Dear Friends,

2011 is here and we have a whole new year to spend! A year is a lot of time and a lot can be achieved if you have a plan. There’s a saying: Failing to plan is like planning to fail. I wish you have a great plan for 2011, if not, now is a great time to do it.

One thing I have learned over time, and it gets reinforced every new year, is that action is more important than plan. I know this because I myself have not executed some of my plans, and the lack of full-throttle action on some plans is my own shortcoming that I want to overcome this year. Action is really important because every plan that goes into action brings back results or learning for future. For example, I advised 3 companies in 2010 on how to increase their sales, but only one company actually executed the plan and that company saw 50% increase in sales. My advise for their plan was less important than their action to execute the plan.

Another example, over the last couple of years, many investors took my inputs on what to invest, what price to buy etc, but very few actually took the action for whatever reasons. And we all know the global stock markets have recovered very well in the last two years. Those who took action have profited, and I know many investors who took the inputs but are still waiting; when stock prices fall 20%, they want to wait for 30-40% fall, and if that also happened, they want to wait a bit more to see, and if stock prices start rising after a fall, they don’t want to buy at higher prices than the recent low prices. This may sound extreme but its very common. Courage is the most scarce commodity among us humans. When we have more of this one attribute, it can put a lot of things in place.

I wish you a happy new year. May you achieve great success in your plans.

cheers,
Shankar