My experiments with my life in pursuit of success and happiness

1. DhanunJayarao .Bandlamudi (DJ.)
dhanunjai.com

2. DREAM?
Believe nothing. Where ever you read it or whoever said it even if I
have said it, unless it is agreed by own reasoning and common sense.
- BUDDHA

3. My Life, In the Past >

4. Confused!

5. Education
 Did too much hard work in SSC(74%) and intermediate(88%). Most of
my time (~15 hrs/day) went in either class rooms or study hours.
 I couldn’t find meaning in my studies and lost interest in B.Tech.
 Just 59% in my B.Tech first year results
 Dropped exams 22 times in B.Tech
 When I was in 4th year first semester, I’ve backlogs from all semesters
except first year 2-1, 2-2, 3-1 and 3-2.
 Including backlogs and regular, wrote 14 exams in 4th year first sem.
Failed two subjects out of 14.
 Finally managed to pass B.Tech with 65% (2001-2005)

6. Job Trails
 Did lot of hard work but still failed in every job interview or written test for
an year. (Didn’t know what’s going wrong)
 Joined in a training cum placement institute – Honing Solutions.
Trained and worked on a real time project for 8 months. I used to go to office even on
Sundays to learn more.
 It took 2 years to get a salaried job after my b.tech.
Cordys; My first job; Feb19th, 2007
It remembers me the movie, The Pursuit of Happyness!

7. First Job – Initial Days
 Cordys Software India Private Ltd.
 Agreed to join as a Tester even though I wanted to be a Developer.
 My goal was to do well as a Tester and get into development role.
 First year, I was doing well in my Job but not out performing to reach my
goal.
 Don’t know what’s going wrong with me even though I do lot of hard
work, the real hard work. I was searching deeply to find the reason . . .
I did one experiment, that revealed me one reason why I was not doing
well. It was a turning point for my life.

8. My Life, Now >

9.  HAPPY >>

10. HOW?

11. I did some experiments in my life to know the secrets
of success and happiness.
What I critically analyzed, experimented and experienced and come to a belief . . .

12. Experiment-1: THINK BIG
 I came to know about a self-help book ‘The Magic of Thinking Big’
(Varma suggested to Hari Vardhan and I heard about it from Hari Vardhan)
 I was looking for such a tool from a long back which would have
answers for my failures.
 I started applying whatever I learned from this book in every day life,
surprised with results. With the same efforts just by changing the way I
think, results were really magic for me. Then, I understood why I failed to
get good results in my studies, Why I failed to get a early job even though I
worked very hard.
 I wanted to experiment THINK BIG principles with some big challenging
and impossible kind of task in my Job. I initiated a task to work in my
weekends and announced it to team before starting.
Task ‘Operation 100 Minutes’ – Reduce Cordys BPM Engine regression(automated test
cases) execution time from 180 minutes to 100 minutes without compromising on the quality of test cases.

13. Experiment-1: THINK BIG
 ‘Operation 100 Minutes’, I did it by applying THINK BIG principles!
Aah!! Results are really magic for me.
I realized why I failed to get big results in the past even though I worked
very hard – Not believing in me. After this experiment, I never allowed my
thoughts to underestimate me.
 No change in my hard work but just by changing the way I think, now,
I’m living in a way I had dreamed for many years.
Attitudeis more important than intelligence and hard work
“Believe it can be done. When you believe something can be done, really believe, your
mind will find the ways to do it. Believing a solution paves the way to solution.”
“Big thinkers do not see things as they are, they see things as what they can be.”

14. Experiment-2: Definite Purpose and Faith
 I took some good initiatives in my job with Think Big attitude to change
my career path to Development when I was working as a test engineer in
my first company Cordys. I had been getting close but not reaching my
goal to become a developer.
 With the hope given by The Magic of Thinking Big, I started reading
another great self-help book - ‘Think and Grow Rich’ by Napolean Hill. Hill
revealed THE LAW OF SUCCESS in that book.

15. Experiment-2: Definite Purpose and Faith
 Achieved Programmer role before the target date by following the success steps
suggested by Hill. Company gave exception only to me to change career path from
QA to Development during that time.
First notable achievement in my career. After lot of failures in life this was a big
relief for me and it showed me the definite way to win.
WOW!!! what an amazing experience it was! Having a clear goal, truly believing in
it's achievement, continuously improving my attitude and skills in the process of
working towards my dream.
 F19
I made my goal definite - I committed to get the Programmer designation by
Feb19th, 2010 (3 years from joining date). If not, decided to resign for the job without thinking
much about alternative plans. Informed about it at my home and to my Leads.
Worked aggressively on the job and took some more org level initiatives.
Definite purpose and faith in it’s achievement is the starting point of any achievement.
What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve

16. Experiment-2: Definite Purpose and Faith
 Wante’D
• Pega(#1 in BPM), my dream product to experience when I was working in a BPM domain
company(Cordys).
• When Cordys was looking to sell the company, Pega is the only option I considered.
• Even though I’m passionate about hard core programming, I preferred to join a Pega application
team because I truly believed in the Pega product to build my career.
Decide what you want, find out how to get it and then take daily action towards achieving it.
You’ll get exactly what you ask and work for.

17. Experiment-3: Passionate Living
I achieved Programmer designation. What next. There will be times you
need to work without having clearly defined goals or you may face some
serious setbacks. Some less productive days are started in my job. In the
retrospection I realized that –
To live happily every day, I should love my job/work better than any other
field or activity because that is where I spend most of my time in a day.
 The Passionate Programmer - Decided to create a lot of PASSION for
my primary job(Programming) to perform better in my job and career
happily.
Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005, initiated this experiment.
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you
believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it
yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it”

18. Experiment-3: Passionate Living
 The Passionate Programmer was my theme for year 2010
 Committed to build a great career in IT and continuously visualized as a great programmer
 Don't want to be afraid of any kind of programming
 Used the passion generated principle ‘Know the Basics and Get the Big Picture'
 Tried to understand many programming and design concepts
 Read lot of programming related articles
 Applied gaming theory to programming. Practiced Code Kata
 Read some programmer attitude building books - 'The Pragmatic Programmer‘ and ‘The
Passionate Programmer’
 Researched on developing solid debugging skills. Because this is where we spend most of
the time as a programmer
Now, Programming (Software Engineering for that matter) is my passion.
My job and career became so engaging and very interesting after this.
With this experiment, I realized that, we can generate passion to work on
any kind of task. This the only way to do great work and LIVE every day.
Progress and mastery creates passion.
To fall in love with your life, love and accept what you’re doing

19. Experiment-4: P/PCThe Habit of Highly Effective People
Learned from Stephen Covey, Author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Effectiveness is balance between production(P) and improving production capability(PC)
Invest time regularly on non urgent but important tasks
Remembering and following this habit every day raised quality of my life.
To progress, you must Act. To progress quickly, you must act daily.
INVEST IN YOU DAILY in all dimensions – Physical, Mental, Spiritual and Emotional.

20. Experiment-6: Pain-Change-Pleasure
Change is sure when at most pain is linked to current situation and at most pleasure is linked
to the change you want to see.

21. Experiment-5: Experiments with Truth
Requires lot of courage but in return we’ll get the ultimate strength - Gandhism

22. Ultimate Experiment: Indian Science
Perform your duty by body, mind, intellect, and senses, without attachment, only for self-purification.
Buddhism
Bhagavad Gita
Teachings of VEDAs
Mentoring from Jaggi Vasudev
Live inclusively in harmony with nature,

23. LEARNing…