I am a father: A poem for fathers

i am a father
I am living a best time of life, you know why? As the subject suggests, I am enjoying my parenthood as a father.
So here is my fatherly poem.  

The kids are young and i am matured.
They call me papa because i am a father

They hug me hard and i kiss them often
They love me a lot becuase i am a father
   
They smile a lot, i play with them very hard
I cannot get tired because i am a father  

They want me to feed them, they want me to dress them
They love my presence because i am their father  

They complain for friends, sometimes for their mother
I cannot neglect becuase i am a father  

I glimpse when they sleep, i cry when they cry
They know i love them becuase i am a father  

They touch my face and i feel like a heaven
I feel blessed because i am a father  

They go out or to school, i feel alone
I like their presence because i am a father  

A gift costs nothing, a chocolate costs a penny
They make me feel millionair when they smile because i am a father  

My name is attached to them today, i want to be known by their name tomorrow
I bless them hard, i wish them harder, let me praise them as i am a father  

Dedicated to all blessed fathers like myself.

Tips for startups and micro sized companies

Tips for new entrepreneurs, startups or micro size companies : my own learning

1. Control your cost and increase your income
2. Strive for continual income
3. Install some people tracking and work tracking mechanism
4. Don’t just rely and depend on your people, check everything they do
5. Don’t think you are the boss, It doesn’t work in current scenario
6. No marketing/sales staff at the business start if you can , add them gradually
7. Don’t hesitate to fire people,  you can’t afford to continue a useless resource, that will eat out your own salary
8. Communicate to your customer often. They are paying your bills.
9. Work hard to deliver the good quality of service or product, you can’t just win on competitive prices of yours because for price customer comes once, for quality the customer is retained for long
10. Priorities should be clear, if you have started business, that should be top priority and anything else should be last. Personal priorities have ruined many startup businesses.
11. You cann't afford to sit down in a cubical and expect your people to do miracles for you, you have to sit down with them and let them know your ambitions. Help them to achieve and then they will do miracles for you.

Motivational Story : Fisherman and MBA

My Brother Manoj Sharma contributed this story. Interesting one and Must Read....

A boat is docked in a tiny Mexican fishing village. 
A tourist complimented the local fishermen on the quality of their fish and asked how long it took to catch them. 

"Not very long." they answered in unison. 

"Why didn't you stay out longer and catch more?" 

The fishermen explained that their small catches were sufficient to meet their needs and those of their families. 

"But what do you do with the rest of your time?" 

"We sleep late, fish a little, play with our children, and take siestas with our wives. In the evenings, we go into the village to see our friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs. 
We have a full life." 
The tourist interrupted, 

"I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you! 
You should start by fishing longer every day. 
You can then sell the extra fish you catch. 
With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat." 
"And after that?" 

"With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. 
Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can then negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. 

You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico City , Los Angeles , or even New York City ! 

From there you can direct your huge new enterprise." 
"How long would that take?" 

"Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years." replied the tourist. 

"And after that?" 

"Afterwards? Well my friend, that's when it gets really interesting," answered the tourist, laughing. "When your business gets really big, you can start buying and selling stocks and make millions!" 

"Millions? Really? And after that?" asked the fishermen. 

"After that you'll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, 
catch a few fish, take a siesta with your wife and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends." 

"With all due respect sir, but that's exactly what we are doing now. So what's the point wasting twenty-five years?" asked the Mexicans.

And the moral of this story is: 

Know where you're going in life, you may already be there! Many times in life, money is not everything.
“Live your life before life becomes lifeless”

Where is my customer?

  20% of your customers will give you 80% of your business. So this states I have to retain what I have to grow from where I am.

Most of the organizations have this major issue of retaining the customers; in fact some of them become a test lab for their competition.

So what are the reasons; why a customer leaves you and never comes back? I would like to explain it by two examples here.

This morning I went to my snacks parlor, he is the one I have been buying my snacks for nearly 4 years now. I bought something for me and my wife. Went home and here is the surprise. One of the snack that I bought had already lost the taste because it might have been cooked last night.
Imagine the reaction of my wife, "Hey! Forget this snacks parlor, I don't want to eat anything from this buddy in future. " 

What is the lesson; do not sell or propose under quality product. Make sure you deliver the best and make sure you test it 10 times before you sell to customer. Let me tell you this snacks parlor is very old in area and making good money but if I am a lost customer, he might have lost more in recent past.

Example 2 : I visited our garment merchant, this again is the same one from where my wife is shopping for 5-6 years now.
The shop had less customers, I felt fortunate that this time I will save time. Gradually I realized why there were less or almost no customer beside me.
The products offered to my wife had less variety, the approach was this "I offer this many items only; if you wish you may check other stores in the town"
Huh!, then I suddenly found that the sales girl was exchanging words with other customer on her repair work of garments she bought last night.
My reaction this time, "Honey, since they wish we should try other stores, why not to visit others this time"


So here is the lesson #1 : If you have been offering good varieties, keep doing, if you stop adding varieties, the customer feels that you are no longer interested in business.

Lesson #2 : never exchange words with one customer if there are other customers around, because it might be a mistake of first customer but the other customer will always feel that he will be treated same way.
Communication; that is another major issue in service industry. If the proper message is not conveyed to the customer in proper manner and on right time, customer feels they are ignored on this shop, let's see the other shop.

The approach that makes the difference, if you let them feel that they are important to you, they will make you feel special. But if you count them like one in many, they have various options too.


Never compare one customer to other, some are demanding and some are calm.

As a seasoned business person or customer account manager, deal with them differently. Especially with demanding customer, be straight and be clear, have a note of everything if possible.

Though certain customers do go away but if they leave with good taste in mouth, they will return soon.

What is Spirituality and Religiousness?

Let me present my thoughts on spirituality and religiousness, this is what I understand based on my knowledge so far, it may differ in different sources of information available online or offline.

Touching a sensitive topic is full of risk but I wanted to differentiate religiousness and spirituality ; most of the people feel that both are same, but actually they are not.

Religiousness defines the god in physical format; Spirituality accepts the existence of God but it never gives a physical form to it.

Religion defines the god as defined in the books; Spirituality has defined the god and its existence by examples and real experiences

Worship is done in religiousness; practicing principles of goodness is done in spirituality.

Here loving the god is religiousness; Here loving the creation of god is spirituality.

Religion defines boundaries while spirituality has no boundaries.

Religiousness makes you happy during the rituals; spirituality gives happiness from inside forever.

Religiousness may doubt the existing of god when found in unbearable situations; spirituality makes you believe in existence of super power and you feel that its all planned and you are only the source of making things happen that are planned for you.

God gives Darshan (view) that's believed in Religiousness; Spiritual people find the god inside and in creations of lovely things by god.

A religion is a relative theory, it tells you do this and your wish will come true, spirituality is a sure shot thing; it tells you to keep doing good things to others and good will happen to you.

A religious person travels till the million miles to meet the defined god; the spiritual person keeps travelling life long to satisfy the inner greed of making god made people prosperous and hunger free.

A spiritual person believes in all religions and accepts the existence of all beliefs along with the universal law
"Live and Let live and help them to live".

The article is somewhere inspired by Bhagwad Gita and Karma theory of Shree Krishna.

Gujarati Poem : Staying together