Nothing Fails like Success

SHARED THOUGHTS………….19.05.2012.

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 As told by Robin Sharma.

Richard Carrion, the CEO of  Puerto Rico's top Bank, once shared a line with me that I'll never forget : " Robin, Nothing Fails like Success."

 Powerful Thought. You, as well as your organization, are most vulnerable when you are most successful. Success actually breeds complacency, inefficiency and - worst of all - arrogance.  When people and businesses get really successful, they often fall in love with themselves. They stop innovating, working hard, taking risks and begin to rest on their laurels. They go on the defensive, spending their energy protecting their success rather than staying true to the very things that got them to the top.

 Whenever I share this point with a roomful of CEOs, every single one of them nods in agreement. Please let me give you a real world example from my own life.

This past weekend, I took my kids to our favorite Italian restaurant. The food is incredible there. The best bresaola outside of Italy. Heavenly Pasta. Super foamy lattes that make me want to give up my job and become a barista. But the service at this place is bad. Bad, Bad, Bad ( like it is at most places ). why? Because this place is always full. And because they are doing so well, they

have taken the lines out front for granted. And guess what? It's the beginning of their end.

I love taking pictures. My dad taught me to record the journey of my life with photos. So I generally carry a little camcorder around with me. I asked our server if she would snap a picture of my children and me as we dug into our spaghetti.

"I don't have time " was the curt reply. Unbelievable. Too busy to take five seconds to keep a customer happy. Too busy to help out a little. Too busy to show some humanity.

 "Nothing fails like success "  Richard Carrion gets it. So does David Neelemen, the CEO of Jetblue, who observed : " When you're making money and good margins, you tend to get sloppy." 

Many CEOs don't.  The more successful you and your organization become, the more humble and devoted to your customers you need to be. The more committed to efficiency you need to be and relentless improvement you need to look for.

The Faster you need to play, the more value you need to add. Because the moment you stop doing the very things that got you to the top of the mountain, is the very moment you begin to slide down to the valley.

                                                                              

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if the above needs a down to earth illustration -

A Shepherd was herding his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand new BMW drives up in a cloud of dust. The driver, a young man in a Armani suit, Gucci shoes, Rayban sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out of the window and asks the shepherd " If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one ?"

The shepherd looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing flock and calmly answers : " sure, why not ?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular cell phone, surfs to a NASA page on the internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in a ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility at hamburg, germany. Within seconds he receives an email on his Palm pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses and MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected excel spreadsheet with hundreds of complex formulas.

He uploads all of this data via an email on his black berry and after a few minutes receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full- colour, 150 - page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP lasejet printer and finally turns to the shepherd and says : " You have exactly 1586 sheep ".

" That's right. Well , I guess you can take one of my sheep. " says the shepherd. He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then the shepherd says to the young man : " Hey, if I can tell you exactly

what your business is, will you give me back my sheep? "

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says : " Okay, why not ?"

" You're a Consultant. " says the shepherd.

" Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie,"but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required", replied the shepherd. " You showed up here even though nobody called you: you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked, and you don't know crap about my business. Now give me back my DOG "

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My little grand-daughter & nephew, forever love watching Chotta Bheem in the Pogo channel. By and by, I also got hooked on to watching the bunch of kids, always in the thick of adventure, fighting evil and coming out triumphant. There are some Life lessons from these cartoon characters, worth pondering over.

I received the below on one such character, like Chotta Bheem. He is another never-say-die cartoon character Spongebob

Life lessons from Spongebob square-pants and other cartoon heroes.

(author unknown)

Spongebob Square-pants is my hero. The kids and I were having breakfast  this morning when Bianca, my nine-year old daughter, brought up the subject of this crazy little cartoon character. "Daddy, is Spongebob a real person ?"

Made me laugh. Then it made me think. If Spongbob were a human being, this world would be a better place. Seriously.

Here are four lessons Spongebob can teach us to get more joy from life :

BE THE ETERNAL OPTIMIST :  The guy ( or sponge, i should say ) always sees the best in any situation. Your thinking really does shape your reality. And because Spongebob looks for the best, he finds it.

VALUE  PEOPLE :   Spongebob knows what friendship mean. He loves his pals in Bikini Bottom, even Squidword, "who is always cranky," to borrow my son's words. Spongebob knows that respect and putting people first are two of the most important elements for strong relationships.

BE AN ORIGINAL :  Spongebob is one of a kind. Too many among us are afraid to be ourselves.  So we give up our dreams to follow the crowd. Tragic.

"To thine own self be true," wrote Shakespeare.

Have the courage to be your true--- and greatest-----YOU.

Warren buffet, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, once said, " There can't be two yous."

LAUGH AND HAVE FUN :  There's  no point in being successful but sad. Makes no sense. Yes, reach for the mountaintop. But enjoy the climb as well. Life isn't meant to be an ordeal. It is meant to be a celebration. So have big-time fun as you chase ---- and catch your most cherished dreams.

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Have a good week ahead.

Mohandas KP.