What does it take to move forward in life? One of the key things needed to move forward is the ability to focus. The mind must be clear about what it needs to focus on. There are times when it is critical to focus on what is taking place at that time. My advice is to focus on what is most important or that appears to be the priority. If you do not focus on what is most important; you could be in real trouble in the near or not to distance future.

Another key point to moving forward in life is having the ability see success. If someone is unable to see success then they may never feel inspired to seek greater achievements in life. There must be inside the heart something that enables one to see success. If we look at most people who have done well moving forward in life; we will see that they all had the ability to see success.

Well, if you have not watched the movie, “Meet the Robinsons” then do so. It is such a lovely movie.

What I love about the movie is its message, which is: Keep moving forward. No matter how many times you fail, keep trying because eventually you’ll succeed. There’s even a quote at the end of the movie from Walt Disney himself that contains the phrase in it. [If you're the cynical type, don’t be so quick to dismiss the message as trite. Even if you’re not an animated film fan, check out the movie for a dose of inspiration.]

The message is so simple and yet so profound. It’s easy for all of us to develop a bit of an inferiority complex as we struggle to find a career we love and pursue it. I experienced many failures myself as I was making my transition—from exploring lots of possibilities and feeling like none of them was the right one, to trying to create a financial plan for how to make it happen and not seeing a way out, to trying to be grateful for what I already had and feeling miserable instead.

If your goal is precious, and it is, Walt Disney’s words are poignant, inspirational, and on point. Here’s what he said:

“Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things… and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”

Life can hit hard. Sometimes you get knocked down when you don’t even see it coming. Some are cheap shots, some are glancing blows and some can bring you to your knees. When this happens, it’s not about how hard you get hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit, but still find the strength to keep moving forward. It’s about having the will to continue in spite of the obstacles.

When you get hit, do you stay down? Or do you reach down somewhere deep inside of you and pull up the courage that lifts you back on your feet to keep moving forward? You do have a choice. Consider these Nine Ways to Keep Moving Forward when you are faced with this choice again.

Forget Regret

Leave your mistakes and regret in the past. They don’t define your value, then or now. When you stay in the past you become stuck and unable to move forward. We all have made mistakes with our job choices, friends and relationships. The consequences can hit us pretty hard. However, to begin learning how to put these experiences behind us – by letting them go, we can begin to live in the here and now. Give yourself the gift of forgiveness and keep moving forward.

Learn from Failure

Learning from failure and having regret are two separate things. Regret is an emotion; a feeling of disappointment along with a modest amount of shame or guilt. But to look back at a circumstance and figure out what went wrong gives you some very important information. This review allows you to evaluate what worked and what didn’t, and more importantly, why. Often when you are removed from a situation, you can look at it more objectively which will allow you to make better choices to keep moving forward.

Ask for Help

You are not alone. It may feel that way sometimes, but there are many people who would extend their hand and lift you up if asked. All you have to do is ask. Consider co-workers, neighbors, or your church. Often times we are afraid to ask because we don’t believe we are worthy to receive the help. Think about this: we are surrounded by millions and millions of people by design – for a purpose. A hand to grasp, a shoulder to cling, and a face to radiate hope can help you to keep moving forward.

Believe You are Worthy

Whatever your goal, your dream, or your desire, you are worthy of achieving it. The closer you get to it is when the enemy of you soul will begin putting doubt in your mind by playing the self-limiting tapes that say you are not worthy. Replace these old tapes with a newer one that contains the truth – you are worthy to have your heart’s true desire and to keep moving forward.

Take 100% Responsibility

Except in rare and unfortunate circumstances, you are responsible for the quality and condition of your life. Your career, your relationships and your happiness are all under your direct control. Sometimes we choose to do nothing when we get hit hard because it’s just easier and less painful that way. But the real pain is only deferred. You have to live with yourself. You have to live with the voice in your gut, your inner wisdowm, that says you gave up too soon or didn’t try hard enough. When you hear this inner voice speaking to you, it’s usually right. It’s you choice, then, to get up and keep moving forward.

Know What You Want

This isn’t about the how, only the what. In order to move forward in life, you need a firm foundation to step from. Understanding what and where you want to go in life will provide your vision and spirit – your foundation. The how will figure itself out when you know you want to keep moving forward.

Trust

There are no accidents without value. When you get hit hard and land on your back, look for the reasons and for the value in this. Open your heart and trust this happened for a reason. Perhaps it was to test your determination or to alert you to the fact you were on the wrong path. Either way, trust the experience is happening for a reason and be open to making adjustments in order to keep moving forward.

Want it More

How badly do you want it? How badly do you really want to achieve what you are working so hard to accomplish? When you get hit hard, you have an opportunity to answer this question. It’s one thing to say you want to do something, or to be something. But to walk through the pain; to get up and keep moving forward knowing there may be more pain ahead, is a test of your determination and resolve. When you find yourself getting back on your feet, you have indeed answered this question and there’s no doubt you will keep moving forward.

Keep the Faith

Faith: A strong belief in something without proof or evidence
At the end of the day when you are weary from all of the effort and energy you have expended and you are sore and tired from being hit hard so many times, but the dream is not realized, the one thing that tells you to keep going; to get up tomorrow and to keep moving forward, is your faith. Honor this and cherish it. Faith is what makes you human. It gives you energy and hope. And if you let it, your faith will deliver you to wherever you want to go in life.

I hope that helps you all.

As you move forward in life, occasionally look ahead to your next horizon. The next challenge you see will give you the drive to keep moving forward. Looking forward will hone your ability to achieve success.

Cheers!! and

Keep moving forward.

In a culture full of reasons to say “no,” it takes a lot of courage to find ways to say “yes.”

We’re taught to say “no” from a very young age, after all. For most of us, our first word was “no”, and it quickly became our favorite word. As toddlers and teenagers, we used “no” to differentiate ourselves from our parents, peers, and surroundings. It’s how we began to control what was happening around us, or at least, how we tried to control that. It helped us over those early developmental hurdles, and gave us our earliest sense of our personal boundaries — and that’s a lot of significance bound up in such a tiny word!

The problem isn’t that “no” in and of itself is somehow bad; indeed, giving yourself permission to say “no” as an adult can keep you out of an awful lot of trouble.

The problem is that “No” begins to take on a life of its own. Too often, that life is yours.

Life is change, and “no” becomes a way of slowing down that change, or trying to stop it altogether. It is a shield we use to protect ourselves from having to experience anything new or different. Rather than riding the wave of change into a life full of exhilarating possibilities, we use “no” as a tether to keep us safely confined to the kiddie pool.

Using “no” to protect ourselves from change is like a kitten poking its head under covers, assuming it’s completely hidden. Change is going to happen, whether you say “no” to it or not. And, just like that kitten, assuming that “no” protects you from change is one sure way to have it pounce on you and bite your tail.

Let’s be honest here: We usually say “no” out of fear, and some fears are entirely reasonable. I’t's sensible to say “no” to jumping off a bridge or “no” to cake if you are diabetic. These “no’s” aren’t the ones that keep us from living lives of incredible satisfaction and happiness. It’s those silly, neurotic fears like fearing rejection, or of looking stupid, or being wrong. It’s the fear of commitment, the fear of speaking out, and the fear of facing our truest, deepest desires. The list is nauseatingly long, and we’ve all bought into some of these at least once. These fears have shaped our lives, often to our detriment and sometimes to the detriment of those around us.

So the next time you’re faced with something new and exciting and all those little neurotic fears start rioting inside you, what does it take to fight down a “no” and say “yes” instead?

In a word: Courage.

Like the Cowardly Lion (an archetype for the fear-ridden) we need to find our courage. Unlike him, we know that we have to face our fears, and find our courage within. Inside each of us beats a brave, fiercely courageous heart, willing to take on a challenge if it means that life afterward will be more authentic, happier, and freer. What better challenges to tackle than the fears that keep us chained to our tiny, boring, closeted little lives?

Do yourself a favor: Right now, identify and tackle at least one of those inner fears. Find a reason to say “yes” today, and every day. You’ve only your inner coward to lose!

New York, May 31 (IANS) In a clear indication that India dominates the outsourcing business in the world, a Forbes magazine survey says that five of the seven billionaires whose primary source of wealth is outsourcing are Indians.

Three of the five – N.R. Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani and Senapathy Gopalakrishnan – are from Infosys Technologies. The others are Azim Premji of Wipro and Shiv Nadar of HCL Technologies.

Forbes notes that all of these five made their billions through providing global software and IT services. In contrast, the other two outsourcing billionaires, Terry Gou and Barry Lam, both of Taiwan, run companies specialising in contract manufacturing in the electronics sector.

Premji tops the list of outsourcing billionaires with a net worth of $12.7 billion. He is the chairman of Wipro, provider of integrated business, technology and process solutions. The software services outsourcing company acquired a business process outsourcing arm in 2002, the business magazine said.

Nadar’s net worth is $3.9 billion and HCL Technologies, co-founded by him, is an outsourcing electronics, computing and IT software company.

“With clients like Cisco, Boeing and IBM, HCL is one of India’s leading global IT services companies that emphasises ‘transformational outsourcing’, or working with clients to re-define the cores of their businesses,” Forbes wrote.

Narayana Murthy, with a net worth of $1.4 billion, is now chief mentor and non-executive chairman of Infosys, a software services company he co-founded with only seven people and $250. Infosys is now a global leader in IT and consulting.

“Infosys pioneered the global delivery model of outsourcing. The premise is to take work to the location where the best talent is available; this philosophy helped stimulate the rise of offshore outsourcing and, of course, added to the company’s wealth,” the magazine reported.

Nilekani, with a net worth of $1.1 billion, is a co-founder of Infosys who ran the company as chief executive and managing director until June 2007, when he became co-chairman.

Gopalakrishnan, with a net worth of $1 billion and another Infosys co-founder, was president and chief operating officer of the company until last June when he took over from Nilekani as chief executive and managing director.

Terry Gou (net worth: $6.1 billion) is chairman of Hon Hai, that has capitalised on the popularity of iPods, cellphones, game systems and other devices the company assembles.

Barry Lam (net worth: $1.3 billion) runs Quanta Computer, the largest notebook original design manufacturer that boasts clients like Apple, Hewlett-Packard and Dell.

These seven billionaires, Forbes clarified, made their fortunes through a phenomenon called offshore outsourcing. It is a combination of outsourcing and offshoring, two similar concepts that are often lumped together.

By definition, outsourcing is to purchase or subcontract from an outside source; while offshoring can be done both within and outside a company.

“The economics behind offshoring are really compelling, and customers usually do it for three reasons – they want specialized firms, want to cut costs and gain access to talent or specialised skills,” the magazine quoted Robert Kennedy, a professor at the University of Michigan Business School, as saying

A crorepati who lives in a hut!

His story is an inspiration for millions. A self-made entrepreneur, his mission is to help the poor through job creation. E Sarathbabu hit the headlines after he rejected several high profile job offers from various MNCs after he passed out of IIM, Ahmadabad two years ago.

He instead started a catering business of his own, inspired by his mother who once sold idlis on the pavements of Chennai, worked as an ayah in an Anganvadi to educate him and his siblings. As a child, he also sold idlis in the slum where he lived. “We talk about India shining and India growing, but we should ensure that people do not die of hunger. We c an be a developed country but we should not leave the poor people behind. I am worried for them because I know what hunger is and I still remember the days I was hungry,” says Sarathbabu.

In August 2006, Sarathbabu’s entrepreneurial dream came true with Foodking. He had no personal ambition but w anted to buy a house and a car for his mother. He has bought a car but is yet to buy a house for his mother. The “foodking” still lives in the same hut in Madipakkam in Chennai. Today, Foodking has six units and 200 employees, and the turnover of the comp any is Rs.32 lakh a month. But it has not been a bed of roses for Sarathbabu. After struggling and making losses in the first year, he managed a turnaround in 2007.

How has his experience as a ‘Foodking’ been in the last two years? Sarathbabu shares the trial and tribulations of an exciting and challenging job in an interview..

A tough beginning
As I am a first generation entrepreneur, the first year was very challenging. I had a loan of Rs 20 lakh by the end of first year. I had no experience in handling people in business, and it was difficult to identify the right people. Though I made losses in the first year, not even once did I regret my decision of not accepting the offers from MNCs and starting an enterprise of my own. I looked at my losses as a learning experience. I was confident that I would be successful one day.

Sleeping on the railway platform

April 29, 2008

My first unit was at IIM, Ahmadabad. When we started our second unit in October 2006, I thought now I would start making money. But I made losses of around Rs 2000 a day. A first generation entrepreneur cannot afford such a loss. But I worked really hard, working till 3 a.m. in the morning. What reduced my losses were the birthday party offers.

I started the third unit again in Ahmadabad but it also made losses. All my units were cafeteria and I understood then that the small cafeterias do not work; I needed huge volumes to work. My friends who were extremely supportive in the first year when things were difficult for me. I had taken lo ans from my IIM-A friends. They were earning very well.

In December 2006, an IIM Ahmadabad alumni event took place in Mumbai and I decided to go there mainly to get a contract. I was hopeful of getting it. I also knew that if I got the huge contract, I would come out of all the losses I had been incurring.

I booked my train ticket from Ahmadabad to Mumbai for Rs 300 and I had Rs 200 in my hand. As the meet went on till late at night, I could reach the station only at midnight. I missed the train. I decided to sit on the platform till the morning and travel by the next train in the morning. I didn’t have the money to check into a hotel. I didn’t want to disturb any of my friends so late at night.

It was an unforgettable night as I was even shoved off by policemen from the platform. It was quite insulting and embarrassing. After two hours, people started moving in, I also went in.

A man who sat next to me on the platform gave me a newspaper so that I could sleep. I spread the newspaper and slept on the platform! I sleep well. I got my ticket refund in the morning and went back to Ahmadabad. And, luck did not favour me, I didn’t get the contract.

In March 2007, I got an offer to start a unit at BITS, Pilani (Sarathbabu was an alumnus of BITS, Pilani). That was the first medium break for me. For the first time, I started making profits there though the other units continued to make losses. The reason for our success at BITS, Pilani was the volume; there were more students and there was a need for a unit like ours while in Ahmadabad, they have at least a hundred options.

If I made Rs 5000 a day at Ahmadabad in two shifts, here I made Rs 15,000 a day. BITS, Pilani unit gave me the confidence to move on. Unless you make money, you can’t be confident in business.

What changed my fortune

April 29, 2008

When all my friends who worked for various MNCs made good money every month and I made losses with my venture. But I kept telling myself, I am moving in the right direction to reach my ambition and vision. My dream was to provide employment and I was doing just that. I continued to work till 3 a.m. but I never felt tired.

Through BITS, Pilani, I got the BITS, Goa contract and that was the biggest break for me. It was not a cafeteria like the earlier ones but the dining hall that we got. We had to feed 1300 students. We started our operations in July 2007. At Rs 50, for 1300 students, our sale was Rs 65,000 per day. We soon started making a profit of Rs 10 to 15,000 a day. Around 60 to 70 people work there. I gave the charge of the Ahmadabad operations to one of my managers and moved to Goa.

I was still in debt by Rs 15-20 lakhs but I knew BITS, Goa would keep my dream alive. Within six months of starting our operations in Goa, I repaid all my debt.

I was called to give a speech at the SRM Deemed University. After the speech, I asked the Chancellor, can you give me an opportunity to serve in your campus?? He said, “If not you, to whom will I give such an opportunity?” It’s a food court but a big one, similar to the one at BITS, Pilani. There are around 17,000 students there.

Now, I have the BITS, Hyderabad contract, ready to start in July 2008. Other than the six units, I have approached a few more universities and corporate houses too. In the first year, I had made a loss of Rs 25 lakh. Right now, we have a turnover of Rs 32 lakh every month, which works out to 3.5 crore (Rs 35 million) a year.

I have hired about 200 people. Indirectly, we touch the lives of around 1000 people. By this year end, we will have 500 people working for us. Only 10% of my workers are educated, the rest are uneducated. I want to make a change in their lives. If they have any problem, I will take care of it. We support the marriages and education of poor families. We are paying more to the employees as the comp any is doing well. Now that the foundation is strong, I pl an to have ten units and a turnover of Rs 20 crore (Rs 200 million) turnover by next year.

His advice: Never give up!

April 29, 2008

In the last two years, I have given more than 120 lectures in various institutions in India. When I got the first opportunity to speak, I thought God had given me an opportunity to encourage or inspire entrepreneurs. When youngsters tell me they are inspired, I feel good.

When you just dish out the theory, nobody believes you. But when you do it, they believe you. What I tell them is based on my own experiences.

When I thought of starting a company, I felt India needed 100 people like Narayana Murthy and Ambani. If 100 such people support 2 lakh people each, imagine how many Indians get supported.

Entrepreneurship is needed to uplift the poor. It is not easy to be an entrepreneur, especially a first generation entrepreneur.

There will be lots of challenges in the beginning but you should learn to look for the light at the end of the tunnel.

Never give up even if there are hurdles. There are many who give up within a week.

You need determination and a tough mind to cross the initial hurdles.

If you are starting without much money, you should not have any overhead expenses.

He still lives in the same hut

As I am in the food business, I know how much the price of every food item has gone up. Many people will languish in poverty because of inflation. Had my mother been working as an Anganvadi ayah today and earning Rs 1500, she would not have been able to feed us and educate us.

On the one side, we talk about India shining and India growing, but we should ensure that people do not die of hunger. We can be a developed country but we should not leave the poor people behind.. I am worried for them because I know what hunger is and I still remember the days I was hungry. That is why I feel it is our responsibility to take care of them.

I wanted to buy a car and a house for my mother. I bought a car first, not a house. I still live in the same house, the same hut. I can build a house right now but I want my business to grow a little more. I feel good in the hut; that’s where I get my energy, that’s where I lived 25 years of my life. I want to remind myself that the money and fame should not take me away from what I want to achieve.

But within six months, I will build a good house for my mother. Her only advice to me is, don’t waste money.

Till I was in the 10th, there was no electricity in my house. I had to sit near the kerosene lamp and concentrate hard. That’s how I learnt to concentrate.

The two year journey has been very enriching. It seems like a 20-year journey for me. I was living every moment of the two years, from sleeping on the Mumbai railway station platform to this level.

I do not recall being motivated to do anything in particular as a young child. I do not think I was any different from most other children in that respect. There was, of course, always the motivation to “be good”, so that you gained a reward of some description. Whether it was a candy bar, or presents from Santa, it did not take long to learn that if you were good, then you got something good in return.

Setting goals as a young child was not on my agenda. All of my basic requirements were being provided by my parents. Before the age of ten, I did not need to set my sights on anything. I went to school and played with friends as young children are expected to do.

When I was ten, I experienced a major turning point. From then on, goal-setting and achievement began to play a significant role in my life.

My best friend lived across the road, and we had been friends since we were six. She was one of those academically- and musically-gifted people. She always did brilliantly at school, and she seemed to know every bit of general knowledge in existence. In reality, she probably knew very little, but she was a walking encyclopedia as far as I was concerned.

As if this wasn’t enough, my friend was very competent at playing the violin and the guitar. It seemed that anytime I came to her house, she was either doing school work or practicing music. She certainly would not be found slumped in front of the TV idling her time away. My friend was also accomplished at school sports and studies. Indeed, I wondered if there was anything she could not do!

My grades at school were what could only be termed as average. I did not play any musical instruments, and I was no use at sports at the age of 10. It was perhaps rather surprising that we were best friends at all. I do not think I envied her, she was my best friend after all. She was she and I was me.

There was however one thing that my best friend had that I wanted. My friend had shown me how to play a couple of chords on her guitar, and I wanted to learn more. She was more than happy to teach me the basics. But I also wanted a guitar of my own.

In fact, I wanted a guitar above everything else in the entire world. So how does a ten year-old school kid get a guitar? Easy! You ask your mother to buy you one.

This was not going to go as I had planned however. My mother had just received my report card and she was not exactly brimming with pride. My 9 grades were either a poor B or an even poorer C. I was not exactly in the genius-class at that time, and my mother had no doubts that I was a hopeless case academically.

I summoned up the courage to ask her for the guitar. I was expecting a straight-forward no. What she did say however was going to change my life. My mother said that if my next report card was all A grades, then she would buy me the guitar.

I knew what I had to do. As I was so determined to have the guitar, I was more than happy to take on the challenge. It was going to be four months or so before my next report card was due, so I had time to get my school work up to scratch.

Without realizing it, my mother had set me a SMART goal. Her goal was for me to do better at school. She was not concerned about the guitar, yet this was what provided me with the motivation to succeed. I knew exactly what I had to do to get what I wanted, and I had to start concentrating on my school work immediately to achieve it.

I got straight As on my report card. My mother bought me my guitar that weekend. Although I did not get very far with my guitar playing, I learned about setting and achieving goals. I learned about being motivated and being persistent. I learned that if I worked hard at something, then success would follow. This soon became a habit, which changed my life upside down and I have continued to set and achieve goals throughout my life.

Incidentally, the guitar cost my mother some money. I will be forever grateful to her for teaching me the steps to achieve what you desire in life.