Author: yamtimsina

Who buys your dress and shoes?
Who picks your college and university?
Who decides your major in college?
Who approves your dating partner?
And when you are in bathroom who do you see in the mirror?
If you answer the top four questions sincerely, you encounter either one or two persons in the bathroom mirror. The conflict between these two personalities generally dictates your level of confidence.
Why do we need permission or approval from others in everything?
We have to live our life, and we are solely responsible for this life. Parents did their part whatever they could, no matter what they always encourage and wish success for us, now it’s our turn to make this life epic. Parents and other family members cannot have our dreams because these dreams belong to us and make us unique. We have to own our dreams.

Most of us grew up in the society where we need approval or permission all the time. Seeking approval is not bad thing but completely honor it without understanding ourself indicates lack of confidence. It doesn’t mean we should be arrogant and never take advice from others. We have to show humility and respect to others but should not hesitate to make our own decision based on choices. Arrogance and ignorance are two different things, but both eat up our confidence.

Confidence is not a state of mind or knowing some particular thing better, it is a skill that we develop and nurture every single day. A well-groomed confident person doesn’t need approval all the time but seeks advice from others to align his or her intuition, thoughts and ideas to his or her core values and principles.

As a rule of nature, we develop different traits and characters mainly from family and society. Our raising standards and practices make us more vulnerable at some point. Among various vulnerabilities, not able to recognize our confidence is one.

Our inner desire to do more and to be more is leading the world in technology. It seems nothing is impossible, and every single problem is simply new opportunity. Many innovators, entrepreneurs and inventors are confident people who are a major driving force behind our unparalleled growth and success. They have created extraordinary technologies, products and services which are job sources for us. But if we go deeper in their lives, they are confident practitioners at first hand.

We all are born with the power of confidence. Mother nature has given us this tool when we were born. But in our development process over the time, we also grew doubts, fears and worries which eroded our confidence gradually.

We often have no idea what other billions of people are planning in their mind. Many PhDs and MBAs were doing business plans, strategies, charts, maps and statistics in conference when Jeff Bezos was driving the packages to the post office himself in his Chevy Blazer when he first started Amazon. He sold books from his garage and now he is launching rockets in space. He worked every single day that sharpened his confidence. Practice flows to confidence and confidence still flows to greater ideas and thoughts like water.

We don’t know what was coming in Muhammad Ali’s mind when he decided to be the best boxing player, but he was laser focused on his goals and played boxing every single day no matter what. The real everyday practice brought confidence in him every single moment. He always said, “I am the greatest.”

Confidence is a triangular combination of our wishes, doubts and continuous practice on our doubtful wishes.

Research shows that people who create massive success don’t rely much on past activities or results. They know that every situation from past to present to future are very different. Their pure confidence comes from practice and only practice.

There is a trend that majority of people stop learning when they get out from college or universities. Academic curriculum is designed to create a clear map or definite path for life. Full of instructions in life. Nothing more, nothing less. If somebody wants to become a brain surgeon or lawyer or accountant, we all know what the track is, everybody can follow. But if anybody want to invent a washing machine that doesn’t require any detergent, then where is the track or any curriculum?
The one way to enrich massive confidence is to get involved in something which doesn’t have clear track or path. There is only dark and fear. Try to create something from nothing with imagination. Try to win the fear. This is basically nonlinear thinking, nonobvious.

Education means acquire information and do practice at the same time. But our education system is designed to focus more on information but less on practice. Academic books don’t teach much about past, present or future situations of life and many educated people have one particular way of analyzing things because they have been trained to do so. Relatively, present school system still helps us to be famous theoretician but not practitioner, no matter which school we attended, what degrees we earned, or how great our IQ is. Once we become academically sound, we encounter cognitive dissonance meaning we think our ideas are sound but when applied on the real ground they are actually not.

I used to think why Nobel laureate in economics couldn’t beat Warren Buffett’s investment strategy. They know more research, economic data, market and statistics. But after studying Warren Buffett, I also revealed that competence in life requires intense knowledge of our real game that we practice everyday than anything else. The constant study of our own game reveals who we are and how we are doing. Standing apart from the crowd, flow against the tide, and practice the hard stuff every day is Buffett’s message. Dominate the game by learning and practicing every single ingredient in it. This is the only way to gain confidence and achieve the desire goal. It is difficult to find the key to success in life but it’s easy to find the key to failure if we try to follow everybody without going in depth of our own game.

Warren Buffett was eleven years old when he first started to practice investment and he is still very active on the game at the age of eighty-nine. The biggest lesson we can learn from him: confidence doesn’t teach us how to compete, but it teaches us how to create. If we become confident on our task, our potential expands, and we start to realize that we are more capable then the current version. Confidence breeds obsession to achieve more and to be more than the current reality.

I started my alphabet in fourth grade and could not write my name in English in fifth grade. I couldn’t count numbers up to one hundred in grade five. My maternal uncle taught me every single day how to read and write. The one lesson I learned from my uncle is do something over and over and over again so that it becomes natural. I have filled numerous notebooks writing just my name in grade five. My personal story tells me that the only single way to develop self-confidence is repetition, repetition and only repetition.

Confidence is not a place where we reach but we grow it every single day by practice. It can be excellent and is as much of a practice than anything else.
We all have to-do lists, we all have moments to cherish and moments to regret but if we keep waiting for the right time to practice our game, we will lose the game of life.
Confidence is a stepping-stone to get the color in life but if we keep going, we get the full rainbow which is a collective bundle of health, family, love and wealth.
Confidence is not the opposite of fear but the opposite of inaction.
-Yam Timsina

We are fragile and temporary. Our body can be diseased, damaged, broken and hurt.
We gradually accept aging and one day we die. This is dismal and sad to start this content, but it is true.
Many of us don’t realize this until doctor gives us very little time to live. We recall our partying 20s and a little bit more mature 30s. But when we hit 40, body’s chemistry start to change and we all know, we start to regret, I wish I could have done that.

The only way to thrive, prosper and add value in life is by being healthy emotionally and physically. Being healthy means be selfish and love your body first, to love ourself first is the best relationship ever. That’s why, air hostess always says put your mask first before to help others. Be yourself healthy first and then only you can serve the world.

I believe health is our destiny and there is no better investment than to invest on our health.
The important question to ponder- is working eighty hours a week without carefully examining body and mind chemistry truly worth?
The present trend shows that many of us sacrifice health for money in our early stage of life and regret later spending all the money for few days’ health.
What is the point of accumulating money if our body doesn’t allow us to fly to travel the world?
What is the worth of having millions of dollars in bank account, if ill body does not allow us to sleep well at night?
We are working and we need to work, there is no question, no debate, and no exception.
But many of us are practicing how to be busy at work rather than doing real work. Our work culture and technology are making us unhealthy everyday.
Reply email and message instantly.
Attend meeting at 9 am.
Call a client at 11 am.
You are already late for lunch.
Attend an emergency meeting at 2.30 pm.
You missed the snack time.
Send report to the manager by 4 pm.
Get out from office at 5pm.
Stuck in traffic.
You get the picture of our work culture.

The first secret of healthy life is food habit. Our daily fuel.
I have seen some of my friends using premium quality gasoline in their car regularly, but I have never seen quality fuel in their body. This is not judgement, this is reporting. Our life is what our fuel is every day. Good food not only enhances the premium thought process of our brain but also reduces the lethargy.
Excellent physical and emotional health requires small but repeated good food habit. Starting a day with heavy protein and good fat as breakfast is not difficult but making it habit is difficult. It’s not easy to turn our attention away from cookies and sodas in regular office meetings. Food via drive through in KFC and McDonald are increasingly popular. When we reach home in the evening, we are burnt out, tired and exhausted mainly due to low quality food that we ate during the day. Needless to say, this habit will cost us a lot in the future.

The second secret of healthy life is body movement.
Our body is designed to move. Nature has taught us to do this.
But we don’t do regular exercise, so our body forgot to produce brain-derived neurotrophic factor BDNF long ago which is essential to repair dead cells in the brain.
Author Robin Sharma has given us a gem book called “The 5 am Club” that tells how the morning exercise transforms our life.
When we do exercise early in the morning, we set our body and mind for a day. Research shows that new genes get turned on. These genes code for new proteins and these are building blocks for new formations in the brain.

If we don’t have few minutes to think or meditate or exercise in a day then it would be worthless to talk about productivity, creativity and efficiency.
Excellent research is showing that creativity and focus depend on our exercise, food, relaxation, and sleep.
Actually, we all have time to do meaningful and important things in life. Obviously, we don’t have time to do everything, and to be honest we don’t need to do everything. The biggest problem is we don’t optimize our life. We add many different things in life everyday, but we never bother to remove or filter items from our daily basket.

We all want to do twenty minutes meditation everyday because we know it is good. It cleans our mind. It helps us to focus on meaningful things. It has power to control our body. We also planned three years ago to do so, but we never abandoned reality TV and social media. Technology has owned us so deeply that we sometimes forget that we are breathing. As a result, more and more people are suffering from obesity, heart disease and mental health issues ever then before.

I started this writing with secrets of health. But there are no secrets of health.
In 2015, my weight was one hundred and eighty pounds. After reading Tony Robbins and Robin Sharm’s New York Times bestselling books, I decided to do experiment and put myself into work. Since then I made a habit of spending at least twenty minutes everyday either in swimming or running. Since 2016 to until now, my weight is constant, one hundred and forty pounds. The morale of my personal story is, small but consistent routine produces astounding results. I am a proof. Nothing is secret and fancy here, a small tweak in everyday life. A very small optimization.

Think before adding fuel inside the body. Respect the nature’s rule. Nature has given this body to move.
Aim for extremely good health so that we can dance every single evening until we become one hundred years old.
The best day to start our meditation or yoga or running or whatever it is, was five years ago, the second best was yesterday and third is today.
Life does not always have to be glamorous, but it should be healthy. This brings ultimate joy in family, friends, neighborhood and workplace.
Invite the strength of healthy life that opens new avenues for greater accomplishments.
A life lived healthier thoroughly justifies the living.
-Yam Timsina

We all think we have real friends, but do we really feel real friends? This is the question I tried to answer. After doing research on my own friends I also asked myself, what type of friend I am myself?
Putting myself in the zone of friendship, I asked myself how many times I actually offer help and support to others?
And how often do I get support and help from others?
If we answer these questions sincerely, we will spot the difference between real friends and fake friends.

A friend is a person with a set of shared values and goals. His or her activities, morale, and functions affect us in all parts of life especially family, health and relationships. If one of these aspects of life is corroded, then our life crumbles because they are interconnected.
The ultimate goal of friendship is to create an inner support that help us to remember our common goal and accountability. In friendship, common objectives come first before the mindset.
Our network of friendship also reflects our net worth in the long run.

How transparent are we in the real friendship? It is a key ingredient. It doesn’t mean we have to open each other’s secrets, but a higher level of mutual consideration for each other’s thinking and a clear understanding of responsibilities are required.

The hardest truth is, people are superficial, they don’t have time to go in depth because we all have things to do.
We expect quick return and have a tendency to judge everybody by cover. We post only happy and beautiful moments in Facebook. Nobody posts suffering, pain, depression, and sleepless nights.
Nobody actually cares about our plans until we produce values. A lot of people around us still don’t care about our process to produce values but raise questions and use our process as a ladder to promote their agendas.
They bring more similar failure stories in front rather than success stories, if we are about to execute some plans.
These are some of the spots to find fake friendship.

If we are surrounded by real friends, they care more about time, devotion, and process rather than results. They clap hands on our successes.
We have to believe that nobody and nothing is perfect that we all grow wings over time by excellent relationships. Through the pool of these few best friends we start to make impact and produce values to the society.
When our influence increases, then amazing things happen that everybody start to follow us on social media even though we don’t know them personally. This is a rule of nature.

There is a great saying that we are the average of six people whom we spend the most time with. The quality of the life we get will depend largely on the quality of six friends that we make.
A very good friend invites debate rather than to avoid it. That deep conversation is not to prove someone is right or wrong but to open mind for logic and evidence. A good friend never backbites in your absence. That is a symbol of nurtured relationship.

If we choose the right friends with right values and remain attached with them, we will create a beautiful life song, consisting of each friend as a good vocal, lyrics and composition.

Focus on six quality friends than fifty fake friends. We actually need a very few real friends who return our call at 2 am in the morning when we need them rather than have hundred fake friends who don’t return our call in the time of need.
Seek friend who is better than you in maintaining and nurturing friendship.
If we distinguish real friend from fake, that creates a path for a long relationship, though it needs time, commitment, and generosity.
Real friendship is pristine but fake friendship is contagious.
If your friend says you deserve more, and you also respond you deserve more, this is how we grow and nurture a lasting real friendship.
There is no price tag for a valued friendship, it is above money.
-Yam Timsina

People are celebrating Father’s Day in my native country and I remember my dad who is 85 years old now. I am dedicating this piece of writing on him. Thank you so much for this life Dad. I love you.

When I was in middle school, my dad used to take me to his birthplace Solma, Terhathum where his mom, my grandma used to live. I remember, it was approximately one day’s travel by bus, but my dad used to take me using different route so that it would take us almost two days to reach my grandma’s house. My dad used to take the route that was little bit unexplored and uncommon. He always used to take me in different places than the previous visit for eating, lodging, and other recreational activities. He always thought and lived with the concept that traveling makes each of us more evolving which is life’s greatest accomplishment.

He taught early in my life that we get this life once so why not to live epic?

What is the point of living a life in a cage?

There is a huge difference between a tourist and a traveler. Tourist is a product designed by somebody to monetize us. As a tourist, we don’t explore the unknown, we always walk in our comfort zone with tons of instructions. Most of the time we repeat same food, same place, and same people. But a traveler is a different format, a pure form, ready to experiment the life to venture out for the unknown. My dad was a pure traveler, not a tourist.

He used to share different foods, cultures, and society that makes an amazing memory before we die. These memories are assets to inspire the next generations. Glorious life comes with full of zeal when we encounter new newness in any regard. The experience of having a meal in Johannesburg gives a new layer of understanding and memory than the usual everyday food in hometown Chicago. He tells me: the more unusual place we visit, the more interesting thing we discover. We can’t appreciate things which we can’t see.

When we travel the world, our values and goals will change, we will start to learn the value of empathy in comparison to the value of material possessions. This might be one of the reasons why Bill Gates and Warren Buffett engages so much in philanthropy. Most importantly, we realize the value of experience a lot less than cooperation, humility, and connectedness.

The secret part of being a traveler is that it destresses us from mundane rat race and help us to see the blind spots in our hamster wheel lifestyle. If we don’t travel and interact, we always feel proud at something that we already know better. This is definitely a trap zone so that we learn less and always make poor decisions. We can’t differentiate between pleasure and happiness. Pleasure, a tourism product, can be bought from a very comfort Chicago home, but happiness, a travel product, is internal. Spending couple of hours with people in Asia and Africa who make a dollar in a day gives a lot of sense of purpose of living a life. Happiest and fulfilled people travel a lot and find their own nature and match their life to it.

The person who travels and interact with others more always feel proud to see things through others’ eyes and have clear understanding of opposite perspective.

In the end, I would like to pass my dad’s motto and end this piece of writing: Embrace the challenge, travel more and deal with new people and new circumstances. The beauty of life lies on the other spectrum of the world which we are constantly avoiding.
-Yam Timsina

My daughter Aryanna was studying the physics principle regarding the change of state from rest to flying. She was working on the complex mathematical derivations.
Once she said, “I gave up becoming an aeronautical engineer.”
I said, Why?
“It’s too complicated and I’m not absorbing the information”, she replied annoyingly.
I told her, “Do you know what simulation is?”
She said, “it’s a computer program to make a model.”
“What about you become a model of aeronautical engineer, be yourself in this position at the moment. Think of your life in this position. Make emotional connection to it and pretend you’ve achieved it. How does it feel? Would you feel undefeatable? What would your mom say? What would your friends say? What would be the taste of that life?” I told her.
She sat down on the floor and closed her both eyes and started to visualize it.
At the present moment she was aeronautical engineer.

In reality, the term simulation is very complex. It generally represents approximate imitation of the activity or process. Its application is diverse depending on situations like technology, computer and natural phenomenon. The most critical aspect is its use when the real does not exist and the valid source of information is not available.
The less explorable part is it is an unstoppable source of inspiration when the road of life becomes tough.

I am a practitioner of science and technology. I have experienced that when we say or do some new activity, we seek scientific evidence to support. The common question we ask: is there scientific evidence for that or this? Simulation is that power which bring us momentum to try out something new. It teaches us to be the evidence ourselves. So, the next generation will use us as a scientific evidence.
At its core simulation does not indicate future. After realization of the moment, it brings joy in our mind. We become more attached to the activity. We enjoy the activity or process and produce the result.

If the present task doesn’t produce any result, or if it is cumbersome then drop it for a moment, close your eyes and simulate the work, process, as well as final outcome.

Present activity happens in pure consciousness. When we simulate the circumstance, we make connection to the point from where consciousness starts. Simulation is feeling that will bring you closer to the truth of who you really are. And who you really want to be? Complete attention through simulation brings full acceptance of the present reality. This is a catalyst to act.

Aryanna opened her eyes and said, “Dad, I let my future clarify the present, I was creating time and space for my present task. I was honoring the present moment by allowing simulation to come by.” “I also found total equality between my present state of trying and perfect aeronautical engineer. There is a flow of life which I am experiencing now. Until I achieve the desire goal, I continue to practice simulation.”
“There is no doubt that I am going to be a very successful aeronautical engineer.”
-Yam Timsina

My niece is a sixteen years old girl and one day she asked me a very difficult question.
What do you recommend me to study in college?
I paused for a moment and said, “This is a very complicated and difficult question to answer.”
She said, “I am so confused from the suggestions of my friends and family members, so I need your help to make the decision.”
“I have read about some prominent successful figures across the globe and found that their study and work align to their core values in life, and a lot of time they go against society, family or friends.” She added.
She expressed very powerful statement that we experience ourselves in everyday life. It’s true that very few people’s opinions matter in our life. Rest is just noise and interferes with real life signal all the time.
She continuously added, “I not only want to be successful in future but also want to be authentic.”
Silence. A confused smile of desperation.
As I was observing her expression especially with her question, I was fascinated experiencing her assessment to measure success in her life.
I didn’t say anything to her that particular day.
Next morning, I asked her, “What do you read more, fiction or non-fiction books?”
She said, “I do read more fiction books.”
And I added, “Why do you read more fiction books?”
She said, “Stories are touching, and they bind me closely while reading.” “Sometimes, I feel like I should fake the story until I really make it.”
I said, “That’s wonderful.”
“Now, you have the answer of your question that you had asked me before.”
“Life is the understanding of few things rather than knowing many things. Understand the disciplines or subjects, by which you can make many stories throughout your existence.”
“These are your real-life stories, and should bind your listeners and audiences like what you experience when you read fiction books,” I added.
“If you are able to do that in your life, you will be successful and authentic. Remember, if nobody interests your life story, then you should seriously rethink what you wish to do with your life.”
“You would be more valuable person in life, if you make a very large pool of people paying very close attention to hear your stories. While you are telling your story, but if listeners mind wanders, then you aren’t successful. Bind and captivate them and create the flow of inspiration. Plain, unemotional stories do not influence the sub-conscious mind. Sub-conscious mind works twenty-four hours.”
Remember, if a middle school science teacher starts class about moon as, “Once upon a time there was a child in the moon……..” All the students will remain calm, relaxed, and quiet to take all the information about moon. This is powerful and would be therapeutic especially in learning. Miscellaneous information about moon gives miscellaneous results.
Study whatever and wherever you want, but get your story ready as you continue your legacy.
There is another worth remembering part in the story telling.
“Do you know? When is the best time to tell your story?”
If there are many other story tellers in the room, “Tell your story in the end, if possible.”
Try to absorb the information as much you can from all other story tellers, and you tell your story in the end.
I learned this technique from the autobiography of Nelson Mandela, who was wrongfully imprisoned for twenty-seven years but evolved as one of the best story tellers of the world to influence billions of people on the planet. He learned this skill of storytelling from his dad early in his childhood. Sometimes, despite spending months and years working in our own story, there is zero progress. But by using one simple idea of somebody else’s story line could spark the whole new series of results.
Listening another person’s story before our own story is a skill and doesn’t come overnight but we can build it slowly. This skill is hard to learn but will pay off forever.

-Yam Timsina