Category: Value Creation

Get lost first and then find your destination, you get a completely different perspective of life; if not get lost now, then when? -Anonymous

There is a saying: doers learn to see but others learn to search.
My grandfather used to tell me, always associate with the people who actually have done the real work and gathered the real work experience rather than with those who actually teach but have never done the real work.
I wish I would have applied my grandfather’s words long back.
We cannot start a business just by listening to a lecture from a person who has spent years teaching business education in academia but has never run a business in real life.
Thinking about business is one thing but go and start a business is a completely different thing.
We never become good swimmers only by reading books on how to swim well, we become good swimmers by jumping in water and practicing swimming.
The difference between doing the real work and teaching the same means we excite the different parts of our brain.
This is really fascinating to me from my own personal experience because I’ve spent many years teaching the students but actually rarely did the same myself.
I have noticed that doers have three dimensional thinking but teachers and observers, most of the time, have two dimensional thinking.
I have also experienced that many times doers do more actual work and utilize their time very judiciously but teachers and observers do more network.
Work is way more important and powerful than networking for those who are especially involved in any kind of creation.
In reality, any type of creative work eventually itself makes a network, no need for extra time for networking, creation flows in different directions with invisible medium.
Work and networking have common misunderstandings among us because we always think that we have to network to show our work.
The truth is: any creative work always follows the network wherever we go.
Real creation speaks in itself, it attracts networks because it actually becomes the real reason for networking.

Remember, if networking doesn’t work, then only work will work.

One of the most important habits doers have is they always quantify anything in their lives.
This is so powerful to improve and upgrade anything in their lives.
If we know exactly how many glasses of water we drink everyday, then it has a huge effect on tomorrow’s drinking habit and overall health.
This is just one example.
If we know exactly how many times we become upset in a day and on what moments then it has a huge influence on tomorrow’s mental mood and overall lifestyle.
If we don’t quantify things in life then we reach nowhere, and we have no way of knowing how things are moving in our lives.
We have no measurement of ourselves.

Do something and make a habit to quantify. Quantification is our required qualification for self-improvement.

As far as we can experience and understand, there are three types of minds: thinking, doing, and being.
Thinking mind or our thought only doesn’t guarantee that we do the task. We certainly can teach and transfer thoughts to others by utilizing it.
Doing mind is different, it captures some of the features of thinking including positive thinking and thinking belief as well as some part of being mind.
Being needs actual work done in reality, only actual work done.
This is one of the reasons that doers have an edge over observers and teachers because the former are one step ahead in the mental process of the task than the later.
If we are on the stage of doing, we can see both sides, thinking and being, because we are on the edge.
Remember, if we are on the edge, we can see clearly what is on the outside but if we are in another place then we may not see things outside.
Edge is actually the rearview mirror of life, by looking at this we can see how we can go where we want to go.
If you are a doer, then you certainly can quantify the distance between how you can go to where you want to go.
In the process of doing actual work, our brain produces different chemicals than just thinking or teaching. When we associate more with the doer, our brain also anticipates the doer’s mindset.

Teacher performs the job by teaching the material to others but the doer does the same for herself or himself.
What doers do is they show up and do the work. They prepare for themselves, they read for themselves. They enjoy the process without expecting anything in return.
If we enjoy the process, we become a different individual every single day.

Author Austin Kleon has written a must read book “Show Your Work” and he shares about the importance of process rather than product, and the benefit of doing something small everyday.
This book is a must read book for those who are in the business of creativity.
Doer actually has the habit of looking at the minor details of the task they care about.
The key point for them is how to develop foresight and patience.
They develop these characters unknowingly with practice.

Doers also have a secret weapon they never tell to anybody but they just increase their knowledge themselves just by doing a little bit every time.
They are always honest with themselves, but don’t tell all of their secrets to anybody.
It’s essential to keep some of our secrets to ourselves as catalysts. Our little treasures, nobody knows outside.
Thoughts and big ideas are our own treasures to preserve to inspire us. Sometimes it’s better not to say anything about them, but to tell ourselves, and just do the work.
Doers are wise enough to recognize these precious moments.

It is true that doers may not get the desired goal all the time but every day they satisfy their inner thirst, they improve their inner self.
They see and experience their inner designer character daily.
Sharpening the inner designer character is contagious.
Creation itself is contagious.
Creativity is an indefinite resource, the more we look for, the more we find. This is the motto for any doer who devotes into any sort of creation.
Doers don’t anticipate any great creation but they do anticipate a different creation in their own imagination.
This is the reason Michelangelo viewed himself as a sculptor and created the Sistine Chapel Ceiling.
This is the reason that Charles Darwin took 20 years to finally publish his landmark work, the Origin Of Species.
This is the reason that Thomas Alva Edison, one of the most prolific inventors, held a total of 1,093 U.S. patents in his lifetime.
For some people, innovation is also contagious.
Take an example of Richard Branson, a magazine producer, who originated the idea of renting boeing and later started the airlines industry along with a series of other successful companies.

There is always one person that appears in my mind when I see the word doer: Winston Churchill.
He was a best selling author, painter, a gifted journalist at age 20, he became a member of parliament in the UK, subsequently, he became prime minister two times, and served his people.
As a prime minister during most of World War II, Winston Churchill rallied the British people and led the country from the brink of defeat to victory.
What a doer!
He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in1953.
A doer of rare versatility.

Do doers have a way of coming up with big ideas of creation and innovation in their mind?
This is a complicated question to answer but both creation and innovation lie in doer’s bucket list.
One of the ingredients of doers regarding creation and innovation is they have a good attitude upon invention and innovation which acts as a competence over their skill.

Another most fascinating thing about doers is they know everything is temporary in their lives, therefore, they don’t waste time regretting and debating.
They always know it and behave in the same way.
They know, we all are temporary, our life is temporary, our house is temporary.
Our money, our relationship, our cat, and our cows all are temporary.
We have an expiry date on us.
If we realize this every single day, we certainly become doer, we try to leave a legacy, and we live a great life.

Doers know that feeling good comes only after doing something good.
Feeling good also comes after reading or listening or watching something good, but feeling good after doing something good creates ripple effects in our lives permanently. Nothing comes close to this astounding experience.

Remember, it doesn’t matter what we say and teach everyday consistently, what matters is what we do everyday consistently.
As Maria Popova, founder and editor of Brain Pickings, said; nothing beats the consistency driven by the deep love of work.

Thank you for your time.
– Yam Timsina

Since the last couple of years, I have divided my life into three parts: the first is the time that I like to spend for me, just for me, only for me what I like to do, I don’t want to compromise on it.
Others might say I’m selfish because I don’t want to give this time to anybody else.
But nothing has touched me more than what my mind, heart, and body whispers me to do.
Selfish is a really complicated and difficult word to use.
This word leaves a negative precursor in our mind and thinking.
My mind and body always whispers simultaneously to me not to use the word ‘selfish’ to anybody else because you don’t know the other person completely.
Many of us use it too often, too quickly, and too lightly, but I don’t want to use it in such a way.
Let others use it in whatever form they want. This is their life, their thinking, and their choice.
But I don’t want to use the word ‘selfish’ for others, at least after using my two cents’ second thought.
If we avoid using the word ‘selfish’, I am sure we improve our non-judgemental curiosity and compassion a lot better.
This is a fast technological world, we all want to be super successful and super perfectionists so that we become superhuman superquick.
But, in reality, all we need in life is a lot less ‘super’ but a lot more ‘human’, this is more likely to happen when we don’t compromise time for our ‘me’ moments.
‘Me’ moment is a microscopic view of our life, it is not a selfish moment.
My picture of ‘me’ moment may look unusual for others but it is very common for me.
And I hope this should be the same for you too.
Here is a simple synopsis of my ‘me’ moment as an illustration.

I want to read Mark Twain’s ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ even though I am super busy.
I want to write about my first dad experience when my first child was born because something unforgettable happened.
I want to meet with my childhood friend in Seoul, South Korea because I’d spent my past 20 plus years with him together.
My tomorrow’s 5k running time is conflicted with one of my friends’ birthday party, but I want to run.
I want to listen to that specific song by Lata Mangeshwor several times when I am on my patio remembering my deceased grandma.
I want to travel this weekend, Naperville, Illinois to attend the writer’s club conference where I would have the opportunity to meet with Paulo Coelho, one of my all time favourite authors.
I want to meditate for 30 minutes at noon Sunday afternoon outside to elevate my focus level.

I learned that the best of me comes only if I push myself over the edge.
And this is possible only if I know myself better.
And this is possible only if I spend quality time on myself for my ‘me’ moments.

Remember, air hostesses always say put your mask first before helping others.
I hope you got the point.

The second part is for my family where I want to spend my time with my kids and wife.
Nothing is more important than our family. Most of the time, our life revolves around our kids, spouse, parents, and siblings.
I like to stay at home, play with kids, watch movies with them, travel with them, participate in activities that they want to be involved in and make them happy.
I know if I don’t do this now then there would be a list of more regrets on deathbed than my life accomplishments.

The third part is to dedicate time to my professional work.
This is the time for bread and butter.
Remember, this part is no less important than the above two parts by any means.
This is my work for living and that supports me financially and upgrades me every single day by learning something new.
By profession I’m a scientist so I need to be updated on new discoveries, findings, and innovations every single day.
To accomplish my professional goal, I need to work efficiently and smartly, otherwise, the aforementioned two areas of my life would be affected.

The most difficult part in life is to make balance in these three areas.
It doesn’t happen often, it needs a little bit of practice.
There are many reasons why it’s difficult to balance but I’m going to mention one which affected my life the most.
In our life, each of these three areas needs to grow without affecting the other.
But trust me, nobody is perfect and I’m not the exception.
There are a lot of people who are struggling for this balance.
I’m trying to make this balance but my life doesn’t know this balance automatically unless I teach and practice my life how to balance them.

This balance for me became possible only when I knew how to say ‘no’ very politely and gently to the activities which have no meaning in my life.
But the majority of us are very weak to say ‘no’ to, because we don’t want to offend anybody.
This is our human nature.
We have been taught since childhood not to say ‘no’ to others.
We look rude and undisciplined in society’s eyes.
If we don’t offend anybody by saying ‘no’ then we offend ourselves, so this is our conscious choice to whom to offend.
Nowadays if somebody invites me or proposes to me to go somewhere or to do something, and if I don’t want to go or don’t like then I simply say ‘no’, thank you for the invitation’.
I don’t give them any answer for why?
This is difficult but we must practice.
I don’t say and will never say, “oh I’m busy, I don’t have time.”
Remember, there are always 24 hours in a day, same for all, for me, for Elon Musk, for Joe Biden, for Oprah Winfrey, and for my 6th grader daughter.
It’s not true that I don’t have time, I have time but maybe not for that specific task.
I simply said, “little longer ‘noooooo’ with a nice smile, thank youuuu, though.”
This part is really hard if we don’t practice, I’m still working on it.

The most recent type of ‘no’ that I have learnt is no to political news. In past years the amount of time that I spent on political news is insanely high when I look back on my life.
To be honest, I never learnt anything from political news.

I absorbed everything just as entertainment, it didn’t help a single ounce to improve the quality of any area of my life.
Finally, I realized this is a total waste of time.

I found that spending so much time on political news is not helpful at all.
Most of the political news is intentionally motivated to hook, influence, and addict us, and finally make us morally and intellectually bankrupt.
Does it really matter to my life which party leader said what in where?
I don’t think so unless I’m a political leader or I make a living by doing politics.
Of course, there are exceptions.
But exceptions don’t rule our life.
Exceptions are just exceptions.
If we divert the time and attention that we spend on political news to the area of our interest in life that matters the most, we gradually move in the direction of our choice.
I’m not saying as a guru or any motivational speaker.
I belong to none of those catagories.
I make a living by doing science so I know little bit about the science of body and mind, and how they are connected chemically.
Largely, this is from my own personal experience rather than scientific facts.

Political news, I believe, is a two-edged sword.
On one hand, it gives us a world of entertainment from early morning that could be quite addictive and can go till late night; on the other hand, it tends to fill our mind with information which has no value in our lives.
Not very far in the past, I used to be a young person in a hurry because I used to watch a lot of news on CNN and Fox. All of that time was going from my actual ‘me’ time or family time or work time.
I used to think consuming CNN was not a waste of time because I’m learning.
Instead, I used to think that if I sit quietly doing nothing for a few minutes, that was a huge waste of time for me.
But I recently learned that how we look at our time spent also changes with time.
Maturity also teaches us how we are maturing daily, weekly, and yearly.

Now I understand that a pause to look into my own heart or mind for a few minutes daily is never a waste of time.
This is an investment of time in me and in my health.
In my view, this is one of the most rewarding investments we can make in our lives.
Remember, physical exercise does good in our body including health by its repetitiveness, but quietly looking at the mind is eclectic.

Political news is only good for career politicians who make ends meet doing politics or the job is related to it directly or indirectly.
Majority of news is motivated by specific political philosophy or by some hidden political agendas.
Journalists inform us of the twisted news which affects us physically and emotionally.
As far as I have understood, a journalist’s job is not to teach people, nor twist the news.
Their job is to let people know what exactly the news is, as it is, unfiltered.
It’s up to the people to decide the right and wrong and make their own decision.

There should be a clear alignment between what we do and what we think in life.
Our mind produces thoughts but our body produces feelings, they are different.
If we don’t align our thoughts with our feelings then we are doing something wrong.
Without this alignment, we never produce any tangible results in our life.
This indicates that we are doing something which is not sustainable, we are doing it for the sake of doing only.
That’s the exact moment I realized when I was spending my time with political news in front of a television set or on youtube videos.
I was involved and doing one thing by my feelings but my thoughts were completely different and were giving me different directions.
We humans have the power to pause and reflect, this is basically a habit to check alignment of our feelings and thoughts, no other animals have this power.
When thought, the work of the brain aligns with feeling, the work of the body, we are in the state of being.
This state of being is required to break any wrong habits in our lives.
I completely broke my habit of watching too much political news, opinion, and analysis after realizing the state of being in my life.
Though, again, I’m not perfect but moving in that direction slowly.
Knowing this state of being is one of the best tools to go from good to great in our lives.

What controls us is very important and knowing it is extremely powerful.
Sometimes, it’s very difficult to see a fine line between help and control.
Politics itself is a good discipline of life, it helps to carve our footsteps in society, but if we are not aware of its nature, it controls us very quickly.

Remember, If everything is politicized including our body, mind, and daily work then survival becomes our full time job.

We become deprived of our life choices if what we do all day is to fill our mind with political news.

Is survival our full time job?
Possibly, if we feed only junks in our mind.

Nowadays I would rather feed cheerios, milk, and strawberries to my two years boy, play with him, and watch with him than to watch political news.
I have watched ‘the boss baby’ multiple times with my son, I don’t know the exact numbers but surely many times.
This is a computer-animated comedy movie.
My boy especially loves the boss baby character so I’m watching it over and over again to make him happy.

Many dialogues and scenes are vivid in my memory.
These dialogues from the movie I use frequently at home to create a fun and healthy environment around the house.

Some of my favourites from ‘the boss baby’.
The ‘boss baby’ runs the company ‘BabyCorp’.
“Either you run the day or the day runs you.”
“Success is not linear, it’s a wild ride.”
“Aim for failure, then only you get success.”
“No, no Jimbo, puppies are evil, we babies are losing and puppies are winning.”
“Is this my team? A musclehead, a bunch of yes men, and doodlers.”

My personal favorite is,
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.”
Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

I was very enthusiastic to learn about vipassana meditation.
I was listening to the meditation teacher who was about to give a real vipassana practical training.
Vipassana indicates “to observe things as they really are,” and that is exactly what I wanted to experience in my life.
This was the first time in my life I was in the formal training of vipassana meditation though I used to do it randomly on my own at home.
Our teacher told us to ask any questions that the participants had before the formal practical training.
In most of the programs, question-answer sessions are generally at the end of the session but in this program the question-answer session was in the beginning.
I asked my teacher, “I remain busy due to my nature of work, my mind is always occupied with things, so I often don’t get time to meditate and I generally skip. What do you recommend?”

The teacher said, “I’m not here in a position to tell all of you what to do and what not to do. That is your job. I’m here to share with you what I learnt through my more than two decades of meditation experiences.”

He further indicated to me, “You said you remain very busy all the time, that is very good for you, but being busy is your choice, I can’t help that. Therefore, I request all of you, never ever say I don’t have time, I can’t do this because I’m busy. You’re busy means the task you’re avoiding isn’t in your priority. In my personal view, busyness is a way to escape important things in life by completely substituting them with only urgent, semi urgent, and mostly mundane things. Urgent has immediate consequences but important has long term consequences so we need to balance both.”

He further said, indicating my question, “Can I ask you something? Do you have time for breathing?”
The whole participants laughed, I felt embarrassed and stupid, I said to myself why the heal I asked the question.
Teacher looked towards the organizing committee and asked, “how many people were supposed to be here according to your invitation response?”
Organizing committee representative replied, “around 40 people replied ‘yes’ to attend this session but only 28 people made it today and physically they are here.”
Then again he added the point, “Look at here, it’s not that only you are busy, there are so many out there who are also busy like you and they couldn’t make it today even though they said they would make it in the invitation reply. You made it, that’s great, thank you for being here.”

He elaborated more, “Majority of us don’t find time to do boring things in life such as meditation, but very few of us make time to do it. Just remember, many important things in life are really boring. So, it’s up to us whether we find time for it or make time for it. We don’t need to find time for meditation if we get the direct positive impact from it.”

“Whatever we are doing for a day, just stop for two minutes, close our eyes, and count our normal breathing, feel and observe it. How many times did we breathe in and breathe out?”

He said, “We did meditation for the day, we just did 2 minutes meditation, no need to suffer, no need to find time for it, no need to change our schedule. Let’s repeat this at least 10 days regularly, we will know what meditation is and what it does for us.”
“If we stop in 4 days without completing it’s dose, it won’t work.
Think of this way, what happens to our 10 days’ antibiotic dose if we stop in 5 days? Does an antibiotic work in our body?
What would your doctor respond if you say you didn’t finish the 10 days’ antibiotic dose?”, he elaborated.

This is what I learned personally from any kind of training in my life: once anything good becomes a habit, we have to treat it as a lifelong project.
The benefit would be exponential.
Once we start the project, we have to stop for a day when we still feel like continuing to do it and do it tomorrow, and day after tomorrow again.

Rumi has said beautifully, “What you seek is seeking you.”
We’re not only looking for our project, it’s also looking for us. We wouldn’t have had the desire for a project in the first place if some higher power or our intuition didn’t put it there.
This is a secret of success for any life long project.

Our teacher ended his session by saying, “if nothing works in your life, your daily routine of any good habit will work. I don’t have scientific backing at this point but your daily routine will change your biology, the nervous system.”

In 2015 in Philadelphia, I asked a very simple question to my primary care physician doctor in a follow-up appointment during the discussion of my lab test result.
He said to me, “you’re in prediabetic level, and your cholesterol is also slightly higher, you’ve to lower these numbers.”
I pondered and asked myself how did it happen? I always felt that I’m healthy but I never knew where and how I screwed up my health.
A sudden but random question came to mind, I asked, “doctor, what exactly this insulin is and why it’s not working in my body?”
To my surprise, my doctor said that insulin is a hormone and after that sentence, I simply saw only his blagging, he couldn’t answer it properly.
It was quite a shock for me.
He was above 60 in his age and doing medical practice for the last 30 plus years.
I directly came home from the clinic even though I had prior planning to go back to my office. I was preoccupied and thinking to myself only how I screwed up my health?

I was also a little bit frustrated when my doctor couldn’t explain the chemistry between insulin and my blood glucose level.
I remembered many years ago one of my teachers told me that 90 percent or more of the knowledge that we gather during our lifetime we simply forget, because we never use it.
The only knowledge we remember is that knowledge which we use by action consistently.
Sometimes we become contagious in our daily work without thinking much about what we’re doing.
Probably that’s what might have happened to my doctor. I’m not judging him and his competency, simply putting my thought on what I observed.

The number 121 mg/dL, my glucose level in blood, was bogging me so I called another clinic and made an appointment for the next day.
In the USA, at least, we have the privilege to change our primary care physician if we want.
I didn’t change my physician but saw the second physician for my lab test in a different clinic.
On the morning of the second test day I intentionally ate a peanut butter sandwich with two pieces of whole wheat bread. I also ate a bowl of cheerios with two percent cold milk, and 4 pieces of strawberries on top of it.
I also drank hot tea made from boiling water, two percent milk, tea leaves , and 2 spoonfuls of sugar.
I took my glucose test for the second time, I got 117 mg/dL.
Nurse said to me, “your number is not bad, the doctor will tell you what steps you need to take.”
I remember the first glucose test number 121 mg/dL was on fasting but this number 117 mg/dL is after eating.
“Why is this discrepancy?” I said to myself.
I guessed that these numbers keep changing according to the time difference between my eating and testing time.

Without telling my wife, otherwise she would tell me I was a nerd, I also took the third test after two days in the third clinic, I got 115 mg/dL.
After this test, I didn’t care much about these numbers, I knew these numbers could not represent my body mechanism.

If you are serious in your health and make your health a number one priority in your life, never ever settle with one doctor, one test result, and one medical equipment for any kind of diagnosis. Any of the above can give you errors due to various reasons.

After knowing these numbers I realized that my life is somewhere else, at least not in these changing numbers.
Truth to be told, I’m neither escaping nor skipping these numbers, I’m simply trying to see what is inside these numbers.
The beauty of life isn’t in managing desired numbers, beauty is in making the desired numbers, therefore, I made health a number one priority in my life.
If we only manage life, we have to avoid vanilla ice cream our whole life but if we make life we don’t have to avoid vanilla ice cream in our life.
Let me confess this, vanilla ice cream is damn good, if you can’t eat due to your numbers then you are missing the taste of life.
As a result of this life philosophy that I breathe everyday, my glucose level has consistently been under 100 on fasting for the last 5 plus years. How I did this could be the topic for next time.

Keep in mind, our life always runs on track, we know the upper number, we know the lower number, we also know what is the correct number.
More than that, our doctor and nurse also keep reminding us of these numbers quite often.
But, we never try to know what exactly these numbers do in our life.
We never try to understand these numbers in the bigger picture, if there is something wrong with these numbers we never try to fix them keeping them in perspective, we only try to manage them.
I’ve seen many people around me only managing these numbers without knowing how the desired numbers can be made.

If we are stressed out because of these undesired numbers we’re living in the past, if we’re more anxious only about the desired numbers, we’re living in the future. But if we know what these numbers do in our lives and how to make them ourselves then we are at peace, we are living in the present.

The numbers in our life are a language, they are just symbols, they don’t have absolute meaning.

My 121 number that the doctor gave me for the first time was just a representation of an instant fraction of a second’s snapshot of my body mechanism.

One of my trader friends used to tell me the numbers on the screen about his stock, he used to say that the numbers on the screen are not real, it is a representation of an instant fraction of a second’s snapshot of millions of people who are doing transactions worldwide at that moment.
“They keep changing 24/7, don’t trust them,” he told me.
My friend said to me, “If you know the language of these numbers on the screen and its mechanism for your stock, you might become the next Ray Dalio.”
I said, “whoopee.”
The real game of life is to read the language of numbers and move ahead.
Our life is somewhere else waiting for many more important things, at least not in these tiny bits of snapshot numbers.
The goal is to know the whole language by all of the numbers which can reinvent us.
These tiny snapshot numbers from here and there are like random words which don’t make any sense until we join them together and make a complete sentence that gives the full meaning.
I’m learning to live by a quote of a man who inspired billions of people on the planet.
“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.” Mark Twain.

There are two types of people in this world. One category is those who are against the change who are kind of managing desired numbers and the other category are those who are for the change who are kind of making desired numbers.
They both have one thing in common: their conviction, therefore, the whole world is in balance.
The most beautiful thing in life is to accept wherever we are, then only we can evolve.
We don’t have to go either for change or against the change aggressively, we have to evolve through in between.
The process of evolving is basically the adaptation in life.
Once we adapt with something good, use it otherwise we forget it and become useless.
The beauty of evolving in between change and against change is that we don’t have to copy any other people, we don’t have to copy our teachers, we don’t have to copy our parents, we don’t have to copy anybody who made successful things before.

We have to learn from their genuine causes why and how they started in the first place.
Evolving means learning some specific thing for a specific purpose in life.
It doesn’t mean just to be educated which is very simplistic, it means to be genuine and practical with laser focus.
We can learn by any means, we can learn by asking simple questions, we can learn by reading, we can learn by doing, we can learn by sitting in silence, and we can learn by travelling. There are so many options.

The most important thing I am learning is by asking questions, by asking simple questions, that is one of the tools of human evolution in the 21st century.
Therefore, don’t be afraid to ask a simple question in any circumstances.
When I was a graduate student, there was a small get-together in our professors’ house. Everybody was talking about the GPA requirement to enter into a lucrative profession.
I asked my professor, “Professor, what was your GPA when you were an undergrad?”
He laughed and said, “not good.”
That answer gave me a moral boost that everybody in this world is a working progress.
Ask the dumbest question that you have in your mind if you don’t understand anything in any situation.
Who knows that single question might change your whole life.

When I was a postdoctoral researcher in Virginia, I used to teach chemistry for sophomores as a side hustle. I had one student from Saudi Arabia.
He was an average chemistry student but a very good swimmer.
One day I asked him a very simple question, “Though I’m your chemistry tutor, can you be my swimming tutor?”
Until then I didn’t know how to swim, but now I’m a reasonably good swimmer, at least I don’t die by drowning. This happened to me by asking a very simple question.
One day he took me to his swimming club where I met many very good professional swimmers along with some coaches.
During a casual talk I asked them, “Who is the second best swimmer in the world?”
Nobody could answer it.
They only knew the top swimmer in their field: Michael Phelps.
Then I realized that what is the difference between the number one and number two swimmers in the world?
“What is the secret of this number game?” I asked myself.
Why do we remember only the number one swimmer but not number two or number three at least?
I am still struggling to get the answer of these numbers.
I remember one of the best performers in the world saying, “Number one spot is always overrated. My number one spot is infinitesimal. This universe was here billions of years ago, and will remain many many thousands of billions of years more. There were many great performers in this universe before me, and many many more will be afterwards. Number one spot is nothing for me, it’s a tiny snapshot of my total performance career.”

Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

How many times do you check your phone between 6am to 9am?
Find out this number just one time and see what number you got and what this number is all about.
This number tells us something about our life and our mindsets.
This is also simple research to reflect our habit of how our life is rolling everyday.
The study of our own life is one of the best ways to learn human experience.
Simply this number tells us what exactly the focus is.
Is it derailed or dissipated or conserved?
Unlearning old ideas or undoing harmful habits is more painful than installing new habits on us.
We need deliberate focus to unlearn the old and to install the new.
Focus shouldn’t be used as a noun, it’s always a verb for us.

One day my daughter was doing elementary math: fractions and decimals.
I was trying to help her.
Her laptop was next to her, turned off and inside the case.
I was observing her when she was doing math problems. She was partially focussed in math but not fully engaged in the problems at hand.
She was doing math but occasionally wandering and watching her laptop.
Our mind is very clever because it knows what’s around us.
It tricks us a lot if we become fools.
I told her, “ Bunu, I think it’s better if you make a habit of keeping your laptop somewhere on the shelf or in a drawer secure.”
She replied, “why?”
I said, “it would be safer, you know your younger brother’s habit, he is 15 month curious toddler, he can ruin things faster”
She added, “sure, and she put her laptop inside the drawer.”
I again added, “I prefer another room than here.”
She told me, “it doesn’t matter.”
But I requested her, “it matters, you will understand it later.”
I said, “if you don’t see anything from your eyes, your mind also doesn’t see it, if you don’t see your laptop, your mind works pretty smoothly on your math problems.”
“Trust me you will realize the benefit of it later,” I added.
I didn’t want to go deeper than this with my 11 years old daughter.
The essence is if we don’t see anything or if it is far from our reach, we become more focussed in our task at hand, the influence of the unseen thing decreases dramatically.”
Research has shown us again and again, it works fantastic to increase our focus on the task at hand.
My daughter spent in solving math problems almost forty minutes uninterrupted.

Many times, it is easy to ignore temptations when they’re far and not immediately available.
But when they are right in front of us we lose perspective and forget our distant goals.
Our human judgement is so distorted by the immediate temptations that we forget long term benefits.
It ruins our future aspirations.
This is normal and natural.

Reward is one way to start the habit of focus for kids, but by no means it’s the end solution.
I sometimes offer my daughter a reward: If you finish the task I will give you a reward, if you want now $5 but after one month $10, it’s your choice.
My daughter always says $5 right now.
Alas, instant gratification.
See the power of it even though the reward becomes double after one month.
One additional point, though it’s debatable but cash reward is good for kids because it teaches them about autonomy, and not only that it also teaches them how to handle cash with responsibility.
Instant gratification is not unusual, it is made by mind so that they can be changed only by practice.
Instant gratification derails focus and patience.

We can build focus no matter who we are or where we come from because we are born with it.

Building the habit of focus is also the same as other habits.
Kicking any habit seemed to be contagious.
If one person in our family quit smoking, the chance of another person quitting would increase dramatically.
The chance also becomes better if a neighbor, best friend, or coworker quit.
Show them that reading a physical book and checking notifications on your smartphone at same time aren’t healthy.

Increase your focus rather than your working time.
Focused work produces real evolutionary results on time but routine work produces only default results.
Focus habit quadruples the results overtime.
Teach your kids what focused work is and what just work is.
Show them the difference.
Focused person says, “ I’m smart enough to figure out what my situation is telling me, I’m writing a poem.”
But a working person says, “I’m smarter than my situation so that I’m writing a poem and checking emails.”

Few weeks ago, I told my family I will take them hiking the following weekend.
For some reason I couldn’t take them hiking on that weekend and I went to work.
But during work, my mind was wandering for hiking.
My kids’ minds were more devastated than mine.
To be honest, I was at work but my mind was hiking.
If we are hiking, then our mind should be hiking and if we are at work then our mind should be at work.
This is only possible if we’ve a focused mind.
Life requires a lot of work but a lot of work requires a small monomaniacal focus.

Focus can be made by repeated rigorous mental practices.
There is a reason why Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett read a physical book a few hours everyday in a distraction-free environment.
They practice focus by gaining knowledge.

Have you ever thought about your web-surfing habit?
Is it inquisitive or entertaining?
Most of the time we don’t follow much discipline if we are just moving from one website to another.
We have to understand our entertaining habit if we never pause to read anything longer than a tweet or short message.
Much of the self-focus comes from integrating habits over time, therefore, we have to guard our everyday habits.
Passing up entertainment for self-focus is hard but achievable.

Success requires much more discipline than grabbing a phone and checking tweets.
“One of the pillars of success is focus,” says the author of “5am Club” Robin Sharma.
Success is conditional but it is within our reach as long as we maintain the focus to try, and try again.
Focused habit incicites mastery but slowly.
Mastery is inherently a long term game and in the 21st century, the complete mastery of anything is unattainable but focused habit keeps mastery uptrend.
Serena Williams will never fully master the game of tennis.
Tiger Woods will never fully master the game of Golf.
Aamir Khan will never fully master the game of acting.
But their focus always keeps them on track.
Meaningful achievement depends on one’s habits and focusing toward the uptrend.

As I mentioned earlier, a focus habit begins with a reward system in kids but it is not a long term solution.
I tell my daughters if you read 20 pages today, I will let you watch your favourite movie next saturday.
They become so happy, they read 20 pages with excitement.
Awesome.
I am also quite aware that if I encourage my daughter to read by giving her movie reward, she will become more diligent in the short term and lose interest in reading in the long run when I stop rewarding her.
Reward should only be given to create new habits, otherwise reward motivates them to get rewards only.

Reward could be a groundwork to foster mastery in anything of interest.
Habit follows the intrinsic motivation toward deep work.
The key is reward should always be the initiator.
But the habit unknowingly elevates new neural connections in the brain and breaks the path for the reward system to discover new excitements on work of interest.
Extrinsic motivation of reward flows towards intrinsic motivation.
Intrinsic motivation is made, not born, and it always outperforms extrinsic motivation in the long run.
Reward is always external but is one of the tools to take us into the internal.
External is finite but internal is renewable.
External doesn’t promote greater physical and mental well-being but internal promotes both.
Joy of reading biology becomes similar to watching Tiktok.
If you can not believe it, ask Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, an american psychologist and author of “Finding Flow’, who says, “we reach in the state of flow when we work for our interest, not in leisure.”

From my own experience, humans’ intrinsic nature is to be curious.
This experience I have, because me and my wife have been around our three children for quite a time.
Me and my wife both are in the scientific research field.
Have you ever seen a one year old or a two year old who’s not curious?
Both me and my wife haven’t.
This is one reason we humans are creatures of curiosity.
If at age 10 or 53, we suddenly become passive, that’s not because it’s our character or due to age.
It’s because something changed our default brain setting during our growth.
That’s something is the deterioration of our focus overtime.

Let’s go back to our math problem.
If your final number is 0-3, congratulations.
Your focus power is in uptrend.
At present, the final number for mass population is 18.
We have a lot of work to be done.

I wish all of my readers a very happy, healthy, and prosperous new year 2021.

Thank you for your time.
– Yam Timsina

What is the benefit of death?
Well I’m starting out with a very sad point but it is the reality for all of us.
If we accept now that we are mortal and that day is sometime in the future, we live a very powerful life.
Late Steve Jobs said and I quote here, “ the benefit of death is you know not to waste life living someone else’s choices.”
This is the real secret to life-to be completely engaged with our own choices with what we are doing in this life here on earth. Our choice shouldn’t be our work, it should be our everyday play.
Human mind is constructed in such a way that we don’t want to work but we want to play.
Both are our own mental activities but the mind distinguishes them pretty quickly.
In reality, work and play are two different things, work is to satisfy others but play is to satisfy ourselves.
Life without our own choice of play is the most common reason to give up early.
We have to have our own choices in life, our own parameters, and we have to stick to them thoroughly.
We can not measure the effectiveness of our own choices in life unless we stick with our own measuring parameters.
Someone else’s choice in life in the long-run gives us nothing but the taste of regret.
The bottom line is if we live in other people’s choices then we regret later in the future.
We must live with our own choice that makes us happy, healthy, and prosperous.

Perfect example, Warren Buffett, who is an American investor, business tycoon, philanthropist, and the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, one of the world’s most powerful companies. He is considered one of the most successful investors of our time. He started his play of choice at age 8 and he is playing his game of choice until now. He is 90 years old now, still active and vibrant with his play.

Most people don’t realize that our own life will echo our own everyday work.
If we become flexible and mindful in our daily work as our everyday play, we not only get better results but our life also becomes better as a result of better play.

Life does not become perfect, only perfect life play makes our life perfect.
If we are not willing to learn the life play, no one can help us but if we are determined to learn the life play, no one can stop us.
Life play doesn’t come easy, it doesn’t come from what we do occasionally.
It always comes from what we do everyday with heart, will, and happiness.
Many of us only hope for a perfect play which is not going to happen anytime soon until we put practice on play.
Only hope of a good life-play in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments on us.
Only hope without practice on play is a daydream.

There are mainly two very different aspects of human minds which guide our choices.
The first is the logical mind which is driven by different thoughts that connect what we already understand in the complex problems in order to produce the solutions.
Most of the time this thought limits us in the comfort zone.
Many more times these thoughts are also influenced by other people’s choices.

The second thought comes from our intuition, driven by inspiration that can look at the problem and immediately figure out the creative solutions.
Most of the time this comes suddenly from our own choice of play.
Intuition is subconscious thought that brings feelings first and when feelings are put into action produces results.

I would like to share a real story about how intuition works and why we should nurture it.
Edwin Land, an inventor of Polaroid cameras, a pioneer of instant photography, was on vacation with his family in 1943.
During this vacation, one of his daughters, 3-year-old, pressed him why she couldn’t see a picture he’d just taken.
She needed it right away.
The impatience of the 3-year-old daughter catalyzes Land for a strong intuition.
After the vacation, Land and his research team threw all of their research effort to the challenge of instant photography.
Instant intuition became similar to instant photography for him.
In only 3-years after that, the product of instant photography was ready in many stores in the market.

Our human nature is intuitive if we practice it in the correct way.
Sometimes we bog down so much how to learn things but what we forget is that unlearning things is more difficult than learning the same.
Our intuition is directly or indirectly correlated to the process of unlearning.
Because unlearning provides space in our mind so that we can learn new things.
Trusting our intuition automatically tells us to unlearn things which are not working previously in our lives.

Human progress doesn’t come from the development of many more theories, it mostly comes from somebody applying or testing these theories and finds a solution.
Intuition is our key to test these unsubstantiated theories and find the long lasting results.
If everybody uses the power of intuition in their toolbox, the world would be a different place now.
Ask the power of intuition to the Xerox company that they failed to utilize it completely.
Xerox created personal computers 10 years before Apple.
Xerox created icon-based operating systems 15 years before Microsoft.
Xerox created an internet service 20 years before Netscape.
Yet Xerox bypassed all of these opportunities.
The real problem is Xerox read theories but couldn’t apply the intuition to test the real theories.

Any person who runs a marathon knows that finishing a marathon requires more than just running.
No matter how strong our body is, at some point during running our body wants to stop and take a rest. But the runner has trained his or her mind in such a way that he or she keeps running mentally.
His or her body becomes tired but still he or she runs because he or she has trained his or her willpower.
Our intuition is our willpower, more we use it, more it enhances the willpower.
If we stop running in the middle of the marathon, it’s due to our emotion.
Our emotions which come before anything else deplete our intuition and consequently diminishes our ability to control our actions.
Our intuition is our catalyst for the run to finish because we know we can finish it, we have trained so much for this run.
Our intuition tells us to stay focused on the run.
Intuition doesn’t come regularly, it comes when we have a habit of engaging with our serene thoughts.
We cannot force ourself to be more intuitive, it comes naturally when we honor it with practice.

Our intuition power also depends on our health status.
To do mental work we need a lot of glucose, a source of energy. We can not do a thinking job without a lot of glucose in the bloodstream.
The glucose itself does not enter into the brain but it changes into neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are chemicals which are used by our brain cells to send signals.
If we have a deficiency of neurotransmitters, we stop thinking, we stop our intuition, we deplete our willpower.

I have three kids, and one saturday, my wife told me to look after them and she left.
After she left I made sure that the entrance door is locked so that I wouldn’t lose track of them.
I discovered very quickly that if they were making noise, they were good, no problem. But after a few minutes everything became very quiet, then my intuition started to work and telling me something isn’t right.
I came around the kitchen and saw that two older ones were trying to cut the younger one’s hair with a sharp scissor.

Intuition works best when we store energy. Invitation of stillness is storing body energy.
We should spend time on quietness, observe things mentally, meditate, exercise, where our intuition works the best.
It is this simple as it is.
I don’t know how the microwave works, but I know when I put my sweet potato inside it, it will cook my sweet potato, and I’m using it every single day.

Mark Twain, the greatest American writer and the father of American literature has said that he never worked a single day in his life, everything has been done by his subconscious and intuition.
Nurture your intuition everybody.

Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

It was a winter evening in Virginia.
I was at a gathering.
My friend’s boss was an author and a researcher in a reputed publishing house.
We were outside in a garden and she told us a story about how she found her amazing husband, a university professor.
At one point of her career, she was working as a sales assistant in downtown Chicago and she used to ride a train to commute.
One day she became late and missed her train for office.
She was sad, irritated, and upset and blamed herself for being lazy.
She also missed an early office meeting on that day.
In a grumpy mood, she was waiting for another train to catch.
A man appeared in the train station, who was a graduate student in Northwestern University.
Long story short, she pointed to her husband and said that if I wouldn’t have missed that train on that day, I would certainly miss this amazing man from my life.
And I was attending to celebrate their 21st marriage anniversary gathering.

This story taught me why we should cherish every single moment of our passing life irrespective of the nature of moments.
Life is made up of various small passing moments which most of the time we neglect in need of bigger goals and destinations.
Actually life happens when we are hustling for something.

You are attending a party for your recognition in your office because you got a promotion, and suddenly you receive a call from your mom that your dad is diagnosed with cancer.
As we all know we are not perfect, we all have issues in the family, you were avoiding your brother’s call but suddenly you heard that your brother died due to chronic heart attack.
Recently you got furlough, you were in stress so you forgot to call your mom on mother’s day.
This is only a small glimpse of our everyday life.
Since most of us have a tendency to feel good only if things are going our way, all the time we are trying to control everything in our lives.
If we rush only for a destination by brushing off pure moments, our life becomes hollow and we suffer a lot.
I think this is not the way to live a life.
Beauty of life remains in all moments of hustling, pain, suffering, and happiness.
We have to observe, absorb, and assimilate all of them.
This is a process of life.
Destination is a by-product of our process.

Everybody says life is not for a destination, life is a journey but very few actually adopt this mantra and apply it.
Many of us are always in rush, workloads, family schedules, kids responsibilities, and health schedules. Many of us have side hustles along with our main profession too.
Nonetheless, we run around constantly trying to get something, trying to control something, and trying to determine where the destination is in our lives.
We carry so much tension, anxiety, and fear that we completely forget the flow of life around us.
If we run only to catch something then we miss many things in life.
Life becomes hell.

There is always an interval between any two tasks, if we don’t live in that interval and always worry about the next pending task, then we are not living a life.
That interval between two tasks is actually a life process many of us don’t identify or ignore.

Current corporate world has also ignited the concept that vision-driven leaders recognize the destination rather than path. They said destination matters not the path.
In reality, it doesn’t apply all the time, because life isn’t business.
Business needs the end product faster to get profit faster, but life itself is not the business of only profit and loss.
Life is more of exploration of paths so that we become healthy and happy.

One day I visited my friend Nitesh’s office due to some personal affair.
The other day he told me he had a hectic schedule for that day even though he invited me to his office.
When I reached his office, he was on the phone.
He signaled me to sit on the chair, later I knew he was talking to his elder sister.
His nephew was selected for the national championship for swimming competition.
He expressed his happiness and support for his nephew and sister for their achievement.
He ended that call in less than two minutes but I felt that those two minutes talking were really thrilling and encouraging.
I asked him, “Did you finish your presentation this morning?”
He replied, “Yes, I did.”
It was fantastic and the client appreciated his strategy and hopefully they are going to sign the contract very soon.
He added, “I have another presentation at 4pm.”
Looking at his freshness and energy, I asked him, “Nitesh, how do you manage all of this?”
He asked, “What do you mean?”
“You are so fresh, so energetic and you accomplish so much so easily” I added.
He replied, “There is nothing new, I just keep things in perspective, I know how to utilize the moment and how to accomplish it without burning my life.”
He added, “To be honest, those two minutes which I spent with my sister on the phone was my interval time between my two tasks, those two minutes were best for the day and that keeps me moving my whole day smoothly.”

He further told me that there are two types of people in this world. One type who stop their work due to rainfall. They hate it and blame the rain for their stoppage.
The other category of people who enjoy every bit of moment, even the rain and lightning.
They enjoy every passing moment and accomplish their task.
They said, “Oh it’s raining, so nice. Rain is wiping out the dust of the environment, so fresh.”
“I am in the second category,” he added.
“I can enjoy my life in seconds, I don’t need minutes to enjoy it.”
This whole universe is around us for more than 13 billion years, any natural processes around us were here before we were born and will remain here until we die.
The manifestation of each moment is amazing so that we must accept the natural result.
We become more energized and excited in our task if we cherish the interval of life.
We can not avoid the happening moments.
We have to accept them as they are.
There is beauty in acceptance.
We must know how to laugh in our tears. We must know how to cry in our laughter.
This isn’t complicated to understand, there is also an interval between laugh and tears, we just don’t apply it in our life.

Interval is about understanding where we’re going, and destination is the road we’re planning to take but still don’t have road signs. Interval comes first because we have to make road signs to reach a destination.

The important thing is that we don’t have to find our final destination at once, and we can avoid wasting a lot of time and worry trying to find a destination.
Destination is not a once-and-done phenomenon.
It’s a continuous process.
If we don’t enjoy every passing moment, we move towards boredom and disinterest, and destination without inspiring and happy process leads to destination without further direction.

If we focus on what is happening around us rather than what isn’t happening, our progress becomes exponential, not incremental.
One simple example.
Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick, the founders of groundbreaking transportation today, Uber, were freezing at night in the streets of Paris because they couldn’t get a cab.
The moment was painful for them but they translated the moment of pain to revolutionary transportation business without owning a single car.
They have just one app.
If we appreciate every single moment whether it is a painful or happy moment, blue-sky ideation arrives.

We shouldn’t suffer and bleed in the process of life, which is very simple; enjoy every bit and every piece of it.
As we all know many people during their time said that two brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright were stupid.
Their destination of making a “flying machine” was criticized by many as a foolish idea or impossible task.
Instead they enjoy every single obstacle they faced.
They accepted and appreciated every single moment of not having the sufficient resource that they needed for their final destination.
They never finished high school.
They were self-taught.
The only thing kept them moving forward was the excitement of the process of making a “flying machine.”

Loving the process rather than destination is our tool to change the status quo.
Process itself should be a catalyst for passion and excitement.
Every single moment around us is a process, so nurture it, cherish it, and enjoy it.
Reaching a destination provides immediate satisfaction, but the process of achieving a destination provides a lasting satisfaction.
There is no destination in life, once you reach your destination, another destination appears, so enjoy the interval.

Thank you for your time.
– Yam Timsina

I would like to share a story from The New York Times bestselling author and medical surgeon, Don Miguel Ruiz.
One man wanted to free himself from his suffering and pain so he went to his mentor, a Guru, for help.
He asked, “Guru, if I meditate four hours a day, how long will it take me to remove my suffering and pain?”
The Guru looked at him and replied, “If you meditate four hours a day, probably, you will remove your suffering and pain in ten years.”
Bringing his hard working mentality, the man said, “ Oh, Guru, what if I meditate eight hours a day, how long will it take me to remove my suffering and pain?”
Guru looked at him and said, “If you meditate eight hours a day, perhaps you will remove your suffering and pain in twenty years.”
“But why will it take me longer if I meditate more?” the man asked again.
Guru replied, “You are not here to sacrifice your joy, your family, your relationship, and your life.
You are here to live freely, to be happy, and to love the way you are; then only you will be free from suffering and pain.

The core lesson I got: If you can do your best in two hours, but you spend eight hours instead, you only grow tired and frustrated, miss the whole point of love and life, and you won’t enjoy your life.
Don’t be that person.
Do your best and then only you can live freely, you can love, and be happy.

This is the key difference between hard worker and smart worker.

Everything is moving faster than ever.
We are living in nanoseconds now, not in days, weeks or months.
Fast progress in technology and better understanding of the human body and mind has changed the way we think and work in the present society.
If only hard work is the weapon to succeed then coal miners, farmers, and construction workers would be the most successful people in the world.
Many hard working people in many areas are short of fame, recognition, and status because they completely forget or ignore to work smartly.

I have read that many smart people do meditation regularly but hard working people don’t get time to do meditation, because they are too busy and don’t have time to do so.
Regular meditation is a key tool for smart work because it is the only way to make our brain healthy.
Overall exercise makes our body healthy but meditation does the same for the brain.
Needless to say, today’s world is run by the brain, especially the healthy brain.
I shared one of my colleagues that Tony Robbins does one to two hour mediation everyday.
She immediately replied, “Oh whoa, I wish I had such free time. I don’t have free time, I’m always on schedule and very busy.”

After knowing the fact that smart working people bring creativity by meditation and hard working people just don’t get time for meditation, I also decided to learn this mind exercise habit.

I arranged for meditation class twice a week, an hour a session.

In my first class, my meditation instructor said, “Sit down in a cross-legged position on the floor and close your eyes for sixty seconds.”
I obeyed his instruction and did the same.
I asked, “What should I do after closing my eyes?”
He replied, “Nothing, just relax, remain calm.”
Probably after ten seconds I thought that meditation is the most annoying and disturbing thing ever I am learning in my life.
After I closed my eyes, innumerable things came to my mind: my stove at home, did I turn it off?
My office assignment which I haven’t finished yet, the deadline is looming.
My sister in Cincinnati is sick, I have to visit her.
I shouldn’t be late for tonight’s dinner with my fiance.
These are only some glimpses of so many other things that came in my mind.
Oh my god, how do people do mediation for hours and hours?

After sixty seconds, my instructor said, “How did you feel?”
I said, “Terrible, I was inside my mental jail, in sixty seconds with my closed eyes I recall more things than in a month with my open eyes.”
My teacher said, “You just started your mental motion, you should learn continuously to be in motion until some force stops you and you become mentally stationary.”
“Motion doesn’t give you results, you get results only when you finish motion”, he added.
Many smart people spend time on meditation to make their mind empty so that they can plant whatever they want.
Meditation makes their empty mind a more fertile ground where they can plant the seeds of better ideas, supreme thoughts, and positive vibrations.
Most importantly, meditation grows the seeds of love, affection, and care in mind.

There is a huge difference between smart-working people and hard working people in many aspects.
Consistent regular meditation is just one of many of those tools.
Smart working people are balanced people, they know the key points to get work done, they focus a lot on their health, diet, and relationship.
Quite amazingly, they spend a lot of time alone.

They spend a lot of time thinking and wandering.

Smart working people change from moment to moment, they always think that it makes a huge difference when you are healthy as opposed to sick.

Relatively hard working people don’t care about healthy habits, they become sick pretty quick.
Mostly they are haphazard and have no sense of balance on various aspects of life because they have poor understanding of how the brain actually works effectively.
They rarely read books outside of their profession.
Most of the time they have ready-made answers, “I don’t have time to read outside books.”
They are poor at making connections between different dots of life in one pattern, because they see the flow of life only in one direction.

Hard Working people try too hard to do more than their best, they will spend more energy than is needed and in the end their best will not be enough.
When they overdo, they deplete their body and go against themselves, and it will take them longer to accomplish their goals.

When I first came to the USA, more than a decade ago, I did a low paid hourly job for some time to survive.
I was attending school as well as working in a cafeteria.
I was unable to afford a new car so I was driving a very old car.
One day my car broke down on the way to work and I took it to the workshop to fix it.
The mechanic examined it and said it costs four hundred dollars to fix the car.
He said, “The equipment costs seventy five dollars and three hundred dollars is labor plus tax.”
He added, “You can pick up your car tomorrow at noon.”
I said,” “If it takes only two hours then why are you charging me three hundred dollars?”
He replied, “Sir, I am charging you not only for two hours but also my nine years of hard work: five years auto engineering and four years of internship.”
I didn’t say anything, I remained silent.
Actually, the first time in my life I understood the price of something which I never realized before.
I also understood why I pay three hundred dollars to my primary care physician for a thirty minutes health check up in the clinic.
I widely opened my brain and told him to fix my car.

I was about to leave, I asked him again, “Could you fix my car today so that I can pick it up in the evening?”
He replied, “Sir, I was a very hard working person before but I suffered a lot. Believe me. I owned this workshop after many years of hard work. I started as a cleaning boy in a car dealer shop many years ago.”
“Recently I am learning smart work instead of hard work. My productivity and health has gone up pretty quickly,” he further added.
He said, “I might finish your work today by working a little longer but my wife wouldn’t be happy at home if I become late for dinner because we have invited our niece for dinner tonight.”
I felt how courageous and sincere this person is.
He is communicating with me as clearly as he can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness, and drama.
He is speaking with integrity.
He is saying only what he means and using his words in the direction of truth.

In any circumstance hard work does not mean we should constantly work all the time.
Naturally, our body and mind is not designed for it.
But hard work should be in such a way that our mind should constantly enjoy and explore the work.

Hard work becomes smart work when we tweak the mind to get the best of the best in everything.

Smart working people stick to their best for any positive atomic habit.
Most importantly, they avoid self-judgement, self-abuse, and regret.

But in a lot of cases hardworking people fall in the trap of self-judgement, self-abuse, and regret.
Personally I have also experienced these types of people in my life directly or indirectly.
They often exhibit unhygienic, nerdy, and pompous behaviour.

I experienced this car mechanic’s transformation from a hard worker to a smart worker as a representation.
He was living his life with blossom.
Most importantly, he was productive, he was giving himself to his family, to his community, to everything.
He was impeccable, he was taking responsibility for his actions, but he wasn’t judging or blaming himself.
I learned from him: in any condition, do your best, no more and no less.
Learn how to change your best over time.
It’s true that hard work is required everywhere but let’s not forget to work smart.
Smart work is a choice, and so is the hard work.

Thank you for your time.
– Yam Timsina

When I was growing up in a village of a very poor country Nepal, we were taught a system run by one man – the king, and the king was designated as a great leader. Later we found out what a weak system it was, but while the king system was prevalent, many people enjoyed following the king.
Ironically, the king freed most of us from the need to think for ourselves.
“Small kings” were installed in every area of society, in economics, science, engineering, and so on. This is the story of every underdeveloped country in the world whether there is a king or other forms of king.
The biggest fantasy of every person living in an underdeveloped country is that someone else, especially a political leader can make us rich or successful is always ingrained with us.

This is the biggest secret that differentiates the mentality between people living in developed and underdeveloped countries.

After living many years in a developed country and traveling back to my home country regularly, I can certainly feel that a majority of people in the underdeveloped world are happier than most of us in the developed world.
In an underdeveloped world, most people have a very simple lifestyle with no debt, a close family interaction, and sufficient healthy laughters.
I believe this is one of the keys to consistent happiness in life.

But still why does my childhood friend want to move and settle into the developed world?
What is the secret of his decision?
I am trying to express my personal perspective in this matter because I also moved in the same way many years ago.

I am a big fan of Abraham Lincoln. I am borrowing his lines.
“To believe in the things you can see and touch is no belief at all; but to believe in the unseen is a triumph and a blessing.”
Developed world provides a belief in the unseen for those living in poor countries and this is one of the fundamental reasons people across the globe want to move to the developed world.
They have watched, read, and heard news, life-styles, and glamour in social media, news outlets, and television. That attracts them at first hand, and they start to imitate the quality of life inside them. I’m not discrediting the more opportunities in the developed world, but this comes only after acquiring new skill-sets.

There is a cycle and certainty of things in life.
When the tide goes out, it’s sure that the tide comes back. The sun sets today but it rises again tomorrow; somebody dies somewhere but someone else is born in a different place. Somebody was born poor somewhere but dies rich in another place.
Sure, we have read and heard those stories.
Our life also flows in the same cycle and same patterns. This belief also plays a significant role in our decision to initiate immigration process.

I’ve seen many successful people from different walks of life coming from very humble and poor beginnings. They reach the pinnacle of success in the developed world. At one point they realize that it’s not difficult to get success but it’s very difficult to teach others to be successful.
They start to influence and give education to their roots where they grew up.
This is also a cycle of life.
Nobody becomes successful without harmonizing physical, mental and spiritual well being.
These successful people understand this at their core later in their lives.
They enjoy being in their roots and reflect back to the beginnings.
Their core belief starts with,
“If something is built to show, it’s built to grow.”
This belief hones them to lead the poor and disadvantaged community for progress and prosperity.
Among many reasons, this might be another reason my friend thought it is necessary to move into a developed country.

Successful people’s behaviour is public but their thoughts are always private.
Due to these private thoughts they are successful in the first hand. The way they think and do their tasks are different from normal people.
They always look for patterns and consistency in their lives.
There are more opportunities for these kinds of institutions which help to grow us in the developed world for private thinking, this is another factor to attract people from underdeveloped countries.
After kissing some successes, they build their foundation in their mind so that they want to make schools, hospitals or libraries at their birth places.
My friend has seen these activities in his home country so he might be influenced by them to make a moving decision.
If ordinary people can’t see what other successful people are choosing and doing, they can’t imitate and accept them in their own life.

I have experienced one important difference in people living in the underdeveloped and developed world as I worked in both places.
In the underdeveloped world, people rarely promote or encourage someone who has made some major mistakes.
They rarely appreciate and give second chances for growth.
But in the developed world, people never promote or encourage someone who hasn’t made some bad mistakes because if they do, they are promoting someone who has never done anything in life.
Life only flows with good and bad experiences.
Life tastes good and bad.
If you have tasted bad food, then only you always lean to taste good food next time.
This is another truth in life.
Repeated mistakes only happen when we don’t study mistakes, and repeated success only happens when we study mistakes.

I have not tasted any big success in the developed world yet, but I am a student of successful people.
I also noticed a very clear difference in the perception of success in the underdeveloped and developed world.
In the developed world, what everybody knows is not worth knowing, what everybody does is not worth doing. They stand on their own and live life to the beat of their own drum.
They put everything in their own perspective and act.
The pattern is quite the opposite in the least developed world, they try to copy the success of others which most of the time does not work without sound judgement, risk tolerance, and proper skills.
My friend might want to pursue the life of freedom in the developed world against mass approval.

My friend used to run a small business for a living in his home country but was not getting much success in recent days.
There is another mass belief that the developed world is strong in technology so that everybody uses it for their business advantage and prosperity.
This might have catalyzed him to make a decision to move.
In reality, technology is just one avenue to the developed world.
Developed world is powerful in developing a mindset for consumer franchise and service excellence.
They are very successful in reading customer psychology to promote their products and services rather than mere technology.
Imagine why the iPhone is so popular across the globe, it’s not only due to product, it’s due to skill to read mass psychology by apple company.
Most of the underdeveloped world focuses only on technology rather than consumer pschyology.
I would like to add one additional point here.
Why did Daniel Kahneman get the Nobel prize in Economics?
He isn’t an economist, he is a psychologist.
This is one example of how human psychology impacts to advance economic thinking. Underdeveloped nations are weaker to grasp this theme to advance businesses and entreperneurship.

Complex human activities cannot be automated.
Many human activities need an exercise of judgement.
Sophisticated machines and technology can smoothen the systems, environment around us, but can not replace humans.
Developed nations know this so they consistently focus on developing the human mind.
Underdeveloped countries are very poor to recognize this aspect.

Many people are attracted to move to developed countries because these countries act like a neutral market, gives an environment and opportunity to grow to everybody but has no responsibility in itself.
For example, the market does not care whether a trader gains or loses.
Traders have to develop the skills, knowledge, strategies, and psychology to consistently take profit from the market.
The sad part is underdeveloped countries act as polarized and induced markets, not neutral markets as developed countries.

Success comes from diligent application of the approaches we have applied.
There is very little focus to study failures in the underdeveloped world and most of the people focus only on success.
They may have knowledge, but they lack to turn that knowledge into wisdom through vigorous practice and application.
But it is quite the opposite in the developed world.
They don’t study only other successful people, they take a lot of time to study their own personal failures.
It is the mistakes that are more noteworthy in the developed world.
Each mistake brings its own new lesson.
There are many ways to get through this practice and application of mistakes.
The crucial fact is we can’t achieve anything important in life until we get into the motion and magic of practice, that part is lacking in the underdeveloped world.
My friend may want to join the motion of practice so that he wants to move to the developed country.

There are two types of people we generally encounter in this world; first category people who make things happen like inventors, scientists, entreprenures, and are mostly found in the developed world. They take risks and study failures a lot.

Second category people who watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened, are mostly found in the underdeveloped world.
These people rarely participate in anything but read the news all day and watch the television constantly .
In which category you fall determines your destination.
Therefore, our life circulates with our thinking, activities, and participation.
Most of us regret many years from now that we didn’t participate in things of our choice but only watched things happening.

In order to succeed wherever we move, we need drive, knowledge, and discipline.
Developed countries certainly provide the proper soil to grow these qualities faster in comparison to underdeveloped countries.
Success is one of the most important byproducts of that plantation, but less so than any of those qualities in itself.

Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I’ll spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
-Abraham Lincoln

After reading this eye-opening inspiring quote, we become compelled to think what is our axe and how can we make it sharp?

In 21st century, our mind is our axe, we all have this tool whether we use it or lose it. We all have different set of values, family tradition, education, profession, and guided by the same axe called mind. To become worthy, effective and valuable, the first rule to win at life is how to use this axe differently than others.
The interesting thing about this tool is its usage which is essential in the beginning but later it can bring a lot more value in life.

If we are thinking only for the work, we admire to do all the time then, we are not sharpening our mind. But if we are reducing the miscellaneous items from our life by doing them less every day, then we are sharpening our axe. The later approach of life cleans the mindset and heartset to accommodate the former more. This is a winning way to make our thinking sustainable. If we don’t make it sustainable, then we stop thinking differently.
This is a mental habit, a kind of meditation that help us to select fewer but important things rather than many passing by shiny objects in life.

If our heart and mind both work at same time for any task, we enter into the upper zone of thinking, decisions worth of value start to appear. New waves of thinking outside of periphery appears.
But if our heart and mind move in opposite directions randomly, progress is ceased, and chaos start to appear. This is all about how we practice sharpening the axe.

Thomas Edison carbonized and tested six thousand specimens of bamboo to find out a filament for his electric bulb. Imagine what kind of axe that is required to test six thousand specimens with no guarantee that anyone would work. His mind and heart were continuously moving in one direction to test more things. Suddenly he found three out of six thousand working perfect. The outcome of sharpened axe.

Few days ago, my daughter insisted me to go McDonald to eat. We went there and she ordered happy meal, she ordered happy meal because it comes with a toy. During my study I found that McDonald sells the highest number of toys in the world than any other toy company. It is McDonald, the king of the fast food that sells more toys when it serves happy meals for kids.
McDonald is not only selling hamburger but primarily selling time (fast) before food. We all feel this when we enter in drive-through lane, but now selling more toys with food than any other toy company. This is a result of epic thinking, an innovation from a sharpened axe. This is a lifestyle design for a kid, eat with a toy.

According to Dr Lara Boyd, a professor of medicine in the university of British Columbia, “our brain is not perfect, it grows, changes shape and size, and many neurons connect and disconnect all the times at all ages.” There is fascinating and inspiring Ted-Talk by her in YouTube. I recommend watching to understand the power of this axe in our body. This little organ, an unseen shield for us, depends on how we use it. One man’s trash could be another person’s treasure because of this tiny muscle inside two bones. These two persons think differently, they use their brain differently because their neuron’s connections are different. As a result, one person pays money to throw garbage from his house, but another person collects that garbage from each house and builds a business.

To be valuable, we should not be a person of knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing. The axe, our mind, teaches us to know the value of everything in life, if we practice properly. Valued thinking is guided mainly by motivation, not by trust. Motivation is another tool to sharpen our axe.
Trust mainly comes from family and comfort, but motivation comes from outside that zone. If mind is driven by some kind of motivation, then it goes in a new direction and produces something new than usual.
Our mind is designed to protect us. It cannot process everything naturally. If we give a very hard attention to it, it filters things. This is called focus. Focus makes a brain motivated which suffers a lot but shuts off noises and brings clarity. Ultimately, power, fame, and success all are results of motivated brain.
Motivated brain is a key to produce anything rare and valuable in the world.
Unique and different thinking in individual is so powerful that it brings incredible joy to person’s life. We’re not responsible for the brain we were given, we’re responsible for maxing out what we were given.

The second rule to win at life is how to differentiate between urgent and important tasks. This is another area where most of us fail to recognize early in our life.
Let’s take a very simple example. We used to study heavily in school and college because we used to have a test immediately in a following week. Cram everything possible so that we can vomit on the test and secure the good grade.
What about reading after the test where we didn’t have to attend the test, but we knew it would lead us somewhere good in life?
Anything beyond instant gratification needs motivation, otherwise we don’t do it because there is no immediate benefit behind it.

After studying Bill Gate’s life, I knew that he is an avid reader, he reads fifty books per year in average, that is typically one book per week. He is a graduate school drop-out from Harvard university even though his SAT score was 1590 out of 1600. His first company Traf-O-Data before Microsoft remained unsuccessful.
Just imagine how many books he distilled up to now and used the nuggets from them to build the empire, Microsoft.
The picture is clear, these many books have helped him to learn how to see things far in life beyond the immediate gratification of A+ grade in school.
The same study could become either urgent or important depending on us.
It becomes urgent because we need to pass the test, get a good grade, and forget everything the whole life.
Or it could also become important and change our life without any test or grade in life. We become motivated to learn more in life by our own curriculum designed by our axe.
Formal education gives a living, but self-education gives a life.
If we are able to differentiate urgent and important early in our career then, we become extremely powerful axe ourself, generally called mastermind in the field.

The very important lesson I learned from Tony Robbins very recently is, you are not what you read or get information always but what you do consistently with that information in private every day.

What you do a single motivated task is far more important than how many things you do in a day.
A lot of time we become busy to avoid the most important task of the day because we are unable to distinguish between urgent and important tasks and always lag behind in life. This is the result of having a dull axe, untrained mind.
Most of the important tasks in life are optional.
Anything compulsory or urgent in life makes us poor, average, and mediocre but anything optional makes us creative, unique, and innovative.
Suffering is optional but that what separates us from everybody else.
Keep in mind, everyone is interested in compulsory but very few people are interested in optional. This is the only reason why Albert Einstein and Bill Gates are different from us.
By the way, I didn’t say anything about the genius Albert Einstein in the whole content, but he also got F in math test. Probably he messed up with urgent task by focusing too much on important task.
Sharpen your axe before to chop down a tree.
You got it.
-Yam Timsina

My dad and I designed a cattle house when I was nine years old. My dad made a backdoor on it because he believed front door creates more distractions to cattle. Back-door gives more air and ease to cattle. He also said back-door protects from wind, rain and predators.
According to him, backdoor is a subconscious mind which works all the time 24/7 and this is the way to initiate unimaginable dream project. The lesson I got is big dream comes from back door, subconscious mind and makes a continuous presence through a connection with the front door of our living house, a conscious mind.

If we are like ordinary people, we don’t often think about dream, unless we have one. Very few people pay attention to dreams. Dreams give rays on the epic and crazy zone of life which are most of the time beyond imagination.
Could you believe immortality of humankind?
What about direct downloading of some apps in brain so that we can run marathon?
Some people on earth live with these kinds of dreams. Without them, we wouldn’t progress and prosper, the hunger for more will die.
Ultimately, we wouldn’t flourish.
Peter Thiel and Larry Ellison are trying to stop the death. How does their brain work?
What is the source of their plentiful flow of serotonin?
Can we become immortal or reduce our age?
People might think they are crazy but for some people this is a normal way of living.
Peter Thiel, Larry Ellison, Larry Page and others are devoted so much for anti-aging research. Peter already registered himself to be cryonically preserved, such that the dead body is kept to low-temperature preservation after death with the hope that he might be successfully revived by future medical technology.
Dreams don’t come from ocean and sky but come from spontaneous discussion, reading history books, and association with great minds. Powerful mind brings stable and reliable habit of thinking and spending time alone, which is key to make complex thinking to simple.
When we acknowledge any weakness or limitation on anything, many of us think that we are accepting it. But for powerful mind, accepting any weakness means one step closer to overcome it.
Usually our mind doesn’t see opportunities right next to us because we are so bogged down on our limitations.
Dreams are not the prerequisites of action, but tools of not accepting the weaknesses and limitations.
We still remember many ridiculed stories about Donald Trump when he decided his candidacy to be the next president of the United States. He committed to this dream despite zero experience of any kind of public office. But still, he beat everybody to secure the most powerful public office on the planet.
How did it happen?
Mediocre mind says we need to have experiences related to it to succeed.
The great mind says, if we dream subconsciously, there are ways to make it possible.
Donald Trump is a very big dreamer, a very good inspiration for those who especially look for experiences to achieve something.
We are species of perception and intuition. Many times, what we see doesn’t work but what we think works and leads to revolutionary success.
When we dream something constantly, may be a big plan or project, our mind works constructively to make it a reality through a backdoor.
Just imagine, when we watch a very sad movie, why do we cry?
We know that we are watching a movie and it is fake but still we cry. Our crying is not fake, it is real. The reason we cry because our mind doesn’t differentiate between real and imaginary.
Donald Trump’s presidency is exact example of it. He visualized the presidency every single day and turned the imaginary into reality.
After winning the election the success depends on everyday work for which he has to find people who are experts in the areas. No one learns or has time to learn everything in life from scratch.
Nobody can possibly be an expert at everything.
Donald Trump and Peter Thiel know what they don’t know. They bring expert around them to succeed their dreams.
Dreams solidify the power of vision and direction, which transform unconquerable obstacles to conquerable outcomes.
Dreamers make a change into an opportunity for generations to come.
The best way to predict the change is to have a unique dream, create it by doing something everyday.
-Yam Timsina