In this series, you will find 50 entries from the “Distinguish Yourself” on my blog Life Beyond Code

#150 – Drop conditions to engage in your core craft (06 Jul 2006)
Whatever be your core craft (that you love and are passionate about) make it “condition-free” – meaning you should be able to practice that craft without any conditions, wherever you are and whenever you want.

#149 – Practice working with minimal resources (05 Jul 2006)
Which one of your projects are you putting off because of lack of resources? What would you do differently if your life depended on executing that project within those limitations?

#148 – Invest in your future clients (04 Jul 2006)
What actions can you take today to find, connect and nurture your future clients? Do you see that you are really investing in your future competitive advantage by investing in your future clients?

#147 – Be in the right place (04 Jul 2006)
If what you bring to the marketplace is not relevant, you are not bringing much. You can blame it on the marketplace, economy, outsourcing, government or you can do something about it.

#146 – Master the “criteria audit” (01 Jul 2006)
It is obvious that a reasonably sized project will have multiple stakeholders and as you might guess every person involved may have a slightly different set of criteria to judge the success of the project. It is our job to get the key stakeholders to elicit their criteria.

#145 – Create an environment to be (more) present (29 Jun 2006)
Know that it is easy to be “more” present if you take time to create an environment where you CAN be “more” present.

#144 – Know your escape velocity (28 Jun 2006)
Can you remember those days when you worked hard, gave it your best shot and got tired at the end of the day with all the activity that was happening. The sad part was that except your age nothing much had changed after a few years. You were back at the same place where you were.

#143 – Surround yourself with thought amplifiers (22 Jun 2006)
The point is – do you have the time to invest in building the relationships with these thought amplifiers to make it worth their while to lend their power to you?

#142 – Count your blessings everyday (20 Jun 2006)
If you can’t feel blessed for what you HAVE, why go after what you didn’t have? Because, simply speaking, when you get what you don’t have, you will HAVE it and you won’t feel blessed because you ALREADY HAVE it and your new goal will be to acquire something that you don’t have again.

#141 – Pass the baton smoothly (19 Jun 2006)
Passing the baton smoothly will not guarantee the person’s success but not passing the baton smoothly will increases the chances of the person’s failure.

#140 – Watch who you refer (15 Jun 2006)
It is DEFINITELY better to say that you don’t have a referral (if you don’t) rather than giving a wrong referral. After all nobody will have all the answers to everything

#139 – Align your agendas (13 Jun 2006)
Observe your own team agenda and see if it conflicts with the team members’ individual agendas. If there is a conflict, there will be a problem and the team goes down.

#138 - Stop trying to please everyone (11 Jun 2006)
Just remembering that your success does not lie in pleasing everyone will give you some freedom. If you bought into this argument, the tricky part is also to remember that you should not expect everyone around you to please you. The same rules apply both ways, don’t they?

#137 – Stop to smell the roses (09 Jun 2006)
Stopping to smell the roses is your personal reward for celebrating life. It is one kind of reward where you either use it or lose it as it is directly connected to time.

#136 – Never take people for granted (07 Jun 2006)
Wanting what we have is common sense (may be that’s why it’s so uncommon.) Eternally going after something that we don’t have at the cost of losing what we have is blindspot.

#135 – Never discount “timing” (03 Jun 2006)
Be it in winning or be it in losting, timing plays an important role. One of the reasons why you should not try to duplicate somebody’s success.

#134 -Learn to deal with (office) politics (03 Jun 2006)
You can wish that office politics was not there or it just disappears one day from your office. The chances of that happening are the same as you winning a lottery. Office politics won’t affect you if you are not on the wrong end of it.

#133 – Find the intersection of your passion and the “current world needs” (02 Jun 2006)
The price that someone will pay for what you do will typically depend on the “current needs” at that point in time and the availability of skilled people to meet those “current needs.”

#132 – Be influenced (25 May 2006)
When was the last time you were completely influenced by something or someone? What kind of action did you take because of that? What were the circumstances under which you were influenced? If you experienced positive results, what can you do to create those or similar circumstances to get influenced again?

#131 -Know your rules for small things (22 May 2006)
Big things take a lot of time. Small things take a small amount of time. However, we do a lot of small things in our daily lives – so it all adds up.

#130 – Watch your daily vocabulary (21 May 2006)
It is easy to NOT watch your daily vocabulary – the words that you use in your daily interaction with your family, friends, colleagues and anybody else for that matter. Everyone around you may be callously using words and sentences that are inappropriate but generally accepted.

#129 – Stop treading in the “blind spots” of others (18 May 2006)
People have blind spots and they are walking around knowing that they have blindspots but that information is only in the background.

#128 – Set yourself up to focus better (16 May 2006)
OK this is a tricky one. I didn’t say “Focus.” I said “Set yourself up to focus better.”

#127 – Synchronize your configurations (13 May 2006)
Often synchronization is taken for granted. It is almost like there is no discussion required as people OUGHT to know this basic stuff. That is the first problem. Next, remember that everyone on those boats have multiple projects that is going on in their lives and they are grappling with synchronization issues of their own. Your project MAY be the most important project (for you and them) but it is still ONE of the many projects going on and has to compete for attention from all the team members.

#126 – Don’t get promoted to a job that you may not enjoy (13 May 2006)
Now, go ahead and refuse that promotion if it does not make sense.

#125 – Periodically re-visit your Plan B (04 May 2006)
Having a Plan B and re-visiting it periodically will be your partial defense against “Unknown unknown.” You can never have full defense against an unknown unknown. However, something is better than nothing.

#124 – Don’t rush to a solution (20 Apr 2006)
Our tendency (just like when we are posed a question) is to respond to this new problem, challenge, situation or opportunity immediately. There are cases where this might not be an appropriate response.

#123 – Find a second reason to do anything significant (17 Apr 2006)
Find another important reason to do whatever you are planning to do. Try to do this even if the first reason you have got is REALLY good enough to engage in this initiative.

#122 – Overestimate people with potential minus experience (15 Apr 2006)
By overestimating what he needs to produce, you are actually giving this person a gift allowing him to stretch and bring the maximum out of whatever he has to offer to this job.

#121 – Learn to exploit innovations (07 Apr 2006)
If your competitor is not innovating but is great at exploiting innovations you are still at a disadvantage.

#120 – Create memorable experiences (04 Apr 2006)
Everyone is busy in their own lives. Unless you work very hard to create significant value in that interaction for the other person, there is no reason for that person to remember that interaction.

#119 – Avoid the 0.9 Extra Mile Syndrome (01 Apr 2006)
Remember the times when you tried to walk the extra mile and you gave up in the middle. You wanted credit for the few steps you walked. The perception you left behind was completely different – that you leave things half done. You usually don’t get credit for partial “extra mile” journeys that you take.

#118 – Make a difference, however small it is… (30 Mar 2006)
Go ahead and make a difference. What you think as a “small” difference may make someone’s day

#117 – Understand the power of incentives (30 Mar 2006)
Incentives are extremely powerful. There are incentives for you to behave the way you do and there are incentives to make the people around you behave the way they do. Understanding the power of incentives will help you to understand people’s behavior.

#116 -  Aim to become a trasnformer (25 Mar 2006)
These people transform themselves and take what they learnt to the next level. They start transforming people around them and extend their circle of influence. They become a shining light in the lives of others and help others become committers or transformers.

#115 – Get to the “real question” please (23 Mar 2006)
Remember that even if you get the right answer for a wrong question, it’s still of no use

#114 – Improve your Net Caring Critic Score (22 Mar 2006)
Net Caring Critic Score = Caring Critics – Non-caring Critics

#113 – Fine tune your accountability structures (20 Mar 2006)
The accountability structure that you have setup for yourself and people around you will have a big impact on results you produce. It will also have an impact on whether you and people around you will keep the promises that were made. Take an inventory of your current accountability structures in place NOW. What could you and your team members do to fine tune these
structures to produce better results?

#112 – Drop “one time use” policy (20 Mar 2006)
When you are a victim of the “One time use” policy of someone, it hurts! The other way is true too. If you have used a “One time use” policy on one of your friends, it hurts them. If you drop the “One time use” policy for the rest of your life, I won’t guarantee that you will make more friends but you may have a better chance of retaining existing friends.

#111 – Don’t look to get drowned in positive feedback (15 Mar 2006)
So, generally whenever you have a reasonably good idea you get a ton of positive feedback – so much that you can drown in it. The key is to not get carried away by the positive feedback. What you need is not a pat on the back but for someone to rip your idea apart and expose the flaws within it. That way you don’t burn more money or time on a “dumb” idea.

#110 – Contribute to the growth of your entire network (09 Mar 2006)
If we are in the company of smart people, chances are that you will become “smarter” than what you are.

#109 – Fight the right battles (03 Mar 2006)
Look back in your own lives before you answer the question “How do I win this battle?” ask yourself “Why am I fighting this battle in the first place?” You may be surprised

#108 – Face the problem (20 Feb 2006)
If don’t face the problems and keep running away from the sight of them, when will you learn to solve them?

#107 – Detach the idea from the source (16 Feb 2006)
Be open to ideas. From anywhere!

#106 – Increase investments in personal growth (14 Feb 2006)
Imagine a scenario where you progressively invest 10% more than what you have invested on your personal growth in the previous year. Do you think it will make a big difference in your life and career? I bet it will make a huge difference in “who you are” and “who you are becoming.” I am not talking about huge investments here but a conscious, disciplined and continuous investments of time and money on your own growth over a long period of time.

#105 -Be entitled for nothing (12 Feb 2006)
Entitlement is a scary concept. If not used appropriately, it can be a cause of inaction. Entitlement is always lurking in the back of the minds of average people.

#104 - Setup and use anchors and triggers (29 Jan 2006)
Anchors and triggers work. It requires discipline to setup and follow through.

#103 – Validate your “private” reasons (29 Jan 2006)
We take certain decisions for certain reason(s). Many times there is a public reason and there is a private reason for a decision. A public reason is what we say to others to justify the decision and a private reason is why we really took that decision. While we can fool someone else with a public reason, it is best not to fool ourselves with it. We need to be clear about the private reason and actually question ourselves whether it is really a “valid” reason in the first place.

#102 – Just get off the “JIMP” syndrome (23 Jan 2006)
JIMP = Just Interrupt Me Please…

#101 – Master the art of handling disagreements (22 Jan 2006)
In any relationships, one thing is guaranteed – there will be times (lots of them) when the two parties will disagree on something. When I mean relationships – I mean any kind of relationships. Disagreements on their own may not be a problem. If you don’t know how to handle them, that might lead to multiple breakdowns in your life.