10 HABITS THAT MAKE YOU MORE ATTRACTIVE

When we think of attractiveness, we usually think of things that affect our physical appearance. However, not all attractiveness is external. Being attractive emotionally, spiritually and mentally is just as important for finding the right mate.

1. CONNECT WITH PEOPLE DEEPLY

We are attracted to people like us, and we also find likeable people attractive. Being likeable is easy; be more interested in hearing about the other person than you are in telling about yourself.

Ask probing questions to understand the background behind people’s actions, preferences, and stories. What is this person like when they are at home alone? What are their fears and dreams?

2. TREAT FRIENDSHIPS AS A PRIORITY

Friends don’t let friendships grow apart. By nourishing your friendships, you practice the skills necessary to sustain a happy romantic relationship as well.

Friends make you smile and smiling is always an attractive habit.

3. LIVE IN THE PRESENT MOMENT

In a study of attractiveness in a speed-dating situation, women found men more attractive if they measured higher in mindfulness. This appears to only go one way for the sexes as men in the study did not find mindful women to be more attractive.

Mindfulness is peaceful self-awareness. It is the knowledge that in the present moment, everything is just as it should be. Mindfulness is attractive because we shift focus away from anxiety or depression while we focus on the now. Mindful people tend to be more emotionally balanced.

4. MOVE YOUR BODY

Obviously physical exercise keeps a body in shape, and healthy bodies are more attractive than unhealthy ones. This is especially true of males and females who are looking for healthy partners with whom they hope to raise a family.

When we think of someone who is attractive, they almost always possess grace in their movements. Balance and stretching, as well as mindful movements will help you to present yourself as an attractive partner.

5. NOURISH YOURSELF WITH EXCELLENT FOOD

Nourishing your insides helps nourish your skin. Radiant skin is always attractive and beauty starts from the inside. Think about a potential mate watching you as you eat. Would your potential mate be more attracted to you if they saw you eating some greasy fast food or dining on a gourmet vegan meal that you had made yourself?

6. KNOW YOUR SELF WORTH

Be sure of your value. Be confident in the fact that you are intrinsically valuable as a human being and more so because of your character, intelligence and kind actions. It’s been said before that confidence is sexy, and self-love is the best way to build self-confidence.

Project your value with your head held high. Meet the gaze of others directly and say to yourself ‘I would make a great catch for the partner who is worthy of me.’ Be careful not cross the line into arrogance. Aim for an attitude of self-assurance.

7. HAVE EXCELLENT SLEEP HABITS

Sleep ensures that our bodies are able to replenish their depleted resources. Making a habit of getting good rest also means that you’ll look better physically; your skin looks healthy and your eyes are bright.

Mentally, well-rested people are better able to cope with stress and less likely to fail to manage their emotions. Good sleep is a good self-care habit that can also make you more attractive to your potential mate.

8. MAKE IT A HABIT TO HAVE DOWN TIME

Self-care includes some time with no stress or concerns. Make sure to release stress by enjoying plenty of down time. Again, visualize your ideal mate watching you as you relax. Choose an activity that feeds your soul like mindfulness meditation, yoga, or reading.

9. FORGIVE AND LEARN FROM MISTAKES

Self-improvement means constantly learning. Studies that question males and females about desirable traits in a mate show that ‘psychological traits are important in human mating, with both sexes valuing intelligence and kindness very highly.’

Intelligence doesn’t have to mean that you have a degree. You can demonstrate intelligence to a potential mate by learning from mistakes and handling it well when you make one. You can demonstrate self-kindness by forgiving yourself for making a mistake in the first place, then, show what you’ve learned by avoiding the mistake in the future.

10. TAKE IMMENSE PLEASURE IN SIMPLE THINGS

In every moment you have a choice to be happy or to be angry/sad/afraid. Choose joy and gratitude no matter the situation. This moment and the smile on your face could lead you to find the mate that’s right for you and who has their own matching inner and outer attractiveness.

AND ABOVE ALL THINGS, IT’S MOST IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER THAT YOU WILL BE LOVED NOT FOR WHO YOU AREN’T BUT FOR EXACTLY WHO YOU TRULY ARE. THIS LIST IS ONLY MEANT TO HELP BRING YOU CLOSER TO THAT TRULY AUTHENTIC, LOVING, ATTRACTIVE SELF.

9 BEHAVIORS NO SELF-RESPECTING PERSON SHOULD EVER TOLERATE

1. PEOPLE PLEASING

At the end of the day, you just have to do what makes you happy, and go with your gut feeling.Forget trying to convince others; they will only try to tear you down most of the time, and give you 1,000 reasons why you shouldn’t follow your heart. You have to rise above the opinions of others, and instead just do what feels right to you. Any self-respecting person values their own opinion over others’.

2. A NEGATIVE VIEW OF THEMSELVES

“Be mindful of your self-talk; it’s a conversation with the universe.” – David James Lees

If you want your reality to look more positive and vibrant, then your thoughts need to align with what you want your world to look like. If you have a negative view of yourself, the world will look gray and depressing. However, if you have a positive relationship with yourself, you will see endless opportunities and bliss wherever you look. Self-respecting people love and nourish themselves with positive thoughts, relationships, careers, and goals.

3. REMAINING STAGNANT

“A comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there.” 

If you look around, the world seems like a pretty scary place, and so many people decide to remain in their safety net as long as possible to avoid anything uncomfortable. However, you can’t grow if you don’t try new things. Self-respecting people love to push the boundaries and see how much they can stretch the limits in order to keep evolving as a person.

4. TRYING TO FIT IN

Again, you can’t grow and learn if you only care about following the herd. In order to really thrive in this world, you must carve your own path and learn to trust your instincts, not the tired, worn-out opinions of others. Learn to feel comfortable in your own skin and truly trust your intuition, and you will see a whole new world open up for you.

5. WORKING AT A SOUL-SUCKING JOB

Unfortunately, most people work at jobs they hate just to pay the bills. However, you don’t have to become a statistic; you can leave that job that drains you and look for something else that will truly fulfill your soul. Self-respecting people dig deep to truly uncover what their soul wants, and then follow that calling unabashedly. Of course, sometimes you just have to tough it out until you find something better, but our point remains that anyone who loves and respects themselves will ultimately leave a job that doesn’t support their mental and emotional well-being.

6. NEGLECTING YOUR HEALTH

Feeling good starts and ends with you; no one else can take charge of your health for you. If you don’t feel well mentally, physically, or emotionally, examine your life to see where you can make some changes.

Change doesn’t happen overnight, but it does happen gradually with actionable steps. Any self-respecting person puts their health first, because they know that without this, they can’t enjoy life to the fullest and bring their best selves to the table.

7. OVERLY CONTROLLING RELATIONSHIPS

If you have friends or a partner who tries to dictate every aspect of your life, then this should definitely signal the alarm bells in your head. You should never tolerate someone who wants to manipulate and control your relationship.

“Toxic relationships can exist in any kind of relationship, and they are bad for your health..”

You deserve friendships and relationships that will enhance your well-being and challenge you to grow and learn. Simply put, if anyone in your life brings you down more than they raise you up, then you need to let them go. Self-respecting people don’t allow anyone but themselves to control their lives, period.

8. BEING LAZY

In the age of technology, many of us have allowed our smartphones, tablets and computers to entertain us the majority of the time. We’ve lost our motivation because it seems easier to sit in front of a screen than actually go out in the real world to accomplish things. However, any self-respecting person will not allow themselves to become complacent; they continue to work hard toward their goals, and know how to use self-control and discipline to their advantage.

9. NOT CHOOSING HAPPINESS

Too many people settle for less than what they deserve in the world today, simply because they don’t value themselves highly enough, or they feel too comfortable in their current situation to make changes. However, any self-respecting person always chooses what makes them the happiest, regardless of what they have to do to get there. They don’t place any limits on their lives, because they know that magic truly does exist in this world, despite what we’ve been led to believe!

Be safe. Be alive. A sincere request to all my successful friends.

This was 3rd sad news to come.

The 2nd one was just about few months back.

The 1st one was a about a year back.

This friend had a small factory in Chennai and travelling to attend a meeting at 8 AM in Bangalore. He left Chennai at morning 4 o'clock. Was negotiating a turn with a trailer, rammed into it and lost his life. He left his widowed mother and a disabled brother behind him.

Another friend was heading HR for a large Indian corporate and was in mid-forties only.

Other 2 were even younger, possible in their mid thirties.

All 3 met with very tragic accidents and died, one with wife. Leaving their young children orphan and their wives and parents in real sad state.

The pattern was very similar in all 3 incidents.

These were people very successful. They were highly educated. They studied in best schools that the country has.

The root cause seems to be, we all are tired of long hours at work.

We stretch ourselves too much and we have a powerful vehicle at our disposal.

So my dear friends, do not stretch yourselves too hard on the road.

Do not try to over speed just because your car can go at 120 or 150 kmph.

Your family and your relatives are waiting for you at home.

Do NOT compromise on safety at any cost.

Every thing ends when you close your eyes for ever.

Be safe. Be alive.

Marketing Lessons: Govinda Goooooooovinda!

Marketing is amazingly easy to learn. And learn from unexpected sources too - people, products, places....and hell, even from places of worship!

Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanam (TTD). How about learning some marketing from the world’s richest Temple authority – the BCCI of Hindu temples, so to speak! 

You know the colossal crowds in Tirupathi Temple every single day. The titanic turnout is a sight to behold – provided you aren’t one among the crowd and only sight it from a distance! From sinners to sincere devotees; from people who come with a request to people who return to payback, Tirupathi is one cosmic ecosystem in itself! While the crowds are a testimony to Tirupathi’s brand pull, it also serves as a turn off!

So, what do you do as a marketer? Simple; you open new branches! When your shop gets huge crowds in a city, you open new outlets. And when it keeps growing, you expand across to other cities. So you get more walk-ins; they go back contended, having consumed your brand; word of mouth spreads; and voila, you increase your revenues!

TTD is doing precisely that. It’s planning to build Venkateswara Temples at various places across the country. New distribution outlets – allow me to say so – are to come up at Navi Mumbai, Kanyakumari and New Delhi. Plans are also afoot to convert the guesthouse and rooms at the TTD’s Chennai Information centre in T.Nagar and convert it into a full-fledged Temple....another branch that is.

Thus, increased footfalls and enhanced market share too!

Now how do you augment revenue – not from new customers but from existing ones? Simple, you go hi-tech, partner with professionals, take the e-route and profit from your existing customers....when they bow in the temple. Literally!

TTD has tied up with MSTC Ltd., the public sector trading house known for facilitating electronic auction of commodities and products – coal, manganese, scrap etc., - to profitably dispose of the huge stock of 471 tonnes of hair, offered by lakhs of devotees.

Raw hair, in general, is cleaned and categorized by local buyers and finds a huge market abroad, mostly for manufacture of wigs. So far, TTD had been selling hair through the traditional auction route. The Internet based e-auction has completely changed the rules of the game. The last sale was effected at a hair-raising (pardon my pun) Rs.133 crore (at approximately Rs. 2,824 a kg). This was 27% higher than the reserve price of Rs. 105 crores set earlier.

And this is set to swell. The last auction did not see foreign users participating directly. But MSTC is hopeful that they would soon take direct interest, raising the hair....I mean the proceeds!

This is just the tip of the icebergian hair growth! TTD is contemplating using the services of MSTC to auction the tonnes of silver and gold that devotees are only too happy to drop in the Temple’s humongous hundis everyday! Read revenues!

And there’s more. The Temple also gets, from its patrons, pots of provisions everyday - grapes, fresh fruits, dry fruits etc., worth Rs. 300–400 crores a year. They are to be auctioned too. The coffers are set to swell.

I think TTD could do much more. How about official Tirupathi memorabilia sold through authorized TTD outlets in and around the Temple? How about selling official Venkateswara merchandise around the country by exploring the franchisee route? How about banded Tirupathi Laddus sold through stores across the country using the distribution might of a company like Levers or ITC? How about Tirupathi and Venkateswara branded screen savers, ring tones, caller tunes.....you name it!

Yedukundala vaada Govinda Goooooooovinda!

Shared from my Master's page !

Words Worth !

Words mean nothing but matter much. More so in marketing.

To mean one thing and to say it with the right word or phrase is a challenge in itself. Finding the right set of words to express your brand’s offering proves elusive at best and counter-productive at worst.

Getting it right or just a wee bit off target could spell the difference between success and failure. Take the case of Horlicks. It once stood for ‘nutrition’; and targeted families. The brand was sicker than the users who were using it!

And then Horlicks decided to target kids and made one small change in the way it described its offering. It replaced the word ‘nutrition’ with ‘nourishment’. It’s been ipaang gupaang japaang for Horlicks, ever since!

Yamaha has been talking about ‘speed’. But sadly, the bike is fast and sales are not. If only they used a better word - ‘Thrill’. The word ‘Thrill’ encompasses speed, builds an emotional layer to it and thus adds more oomph to the brand’s offering.

See, how one word makes a difference!

It’s not just about English words in advertising; the same applies to our 14-major-languages-and-million-dialects nation as well. The problem and challenges of using the right word or phrase is even more pronounced.

Take the word ‘Love’. Think of an equivalent word in your mother tongue. You probably can come out with five words. But note that each of those words should be used only in specific contexts. The equivalent word for love that describes brotherly love is different from the word that describes love between friends. The word to describe motherly love isn’t the same as the one that describes the love between a boy and a girl.

A wrong word in a wrong context could alter the meaning completely. Yet, in English all those different words gets translated into one catchall word – Love!

Put simply, the use of words matters. The use of the right word matters more. ‘Father’ and ‘Dad’ mean the same. Or do they? 

Read this: ‘Anyone can be a father; but it takes someone special to be dad’. Now, the two words don’t mean the same!

Here is another interesting marketing story that highlights the importance of using the right words to make the perfect difference.

A school in Virginia had trouble filling a course called ‘Home Economics for Boys’. Considering the title, this isn’t too surprising. First, the word economics puts off most students who consider it boring and bereft of bliss. Secondly, the use of the word ‘boys’ is demeaning. Once into their teens, no self-respecting boy considers himself a boy. He sees himself as a man in the making. So, it was to nobody’s surprise that the course ‘Home Economics for Boys’ found no takers.

The school tried everything possible to popularize the course but in vain.

Then they did what most marketers don’t. They put themselves in the consumer’s shoes and thought through the problem using the consumer’s viewpoint. The answer became obvious.

The problem was not the course. It was the title of the course – the words they had used. The school renamed the class ‘Bachelor Living’.

120 boys immediately signed up!

Words cost nothing. But matter much. Weigh your words watchfully. And watch it’s worth work wonders!