I imagine indian education portal that:

1. would enable me to sponsor education for the needy child in a school of my choosing sitting here at my desk and monitor his/her progress

2. would enable benefactors worldwide to bestow honor on teacher succeeding most in the school of their choosing at the subject of their choosing.

3. would make it possible for people like you to sponsor a “course” of your choosing for the school children, perhaps on “Win a prize to complete the course and score in top 3″ basis

4. would become a single portal for flow of majority of money and initiatives in the field of education

5. would enable potential enrollments identified by schools having financial difficulties to receive ‘joining incentive’ from benefactors worldwide

6. enable benefactors worldwide to make grants directly to a school of their choice for a particular project

7. would let people like me and you co-ordinate with schools and nominate Local/ District level working/ retired citizens like Accountant, Politician, Economist, Carpenter, Policeman, Banker, etc. for a visit to the school and give lectures and demonstrations on “how things work in actual world and their rights and duties as responsible citizens” for the students once a month.

8. would make it easy for the top 10 students in each grade find tutoring assignments for grades below them in the same school or others, starting 6th grade .

9. could sustain these and other initiatives for at least good 8-9 years till they cover the entire length and breadth of the country.

10. would have special provisions to pay attention to children of castes that have been downtrodden and dominated for centuries by the physically superior castes of india who have not been shy of exercising their power over those they can, and ensure that these children get extra grants and attention from the federal, state, charity foundations and public to help build their self esteem.

11. would have special focus to build higher awareness for virtues of cooperative world for those children who are drowned in the sea of high self esteem due to their parent’s wealth, health and position and grow up unable to see the world beyond using it to further their agendas, many a times at the expense of others and country.

Much of the power we observe, experience, give and obey comes from the powerful person or entity’s abundance of alternatives and absolute and very visible lead in its marketplace.

For a business, reducing customer’s “alternatives” and increasing its own “alternatives” through various products and services ensure new customers are never in short supply. At the same time, obtaining and retaining clear lead in few things that it does helps ensure loyalty of existing customers and constant attraction of competitor’s customers. This strategy ensures peace of mind for those running the business, which would become critical factor ensuring day to day execution stays in line with the strategic milestones, for a CEO busy firefighting during normal course of business can move the business forward through the tunnel but can not expand it by keeping a 120 degree view of the marketplace.

Also, while loyalty is critical to obtaining position of power and sustaining it, loyalty bites too. Sometimes, at just the wrong time. Thats when the”balm of alternatives” offer continued peace of mind for the CEO and enables him to remain a person with integrity, thoughtfulness and sanity in short a person of power. For an individual, business or nation, the means to the end are as important as the end itself for they determine who and what one is becoming on one’s journey to reach the material goals.

While one may not be half of the man one dreams oneself to be and compared to the ones one live among or those one adore, its very much possible for one to be good in few things at the very least and be able to do them really well repeatedly. This is one possible way to be able to dominate in some area of work or business, create an identity for oneself, have some self esteem and hence internal peace and compete like a man one adores.

May in this knowledge one’s mind find peace and one’s professional life takes shape. The warrior in each of us is not necessarily born but can be developed by practicing the same skill over and over again. After that, the marketplace for that skill determines the honor it gets and the size of its reach but the mind can find peace as long as that skill is valued by enough to earn a comfortable and respectful living.

Life is a journey and as years go by, predictability and not the lack of it starts to mean more in order for one to enjoy it. One develops a tendency to continue to expect the good things one has become accustomed to  enjoying as fruits of one’s labor and intelligence. However, Like a king’s empire, there are always competitors interested in snatching one’s marketplace away. Mafia establishes a cartel and nations sign trade agreements to ensure everybody is happy and is getting a pie of the action in marketplace but what can a small business competing against thousands of other small and big businesses do?

EXPAND.

Growing a business is not a luxury or matter of pride for a CEO but a sheer necessity to survive the competition and make the survival of business less dependent on loss of few customers here and there. If the business is not reinvesting heavily into itself in initial years and owners are taking out the profits, chances are business would shrink and get less significant in the marketplace and lose out to competitors more willing to invest back. Only with expansion of business, the predictability of its generating enough revenue and profits for a sustainable and continuing prosperous future is possible.

The mind of the CEO must be a mind of the king. Focused on strategy as much as execution. Not all CEOs are made equal but all CEOs are judged by the size of their business empire. While execution is childlike and comes naturally to the human mind, strategizing future moves is not a healthy exercise for the mind and can be nerve wrecking.

It may be possible to avoid the aggravation strategizing causes by keeping a longer vision in mind, like something that would usually take 10-20 years to achieve at your current capacity, and move towards that one step at a time and no more. That one step can be one quarter at best and it should be left to the statisticians to see how those quarters are adding up to years and decades. The test of CEO’s personal success is often the patience it requires to stay on tracks and not get restless, lose sight and let attention fall on losing years and hair instead,  as well as the relevance and prominence of that future vision when it meets the reality of its time.