The Hindu Business Line : A Ferrari formula

The question is not of being a monk or a materialist, it is about self-realisation, discovers Ravi Subramanian, after reading Robin Sharma’s bestseller.

“Material success is only one of the several strata of life that needs to be transcended for the fulfilment of the being. But to expand beyond success, to have the guts to discard it for greater realities of life, you must experience success fir st,” says a realised Ravi in I Bought the Monk’s Ferrari ( www.landmarkonthenet.com ).

“Ferrari is more critical now than it ever was,” he declares.

And the car, as you would have guessed, is a metaphor for ‘success, achievement, growth, wealth and well-being.’

To get at the prize, however, the author lays down ten commandments. These include: aspire high, value time, and share the success. ASPIRE is his acronym for ‘a strategic plan for individuals which revisits and restates expectations.’ Then comes the CBA method. The abbreviation stands for three imperatives: “Constantly take stock of your aspiration; balance between success and failure; and adopt an attitude to deal with situations.”

A chapter titled ‘stay positive’ narrates the story of how Citigroup acquired ‘The Associates’, a company operating in the sub-prime lending space, and the success of Citifinancial in India.

To be read with a caution: that the Ferrari may seem enticingly closer than it actually is.

* * *

Refilling ruses

“A few profit-minded restaurants train their servers to maximise wine sales in every way possible — even at the customers’ expense.” Thus fret Ed McCarthy and Mary Ewing-Mulligan in Wine for Dummies, third edition ( www.wiley.com ).

They find, for example, that these ‘trained’ servers refill wine glasses “liberally so that the bottle is emptied before the main course arrives. (This can happen all the more easily when the glasses are large.)” Don’t be surprised if, after emptying the bottle, the server asks, “Shall I bring another bottle of the same wine?” Your tendency will be to say yes to avoid looking stingy, the authors empathetically add.

Those sober enough may witness ‘an even trickier practice’ — the refilling of the glasses “starting with the host, so that the bottle runs dry before each of the guests has had a refill. How can you refuse a second bottle at the expense of your guests’ enjoyment?”

A study of the enterprising economics of inebriation.

Happiness is a positive cash flow

Learn to love what you do for a living. This is the title of one of the chapters in Pramod Batra’s ‘Be a Winner Everytime’ ( www.successcorners.com). “Some of us are foolish enough not to love what we do for a living,” he laments. “We go on dreaming of something else that we may get at a later date. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, or like the Surf ad: “Uski saree meri saree se safed kaise?”

Happiness is a positive cash flow, says Batra. “This is not dependent on how much you earn, but on how much you save! There are two ways to increase your cash flow and your happiness: by reducing your demands or by increasing your income.”

Do a regular self-audit, he advises. “If you are honest with yourself, you will know when right is right and wrong is wrong, even though there are many shades of grey between white and black.”

Attitude charger, positively!

D. MURALI

http://BookPeek.blogspot.com

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