Posts from — November 2011

You don’t need to do something extraordinary to deepen your connection with everlasting happiness and soak yourself in the beauty of life.

You just need to do a simple thing.

Release.

If you work for someone, don’t just work and deliver an ordinary result. Instead, razor sharpen your focus and release your true potential. Make the challenges look small. They are really no match to your intelligence. You will start seeing an amazing growth in your career graph.

If you are a creative writer, don’t just write. Instead, release your thoughts like a flow of water. Let them flow. Don’t hold any of them within you. You will be surprised to have a totally new perspective for your writing. Let an incredible masterpiece begin.

If you are a musician, stop composing that new song now. It’s not the best one, yet. Instead, close you eyes and release all vibrant tunes hidden inside your musical soul. Don’t let music become permutation and combination of few tunes. Instead, release everything. Touch the other tunes. Create a melody which yourself want to listen again and again. Be a versatile composer.

If you are a painter, don’t focus on colors. Instead focus on ideas. Release all your imaginations onto the canvas. Then, let a marvelous piece of art take birth from your imagination. After all, art is such a wonderful media for expressing your creativity. Why have you been limiting yourself so far?

Give your loved one, a warm hug and tell them how much you love them. Love needs to be expressed. Release your affection. Talk to your near and dear ones about how much they are important in your life.

You will be delighted to experience the real warm feeling of being with family.

How did you miss to release these emotions so far?

May be because, the person reading this post is not real you. You are lost somewhere in the overwhelming digital distractions. Or may be immersed yourself too much into an illusion of speedy life.

However, life need not be so fast that you miss to enjoy the prime moments of it. Aren’t the magical moments that are recipe for a wonderful life?

I know, there is real you inside.

You just need to release him.

I promise, your world will be never same.

Minimalism and minimalist lifestyles are getting widely adopted these days by many people.

And why not? After all, we are so much drowned in clutter that we either succumb to too much commitments or suffer from painful stress of not being able to live a happy life.

Joshua from The Minimalists beautifully explains why he doesn’t own a television. Raamdev wrote an awesome essay about his plan of traveling 3 countries with $3000 in his pocket.

LJ Earnest discusses how eliminating choice will help you to get more done

Did you see what’s happening?

We need drive backwards to actually move forward in the right lane.

It doesn’t matter what speed you are going in life, however , what matters is , where are you going?

Reducing unwanted clutter from life and detaching ourselves from unwanted burdens makes us feel light and reclaim the time for doing what we really love.

Having said the above, I want to know your views or definition about minimalism.

According to you, what is minimalism or minimalist lifestyle? And in what ways , becoming a minimalist can benefit your life.

If you ask me the same question , which I love to answer -

Minimalism according to me is , deliberately detaching myself  from attractive options and involuntary participation which make my life unnecessarily busy. Because when I am less busy, I create something of really good quality.

Note that I have used the word deliberately here in above sentence. Because without deliberate efforts, it’s not going to be easy to become a minimalist.

Back to my original question. What is minimalism according to you.  I want to know.

Write your thoughts, ideas in the comment section and let’s start an interesting conversation.

This is a guest post by Avadhut Nigudkar from Finance Walk. To guest post on this blog, check guest post page.

If you’re looking for a job and don’t want to lose even a chance to meet your prospective interviewer, I suggest you go and meet small business owners, who can give you the job that you want.

For you and the interviewer (in this case, the business owner) the interview will not be a formal one. It will be a “chat over a cup of coffee or breakfast”.

The small business owners are highly focused on their products and services. They want to produce and sell the product first and recruiting is not their main focus and so, they may not have a dedicated Human Resources person or department. The business owners themselves may not be trained in interviewing skills and have no idea of conducting interviews.

What you can expect

First of all, don’t expect the interviewer/owner will be on time. He may have different tasks to do and the interview may not be a priority for him.

Be punctual and show that you are serious about this job. Expect a number of questions from him, like:

• Tell me about yourself
• Run me through your CV.
• What are your strengths and weaknesses?
• Why do you want this job?
• Why do you want to leave the current job?
• What makes you different?

If you have prepared well for the above questions then you can face the interview confidently.

Interviewer is not HR person here and so, he is totally unaware of how he is conducting the interview. So, you can take initiative and lead the interview.

What you can do

1. You should be prepared and confident to lead the interview. Treat this as an opportunity and prepare well.
2. If the interviewer is not well prepared, you should take the lead and ask all the information about the job and the company.
3. Ask the required details about the interviewer and the company. The interviewer will go on and on and tell you all the required information.
4. The interviewer will tell you about the company, how it started, their future plans and about the job that you are applying for. This gives you time and opportunity to settle down and build rapport.
5. Tell the interviewer the research you’ve done about the company and how much you know about the company. Impress the interviewer with this information.
6. When the interviewer is going through your CV, he will go through the jobs you’ve done and the skills you’ve acquired. Provide relevant details and your key achievements in each job.    After this, the interviewer will ask you whether you want to ask anything or need any more details about the job. Take initiative, and ask relevant questions like “What kind of projects I will be working on”, or, “What are company’s values and vision”. These questions show that you are interested in the job and want to think of long term.
7. If the interviewer doesn’t mention about the next step, take initiative and ask him when can you expect a call/ email from him. Ask him what would be the next step—job offer or second interview.

Show your confidence no matter what type of interview you’re attending. You can highlight your key achievements with highlighter pen and explain them in detail when the opportunity arises.

Give good examples of what you’ve done—don’t wait to be asked!

So, next time someone from a small or medium sized company wants to meet you over a cup of coffee, say yes, prepare well and give the interview confidently.

I’m sure it’ll be a WIN- WIN opportunity.

About author: Avadhut Nigudkar is a Career Coach and founder of FinanceWalk.
He writes on Career Selection, Attitude building, Personal Branding, Job Search, Resume Building, Networking and Interviews

I am so excited to tell you that I have launched my new blog on blogging advice. It is called Expert Blog Tips

Lot’s of interesting stuff will be available there as I progress my writing there. Right now, you will find few articles and an awesome offer if you are blogger or website owner. I will design your blog header image for Free.

That’s right.

I am keeping this post short. Please go and check it out and let me know what you think about it.