Every person is a VIP.

Treat others like everyone is a VIP, like you really mean it with your heart.  The truth is that everyone is a VIP and there is no one in this world that does not deserve a VIP treatment.

Fastest Way to Happiness

We often think that we need things to help us become happier.  We strive to have certain things in life, which we believe will allow us to do certain things so that we can be happy.  There are certain feelings that we would like in our lives (ie, love, security, happiness, etc), and everything we do is to help us to get to those feelings.

The truth is that we can just decide to be loving, secure and happy at this place at this moment.  If all we are ever really working for in life is to attain certain feelings, why not just decide to have those feelings now?  We do not have to struggle to attain things to make us happy; just be happy now.  Money by itself will not bring us security, we can just decide to feel secure now.  The irony of all this is that when we actually feel secure, money pours into our life.

Know Yourself and Pick The Right Environments That Work For You

The below is from an interview of Gautam Mukunda, a professor at Harvard Business School and the author of "Indispensable: When Leaders Really Matter."


Eric:
So how can you become a better leader?

Gautam Mukunda:
More than anything else, “Know thyself.” Know what your type is. That if you are, both in the sense that you can use these coding rules to figure out okay, how would I score with the organization? But even more profoundly, think about your own personality… There are types, and I’m not saying be in the wings, I’m saying be who you are, and understand what the downfalls of that are so you can counteract that.
For instance, if you are a classic entrepreneur, you can’t work in an organization. Know that. Know that you should work on the outside, but also know that when you’re an outsider, the great ways in which outsiders fail is one, they either do really stupid things, or two, they don’t understand the context of the situation they’re in in the way that an insider would.

Eric:
Once you understand, “This is my kind of style,’ what’s the next step?

Gautam Mukunda:
Then you’ve got to pick the environments that work for you. This is the thing that, again, context is so important. The unfiltered leader who is an amazing success in one situation will be a catastrophic failure in the other, in almost all cases. It’s way too easy to think, “I’ve always succeeded, I am a success, I am successful because I am a success, because it’s about me, and therefore I will succeed in this new environment.” Wrong.
You were successful because you happened to be in an environment where your biases and predispositions and talents and abilities all happened to align neatly with those things that would produce success in that environment. That doesn’t tell you a whole lot about the next environment down the pike.

Competitive Advantage

If there were one single most important factor to consider for investing in a company, it would be figuring out the company's competitive advantage.

Importance of Emotional Stability

Investment results are oftentimes just a direct reflection of one's emotional stability.  One can be armed with the best investment framework; but if he/she does not have emotional stability, the results can be mediocre at best.  In this regard, the feeling and belief that you are always going to do well and stay ahead are important.  Your confidence and conviction in your investment framework are going to help you to take the right actions during difficult times.

Dealing with Fear and Worry

"Tomorrow, do thy worst, for I have prepared for you today..."

The best way to deal with fear and worry about uncertainties of tomorrow is to focus on what you can do today.  Gather the facts about the current problems and situation, figure out possible solutions, analyze likely outcomes for each solution, decide and act on a solution today.  If you have prepared for the worst likely outcomes of tomorrow, why have fear and worry at all?

Being Fundamentally Sound

It is possible for fundamentally sound sports teams to lose a few games here and there.  The ups and downs of normal course of events pretty much guarantee that.

However, fundamentally sound teams give themselves the best chance to win games.  They work relentlessly on their fundamentals, which allow them to minimize mistakes and to stay calm in difficult times.  To a casual observer, it may look like they tend to get luckier or be at the right place at the right time more than other teams, but in truth, it is just the law of large numbers working in their favor.  If you do the right things over and over again, good things are bound to happen to you.