Why do we struggle very hard some times? How can we get past the tough times?

I am immanent in every being. People forget Me, even though I am within and without them. I am the inner core of every being, but they are not aware of this. So, they are tempted to believe the outside world to be real and true, and pursue objective pleasures, and fall into grief and pain. On the other hand, if they concentrate all attention on Me alone, believing that the Lord has willed everything and everyone, I bless them and reveal to them the truth that they are I and I am they. Thousands have been blessed thus.

It is Time to Stop Managing Down and Start Coaching Up!

    Manager: a person who has control or direction of a business, or of a part, division, or phase of it.

    Coach: a person who gives instruction or advice to elevate the performance of an individual or student.

    Businessmen and women are looking for leaders who demonstrate an enthusiastic and genuine belief in others and who strengthen their will to succeed. Look at the two definitions above and think about which of those people is going to get the results needed in business today. Coaching is all about focusing on the talent of the person, and not so much about the production of the job description given when hired. Yes, businesses hire a manager to control the output of sales in order to control the outcome or production of business. However, if the focus is on enhancing the talents of hired staff, I believe the outcome will be greatly improved. Coaches focus on supplying the means to achieve, not on the fear of employees losing their jobs. It is the title of "coach" that helps to express optimism for the future with a firm walk in life.

    A coach must keep hope alive from within the person. They must always strengthen their players' belief that life's struggles will produce a more promising future. This evolves into an intimate and supportive relationship, a relationship based not on pure authority, but on mutual participation that results in an inner renewal. The coach sees the good in you, and it is his or her job to bring the good out and place you in a position where your talent matches the task so success is almost a given. It is when you put people in positions of your needs that you are thinking like a manager, not a coach. Your job isn't to put people in a position of your need; it is to put them in a position where they will succeed.

    All great coaches find ways to change up the game plan in order to get tried and true results. Different competitions, changing up strategies, having employee input ideas from the field - all these things help to get your team engaged in the company's goals and have some friendly competition to bolster energy for production. A manager without a coaching strategy might simply post the goals of the company for the quarter and give no input as to how to achieve those goals. This kind of manager is relying on the talents of the sales staff, but not enhancing or improving upon past performance. Yes, the coaching up manager is going to have to be creative.

    Business owners should be looking for that quality in a coach for their team. Coaches, study your competition. There are strategies out there that are proven in the marketplace and should be followed, just like the skills to make a three point jumper shot at the buzzer. Perfect practice makes perfect. Follow your team on the road to help them to continue following proven principles your company has set. But by all means, have some fun with some friendly competition.

    During these uncertain and changing times, those who take the title of Coach lead with a positive, confident, can-do approach to life and business, something that is so needed with the people I see each week. The feedback I receive from investing hundreds of hours each year with people is that they want a leader with a coaching focus, not a managing agenda. These people want to believe that we all are part of a journey, and this is not just a job or a task.

    hey seem to gravitate toward people with a can-do attitude, not those who always seem to have a reason why something can't be done. It is when the pressure is on that the title Coach becomes so important. A manager thinks one way and a coach thinks another. A coach says, "I asked you to be on this team because I believe in who you are as a person, not just as a player." The good coach sees what is good on the inside and brings it out. A manager sees what is on the outside and pushes it in.

Contractor, Chaudhuri in race for SBI MD's post

State Bank of India (SBI) Deputy Managing Directors Hemant Contractor and Pratip Chaudhuri have been identified as possible candidates for promotion as the managing director of the country's largest bank. At present, the proposal was pending with the department of personnel and training, sources familiar with the appointment process said.

One of them is likely to be appointed as a replacement for S K Bhattacharya, who superannuated last month. While R Sridharan, the second managing director, is due to retire next year, the government can also expand the number of managing directors to four.

"A few candidates have been interviewed (for the managing director's post). Some of the candidates have been shortlisted," Chairman O P Bhatt said on the sidelines of a press meet today, adding the decision would be announced shortly.

Four Deputy Managing Directors - Hemant Contractor (head of corporate and wholesale banking), K Krishnakumar (head of information technology), Diwakar Gupta (incharge of rural and national banking) and P Chaudhuri (who looks after the international banking business) - are eligible for the managing director's post. To be eligible for the post, a candidate must have two years of residual service left. SBI can have seven deputy managing directors.

Parliament recently approved two more managing directors for the bank. However, the process of appointing additional managing directors was yet to start, Bhatt said. The four DMDs who are eligible for the managing directors' post also become the contender to head the country largest bank when Bhatt retires in March 2011.

E-payments can help govt save One Lac crore a year: McKinsey Inbox X

E-payments can help govt save One Lac crore a year: McKinsey

New Delhi, November 1: An estimated annual savings of around Rs.1,00,000 crore makes a compelling case for the government to make a one-time investment of Rs.60,000-70,000 crore to build an electronic payment platform for all its transactions with individual households, says consulting firm McKinsey.

Such a platform could help the government save Rs.71,000 crore a year, while benefiting individual beneficiaries to the tune of Rs.26,200 crore. Many of the beneficiaries would be from financially excluded households as most of the transactions between the government and households relate to welfare schemes, the consultancy said in a report Inclusive growth and financial security: The benefits of e-payments to Indian society released on Monday.

The cost of building the e-platform is prohibitive, but benefits far outweigh the costs, as it would enhancing the efficiencies of the payment system by reducing leakages, increased the efficiency of delivery of services and lower administration costs. Leakages account for about 75-80% of the losses that the government suffers due to the manual payment system, while share of transaction cost is estimated at 15-20% of the losses, says the report.

A National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme worker loses as much as Rs.6-7 in wages and travel costs to redeem the Rs.100 she earned for a day's work. The saving of Rs.1,00,000 crore is equivalent to about 10% of the total payment flow between the government and households, considering that in 2008-09, such payments in form of direct cash transactions, subsidies and public services such as education and healthcare amounted to Rs.13,30,000 crore. Savings would be maximum on welfare schemes such as targeted public distribution system and national rural employment guarantee programme where the government could save as much as Rs.82,700 crore, as payment inefficiencies are 30% or more. The savings of Rs.1,00,000 crore is equal to 20% of the fiscal deficit or 25% of the government's welfare spending. The amount is enough to meet the entire expenditure on Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the universal primary education programme, or double the outlay for fertiliser subsidy.

However, the most significant gain from an e-payment platform in a country of 80-100 million poor households would be in the form of financial inclusion.

"An e-payment platform would enable the formal financial sector to more easily and efficiently reach disadvantaged Indian households and offer modern financial products," the report says. But getting to a point where the government can make this saving requires all its departments and agencies to be fully networked to ensure that all information transfer is electronic. It would require installation of accessible and convenient transaction points, with one in every village.

The government would also need to ensure reliability of payment by making the system tamper-proof. This would require installation of identity authentication infrastructure, especially at payment points that serve the poor, illiterate and rural sections of India.

That apart, the e-payment investment can be made viable only if the financial service providers and intermediaries align themselves as stakeholders in the set-up. The government would also need to ensure that the infrastructure created is put to use. This would entail transfer of all salaries is done electronically, and use of cash and cheques is eliminated. Similarly, all payments to vendors and contractors would have to be made electronically.

Your Ideal Self and Life

Your self-concept is made up of three parts, each of which affects each of the others. Understanding these three parts enables you to put your hands on the keyboard of your own mental computer. When you learn to take charge of the development of a new and positive self-concept of selling, you can then control your sales destiny for the rest of your career.

Determine Your Direction

The first part of the self-concept is the "self-ideal." Your self-ideal largely determines the direction in which you are going with your life. It guides the growth and evolution of your character and personality. Your self-ideal is a combination of all of the qualities and attributes of other people that you most admire. Your self-ideal is a description of the person you would very much like to be if you could embody the qualities that you most aspire to.

Strive Toward Excellence

Throughout your life, you have seen and read about the qualities of courage, confidence, compassion, love, fortitude, perseverance, patience, forgiveness and integrity. Over time, these qualities have instilled in you an ideal to which you aspire. You might not always live up to the very best that you know, but you are constantly striving to be a better person in light of those qualities that you value so highly. In fact, everything that you do on a day-to-day basis is affected by your comparing your activities with these ideal qualities and your striving to behave consistently with them.

Clarity is Essential

Successful salespeople have very clear ideals for themselves and their careers. Unsuccessful salespeople have fuzzy ideals. Successful salespeople are very clear about being excellent in every part of their work and their personal lives. Unsuccessful salespeople don't give the subject very much thought. One of the primary characteristics of successful men and women in every walk of life is that they have very clearly defined ideals and they are very aware of whether or not their current behaviours are consistent with their idealized behaviours.

Set Challenging Goals

Part of your ideals are your goals. As you set higher and more challenging goals, your self-ideal improves and crystallizes. When you set goals for the kind of person you want to be and the kind of life you want to live, your self-ideal rises and becomes a greater guiding and motivating force in your life.

Your Future is Unlimited

Perhaps the most important thing for you to realize is that whatever anyone else has done or become, you can do or become as well. Improvements in your self-ideal begin in your imagination, and in your imagination, there are no limits except the ones that you accept.

What is your ideal vision of the very best person you could possibly become? How would you behave each day if you were already that person? Asking yourself these questions and then living your life consistent with the answers is the first step to creating yourself in your ideal image.

Action Exercises

Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, dream big dreams. Set big, exciting, challenging goals and ideals for yourself in every part of your life. Allow yourself to imagine a wonderful life ahead.

Second, think about how you would act if you were an outstanding person in every way. Then, practice being this person, as though you were acting a role in a play. You'll immediately notice a difference in your behaviour.

SOCH VICHAR*: Super-rich investors buy gold by tonne

SOCH VICHAR*: Super-rich investors buy gold by tonne: "The world's wealthiest people have responded to economic worries by buying gold by the bar -- and sometimes by the tonne -- and by moving as..."

What will be the state of the mind of a pure soul, in times of joy and sorrow?

The rain falling on the mountain range slides down the sides into many valleys and flows as turbid streams. The same rain falling on fresh water lakes or limpid rivers remains pure and clear. The sages who are cognizant of their Atmic reality are transformed into the purity, equanimity, and charity that it represents. They are ever in the full awareness of the Atma, their inner core. In the purified consciousness of these persons, there is the experience of identification. Likes and dislikes, sense of “I” and “mine”, anxiety and calmness, elation when praised and depression when blamed - these cannot contaminate or agitate a person who has attained that state.  These opposites become balanced and are accepted with equanimity as waves on the Atmic consciousness. This is the authentic Atmic attitude, the Brahman inner-look, the unitary vision.