Baat !

Mammi ! Happy Mother's Day !

Mom, I look at youand see a walking miracle.Your unfailing love without limit,your ability to soothe my every hurt,the way you are on duty, unselfishly,every hour, every day,makes me so gratefulthat I am yours, and you are mine.With open arms and open heart,with enduring patience and inner strength,you gave so much for me,sometimes at your expense.You are my teacher,my comforter, my encourager,appreciating all, forgiving all.Sometimes I took you for granted, Mom,but I don’t now, and I never will again.I know that everything I am todayrelates to you and your loving care.I gaze in wonderas I watch you being you—my miracle, my mother.


Mom, you're a wonderful mother,So gentle, yet so strong.The many ways you show you careAlways make me feel I belong.You're patient when I'm foolish;You give guidance when I ask;It seems you can do most anything;You're the master of every task.You're a dependable source of comfort;You're my cushion when I fall.You help in times of trouble;You support me whenever I call.


Mom, without you, there would be no me.Your love, your attention, your guidance,have made me who I am.Without you, I would be lost,wandering aimlessly,without direction or purpose.You showed me the wayto serve, to accomplish, to persevere.Without you, there would be an empty spaceI could never fill, no matter how I tried.Instead, because of you,I have joy, contentment, satisfaction and peace.Thank you, mom.I have always loved youand I always will.

Popularity

Resistance and progress!

Personality and Character

There is no use of having personality if you dont have Character !

Have Breakfast... or...Be Breakfast!

An interesting management article from Dr.YLR Moorthi.

Who sells the largest number of cameras in India ?
Your guess is likely to be Sony, Canon or Nikon. Answer is none of the
above. The winner is Nokia whose main line of business in India is not
cameras but cell phones.

Reason being cameras bundled with cellphones are outselling stand alone
cameras. Now, what prevents the cellphone from replacing the camera
outright? Nothing at all. One can only hope the Sony’s and Canons are
taking note.

Try this. Who is the biggest in music business in India ? You think it is
HMV Sa-Re-Ga-Ma? Sorry. The answer is Airtel. By selling caller tunes (that
play for 30 seconds) Airtel makes more than what music companies make by
selling music albums (that run for hours).

Incidentally Airtel is not in music business. It is the mobile service
provider with the largest subscriber base in India . That sort of
competitor is difficult to detect, even more difficult to beat (by the time
you have identified him he has already gone past you). But if you imagine
that Nokia and Bharti (Airtel's parent) are breathing easy you can't be
farther from truth.

Nokia confessed that they all but missed the Smartphone bus. They admit
that Apple's I phone and Google's Android can make life difficult in
future. But you never thought Google was a mobile company, did you? If
these illustrations mean anything, there is a bigger game unfolding. It is
not so much about mobile or music or camera or emails?

The "Mahabharata" (the great Indian epic battle) is about "what is
tomorrow's personal digital device"? Will it be a souped up mobile or a
palmtop with a telephone? All these are little wars that add up to that big
battle. Hiding behind all these wars is a gem of a question – "who is my
competitor?"

Once in a while, to intrigue my students I toss a question at them. It says
"What Apple did to Sony, Sony did to Kodak, explain?" The smart ones get
the answer almost immediately. Sony defined its market as audio (music from
the walkman). They never expected an IT company like Apple to encroach into
their audio domain. Come to think of it, is it really surprising? Apple as
a computer maker has both audio and video capabilities. So what made Sony
think he won't compete on pure audio? "Elementary Watson". So also Kodak
defined its business as film cameras, Sony defines its businesses as
"digital."

In digital camera the two markets perfectly meshed. Kodak was torn between
going digital and sacrificing money on camera film or staying with films
and getting left behind in digital technology. Left undecided it lost in
both. It had to. It did not ask the question "who is my competitor for
tomorrow?" The same was true for IBM whose mainframe revenue prevented it
from seeing the PC. The same was true of Bill Gates who declared "internet
is a fad!" and then turned around to bundle the browser with windows to
bury Netscape. The point is not who is today's competitor. Today's
competitor is obvious. Tomorrow's is not.

In 2008, who was the toughest competitor to British Airways in India ?
Singapore airlines? Better still, Indian airlines? Maybe, but there are
better answers. There are competitors that can hurt all these airlines and
others not mentioned. The answer is videoconferencing and telepresence
services of HP and Cisco. Travel dropped due to recession. Senior IT
executives in India and abroad were compelled by their head quarters to use
videoconferencing to shrink travel budget. So much so, that the mad
scramble for American visas from Indian techies was nowhere in sight in
2008. ( India has a quota of something like 65,000 visas to the U.S. They
were going a-begging. Blame it on recession!). So far so good. But to think
that the airlines will be back in business post recession is something I
would not bet on. In short term yes. In long term a resounding no.
Remember, if there is one place where Newton 's law of gravity is
applicable besides physics it is in electronic hardware. Between 1977 and
1991 the prices of the now dead VCR (parent of Blue-Ray disc player)
crashed to one-third of its original level in India . PC's price dropped
from hundreds of thousands of rupees to tens of thousands. If this trend
repeats then telepresence prices will also crash. Imagine the fate of
airlines then. As it is not many are making money. Then it will surely be
RIP!

India has two passions. Films and cricket. The two markets were distinctly
different. So were the icons. The cricket gods were Sachin and Sehwag. The
filmi gods were the Khans (Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and the other Khans
who followed suit). That was, when cricket was fundamentally test cricket
or at best 50 over cricket. Then came IPL and the two markets collapsed
into one. IPL brought cricket down to 20 overs. Suddenly an IPL match was
reduced to the length of a 3 hour movie. Cricket became film's competitor.
On the eve of IPL matches movie halls ran empty. Desperate multiplex owners
requisitioned the rights for screening IPL matches at movie halls to hang
on to the audience. If IPL were to become the mainstay of cricket, as it is
likely to be, films have to sequence their releases so as not clash with
IPL matches. As far as the audience is concerned both are what in India are
called 3 hour "tamasha" (entertainment). Cricket season might push films
out of the market.

Look at the products that vanished from India in the last 20 years. When
did you last see a black and white movie? When did you last use a fountain
pen? When did you last type on a typewriter? The answer for all the above
is "I don't remember!" For some time there was a mild substitute for the
typewriter called electronic typewriter that had limited memory. Then came
the computer and mowed them all. Today most technologically challenged guys
like me use the computer as an upgraded typewriter. Typewriters per se are
nowhere to be seen.

One last illustration. 20 years back what were Indians using to wake them
up in the morning? The answer is "alarm clock." The alarm clock was a
monster made of mechanical springs. It had to be physically keyed every day
to keep it running. It made so much noise by way of alarm, that it woke you
up and the rest of the colony. Then came quartz clocks which were sleeker.
They were much more gentle though still quaintly called "alarms." What do
we use today for waking up in the morning? Cellphone! An entire industry of
clocks disappeared without warning thanks to cell phones. Big watch
companies like Titan were the losers. You never know in which bush your
competitor is hiding!

On a lighter vein, who are the competitors for authors? Joke spewing
machines? (Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, himself a Pole, tagged a
Polish joke telling machine to a telephone much to the mirth of Silicon
Valley ). Or will the competition be story telling robots? Future is scary!
The boss of an IT company once said something interesting about the animal
called competition. He said "Have breakfast …or…. be breakfast"! That sums
it up rather neatly.

—Dr. Y. L. R. Moorthi is a professor at the Indian Institute of Management,Bangalore 

He is an M.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

and
A post graduate in management from IIM, Bangalore .

Special Customer !

Recently, I got a letter from ICWE ! Have a look at it!

" Dear ,

You have been selected as a special customer of our corporation ! You have been extremely faithful to us and you have helped us reach our desired targets.

An average person can waste only 50 units of electricty!But, Guess what? You have wasted exactly double,that is, 100 units ! As a result, we give you this bumper offer ,

'You will get an extra hour of load shedding for a month in summer absolutely FREE!!! Enjoy! '

Hope you waste even more electricity and get even more offers!

Thanking you!

 I.C.W.E.

(International Corporation for Wastage of Electricity)            

Its your life, not theirs !!!

Have you ever met anyone in your life who thinks, acts, behaves exactly as you do, who is having the same conditions as you have, who is exact replica of you?

You haven't...Am I right? Then why do you try to be like others? Why do you compare yourself with others? Why do you try to keep up with anyone?
See, the logic is simple ! Your DNA is different, you are different...and so is your destiny !!! Value that difference. Be what you are and do what you love. If someone else does something else, let him/her do it. You don’t need to do it only because someone else does it !
You are the only person who is and who will be responsible for your life! No one else! Its you who will be living your life ,not others! So, take your own decisions .Do only what you feel is right, what you feel is good and what will make you happy. Don’t simply follow anyone !
By this I don’t mean , not to listen to anyone or to stop following laws ! You must listen to others. But you should do only what you feel is correct according to you; not what is correct according to them !!!There are certain laws which are compulsory , for which we have no option .In such cases, we have to follow them ; But in most of the cases, we have a choice and in that cases remember to choose only what you feel is correct!!!
In the words of Steve Jobs ,

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.
Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice.
Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary!!!

The greatest fear!!!

The fear of rejection may have haunted each one of us at one time or
another, It may be caused by our fear of being and living alone, too
much dependence on other people's perception of us, lack of confidence
and inability to control our own life.
Fear of rejection is a state of mind that makes a person feel inadequate,
helpless and worthless. It inhibits a person from doing or saying things
because of the fear that other people might not accept him or
disapprove of his actions and words.
A person who is so concerned about what others may think of him could
make his own life miserable because he can no longer speak his own
mind nor do things that he would normally do on his own. The fear of
rejection can paralyze a person and discourage him from being
productive.
A person's uniqueness disappears the moment he puts primary
emphasis on what others want him to be. A person too caught up with
pleasing others will start to emulate other people from the way they
dress and the way they behave in society.
This usually happens to young people who crave attention and
acceptance but do not yet have enough basis for self acceptance. This
is detrimental to a person's growth because there is no more room for
self expression, only of self denial and the thought of pleasing others.
A person who fears being rejected can be characterized as:
1. A person who acts without confidence - A person who is not sure of
himself will tend to imitate others and keep himself from trying new
things. Such lack of confidence will ultimately make such person
unhappy and bitter.
2. Keeps opinion to himself - A person who is not vocal about his
perception of things may be having trouble with rejection. He may keep
from voicing out his opinion for fear of being criticized.
3. Usually depressed - A person who does not have the freedom to
speak for himself and to express his wants will soon become depressed
and will no longer have a love for life. He will tend to act like a remotecontrol
robot that can not make his own decisions.
4. Confused about his true identity- A person who has fears of being
rejected will end up confused about who he really is. This will lead to an
identity crisis and will make him angry at himself and at other people for
no reason at all.
5. Lack of self esteem and self worth-A person who gives more
importance to what others may think of him does not have much faith in
himself to start with. This lack of self esteem may have resulted from
feelings of rejection instilled in him by his family or friends.
A person who fears rejection will ultimately be rejected by the people he
wants to please and who love him dearly. A person who has the
tendency to please other people will soon get sucked into a difficult
cycle of rejection. His behavior will keep the people he cares about
alienated from him. He sees this as a rejection and then the cycle goes
on and on!!!

Good or bad?

The discussion started when my friend Hrushikesh was talking about how to make the best use of available resources. In between the conversation, he gave an example about a businessman. The discussion soon turned into a debate. The topic being ‘Good or Bad ’. And, guess what? It’s not over yet! So,why don’t you yourself participate ?Ok. So, here is the background ---
There is a businessman .He owns a wine /liquor shop. His business is well settled which he has got from his family .Whatever money he earns by selling wine, he gives a large amount of it to charity. He runs schools through that money and in that schools ,he teaches children not to drink wine. He inculcates good habits, morals,‘sanskars’ in them.
Now this businessman who sells wine on one hand, who is responsible for ruining hundreds of lives ,opens schools teaching the children not to get involved in bad activities..not to drink wine....Do you think his act is justified?
From one point of view , he is good. He is making the best use of his available resources. The businessman says that if he won’t sell liquor, someone else will sell it .People won’t stop buying wine .He says that he is not ruining anyone’s life, the people are themselves responsible for ruining their lives. He atleast gives a majority of earned money into charity. That’s why he is good...His act is fully justified.
From second point of view, he wants to fool people by showing that he is doing good. He is creating just an illusion in which a normal person can get easily trapped. His act is not at all justified .If he really wants to do good ,he should first of all close his shop. He should shift his business to some other business.
Now what do YOU think about this?

How did Dale carnegie die?

Once I was discussing about books with my friend Pratik and during the talk I suggested him to read books by Dale Carnegie. He replied quickly, “What!!!Books by Dale Carnegie? Never . There is no use in reading those books. How can Dale Carnegie teach people to stop worrying when he himself committed suicide!” I didn’t pay much attention to what Pratik told and carried on reading the book.
The next day when another friend of mine ,Gaurang visited my room and saw the book , even he suggested me that I should not read the book because Dale Carnegie had himself committed suicide!
Finally,
‘How did dale Carnegie die?’
This is what I searched at google! And as usual I found some interesting links where there were long debates on how Dale Carnegie died ? Half of the people had the opinion that ‘The official biography from Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc. states that he died of Hodgkin's disease on November 1, 1955 . So, it’s a rumor that he committed suicide.’ On the other hand half of them had the opinion that ‘Since the biography is from ‘Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc.’ ,they don’t believe it and still think that he committed suicide.’
How he died is still a mystery .But more than it, what mystifies me is ‘What are people going to gain by knowing how he died ?Why should I or anybody stop reading his books even if he would have committed suicide ?’
Millions of people have been benefited by reading his book, including me! It hardly affects me whether he died because of disease or he committed suicide. The logic is simple. If you find the book useful, read it ! If you don’t find it useful ,don’t !!!
Different people will have different opinions .Many people like Mahatma Gandhi and there are still many people who don’t !!! So, why to form opinion about anyone on the basis of what others think about him /her?
No one is perfect. In every person, there are qualities which you will like and also the qualities which you won’t !So, if you think you can learn something good from that person ,learn it .Why to worry about anything else?
-Nikhil Daga

Bad times are in fact good !!!

Last week I visited soap factory of Hindustan Unilever Limited. Everything there was being done by machines , the workers there were simply looking .I asked the manager over there ,”If everything is being done with the help of machines ,why do you need skilled employees? They are just sitting over there doing nothing!” He replied, “No.no...we do need their skill when the machine has some problem. A skilled worker only can solve the problems within time! ”
Then suddenly I thought ,“ It’s so true ! We don’t realise the necessity of something when everything is working fine,when there isn’t any problem.... Its only at the time of adversity ,that we understand its necessity.
To be continued...

Workplace Motivation !!!

Hi!
I recently heard a story about a certain manager who argued that his
role had nothing to do with motivating people. Workplace motivation,
he said, was the job of the Human Resources department!

I know you won't be surprised to hear that I disagree. What's more,
workplace motivation is one of the significant issues raised by many
good managers, business owners and team leaders today.

Leading a motivated team is not only more productive, you will find
it much more enjoyable and rewarding too. Poorly motivated employees
rarely function well as a team, and typically generate more stress
for you than they do results. So good leaders consider the impact of
their actions on workplace motivation carefully. No one wants a
demotivated workplace producing barely adequate outcomes and a
stressful situation.

Here are three simple yet effective ways you can boost workplace
motivation and morale:

1. Offer a Reward

Rewards are motivating. And although money is one type of reward, it
is far from the only reward you can use. Frequently it's not even the
best reward to offer. Exactly what rewards are most appropriate will
vary from person to person and according your particular situation,
but here are some ideas to consider.

For many people coaching them to develop new and better skills is a
powerful and motivating reward. Encouragement, recognition, more
trust or a promotion or new work title may be motivating to some of
your people. Likewise, for some more overtime, less travel, a special
project or development opportunity or flexible work hours may help
boost workplace motivation.

Once you start to think about it, and get to know your people well
enough to know what they would appreciate, you will be able to think
of a whole range of motivating rewards that are appropriate in your
situation.

2. Listen to People

Everyone likes to feel that their input and opinion is valued,
respected and considered. It takes only a moment - and an open
attitude - to welcome input from each individual on your team.

Ask for their views and input. Be genuinely willing to listen to
people and you will see an amazing response from previously
demotivated staff.

3. Lighten up a Little

Motivated employees enjoy their work. Numerous studies have shown
that people work harder, not less, when the workplace is a fun, happy
and enjoyable place.

As leader, you get to set the tone for a happy workplace. Take a
moment to smile at people and ask after their family, hobbies or
interests. Encourage some team social activities. Take the team out
for coffee or bring in a cake to celebrate an achievement. We spend
many hours each day in the workplace. Part of your role as the leader
is to ensure your team are motivated to actually be there and
contribute fully to reaching your team goals.

Believe me, everything will be easier for you as the leader if people
enjoy actually being there, rather than dread coming to work each
day.

Good leaders accept responsibility for workplace motivation and do
what they can to foster it. When you apply these three simple
concepts in your workplace you will quickly build a motivated,
committed and successful workforce - and a pleasant place to work!
Nikhil

Build up your strengths!!!

Hello ,
Did you know that Babe Ruth, a famous baseball player, was
once a pitcher? At one point he made the deliberate decision
to stop pitching so he could focus on batting. He took a lot
of heat for his decision because he was a GOOD pitcher. He
stuck with his decision though because he knew he had the
motivation to be a GREAT batter.

Often the difference between being good and being great
is making adjustments that allow you to spend more of your
time developing your greatest strengths.

Ever had an annual performance review where the first part
was about the wonderful things you did that year, but then
the focus quickly shifted to a discussion about shoring up
your weaknesses? It’s an all-too-common scenario. And it’s
probably a waste of time.

The "fix your weaknesses" school believes that with enough
discipline, determination and training, anyone can do anything.
Unfortunately, it confuses weaknesses and limitations. Weaknesses
reflect a lack of skill (how to do something) or knowledge (what
you know). Weaknesses can be overcome by education, training,
experience and practice. On the other hand, limitations reflect
a lack of motivation (what you do well naturally). These really
can’t be overcome, because new motivations can’t be acquired.
In fact, if a person has low motivation in a particular area,
spelling for example, there is very little likelihood that he
or she will ever be a great speller. The best they will be is
adequate. Who wants to be adequate?

It’s a much better idea to build on your strengths.

If you want to move up from being good to being great, know
what your talents and motivations are, and build on them.
Why? Because you will develop what you do best and enjoy
most. These are your strengths, and they are yours for life.
You can build on them, and they won't let you down. Think about
it: what would your life be like if you got paid to do what you
do best and truly enjoy? Awesome, isn’t it?

You can't win an argument!!!!

You can't win an argument. You can't because if you lose it, you lose
it; and if you win it, you lose it. Why? Well, suppose you triumph
over the other man and shoot his argument full of holes and prove
that he is non compos mentis. Then what? You will feel fine. But
what about him? You have made him feel inferior. You have hurt his
pride. He will resent your triumph. And -
A man convinced against his will Is of the same opinion still.

#3: Speed became king

If the next generation of high growth startup companies
has shown us anything, it’s that “speed is king”.
Companies like Google, Skype and NetFlix have shown
us that it wasn’t about adding more employees and
office space as quickly as possible. It was about
addressing changing market conditions as quickly as
possible with products that could scale big and fast.
Look at how these companies have gone from relative
obscurity to market powerhouses in a matter of years,
shoving giant incumbents out of their way in the
process:
Google - Proved to Microsoft that being the world’s
largest software company was useless if you couldn’t
respond quickly enough to changing market conditions,
like the rise in ad-supported searches. Google is now
worth almost half the price of Microsoft.
Skype - Grew to over 50 million users of its voice over
IP service before big telecom could even begin to
respond to the opportunity (they still really haven’t).
Skype was sold to eBay for over $4 billion dollars after
just 3 years in business.


Big companies
aren’t geared toward addressing rapidly changing
market opportunities – startups are.
The next generation of startups has learned that it’s
their speed that is keeping them ahead, not their size.

Internet actually happened!!!

The promise of a billion people instantly connected to
the Internet sounded like a pipe dream in the mid-90’s,
but guess what? It actually happened.
Today over a billion people are connected to the
Internet and using it like crazy. Heck, since the Internet
took off I can’t even remember the last time I visited
my local bank or walked into a Blockbuster to rent a
movie. I don’t even know if real live travel agents still
exist anymore thanks to Expedia.com.
The Internet “actually happening” has meant that the
benefits to having a truly networked audience can make
lots of businesses highly scaleable and far more cost
effective. Here are just a few of the key reasons why
the proliferation of the Internet means so much:

The viral Internet got real. In the last five years
we’ve seen the true power of viral marketing on the
Internet. Companies like Napster, PayPal and MySpace
have grown to tens of millions of users within just a
few years simply by referral. That same rate of user
acquisition a decade ago would have cost tens of
millions of dollars and would have taken ten years.
A billion people actually use it. Think about this for a
second. Even five years ago you had people
experimenting with stuff like eBay. Today thousands
of people actually make their living on eBay. When the
Internet goes from a “nifty tool” to a “basic necessity”
the power of that Network increases exponentially.
It scales like a mother. Once startups understood that
the fastest way to grow a business is to have a truly
scaleable on-line product, companies like PayPal and
Google went through the roof. Sure, you can open up
20 restaurants a year, but nothing grows faster than an
Internet-based company simply adding more servers to
support more customers.
It’s really easy to get started. Any idiot with
computer and the most basic knowledge of the Web can
(and has) open up shop on-line. This means that the
barrier to entry for new startups has plummeted
significantly (I’m still not sure if this is good or bad
judging from some of the incredibly lame Web sites
I’ve seen, but hey – who am I to judge?)
Obviously the Internet isn’t new, but it’s important to
understand just how much it has evolved in the last five
years as a key business startup tool. That is not to say
that companies who do not have an Internet strategy are
doomed, but it’s hard to ignore an instantly addressable
market of 1 billion people as a key game-changing
trend.

#1: The key ingredients got cheaper

Every startup, no matter what industry they’re in, has
an income statement with roughly the same line items –
payroll, marketing, technology and such. Ten years ago
each of these line items would have cost a fortune to
fund. That meant a startup company needed tons of
capital in order to even make a dent in the marketplace.
This created a large barrier to entry for new
competitors.
However in the last few years the price of each of these
key ingredients has simply plummeted, which in turn
has significantly lowered the barriers to entry for
startup companies.

Take a look at how each of the line items that used to
break the bank for startups has changed:
Technology is a commodity. Software has gone open
source (read: free), connectivity and hosting are dirt
cheap and you can buy a fully functional PC on eBay
for $100. Even the ridiculous costs of long distance
telephone service have become a thing of the past (we
love you Skype!) You can legitimately take care of all
the technology startup costs for a company for about
$1,000. Sweet.
Marketing became performance-based. We can
thank Google and Overture for this one. With the rise
of cost-per-click and search engine marketing we saw
the rise of performance-based marketing that allowed
companies to pay for ads that worked, not just for ads
that ran. Now a startup can begin attracting customers
with a marketing budget of just $100 and grow from
there.
22 year olds don’t make $100,000 anymore. The
young, energetic talent that we all relied on to build the
infrastructure behind all of our great ideas no longer has
a rock star salary. The days of the HTML programmer
making $100k and taking his dog to work are over.
Now that work can be done for $10 per hour – or less.
Capital is less necessary. When the price of just about
everything plummeted, so did the need for lots of
capital. The problem with capital is that it takes time
and energy to raise. Now that same time and energy
can go into actually starting the company, not funding
it.

When you add all of these ingredients together you get
an interesting combination. All of a sudden startup
companies can get to market quickly without having to
raise lots of capital to do so. This breeds more startups
and it breeds them a lot faster.

In order to understand why it’s so important to Go BIG
you first need to understand that the game of starting
companies has changed a lot in just the last few years.
In particular, three important things have happened that
made the startup game much easier and far more
competitive at the same time.
#1: The key ingredients got cheaper
#2: The Internet actually happened
#3: Speed became king
explanation of each point in the posts to follow...

go BIG or go HOME!

These days successful startup companies need to
think bigger, grow faster and stay smaller
(physically) than ever before.
Windows of opportunity are closing faster meaning
startups must react quickly to opportunities by
leveraging speed versus size. In a short period of
time startups need to Go BIG or go HOME!


In the following posts ,I will explain some of the ways through which start ups can really GO BIG!!!

What I've Learned: Once A Broke Student, Now A CEO

It's no secret that 18-year-olds have a supernatural ability to tune out anything that sounds too much like helpful advice. But somehow, something Betsy McLaughlin read in a magazine the summer after she graduated from high school stuck with her.

"It basically said that you are in charge of your own life and you need to make up a blueprint if you want to live the life you want," she says. The same day, she sketched out a plan.

Though she's now the chief executive of Hot Topic, a teen retailer with $720 million in revenue last year, McLaughlin, 47, still consults the life plan she drew up that summer day. It's taken her from paying her own way through college, into her first job and on to running a company with more than 600 stores. She carries it in her wallet to remind her of what life was like when she ate Top Ramen because it only cost 39 cents.

McLaughlin, who grew up in Orange County, Calif., says her parents never spoke about money. "We never had any family conversations about budgets. Anything I learned was solely because I moved out at 18 and had to support myself and pay for my tuition," she says.

When she moved out of her house, she didn't know how to balance a checkbook or boil an egg. The goals she set were borne out of desperation. "I didn't want to be broke forever," she says.

McLaughlin drew up five headings--Career, Salary, Assets, Health and Personal/Social--and set goals for herself at different ages. By 20, she wanted to own a car free and clear. By 25, she wanted to own a home. At 28, she wanted to put 5% of her income in a 401(k.) At 40, she wanted a new hobby.

She accomplished all of them because she learned how to compromise. To get out from under her car payments meant she didn't have much of a social life in college. To buy her own home meant that she couldn't have any credit card debt. But because she was committed to her plan, McLaughlin says she didn't resent sacrifices like forgoing vacations.

"I realized that I was making a choice. That by giving up 'X' I could do 'Y,'" she says.

She also honed in on details. "I knew my personal consumption rate of everything, even dumb things like how much electricity I was using. I didn't have any money, so I couldn't pay the bills unless I had a plan for what I was doing," she says.

But not even a plan as detailed as McLaughlin's prevented her from making mistakes in her twenties and thirties.

"From a financial standpoint, diversification is a huge lesson that I didn't learn until I was about 35 years old," she says.

At the time, she invested heavily in shares of Hot Topic because she believed in what she was doing and wanted to align her interests with those of her company's shareholders. "I never thought that there might not be a reason to put so many of my eggs in the Hot Topic basket," she says. "I wish that people had told me that this has nothing to do with what you believe in with your company, but from a safety standpoint you never want more than 50% of your net worth tied all in your company," she says.

The takeaway: Have a detailed, long-range plan. "Nobody else is going to do this for you so you better take charge of yourself," McLaughlin says.

It is not about money ...

Discipline produces success even if your definition of
success has nothing to do with money.

If your idea of success is to be a great pianist or
painter or gardener, then to get there you must
postpone immediate trivial pleasure such as watching TV
or going out to the pub.

Instead you must practice the piano, study painting, or
weed the garden ready for the spring. I would submit
that even if your definition of success was to be at
peace with the world and to be in a blissful connected
state with the universe you must first practice the
long hours of discipline required for meditation, and
practice the minute-by-minute discipline of pushing out
the constant chatter of thoughts from your mind. A Zen
monk, for example, could be said to be almost perfectly
(and excessively) disciplined.

I think unsuccessful people are often that way because
they have these two characteristics:

1. They rarely think of the future or plan for it.
They live only for today.

Self-development guru Jim Rohn's secret of happiness is
'enjoying today whilst planning for a better tomorrow,'
and this is a subject I explore further in later
articles.

Living for the moment is only half of the story. You
can only enjoy today because of the plans you made or
work you did 'yesterday.' Similarly you can only enjoy
tomorrow because of the plans you make or work you do
today. This includes simple pleasures like a day
walking in the countryside listening to the birds sing.
You can only do that because 'yesterday' (last year,
etc.) you worked hard enough and saved some money so
that you could take time off. It is obvious that you
can only eat today because of the work you did
yesterday, unless you have set up your life to sponge
from others.

2. They spend every single penny they earn (and
usually more) on pleasures right now, today, and do not
put anything away for the future.

This is similar to being given a week's worth of sweets
and eating them all in one sitting!

Disciplined people use their time and talents to create
present and future wealth for themselves. This means
getting out of the armchair and doing something. This
is hard. This takes effort and it takes will-power.

Undisciplined people watch soap operas three times a
week, go down the pub all the time (a net outflow of
money), go out for meals, buy all the latest toys or
generally fritter away their time and talents for
thirty of forty years. And then.... huge
surprise...they're broke when they retire!

Look, this hardly needs saying. There's nothing wrong
with watching television sometimes, going down the pub
now and then and having the odd meal out. These are
pleasures. This is jelly now. Then, you turn the TV off
and get to work on projects which will make you
wealthy. You stay in several nights and work through
until midnight on the same thing. This is investing
time in your future, and is an identical concept to
investing (saving) money for your future.

A disciplined person does not spend all his/her time
now, in trivial pleasures, they save some for the
future. Time is funny stuff. You can't put it in a box
and save it for a future day, say the end of your life,
and then haul it out and get extra days of life. The
rule with time is that you have to invest it straight
away. It multiplies and produces money in the future.

You use this money to buy time from other people. For
example, the money releases you from the need to work,
and so that gives you a whole lot of time - much more
than your original investment of time. Or, you use the
money to pay someone to do your garden or your DIY, and
that frees up a whole lot of time for more pleasurable
things.

So the analogy is exact. Undisciplined people squander
all their free time now on pleasures (eat all the
jelly) and get, say, 100 units of pleasure. Disciplined
people use a little of their time for pleasures (eat a
little jelly now), then invest their time for the
future. This multiplies many fold, and frees up vast
amounts of time in the future. The net result is that
they get (say) 1,000 units of pleasure in total over
the years. This is their reward for being disciplined.
I hope this makes sense.