Secret of success: Get the mind-set of an ant!

Sometimes the biggest lessons in life come from the smallest folks around us.


All of us tend to look up to big people for lessons on how to get better. We are keen to learn the secrets of their success. But we forget that sometimes the biggest lessons in life come from the smallest folks around us. Now that’s a good lesson to remember!

Take ants for instance. Would you believe those small creatures can teach us how to live a better life? Jim Rohn - the great motivational guru – developed what he called the ‘Ants Philosophy’.

He identified four key lessons from the behaviour of ants that can help us lead better lives. Jim Rohn is no more – but his messages continue to inspire. Here then, are the four lessons from Rohn’s ‘Ants Philosophy’.

1. Ants never quit. Have you noticed how ants always look for a way around an obstacle? Put your finger in an ant’s path and it will try and go around it, or over it. It will keep looking for a way out. It won’t just stand there and stare. It won’t give up and go back.
We should all learn to be like that. There will always be obstacles in our lives. The challenge is to keep trying, keep looking for alternative routes to get to our goals. Winston Churchill probably paraphrased the ant’s mindset when he offered this priceless advice: “Never give up. Never, never give up!”

2. Ants think winter all summer. Remember the old story of the ant and the grasshopper? One bright day in late autumn a family of Ants were bustling about in the warm sunshine, drying out the grain they had stored up during the summer, when a starving Grasshopper, his fiddle under his arm, came up and humbly begged for a bite to eat.

“What!” cried the Ants in surprise, “haven’t you stored anything away for the winter? What in the world were you doing all last summer?”

“I didn’t have time to store up any food,” whined the Grasshopper; “I was so busy making music that before I knew it, the summer was gone.”

Ants know that summer - the good times – won’t last forever. Winters will come. That’s a good lesson to remember. When the going is good, don’t be so arrogant as to believe that a crisis or a setback cannot happen to you. Be good to other people. Save for a rainy day. Look ahead. And remember, good times may not last, but good people do.

3. Ants think summer all winter. As they suffer through the unbearable cold of the winter, ants keep reminding themselves that it won’t last forever, and that summer will soon be here. And with the first rays of the summer sun, the ants come out – ready to work, ready to play. When we are down and seemingly out, when we go through what looks like a never-ending crisis, it’s good to remind ourselves that this too shall pass. Good times will come. It’s important to retain a positive attitude, an attitude that says things will get better. As the old saying goes, tough times don’t last. Tough people do.

4. Ants do all they possibly can. How much food does an ant gather in summer? All that it possibly can! Now that’s a great work ethic to have. Do all you can! One ant doesn’t worry about how much food another ant is collecting. It does not sit back and wonder why it should have to work so hard. Nor does it complain about the poor pay! Ants just do their bit. They gather all the food they can. Success and happiness are usually the result of giving 100% - doing all you possibly can. If you look around you, you’ll find that successful people are those who just do all they possibly can.

Follow the four simple steps of Jim Rohn’s ‘Ant Philosophy’ – and you’ll see the difference. Don’t quit. Look ahead. Stay positive. And do all you can.
And there’s just one more lesson to learn from ants. Did you know that an ant can carry objects up to 20 times their own weight? Maybe we are like that too. We can carry burdens on our shoulders and manage workloads that are far, far heavier than we’d imagine. Next time something’s bothering you and weighing you down, and you feel you just can’t carry on, don’t fret. Think of the little ant. And remember, you too can carry a lot more on your shoulders!


Note: I took this out from the internet, a very inspiring piece of writing. I did some small changes to it and added a couple of pics that fit the column. The original author of this piece of work is Prakash Iyer, MD, Kimberly-Clark and Executive Coach.

My Name Is.....

Many Indian names are long… long enough to compete with the Great Wall of China.

There is even a joke around in the internet.
On a flight James bond was sitting next to an Indian guy.

Indian Guy: "Hello, May I know your name please?"
James Bond: "My name is Bond" Continuing in his inimitable style,
"......James Bond."

Then Bond asks: "And you?"
Indian Guy: " My name is Rao...
Siva Rao...
Samba Siva Rao...
Venkata Samba Siva Rao...
Yarlagadda Venkata Samba Siva Rao...
Rajasekhara Yarlagadda Venkata Samba Siva Rao...
Sitaramanjaneyula Rajasekhara Yarlagadda Venkata Samba Siva Rao...
Vijayawada Sitaramanjaneyula Rajasekhara Yarlagadda Venkata Samba Siva
Rao..."
James Bond faints…



Well, my dad has a long name (Kalyanavenkatramanan) and he always have trouble signing his name in cheques, documents etc. Keeping this in mind, he gave me a short name, Sriram. “All izz well” till I decided to get my passport. Generally, I write my surname abbreviated as K.K. (Stands for Kesarimangalam Kalyanavenkatramanan, Kesarimangalam is my native place) and this holds good for any purpose inside India. But, when I went to get my passport, they asked me to write my name completely.

I had my first problem when I went to New Delhi to get my Visa to Taiwan. The Taiwan Embassy officials printed my name wrongly (They printed “Kesarimangalam Kalyanavenkatraman Sriram” instead of “Kesarimangalam Kalyanavenkatramanan Sriram” – Can you make out the difference???). Be it my mistake or fate, I missed to find the mistake, I even came back home traveling 44 hours from New Delhi and had to return back all the way again and finally got it corrected. This cost me 88 additional hours of train travel, some money and brought in a lot of tension.

Every time I book my air ticket, the ticket booking agents in Taiwan get confused on how to put my name in the ticket. Once, an agent abbreviated my surname in such a way that the person issuing the boarding passes refused to issue one saying that my name looks different in my passport. After some phone calls to the agent and some waiting, I could get my boarding pass.

When I traveled back to India this time for a short vacation, I was asked to fill the immigration form. The funny thing is that, in our country with many people having long names, the column under “name” had only 30 boxes and I was asked to fill my name with one space between every part of the name. How can 40 letters be filled in 30 boxes? I had to write the remaining letters in a small space under the boxes. It would be better if they print a single bigger box instead of separating the space into 30 smaller squares. In that way, one can write his/her name in smaller fonts that can fit into the given space.



I wonder how Mr. Vijayawada Sitaramanjaneyula Rajasekhara Yarlagadda Venkata Samba SivaRao will fill his name in this immigration form...

Taipei Marathon 2010

“Every morning in Africa, a Gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a Lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest Gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a Lion or a Gazelle... when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.”



It’s my second half-marathon and third international running event (The first one was Tainan marathon 2009, in which I ran a 10K) in these two years. If someone might have asked me two years ago whether I will run a half-marathon, I might have laughed out loud and passed it on as a joke. But, somehow, an activity that just started as a way out to shed few extra pounds grew up to this level.

Each of these three events is quite unique. The first one, a 10K in Tainan came out as a test to see whether I can push myself to do something which I never tried before. It also helped me to boost my confidence and interest in keeping myself fit. It took me 1 hour and 6 minutes to finish the 10.4 Kilometers.

My next step was to increase the distance slowly while maintaining an average pace of 6minute/K. At the end of the year 2009, I signed up for the Taipei half- marathon (21.097 K). I did quite well and could finish the race distance in 2 hours and 3 minutes. I suffered a bit in the last 5K but felt very much satisfied that I could complete the race well within the cut-off time to get the finisher’s medal.



This year, I couldn’t participate in the Tainan marathon. I did run once a week (atleast most of the time) in a nice cycling path nearby my home where there is no hindrance. It’s really a very nice place to work out and also to relax. It’s also good that this route has distance markers every 0.5K so that I can keep track of the distance and time.

I signed up for the Taipei marathon again this year. The race day was on 19th of December. I woke up around 4:30 AM to get ready and had some breakfast to fuel up. I went to the race venue around 5:45 AM. Weather was around 15 degrees, much higher than last year (It was like 9 degrees last time). There were thousands of runners from 17 to 70+ getting ready for the challenge.



The race started exactly by 7 AM. Since I have run the same route last year, I pretty much know how it will be. The first kilometer mark came very fast and I was just running at a slower pace to warm up. There was not much difficulty till the 5K mark. It was less than 30 minutes when I reached the 5K mark, at a comfortable pace of ~6minute/K. But, somewhere around 6K, I felt some discomfort in my abdomen. I haven’t had this kind of problem during my practice runs. I tried to slow down a bit to see whether I can ease the pain. I couldn’t get rid of it and when I tried to run fast, it became worse.

The pain was not very severe but I had to move slowly to avoid it from becoming worse. I somehow reached the 10K mark and it was like 1 hour and 05 minutes (Last year, I was really doing well in the first half reaching my 10K in around 50 minutes). There was still 11K to go and I felt that I was getting drained both physically and mentally. At the 13K mark, I even thought that I can stop running and go back home. But, I also thought that even if I can’t run like last year, I should try to complete the race atleast.

I tried to focus and thought that there is only 7 more kilometers to run to finish the race. Also, the weather was not so good. Just by 8AM, the sun was on the head and scorching, humidity being an additional factor to aid dehydration. I had some water and sport drink to help me stay hydrated. But, around 17K, I started getting some cramps in my calf muscles. By then, the abdominal cramp eased out a bit. I saw the time and it was above 2 hours. I finally reached the “finish point” in 2 hours and 20 minutes.

I felt a bit upset that I couldn’t do better than last year. I wanted to finish before 2 hours but with the abdominal cramp, it was hard to push myself faster. On the other hand, I was quite happy that I could still complete the race even with all the difficulties.I still could get the completion medal this year as my finishing time was well within the cut-off time. I remember the quote,

"In running, it doesn't matter whether you come in first, in the middle of the pack, or last. You can say 'I have finished.' There is a lot of satisfaction in that."

I think that the abdominal cramp and dehydration were due to some wrong food choices the previous night and before the race because even the week before the race, I could run really well without any difficulty. There are more races to come next year. I will surely try again and I am sure I can do better.







"The body does not want you to do this. As you run, it tells you to stop but the mind must be strong. You always go too far for your body. You must handle the pain with strategy...It is not age; it is not diet. It is the will to succeed."
- Jacqueline Gareau, 1980 Boston Marathon champ