DON’T let something become your thing, ‘cos its a bad thing!

Never let anything become your thing….. your style. Say you send flowers for a friend’s birthday, the first time she will be a surprised and really happy. The second time she knows you will send it and that becomes your “thing”. And when you get into that sort of mode, you are doomed! ‘Cos if you send it again, it’s not gonna be a surprise and she will certainly not react the super happy way she did the last year. And if you don’t send it, she’s gonna be majorly pissed. And so letting something become your thing is a bad thing.

Sam

Correcting a mistake and getting caught is the worst mistake!

Have you heard of:

Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me twice, shame on me!

Similarly,

Make a mistake and they don’t find out,  shame on them.

Make a mistake, they don’t find out. Then you try to correct it and then they realize your mistake, shame on you.

Ya, the above mentioned two lines pretty much summarizes the post.

Q: Whats worse than committing a mistake and not getting caught?!

A: Getting caught when you try to correct it.

This is what happened with two of my friends when three of us met up. You too have a laugh.

He was talking to a friend(she might insist she is just a colleague but wateva ) of mine about a business plan that he was supposed to propose. This is how the conversation went:

the characters are “He” and “She”. I hope you can figure out who’s who. For the dumb headed, “He” is the guy and “she” is the “friend”

She : So you are proposing a business plan, eh?

He : Ya, Just got some idea and thought I should pitch it.

She : You are planning to venture into a business. Great!

He : Its not a big deal and anyway it’s just a proposal.

She : You got that much of cash to start a business? good going..

(note: this guy is marketing guy and believes that he can talk his way through stuff, even convincing a VC (venture capitalist))

He : That job will be done by my mouth, that will get me the cash. ( his meaning: talk his way thru)

She : hmm (shame on her, she doesn’t get the mistake he made, i mean the unintended pun)

He : (with a smile tries to correct it) I mean in the good way.

She realizes now that he made a mistake in the last statement and revisits it and realizes it.. and rest is history.. rather a “ha ha story”….. shame on him

I have no idea what everyone is laughing about, but thought I’ll share it with you…  0:) 

Sam

Marketing – First post

I’ve been wanting to blog on my marketing “learnings” for a long time and today, after Seth Godin asked me to, I thought the time is ripe. So here it is. This is more of a information of a blogpost than a post itself. This is to inform that I have started a new category called “marketing” in which I will be sharing my marketing experience with the world (at least those who read my blogs). So wish me luck!

cheerio

Sam

A dilemma

My friend is in a dilemma and what better way to sort it out than to ask the “janta”. Even though I have clearly stated that it is my friend, many of you ( who am I kidding, all of you) are gonna assume it to be me. I’m not even gonna start trying to convince you. You assume what you want to

This is about him, her and life. They both are good friends, and she is pretty gorgeous. I mean pretty and gorgeous. And him.. he’s a guy, what more can I say.

Life…. how life is all about transmitting and receiving signals. And with guys, transmitting is never a problem, receiving is. This is where I’d like to introduce the word “misreceiving”, which is receiving something that you think is sent but in reality it’s never sent at all. “ALL(most)” guys have this problem. When they like a girl, they tend to think of everything the girl does as a signal sent to them by her. But in reality the girl isn’t sending any.

And as I had mentioned earlier he is a guy. so he too had this problem. And one other problem is that they both are not in the same city, not even in the same state. They’ve known each other for the last three years. Good friends during the first year, very good friends during the second year and he started liking her in the third year ( after a bouquet sent by him for which a very sweet mail was sent by her) and now he is in a dilemma. Oh! the bouquet, of course you want to know…

Last year for her birthday he called her up, spoke and realized the she was not very happy as all the birthday gals are ( they are happy on a birthday till they are 25 ). And the reason for her not being happy.. MAYBE God knew, not sure on that one Heart of a women, who could fathom.. sigh! So he arranged for a bouquet of purple orchids to be delivered. And so it was delivered. In response she sent one of the sweetest mails he had ever received in his mailbox. It said “I received other bouquets too but yours brought a smile to my lips. Thanks for making my day” something like that. What do I know, the mail wasn’t for me. . And so he liked her. Obviously a “misreceiving”.. eh?

A week back he told her how he felt about her and she said “yeah right!.. get real”. I mean she didn’t say those exact words. Oh no, she’s a girl, a pretty one. They don’t talk like that. It seems (cos I didn’t hear them )  her words were “I’m not easy to be liked, we should be friends” something like that .

Her birthday is approaching and so the dilemma… Oh the dilemma! I almost forgot about it..

The Dilemma…

Should he send her flowers?

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t!

If he sends her the flowers, she might think that he still likes her, which is definitely not what she should think. And if he doesn’t, she might think that he is angry with her and also think that he sent her the flowers last time only because he liked her and thus doubt his good-hearted, friendly intentions (all the gals reading this must be saying “yeah right… as if guys have those intentions..ever” ). The problem with the thinking thing is that the guy is only thinking about what the girl might think. Reality! uff!

Now I want your verdict on this one. Should he or shouldn’t he?!

P.S : If anyone thinks that this blog is about him / her, then please don’t coz it’s not about you.

Sam

How not to Compere / be a MC

In the very recent past (yesterday), I happened to be compering for a conference, for which around 30 people had come from  around the globe. The following is a compilation of the chain of events.. rather “misevents” that led me to blog on this and give a heads up to those who are doing it the first time.  Learn from my experience, don’t wait for life to teach you the hard way.

1. Don’t take up the task just because people think that you might be good at this. Do it only, ONLY, if you think you can pull it off.

2. Don’t be cool about it. Be prepared, show everyone that you are sincere and BE sincere.

3. Write down the script only if you can memorize it like the gals or geeky guys. Else just get ready to be massacred. So you better be able to memorize it. Coz it’s not your creativity that counts when you are introducing speakers, it’s the fact about them that count which you need to MEMORIZE.

4. Go through all the presentations and get a rough idea of how long they will take (provided the speakers give you their ppts on time??!!). It would be better if you can personally talk to the speakers and ask them how much time they will take. Coz schedule is one thing but reality is quite another.

5. And make sure one of the MC’s is always present inside the conference hall. If you follow point 4, then you might not have this problem, unless you intentionally want to screw up the conference or get screwed up or had a bad dinner last night. With me it was the point 4.

Sam

A blind meet…

Blind meet is something between a blind date and a friend’s meet. You know a person for some time, you have spoken to her and then you plan to meet up and that, my friend, is a blind meet. Cos you haven’t met this “friend” before and you are not dating.. so its a blind meet.

I was so freaking nervous. Thought we’ll meet up at the cafe coffee day. So took the bike and went that way. Looking at every girl on the way, who even roughly resembled her. It was a nice ride. Of course, I got to look at every girl on the road and I had an EXCUSE

I crossed a gal in brown salwar in a scooty, I looked at her face and she stared back and then I knew she wasn’t headed for a blind date or blind meet. Mostly she was headed for a break up. I excused myself and rode on. Saw another one in a dark blue salwar, walking. Didn’t want to stare at another girl after the last bad experience . Then I reached coffee day, stared out through the window and gave her a call. As the call got picked up, I saw that dark blue salwar gal picking up a call in her mobile. Then I knew that was her. She looked great I came out of the coffee day and spoke to her for sometime outside then we went inside. After some time her other friend joined us. She looked great too

Rest is personal. Blind meet was fun. Had a nice time

Sam