All The World Is A Stage

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, Shakespeare

The Diwali break is over. It’s back to work and back to school.

While out for a walk this morning we saw school children walking reluctantly to school- after a break of a few days which makes going back to school that much more difficult for both the students and their parents. As a young mother told me” I don’t know why they have so many holidays at a stretch. It becomes tough for all of us to get back to our routines.”

I told my wife I was reminded of the famous extract from Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” said to be written in 1598-1600.

“All the world’s a stage. And all the men and women merely players;They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages.At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms; Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lin’d, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side; His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion; Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”

This passage makes more sense to me now that it did when I first studied it over 40 years ago. How true it is that all of us play the different “parts”- each with it’s own joys and challenges.

Quotations

Here are some quotations I liked from Woopidoo. and The Quotationspage.

• Some people like my advice so much that they frame it upon the wall instead of using it. – Gordon R.Dickson
• A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author. – GK Chesterton
• The average man doesn’t wish to be told that it is a bull or a bear market. What he desires is to be told specifically which particular stock to buy or sell. He wants to get something for nothing. He does not wish to work. He doesn’t even wish to have to think.Jesse Livermore
• It’s easy to have principles when you’re rich. The important thing is to have principles when you’re poor –Ray Kroc
• The essential question is not, “How busy are you?” but “What are you busy at?” “Are you doing what fulfills you?”Oprah Winfrey

Hope you liked them too.

Customers

I had a lot of hassles today in one of India’s largest public sector banks. The staff showed absolutely no consideration for the customers. I was reminded of this quote attributed to one of the greatest marketers of concept- Mahatma Gandhi !

“A customer is not an outsider to our business. He is a definite part of it.
A customer is not an interruption of our work. He is the purpose of it.
A customer is doing us a favour by letting us serve him. We are not doing him any favour.
A customer is not a cold statistic; he is a flesh and blood human being with feelings and emotions like our own.
A customer is not someone to argue or match wits with. He deserves courteous and attentive treatment.
A customer is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him.
A customer brings us his wants. It is our job to handle them properly and profitably – both to him and us.
A customer makes it possible to pay our salary “

Battle of Britain Day

As one born 6 years after World War II, it was natural that we grew up reading everything we could about the War. A stirring battle that caught everyone’s imagination was the Battle of Britain after which emerged victorious the Fighter Command of the Royal Air Force.

In Spring 1940, German forces had swept across most of western Europe so rapidly that by the end of June resistance had ceased. Only Britain stood in the way of Germany’s complete domination of the continent. The Battle of Britain took place when the Luftwaffe attempted to win air superiority over southern England from the Royal Air Force as an essential prerequisite for the invasion of this country by German naval and land forces. For the British, it ran from 10 July – 31 October 1940. For the Germans it began on 13 August, Adlertag or “Eagle Day”.

In the summer of 1940, 2,936 pilots took part in an historic battle against the German Luftwaffe that was to become the only battle to be fought entirely in the air, this battle has become known as: The “Battle of Britain” and the pilots as “The Few”

During that battle which lasted four months, 544 of them would lose their lives, many of them killed in action, while other were never to be heard of again, and officially listed as missing in action. The German invasion of Great Britain had to be abandoned because of the dedication, courage and tenacity of those 2,936 pilots, who, against a formidable and experienced foe and against all odds, fought only for success.

Churchill knew the sacrifice he demanded of them; he was “never more moved” than on August 16, when he watched the entire strength of Fighter Command in the air from RAF Uxbridge. On the way home he made the remark that, repeated four days later in the Commons, became immortal: “Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.”
September 15 is celebrated as Battle of Britain Day.

Quotations on Speeches

Here are a few quotations I like on speeches:

• ” There is but one pleasure in life equal to that of being called to make an after-dinner speech, and that is not being called on to make one” Charles Dudley Warner
• “If I am to speak for ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now” Woodrow Wilson
• “The head cannot take in more than the seat can endure” Winston Churchill

Credo: Motivating People in Organisations

A discussion in a recent program centred around how organisation credos can motivate its members and instill values and norms of behaviour in them.

I can’t think of a better example than the credo for the Indian Military Academy, Dehradun – a premier institution in India which trains cadets to become officers in the Indian Army. It has a proud tradition of producing leaders for the Army for more than 75 years now. Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw was in the first batch of cadets in this institution.

The credo of the IMA comes from an extract from the inaugural address made by the then Commander-in-Chief in India, Field Marshal Sir Philip Chetwode. “The safety, honour and welfare of your country come first, always and every time. The honour, welfare and comfort of the men you command come next. Your own ease, comfort and safety come last, always and every time.”

Many years have past since this was first spoken, many battles have been fought and won but the credo stays on to motivate for ever those who pass through the portals of the IMA..

Inspiring Quotes

• A man is but a product of his thoughts. What he thinks, that he becomes-Mahatma Gandhi
• If you can dream it, you can do it-Walt Disney
• Unless you try something beyond what you already have accomplished, you will never grow-Ronald Oslon
• It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit-Harry S. Trueman
• We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act, but a habit-Aristotle

Perspectives

Here are a few quotations we have used from time to time in our Corporate presentation:

• “The greatest difficulty lies not in persuading people to accept new ideas, but to abandon old ones” John M. Keynes
• “There are no great people in the world, only great challenges which ordinary people rise to meet” William F. Halsey, Jr.
• “If people like your treatment they tell a neighbour, if not they tell a neighbourhood”
• ” Learning is a life long process of keeping abreast of change, the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn” Peter F. Drucker
• “Two things that people want more than sex and money…recognition and praise” Mary Kay Ash
• ” Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion, too wakes up. It must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter what you are, gazelle or lion, when the sun comes up, you better be running”

Regrettable Quotations!

Reading ” Dictionary of Regrettable Quotations” by David Milsted. Good fun with hundreds of gaffes over the years.

A few samples:

• “There’s Neil Harvey at leg slip, with his legs wide apart, waiting for a tickle” Brian Johnston, BBC Commentator
• Glenn Turner looks a bit shaky and unsteady but I think he’s going to bat on…one ball left”. Brian Johnston, BBC Commentator after Turner had been hit in the “box”
• “The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation’s history- no, not in our nation’s histroy but in World War II. I mean in this century’s history. But we all lived in this century. I didn’t live in this century, but in this century’s history”. James Danforth Quayle

As Hubert Humphrey said” I say some things and….. gosh I wish I hadn’t said them!”

Relaxing with Wodehouse

My favourite author is P.G.Wodehouse. I find his books, many of which I have read and re-read over the years, extremely relaxing.

I am convinced that no one else has written so well as he has in the English language – particularly in his use of humour.

A few quotations from his works:-

• She looked as if she had been poured into her clothes and had forgotten to say “when.”
• The Duke of Dunstable had one-way pockets. He would walk ten miles in the snow to chisel an orphan out of tuppence.
• The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun
• It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.

I have been reading Wodehouse for more than 40 years. Even now, his books give me as much pleasure as when I first read them.