Hi everyone. Good morning. I want to wish everyone of my readers Happy Diwali. Diwali is the festival of lights celebrated by many Indians. It is like Christmas or Hanukkah in terms of importance. Over the weekend my sister and my sister-in-law are visiting us. In addition to catching up, we were talking about education. I remembered this article I had read about skills that everyone must have to be successful. The first is to be able to sell. Everyday we find ourselves in situations where we have to sell ourselves. In your job, you have to convince your manager that you are the most capable person for the job and you deserve a raise. While dating, you have to convince your date that you are the best choice. I have to confess that I myself am not a good salesperson. I need to learn this skill. The second skill kind of goes hand in hand with the first one. You have to market yourself. If your boss is not willing to give you a raise and you want to change jobs, you have to be able to convince potential employers that the skills you have are a match for the position they want to fill. Steve Jobs was a great marketer. He positioned all the Apple devices such that people thought they must own them and buy the newer models. Third one is the skill of being creative or innovative. A few days ago, I had written about innovation. Unless you have creativity or innovation, you won’t be able to differentiate yourself. The fourth is the skill to buy right. I don’t mean buying things on sale or during the Thanksgiving or after Christmas sale. I mean paying the right price for the value it delivers. I used to mow my lawn using a walk behind mower. I used to spend hours getting my lawn cut. But then I bought a riding mower. It cost twice as much as the walking mower, but I was able to finish mowing the lawn in 1 hour. So was it a good value? I think so. Same thing with my snow blower. I used to spend hours cleaning up snow using a shovel. Not to mention risk getting a heart attack or hurting my back. But with the snow blower, I was able to finish it in a short period of time and not hurt my back. Another example is in the pharmaceutical industry. Gilead, a pharmaceutical company specializing in antiviral drugs, paid over a billion dollars to buy a company called Pharmasset for 1 drug that was in development. Everybody criticized Gilead for overpaying. A few years later this drug that was in development, was approved by the FDA and it made $2.4 billion in one year. Gilead was laughing all the way to the bank. They definitely bought right. Finally learning how to maintain what you have earned and creating new products or growing existing products and ideas. Hope you spend time trying to acquire these skills.

Hi everyone. Do you remember how our parents and grandparents lived. They did not make the kind of money we are making, but they also didn’t have the kind of expenses we have. The only bills they had to pay were water, phone, electricity. They did not have TV’s and certainly did not have TV’s in every room. Today we have cable, internet, cell phones and other things we need to pay for. Besides nowadays, everything is made to last a few years and things become obsolete. I have old laptops and desktops that are sitting around because they are not fast enough or don’t have enough memory to run today’s programs. Same thing with Iphones. Our parents used things that lasted a long time. Very rarely disposable things were used. I remember when we were little, my mom used cloth diapers. We used cloth napkins to wipe tables and floors and washed and reused them, instead of tearing a paper napkin and throwing it out after one use. Do you know that one third of landfills is paper? We used stainless steel utensils, not disposable ones. My mom used to use tamarind or lemon to clean the utensils. In our village, my grandmother used to use mud to clean the utensils and wash them off. We had clothes lines inside the house and we dried our clothes instead of spinning them in a dryer. I don’t remember my clothes getting static charge.  All these things not only saved us money but they were also environmentally friendly. My grandmother would have flipped if I told her I pay a dollar for bottled water. Think of how much plastic is ending up in landfills as well.

So I would like to request that we try and live like our parents whenever possible or adapt something they used to do. Not only we will save money, but also help the environment.

Hi everyone. Today I am going to talk about willpower. You know most people have good intentions:

I want to eat better or I want to start a side business, I want to lose weight etc. But there is a saying: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”. So it is just not helpful to have good intentions, you have to work on them. Most people including myself, feel that life gets in the way, especially if you are a family person. After a day of working at the office, commuting back and forth, shuttling kids to their activities, making dinner, there is no time left to do something for yourself.

As you know I have written a few books. I always get asked, how do you manage. I tell them that I try to write something everyday. Take this blog for example. I try to post everyday. I know sometimes days go by between my blog posts, but I try to be consistent. Similarly, I wake up at the same time everyday. Most people want to sleep in on weekends but even on weekends I wake up early, not as early as a weekday, but still earlier than most people in my household. I get a lot of things done in the morning. I am not bragging, I am just saying that if you want to do something and if you have the desire and willpower for it, you will be able to achieve what you set out to do. Take small steps everyday. The key is consistency.

So wake up 15 minutes early and slowly increase it to an hour. Start writing or doing some simple exercises or what ever you want to do. Slowly, it will become part of your routine. Just try to do it everyday.

Hi folks, good morning. In today’s post, I am going to talk about innovation. The first IPhone was released on 29 June 2007. Today we cannot imagine our lives without it. A friend of mine was telling me that he had gone to an information technology meeting in early 2007. He was sitting in a big ballroom with thousands of people who were listening to the keynote speaker. He said everyone was on their Blackberry and the manufacturer RIM was a Wall Street darling. But the introduction of IPhone wiped out Blackberry. I don’t know how many people remember the Sony Walkman. But it was very popular with people, especially joggers. You could strap it on and listen to it while jogging. But it was bulky, you had to play the songs in the order they were on the cassette tape etc. Then Ipod comes around and you can store hundreds of songs, play them in any order and is as small as a calculator. Newer models are even smaller and have bigger memory so can store thousands of songs. So bye bye Walkman. Look at Blockbuster. At one time it was the world’s biggest video rental company with thousands of stores. Netflix, Redbox and similar services came by and Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy. Look at Uber. It has revolutionized the taxi industry. Actually wiped out is more like it. But Uber is in the process of wiping themselves out. Uber is collaborating with Carnegie Mellon University to come up with a driverless taxi. Another friend of mine, who is an engineer, said that the driverless taxi will also affect the auto industry. Why would people buy cars? You can call a driverless taxi do what you want to do and send it back. No need to worry about maintenance, accidents, having a garage in the house. Technologies that revolutionize any industry are called disruptive technologies. The reason is that they completely change the industry. Do you know what is the biggest hotel chain in the world? It’s not Marriott, Hilton or Best Western. It is Airbnb. Can you imagine that? An online room booking service is bigger than brick and mortar hotels! Everyone knows that the first flight was successfully carried out by the Wright brothers in 1903. At that time, if someone would have said that the next big milestone is landing on the moon, people would have laughed. Yet 66 years later, in 1969, we had the moon landing. It takes people like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk or Richard Branson to have a futuristic vision. But that does not mean we cannot do similar things. Think outside the box and find ways to improve existing ideas. Who knows we might come up with something disruptive.

Hi everyone. I said in my last post that I will try to pass on some nuggets of wisdom I picked up at the Create Your Own Economy (CYOE) workshop. One of them was branding. One of the reasons I started blogging was that since I am in the healthcare field, I wanted to give health information to people such that it is easy to understand. The other reason I started doing that was to monetize my blog. I am also interested in wealth and so I thought I would write a post about that once in a while and finally, I read a lot of books on self improvement and if I find something useful, I pass it on to you via the blog. So I decided that I would concentrate on health, wealth and wisdom related topics. I believe it was Benjamin Franklin who said “Early to bed, early to rise, make a man healthy wealthy and wise”.

Anyway, back to branding. At the workshop we learned that branding makes you different, especially if you are not. Think about the most popular brands: Nike is well known for shoes. Ferrari is well known for making fast cars. Also when you build a brand, you can then expand it into similar areas. For example Coke wanted to get into bottled water. But if they would have come up with Coke Water it would have been confusing. So instead they created a brand called Dasani. Now Coors beer company also wanted to get into bottled water. They created Coors Water but no one bought the water. They should have done what Coke did. So your brand needs to be strong and positive. There was a comedy serial on American TV called Seinfeld. In one episode, one of the characters is a proctologist. So his boat is called Assman. He orders a personalized license plate called Assman. Also based on the example of Coors, you need to realize where it would make sense to extend your brand and where it would make sense to create a different brand. For example, in the US we get disposable razors and pens made by a company called Bic. Now these items are cheap, but they don’t last long. What if Bic decided they want to make pacemakers? Would you buy them? No, because you associate Bic with disposable, short lived items. Another example is Heinz ketchup. Their commercials show that the ketchup comes out of the bottle slowly because it is thick and not watery. But if Heinz decided to build a sports car, would you buy it. Probably not because you associate Heinz with slow ketchup. Branding also gives you the ability to charge higher prices for your services. Think of Starbucks. They sell coffee, but it costs almost $3.00 for a small cup. I can buy a cheap cup of coffee which will probably taste the same and give you the same amount of energy boost at some other store for less than $1.00, but because of the brand Starbucks is able to charge more. So if you want to differentiate yourself, then branding is the way to go.

Hi everyone, over the weekend from October 14-16, 2016, I was at a conference called Create Your Own Economy (CYOE) and it was led by New York Times Best Selling Author, Raymond Aaron. He has written books on Real Estate Investing, The Chicken Soup for the Soul series and Dummies series. He also invites other celebrities like Dr. John Gray, Dr. Ivan Misner, Stedman Graham (Oprah’s boyfriend), Larry Loik, Jack Canfield and many more. So over the next few days I am going to write about what I learned in this conference. Again, I hope you don’t get bored, but I definitely learned something new and I am implementing some of those things in my day to day life. For example he said most people worry about things they can’t control and things that don’t matter. Successful people work on things that matter to them and that are under their control. That is why they are not busy, but they are productive. Another thing he mentioned was that branding is very important. One of the ways you can brand yourself is to write a book. Now I have written 5 books: An Addition to Our Family (available on www.xlibris.com), Taming Ebola, 50 Things to Do if You Get Laid Off ( my friends suggested that if I would have changed the title slightly, it would have become a best seller, but I will leave that up to you to figure out), Taming Zika (available on Amazon kindle), and finally The Great Testosterone Myth (available on Amazon). But in the future, I am going to concentrate on books in the healthcare realm because that is the area I am most familiar with. Stay tuned for posts about what I learned at CYOE. Maybe you might learn something too. As usual I will keep you posted when my next book is published. Actually Dr. John Gray gave me an idea and I might pursue that.

Good morning all. Last night I went to a talk where the speaker was a special agent from the FBI. His department was weapons of mass destruction. As most of you know, I work in the pharmaceutical industry and in todays environment, the threat of terrorism is very serious. Especially chemical and biological weapons. Since pharmaceutical/biotech industry uses a lot of chemicals that can be easily used to make explosives, this talk was a part of the FBI’s outreach initiative. They work with local law enforcement, first responders and civilians to raise awareness about terrorism. Especially post 9/11, the focus has been on prevention of such acts. We were also told that if we see something we should say something. You never know what might be a dangerous situation. He told us about some cases they have come across where students or enraged spouses had gotten instructions from the internet and tried to create devices to endanger people. Common chemicals like nail polish remover, chlorine, hydrogen peroxide, ammonium nitrate that can be bought in beauty supply stores or home improvement stores can be turned into deadly weapons easily. These things can be built in the basements, backyards or other places. In most cases, neighbors don’t even know that something is going on.

Now most pharma/biotech companies have restricted access to their labs and facilities, but beauty supply and home improvement stores don’t. Neither do facilities like garages, pool supply stores, and metal polishing stores. So the bottom line is be aware and when in doubt report it to the proper authorities.

Good morning. Have you ever wondered if your neighbor is a millionaire? Well according to Dr. Thomas J Stanley who wrote the best seller The Millionaire Next Door, it is a definite possibility. Dr. Stanley studied the habits of wealthy people and surprisingly found that most people who are wealthy don’t display their wealth. According to him, people who buy expensive things are aspirational, meaning they want to be rich and they buy things to satisfy their idea of what being rich means. Through his research Dr. Stanley found that millionaires don’t live in expensive houses, or drive expensive cars. They don’t eat in expensive restaurants or buy fancy clothes. Take Warren Buffet for example. He is one of the richest person in the world, but he lives in the same house his parents had bought. He lives in Omaha, Nebraska and not in a million dollar penthouse apartment in New York city. He eats popcorn and watches movies for entertainment. What Dr. Stanley found out was that it is more important to keep what you earn rather than earning more. Just because someone earns more doesn’t mean they are rich. If their expenses are more than their earnings, what is the use. The millionaire next door is able to save money, have no debt and they believe in experiences rather than materialistic things. So the next time you see your neighbor driving an old car or wearing simple clothes, he might just besitting on a million dollars.

Good morning. With the Presidential election campaign going on in full swing, we see that everyday the candidates are accusing each other of something. Then they go on the offensive and make the campaign personal. But that is not the right way to disarm your critics. If they accuse you of something, try to deflect it by saying that you respect that person and that perhaps you can look into it. This way you take emotion out of the equation and at the same time take the high ground. It also prevents further questions into the accusation. I remember the movie Clear and Present Danger. In it a very close friend of the US President is murdered by Colombian drug dealers. Apparently, this person was embezzling money from the cartel. So the Presidents advisors tell him to downplay the situation by saying that they were really not good friends. But Jack Ryan, the character Harrison Ford plays, tells the President that if he downplays the situation, it will raise more questions. Instead he advises the President to acknowledge the friendship. This prevents any further inquiry from the press. I sometimes get very upset when people accuse me of something or when they criticize me. I used to respond by getting upset and making it personal. But I realized that it escalates the matter. So I am going to try to use this strategy.

Hi everyone. Everyone I know wants to lose weight. There are many ways of doing it. But one popular way is to count calories. Everyone thinks that all calories are created equal. But that is not the case. Take for example a 1.5 oz bag of potato chips. It has 240 calories of which 142 calories are from fat. And I can guarantee you that after about 30 minutes or so, you will be hungry again. Now look at a smoothie/shake. The one that I drink every morning is made of 16 oz unsweetened vanilla almond milk (60 calories), two scoops of whey protein powder (150 calories) and 1 scoop of Organifi powdered greens (25 calories) for total 235 calories. But this smoothie/shake will tide me over until lunch. So especially if you are trying to lose weight and think a calorie is a calorie, think again. The quality of those calories also matter. Eat things that are low calorie, but fill up on them. Add a lean piece of meat, some healthy fat from nuts or avocado and you are set. Speaking of calories and meals, if you want to start off your day with a protein shake like I do then get Organifi powdered greens here:

http://organifishop.com?rfsn=342107.18a9c and for a limited time if you use code ANI15, you will get 15% off your order. Enjoy.