Secrets of Success!

It was our last class for that subject our teacher told us about three points of success, he referred to them as "his" secret of success, he is a great financial expert and teaches us financial management but he is a great motivational speaker, he explained these three points taking about a hour but the class was sitting patiently to learn something more from this brilliant man. One hour is not enough. I would like to share those success points below:
Be Humble!
The first thing he told us about humbleness, he said, "Be humble not only in your words but in your actions too, there are a lot of people who pretend that they are very "down to earth" and humble but they are just pretenders, while some people are opposite as they always keep bragging about their works and activities. We should always keep in mind that whatever we have Almighty Allah has bestowed on us and he is able to take back anytime. We have nothing of ourselves but of Allah, this is the reason why we should not be proud of what we did but always thanks the Almighty, be humble". He gave his example, that he think that he is a bit successful (though we know he is a very successful man) the major thing in teaching profession is speaking ability, he said "It takes only seconds for Allah to take back his voice, and there will be nothing but silence!". Always praise to Allah and thank that He has given him this skill so that he can use it
for the betterment.
Be Positive!
Another thing he referred is positivity. Talking about his life experiences he said that thoughts are the initiative point of action, negative thoughts can cause you to negatively act. Thus always think positive; even bring out the positive element from the things which look negative. For this he said that whatever happens to you "never blame others". Think positive, it might be you; it may have been your mistake, if you will think this way you will then be able to correct your mistake, or else if you initiate the blame game, you will never be able to accept your mistake and correct it. If you want to be a leader take responsibilities. In your professional life, if anything goes wrong, never blame your team members or juniors, take responsibility, say that you are the person responsible, act like an umbrella upon your team and they will trust you and stand beside you in thick and thin. Automatically they will accept you as their leader. And for all
the rewards, praise your team and give the credit to them.
Be Cooperative!
Another important rule of success, help and cooperate with other, never be jealous of others, the more you will involved in helping others the more you will get respect, the world is like a mirror, whatever goes around comes around. Some people might think that the way of success is leg-pulling, if you pull someone's leg he might fall and you can go forward. But see the other side of mirror, there will be a day when someone will pull your leg and you will be grounded and no one will be there to help. But if you are a helping hand, even if someone will make you fall, there will be several hands you will see who will be offered to you so that you can get up!

Educational institutes or money making businesses

Long long time ago "education" was a welfare work, teachers in those days teach only for welfare, if any student in respect of his teacher tries to help him, the teacher not allows him as he thinks it might look like as a reward for his services. But now the education considered being a highly profitable business.
Pakistan is an underdeveloped country and about more than 70% population lives below the line of poverty. Where the daily income of a person can not meet his daily expanses, where 80% population can't even have clean water and sewerage facilities. Even with the government efforts to provide education to masses, we can still see huge fees in the institutes. Let's close our eyes from the private institutions, first take a look at the government universities, the yearly fees getting increment every year, without giving any consideration to the increment of a salaried person.
The yearly fees of the engineering program in NED (Government Supervised Educational Institute), or the B.S program in K.U (Government Supervised Educational Institute), the figures goes as above as 5 figures, how can it be possible for a person whose daily income is around Rs.500? This is the reason why we are still considered as underdeveloped.
How can we expect the growth of a tree if we not give preference to the nourishment of roots!
If this is the situation of the government funded universities, then what can you expect from the private institutions. Factually private institutions are now out of the range of middle and lower class community. This is the reason most of the private universities of Pakistan are associated with elite classes.
Despite getting funds from HEC, having attractive slogans of "welfare works" the private universities having minimum fee of Rs. 60000/ per semester, why the fees are way too high to catch? Simple! It's a business, so they are free to get as much profit as they plan, but then they should not be portraying themselves as "welfare" workers.
Institutes and universities should stick to their vision and policies, when we visit a university, we can see the vision statement shining on the walls with words, "we are building the nations, blah blah", but when we closely inspect the system, we see that these all beautiful words are having dark backgrounds. The students are kicked out of universities, just for not paying fees, blackmailed by showing their name on notice boards as fee defaulters. If they say that they are doing welfare work and running a welfare organization then they should do the same and then keep top priority as providing inexpensive and quality education. Students should be given benefits, and tolerances.
This can never happen without the involvement of government, this does not means that all the private institutions and universities should be nationalized, but they should be audited under the supervision of government officials.

By: Syed Owais Mukhtar

How to become a public speaker

Note: Please forgive my "I, My, Me" in the blog below, most of the time I am writing on my personal experiences. Hope you will understand :)

How to become a public speaker, well before my entrance in the NED University, I was an introvert, well I still am. But now I'm an introvert with an extra qualification of public speaking. Sometimes time and situations makes you learn what you had failed to do before.
When I was in school, I was a shy young boy who does not answer the questions asked by the teacher just because you have to stand up from your chair and speak the answer loudly looking in the eyes of teacher and rest of the students. I was afraid of the consequences; there was a fear in me, which was uncertain. Time passed, I joined NED University, well the Engineer's World makes you do you can't even think of before.
Importance of Posture, on my first presentation my legs were shivering but I overcome this weak point, by carrying out a group discussion session instead of giving individual presentations. Speaking standing in front of everyone is more difficult than speaking behind a dice, and speaking on a dice is much hard than speaking while sitting on a chair. This group discussion cum presentation was gone well. I was thinking how to get rid of this presentation fear, because I know that I have to face this situation more or less every second month.
Better preparation, I have noticed that you will be more confident when you are better prepared.
Language Barrier, I was giving a presentation of Islamic Studies, well I was a good student of Islamic studies and personally I have a great interest in studying Islamic literature. When I stood to speak, I had a paper in my hand and the whole time I was looking at the paper instead of making an eye contact with the students, on the contrary I performed very well in the question answer session. I figured out, the reasons behind my confusion is the "language barrier", I was giving the presentation in English, while all my literature survey was done from Urdu books. During the question answer session teacher allowed me to answer in Urdu, that's why I performed well.
The more you think of "What's gonna happen?" the more you will get worried and confused. If you ever had to speak in public, prepare well of the content, and at the time speak out what you have to speak. The more you practice, the more you will make understanding with the audience will be better. Some jolly sentences might help, in keeping the interest of audience, and the more they will listen to you, the more you will better perform.

By: Syed Owais Mukhtar
(Quality Management Systems Trainer)