It is very difficult for most of us to have satisfaction with what we have. I am not saying that we should not have aspirations but then people are not ready to live up to their aspirations. Everybody is trying (consciously or unconsciously) to find answer to one question “What if I…”

If they have a 2 wheeler, they would think, “What if I had a car”.
If they have a car, they would think, “what if I had big house..”
If they are facing a traffic Jam, they would think, “What if I can find a shortcut or dodge a car in front by honking…”
If a colleague gets a promotion, we would think “What if I were the one getting a raise”
If girlfriend is caring, boyfriend would think “What if she were beautiful also”

and so on this goes with all of us, for some its materialistic things and for some its related to relations. No body wants to be satisfied with what they have. When we fail to see the value of what we have and keep on running after things which may or may not give us happiness even if we get it (like a mirag), we fail to live and enjoy the gift of life given to us by nature.

What troubles me most is that majority of people just think of “What if I…” but fail to think of “How can I…” (and yes you can safely ignore the possibility of toiling hard enough to achieve what they want).

Everybody wants a raise/promotion but most of us do not want to work harder, acquire skills/knowledge.
Every one things girlfriend/wife/kids/parents should love us and care for us but no body wants to reciprocate with same energy and passion.
Everybody wants to avoid traffic jam but not ready to plan and leave early, or follow traffic rules.

This happens with all of us and yet we are so oblivious of the situation that we keep on repeating the mistake again and again through out our life. It becomes a habit for most of us.

What is required is a sense of urgency in changing our attitude towards life. Either we stop asking “what If I..” questions and live a satisfied life or else gear up and ask “How can I…” and dare enough to start working towards the goal and stop only when we achieve it.

Anything and everything is possible we just need to ask right question.

And what all can I say I am just floored with the convenience and ease of writing blog with this powerful medium of this century i.e. Mobile!

Really mobile is THE BIG thing in current technolgy landscape. No wonder why all companies want to have a piece of this pie, be it travel, entertainment or advertisement industry.

Every body wants to be mobile in this jet set world and whats better then mobile, which is getting cheaper by day and call rates dropping making world a global village. Every one is connected to all and one 24×7.

If you want to be part of technological revolution and make your business reach masses and to every corner of this country, Mobile is the only way to do this.

After all India of 1 billion+ people is a land of opportunity and no one can ignore billion dollar market of mbile VAS.

While you dream of starting a mobile startup and making million if not billion, I will try my hand on some other cool apps on this powerfull machine ever made :-p

ciao
Lokesh

Looking back I can clearly see the ups and down, happiness, sadness, moments of joy, moments of hope and despair but I think its time to move on and learn from our mistakes and do something different in 2011. We need to decide what we want from life and then just keep on working until we achieve it. Ofcourse we need to stop sometime and reflect whether we are on right track or not.

This reminds me of a very interesting story about two Buddhist monks who were returning back to their monastery after a hard day of work. As they were passing by a river they saw a beautiful girl sitting in her elegant wedding dress with full make up.

On a closure look they found that the girl was weeping as she was getting late for her marriage and had to cross the river. But she was too afraid to cross it as it will spoil the dress and her makeup. Now in this particular Buddhist sect monks were  not allowed to touch the women. Despite this one of the monk offered to carry her on his back and helped her cross the river without spoiling her dress. Girl went happily, thanking the monk.

The other monk on seeing this got very angry and scolded him about the sin which he had just committed. He kept on cursing him through out the journey back to monastery. But the first monk was calm and did not say any word. He went to his room and slept for few hours.

After few hours, he was woken by the angry monk which started cursing him again. He asked him how could he touch a lady when he knows that its forbidden for them. Sleeping monk had a wonderful and peaceful sleep and he could not recall anything. He wondered as to what he was talking about.

On hearing this the second monk said, don’t you remember anything what happened at river? On hearing this he recalled everything and said “my brother I carried the lady for only 10 minutes across river, you carried her all the way back to monastery”.

Moral of the story sometimes we have to just let go off of our past and just focus on our present and plan our future.

“Learn the past, watch the present, and create the future.”

I wish you all a very happy new year 2011. I hope you all get what you aim for this year. I will try to be more regular on this blog this year. I will be happy to see some of your comments, so do drop anything you like

“For Life is a just employer,
He gives you what you ask,
But once you have set the wages,
Why, you must bear the task.

“I worked for a menial’s hire,
Only to learn, dismayed,
That any wage I had asked of Life,
Life would have willingly paid.”

-Jessie B. Rittenhouse

Aim for big goals in life and you will surely get if you are willing to work hard and take responsibility for it.

The other frogs kept telling them to stop, that they were as good as dead. Finally, one of the frogs took heed to what the other frogs were saying and simply gave up. He fell down and died. The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop the pain and suffering and just die. He jumped even harder and finally made it out.

When he got out, the other frogs asked him, “Why did you continue jumping? Didn’t you hear us?” The frog explained to them that he was hard of hearing, almost deaf. He thought they were encouraging him the entire time. This story teaches two lessons:

1. There is power of life and death in the tongue. An encouraging word to someone who is down can lift that person up and help him or her make it through the day.

2. A destructive word to someone who is down can be what it takes to kill him or her. Be careful of what you say. Speak life to those who cross your path.

It is sometimes hard to understand that an encouraging word can go such a long way. Anyone can speak words that tend to rob another of the spirit to continue in difficult times. Special is the individual who will take the time to encourage another. Be special to others.

Story taken from the book by Matt Morris

But the reality is far from the dream world of fame, money and luxury. Though some are lucky to get success at a very early age and able to create a killer startup and selling it for a couple of millions of dollars but the fact is most of the startups have to struggle a lot before achieving success which is often not appreciated (people are simply called lucky).

Founders who are the soul and life of a startups are the one behind the success of any startup and its they who have to struggle, slog and put their sweat and blood into the company which eventually takes the shape of success in terms of solution of a consumer problem, shareholder values and ofcourse hard cash.

I recently got the opportunity to read a book “Founders at work” by Jessica Livingston which is a collection of interviews with founders of famous technology companies about what happened in the very earliest days.These people are celebrities now. What was it like when they were just a couple friends with an idea? Founders like Steve Wozniak (Apple), Caterina Fake (Flickr), Mitch Kapor (Lotus), Max Levchin (PayPal), and Sabeer Bhatia (Hotmail) tell you in their own words about their surprising and often very funny discoveries as they learned how to build a company.

Where did they get the ideas that made them rich? How did they convince investors to back them? What went wrong, and how did they recover?

Basically the interviews uncover the hidden stories of their struggle, hard work, dreams and the difficulties which they endured while working for their startup.

The book has 32 interviews and almost all had a similar story with regard to how they started and ultimately tasted success. After reading the book I could see a pattern which most of them followed and any one who plans to start something of its own has to follow.

What I could feel is that almost all the founders had a deep desire to succeed and leave a mark of them in the history. They all wanted to do something different and do not follow rat race. They wanted to be independent and successfull.

For some the idea started by obeserving a very simple consumer problem which others failed to see while for others idea was a better solution than available at that point of time.

All of them started with little or no money and which was not a deterrent factor for them (contrart to popular beilef that money is essential to create a company), they started with whatever they had and slowly build up things at which point people were ready to invest in them.

Some of them had day job while working for their idea while others pursued full time. They all worked very hard with full devotion and passion with hope in their eyes and dreams in their hearts. Even during their tough times they kept their momentum and did whatever they could. Living in their office cum apartment, sleeping for 4 hours a day, surving on a shoe string budget were the rules of the game.

They all had one motto “Try and fail but do not fail to try” which shows that starting a startup is not an easy game and to enjoy the fruits of success one has to put in lot of hard work and energy. Remember the elevator to success is out of order, you have to move one step at a time.

Do read the book for some inspiration, ideas and to understand the way a company is started straight from the champions of the game.