Barack Obama.

In my previous blogs I spoke of the “mind diet” and the five mental fruits a day we can take, one of these being humour. Click here to read the particular blog that dealt with this.

In other words being “successful” and having a smile or a laugh are not mutually exclusive. Senior comanpany executives are seen as key examples of “successful” people and this blog is about an organization more powerful and important than giant multi-national corporations such as Coca Cola, Apple, Microsoft, it is about the United States government and its chief executive, the 44th president of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama.

This particular article and its many pictures are not meant to ridicule President Obama, but more a celebration of humor, in that even the most powerful man in the world (at the time of writing this article) often laughs. President Obama is an academic, an accomplished legal scholar, writer and an experienced politician. Please enjoy the pictures.

BARACK OBAMA

Jahan Choudhry presents the man with his button the red button and in control of the most powerful military the world has seen and the largest nuclear arsenal on earth, Barack Hussein Obama.

The man with control of the US nuclear red button.

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THE MAN IN CHARGE…

BARACK OBAMA, 44th President of the United States of America.

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The “follow me” generation

We are now living in an age of rapid change, including in the way we conduct ourselves, with our friends and families. All of this impacts business and advertising. A while back one of my mentors spoke about the “Follow me” generation.

The “follow me” generation refers to the fact that whereas in the past you may have gone to high school or college with someone, or work and then lose track of them this is less likely now (unless you consciously wish to) and keeping in touch is made far easier with social media such as facebook and twitter.

This is in comparison to the past where years if not whole decades could be spent without seeing old high school, university or even work friends, colleagues or so-called “friends” (e.g. those whom you would prefer not to see but can’t actually avoid or blank) which would often be done in the form of a school or college reunion and so on.

There would be “yearbooks” in which photos of students of that year would be compiled in to one book. Some would even look at these photos, reminisce, engage in nostalgia (or perhaps not, as not all memories were pleasant) and possibly even wonder what ever happened to those faces which they could see in their year book. However something happened which made those faces in their year book less mysterious, a yearbook became replaced with “facebook”, enabling people to keep in touch far more easily and effectively.

The following video has yearbook pictures of Barack Obama, Brad Pitt, Beyonce, Ben Stiller, Bill Clinton, Britney Spears, Cameron Diaz, Christina Aguilera, Demi Moore, Eminem, George Clooney, Gywneth Paltrow, Halle Berry, Hilary Clinton, Jennifer Lopez, Justin Timberlake, Stefania Germanotta (Lady Gaga), Leonardo di Caprio, Madonna, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Cruise, Will Smith and many other celebrities.

Year book photos of famous celebrities.

Source: http://www.awesomeblogisawesome.com/2011/07/hilarious-celebrity-yearbook-photos/

Now however a student of 14 will add friends to his facebook and keep in regular contact and know at the very least general details about his life, and most of us will know things such as if a person has got married or moved to another a country. The amount of detail that people give on facebook varies with some people having literally thousands of pictures of them and their friends on their accounts to those who only provide basic information and even those who are virtually non-active.

Some people do not believe in facebook or social media which is completely fine as it is their personal preference. The wider social reality is that the “follow me” generation has emerged and this has an impact on marketing and advertising, with people influenced by what they see and hear their friends do and buy. This is also part of a bigger overall process of increased communication, making the world smaller, the “global village” as if it were, a phrase used much more often a few years back. From now on the world may not be the same again, the “follow me” generation may become a permanent reality for those who chose to be part of it, and being able to influence one particular person may have an impact on their several, or dozen, or tens, or hundreds, or even thousands of followers on facebook and twitter. Celebrity endorsements have shown to be a very potent form of marketing and in this day and age when ordinary people can become “mini-celebrities” online in their own social circle or beyond their endorsements have far more power than before when they could only communicate one to one in person or over the phone, or a dozen people in a social gathering. The follow me generation has arrived.

- Jahan Choudhry

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My facebook.

For those who wish to contact me, or network with me or any thing else they can add me to their facebook account.

Facebook was of course started in 2004 by Mark Zuckerburg and now has 500 million members and is the most popular website on the entire world wide web surpassing even Google. Barack Obama has a facebook account, so does Bill Gates. It can be used for social purposes but is also a very powerful business tool and part of social media marketing. In terms of increasing personal success it can relieve our mind from our own worries when we socialize online by looking at posts or photos of our facebook friends. It is a relaxing and positive activity.

 In terms of business success more and more executives are now realizing the power of facebook in terms of advertising and reaching new clients and customers and is not location-specific with access to members across the globe. Even President Obama is on facebook.

In terms of using this site, here is my advice for business professionals, those people who have normal jobs but wish to be financially successful and everyone in general.

Keeping in touch.

Facebook is good for keeping in touch with those friends of yours who do not see regularly be they old school friends, work colleagues from years back and so forth. You know where they are and what they are doing. In terms of your closer circle of friends who you know well,  facebook can be less important and you can send group emails or in-house jokes amongst each other and so on. I would advise people not to have intimate pictures on facebook or pictures of their loved ones. As a consultant and someone who works with successful people, one valuable piece of advice I can give you is never to engage in exhibitionism or trying to impress others purely for the sake of it. You will often ultimately regret it.

Real contact is the real thing.

The popularity of online social media is growing and growing.  However there is no substitute for real person-to-person contact in terms of socializing with friends or making an important  business relationship. In general not too much time should be spent behind the computer as this is not the way our bodies were designed to function and is not healthy. Our bodies are meant to go out and experience fresh air. Both fresh air and sunlight have of course health benefits with the sun providing certain vitamins such as vitamin D. 

 This is of course obvious common sense to many, however it needs to be said due to the number of hours people spend on their facebook account going through their hundreds of facebook friends.

I personally know certain millionaires and successful people that do not even have a facebook account. One famous example of this is Bill Gates who closed his account. A facebook account is by no means a must and nor should it be thought of in that way. However if used correctly and appropriately it is a good tool for keeping in touch and also for marketing for businesses. In this day and age for any business to flourish facebook, twitter and other sites can be utilized to great effect.

My facebook name is Jahan Choudhry, and my email is jahan_choudhry@hotmail.co.uk

- Jahan Choudhry

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Mind diet, part 3.

Mind diet, part 3.

In the previous two articles about the  mind diet we spoke about how keeping a healthy mind, and being careful about what you put in it is just as important as a normal food diet.  We looked at some important things that we should feed our mind on daily basis.

1. Abundance

  Focusing on all the positive things in our life, or all the positive events on that day, no matter how insignificant they may seem.

2. Relaxation  

 The importance of relaxation.  Relaxation is very important. Just as we need sleep to recharge ourselves, and just as sleep reinvigorates us and our biological system renergizes the body during sleep, so does relaxation whilst conscious.  It is a form of emotional cleansing.  Just as we go to the bathroom to remove toxins from our body, so our body does a similar thing when we relax, especially if we focus on all the tension, pain and other negativity we have mentally accumulated through out the day being released and going away.

The third mental “fruit” out of our “5 mental fruits a day” is entertainment/humour.

Humour/entertainment.

Humour is something important and has many health benefits to the extent that there are even professional medical practitioners who have opened their own “laughter clinics” or something similar such as Patch Adams in the USA and Robert Holden in the UK or Dr Madan Kataria in India.  There are physical benefits to laughing such as releasing endorphins, relaxing the body and its muscles, boosting the immune system, preventing heart disease, exercise for the facial muscles as your jaw and mouth open and are stimulated heavily, this contributes to keeping your face looking younger, whereas an overly serious, or even depressed person, will have a face that starts to age quickly, or even start to have white hair very early. Laughter also helps prevent heart disease.

So how does this relate to optimizing your performance as a professional, an entrepreneur or increase your personal success? If you have ever attended a professional seminar by some of the world’s top speakers including for instance Tony Robbins, you will notice that they always inject humour into their delivery. Robbins is a man who has even coached several US presidents. Laughing and humour is a healthy exercise which should be practised daily. Apart from making one feel better, it relieves anger and frustration. When someone is angry and upset they may make hasty or poor decisions in their anger, they may not have a level head and they may ruin their relations with other work colleagues through arguments. They may react to provocations more than if they were a bit more humourous and light-hearted and decided they could ignore bad or provocative behaviour.

This improves the quality of their executive decision making, thus it optimizes their performance. Think back to times when you were angry and made decisions or commited actions which you later regreted and realized only happened due to your anger. Can you think of any?

Exactly.  Now incorporating a certain amount of time in your day for humour should not mean that you trivialize or belittle what you do even if it is something serious. For example if one is a surgeon performing vital life and death operations then one should be careful and responsible, but however in order to optimize ones performance, one will need some light humour or entertainment during the day in order to bring the best out of you. For example, would it be better for the surgeon to speak to the relatives of their patient with a serious and stern look, or with a warm but sympathetic smile? Which one would inspire more confidence in the relatives? The smile would of course. Having a laughter exercise during your day, or in the night should not negate your desire to perform the job that you do to the utmost level of professional excellence.

If you see world statesmen, such as the US president or the Russian, British, French or other leaders discussing serious affairs which affect the lives of millions you will see that they will still have a smile on their face and engage in some light-hearted humour. These are people at the very “top of their game”, who are in fact the most senior, the highest, the top executives in their country, they are not heads of companies, but heads of whole nations.

Two heads of armed nuclear powers, Obama of the USA and Sarkozy of France, alongside Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany in a high-level political meeting.

So whilst in the course of working hard during our day and being serious, a few minutes should be spent on humour, or some form of entertainment which relaxes us or makes us smile, whether this is a funny book, humourous. As with all things in the mind diet it is better to have an allocated time in the day when you are free and not working to do this. It is good to do this before you do your relaxation and abundance exercises as it makes those two exercises far easier. Humour is your third mental fruit of the day out of your 5 mental fruits a day.

Jahan Choudhry

 

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