20 Bad habits that hold leaders back

A Business Week article lists the following 20 interesting bad habits, complied by executive coach Marshall Goldsmith, describing what hinder leaders from progressing into the executive suite of their organizations:

• Winning Too Much: The need to win at all costs and in all situations—when it matters, when it doesn’t, and when it’s totally beside the point.
• Adding Too Much Value: The overwhelming desire to add our two cents to every discussion.
• Passing Judgment: The need to rate others and impose our standards on them.
• Making Destructive Comments: The needless sarcasms and cutting remarks that we think make us sound sharp and witty.
• Starting with “No,” “But,” or “However”: The overuse of these qualifiers, which secretly say to everyone, “I’m right. You’re wrong.”
• Telling the World How Smart We Are: The need to show people we’re smarter than they think we are.
• Speaking When Angry: Using emotional volatility as a management tool.
• Negativity: The need to share our negative thoughts, even when we weren’t asked.
• Withholding Information: The refusal to share information in order to maintain an advantage over others.
• Failing to Give Proper Recognition: The inability to praise and reward.
• Claiming Credit We Don’t Deserve: The most annoying way to overestimate our contribution to any success.
• Making Excuses: The need to reposition our annoying behavior as a permanent fixture so people excuse us for it.
• Clinging to the Past: The need to deflect blame away from ourselves and onto events and people from our past; a subset of blaming everyone else.
• Playing Favorites: Failing to see that we are treating someone unfairly.
• Refusing to Express Regret: The inability to take responsibility for our actions, admit we’re wrong, or recognize how our actions affect others.
• Not Listening: The most passive-aggressive form of disrespect for colleagues.
• Failing to Express Gratitude: The most basic form of bad manners.
• Punishing the Messenger: The misguided need to attack the innocent, who are usually only trying to protect us.
• Passing the Buck: The need to blame everyone but ourselves.
• An Excessive Need to Be “Me”: Exalting our faults as virtues simply because they exemplify who we are.

You can also read the above list here

Our Deepest Fear

A very nice poem by Marianne Williamson  

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine, as children do.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Quotes on the lighter side

There is no reciprocity. Men love women, women love children, children love hamsters.
            -- Alice Thomas Ellis

One of the indictments of civilizations is that happiness and intelligence are so rarely found in the same person.
            -- William Feather

Women want mediocre men, and men are working hard to become as mediocre as possible.
            -- Margaret Mead

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.
            -- Niels Bohr

A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.
            -- Jerry Seinfeld

Very good spiritual and health resources

Today I seem to have attracted a lot of spiritual and health related websites. When I opened Times of India today, I read the Q & A section of Deepak Chopra, and in that section, he had recommended a book called Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills, to the readers. This book talks about the various toxins that are mixed with food, in restaurants and other places to make the food more tastier. I wanted to learn more about this and visited the amazon site to read the reviews and is a 5 Star rated book.
I was amazed to see the good reviews, and then at the bottom of the same page, I found a health forum. This health forum has tons of good discussions, and one lead to other. Finally by the end of the day, I found the following good stuff

1. Zen Habits: Good and positive thought to lead a healthy life

2. How to do CKLS(Colon, Kidney, Lever, Spleen) cleansing to throw the toxins out of the body. I did some more research on this method and I found a lot of people practice this in Europe regularly. I am not sure if this is practiced in India.

3. Tapping: This site talks about Emotional Freedom Technique, an acupressure kind of technique to release the bad feelings in mind, to lead happy life. I am intending to practice some of them and see what happens !

4. Also read about Jack Kornfield's meditation techniques.

Bottomline, at the end of the day today, I am feeling that to lead a healthier and happier life, one needs to

• Yoga or any kind of exercise,
  
• drink a lot of water,
  
• Meditation is a must
• Take care of health specifically CKLS(Colon, Kidney, Lever, Spleen)
• Reduce toxic food. Read the ingredients carefully before buying food in groceries
• Keep one's mind clean,clear and calm . All body related diseases emanate from mind.
• Keep good balance between life and work.
  
• Add a bit of spirituality(could be listening to audio books while driving, as I do most of the time, reading ebooks(if you are a computer savvy person))