Benjamin Franklin was a man of action. Over his lifetime, his curiosity and passion fueled a diverse range of interests. He was a writer (often using a pseudonym), publisher, diplomat, inventor and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.

His inventions included the lightning rod, bifocals and the Franklin stove. Franklin was responsible for establishing the first public library, organizing fire fighters in Philadelphia, was one of the early supporters of mutual insurance and crossed the Atlantic eight times. Self-development was a constant endeavor throughout his incredible life.

Benjamin Franklin was clearly a man who knew how to get things done.

Here are 14 action-inducing lessons from him: 

• Less Talk, More Action 
  “Well done is better than well said.”
  Talk is cheap. Talking about a project won't get it completed. We all know people who constantly talk about the things they are going to do but rarely ever take that first step. Eventually people begin to question their credibility. Taking action and seeing the task through to completion is the only way to get the job done.

• Don’t Procrastinate 
  “Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today.”
  This is probably one of the first quotes I remember hearing as a teenager. With an impressive list of achievements to his credit, Benjamin Franklin was not a man hung up on procrastination. He was a man with clear measurable goals who worked hard to turn his vision into reality. What are you putting off till tomorrow that could make a difference in your life today?

• Be Prepared 
  “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
  You need a plan to accomplish your goals. Charging in without giving any thought to the end result and how to achieve it, is a sure way to fall flat on your face. Think like a boy scout. Have a realistic plan of attack and a systematic approach for getting where you need to be.

• Don’t Fight Change 
  “When you're finished changing, you're finished.”
  Whilst many of us don’t like change, others thrive on it. Either way change is inevitable. The stronger we fight against it, the more time and energy it consumes. Give up the fight. Focus on proactively making positive changes, instead of having change merely thrust upon you. Wherever possible, try to view change as a positive instead of a negative.

• Get Moving 
  “All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move.”
  There’s a reason we use the expression, movers and shakers. Movers are the ones who take action, the people who get things done, while the immovable are sitting around scratching their heads wondering how others could possibly be so successful. Which group do you want to belong to?

• Avoid Busywork 
  “Never confuse motion with action.”
  We are always running around doing things. We rush from one meeting or event to the next, sometimes without achieving a great deal. At the end of the day, how much of our busywork are we proud of? How much of that running around improves anyone’s life (including ours) for the better? Make your motion mean something.

• Give Yourself Permission to Make Mistakes 
  “Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.”
  If we fear making mistakes, we become scared to try new things. Fear leaves us nestled in our comfort zone. Staying in your comfort zone rarely leads to greatness. Taking risks and giving yourself permission to make mistakes, will ultimately lead you to whatever your version of success may be.

• Act Quickly on Opportunities 
  “To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions.”
  Opportunities are everywhere. The trick is being quick enough and smart enough to seize them when they arise. Instead of jumping to the conclusion that something won’t work or can’t be done, allow yourself the freedom to ask what if?

• Continue to Grow 
  “Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.”
  We all have vices of some description. The key is to keep them under control or preferably eradicate them entirely. Be kind to those around you, whether they are neighbors, family, co-workers or friends. Never accept that you have finished growing as a person.

• Keep Going 
  “Diligence is the mother of good luck.”
  Have you ever looked at a successful entrepreneur or business person and thought how lucky they are? Most of the time, luck has nothing to do with it. Hard work and sacrifice on the other hand have everything to do with it. Successful people deal with failure. They tackle their demons head on. They pick themselves up and keep going.

• Know Yourself 
  “There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one's self.”
  Understanding ourselves is not easy. Sometimes we just don’t want to see ourselves for who we really are. It’s much easier to hold onto a romanticized version of ourselves or to simply view ourselves through other people’s eyes. Start by being brutally honest with yourself. Follow through with understanding, compassion and acceptance.

• Don’t Self-Sabotage 
  “Who had deceived thee so often as thyself?”
  We spend so much time worrying about other people hurting us, yet fail to comprehend the damage we inflict on ourselves. If you are using negative self-talk, lying to yourself or indulging in addictive behavior you are self-sabotaging. Life can dish up enough challenges without us adding to the mix. Be kind to yourself. Treat yourself like you would a best friend.

• Don’t Give Up 
  “Energy and persistence conquer all things.”
  Achieving our goals can be downright exhausting. There will be days when you want to give up. There will be times when your energy levels flatline and you wonder why you bother getting out of bed. Yet you push forward, day after day because you believe in yourself and you have the determination and strength to back up that belief.

• Wise Up 
  “Life's tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.”
  Benjamin was definitely onto something with this one. Who hasn’t had the thought - I wish I could know then, what I know now? Unfortunately there is no time machine; there is no going back. The key is to wise up as early as you can to start forging a life of purpose, achievement and happiness.

The Art of Being Well by Dr Varella.

What is a personal calling? It is God's blessing, it is the path that God chose for you here on Earth. Whenever we do something that fills us with enthusiasm, we are following our legend. However, we don't all have the courage to confront our own dream.

There are four obstacles. First: we are told from childhood onwards that everything we want to do is impossible. We grow up with this idea, and as the years accumulate, so too do the layers of prejudice, fear and guilt. There comes a time when our personal calling is so deeply buried in our soul as to be invisible. But it's still there.

If we have the courage to disinter dream, we are then faced by the second obstacle: love. We know what we want to do, but are afraid of hurting those around us by abandoning everything in order to pursue their dream. We do not realize that love is just a further impetus, not something that will prevent them going forwards. We do not realize that those who genuinely wish us well want us to be happy and are prepared to accompany us on that journey.

Once we have accepted that love is a stimulus, we come up against the third obstacle: fear of the defeats we will meet on the path. We who fight for our dream, suffer far more when it doesn't work out, because we cannot fall back on the old excuse: "Oh, well, I didn't really want it anyway."

We do want it and know that we have staked everything on it and that the path of the personal calling is no easier than any other path, except that our whole heart is in this journey. 

Having disinterred our dream, having used the power of love to nurture it and spent many years living with the scars, we suddenly notice that what we always wanted is there, waiting for us, perhaps the very next day. Then comes the fourth obstacle: the fear of realizing the dream for which we fought all our lives.

This is the most dangerous of the obstacles because it has a kind of saintly aura about it: renouncing joy and conquest. But if you believe yourself worthy of the thing you fought so hard to get, then you become an instrument of God, you help the Soul of the World and you understand why you are here.

• It's the possibility of having a dream come true that make life interesting.

• If someone isn't what others want them to be, the others become angry.
  Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.

• If you start out by promising what you don't even have yet, you'll lose your desire to work toward getting it.

• Every search begins with beginners luck and ends with the victor's being severely tested. 

• When each day is the same as the next, it's because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises.

• In order to find the treasure, you will have to follow the omens.
  God has prepared a path for everyone to follow.
  You just have to read the omens that he left you.

• Don't forget that everything you deal with is only one thing and nothing else.
  And don't forget the language of omens.
  And, above all, don't forget to follow your destiny through to its conclusion.

• There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.

• And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.

• When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.   

• I don't live in either my past or my future. I'm interested only in the present.
  If you can concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man.
  Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we're living now.   

• When you are loved, you can do anything in creation.
  When you are loved, there's no need at all to understand what's happening, because everything happens within you.

• Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.
  And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams,
  because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity.   

• People learn early in their lives what is their reason for being. Maybe that's why they give up on it so early, too.

• The secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it.
  And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better.

The problem is that the ego hides in the last place that you'd ever look within itself.
It disguises its thoughts as your thoughts, its feelings as your feelings.

People's need to protect their own egos knows no bounds.
They will lie, cheat, steal, kill, do whatever it takes to maintain what we call ego boundaries.
People have no clue that they're imprisoned.
They don't know that there is an ego, they don't know the distinction.
At first, it's difficult for the mind to accept that there's something beyond itself, that there's something of greater value and greater capacity for discerning truth than itself.

In religion, the ego manifests as the devil. And of course no one realizes how smart the ego is, because it created the devil so you could blame someone else.
In creating this imaginary external enemy, it usually made a real enemy for ourselves, and that becomes a real danger to the ego, but that's also the ego's creation.

There is no such thing as an external enemy no matter what the voice in your head is telling you.
All perception of an enemy is a projection of the ego as the enemy.
In that sense, you could say that 100 percent of our external enemies are of our creation.

"Your greatest enemy is your own inner perception, is your own ignorance, is your own ego".

Quote source: Revolver - by Guy Ritchie
Not the best of Guy Ritchie, but still definitely worth a watch.

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

-- from "Leisure," by W.H. Davies

Life is tough, that’s a given.
When you stand up, you’re gonna be shoved back down.
When you’re down, you’re gonna be stepped on.
My advice to you doesn’t come with a lot of bells and whistles.

It’s no secret: you’ll fall down, you stumble, you get pushed, you land square on your face.And every time that happens, you get back on your feet.
You get up just as fast as you can, no matter how many times you need to do it.

Remember this: success has been and continues to be defined as getting up one more time than you’ve been knocked down.

If experience has taught me anything, it’s that nothing is free and living ain’t easy.
Life is hard, real hard, incredibly hard.
You fail more often than you win, nobody is handing you anything.

It’s up to you to puff up your chest, stretch your neck and overcome all that is difficult – the nasty, the mean, the unfair.
If you want more than what you have now, prove it!
If you want to beat the very best out there that is, get out there and earn it!

Once you decide that, you’ll know where it is you want to be.
Then you won’t stop pushing forward until you get there!
That’s how winners are made.

At the end of the day, success is what we all want.
We all want to win, and the race will be won.
There is no question about that.
So come on, get out on top, run faster, dream bigger, live better than you ever have before.

This is in you.
You can do this.
Do it for yourself.
Prove it to yourself.

Gary Raser, Founder, President, and CEO of The Limu Company

We are a unique species, aren’t we? Not humans. Indians, I mean. No other race speaks or spells like we do.
Take greetings for example.
A friendly clerk asking me for my name is apt to start a conversation with, “What is your good name?” As if I hold that sort of information close to my heart and only divulge my evil pseudonym. Bizarre.
Which got me thinking about a compilation, a greatest hits of the 10 most hilarious Indianisms out there. And here they are. 

1. 'Passing out'

When you complete your studies at an educational institution, you graduate from that institution.

You do not "pass out" from that institution.

To "pass out" refers to losing consciousness, like after you get too drunk, though I’m not sure how we managed to connect graduating and intoxication.

Oh wait … of course, poor grades throughout the year could lead to a sudden elation on hearing you’ve passed all of your exams, which could lead to you actually "passing out," but this is rare at best.

2. 'Kindly revert'

One common mistake we make is using the word revert to mean reply or respond.

Revert means "to return to a former state."

I can’t help thinking of a sarcastic answer every time this comes up.

“Please revert at the earliest.”

“Sure, I’ll set my biological clock to regress evolutionarily to my original primitive hydrocarbon state at 12 p.m. today."

3. 'Years back'

If it happened in the past, it happened years ago, not "years back."

Given how common this phrase is, I’m guessing the first person who switched "ago" for "back" probably did it years back. See what I mean?

And speaking of "back," asking someone to use the backside entrance sounds so wrong.

“So when did you buy this car?”

“Oh, years back.”

“Cool, can you open the backside? I’d like to get a load in.”

4. 'Doing the needful'

Try to avoid using the phrase "do the needful." It went out of style decades ago, about the time the British left.

Using it today indicates you are a dinosaur, a dinosaur with bad grammar.

You may use the phrase humorously, to poke fun at such archaic speech, or other dinosaurs.

“Will you do the needful?”

“Of course, and I’ll send you a telegram to let you know it's done too.”

5. 'Discuss about'

“What shall we discuss about today?”

“Let’s discuss about politics. We need a fault-ridden topic to mirror our bad grammar.”

You don't "discuss about" something; you just discuss things.

The word "discuss" means to "talk about". There is no reason to insert the word "about" after "discuss."

That would be like saying "talk about about." Which "brings about" me to my next peeve.

6. 'Order for'

"Hey, let’s order for a pizza."

"Sure, and why not raid a library while we’re about it.”

When you order something, you "order" it, you do not "order for" it.

Who knows when or why we began placing random prepositions after verbs?

Perhaps somewhere in our history someone lost a little faith in the "doing" word and added "for" to make sure their order would reach them. They must have been pretty hungry.

7. 'Do one thing'

When someone approaches you with a query, and your reply begins with the phrase "do one thing," you're doing it wrong.

"Do one thing" is a phrase that does not make sense.

It is an Indianism. It is only understood in India. It is not proper English. It is irritating.

There are better ways to begin a reply. And worst of all, any person who starts a sentence with "do one thing" invariably ends up giving you at least five things to do.

“My computer keeps getting hung.”

“Do one thing. Clear your history. Delete your cookies. Defrag your hardrive. Run a virus check. Restart your computer... .”

8. 'Out of station'

“Sorry I can’t talk right now, I’m out of station.”

“What a coincidence, Vijay, I’m in a station right now.”

Another blast from the past, this one, and also, extremely outdated.

What's wrong with "out of town" or "not in Mumbai" or my favorite "I'm not here"?

9. The big sleep

"I’m going to bed now, sleep is coming."

"OK, say hi to it for me."

While a fan of anthropomorphism, I do have my limits. "Sleep is coming" is taking things a bit too far.

Your life isn’t a poem. You don’t have to give body cycles their own personalities.

10. 'Prepone'

“Let’s prepone the meeting from 11 a.m. to 10 a.m.”

Because the opposite of postpone just has to be prepone, right?

"Prepone" is probably the most famous Indianism of all time; one that I’m proud of, and that I actually support as a new entry to all English dictionaries.

Because it makes sense. Because it fills a gap. Because we need it. We’re Indians, damn it. Students of chaos theory.

We don’t have the time to say silly things like "could you please bring the meeting forward."

Prepone it is.

Original Source: http://www.cnngo.com/mumbai/life/10-indianisms-652344
Contributed by Deepa Joseph, Bangalore