Last few weeks...........

Well here I am again and this time so soon...within a day's gap.

Life has been quite hectic off late. Have 3 major priorities in life right now a) Business (Aagami Inc.) b) Kids education (Aayami's college search and Aagam's grades) and 3) Household management - putting together furniture, buying new car etc.

Well here are the highlights:
a) at Business
- Closed two minor orders for clinical research. Interestingly both have come in Aagami name versus the partner name.
- Attended iBIO IndEx to meet many interesting people.
- Submitted at least 6 different proposals in Clinical, PreClinical and also in Manufacturing; hoping to close at least 3-4.
- Long stalled funding in the largest project so far, started humming again; hopefully this project will also see the completion.
- Finalized the travel plan for March visits to NY/NJ and SFO area for business.
- Received at least 5 appointments; 3 good ones for the business trips in March.

b) For kids Education:
- Had various general life ideas - especially father-child discussion - cordially with both kids.
- Completely planned a late February Iowa education trip and executed it well. All the family has started having some clarity on the college education front.
- Planned a major Campus travel tour with Aayami on West and East coast during her Spring break from March 30th till April 5th.
- Aagam performed in his school's multi-cultural show; by dancing in group of 16 Indian kids; a dance based on Indian movies' music and choreographed by kids themselves.

So much for now.

Just Like that

Today again I am sharing my thoughts after a long gap. But I have decided not to say any thing other than just these few words.

These days I am getting just too moody. Easily feeling hurt, getting deactivated from life and in general shut down very easily. Are these the signs of getting older, helpless, less vigor or what? I need to pick up on life and just move on. There is just too much to do and very little time. Like I have been repeating the saying that "I am the slave of my ambitions".

Any way so much for today. See you here again soon.

First post of New Year - 2008

I have come to express myself here after a gap of over 2 months now. A lot has happened during this time.

- Closed a new business assignment with Drug Device company.
- Went to India with family for a whirl wind trip of 2 weeks; further details later
- Went to Bay Area for a week immediately after coming back from India, Jan 7 - 13; attended J P Morgan, Customer visits and attended EPPIC biannual conference
- Attended Landmark - Velocity Seminar sessions on Jan 16th, Jan 30th, Feb 6th.
- Attended Kellogg's biotech event on Jan 19th
- Went to LA for 5th weekend of Partnership Exploration Course and then prospects visits, Jan 26 - 29
- Went to Midland MI, Feb 3 - 5

Hence life has been really hectic and I got a bit overwhelmed with all the activities and attending so many conferences, sessions & courses and making so many visits. Hence have decided to take this week a bit easy.

I resolve to take the stock of situation first by noting down all the action items from all the meetings; then start completing them one by one after prioritizing. These actions must be done during this week.

Oh, Yes during this time, I have also read a wonderful book by Robin Sharma - "The Monk who sold his Ferrari"; its an amazingly simple, concise and yet full Life Transforming principles. The most surprising thing is that this was suggested to me by a Jain monk - Shri Veersagar Maharaj.

Other books on agenda are "The Secret" and "The Gift".

New learnings

I am back after 2 weeks. After the Thanks Giving weekend completely immersed myself to prepare for Los Angeles trip starting from Dec 1st for 4 days. Took good number of appointments and kept working on other work and family related issues.

Also on Nov 28th Wednesday started Velocity Seminar at Landmark center in Chicago. The first session was really good and we learned that we could not only produce results but also do so better and faster i.e with velocity. Mike Dilbeck my co-participant in Introduction Leaders program is leading the seminar and is doing a great job.

Also I am sharing the ride from Naperville to Chicago with Dr. Vikram Desai and Carol Anderson. Hence the seminar and Landmark actually starts from 5:30 pm and lasts until 11:00 pm. This way we have converted the problem of driving almost 3 hours in to an opportunity of reviewing the work and learning more.

During that week I worked on getting the Consulting work from Kurve Technologies and also Scynexis. I am happy to report that on Dec 7 we have closed the deal with Kurve technologies and have their assignment.

Also that week I realized that in LifeSciences fields I am still learning. We have made a big mistake in one of the assignments received from BIG biotech. And have started working to fix that.

After the hectic start last week, completed it by participating in 4th week end of Partnership Exploration program at Los Angeles. Some learnings from that are:
- Transformation is momentous while change is a function of time.
- Transformation occurs in nothing i.e. where in there is no opinion on the subject; while change is to make some thing better, faster, more i.e. fixing or increasing or decreasing it.
- Hence if you make any thing or any one wrong, you can not transform that.
- Most of inauthenticity in relationships are caused by 'broken agreements' (which are our expectations/shoulds/cultural or societal view points and not necessarily the agreements others made to us or we made). So either we clean up these 'broken agreements' or suffer.
- The 'Broken Agreements' can be cleaned up by forgiving others and then forgiving ourselves. That too powerfully i.e. accepting them as they are and accepting ourselves as we are and then looking to see what BEST can we do in given circumstances to ACHIEVE what we WANT in life.
- There are 3 categories of conversations 1) Some things we already say - either say now or have said before 2) some things that we don't say but is said by others in the extended originating circle and 3) something which is uninvented - this is not and has not been said by us or others in our extended originating circle. Category 3 has never happened before and not even in the mind. It happens (get invented) in the moment when it is said.
- The course work which we need to do in this course is not for the course but its for our life. I must do it not only for me but for my family and community of 20 people whom I will transform in the process.

Finally we learned about the fifth field that has not yet existed, not even invented, there is nothing in it i.e. no conversation has arisen in it. It exists only in the moment it's created. In all the four fields of conversations - Mother-Child, Father-Child, Playmate-Sibling and Admired-Admirer there is one young person who needs to taken care of, provided for or admired of etc. In the fifth field both are adults as a possibility. What constitutes the conversation in this field is EMPOWERMENT. We start living in the world of our own design which states "I am empowered by every thing you do and say, and I am for your empowerment. And I am empowered by that." We are inventing this fifth field of conversation in this course. We may not even live to see it flourish, but that's the future we are standing for - for the world.

After the course had a good meeting with Mr. And Mrs. Ravi Achar. A very nice couple and good people; looks like I could work with them. Next day Monday was hectic with 4 meetings in Irvine and then some discussion with Gora. Tuesday also had two meeting in Torrance and Willow Brook and then I flew back to Chicago, which was hit by a snow storm, but luckily did not affect my flight.

The remaining week went in to recovering, attending 2nd and very powerful session of Velocity seminar, where in I have created the project of achieving $10 Million target of Aagami revenue by February 20th, 2007. Although it looks next to impossible now, but that is the fun of it i.e. I will have to really play full out for meeting the target.

After that just wound up the week by completing the work started in the week and also taking care of Genentech and other such assignment. As stated earlier we signed up with a new company Kurve Technologies for bringing them investors or partner for their technology.

The possibility I have created for my project is Freedom, Contribution and a clearing for full self expression.

Thanks Giving 2007

Today is the Black Friday - the so called Friday after the Thanks Giving holiday in the United States. On this day most Stores give huge discounts for early shoppers and most Americans take benefit of this. The shopping on the day after Thanks Giving i.e. Black Friday is also taking shape as a modern American tradition.

Also in a strange turn this year again we decided to go for a long drive on Thanks Giving day, that too on the whim, absolutely without a plan. However this year it was just to the Chicago Down Town albeit thru newly built or unexplored highways like I-355 extension to I-80 and then thru I-57 North. These were the highways we traveled for the first time. It was an interesting ride of about 150 miles (insted of straight route of 80-90 miles) and we enjoyed it thru talks and sight seeing from the Car windows.

Last year we went to Quad Cities on Illinois-Iowa border and also without any planning. That was about 250 Miles trip and also was completely unplanned on the whim.

Any how some other initiatives I have worked on this year are - Nagpur First, Hindi teaching and Support to Pusla Jain temple renovation-cum-expansion.

Nagpur First is a group of Nagpur related enthusiasts, who are coming together to support and contribute in Nagpur becoming truly Global City very soon. This is being achieved thru various initiatives. We have listed all the details at http://www.nagpurfirst.org/

Hindi teaching has been revived this year by finding a new teacher - Ajay Jain, who has taken it up really sincerely and is teaching at the Jain Temple in Chicago. He has already taken 7 classes, where in I could only participate in 3 of them. Hopefully during December class on 10th I will be there. Now we have a proper curriculum, the notice gets published in JSMC yahoo group email and number of students have increased to double digits.

Lastly I have been inspired by the story of Mr. Sharad Bhagwatkar, who is renovating and expanding a Jain temple in his native village of Pusla - 80 Kms from Nagpur. This temple has been built originally in 1878 and was in not so good condition. Although Mr. Bhagwatkar has been a simple accountant in Nagpur Police commissioner's office and was not working since 1993, due to major accident, which kept him bed ridden for 4 years and another 2 years walking with stick. But now due his Will power, tenacity and perseverance he runs marathons, for raising money for the temple. This he had started at the age of 62 in the year 2002 and have so afr completed Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Delhi and Chicago Marathons. I am helping and supporting him and his son Vivek's efforts here amongst Chicago Jain Society. Some day I would like to write a great story of this inspiring gentleman for providing motivation to young people.

Also there are possibilities unfolding with Vivek that I could fulfill my dream of social entrepreneurship at multiple places in Central India. More on that at a later date.

Today I would again like to emphasize the learnings of last year that Forgiveness, Patience and Love (Kshama, Dhiraj aur Prem) are the KEYs to solve all major issues including relationships in life. Also I have realized in last few days that Controlling Anger is most important thing and that's the reason why Jainism says 'Ahimsa Paramo Dharmah' - Non-Violence is the Supreme Religion. As with violence comes from anger.

After 8 months - The Monk has arisen again

It has been almost 8 months since I have blogged. Any way, a lot of things have happened in between, some of which are:

- After remodeling, sold the old house at 1907 Tufton Ct, Naperville. Thanks to aggressive stance of the realtor, good deal offered to her and most importantly wonderful cooperation received from the renter.
- Dropped the idea of buying a larger property as business growth has taken a beating after initial successes in the year.
- Exhibited along with Clinical Research collaborator in 3 major conferences namely BIO2007, ASCO and DIA, but with no results.
- Drifted away from the clinical research collaborator and now seriously considering evolving in to Consulting and Investing business.
- After working for months have finally signed the consulting agreement with the Biotech pioneer for their India initiative.
- Have started Partnership Exploration course with Landmark on June 23rd at Los Angeles. Already attended 3 weekends so far. In 1 of them went around meeting people and companies in Southern California.
- This course is also giving me a lot of insights especially about 'relationships' and 'communication'.
- During the above course, we have to do seminar courses in our home city and hence completed 'Commitment' Seminar along with Vikram Desai at Chicago. A fabulous 10 sessions course over 3 months and learnt a lot about Commitments, especially the undeclared and hidden ones.
- Now will start 'Velocity' seminar from November 28th.
- Have planned to visit India and attend 'Silver Jubilee Reunion' of 1982 Graduating class of VRCE (now known as VNIT). This will be a short but hopefully a worth while trip. I am going there along with family, as due to high school schedules they will not be able to go to India until summer of 2009 after this.
- Will attend J P Morgan Healthcare conference immediately after the return from India in the Bay area.
- Have hired an Intern at Aagami, who is a PhD and now working as clinical Research business development person with me.
- At home front, Kids are doing very well in general in life and they are still well behaved and good; however they both are slipping in their grades BIG TIME. This is a cause of concern to both me and Shubhra.
- Also in July our whole family went to JAINA 2007 in Edison NJ and then attended Pranayam Shibir of Baba Ramdev in Chicagoland. The breathing exercises learnt from Shibir are being practiced by Shubhra and me and are really useful.
- Celebrated Aayami's Sweet 16 on October 26th at Tall Grass Club House. Over 90 people attended. Presence of Aman, Gudiya, Arav, Aditya and Navin Jain family brought a lot of family to this function of Aayami's coming of age.
- Gudiya and Arav stayed 10 days after that also and that was quite satisfying.
- Navin and family visited on September 1st & 2nd and then we visited them for Nishita's Sweet 16 on Sept 8th too.
- Now last week I have attended AAPS annual meeting at San Diego and also CHI Drug Discovery conference in Philadelphia and visited companies in NY and NJ. It was pretty hectic trip and very physically demanding; got really tired. This whole week is going in follow up of all the visits.

The main learnings during this period:

"Whatever Happens, Happens for the BEST" - reinforced
"Life Happens, Live It"
"Play the game of life, full out. Be committed to win without attachment to outcome."
"Results - are the only things, which count in life"

With this, enough for today and with a hope to return soon and more frequently.

After 3 weeks - Blog of March 2007

Well I am writing this Blog today in a little not-so-good-mood. As today was one of those days, when I did not do real important stuff, but just whiled away my time in less priority work. I do not know, why this happens, but it does.

In any case, last 3 weeks have been quite hectic too. First was the follow up of and relaxation after the India trip and then attending Kellogg's IBC, visit to Midland, Michigan for Dow project etc. Well here are the Major events:

1. Discussed with the partner and decided not to pursue the liability model with collaborator on Clinical Research. This had brought in a bit of dejection, but over last 2 weeks+ got over that too. Now I am not making any one wrong about it, just that the choices made by people are of not my liking.

2. Have completed reading 2 books of Sudha Murty: a fantastic writer and the Chairperson of Infosys Foundation. It has given me lots of insights in to Opportunities, Challenges and Risks associated being a social entrepreneur in India. Also made me realize that my post 2012 organization must have a good source of income to sustain a good level of social work.

It has also inspired me to write my own experiences and anecdotes. I have now planned to do so at this BLOG.

Also started Steve Hamm's book 'Bangalore Tiger' which tells WIPRO story and brings to the world's notice the emergence Indian Transnationals.

3. Looks like the hard won project from Dow is slipping from Aagami. Have tried the level Best to keep it going, but the circumstances have changed and so we will have reconcile with the fact.

4. Attended Kellogg's India Business Conference on March 3rd. An extremely well spent day. Reminded me of the 5 years back conference, which precipitated my thoughts of changing my field to LifeSciences from IT. Met many good people and listened to Stalwarts of Indian community in the world, like Rajat Gupta, Shashi Tharoor, Ambassador Ronen Sen, CEO of Dr. Reddy's and many others. Plus met with Dipak Jain, Dean of the school, who was ever impressive with his insightful comments during the beginning and ending of the conference.

5. The thought discussed with Life Sciences mentor on switching again to moving in to Investment field with Life Sciences and IT focus is getting crystallized. This is mainly because it does seem that I can not get major value add in Life Sciences business in the current model of being a Consultant or Agent. So unless Clinical Research Collaborator agrees for a merger of companies or some other major assignments come through, I must start evaluating options seriously. And also discuss these points with collaborators frankly and honestly.

6. On Saturday took our Tenant family for Lunch and also planned the 'selling off' of the 1907 Tufton Ct house. Now it has to be put in action. The renting family has been an 'excellent tenants' so far and also showing tremendous cooperation going forward.

7. Have spent good time with family both Wife and kids and feel good that our relationship has improved tremendously. I have truly learnt 'play, fun and ease' from Landmark at least in the family relationship.

8. Also from this month revived teaching at Jain Center - Pathshala. Invited new members there, at least one enthusiast showed up. And have confirmed reviving Hindi classes at Jain center from April 8th too.

Overall the Life is going on as BEST as it should. And I am being reminded every day that "whatever Happens, Happens for Good". Also have understood life's lesson that any thing is possible if we have FTLP (Forgiveness-Trust-Love-Patience) in every relationship[including the one with the self].