Category: Value Creation

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

When I am at home my elder daughter Alyssa always asks me to go for swimming. At the pool she pushes me to jump into water, always, every single time. The only reason my daughter wants me to go swimming is to make me comfortable in water especially in deep water. I tried swimming couple of times, but I failed miserably. I was sinking all the time, not floating on the water. And, at the same time my daughter was going like fish in water. I failed completely in my practice many times, but I became better and better gradually. I felt it, I was improving little bit at a time.
In the beginning, I didn’t realize how big psychological impact that my daughter has put in my mind because I was struggling to breathe while swimming.
Now I go swimming multiple times in a week. Not only that I am good at it, but I never realized that I could swim this well in sixteen feet deep swimming pool. After evaluating my success in swimming, I asked myself.
Is it essential to fail before to succeed in anything?
Jack ma had thirty different job rejections including KFC where twenty-three were accepted except him.
I have read the story of Milton Hershey who failed in three candy companies before he got a Hershey company.
Another person that comes in my mind is the most renowned and respected television personality Oprah Winfrey. She was fired from broadcast journalist saying that she is not appropriate for the television industry.
Stephen King failed multiple times before he became renowned author.
Walt Disney failed to secure the funding multiple times before he pioneered Disney World. Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton both had signs of Asperger’s as a young child (a disorder on the autism) but nothing stopped them from becoming the most brilliant scientists in history.
From these stories, the learning lesson I gathered is how to change, adapt and grow to defeat failures. If we want to overcome our failure and learn from it, we have to leverage the strength of the person next to us when we go up and down. The prime factor is family and people we associate as my daughter Alyssa showed me the ray of courage that I could be a good swimmer.
When I was kid, i failed multiple times in different sectors, and it didn’t affect me deeply to follow my dreams. But when I started to become little older; my rent, mortgage and responsibilities suppressed me, and I postponed my dreams for someday. In reality, that someday never came. After certain years, my inner desire and enthusiasm about my dreams became so thinner and thinner until it completely disappeared. Exactly the same thing happened in my singing dream. I used to sing songs in my high school and as an undergrad. Dream of becoming an aspiring singer vanished.
If I would have started that dream, I wouldn’t regret it now. The worst-case scenario I would get failure from that dream project. To be honest, regret is permanent, but failure is temporary. We just don’t spend our time searching successes, we have to spend time looking at ways to keep studying to the failures we already have.
Success and failure both are measurable in life. There are three components to measure success: health, wealth and progress. The importance of these three we realize only in later stages of life, after passing the actual time. And we start living the life of regret. If we are feeling healthy in each passing day, then it is a first sign of success. If we are feeling wealthy in each passing day, then it is a second sign of success. Wealth is different than rich. Rich is accumulation of money, but wealth is accumulation of positive mindset to create quality life for ourself as well as for the society. The third sign of success is to grow, each passing day by learning something new.
If we don’t fail, we don’t invest on us, therefore failure is inevitable because it teaches us to invest on us. I invested one hour each day for ninety days in my swimming to become ordinary swimmer.
Investment on us is far more powerful than investment on product or service.
Majority of failed people don’t differentiate between a job and a career. They do the job throughout their life, but they hate it every day.
They don’t do anything about it. If we really hate the job, then we should escape it as soon as possible.
A job is a simple way to pay our bills and obligations, but a career is a deeper system to move into quality life by creating value.
Failure forces us to seek competency and mutual relationship among the coworkers in the work field. Rare and valuable skills are result of deep focus, deliberate study and practice. These are tools for building any skills like swimming for me by ruthlessly devoting myself beyond my comfort zone.
The more I try to force to study failure, the more I learn how to succeed. The only requirement is patience.
By origin, human needs each other’s back to succeed, mostly not to repeat the same failure.
Alyssa, my daughter, needs me in her science experiment, and I need her for my swimming tips.
-Yam Timsina

How healthy are you?
Are you really living with your full potential, or you are just pretending to be healthy? By giving answer to this question, we clearly express our strength and limitation in life. Remember, the struggle behind the discovery of one normal drug for a disease still costs one billion dollar and 10 years of time.
Similarly, how educated are you?
I am not talking about Ivy League’s diploma and certificate. I am talking about the understanding of life. How well do you keep yourself aware about your profession, your health and new innovation in society? Education is not only knowing; it is understanding of the world and adding a new layer on top of your understanding to facilitate your life.
If our education system forces our kids to memorize the capital cities of Asia and Africa, then it doesn’t take long to be sidelined in today’s technologically sophisticated society. Education is to create value to other people to improve their lives; not to memorize capital cities unless to participate in quiz competition.

Clearly, education and healthcare business would be the fastest growing businesses. If we are not careful then majority of our money will go in these two sectors in coming days. Education and healthcare require more urgency and importance than we actually realize. Both areas heavily involve teaching, training and instructing people around us.

How well do we persuade, or influence others is the key in these areas? Probably far more important than technical knowledge or skills. Teachers and doctors both should convince others, both should care and support others.
One skill is far more important than ever for both teachers and doctors.
How to open both ears and close a single mouth. By opening mouth, nobody learns.
Listen more from your students, patients and family members. I have had experiences of doctor interrupting me as a patient in the first round of talk where I was detailing the cause of my visit.
Few years ago, I was teaching chemistry to sophomores. I was telling students to write about the topic I assigned. Almost ninety nine percent obeyed my topic, but two students did not. They choose their topic but not mine. During grading what I realized is the student who wrote his own topic exceled far well then those who wrote my assigned topic. To improve the understanding, only key is making the student centerpiece. The power of choice enhances the optimism, which is required in today’s education especially in digital age.

Another effective tool to get student’s inherent drive is teach to ask questions. Mostly ask uncommon and open-ended questions which force anybody to think. The skill of asking better questions is way productive and useful than finding the correct answers. This is in direct conflict with current teaching and learning technique. Most of us learned from our school, college and parent how to answer but not how to question. Questing is still considered unethical in many circumstances. This is equally important for doctors too. Encourage and teach students and patients how to ask questions especially open-ended questions which avoids yes or no answers.
My cousin was not studying even before the day of chemistry test. Rather than to ask direct command question like “study for chemistry test tomorrow”, I asked her some indirect questions.
“How much do you score in chemistry test tomorrow?”
She told me, “4 out of 10.”
I again said, “Why you are not picking 2?”
She said, “I deserve better than 2.”
This will amplify my cousin’s personal positive intrinsic motivation for study.
Imagine the consequences if doctors apply this strategy to their chronic patients.
Now a days, a sophomore student with internet excess can have more information on the mechanism of Diels-Alder reaction with 3D simulation model than his or her 1980’s PhD professor.
Doctors are really busy people; they have to see assigned number of patients in a day. Don’t instruct the patient what to do and not to do. Listen their details, habits, behaviors, and patterns then act accordingly. Now a day’s patients arrive in clinic and hospital after doing intense research and reading about their disease and problem. In conclusion, teaching and treating patient are same old concepts but we have to deal in a new way or a new approach. I would like to reinforce the idea that there are no new teachings or treatments, only new approaches to execute old and existing ideas. Teach every kid like you are teaching your own kid and treat every patient like you are treating your own dad. How does it feel?
-Yam Timsina