Breakfast at McDonald's - Good Story with Moral

 This is a good story and is true, please read it all the way through until the end! (After the story, there are some very interesting facts!):
I am a mother of three (ages 14, 12, 3) and have recently completed my college degree. The last class I had to take was Sociology. The teacher was absolutely inspiring with the qualities that I wish every human being had been graced with.

Her last project of the term was called, 'Smile.' The class was asked to go out and smile at three people and document their reactions. I am a very friendly person and always smile at everyone and say hello anyway. So, I thought this would be a piece of cake, literally.

Soon after we were assigned the project, my husband, youngest son, and I went out to McDonald's one crisp March morning. It was just our way of sharing special playtime with our son. We were standing in line, waiting to be served, when all of a sudden everyone around us began to back away, and then even my husband did.  I did not move an inch... an overwhelming feeling of panic welled up inside of me as I turned to see why they had moved. As I turned around I smelled a horrible 'dirty body' smell, and there standing behind me were two poor homeless men.As I looked down at the short gentleman, close to me, he was 'smiling' His beautiful sky blue eyes were full of God's Light as he searched for acceptance.......

He said, 'Good day' as he counted the few coins he had been clutching.. The second man fumbled with his hands as he stood behind his friend. I realized the second man was mentally challenged and the blue-eyed gentleman was his salvation.I held my tears as I stood there with them. The young lady at the counter asked him what they wanted. He said, 'Coffee is all Miss' because that was all they could afford. (If they wanted to sit in the restaurant and warm up, they had to buy something. He just wanted to be warm). Then I really felt it the compulsion was so great I almost reached out and embraced the little man with the blue eyes. That is when I noticed all eyes in the restaurant were set on me, judging my every action.

 I smiled and asked the young lady behind the counter to give me two more breakfast meals on a separate tray. I then walked around the corner to the table that the men had chosen as a resting spot. I put the tray on the table and laid my hand on the blue-eyed gentleman's cold hand. He looked up at me, with tears in his eyes, and said, 'Thank you.' I leaned over, began to pat his hand and said, 'I did not do this for you. God is here working through me to give you hope.' I started to cry as I walked away to join my husband and son... When I sat down my husband smiled at me and said, 'That is why God gave you to me, Honey, to give me hope..' 

 
We held hands for a moment and at that time, we knew that only because of the Grace that we had been given were we able to give. We are not church goers, but we are believers. That day showed me the pure Light of God's sweet love. 

 
I returned to college, on the last evening of class, with this story in hand. I turned in 'my project' and the instructor read it. Then she looked up at me and said, 'Can I share this?' I slowly nodded as she got the attention of the class. She began to read and that is when I knew that we as human beings and being part of God share this need to heal people and to be healed. In my own way I had touched the people at McDonald's, my son,the instructor, and every soul that shared the classroom on the last night I spent as a college student.

I graduated with one of the biggest lessons I would ever learn:

UNCONDITIONAL ACCEPTANCE.
 Much love and compassion is sent to each and every person who may read this and learn how to          

LOVE PEOPLE AND USE THINGS -NOT LOVE THINGS AND USE PEOPLE.

There is an Angel sent to watch over you.
In order for her to work, you must pass this on to the people you want watched over.
An Angel wrote:
Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart
To handle yourself, use your head..To handle others, use your heart.
God Gives every bird it's food, but He does not throw it into its nest.

B. Nagaraj

Courtesy: My Friend 

Leader - The Power

Our future success will depend on how we respond to the new opportunities that the turbulent world presents. The playing field is wide open for WOW. The former ground rules are gone. And the leaders who are playing to win know it. We can now use their Smartphones to deposit checks using photos. Consumers can pay for products at Apple stores via "floating" checkout clerks. Ford drivers just "say the word" to activate a menu of sophisticated features on their in-car system. Today leadership is about impact. Imagination. Innovation. It's about a commitment to influence.

People want enriching experiences. They want their lives revolutionized through innovation and creativity. People want remarkable. They crave connection. Delivering to the people is no longer reserved for those in the corner office. The old exclusive world having only two clubs - giver and receiver of orders - has been rebooted. The reboot has created a new opening - Leading Without a Title. Success,keeping the game in your hands, is knowing how to Lead Where You Are Planted.

Five Actionable Insights to help you Lead Where You Are Planted:

1. Personal Philanthropy

Winning in life today depends on the value you contribute. Bureaucracy is no longer the decision maker on what you contribute, or when, or to whom you make that contribution. The size of your paycheck isn't the dictator either. Today it's your call. You have free license to be a philanthropist of your personal gifts. You can add value at any opportunity by applying your talents: your ingenuity, mastery, and imagination. The new world has given you the green light to give your greatness.

2. Don't Accept the Death Sentence

Many people will decide that leadership is not for them. They are more comfortable following than leading. That's just fine. But remember what others do is not necessarily for you. Those that resist greatness will try to hold you back. Don't let anyone tell you taking a leadership role is bigger than your position. Don't let anyone set the limits on your life. Get yourself around believers and other leaders: the commanders of cutting-edge and the non-conformists. Talk with the risk takers. Refuse to accept the death sentence of cynicism.

3. Get out of your League

You were not born for smallness. Your life did not come with a pre-set ceiling of success. Sometimes people fall into and stay in a certain league. Going beyond the wins of yesterday doesn't seem possible. Going beyond previous levels of achievements doesn't occur to them. Get out of your league. No one is keeping you there. Go beyond yourself. Your habits. Your standards. Challenge your limiting beliefs. Challenge your personal status quo. Find a way to do more today than you did yesterday.

4. Compose your Leadership MO

We cannot be all things to all people. We want our influence to be potent. To make a powerful impact we must first understand our influence and then act on it. Are you the symphony conductor or the musical genius on the piano? Are you the solutions guy or the innovative magician? Are you the song writer or the singer? Compose your leadership MO and act on it daily.

5. Refuse the Dead End System of Status Quo

I have yet to see mediocrity lead to magnificence. There is only so far you can go with the status quo. Yet so many people get seduced by this dead end system. Unknowingly they've subscribed to the belief I don't have a title therefore I cannot make a difference.

We've all got a choice to make. We can either continue to buy into the status quo or set it on fire. To Lead Where You are Planted you must get off that burning ship. Stand up for your opportunity for awesome - it's your birthright.

Leadership Quotes

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up." - Picasso

"The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were." - John F. Kennedy

"If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well."
- Martin Luther King Jr.

Powerful Leadership Tactics  

Tactic #1 Engineer Experiences

In a world where connectivity and technology have turned the foreign into the familiar and people can choose from an endless selection at every corner, leaders have to bring more to the table. One way to bring more is to be an engineer of experiences. Turn everyday occurrences into memorable moments. Take the ordinary and make it extraordinary. Use your resources to build out and build up situations. Add on extra at every angle. Move away from a generic approach and customize and personalize the everyday. Make it your mission to engineer adventures, moments, and memoirs.

Tactic #2 Fire Up your Innovator

"Innovation." It's the word on the street. Innovating, inventing and creating are the rising stars.

Successful leaders have fantastic analytical minds. It's one of their vital attributes. They must be able to problem solve. However, sometimes problem solving is a direct barrier to innovating. When innovation is called for, moving out of a problem solving mindset into an innovative mindset starts with how you proposition yourself. Rather than asking "what's the problem or what's the solution?" try asking yourself, "what do I want to create here?"

Tactic #3 Leaders Go First

If there is a deficiency in your personal or professional life the best way to have more is to initiate more. If you are disappointed by the lack of human connection, initiate more connection. If there is a lack of imagination, invite imagination by modeling it. If you want more understanding, be more understanding. If team camaraderie is falling short, initiate acts of good-fellowship. Leaders go first. They don't wait. They take the lead and initiate.

Tactic #4 Comic Relief. It's serious business

A study conducted at Canadian financial institutions reported that top performing organizations had managers who employed humor. Harvard Business Review featured an article called "Transforming A Conservative Company - One Laugh at a Time," by Katherine Hudson, the president and CEO of Brady Corporation. The article describes how Brady "has made fun an integral part of its corporate culture, not as an end in itself, but for serious business reasons." Scientific research shows that laughter increases productivity, those who laugh out loud are more creative at problem solving, and those who laugh are healthier and miss work less often.

Consider your work culture. Would you say serious business is balanced with light heartedness and fun? Is laughter a part of progress? What can you do to lighten and liven things up? Seriously.

Courtesy: Robin Sharma 

B. Nagaraj 

Email: nagrajajay@gmail.com

HAPPY UGADI - ಯುಗಾದಿಯಾ ಶುಬಾಶಯಗಳು

ಯುಗಾದಿಯಾ ಶುಬಾಶಯಗಳು

 ನಿಮಗೆಲ್ಲರಿಗೂ ಈ ಹೊಸ ವರ್ಷಧ ಶುಭಾಶಯಗಳು -  ಯುಗಾದಿಯು ನಿಮಗೆಲ್ಲರಿಗೂ ಸಂತೋಷ, ಸಂಬ್ರಮ, ಸುಖ, ಅರೋಗ್ಯ, ಸಂಪತ್ತು ಮತ್ತು ಆಯುಷ್ಯವನ್ನು ಅನುಗ್ರಹಿಸಲಿ

ನಿಮ್ಮೆಲ್ಲೆರ ಪ್ರೀತಿಯ
ನಾಗರಾಜ್ 

To My Favourite List ---

It has been very  long time since i haven't mentioned about favourite pass time, i.e Movies

I have seen many movies from Jan 2010, and added few into my top favourite lists

3 Idiots: Wonderful combination of Fun, Social Message and Entertainment. Total Comedy entertainer. Very good concept & storyline from Rajkumar Hirani

Good performance by Amir Khan, Madhavan, Sharman Joshi, & Kareen Kapoor

Two guys who will make u laugh and thrill with perfomance are - Boman Irani &  Omi Vaidya - Deserve Awards
Hats off to Rajkumar Hirani & Vidhu Vinod Chopra
First one to add in my list of Best Movies in the year 2010

My Name Is Khan: Absolutely wonderful with great Strory line, Narration, Directions and Performance.
Hats off to Sharukh for once again showing new face of his acting skill & Performance.He has taken entire movie on his shoulders and commanding over it.
Kajol - What else you need when you come back after break. Excellent performance.
Great pair looks awesome and very lively

It deserve Award too - for Story, Direction and  Performance
Hats off to Karan Johar for giving us such wonderful movie which also give him an new edge.
We look forward for more such great movies
SRK & Kajol -  one more film fare award
One more in my list


some movies  could have been better in many ways
Dulha Mil Gaya: Not a great story line
Teen Patti - Good story but could have been well directed
Click: Not a gripping one

Looking forward to Kites

Keep in touch

B. Nagaraj

Thinking - Ability to Revolve

Continuing with the ‘Rethink, Redesign, Rebuild’ theme, how can organizations RETHINK their strategy and plans post recession? In the past several months, most of the thinking inside board rooms and at the shop floor have revolved around how to overcome the constraints - to a larger or less degree – imposed upon them by the dark looming clouds of the economic crisis. Now that the proverbial silver lining is peeping out little by little and indeed warming our hearts and wallets/purses – our Finance Minister seems to agree in his recent Budget speech - it’s time to re-focus our thinking on new visions, new ideas, new possibilities that would deliver results and rejuvenate the workplace, albeit in the new growth paradigm that is emerging today. 

But then, Edward De Bono, philosopher, author and ‘thinker’, credited as the man who invented lateral thinking, announced recently that the way people have been thinking over the past 2400 years is wrong and offers exactly 23 reasons why he believes world thinking is so poor. Why else do we see so much human conflicts and disruptions to nature? So, it bears out that recession is not the only influencer of our thinking lately…our conditioning goes much far beyond in time than we’d have imagined.

Over centuries, the human mind has been trained to think logically, in terms of what is right and wrong. Therefore the brain is excellent at forming patterns and establishing paths. But, how often does it move across these set paths? That’s where lateral thinking comes in…our ability to think ‘solution’, ‘value’, ‘new possibilities’.  Lateral thinking, when complemented with conventional thinking, can provide the much-needed fillip to organizations that seek to rethink their strategy and plan to emerge victorious post recession.

Keep Blogging
Enjoy Maadi
Nagaraj B