Happy Holidays and Season's Greetings Everyone!

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.”

 

Happy Holidays and Season'sGreetings Everyone!

 

 

Hello Team,

 

First and foremost, Happy Holidays and Season’s Greetings!J  This has most certainly been a year of continued great learning but I did want to take the first part of my email to thank Stephen Covey who died this year as he was a model for what human beings are truly capable of.  He touched millions of people by the strength of his integrity and the depth of his caring and the above quote is a dedication to him. 

 

Essentially many of his teachings were foundations that were also laid out by Aristotle and his three pillars which are Ethos, Pathos, and Logos.  This year, I read what those pillars signify with respect to leadership.  The first pillar, ethos, deals with the credibility and the character of the leader.  Do you believe what the leader is saying, are they trustworthy, are they worth listening to?  Does the leader have integrity.  That reminded me of a story that I had read and thought I would share. 

 

A man wanted to impress his friends with his eye for art as they went to an art gallery together. He forgot his glasses, was nearsighted, and couldn’t hardly see his hand in front of his face. But he figured he could wing it w/any abstract comments and observations he wanted to make.  So he approached a frame and began criticizing: "Why would anyone want to paint something so hideously ugly? I mean, it’s a true rendering of the object, but why waste time painting such a disgusting subject?" Everyone was laughing by this time as his wife whispered into his ear, "John, it’s a mirror!"

 

I think Covey said it best when he said that, “One of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present.”

 

Pathos is the second of Aristotle’s pillars and focuses on whether the leader can move the heart of their team.  Is the leader able to engage the imagination, can they make the principles “come to life”?  It’s funny because I had read, "That which we do not believe, we cannot adequately say; even though we may repeat the words ever so often."  In order for everyone to share the same vision and engage your team, the first step is most certainly becoming a believer of that yourself and having a strong conviction that this is the right path forward.  As they say, conviction is contagious and once you believe, it’s easier to make your team believe.

 

Finally, there needs to be some practicality.  “You cannot build a dream on a foundation of sand. To weather the test of storms, it must be cemented in the heart with uncompromising conviction.”   This is where pathos needs to be complimented with logos.  Logos is the third of Aristotle’s pillars and was quite important to Aristotle.  It deals with content, reason, and the truth.  Does the vision make sense?  Is it logical?  Have you ever heard about the transcript of a radio conversation of a US naval ship with Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October, 1995. Radio conversation released by the Chief of Naval Operations 10-10-95.

 

Americans: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a Collision.

Canadians: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

 

Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.

Canadians: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.

 

Americans: This is the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln, the second largest ship in the United States' Atlantic fleet. We are accompanied by three destroyers, three cruisers and numerous support vessels. I demand that YOU change your course 15 degrees north, that's one five degrees north, or countermeasures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship.

Canadians: This is a lighthouse. Your call

 

We need to be logical in our thinking.  Together, ethos, logos and pathos are considered the perfect combination and Aristotle believed that all three pillars are equal value.  These are the laws of nature or lighthouse principles that govern life.  That’s why they say that good leadership appeals to the whole of the human person, not just the intellect.

 

So as we look towards 2013, as it was said by Steve Jobs, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”  That also means we need to be mindful of what we do now because everything counts.  Everything you do, all the actions you take either helps or hurts.  It can either move you towards your goal or move you away from it.  It can either increase your credibility or decrease your credibility.  Everything counts and nothing is neutral.  That’s why many leaders leave nothing to chance.    

 

Next time you come across a challenge, instead of saying “I have a problem,” you can say, “ I’m faced with an unexpected opportunity.”  "An arrow can only be shot by pulling it backward. When you feel like you are being dragged back by difficulties, it means you are torqueing up to launch forward. Stay focused and keep aiming."  Remember, as the quote says, “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.”   Let 2013 be the year you choose your response and choose it wisely.

 

Happy Holidays and have an Excellent 2013,

 

Hitesh

 

P.S.  Some people requested my holiday emails from previous years so please find them below

 

“There are only 3 colors, 10 digits, and 7 notes; it's what we do with them that is important.”

 

Happy Holidays and Season's Greetings Everyone!

 

 

Hello Team,

 

First and foremost, Happy Holidays and Season’s Greetings! J  I just love the quote I’m starting with as part of this year’s annual holiday email.  “There are only 3 colors, 10 digits, and 7 notes; it’s what we do with them that is important.”  Truly amazing and so true!  Just imagine all the wonderful works of art that have been and will be derived through the use of these 3 colors!  Also just imagine the creativity of producing so many different colors that too were derived by mixing these colors; generating almost every other color out there!  As the saying goes, “It’s a numbers game.”  It truly is and those 10 little digits are used in so much context that impact our daily lives.  The seven notes, A, B, C, D, E, F, and G – they help create the tunes for millions upon millions of songs! 

 

What we truly do with the simplest of resources truly impact, to a great extent, our lives and the lives of others!  As I’ve read this year, it truly takes creativity.  Creativity to see what is out there and to shape it to our advantage.  Leveraging creativity to look at the world a little differently and to take a different approach.  That is why I marvel at someone who can look at a pile of scrap metal and visually describe a wonderful sculpture that can be created or when a person that can drive through an old part of town ends up describing a completely new community that can be developed in that very same place.

 

Visualization before materialization.  It’s so important.  What you visualize can materialize, maybe fast sometimes but from what I’ve read, it mostly it manifests in a more natural and gradual manner, one thing leading to another.  It’s funny because sometimes we can often make the mistake of mixing up creative visualization and daydreaming.  From what I have read, they’re very different things.  Daydreaming may give some pleasure but employing visualization correctly is utilizing a real power.  It’s the same as what we’ve been talking about in many of our meetings this year, focusing on the “What” before the “How.”  And once we know the “What,” we need to do our homework and research and be prepared.  We need to do all we can in preparation of what's to come so that the visualization of the “What” can materialize with the “How.”  Some say visualization is having the ability to, “always see the future in the present.”

 

So as you visualize your future of tomorrow, begin today to take those very important first steps to making them all come to life.  J

 

I had come across an amazing few lines about waiting till tomorrow.  They said, “the problem with waiting until tomorrow is that when it finally arrives, it is called today. Today is yesterday's tomorrow. The question is what did we do with its opportunity?    All too often we will waste tomorrow as we wasted yesterday, and as we are wasting today.  All that could have been accomplished can easily elude us, despite our intentions, until we inevitably discover that the things that might have been have slipped from our embrace a single, unused day at a time.”

 

Amazing right?  You can have an awesome future, filled with great achievements and results if you begin today to take action, take the visualization and then focus on the steps to materialize it - make it a reality!

 

But if we haven’t done it, it’s still not too late.  “We still have all the time we need. We still have lots of chances - lots of opportunities - lots of years to show what we can do. For most of us, there will be a tomorrow, a  next week, a next month, and a next year. But unless we develop a sense of urgency, those brief windows of time will be sadly wasted, as were the weeks and months and years before them.  There isn't an endless supply!”

There’s an interesting thing that someone once said, “Our short-term actions multiplied by time equals your long-term accomplishments.”

They went on to elaborate that, “If you want to see change in your life, see big results, the first thing you must do is change your current actions.  Otherwise the old saying becomes a reality: "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got!"   But if we change our actions, we will see different results!”

 

We need to visualize and then take action towards our visualization every day.

 

As the new year approaches, we should not think of 3 colors, 10 digits and 7 notes as limiting.  What we do with the simplest resources can greatly impact our lives and the lives of others.  Create the visualization with the tools and resources you have right now and start taking the steps needed to make that visualization, a reality!

 

Happy Holidays and have an Excellent 2012,

 

Hitesh

 

P.S.  Some people requested my holiday emails from previous years so please find them below

 

 

_____________________________________________

 

“The great secret of success is that there are no secrets of success; there are only timeless principles that have proven effective throughout the centuries.”

 

Happy Holidays and Season's Greetings Everyone!

 

 

Hello Team,

 

Happy Holidays and Season’s Greetings! J  Stories that I have heard or read throughout the years have become an invaluable piece of my life.  They capture the essence of the philosophy of others and has helped shape my own philosophy!  Philosophy – an amazing word isn’t it?  Someone mentioned that philosophy is simply, “the sum total of what you know and what you choose to do with what you know.”  It helps to serve you as your personal guidance system.  So in reality, unless we’re exposed to new ideas that let us expand and refine our “Philosophy,” we’re stuck and limited to the confines of only what we know and have the limited ability to only act within that small boundary.  If we learn from our experiences, other people’s experiences, books, and mentors, we not only expand what we know but expand our choices on what to do with what we know; we enrich our Philosophy!  I guess that’s why, as I mentioned last year as well, they say that you should learn from the experts; you will not live long enough to figure it all out for yourself.

 

With that said, I hope this year’s email helps in some small way to positively enrich your Philosophy as it has helped to enrich mine.  I love the quote that opens up this year’s email, “The great secret of success is that there are no secrets of success; there are only timeless principles that have proven effective throughout the centuries.”  The principles are all there, it’s simply about first learning about it and then choosing what we really do with it!

 

I think that’s why, as I mentioned earlier, for the first step in refining and enriching our philosophy, we should all commit ourselves to lifelong learning.  Someone once said, “Never forget that the most valuable asset that you’ll have in your life is your mind and what you put into your mind.”  When we start our life, we start it with a very limited amount of practical knowledge.  As we learn, we put more knowledge in our minds.  As we go through life, as we gain more experiences, as we read more books, we learn from other people’s experiences, share thoughts, our knowledge grows and our rewards in our life grow as a result.  But as it was recently pointed out to me, there’s one very important thing with this imparted knowledge, it is that, “it (our mind) has a steady leak in the bottom and that if we’re not continually learning more, we are not staying constant with the knowledge we have and the knowledge we had is actually diminishing.  And thus, the incompetent person of tomorrow is the person who has stopped learning.”  So remember, never stop learning.  Learn something new every day.  Practice something new, everyday.  It’s like something I read the other day, “Make yourself a life-long learning organism and never stop growing.”

 

Follow the leaders that represent the type of person you would like to be more like and do what they do.  Make the decision to look at the people who are the very best in your area and decide to be like them for all the things that make them the very best.  Get to know them.  If you want to know how to be successful at something, find the person who is the most successful at that very thing and go and ask them, “What books do you read?  What tapes do you listen to?  What can I do to be more successful”

 

I don’t know if you remember the saying, “Birds of a feather flock together”  The other one is that, “If you associate with Turkeys, you will never fly with the Eagles.”  “We are so affected by the suggestive influences of the people we are around that if they are not motivated, if they are not positive, we will start to become just like them.”  I guess in some ways, “We are all like chameleons.  We take on the coloring, the attitudes, the opinions of the people that we associate with on a regular basis.”  So it’s very important to associate with people that are going somewhere.  The choice of a negative or a de-motivated reference group is enough to cut off all possibilities of achieving what you are capable of achieving.

 

There's an old story about an airplane pilot who announces to his passengers that he has good news and bad news: the good news is that they are ahead of schedule; the bad news is that he doesn't know where they are heading.  That sounds ridiculous for an airline but it’s very common for ourselves.  It’s truly the second part to refining and enriching our “Philosophy,” choosing what to do with what you know.  That’s the reason I wanted to share something I recently heard,  “Decide exactly what it is that you want in life.  Set it as a goal and decide the price it is that you’re going to have to pay to get it.  Remember, nothing worthwhile ever comes without sacrifice.  The great majority of people never decide what they want in their whole life.   They spin their wheels, they work hard, they are frustrated but they never set their goal or target.  That’s why it’s so important to write it down.  Write it down in detail.  Think about it every single day.  Get a clear mental picture of it and hold it in front of you.  A person should be able to wake you up at 3:00am in the morning and ask, “What is your major goal in life?” and you should be able to tell them that instantly.”

 

Once the goal is there, the most challenging thing for me sometimes is to keep the focus on it, no matter what happens; not to let anything hold me back or let anything stop or discourage me.  I once heard that, “Your level of persistence in the face of adversity and setbacks and disappointments is your exact measure of your belief in yourself.”   I guess the key thing to remember is that, “circumstances do not make the man, they simply reveal him to himself.”  “All adversity does is that it shows you what you’re made of and you can tell how successful you are going to be by how well you bounce back.”  As Charlie Jones says, “It’s not how far you fall, but how high you bounce that counts.”  Resilience, Flexibility, the willingness to bounce back, to keep on going is one of the key characteristics of a successful person. 

 

This year there was an enormous focus on the culture that we want in our work environment.  It’s funny because a few months ago, my niece was telling me about Shakespeare’s Hamlet and how she absolutely loved reading it.  I was asking her, “Isn’t it so hard to read?  I remember reading it when I was much younger and couldn’t really understand it.”  She’s like, “No way, it’s so easy!” J  So the other day, I picked it up and came across an amazing line, “To thine own self be true and it must follow, as the night the day, Thou cannot then be false to any man.”   Be true to yourself, act with integrity, treat everyone with dignity and respect, and be true to your own goals.  I still remember in school they used to say, “If you cheat on your exam, you’re only cheating yourself.”  Well, in life, if we don’t do all those things that we know to be right, it’s even worse than cheating on exams because that’s not being true to ourselves.  It’s not being true to our own full potential.  If we get up early, even when nobody is looking and if we work late, even when nobody is looking, believe me, as long as you’re looking, you’re going to feel great about yourself because these actions are getting you closer to your results; moving you towards accomplishing something you are focused on.  That’s what makes you feel absolutely fantastic.  Remember that at the ultimate end, you’re answerable to yourself.  You’re answerable, as the poem says, “To the man in the Glass” and as long as that person looking back at you in the mirror is the person that you respect and admire and look up to and is growing towards their full potential, you will always feel good about yourself.

 

I still remember my dad telling me the saying, “Work hard and you will succeed.”  The saying wasn’t, “Work hard and youmight succeed,” but work hard, work smart, start early and work late, and put your time in, now, rather than later and youwillsucceed. 

 

Let me leave you with one last analogy with regards to hard work.  I actually heard it when I went on my trip to Asia earlier this year.  “Does anyone know how to fly an airplane?  If so, you can relate to this.  When you get clearance for takeoff and you pull onto the strip, you aim the aircraft down the runway and you put on full throttle.  Full blast!  You go whipping down the runway until you hit takeoff speed, the air lifts off the wings and the plane climbs and climbs until it reaches its flying altitude with the throttle on full.   Isn’t that right?  You have to do that in order to get off the ground.  You have to have full throttle in order to get off the ground but you cannot maintain full throttle once you get off the ground, can you?  No, because it burns up the engine and burns up too much gasoline so when you get to cruising altitude, you pull it back a little bit and you don’t have to have it at full blast.  This is the way life is, this is the way our careers are.  To a certain point in our careers, we have to put on full throttle in order to take off and get to the height where we don’t have to have it on full throttle;  we can back-off a little bit.”

 

So let me ask you the question, for those of you who know how to fly.  What would happen if we pulled back on the throttle while we’re still on the ground?

 

“We would never get off the ground.  We would go down that runway forever.  Now there’s two times when you have to work hard in your career.  You can pick the two times.  One is, at the beginning and you can work full blast and work early and late and work hard until you get off the ground and till you get to your cruising altitude and then you can pull back a bit so that it’s not as hard, you have the experience and foundation or….or you can work just slightly less than full throttle and you can work that speed for the rest of your life and you will never get to that take-off speed.  Now that’s a very subtle distinction.  If you work full blast for a certain period of time, pretty soon you’ll get up there but if you hold anything back, then you’ll never get to the heights that you’re capable of reaching.”

 

So finally I leave you with that.  Work hard and know that in good times and bad, if you work hard, if you work smart, if you will manage your time well, if you work on your own self-esteem, if you read and learn and grow as a person, you could become one of the great ones in your area of expertise, one of the best ones in your field, and you can get all the joy and satisfaction of material rewards that you can possibly ask for in life.

 

Continue to expand, refine, and enrich your philosophy! 

 

Happy Holidays and have an Excellent 2011,

 

Hitesh

 

P.S.  Some people requested my holiday emails from previous years so please find them below

 

 

_____________________________________________

 

 

"It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow."

 

Happy Holidays and Season's Greetings Everyone!

 

 

Hello Team,

 

It's that time of the year once again, this email has actually has become a tradition for me and the many people who are also amazed by some of the amazing things that we learn each and every year.  This year, the 6th one in the making, is definitely no different.  I have quite a few amazing stories that I wanted to share, hopefully fast-forwarding you to next year, at least in thought, allowing you to think about all the possibilities that exist that are just waiting to become a reality in 2010.  As I start typing more, I do hope that you too will find some of the stories as amazing as I had found them to be.

 

Recently read a story about Michelangelo and the Statue of David.  Michelangelo was among many things, a sculptor who arguably created the most famous masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture.

 

Over the course of about 25 years, many artists were offered the opportunity to work with this piece of marble that was used to ultimately create the statue of David.  Most artists thought this particular slab of marble was too thin to work with.  They thought that the first time you put a chisel to it, it would crack in half.  There were many well-known artists who were offered the slab but after studying it for quite some time, they gave up saying, “I can’t do anything with this.”

 

They couldn’t see what lay resonant in the rock.  But Michelangelo, he could see what they couldn’t, and in setting his chisel to that marble, not only carved David but he also carved his name into human history.

 

When Michelangelo created the statue of David, he stated that David was already inside the marble, he just chipped away the excess to set the sculpture free.

 

Wow, what a powerful image!  Every single one of us, no matter what we may look like on the surface, has inside us this amazing capacity to be awesome.

 

That’s so powerful.  I think someone once said that, “Man looks on the outside, but God, He looks on the inside.”

 

No matter what you think your life looks like now, or what you think others think, there is someone awesome and amazing that lies dormant within you.

 

The key to the story was essentially that, "Every person has this tremendous capacity.  When you understand this, when you embrace it and truly believe it, it will change your life forever.  Your entire destiny will open before you."  We just need to chip away everything else, to finally sculpt ourselves into someone awesome and amazing that lies within all of us!

 

I was recently listening to an audio program and came across the following thought:  “How many have said that if I continue doing what I'm doing, in 5 years I'm going to be here.”

Now let's say that suddenly on careful consideration, you say:

·         That's not a very good place

·         That's not a very exciting place to arrive

Is it possible as a human being to change your destination point 5 years from now?

 

YES!  Absolutely!

 

See, that's so amazing and extraordinary. 

No other life form can do that - Pick a different destination in 5 years.

·         Start making plans

·         Learn the skills

·         Accept the disciplines

·         Get the teaching and the training

·         Shows the consistency of effort

·         Start going in a new direction

And in 5 years from now, wind up in a totally different place then where it was assumed that you were going to arrive with the old plans.

 

Only human beings have this amazing ability to change their outcome - to pick a new direction and go that way.  We have the ability to see the future and give it design.  However, most time we don't do it.

 

Why?  Well as I recently heard, “We're trapped either by the regret of the past or the routine of the present.  We are so busy with the routine of the present that we don't give much thought of designing the future or we are trapped by the past with regrets of past losses and past failures and past mistakes and we re-live it over and over again."

 

We do this, “not for the benefit of changing it in the future but just because, we feel our lives have been less than favorable simply because of all the things that have happened in our past.”

 

The audio program continued to state that, “Make sure the greatest pull on you is the pull of the future. Not the pull of the past that keeps taking you back.  Not the pull of gravity, like the present, that just keeps you stuck where you are but, we want to make sure that the greatest influence on us is the pull of the future.”

 

Amazing - what awesome advice - I just had to share it - it's truly remarkable.

 

This year I was actually reminded of something someone mentioned or I read, I don't remember now but I think it was a couple of years back, “You will never live long enough to learn it all yourself.”  The point was that we should look towards leveraging proven success methods and learn from the experts who have already done it - been there and done that and this whole quote, I was reminded of because of a story I had recently came across.

 

If you go to the kitchen to cook a dish and the very first thing you get is a recipe and you follow the recipe; work with the recipe – eventually you will master that dish.  Once you have mastered that dish and repeat it a few times, make that dish over and over again, you will then remember the recipe; you will not have to keep going back to that recipe book.

 

Now, if someone says, “Boy, this is really good!” 

 

You don’t reply back saying, “Yes, It’s a miracle!  Like something out of thin air or magic!”  No, you just followed a proven recipe that had been worked out by people before you.

 

It helped remind me that if you want to be successful at something, study those who have done it before you.

 

 “Successful people are those that have learned from those that have gone before them.  Unsuccessful people try to make it all up."  To complete the analogy with the recipe, it would be like a cook going into the kitchen, taking ingredients out of the cupboard, throwing them all in a bowl, and wondering why it doesn’t taste good. 

 

WOW!  What an interesting concept!  

 

Speaking of wow, I just realized that this email actually has become quite long!  My gosh, time completely flew by and tomorrow (or should I say today) I need to make an early start for my trip to North Carolina for Christmas but I did want to leave you with something I overheard at Jury duty, while I was waiting in the Jury pool room which were three key things:

1.           If you think it’s impossible – It isn’t

2.          If you think you know everything – You don’t

3.          If you think you are alone – You’re not

 

And they highlighted a story that they heard related to a person by the name of Richard DeVos who started the Amway Corporation.  Apparently Richard needed a heart transplant and if he didn't get it, he was not going to last very long.  Now, fast forward – Rich finally gets his heart transplant and what’s really spectacular about the story was, after his heart transplant, he has dinner with the lady who gave him her heart!

 

You say, “What??  That’s impossible!  You can’t have dinner with the person that gave you their heart!”  (I was asking the very same thing!)

 

Well, here’s what happened, this lady was desperately ill and needed a lung transplant.  The donor was found and apparently, sometimes, it’s much better in a lung transplant if the heart and lung goes together.  So this lady gets a heart and lung transplant that she needs to save her life.  Now, her heart is left over from this operation and her heart goes to Rich.  And that, my friends, is how Rich was able to have dinner with the lady that gave him her heart.

 

Amazing -  the impossible is really possible - "The difference between the possible and the impossible lies in a person's determination."  It just reminds me of the quote from Albert Einstein, "Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them."  The impossible is only that at the same level that it was thought to be but very possible at a completely different level!

 

"So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable."

 

May the impossible of 2009 become a positive possible in 2010!

 

Happy Holidays and have an Excellent 2010,

 

Hitesh

 

P.S.  Some people requested my holiday emails from previous years so please find them below

 

 

______________________________________________

 

 

"The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be the beginning."

 

Happy Holidays and Season's Greetings Everyone!

 

Hello Team,

 

When I first started here at Citi, almost five and a half years ago, someone told me that, “When you work in this industry for a long time, you’ll see how cyclic everything really is.”  I really didn’t pay much attention to that comment then but in these years that have passed; I really think we’ve experienced just that. 

 

Whether we talk about “bubbles” that grows and bursts like the ones seen within technology, housing, or even commodities, to organizational changes and structures we have experienced, and even the rising/falling and rising once again of an enterprise platform.  I guess we really have seen that, “The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be the beginning.”

 

I read something interesting on Tuesday that I thought I would share: “In order to have what you never got, you must do what you have never done.”  It reminded me of the book I had read a few years ago, “Who moved my cheese?”  In the book, they essentially write about or describe a "comfort zone" as a pattern of behavior that gives you a sense of security.  It usually involves creating artificial boundaries to exclude any exposure to events, ideas, and people, all that might cause you distress.

 

So what’s wrong with that, right?  It certainly sounds like a great idea until you consider the following:  “Growth of any kind involves overcoming the fear of events, ideas, and people who cause you distress.”

 

When you look at it that way, a comfort zone can actually be viewed as a self-constructed trap.  So how does one broaden their comfort zone?  Well, someone wrote that,

“A good way of accomplishing this is to broaden your comfort zone by first training yourself to confront and handle those things that make you uncomfortable, and then gradually confronting and handling those things that you fear.  Eventually you can increase your ability to the point where you are comfortable with a wide range of people and situations.”

 

I definitely know that it’s easier said than done and that it’s not an overnight process.  I’m sure it can take years to accomplish but every day that we can get closer to it and I guess when I write this, I feel that, at least this email can serve as a gentle reminder, at least for me, that that by continuing to do the same old things and expecting new results is not a winning proposition.

 

So if the world really is round and “the place which may seem like the end may also be the beginning,” how do we make sure that this beginning is better than the last one?  Granted that everything comes in cycles, how do we make sure this cycle is far better and far more evolutionary than the one that just finished?  How do we come up with the “winning proposition” for Citi and ensure it’s success?

 

As we start 2009, I think that’s the question that we really need to ask ourselves.

For one thing, we should ensure that we do not become a freeloader.  What do I mean?  Someone pointed me to an interesting article from NBC:

http://www.nbc15online.com/news/local/story/NBC-15-INVESTIGATES-Millions-of-Tax-Dollars-Spent/f2lltTzpEUav34iSx2YqRg.cspx

 

Did you know that it has been three years since Hurricane Katrina hit and there are still some people who are apparently living in hotels and receiving 3 free meals a day courtesy of FEMA while across the country, there are some hard working people that are still scraping by with food stamps?  These professional "Katrina victims" have enjoyed a free ride on your tax dollars for three years and it appears that they have little incentive to look for work as long as the money keeps on rolling in.

 

Why am I telling you this story?  If we are rewarded for not trying, then there is very little reason to stand up and take some action.

 

During this economic downturn, we have a choice.  We can either, wait and see how things go or, we can actually help make things go in the direction it should go.  We can either create an illusion that we are making a difference or we can actually roll up our sleeves and create an impact.  

 

President John F. Kennedy once said, “A rising tide lifts all boats.”  If the tide is falling, what are we doing to ensure that our boat, Citi, does not get stranded?    It reminds me of a really awesome quote, "We measure life not by the number of breaths we take but in the number of moments that take our breath away." 

 

Today’s economic climate can allow you to derive a wide range of learning.  It’s up to us to see what positive learning we can extract from the circumstance.  How can we, as an organization, adapt our products, services, offerings, and solutions to ensure that our client’s life is easier and allow them to not only survive, but thrive and truly provide an upside to an economic downturn?

 

During Christmas Eve, I once again had the honor and pleasure of watching the ever famous, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and the quote that struck me in the past struck me once again, "Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?"

 

“Each man's life touches so many other lives.”  I hope that I have positively touched yours and as we start another “beginning,” in 2009, I hope that you continue to positively enrich the lives of many others around you.

 

Happy Holidays and have an Excellent 2009,

 

Hitesh

 

P.S.  Some people requested my holiday emails from previous years so please find them below

 

 

______________________________________________
 

 

“Although not all change is always going to lead to improvement, without change, there simply can not be any improvement.”

 

Happy Holidays and Season's Greetings Everyone!

 

Hello Team,

 

Here’s wishing you a very happy holiday! :-)  Today, as we celebrate the holiday season and enjoy all the festivities around it, please take time out to really appreciate the year that 2007 has really been.  It was quite an amazing year!

 

So amazing that, I honestly I don’t know what I am going to write for this year’s holiday email.  That’s definitely a change from previous years but I guess this year itself, has been filled with so many changes.

 

It reminds me of a story about a grandson who asked his grandfather what he thought about the modern age – school shootings, terrorism, the computer age and just things in general.

 

 “Let’s see,” said the grandfather. “I was born before television, penicillin, polio shots and frozen food.”

“

In my day, ‘grass’ was mowed, ‘coke’ was a cold drink and ‘pot’ was something my mother cooked in. Back then, ‘hardware’ was found in the hardware store, and ‘software’…heck, it wasn’t even a word.”

 

I know, the idea that "the only constant is change" has been around for years.  In fact, wasn’t it Bob Dylan who mentioned that, “There is nothing so stable as change.”   Change happens, plain and simple.  Despite the fact that change is always occurring around us, we often have various reactions to it that can range from uncertainty and doubt, to resistance and even blinding fear.

 

If we are changing, and the world is changing, then why do we resist it?  Why do we feel as though it is not necessary to change, despite considerable evidence that almost everything in the world is changing around us?  Well, I think many say that, “We resist, because we find a great deal of comfort in the familiar.”  To elaborate, “We retreat back to our comfort zone of safety and security.  These feelings can render us powerless around the needs to make certain decisions, which cause us to remain as we are.”

 

So what can be done?  In one place I read that, “Well, keeping your eyes wide open and your attitude positive will go a long way in allowing you to survive in the midst of chaos.  You need to pay attention to what is happening in the world, and whenever you hear some news…you need to think about what that might mean to your career…You not only need to be aware of that, but you need to be thinking about what that might mean in coming years.  People can make much better decisions if they are able to anticipate change, and act on the change rather than reacting to it.”

 

Pretty amazing!  After talking to some people here and there, one thing really stood out about change.  In essence, “Although not all change is always going to lead to improvement, without change, there simply can not be any improvement.”

 

This year, I’d like to leave you with a story I had read about the man who found a cocoon for a butterfly.  One day a small opening appeared, and the man sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through the little hole.

 

Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It wasn't moving, so the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of scissors and snipped the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily.

 

But something was strange. The butterfly had a swollen body and shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly, because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened!  In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and deformed wings. It was never able to fly.

 

What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon, and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the small opening of the cocoon, are nature's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings, so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

 

I guess sometimes even what seem like struggles at the moment are exactly the change that we need in our life.  If we were allowed to proceed through life without them, it may not allow us not be as strong as we could and should be…"without change, there simply can not be any improvement". 

 

Wishing you a very Happy Holiday and a Great 2008!

 

Hitesh

P.S.  Some people requested my holiday emails from previous years so please find them below

 

______________________________________________

 

 

"It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.  Choose well.”

 

Happy Holidays and Season's Greetings Everyone!

 

Hello Team,

 

Just wanted to wish you a very happy holiday!  This year, by far, has been one of many changes.  It reminds me of a quote, “Changes lead to more changes.  Like a rock thrown into a still pond, you create ripples that grow larger in the future.” 

 

So in this year of many changes, I guess it really is, “your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.  Choose well.”  Our choices of today do in fact help shape our tomorrow.  It reminds me of what Stephen Covey mentioned about Habit #1:  Be Proactive.  Within his principle of habit #1, he focuses on the word, responsibility.  He breaks up the word responsibility as response-ability, our ability to choose our response.  Rather than reacting to a situation, he mentions that between an event or condition that takes place and our response to that event or condition, there lays a small space where we can make a choice.  We have the power of our choice that allows us to shape our response and that decision, as the quote mentions, shapes our destiny and it’s amazing how those small moments of decision make such a large impact. 

 

I once heard about a story regarding two arrows.  “Think of two arrows pointing in the same general direction.  If you make a tiny change in the direction of one of them, if you push it three or four degrees in a different direction, the change may be imperceptible at first.  But if you follow that path for yards and then miles, there will barely seem to be a relationship between the first path and the second path.” 

 

So what direction are we presently heading?  If we follow our current direction, where will we be in five years or ten years?  Is that were we want to be?  We read books and articles, learn about some tools and techniques that we can apply but what I’ve learned is that tools aren’t of much use of we don’t have a good idea what we want to use them for!

 

In 2007, what is your goal, what is my goal, what are our collective goals?  What is apparent to so many people, that we know but often forget is that when the mind has a defined target, it can focus and direct and refocus and redirect until it reaches its intended goal. 

 

Earlier this year, I told my team about a story that I had come across related to auto racing that has definite parallels to focus and goals.  The story refers back to the time when this person was learning how to drive a high-performance race car for the very first time.  This person was racing around the track with their instructor sitting next to them and whenever the car would start to skid while going through the turns, this person would find themselves looking towards the wall that the car was moving towards. The instructor then said the following to this person:

 

"When you're driving at high speed and your car starts to skid towards the wall the last thing you want to do is look at the wall. If you look at the wall you will end-up in the wall. You need to keep your attention focused on where you want the car to go instead."

 

At any given moment you have the ability to focus your attention and energy on whatever we want to achieve.  Whether it be the type of organization that we would like to become to what types of results we would like to produce.  We should take some time during the end of this year and early next year to define what we want to achieve and how we can achieve it.  The latter part is interesting because what I am realizing more and more is that a team and what I mean by a team is anything, your co-workers, your peers, your family, your relationships, your city, country, your world; they actually can help steer our focus towards and ultimately make us reach our goals!

 

It’s like something I heard recently, “If you ask people about their richest experiences in life, they’ll usually come up with something they did as part of a team.”  “Being on a team makes you stretch, it makes you grow.”  You know, it’s so easy for things to get off track.  If you can actually surround yourself with people who will never let you settle for anything less than what you can be, you have the greatest gift anyone can hope for!  It reminds me of the word association.  In fact, association is so powerful.  Being associated and surrounded by the right people end up making us better people.

 

“Better people,” actually reminds me of what someone was saying to me the other day.  They were going on mentioning how so many “problems” in our world are behavioral.  For example, they mentioned that someone was telling them how crime is really not a problem.  It’s a people’s behavior that creates this thing we call “crime.”  Think about it, we as human beings can create or prevent wars, we have the power.  “Power is the ability to change your perception, to change your action, and to change the results you’re creating.”

 

As we move toward next year, be a doer.  Take charge.  Take action.  Associate, collaborate.  As my managers said, be leverage one another and become more cohesive!  Remember, it’s your choice, choose well!

 

Wishing you a very Happy Holiday!

 

Hitesh

 

P.S.  Some people requested my holiday emails from previous years so please find them below.

 

 

______________________________________________

 

 

"Remember, today is the best day of your life because yesterday was and tomorrow may only be."

 

Happy Holidays and Season's Greetings Everyone!

 

Hello Team,

 

Another wonderful year passes by and we experienced yet another successful year,thanks to you!  I recently came across an article called, "Powerful Phrases for Positive People."  The article talked about very simple - but powerful - phrases that we all like to hear: "I'm proud of you." "I believe in you." "I trust you." "I love you." "You can do it."

 

With the Holiday season here right now, I came across another one of these powerful phrases, in particular: "I thank you."  We can never wear out that phrase.  It should always be on the tip of our tongue if we are truly grateful to others who help us each day, in our work and in our lives.

 

Often we're too slow to give thanks and too quick to complain.  Maybe we're so focused on ourselves and busy with our lives that we forget to give thanks.  We tend to take things for granted.

 

It reminds me of the story about a homeowner who hired a real-estate agent to prepare an ad to sell his home.  The homeowner was reading the ad in the paper about his home's many attractive features.  He called the real-estate agent to say he no longer wished to sell.  When asked what changed his mind, the homeowner said, "After reading your ad, I realized I already live in the house I always wanted to live in."

 

Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important. We may fail to say hello, please, thank you, congratulate someone on something wonderful that has happened to them, give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason.

 

You know, I came across a story regarding Charles Plumb, a US Naval Academy graduate, who was a jet pilot in Vietnam.  After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent 6 years in a communist prison. He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience.

 

One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!"

 

"How in the world did you know that?" asked Plumb.

 

"I packed your parachute," the man replied.

 

Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man grabbed his hand and said, "I guess it worked!"

 

Plumb assured him, "It sure did. If your chute hadn't worked, I wouldn't be here today."

 

Plumb couldn't sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb kept wondering what the man might have looked like in a Navy uniform.  He wondered how many times he might have seen him and not even said good morning, how are you or anything, because you see, he was a fighter pilot and the man was just a sailor.  Plumb thought of the many hours that sailor had spent in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he did not know.

 

Now Plumb asks his audience, "Who is packing your parachute?"

 

Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day. 

 

Plumb also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down. As you go through your week, month, and even New Year, recognize the people who have packed your parachute and enabled you to get where you are today!

 

In this festive season, I wanted to, thank you for all your efforts, contributions, and support that continue to make Citigroup a super success!

 

"Life will not give you anything better than you give to it. Give life the best and get the best out of life."

 

Wishing you a very Happy Holiday!

 

Hitesh

 

P.S.  Some people requested my holiday emails from previous years so please find them below

 

Happy Holidays once again and Thank You Once Again for helping make this year Great! :-)

 

 -----Original Message-----

 

 

"Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look at what they can do when they stick together."

Happy Holidays and Season's Greetings Everyone!

 

Just wanted to wish you a very happy holiday!  Often I have wondered how to take something that's good and make it great.  Recently Cal Ripken Jr. (baseball all-star short-stop) mentioned that it, "requires teamwork."  He mentions that, granted, someone needs to do their job to the best of their abilities but, "just doing your job, even at an all-start level, isn't great."  You can only achieve greatness when you connect individually with your teammates.

 

The same can be applied to us.  I guess that's why they say that,

"Working together, ordinary people can perform extraordinary feats. They can push things that come into their hands a little higher up, a little further on towards the heights of excellence."

 

How true! 

 

Most of the times a team isn't a team at all but rather, a collection of individuals.  "One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team."   Just look at the Green Bay Packers during the days of Vince Lombardi.  He said it himself, "Teamwork is what the Green Bay Packers were all about. They didn't do it for individual glory. They did it because they loved one another."  

 

If we as a team share the same vision, purpose, strategic intent, and values, we can achieve so much.   A doctor once explained, "look at the human body. The body has many different members, but because of the DNA chromosome structure of every cell, the entire body has the same Strange Attractor. We can reduplicate the entire body out of one cell. It's all there, like a holograph."  If the body can do it, why not us?  We too can have that same "Strange Attractor."

 

An old Ethiopian proverb put it so simply, "When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion."

 

"Many candles can be kindled from one candle without diminishing it." 

 

I guess at the end of the day, it all links back to attitude.  So going back, I wanted to leave you with a story I shared last year, it's something that I had read then which still applies now:

 

Long ago in a small, far away village, there was place known as the House of 1000 Mirrors. A small, happy little dog learned of this place and decided to visit. When he arrived, he bounced happily up the stairs to the doorway of the house. He looked through the doorway with his ears lifted high and his tail wagging as fast as it could. To his great surprise, he found himself staring at 1000 other happy little dogs with their tails wagging just as fast as his.  He smiled a great smile, and was answered with 1000 great smiles just as warm and friendly.  As he left the House, he thought to himself, "This is a wonderful place. I will come back and visit it often."

 

In this same village, another little dog, who was not quite as happy as the first one, decided to visit the house. He slowly climbed the stairs and hung his head low as he looked into the door. When he saw the 1000 unfriendly looking dogs staring back at him, he growled at them and was horrified to see 1000 little dogs growling back at him.  As he left, he thought to himself, "That is a horrible place, and I will never go back there again."

 

I guess this is why they say that attitude has a great impact on life and is more important than facts.  According to some folks,

 

"It (Attitude) is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do.  It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill.  It will make or break a company...a church...a home.  The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.  We cannot change our past...we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way.   We cannot change the inevitable.  The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude....I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.  And so it is with you...we are in charge of our Attitudes."

 

Just something I'd share with you as we celebrate the holidays and a fresh new year.

 

Happy Holidays once again and Thank You for helping makethis year Great! :-)

 

Hitesh

 

 

 -----Original Message-----
 

 

"The Greatest Discovery is that a Human Being can alter their life by altering their attitudes of mind."

 

Happy Holidays and Season's Greetings Everyone!

 

As we come towards the New Year and we break out our New Years Resolutions, I thought I'd share a story with you that I had recently read:

 

Long ago in a small, far away village, there was place known as the House of 1000 Mirrors. A small, happy little dog learned of this place and decided to visit. When he arrived, he bounced happily up the stairs to the

doorway of the house. He looked through the doorway with his ears lifted high and his tail wagging as fast as it could. To his great surprise, he found himself staring at 1000 other happy little dogs with their tails

wagging just as fast as his.  He smiled a great smile, and was answered with 1000 great smiles just as warm and friendly.  As he left the House, he thought to himself, "This is a wonderful place. I will come back and visit it often."

 

In this same village, another little dog, who was not quite as happy as the first one, decided to visit the house. He slowly climbed the stairs and hung his head low as he looked into the door. When he saw the 1000

unfriendly looking dogs staring back at him, he growled at them and was horrified to see 1000 little dogs growling back at him.  As he left, he thought to himself, "That is a horrible place, and I will never go back

there again."

 

I guess this is why they say that attitude has a great impact on life and is more important than facts.  According to some folks,

 

"It (Attitude) is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do.  It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill.  It will make or break a company...a church...a home.  The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.  We cannot change our past...we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way.   We cannot change the inevitable.  The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude....I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.  And so it is with you...we are in charge of our Attitudes."

 

Just something I'd share with you as we celebrate the holidays and a fresh new year.

 

Happy Holidays once again and Thank You for helping makethis year Great! :-)

 

                        Hitesh