Few feelings compare to the pain of unfulfilled dreams and hope. The day we lose the battle of what was once possible and is no longer so, we die a little on the inside.

We all need to make hard choices on a daily basis, I hope you will choose to fight for your dreams.

I came across Larry Page’s commencement speech at the University Michigan recently, and it really got me thinking. Two major takeaways from the speech are :

1. Dream Big…there is less competition: Larry talks about how we should all dare to dream as big as we can. Life is too short for us not to take chances and live quietly within our comfort circles. If what you want to do, is not scaring the daylights out of you, then take a look around and see whether that is really something you want to be doing. The benefit of this sort of thinking is there will always be lesser competition along the way. Very few people stray from the main roads of life. If you want to achieve something extraordinary, it is time to break away from conventional paths laid out for us, and create your own extraordinary paths. 2010 is a great year to do just that!

2. Family is all we have: At the end of the day, we can achieve all the success that we ever wanted, and still feel that something is missing from the picture. That something is usually our family, those people who have been neglected along the way. It is true that most entrepreneurs have lives that result in ridiculous work hours, and have very little personal interaction other than with the people they work with. However, your work must not be used as an excuse or reason to break away from the people who truly mean the most to us. Without them success feels incomplete, and life loses its meaning. I know that this is an aspect of my life that needs to be looked into in 2010. I hope you will keep it high on your priority list as well.

Life moves at a frightfully fast pace in our world today. The only way that things actually get done is by sitting down and writing down the things we want to do and achieve in life. The new year is a great time to do just that. It is a time to reflect on our life so far, and think about the changes we want to bring into it from this moment on. This is no time for procrastination, rather, it should be used to discover what truly drives you and what you want to achieve.

I wish you all the very best for the New Year. I want to thank you for your continued support through the year. I greatly appreciate it.

Image by eric.ouano.photography

What does your ideal life look like?

What would you be doing?

Where would you be doing it?

What sort of people would you be working with?

What kind of skills or competencies would you have?

How much would you be making?

Where would you be living? ……..

If you haven’t thought about this yet, take some time out this weekend and just let go. There is no need to worry about the “Hows”, first, do your best to get as close as you can to what you dream of. Next, figure out how you are going to get there.

Share your dreams with someone you trust. Verbalizing your thoughts and aspirations is a powerful mechanism to begin working towards achieving your goals and dreams.

Wishing you a great weekend!

This is such a powerful question, and one that is so often left out of the equation in our race to acquire even more than we may already have. A sense of gratitude for our current situation , no matter what, for it is surely infinitely better than many people on this earth, is of the essence. Yet, we find ourselves complaining about things we do not have, or how things are not really working out the way we had planned for them to. We forget, in the daily hustle and bustle of life, about the things that we have been blessed with. Having lofty ambitions and large lists about things you want to achieve in life is a necessary step, and one that I have repeatedly brought up. However, focusing solely on one aspect of the picture creates an imbalance between the amount of focus placed on what we want ,and what we have already achieved. I know I forget this time and time again, forget to be truly thankful and grateful for all the miraculous things that I have been blessed with. On account of this, I am in the process of setting for myself the habit of going over a list of items that I am most grateful for, on a daily basis. Listed below are some of the items that are on my list.

1. I am grateful for my good health, which has provided me with the ability to go out and achieve whatever I wish to.

2. I am grateful for being born into my family, they have provided me with the opportunities to pursue my dreams and have supported me throughout.

3. I am grateful for the amazing relationship that I have with my parents, as well as both my brother and sister.

4. I am grateful for having been given the opportunity to pursue my passion of starting up new enterprises, and working with entrepreneurs on a daily basis.

5. I am grateful for my business partners and mentors, they have been guiding lights in assisting me reach goals I have set out for myself.

Even though this list may appear to be generic, or things we already “know” and are thankful for, it still really helps when you write down all the things that you are grateful for. One should just write down whatever comes to mind, it should not be forced, and there are no pre-qualifications of what can, and cannot be on the list. This list should be a source of daily inspiration and motivation about aspects of your life, that are just the way you want them to be. It helps to shift our thoughts away from the constant things that we “need” and “want”, to what you already “have”. It is only when we truly begin to appreciate the things that we have ,can we reach a state of inner peace, happiness and satisfaction.

What are three things that you are grateful for?

Image by (nutmeg)

I recently watched the video of Omid Kordestani’s commencement address at SJSU and was reminded of an old post I wrote, titled “Your Heart“. At the end of the speech he quotes his son’s 2nd grade teacher saying “In life you make all the small decisions with your head and the big decisions with your heart.” The quote got me thinking about life as a whole. We are all taught from a very young age to do logical things, the ones that make the most sense, those with a higher degree of probability of being right, often based on past experiences of others. Individuals who make irrational decisions, those that do not make sense on the surface of things, are considered outcasts and “different”. In a way this fear of breaking away from logic and reason paralyzes us from doing what we may “feel” to be the right thing to do. In the above mentioned video, we learn that not following this path may lead us to pass up on the “aha” moments in life.

Many of us who have chosen the path of entrepreneurship, have in all probability experienced this “aha” moment, and have thus chosen to walk the path less traveled. It is likely that many of us have passed up job offers from reputable organizations where we would have had stability and security and could plan out how our lives would be 5 years from now. Instead, we have chosen a path where we could well land up at the same spot we are at now, after 5 grueling years of hard work. On the surface it sounds like a crazy choice to make, but if someone were to ask me whether I would do anything differently, I would have to say “no”. Deep down inside I know I have followed my heart and believe in the feeling inside of me, believe that it is the right thing to be doing. This feeling cannot be rationalized, it has to be experienced. I think the speaker in the video did an excellent job of communicating it very well.

Giving up short term monetary gain led Omid Kordestani to become a billionaire. If he had chosen the investment banking route I really doubt he would have achieved the sort of success that he now has. Most importantly, even if he had, it would be questionable whether he was truly happy doing what he did. When you follow your heart, there is this inner sense of satisfaction and joy that makes all the challenging times bearable. Walking down the path less traveled is undoubtedly harder and more challenging. Done for the right reasons, following your heart makes it all worthwhile. No matter what you choose to do in life, remembering the teachers quote, “In life you make all the small decisions with your head and the big decisions with your heart” will help put things into better perspective.

Are you following your heart? If not, what is stopping you from doing so?