The Avaricious Artist

Calvin was an artist. Before he would ever start a drawing or painting he always insisted upon being paid first, and on top of that, his fees were very high. He was known as the “Avaricious Artist”.

A woman once visited him and wanted to get a painting done from him. “How much are you willing to pay?” inquired Calvin.

“Whatever you charge,” the woman said, “but I want you to do the work in front of me.”

So, on a pre-decided day, the woman came to him with a lavish feast. Calvin with his fine brush and smooth touches did the painting. When it got completed he asked her for the highest sum of his time.

He received the payment as promised. The woman went back happily but when she returned home she complained about him saying, “All this artist wants is money. His paintings are fine but his mind is so dirty; he has given himself totally to the greed of gold coins. I wish he learns some lesson about this otherwise he’ll end up nowhere. All the people in the town know that, though his paintings are spectacular, still due to his being avaricious, his value in this society is nothing.”

But again she wanted another painting for her living room so again went back to the “Avaricious Artist” and said, “I liked the last one. I want to get another painted. How much and when?”

“How much can you pay me for this one?” asked Calvin.

“Oh, don’t worry about that, just name it, any amount.” Answered the woman.

Calvin again named a fancy price, a price that he never thought she could pay, a price that none of his fellow painters would demand. Nevertheless, he painted the work, took the consideration and went away.

It was learned later that Calvin had these reasons for demanding such huge amounts:

A ravaging famine was a frequent visitor to his province. The rich wouldn’t help poor, so Calvin had a secret warehouse where he kept the drums filled with grain for the poor.

From his village to the highway the road was broken and the streetlights were damaged so abductions and theft were consistently occurring. He wanted to build that road and provide for good streetlights there.

His last wish was to feed as many people as he can on the day his master; his teacher who taught him this art died.

After completing all of his wishes, he left for the search of God, became a saint and never touched his brushes again. 

For more of such inspirational stories, click ---> Inspirational Stories

A Man & A Lion

A Man and a Lion were discussing generally about the relative strengths of men and lions. Both believed their races to be stronger than that of their counterpart. The Man contended that he and his fellow beings were stronger than lions by reason of the greater intelligence possessed by the humans.

“Come now with me,” said the Man, “And I will soon prove that I am right.”

So he took the Lion with him into the public garden area and showed him a marvelous statue of Hercules overpowering the Lion and tearing his mouth into two pieces.

“That is all very well,” said the Lion, “but proves nothing, for it was a man who made this statue after all.” 

Moral of the story: We can easily dress up things in whichever way we wish to. So better get in the shoes of the other person and then judge, then come to any conclusions.

For more of such inspirational stories, click ---> Inspirational Stories

Who is The Holy Man?

After roaming for days and months, a wise man decided to rest in a village for a few days. He thought to spend some days there and then he’ll continue his journey. Word spread like fire in the village about the arrival of such an extraordinary man. The local villagers referred to him as The Holy Man.

A man from the village decided to visit him and seek some of his wisdom. The only problem was that The Holy Man lived on top of a distant mountain away from the hustle of the village. But the man was determined to visit The Holy Man anyway.

When he arrived at the house, he saw an old servant inside who greeted him gladly. Man said, “I would like to meet The Holy Man. Heard a lot about his wisdom.” Servant said “Sure”, and took him inside.

In no time the man was led to the back of the house and he found himself standing outside the house. He was shocked and a bit confused too. On one side he was anticipating to meet The Holy Man and here he is standing outside the house with no sign of any man other than the servant himself. He turned and said furiously to the servant, “I wanted to meet The Holy Man! Why did you bring me in the backyard of the house? Where is He?”

The servant smiled and replied “You already have. Everyone you met today on the way here is a wise holy spirit. They all hold supreme holiness within them. No matter how plain and insignificant they might look, see each of them as a wise Holy Man. If you do this, then whatever problem you brought here today (with the intention of getting it solved) will be solved .” 

The 10 Brain Tattoos of Legends : Robin Sharma

The following 10 brain tattoos are originally created by Robin Sharma. I have just added below each point that why I loved that particular quote. Hope you like them too. :) 

1.    You can be a victim or a titan. You can’t be both.

We all get to make our own choices every single second of our lives. At this very moment, some of us might be stressed due to an unavoidable circumstance while someone going through the same struggle might be at peace with all the turbulence around her because she knows someday everything will fit in. Titans trust the process while the victim hates it.

2.    Your excuses are nothing more than the lies your fears have sold you.

By this quote, Robin Sharma perfectly delivers a lot of wisdom in just one simple line. Well, that’s just his awesome way! Many of us give ourselves excuses that our genius self doesn’t deserve. And then we blame someone else for it. It’s just that we know that our fears are the primary sources of the liberation of our bravest selves; still we keep on clinging to them all lifelong. Please shed them up!

3.    An addiction to distraction is the end of your creative production.

The moment we shift our focus from learning to laziness, we kill the dream we have. All of us get distracted a lot by the never-ending distractions of the world. Only a few of us, rarely 5-10%, are able to be successful. The quote above by Robin Sharma is the reason why this happens. No magic here. Pure dedication.

4.    A job is only a job if you choose to see it as a job.

More than half of the people we see in our society complain about their work. We blame our work for it being so boring and lack of energy. For one week, look at your work as if it is something that will change the world. Look at your simple “boring” job as something that makes this world happy and makes you feel that you are contributing to something bigger than you think. Robin Sharma puts this so well in his quote above that you should see your job as a craft, a medium through which you could serve the humanity. Look from Robin’s viewpoint. You’ll never shift to old thinking.

5.    Every visionary was first ridiculed before she was revered.

Well, this one’s a no brainer. We all have heard about so many great leaders who walked this planet Earth who were first ridiculed of their idea. They were called crazy. But then they were revered when their legendary selves shone through the dark times. Examples are Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Kiran Bedi, Picasso etc. If you do feel like people don’t believe in you and still you are continuing to chase your dreams, then my dear friend... You are one of them ;)

6.    Dream BIG. Start small. Begin today.

Many of us procrastinate a lot. We keep on planning and planning, thinking and thinking about the ways to achieve our goals. But in doing so, we don’t realize that planning a lot is taking up too much of our time! Sometimes, you shouldn’t keep on planning, just go for it! Start small. Start now. Begin today.

7.    The job of a leader is to grow more leaders. So leave people behind better than you found them.

We all don’t know for how long we have our stay on this planet. We all are in some way or the other dependent on another person. So while we stay here, why not make this ride a fun ride for others by lifting up the gloomy ones, by respecting the poor ones, by consoling the crying ones and by helping the needy ones? Grow people. Invest your time and energy in them.

8.    Adversity is nothing more than opportunity clothed in disguise.

All adversities bear the fruit of success. Just like a butterfly has to struggle through the shell to fly freely, we all have to fight through our share of struggles to fly in the world with freedom and bravery. No pain no gain.

9.    Life is short. Enjoy the process.

Really we never know when our last moment is. So why not spend each day loving, caring and spreading faith and hope all over? In the end we all have to turn into dust. Don’t we?

10.  Today is an awesome day to reach for your best.

Period. :)

I suggest to definitely watch the video from where I got these points and share it as much as you can. :) Click HERE to watch the video.

Robin Sharma is the author of No. 1 bestselling book The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. You should definitely buy the book.  Just click on the image below this article and you could buy the book. He is also an internationally sought after speaker and one of the world’s most trusted leadership advisors. 

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Share this article to your near ones if you liked it.

Till next time…

Stay motivated. Stay excited. Stay happy. 

Suggested reads with this article :-

How to build FOCUS around your priorities

The real meaning of our Life is...

Victim Vs. Victor

How To Be Legendary in Our Work

What is a GENIUS made of ?

Top 5 traits of highly successful people

There are actually many traits of highly successful people but am simply gonna articulate them in the following points for you. Just remember that being successful isn’t difficult, its much easier than being a mediocre:

•  They are POSITIVE thinkers : All of us have our share of sorrow and regret and some unavoidable circumstances. But the ones who know the ability to deal with them wisely are able to dodge those tough times which mostly drain the energy out of most of others.
•  They are PASSIONATE : Such kind of people are always coming up with new ideas or insights, no matter how busy they are. This strange habit is what makes them successful. They are constantly analyzing how they can amp up their game in every aspect of their lives.
• They understand the value of SUPERB QUALITY HUMAN RELATIONS : It is so easy sometimes to forget about the human connection when you are up at the ladder of success when most of your peers aren’t, but most often this is the single most worst habit that makes success a failure in a matter of seconds ! All successful men and women of any era, got successful because they were always humble and understood that the very fabric of any successful enterprise or a personality or a brand is its superb quality human relations.
• They run GREAT RITUALS to keep themselves on track. Hard times do come in the lives of most successful people as well, but they have already set some great rituals that they run every day in their lives to keep themselves on track. For example : it is going out for a run for me if I feel like having some stress in mind. This way, I remain fit mentally and physically both.
• They WORK HARD. You really cannot ignore this point. Can you ? All successful people do agree on the presence of some luck factor in their lives but more than that they agree on the age old line “The harder I work, the luckier I get”. They are not like most of the lot who sits in front of the TV or PC aimlessly to hop on from website to website and are waiting luck to strike them. The successful ones get up, roll their sleeves up, get their hands dirty and endure the painstaking task until and unless they have realized their dreams. 

Being successful isn’t a physical state, it’s a mental state.

       Till next time. 

Stay motivated. Stay excited. Stay happy.

Who are You living for ?

Most people these days are doing up jobs. By no means, I am saying that jobs are not good. Am not against jobs. What I would like to drag your focus into is that, Who are you living for?

I've seen so many people in jobs who boast of their designations. Many boast of their companies. I don't have any problems with that also. Of course, you should be proud of the prestigious organization for which you're working. But I have seen that the people who boast of their companies, they generally tend to be living for their companies only. They spend their whole time in the company. And when by God's grace if they get a day off or if it's a holiday, then also they are doing up the office work.

Of course, the company will pay you when you'll work for it. But why don't you work for yourself?

People these days are so much engrossed with the work of their office that they don't even take out time to think about themselves. Many of them are not even cared about their weights! I mean their weights are just crossing the mark of a century and still they think of the company all the time!

They are not concerned about their health even for a second. And I think this is the reason why all of such people are running after money. They are just running after money without realizing that if God forbid, one day they get admitted, all this accumulated wealth will go away. Let me pose in front of you a very simple yet a very, very, very profound question :-  Is, you working in your company making YOU rich?

Now you would say that yes my company is paying me and am being rich with it. And you obviously must be making some investments, so that’s what you are saying as being rich. But you're not getting my point. Your company owners are earning in millions. And might be you're working in just thousands. But the question isn't that how much you're earning? My question here is ... What you're earning, are you able to fulfill all yours and your families wishes with it, right now? Don't tell me the answer. Think about it yourself. Just give it a thought. And WHAT WILL BE THE USE OF BOASTING ABOUT YOUR COMPANY IF YOUR NUMBER OF MEDICINES INTAKE(IN FUTURE) IN A DAY IS GREATER THAN THE NUMBER OF ZEROES IN YOUR PAYCHECK?  At the end, you're just an employee for your company. (Having said that, I don't mean all companies are bad, yes there are some very good ones who treat their people like their biggest asset)

Am again saying, I am not criticizing working for a company, but are you working up for your dreams? 
Has the small bright sun of your dreams somewhere lost amidst the dark clouds of the job ? 
Please look into it.

Many of us get trapped in the deep dark abyss of the designations we are offered by the companies, they sometimes seem to be very lucrative, but when we go inside them, then we realize that we are trapped. I have given this situation my own spin and have defined it as “The Hypnosis of Delightful Designations”.

I don’t mean here that the designations are not important in a company, undoubtedly they are, but my focus here is to remind our friends and families who are boasting of their designations to a great extent, who just fail to realize that they are mere illusions because when a person is gone he is never remembered for the (oh so alluring) designations he achieved, but, he is always remembered for the good deeds he did.

What could be a nobler deed than working towards your dreams? 
Or working for a company where you get the job of your interest?

A friend of mine said me that his company doesn't give him the value he deserves. He isn't happy working for such firm. I gave him the suggestion to switch job. Of course, this decision seems to be quite sensitive and serious but it was necessary. So he did it. He took the leap of faith in the vast ocean of uncertainty. Then guess what? He quit the job. He was unemployed for about two weeks, regularly used to call me to explain his situation, but I was humbly fortunate to support him and motivate him. And then, God listened to him and he got three jobs consecutively. Right now he is at his third job in a period of less than one month! And yes, I forgot to tell you, he is in love with his this job because this job is what he wanted.

I would thus like to put forth a simple solution for you, when you wake up, if the fact that you’re going to job makes you happy and inspires you to treat your work as a craft, you are in love with your job. If this doesn’t happen you surely need to do some corrections in the pattern in which your life is headed.

I believe you need them both, working for your company as well as your dreams. Working for company to pay your bills and working for your dreams to make your heart devoid of any future regrets. But make sure you are committed to world-class performance in both the aspects because the former will feed your family, while the latter will feed your soul.

So, WORK FOR BOTH!

Till next time.

Stay motivated. Stay excited. Stay happy.

How To Be Realistic ?

What does “being real” mean?

Being real means being WHAT YOU REALLY ARE.

Okay, that was tricky. Let me rephrase that. 

Can you identify anyone who tries to be sweet around you and you know very well that he/she is someone else behind you? I know you can identify such people. This species is present everywhere.

Now if your intuition can sense this person, can't your fakeness be decoded by someone else?

I know you would feel good if someone who is bad, accepts that and admits it in front of you. Now, what would you feel if you accept your mistakes and flaws in front of someone else and promise them to amend yourself? A sense of joy, happiness and confidence will flow into you.

When you are hiding your true self from someone, the bond of you both will get weak. Negativity is like a disease. Once a germ gets into your mindset, it will spread the disease of negativity in you and then this disease is hard to be cured.

I urge you to be what you are. Step out into the world by being the most authentic version of you. You'll be someone who can change the world. Because what I believe is, that if someone can change himself (accepting his flaws) then changing the world is just a cake walk for him. This is because the real enemy of us is "we" ourselves. Let me serve you with the best part, you know your weaknesses. So why not attack them and be victorious?

The government has successfully put up fines on everything that is fake, be it fake product selling, fake advertisements, fake marketing, fake prospectus of a company etc. Sadly the government couldn't put up fine on the one thing that is diminishing the value of our society, and that is Fake Humans. 

So does that give you and me a license to be fake?

No, it doesn't. 

It's the biggest liability on the whole community, if you're being fake. You know inside what lies you've told. You know inside what negativity you're spreading. Will you be happy from inside while doing so? I know you couldn't. Your inner self is someone you're afraid of. Our inner selves are the true souls connected to the God, and God never supports the fake. So why will your inner self-support you? Please give this a few seconds to think.

So, now ending our this conversation on a beautiful note :-

Love openly. Live fully. Kiss your loved ones passionately like there's no tomorrow. Be truthful. Be honest. Be funny. Be serious. Be happy. Be motivated. You have just one life. Why don't shower love and care wherever you go? You'll just get it back manifold. 

Stay motivated. Stay excited. Stay happy. 

Victim Vs Victor

Let me start this conversation of ours with a simple question to you. What does this word "WINNING" bring into your mind?

Success, happiness, freedom, top of the world feeling etc , all of us like winning don't we? We all like being called as winners. It feels good when people make us feel special. It feels great when we are celebrated or when our success is celebrated.

But sometimes we do see that some people like winning by wrong means. These are the people, am sure, you're surrounded with and so am I. These people like winning, it doesn't matter to them if they are putting their foot on other people's heads to go above them, the only thing they want is success and they are going to get it by hook or by crook. These people are very shrewd and very cunning. They know how to manipulate the minds of others and make others work for them. Some of the traits of such people include :-

ü They're best liars

ü They are highly manipulative

ü Success goes to their minds

ü If they win, everyone is a lower class person to them

ü They treat others badly and call them by foul names

ü They are the best description of "attention seeker" word

ü They get joyous at small wins

ü Whenever they see any difficult task they automatically give it the tag of impossible.

ü They talk dirty. They use the language of the victim.

ü They are the negative parasites roaming around in the world.

ü They pull down others who are going up in life, they make a rope from such people and use this rope to get themselves up to the success while on their way they keep on pinching others.

ü For such people, success means everything. Human values are an alien topic to them.

ü They make others happy by having fun with them and on their backs, they criticize them.

ü They are the hidden sweetest haters. They hate you and still be sweet and try to pull you down. (Let me tell you, they are very sweet, you won't know when it's poison they're giving you instead of honey. Please be aware of them. If you want I'll give you a blog post on how to identify such people)

ü They love this formula Other's hard workàcheatingàmy incomeàmy profit

ü They spread out negativity specifically because they can't see competitors among their colleagues.

ü From the above point only you can guess T\that yes, they are insecure from inside.

ü There is a large black hole of emptiness inside them.

ü They talk more, do less.

ü They spend time on useless activities.

ü Do you want to know what's going around ? Spend 5 minutes with them and you'll get what you want. They're the biggest gossipers.

ü And the main point, they have two best friends named excuses and procrastination.

ü They know how to spend their most productive days in the most unproductive manner. They're masters at it.

ü They love entertainment.

ü They show respect.

ü They have big TVs.

ü  They waste their days. So their lives!

And, these people are not real leaders they are pseudo leaders. They are the best examples of window dressing. They show themselves as some superior beings but when you look inside of them, they're empty.

Now let me introduce you to another breed of human beings. Noticing such people is very difficult. You can't find them very easily. They are the rare species who are not blessed with anything special, they look like us, they eat the same food like us, they just breath something with oxygen, and that thing is Passion. The passion for winning the world. The passion to prove their mettle. The passion for showing the world what actually they're made of. I refer to them as the Victors! 

The men who have always chased victory. I know this sounds very exciting. Do You want to know what are the qualities of such people? Welcome aboard! Here starts the list :-

ü They're honest.

ü They believe in being transparent.

ü Success goes to their hearts because they already know that it is just the beginning. 

ü If they win, they try to make others win as well.

ü They give respect to all. Be it the CEO or the gatekeeper. after all, we all end up being dust.

ü They are the best examples of “practice makes a man perfect”.

ü They do get joyous at small wins but do keep in mind their final goals.

ü The impossible tag doesn't work on them. They have some strange goggles to see the possible behind what's impossible.

ü They talk the language of the genius. They talk the language of the elite.

ü They are the guys who spread smiles wherever they go.

ü They do face criticism but they never pull people down. Because they know that all great people in the history have had good relationships. They know that network is more important than net worth.

ü Their very definition of success starts from human values.

ü They are worst back biters. All they believe in is to praise someone on the face or if it's about making the other person realize his mistake, they do this on the face only.

ü They are the best life lovers! They love everyone around them. No matter who it is. If it's a living being, they love it. That's their simple formula

ü Their formula is :- My hard workàMy profitàMy success.

ü They radiate positivity. Positivity just flows out of them wherever they go.

ü They are in control. Neither introvert nor extrovert.

ü There is a deep ocean of courage inside them.

ü They do more, talk less.

ü They only spend their time on useful activities.

ü They hate gossips. There is a huge difference between gossiping and talking. They talk. They don't gossip. They talk clean. They don't talk dirty.

ü They have a lot of best friends, among them a few are patience, passion, courage, conviction etc

ü They call it a day only if it has been productive.

ü They love education.

ü They give respect. Giving is by heart. Showing is just fake.

ü They have BIG libraries without which they cannot survive.

So there you see, there are two different breeds in the society. Now it depends upon you. Which side do you reside?

Stay motivated. Stay excited. Stay happy.