjoyment to your family. This will give you new ideas on having more fun with lesser money.

A Final Note
All these challenges do not mean that you should not spend at all on dining out or on getting good things of life. It only means you should spend the right amount of money for the right reasons. This self-control would not only help you save more but also in preparing you psychologically for a consumerism

I am sure you would learn a lot with these spending challenges once you try them.

The author is Ramalingam K, an MBA (Finance) and Certified Financial Planner. He is the Founder and Director of Holistic Investment Planners (www.holisticinvestment.in) a firm that offers Financial Planning and Wealth Management. He can be reached at ramalingam@holisticinvestment.in.