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Nagesh Belludi

Inspirational Quotations #260

February 22, 2009 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

To be a star, you must shine your own light, follow your own path, and don’t worry about the darkness, for that is when the stars shine brightest.
—Unknown

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Thou shalt not separate thy being from being, and the rest, but merge the ocean in the deep, the drop within the ocean.
—Helena Blavatsky (Ukrainian-born American Theosophist)

Follow the three Rs:|Respect for self,|Respect for others and|Responsibility for all your actions.
—The 14th Dalai Lama (Tibetan Buddhist Religious Leader)

Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.
—Paul Boese

First you get on, then you get honest, then you get honors.
—Lew Wasserman

You should have the determination of a bumble-bee—aerodynamics says it cannot fly, but still it flies.
—A. P. J. Abdul Kalam (Indian Head of State, Scientist)

In any contest between power and patience, bet on patience.
—W. B. Prescott

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
—Thomas Jefferson (American Head of State)

A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party: there is no battle unless there be two.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (Roman Philosopher)

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotations #259

February 15, 2009 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

By cultivating the beautiful we scatter the seeds of heavenly flowers, as by doing good we cultivate those that belong to humanity.
—John Howard

There are two kinds of truth, small truth and great truth. You can recognize a small truth because its opposite is a falsehood. The opposite of a great truth is another truth.
—Niels Bohr (Danish Physicist)

Good, the more communicated, more abundant grows.
—John Milton (English Poet)

If we did the things we are capable of, we would astound ourselves.
—Thomas Edison (American Inventor)

It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.
—Albert Einstein (German-born Theoretical Physicist)

To some extent, while we think we are simply driving to work every morning to earn a living, the soul knows it is secretly engaged in a life-or-death struggle for its existence.
—David Whyte

There are trivial truths and the great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true.
—Niels Bohr (Danish Physicist)

Be a hero. Always say, “I have no fear.” Tell this to everyone—“Have no fear.”
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)

He restrains his friend from committing sins, and induces him to do good deeds. He conceals the unseemly secrets of a friend, projecting only his good qualities. He does not desert his friend in difficulties, but gives timely assistance. Saints describe these as the characteristics of a true friend.
—Subhashita Manjari

If our thoughts and hopes are elsewhere, it is impossible for us to set our faces steadily toward the work required of us.
—Anonymous

You can’t think of risks. I have nothing to lose. You either make something that you like, or you don’t, and you throw it to the universe.
—Mike Myers

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotations

Systems-Thinking as a Trait for Career Success

February 12, 2009 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

In this Fast Company article, Gary Flake, Director of Live Labs at Microsoft identifies Systems Thinking as an important trait for career success.

There are three traits that will serve anyone wanting any role at any company, not just ours: systems thinking, passion, and clear communication. Systems thinking is a way of looking at the world that allows you to see how many small pieces come together to make a more complex whole. System thinkers see the hidden interconnections that bind together the parts and know how to make the best use of ambiguity and uncertainty as a result.

Gary’s reflection reiterates the importance of understanding context and perspective in our jobs. A previous blog article and a podcast discussed this indispensable trait for success.

Systems Thinking for a Big Picture Approach

From an early age, we’re taught to break apart problems in order to make complex tasks and subjects easier to deal with. But this creates a bigger problem . . . we lose the ability to see the consequences of our actions, and we lose a sense of connection to a larger whole.
* Peter Senge

Traditional methods of problem analysis concentrate on dividing problems into smaller, more comprehensible components. The drawback of understanding isolated or unrelated elements, functions, and events is that the effects of changes to one element on other elements of the whole are rarely considered.

In contrast, the discipline of Systems Thinking emphasizes analyzing the whole in terms of interrelationships of its elements. Examining structures, relationships, and outcomes facilitates taking into account any secondary consequences of decisions and actions pertaining individual elements.

We work in increasingly connected organizations where an event that affects one part of an organization is likely to have a meaningful effect–in the short-term or the long-term–on another part of the organization. The discipline of Systems Thinking enables us to develop a broader, holistic perspective of problems and opportunities in businesses and make effective decisions.

Resources, References

Over the last couple of decades, System Thinking has evolved into a formal discipline and has incorporated several rigorous analysis techniques. Here are two excellent resources to help you gain more knowledge of these methods.

  • The ‘Thinking’ in Systems Thinking: Seven Essential Skills, Barry Richmond
  • The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, Peter Senge

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Howard Gardner’s Five Minds for the Future // Books in Brief
  2. This is Yoga for the Brain: Multidisciplinary Learning
  3. You Can’t Develop Solutions Unless You Realize You Got Problems: Problem Finding is an Undervalued Skill
  4. Finding Potential Problems & Risk Analysis: A Case Study on ‘The Three Faces of Eve’
  5. One of the Tests of Leadership is the Ability to Sniff out a Fire Quickly

Filed Under: Career Development, Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Creativity, Critical Thinking, Mental Models, Thinking Tools, Thought Process, Winning on the Job

Pretending to Know-it-All and Failing to Admit Ignorance

February 8, 2009 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Often, professionals suppose that being considered smart, intelligent, or “on top of things” implies presenting themselves with much self-confidence, and requiring knowing everything. Consequently, they tend to force themselves to pretend to “know it all” and hesitate to respond with an “I don’t know.” When superiors, peers, or employees ask tough questions, they habitually fail to admit their ignorance and force some misguided answer out of themselves.

Think about it: having to know all the answers can actually be quite stressful. It drives professionals to think incessantly about potential challenges, risks, and outcomes. The constant pressure to be “on guard” can steer them towards supposing the worst.

“I Don’t Know; Let me Find Out” is a Perfectly Acceptable Answer

Effective professionals recognize that perfection, flawlessness, and other superlatives are often masks. They acknowledge what they do not know and promise to follow up in proper time and get the right answers. Rather than losing their standing, they gain the trust of their people.

Acknowledging that they do not have answers to all questions, releases professionals of unwarranted worry. This opens the door for others to assist with relevant inputs and promotes good judgment.

There is a downside, however, to repeatedly admitting not knowing many things. A professional is expected to be knowledge about all the essential aspects of her job and explicate all the relevant data to drive her decisions. Where the organization depends on her to know the answers to certain questions, any hints to heedlessness, neglect, or oblivion can weigh down her standing within her organization.

Filed Under: Effective Communication, Sharpening Your Skills

Inspirational Quotations #258

February 1, 2009 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Our lives are measured not by gain but giving
—Unknown

Many run about after happiness like an absent-minded man hunting for his hat, while it is in his hand or on his head.
—James Sharp

It is in vain to expect our prayers to be heard, if we do not strive as well as pray.
—Aesop (Greek Fabulist)

Great minds have purposes; others have wishes.
—Washington Irving (American Author)

Character is higher than intellect… a great soul will be strong to live, as well as to think.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

A drop of water has the tastes of the water of the seven seas: there is no need to experience all the ways of worldly life. The reflections of the moon on one thousand rivers are from the same moon: the mind must be full of light.
—Hong Zicheng

Act so in the valley that you need not fear those who stand on the hill.
—Danish Proverb

When we talk about understanding, surely it takes place only when the mind listens completely, the mind being your heart, your nerves, your ears, when you give your whole attention to it.
—Jiddu Krishnamurti (Indian Philosopher)

No matter how good you are, there’s a lot of luck involved.
—Reggie Miller (American Sportsperson)

Sixty years ago I knew everything; now I know nothing; education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
—William C. Durant (American Entrepreneur)

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotations #257

January 30, 2009 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

True wisdom is less presuming than folly. The wise man doubteth often, and changeth his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubteth not; he knoweth all things but his own ignorance.
—Akhenaten (Egyptian Monarch)

Everyone who has ever taken a shower has had an idea.
It’s the person who gets out of the shower, dries off,
and does something about it that makes a difference.
—Nolan Bushnell

A clever man commits no minor blunders.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

While we are postponing, life speeds by.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (Roman Philosopher)

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
—Albert Einstein (German-born Theoretical Physicist)

Never be afraid to stand with the minority when the minority is right, for the minority which is right will one day be the majority.
—William Jennings Bryan (American Political leader)

A primary function of art and thought is to liberate the individual from the tyranny of his culture in the environmental sense and to permit him to stand beyond it in an autonomy of perception and judgment.
—Lionel Trilling

There is no medicine like hope, no incentives so great, and no tonics so powerful as the expectation of something better tomorrow.
—Orison Swett Marden (American New Thought Writer)

Every man’s work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or anything else, is always a portrait of himself, and the more he tries to conceal himself the more clearly will his character appear in spite of him.
—Samuel Butler

We shall find peace. We shall hear angels. We shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.
—Anton Chekhov (Russian Short Story Writer)

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotations #256

January 18, 2009 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

It is the character of a brave and resolute man not to be ruffled by adversity and not to desert his post.
—Cicero (Roman Philosopher)

In all thy undertakings, let a reasonable assurance animate thy endeavours; if thou despairest of success, thou shalt not succeed.
—Akhenaten (Egyptian Monarch)

Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That’s why it is so hard.
—David McCullough (American Historian)

It is by intuition that we discover, by logic that we prove.
—Henri Poincare

We are ever free if we would only believe it, only have faith enough. You are the soul, free and eternal, ever free, ever blessed. Have faith enough and you will be free in a minute.
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)

To dare, to will, to know, to keep silent, to imagine.
—Common Proverb

To dare, To Will, To Know, To keep silent, To imagine
—Common Proverb

History, although sometimes made up of the few acts of the great, is more often shaped by the many acts of the small.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

In contemplation, if a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.
—Anne Bradstreet (English Poet)

Once you eliminate the impossible,
whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.
—Arthur Conan Doyle (English Novelist)

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotations #255

January 11, 2009 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Many receive advice, only the wise profit from it.
—Publilius Syrus (Syrian-born Latin Writer)

Talent does what it can; genius does what it must.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (English Poet)

Most people have the will to win, few have the will to prepare to win.
—Bob Knight (American Sportsperson)

This is the sum of duty: do naught to others which if done to thee, would cause thee pain.
—The Mahabharata (Hindu Religious Text)

It is the pull of opposite poles that stretches souls. And only stretched souls make music.
—Eric Hoffer (American Philosopher)

Let the stronger man give to the man whose need is greater; let him gaze upon the lengthening path of life. For riches roll like the wheels of a chariot, turning from one to another.
—The Rigveda

Man tends to treat all his opinions as principles.
—Herbert Agar

A wise man should keep far away from an unpleasant person, from injuring others, from other’s views, from unrighteous conduct and from untruth.
—Subhashita Manjari

True strength lies in submission which permits one to dedicate his life, through devotion, to something beyond himself.
—Henry Miller (American Novelist)

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotations #254

January 4, 2009 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

It is almost impossible to throw dirt on someone without getting a little on yourself.
—Pauline Phillips (Abigail van Buren) (American Columnist)

Good people are good because they’ve come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know… One who doesn’t try cannot fail and become wise.
—William Saroyan (American Novelist)

We are not creatures of circumstance; we are creators of circumstance.
—Benjamin Disraeli (British Head of State)

A leader is a dealer in hope.
—Napoleon I (French Monarch)

When you say a situation or a person is hopeless, you’re slamming the door in the face of God.
—Charles L. Allen (American Methodist Minister)

Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.
—Jimi Hendrix (American Musician)

When you awaken some morning and hear that somebody or other has been discovered, you can put it down as a fact that he discovered himself years ago- since which time he has been working, toiling and striving to make himself worthy of general discovery.
—James Whitcomb Riley (American Children’s Books Writer)

Glory is fleeting,
but obscurity is forever.
—Napoleon I (French Monarch)

Reason and justice tell me there’s more love for humanity in electricity and steam than in chastity and vegetarianism.
—Anton Chekhov (Russian Short Story Writer)

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotations #253

December 28, 2008 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Hope is the thing with feathers|That perches in the soul|And sings the tune without the words|And never stops at all,||And sweetest in the gale is heard;|And sore must be the storm|That could abash the little bird|That kept so many warm.||I’ve heard it in the chillest land|And on the strangest sea,|Yet never, in extremity,|It asked a crumb of me.
—Emily Dickinson (American Poet)

What creates trust, in the end, is the leader’s manifest respect for the followers.
—Jim O’Toole

A coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave just one.
—Muriel Strode (American Author, Businesswoman)

To change one’s life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly. No exceptions.
—William James (American Philosopher)

The simple act of paying positive attention to people has a great deal to do with productivity.
—Tom Peters (American Management Consultant)

I fear three newspapers more than a hundred thousand bayonets.
—Napoleon I (French Monarch)

Wanting to reform the wicked with nectar-sweet advice, is like trying to control an elephant with the pith of a lotus-stem, or cutting a diamond with delicate petals of the Shireesh flower, or sweetening the salty ocean with a drop of honey.
—Subhashita Manjari

If you would only recognize that life is hard, things would be so much easier for you.
—Louis Brandeis (American Justice)

I am a lucky man. I have had a dream and it has come true, and that is not a thing that happens often to men.
—Edmund Hillary (New Zealander Explorer)

What we get is what we expect.
—Unknown

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotations

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About: Nagesh Belludi [hire] is a St. Petersburg, Florida-based freethinker, investor, and leadership coach. He specializes in helping executives and companies ensure that the overall quality of their decision-making benefits isn’t compromised by a lack of a big-picture understanding.

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Unless otherwise stated in the individual document, the works above are © Nagesh Belludi under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license. You may quote, copy and share them freely, as long as you link back to RightAttitudes.com, don't make money with them, and don't modify the content. Enjoy!