Mind Matters Online

The matter of mind is not something to dwell upon, alone. One needs to seek professional help.
There is help available for those even in the remotest part of the world:
http://www.mindmattersonline.com/

She can do it. You can Do it!

“I am going to be a master of my life” said Shelly.

Jiji listened to it.

“I am going to be doing just what I need to, to be where I have to be and I will not be hesitating one moment to tell that, since I know they should know that I am here.”

“Tell me more about it”, said Jiji.

“I am aware that I have a skill to teach the subject matter and I should not wait any longer to get equipped with what it takes one to be qualified to teach it.

I know emotions play role in deciding ones future, but that is not all.

I have a skill to relate to issues and project it to future situations and forecast the trends.

So why not be where I belong and go from there?

It is not that I am not going to be reaching my goals, despite the fact that persons very closely related to me want to and think differently.

I am what I am, and what I know that I am, and more.

I am going to be it.”

That was a rather strong point of view thought Jiji and did not hesitate a minute to tell that.

“Well, Good Luck, and I know you will reach there!”

Jiji gave her blessings!

You heard it!

A few good men... and more...(1)

The world is not a total chaos, if for some reason you thought it may be so. Jiji thought it was a rainy day so she could have hot chocolate and keep herself busy with completing the Dan Brown’s Novel her son gave three mothers day’s back… Just as she started then something came up and she could never finish the book, but today she does not seem to be finding it at  last when she thought it’s time to relax and start on her backlog readings.

“Jiji,” called her friend Devi online.

“You know I developed a website and it was through Intuit. They offered at least five domains that can be developed using that account, but almost until now, everything seems to have gone wrong”, said Devi.

“Mm. Is that so? What happened?” asked Jiji.

“Well, I developed this website, for the company that I am developing and people were even getting to know about it slowly as it increased in circulation, specially that being the Tax season” she added.

“I’m listening” said, Jiji.

Devi continued her story of her woes, “And, you know my hubby also has a business of his own and we thought, ‘since Intuit was offering such an excellent service, why not make use of the offer to let us develop few more of the websites?’ and I gave my user id and password because it is from the same user account.”

“Did you?” asked, Jiji.

“Well, actually we have to share the user id and password, or there is no way to access the account...” said, Devi.

“I see that,” Jiji said.

“So, when Kris wanted to develop his website, he used the same passwords and for some reason, instead of developing his website, it erased my website in its place” Devi said.

“So, first thing I told him was not to save it, or publish it. However, the damage was already done, it looked like he did save the site, even though he said, he did not publish...” Devi said.

“So, you are here to find out what you need to do to get back the site?” Asked Jiji.

“No, actually not. I am here to let you know, how well it was handled in such a short time” Devi said.

“This happened on Sunday and for some reason I did not call them on Monday. However, I remembered that I could ask the customer service for website developing and was able to talk to someone in just a couple of minutes. I have called their 800 number and followed some instructions and there, there was this helpful guy by name Jim.”

“Ahem..” said Jiji.

“Well, once I identified my company and verified my details, Jim asked me to close all the website windows and allocated a different account for Kris, and went back to the last save about one month back and restored the other website I developed, as I was talking to him over the phone, all in a matter of seconds, even before I finished my sentence,” Devi said.

“Wow! That’s so nice of Intuit! You did not have to wait, did not have to give the vague numbers and user ids etc., all you had to do was, identify you with their account ID!” Jiji said,

“Most important was that I did not have to be kept on hold for some two hours!” replied Devi.

“Positive things like these need to reach people! Of course, I will let others know! What do you know; Intuit has earned some good customer base just now!” Jiji concluded the conversation and started to look for The Davinci Code, wondering if she can find a clue…

Secret for Beauty: Trust in yourself!

That It Is!

If you believe, it will happen! It is true, if you think it is true! Sounds weird? If they think it is true, then it is true- theories in Sociology say that! How does Jiji respond to this? Jane , Jiji’s client, was going to start her business as a cosmetologist. Jiji took her client by hand and walked her through all the stages that she went, as a motivator, mentor and a guide. On her advice, Jane went and got certified as a cosmetologist and got her license, and started with one boutique. Jane had help from beauticians who she could employ some specialized in massage therapy, some in aroma therapy and some in giving facials! And a special lady who was expert in clearing pores! She hated it when she saw blackheads and clogged pores . She got to remove them no matter what. That was Angela; who worked every way to remove the clogs, she would massage with moisturizers, give a thorough steam and start her technique of eliminating one pore at a time, even if it took 40 minutes to 60 minutes to clear them all. Methodically she would woo the blackheads to jump out of the pores as she gave massage to the contours of the face. To those stubborn ones she would steam and then run the blackhead remover and let the blackheads do the jumping dance and wipe them away with astringent and clean up and apply a refreshing facial cream. All the baby boomer ladies would flock for her services as they felt so elated after the facials, as if it was 9th heaven as they were feeling as light as air once they were being treated with care, courtesy and lots of service towards others.

What Jane had, was not just skill set or investment or people who could come up in giving a helping hand but also love towards what she enjoyed most. She was also business savvy, trusted in the power of the Almighty and trusted that she can become what she believes. She had a keen sense of finding the best supporters, who could be her employees, investors, people who could supply their products and merchandise for display and sale and a whole network of clientele that increased by the day. How did someone from a remote place in South Asia get to be so prominent in her field? Jane believed in herself, that she would be successful in business, that she would increase her business by franchising, and networking and she had always a courteous smile on her face with her clients. She was directing with employees, friendly with some and watched some leave her company and either be franchisees or partners or started their own beauty parlors. They keep consulting her, and take her advice and this created all the more loyalty from her employees, because they know by doing a good job here, they are likely to start their own business successfully and also gain a network of support from Jane and others. The loyalty from her customers created a clientele base that was from all walks of life, professionals, college students, high school students, homemakers, job seekers, business people and employees from all fields. Jane introduced her own line of products, had more certifications in cosmetology and business as well as gemology, She not only carried beauty products, fashion clothes and accessories but also specialized semi precious jewelry.

It is not easy to realize that one is capable at a very early stage. Not all are gifted to realize that they need to be confident and trust in themselves. Sometimes circumstances cloud their perception and they become people who are subordinates to their own feelings and perceptions about themselves. Sheila trusted in herself, albeit at a very late age. She cared her family members which is the way to care for the family, a very wise thing to do, but then unless one trusts oneself, and beliefs on their own abilities, it would be difficult to realize the abilities of the family members and encourage them to grow. It may take some effort, but we do need to extract this goodness and find the gems amongst us! It does not have to be a static International gem show, but a real time one, full of life and vigour! See you next time!

Not money matters at all..but many matters, that may matter or..

Knowledge when one acquires is kind of like spurs. You find it in all odd things in life. With a dream Kekule's Benzene structure developed. The Hexagon shaped compound with the alternating double bonds linked together at the first and the sixth C positions was in fact an example of how dreams can lead to supreme reality. If it was not for that dream perhaps humanity would be still waiting for someone to come up with a bright idea of the nature perhaps a century later. Why do people dream? That is one aspect dealing with psycho social thought processes. Did dream theory help in bringing out social changes? Did anyone pursue this topic of research I really wonder? When we look at the development that went in the past fifty years or may be even twenty years the classical theories in pure sciences are now obsolete. It was the case with sound structure, Quantum theory and so is the thought about generating light in rays that travel in straight lines. Perhaps some authors may think that light travels in waves. I feel perhaps light travels in circles. The way it is generated. No body ever proved it. I do not think I am doing a grave mistake if I think it might be so. Unless of course some one applies this theory and builds a Rocket to launch on some distant planet unknown and ends up in blaming me i.e... Coming back to where I began, acquiring knowledge is similar to spurs I think. You may get it once like a dream, once like a wave or sometimes it may take you in such high-spirited circles that it may be impossible for one to come back to a level of awareness that is so base, it is so unbelievable. The greatest challenges have been possible on earth because people had tremendous amount of trust in them and believed in the inner spirit that guides them no matter how hard the conditions are. It is because people believed in themselves and believed what they did was achievable; attainable and made it possible. Once the courage of individuals is sparked all the fears and superficial pretenses are shed and a new momentum leads into a whole new spirit of awareness where the ethereal bond between man and soul is revealed. In my opinion this is what is learning, where fear leads to courage and growth spurs into enormous heights that are unbelievable and unforeseeable. A third dimension that is totally different from a person or the other takes its place where no individual can do it all alone or just by them. This becomes a dynamic process where the teams perform and lead with leaps and bounds to attain shores not reached before. This is what forms the basis for the innate desire to know and reveal the truth. The ultimate, the spiritual union that is so sublime generates out of nothingness into a concrete reality when teams participate and bring action into effect.


Some changes are so sudden in life that before you can realize they sweep you by your feet and next thing you realize may be when you may be totally different or lost or flabbergasted as if you are walking on an entirely new planet, may be some ethereal world from some 9th heaven; if its not there, may be you will create one of your own; Days may hold no meaning in limiting your activity or make you aware of the thin line between a day or night or the next; everything seems to go in a different awareness level of unbroken continuity and seems to engross in all affairs of life. It is also so surprising how life unfolds itself in its mysterious ways through the super conscious psyche. Many a time one feels as if the incidents that happen are already played and accepted or rejected by the individual's inner self. Many happenings appear as if that was just an enactment of a preordained destiny. May be the person who interacts may have passed the exact scenarios sometime before with almost similar feelings or words that you may express in reality. It may sometimes be like a déjà vu. It may not have occurred at the same time or in the immediate past or at some earlier time that one may recall. It could be a passing phase if one recalls or it could be when all the energy is concentrated and controlled only through the super conscious psyche via the medium of dreams as one may call it, as the mental activities visualize some consequences of action and inaction put together as if solving a multidimensional visual puzzle of sorts where pieces of information are processed according to the inner brain powers that control mind, body and spirit in a unison.

It is Not Bureaucracy!

“I am totally fed up with the way things are working!” shouted the irate officer of a XYZ dept.” I am telling my guys to be able to be within budget, not to have too much of work sitting on the desk for ever and have the paperwork finished before the audits.” The officer continued complaining about how he is disappointed that utility bills are soaring high and copy machine and stationary expenses are not even being counted, he went on grumbling about the take it easy attitude of the office staff and literally was bashing up everyone in the department for the expenses being incurred.

What struck me was that the accounting department was not doing its share of work in a systematized manner, or should I say systematised! ;) Even though the ABC company was their client, and they had to sub contract their job to Does It Better company because the kind of work the ABC company required was offered by the DIB company technicians, XYZ ended up paying more bills to DIB than what it charged ABC.

ABC needed assembling of some ten units of machinery for its plant. These machines were subcontracted to DIB, because they had workforce that can contribute to an early completion of the project. XYZ, without estimating the time it may need to charge ABC, offered a very penetrating price at a high bargain, and was attracting clients. The problem was that its clientele had to be catered by subcontracting to the nearby small businesses that were operating on a contract basis and were not offering free service, of course, naturally. The raw material the sub contractors got was sometimes bought in wholesale to cut the cost, for any typical assemblage of parts. However for specialized products, they would even go an extra mile and get it from a different sub contractor who had the required material and would then assemble it. It had to pay for its cost, its labor and mark up to cover other general and administrative expenses. So the budget was hiked, because they did not anticipate a totally unique machine part that was not bought in bulk and they had to.

XYZ Company dealt with several such clients and their subcontractors, as it was the parent company in utilizing the manpower that was around the neighborhood where productivity could be organized. They were not technical people per se, but had plants in the network, that can offer services, and have the products delivered to the clients fulfilling their requirements. It also paid for all the stationery, copying and printing charges to document each client and had accounts department oversee their progress. XYZ in turn was billed for the services it subcontracted where the over heads were very high.

What XYZ should have done was ask for an itemized bill for each activity, how much time was spent in assembling the parts required for ABC and all the rest of the companies individually and itemize them accordingly for each and every company it subcontracted so it would not end up in paying utility bills, stationery and office expenses for others. If ABC project took 10 man hours plus, 10 hours of utility bills it had to be divided accordingly. Also all projects cannot have same billings. If project A2B is different but DIB is charging XYZ a bill for each of the company’s requests in one single invoice and not itemize it, it is for XYZ to determine the costs based on accounting of individual tasks and not just let the employees sleep over the paperwork unfinished. True it involves a team of experts to handle the bills, and the expenses it incurs in paying for the team members also has to be distributed equally to all the clients, individually based on the amount of time it spends for each client. It should have a list of tasks accomplished, time spent by each responsible person who was part of that team and their pay rates and all the expenses covering the manpower, utilities and office expenses should be based on that data.

It is the Activity Based Costing method that the XYZ Company should adopt, instead of some vague number to buy quick clients and end up in losses. This allocation of costs is based on services and costs based on what was contributed in the projects. Want to learn more? Why not join my alma mater and register for Finance classes and accounting classes along with management and marketing? It is not bureaucracy it is meritocracy! Happy MBA!

Crisis Management: Money Matters

“Jiji, I have a problem” said Roger. Jiji said “ok, what is it?”


“I am in big trouble: I had lost one of my businesses I was managing because the payments have not gone in time.” Roger is into management of businesses. He is very good at communicating and talking to people, showing them businesses they could be interested in and enabling them establish their businesses. He helps in managing their businesses on their behalf of day to day management of repairs and maintenance, procurement of inventory, payment of current liabilities for the businesses. He had an Office Assistant who was very capable for some time and trusted everything on that person. They worked efficiently as a team. Roger used to take care of business in talking, meeting people and communicating and contacting them and his Assistant was helping in taking care of payments and books. Suddenly he found that he was in deep waters as the payments were not being made in time and business dealings were not being enabled because of that. He was in a very crisis situation as those clients did not want them to manage their businesses since they were sent collection and legal notices and had to pay liabilities as a result. This is crisis, but can be worked out, with diligence.

Crisis Management is an important part of business management. What would you do if for some reason you are trusting too much on some one person in your business and to get more business contacts, you participate in marketing and public relations activities? You not only allow the Office Manager/ Secretary/ Accountant all in one person, as yours is a sole proprietorship to take care of business dealings but you give them ability to write checks on your behalf for the company. One fine day, you find that the checks have not been entered in the books, and payments have not gone out in time. The Office Manager/ Secretary/ Accountant all in one person are in fact busy with other things. May be someone in their family needs care or may be that they want to keep busy chatting with their spouse/ mate/ loved ones, may be because they need attention, or simply that priorities have changed and they want to be attentive to something other than office work. What would you do to handle a situation as this, better still, what could you do to avoid this inconvenient situation ever arise and be protective of your company?
Itemize all the responsibilities that are required and make a weekly checklist of things to do. Regroup activities that you are busy with and involve yourself in the monetary well being of the company. Check your accounts on a day today basis. Watch over your accountant to see if the books are up to date. Make it a point not to allocate the duty of issuing checks to the same person who deposits the money. Take responsibility in sharing the business activities. Make sure you have the back up data of all transactions recorded and also access to all your accounts. Review the progress every day or every week with your Accountant and keep asking questions you need answers, such as who has paid and who have not paid from your clients, what bills are due, and have arrangements made for the payments to go? What is the amount in the bank? What amount is available after the checks have been issued and do the checks overdraft the account in any way? Have all the services been provided to the clients? Have you included the services offered in the invoices to the individual clients? Have the records been updated to reflect the current status of the transactions? If you need to report to your business board about the developments and progress, make sure you have data of open invoices, profit statement, balance sheet prior to the quarter and after the quarter, and if you need to submit human resources data, make sure you report it in time.
Roger hired a different person who could handle things efficiently, attended the board meeting and explained them that he was to blame it also because part of the blame goes to him as he did not pay close attention to the needs of the clients who were trying to reach him, and did not watch the transactions very well. He told them he is back in business as the new bookkeeping already showed evidence of improvement as the bills were entered and invoices being sent in time. Also, the payments are being made in time; the only current liability that is due is payment to himself as he only took half of what he gets paid every month. He is going to be on ninety days probation by accepting only partial payment and making sure that all the business dealings are kept up to date. The board members asked several questions relating to the maintenance of their businesses as well as bookkeeping. Finally, the board decided, it is time to give a try.