Know your actual age

One’s actual age is never the chronological age. It very much depends on one’s lifestyle and attitudes. Here we give a questionnaire which can indicate what your actual age can be. Even if the correction factor is not accurate(there are many variables which cannot be scientifically calibrated)  it will give an idea of what your actual age is.

Answer the following questions and mark your right answer as indicated.   

1.      Do you think your youth is behind and you are getting older?  Yes/No

2.      Can you run for 15 minutes or walk briskly for 45 Minutes or climb fast a 6 storey building with ease -without panting? (Yes/No)

3.      How long can you stand on one leg keeping the other leg on it a foot above ground? 70 seconds for 30 year old (Yes/No), 60 for 40 Yes/No, 50 for 50 Yes/NO, 30 for 70 Yes/No, 20 for 80 year old.(Yes/No)

4.      Can you, by exercise, increase your hearts beat by 40% up to 60 (if your beat is 70 raise it to 98) and 25% for above 60 year olds & keep it up for 15 minutes exercising without panting? Yes/No 

5.      At what height will your right hand catch a ball dropped by your left hand held high?   1.5m for up to 30-year olds Yes/No) 1.3m for -40 (Yes/No) 1.1-50 (Yes/No, 90cms -60, Yes/No 70cms for -80 year olds Yes/No 

6.      Is your left-right brains in synchrony-are both your hands equally proficient in doing daily chores like (shaving, brushing, eating, ironing,  dressing, writing, computer typing (tick the applicable ones)                                                                                                            

7.      Do you eat less than what you require (feels light always) Yes/No 

8.      Do you eat more whole grains, vegetables, fruits and avoid fatty and fried stuff Yes/No

9.      Do you avoid processed food, aerated drinks, salt, sugar and too much alcohol? Yes/No

10.  Do you maintain a good fat-body ratio (14-17%) with no flab and sagging skin? Yes/NO

11.  Is your waistline measure less than 80cms (woman) and 90cms (man) Yes/No

12.  Do you go for picnics, holidays and outing with family and friends often? Yes/No

13.  Are you always smartly dressed (at home and outside) and careful to strike friendship with others of all ages? Yes/NO

14.  Do you enjoy your work, have an aim and feel relaxed most of the time?  Yes/No

15.  Do you consciously avoid brain and memory monotony (avoid: eating the same food, dressing the same way, maintaining the same routine, taking the same route to home and office, maintaining the same ways at home. doing the same work? (tick the apt ones)
16.  Do you laugh and smile more often Yes/No 

17.   Do you spend some time meditating or sitting with a blank mind each day?  Yes/NO  

18.  Do you want to live longer and are you a positive minded person? Yes/No

19.  Do you enjoy each moment? Are you celebrating each day? Yes/No

20.  Are you financially dependent on others? Yes/NO

21.  What is your BP?  1. 80/120, 2. 90/130, 3.100/140 4. above these 

22.  What is your total cholesterol level below 1. 200? 2. 220-230? 3. Above this range

23.  Do suffer from diabetes? Yes/NO

24.  Do you suffer from a lung disease? Yes/No  

25.   Are you diagnosed with cancer or a malign growth? Yes/No

26.  Are you suffering from Kidney trouble? Yes/No

27.   Do you have a liver complaint? Yes/NO  

28.  Do you have a pet and a hobby? Yes/No

29.  Is your BMI (divide weight in kgs by the square of height in Meter)less than 25? Yes/No

30.   Do you suffer from: 1. vision problems 2. Hearing loss 3. Memory loss (tick applicable)

31.  Do you smoke or take drugs? Yes/No  

32.  Do you have a healthy sex life? Yes/No                                                                                                                                

33.  Do you have a specific goal in life? Yes/No

34.  Do you try:  different foods & Different diet, do crossword puzzles, read and try to agree/ disagree with editorials, try different dresses, go to exotic places, learn something new, do brain puzzles?(tick apt ones)

35.  Do you enjoy your family life? Yes/No  

Give marks as follows: 1: yes 1 mark, No -1 mark, . 2.Yes 1 marks  3. Yes 1 mark  4.yes 1 marks 5. Yes 1 mark, 6. Give half mark for each tick  7-14 . Yes 1 mark  15 give half mark for each tick  16-19 yes 1 mark 20 Yes -1mark, No 0 mark 21: tick 1: 1 marks, tick 2: 0 mark, tick 3 -1, tick 4 -2marks  22. 1: 1 marks, 2. 0 mark, 3. -2 marks 23-27 yes (-2)mark each, no 0 mark  28, 29 yes 1mark, No (-1)  mark each, 30-each tick (-1) mark  31 yes (-1)mark,  32-33, yes 1mark no (-1)mark. 34 each tick half  mark 35. Yes 1 mark, No -1mark

                                for 26-45 yr old            46-65 yr old        66-80 &above      

Actual age:
chronological age-   1/3 of  your  net+score     ½ your net +score     actual  +score

Actual Age: 
Chronological age+     net minus score           net minus score        net minus score   

Revolutionary selling techniques

Selling has entered a new epoch of non-conventional methods; the old script is simply outdated. There is a new set of rules, approaches and tools. Today more sales calls may not necessarily result in greater sales. More business can be ensured with fewer calls. Pressuring the clients or applying closing techniques may not necessarily bring in results. 

You have to reinvent yourself from a dreaded sales person to a trusted advisor and earn respect. There is a whole new set of rules, approaches and tools. Honesty, deep knowledge and common sense are more effective. There is no headache of innumerable reminders or incessant follow ups.  You do not have to talk all the time. You do not have to be an unwanted guest. You can have honest conversations and behave like a thorough professional.

Position yourself as an expert and not as a salesman. Aim at a life time relationship starting from the very beginning. Become a problem solver of the client in everything and give impeccable after-sales service. 

Let your prospects know you through referrals and a well designed professional web site giving every detail. Through proper questions get into his intimate zones. Know the type of your customer-director (shows ego), socializer (expresses feelings) , thinker (why do you ask questions?), relator (who asks to talk about youself)- and handle each one accordingly.   

But with all these, the golden rules: have excitement and a good attitude, have a thorough product and business knowledge, focus on the top 20% interested customers, do follow up and concentrate on after sales are all still applicable and essential.  Be in your best body language, dress and groom well.  Be relaxed to sell more. Be confident before your customer. If you get a no ask why, why not?  After a no do not beat yourself. Fill your mind with your successes and forget the failure. It is his problem not yours. Keep your excitement and enthusiasm throughout. Improve your sales behavior through learning, listening, experiencing.  Talk only good about your competitors, and take every complaint as a great opportunity to build up the reputation of the company.

Identify the pain if he does not buy and the pleasure if he does.  Produce testimonials from people the customer knows. Give full attention, never displease him, and follow up until you win. Do not give promises you cannot (or do not intend to) keep up. Let your behavior be professional all the time and never let it slip down to a personal level. They want professional services from you all the time before or after the sales. You should always fulfill promises made and do more.  

How old are you?

There are three different types of ages for man:  chronological, mental and biological. The Chronological age depends purely on the passage of time. It indicates the number of years passed since your birth. Mental age is the age you really feel you are. It has no relation to the chronological age. One can feel young at the age of eighty or ninety; another one can feel old when he is just past fifty. Biological age is a measure of a person's real age indicating how well one is performing for their years. It depends on the functions of the vital organs, diseases one has and one’s physical and mental fitness. This can be determined accurately only in a hospital. The functions of the heart, liver, lungs, kidneys, brain, endocrine glands, and those of our senses (eyes, ears, nose and taste buds and skin) have to be medically ascertained.

Mental age depends on how one feels about himself: one’s weight, fat-body and muscle body ratios, aerobic, static and muscular fitness, how one spends his time and the goals one follows always, can all influence it. How one keeps one’s memory and brain exercised and focused is important too. If your memory has rusted, and if the thinking is blurred you have already aged irrespective of whether you are young or old and you will feel you are old.

One can reduce his mental and physiological ages but the chronological one is totally independent. 


There are ways to reduce your age: eat less that too fruits, whole grains and vegetables, avoid processed food, sugar and salt and too much alcohol.  Drink a lot of water, do aerobic, muscle building and flexibility exercises, keep ideal weight and muscle, fat body ratios. Go after something all the time, keep friendship with those of the opposite sex of any age, have a healthy sex-life, and be purposefully engaged. Help fellow men and empathize with others, live with your family or a loved one. Look for old age with warmth and plan the things that you would then do. Sleep well-eight hours in a cycle of twenty four hours is the ideal- go for picnics  give challenges to your grey matter, learn something new, exercise your brain and memory through crossword puzzles, memory diary and brain puzzles. Try new food, new dress, use your less proficient hand for your daily chores and resort to many others mentioned elsewhere in my blogs.  If one keeps these points his actual age will certainly be less than the chronological one.   

To succeed you don't have to know everything

Those who succeed in life are not those who know everything. The top executives do not know every detail of their company.. A CEO should assess the risk and reward of a scenario and make a go/no-go decision. And for this, sometimes, too much information is a negative. A CEO should be the hallmark of everything that is good about the company and he should be an inspiration to everyone. Ability to delegate and decision making capability are other attributes of a successful CEO. These attributes are not based on knowing every detail or the depth of general knowledge.

Those who succeed in life will be specialized in a particular field and they will spend 14-16 hours of every day on their work. If one dabbles in everything he would become a jack of all trades and a good for nothing. The CEO of any corporation will have a gist of the whole. She/he will absorb the necessary abstract of every department and give direction.  If they muddle into the micro details they will reach nowhere and they will not be able to carry out the chief attributes mentioned above.

If one is researching he should go into the minutest detail of everything connected. Similarly, a painter or a sculptor will have to master the craft in every detail. But the CEO of a corporation is to set to give general guidelines and he needs to know his company, the pulse of the current market, the innovative techniques and the direction in which the world moves.  

General knowledge is not going to help anyone in any profession. An encyclopedia can answer any general knowledge question. There is no need for anyone to store the data in the memory. There are quiz programs which give a million or more to the final winner. But the winner is effectively worth just the cost of a related encyclopedia.

It is important that we identify our innate talent from very early days and acquire the necessary knowledge and skill so that our market value goes up. There are people who feel tense as they cannot cope up with the information revolution. If you try to absorb or make yourself up to date with everything that goes on in the world there will soon be an information overload in your brain. Concentrate on your line or subject and learn what will be useful to you in your profession. Becoming an encyclopedia is worth almost nothing.       

Create your future right here and now

So far you have had very little or no idea as to what the future has in store for you. You can easily create your own destiny all by yourself, right here and now.

Write down how you would like your life to be after say, 10 or 15 years from now. Take special care to note down every single detail. If you are going to write just one sentence, forget about it; you do not then know what exactly you want.

Write precisely a description of your work, the position you will occupy (mention your pay & perks) and  the details of your job or business. Note down also the nature of your work,  diplomas/degrees you will take and the skills you will acquire.

It is good to draw up your proposed house with an architect (spend a few thousands) with an estimate for the same. Detail the roof, wall and floor finishes, toilet, kitchen, launch, study, façade, gate, compound wall.  Have a clear and precise concept about your partner, children and where you would be settling. Note down where you want them to get educated with the names of schools and colleges.    

Have a precise idea of the car you will be driving, its model and cost. Get a few pictures of it from the auto dealers. Note down, if unmarried, how your partner should be. Detail your family life, type and nature of food, servant/s pastimes, parties, outings, picnics, and the way you propose to behave to your partner, kids, in-laws, relatives, neighbors and friends.   

If you have finished putting down your life after 10 years in black and white, you have already created half of your future. The other half lies in thinking about it often. Let it become the predominant thought of your mind. Just before sleeping and immediately after waking up, read the detailed description carefully as if they are already achieved. Keep a copy of the neatly written details under your pillow, in your suitcase, under the glass of your office table and go through them 5 or 6 times a day. If you persist doing these and dream about them with intense desire and urge,  you will get or create each one of them by the time envisaged.   

How to keep youthful always?

There may be a clockwork mechanism that make us age. But with a proper life-style, one can extend one’s youthfulness by well beyond 100. All our limbs and organs can function well up to 120 years! It is our mental outlook which invites ageing.

Decaying is a universal phenomenon. But our mind can control the decay of our body tissues. It is not fully true that old age leads us to death. Death is brought about by diseases like BP, cancer, heart attack, TB, Pneumonia, AIDS, accidents, illnesses, and in rare cases by old age.  The thought that one will have to be senile and useless in old age is totally unfounded. There are people who enjoy youthfulness in old age with all their organs and limbs functioning well up to 110 and more.

It is not necessary that because one is decrepit at 90 another should also be decrepit. If you exercise your body and brain, control food, and live for certain aims, you can be as healthy at 95 as another one is at 60.

Eating less (take food equivalent to 1200 calories a day) can add up to 50% more to your life span! Studies have conclusively shown that taking a serving or two of broccoli each day, one can add 5 years to his life. Having a pet and spending time with it regularly can give you 3 more years. If you live in a rural setting amidst greeneries and with a lot of unpolluted fresh air you will get 7 years more! Having an understanding and loving partner will extend your life by about 5-7 years!

Leaving your memory and brain in a rut (doing routine things which give no challenge) make them rusted and they prepare to die earlier. Brain is a self programming mechanism and if there is no use staying alive it just goes.

If you exercise physically  and throw new challenges to brain (doing  puzzles, going to new places, studying a new language, doing your daily chores with the less proficient hand, writing memoirs, recalling names of people you met, doing memory games and living for a purpose) it will function like a youth’s brain.  

This is applicable to all our muscles and organs. Keep them exercised and let them be fit. Go for aerobic, muscle building and flexibility exercises. Nobody can stop  chronological ageing but your mind will behave like that of an youngster if you exercise your body and brain, move more, control your food and have something to live for.  

Life is beautiful…………………

 In any failure-however deep and painful- there are hidden elements of success and brilliant rays to guide and lead us up to light. Behind any deed there is a good intention. There are streaks of goodness in everything. Anyone can be happy at any moment. 

Our enemies are those whom we see as enemies. If we hate someone he will hate us back. If we love someone he will love us back too.

This world is full of good things. Those balancing rocks, gurgling rivulets, greeneries, fragrant blooms, tranquil lakes, and the whole beauty of this nature have been specially arranged for you. Things happen here so very naturally and in perfect harmony. See how the moon rounds the earth, the earth and the moon round the sun which along with all its planets and satellites rounds the galactic nucleus in absolute precision and harmony.  A small seed germinates with tender shoots and grow into a big and beautiful tree. All these have been going on so very naturally for billions of years!  This natural harmony can be witnessed in the birth of a child, the blooming of a bud and the downward meandering flow of a stream. 

Let us celebrate this life. We are so very lucky to have taken birth in this universe during this advanced epoch. We are emanating from and going into this universe. Little bundles of energy gave birth to us and they will return to the universal storehouse to live forever. We have no death; we will always live. Let us celebrate each second of the small time we have been allotted down here.

Let us be grateful to our parents who gave birth to us, to the teachers who led us to the world of knowledge, to all our relatives, neighbors and friends who have loved and made us happy. We have taken birth to enjoy every second. There is joy in every cell of a new born baby. Let us love all, be grateful to everything in this world and make our life a thing of joy.