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Think we made it pretty apparent with our post "For God's sake, follow your dreams" and it's update, that we are a bunch of crazy guys, who are passionate about the work they do and for some weird reason, are not scared to follow their heart and pursue their dreams. We are what the world might call "the crazy ones"

But, if you are kind enough and are still giving us the benefit of doubt with "They don't seem completely crazy"; well, we're about to prove you wrong! :)

We got so psyched with the amazing response we got to the aforementioned post that we designed a T-Shirt that relays just those sentiments - that you ain't dead yet & you must follow your dreams, which we hope would inspire us all to never lose sight of our dreams, hold them close to our heart and never ever give up on them - no matter what.

So let's say this one more time For God's sake, follow your dreams, wear this beautiful Tee and tell the world You ain't dead yet, that you have the courage to follow your dreams and that you are one of the elite few - the crazy ones, the ones who dare and inspire your friends & family while you are at it!

For the color conscious, the YADY Tee is available in Black, Brown, Dark Grey, Red, Maroon, Navy Blue, Deep Forest Green

We hope you like the YADY Tee and can't wait to get your hands on one. Let us know, how far up you think we are on the 'craziness bar' and what you think about what we feel is the awesomest Tee in town :)

Yup. I ain't dead yet, gime the Tee :)

btw, please share and RT! (#YADY)

Truly overwhelmed and humbled with the amazing response we got for the post "For God's sake, follow your dreams". It made it to the Number 2 spot on Hacker News earlier today. Really glad to see it touched a few chords. Thank you all!

Now some comments on that post and also at hacker news requested a "reality check". So, I  wanted to clarify a few things -

Firstly, the sole take away intended for that post was that "one must never give up on their dreams". I am not oblivious to the fact that people have commitments, have other priorities, are at different stages of their lives etc and not everybody can drop the safety net and take the plunge. I totally respect that. In fact I did reflect upon this in the post here -

"Now, I understand, diving in full time isn't always an option for everybody, but that shouldn't deter us from at least starting to move in the right direction. Take baby steps I say, if you can't afford drastic measures, but for God's sake don't kill your dreams."

You have kids, I understand. It's not easy with a family, I understand that. You can't quit your job because you have mortgage etc, I understand that as well. But, I feel, that shouldn't stop us from taking small steps and keep moving. Standing still is moving backwards. Crawl, if you must. Keep 'em alive. Don't let 'em die. There's no right or wrong way of following your dreams. There's just one rule though - "You must play the game"

Coming back to the example of the "aspiring animator" I quoted, I cannot fathom what's keeping him from taking a short course, reading stuff online, tutorials, ebooks or whatever his schedule allows. We can and probably always should find some "learning time" for ourselves that takes us towards our goals. No time for that? I hate to say this, you might end up living some one else's life (hint: your boss).

Secondly, following your dreams has nothing to do with money or staring a business. In fact, if earning more money is your dream, God help you! It can never be your passion and it's never going to give you long term happiness. If, however, giving quality time to your family is your dream, more power to you. Go for it. I never said - starting or growing a business should be your sole goal.

I don't know how successful I would be at my goals, but one thing's for sure, I won't have any regrets either.

Again, you may agree with me or you may hate it, and I respect that. What I am truly happy about is that it's touched people. It's made them stop and think. The fact that they are writing 500 word comments, tells me that it did :)

Thank you again for all the comments and we at Rootein wish you luck reaching out those dreams!

Don't forget to check out our awesome habit building app at http://rootein.com :)

What is Rootein Idol?

Every week we profile an exceptional person who's passionate & awesome at what he/she does at http://rootein.com/idol

Why?

The easiest way, it's said to succeed at something is to emulate it. You want to be a blogger, emulate the habits of a successful blogger. Just do what they do, and soon enough, you'll get there. In other words find the road they took to success and start walking on it.

In short here's the 3 Step process to emulate your way to success -

1. Find a role model, an idol, someone who has already achieved what you want to achieve.
2. Find out what they are doing/did to get there. Their everyday habits. What is it that they do on a day to day basis that led them to success. Remember success is not overnight. There must be things that these people are doing/did everyday consistently to succeed. Find these winning habits.
3. Now take action and DO the things that your idol does/did everyday (Consistency is the key to achieving success)

Now you might have an idol in mind, someone you look up to, but how do you figure out the winning habits of these people, how do you know what their everyday routines are? We can help - enter Rootein Idol.

All right, we've been wanting to do this for a while and now, we have. Announcing "The Rootein Store" - A collection of the best in Self Improvement, handpicked by the Rootein Team! Check it out now

Why?

The same reason we set out to create Rootein.com in the first place - the passion we have for Self Improvement/Personal development. We love learning and sharing new concepts, techniques and tricks that make us improve as a person. Rootein was a step in that direction - to help people do things everyday consistently so they become habits. The Rootein Store then is an extension to that - to help people find the best there is in self improvement while maintaining the credibility and quality of recommendations.

It's a place where you'll find what we think (only because we've personally used it) is the best in Self Improvement, Productivity, Success and other similar subjects we are so passionate about. Our team digs up the best in books, gadgets, audio books, DVDs and more for people who are interested in Self Improvement.

So, here's something to get you started - The Must Reads in Self Improvement

We'll be adding more stuff as and when we find something worth sharing with you, so make sure you follow us on Twitter/ Facebook or keep dropping into the store to catch a glimpse of what's new!

Check out the Rootein Store now and let us know what you think!

Just received an email from Microsoft which is a perfect example of what NOT to say/write to a customer.

In the entire email, all Mr, Kevin Turner or whoever drafted the email are interested in is themselves, what they want. Not once do they say what's in it for me, the customer, the guy who would be spending 10-15 minutes of my precious time filling out the survey. Oh, yeah they did mention it - it would enable them to respond in ways that improve their products, services and solutions.

Never tell a customer what you want. They are NOT interested in what you want. They are interested in what they want. Tell them how they would benefit from what you are asking them to do, what's in it for them and you won't have to tell them twice. They would be your evangelists for life.


 

We were just about getting ready to warm up for the practice game over the weekend when I had an interesting conversation with one of the team mates I actually didn't know quite well.

"So what do you do?" he asked. "Well, we work for ourselves, we run a software company", I replied. "Oh really! that's awesome! I work for xyz company, but you know I always wanted to get into animation design and work for myself. It was my dream. I got stuck in the wrong industry"

"You ain't dead yet, are you?" I thought trying hard not say that aloud. He continued "You know, I've been wanting to do this for 10 years now, but once you have a family, it's very tough to do anything else"

I couldn't resist anymore, so I said "That's great, if you really want to do that, may be you should take up some animation classes, or do some self learning at your own pace. That would be a good start". Pat came the reply "Nahh it's very difficult, with family, full time job, no time. I would love to, but I can't"

Reluctantly, I suggested "Then may be you should consider training full time for a few weeks/months and perhaps dive in full-time?" He looked at me like I had just asked him to cut off his right hand. "Are you crazy? Where will the paycheck come from?"

Realizing this conversation was heading towards an argument with someone I didn't know very well at the first place, I chose to just smile and leave it at that. But it made me think. What is it with people refusing to take some risks to follow their dreams. Are their dreams not worth it? If not, why do we sulk about them later? Don't we owe it to ourselves to at least give our dreams a fair shot?

Now, I understand, diving in full time isn't always an option for everybody, but that shouldn't deter us from at least starting to move in the right direction. Take baby steps I say, if you can't afford drastic measures, but for God's sake don't kill your dreams.

We all had some crazy ideas and dreams when we were kids. When people asked - "What do you want to do when you grow up?" you didn't say "I want to play safe and be an executive for a fortune 100 company" or "I want to work for the government for the job security"? You wanted to do something that excited you, that you were passionate about - "Armed forces, scientist, sports, music, dance, miss world" etc. You didn't even think if that would get you enough money. You just wanted to do it.

So why is it that as we grow up we lose all the passion, the energy, the will and the strength to keep our dreams alive. Why does money dictate our passion or in most cases, kill it? Why do we let "safety of a paycheck" screw our dreams? Why do we stop thinking about what we love?

We are so seduced by the thought of a guaranteed paycheck every month that we completely ignore the fact that it's actually never too late to pursue our dreams. The reason as I can understand is probably "fear of failure".  We fear we might fail and that fear leads us to cook up stories about why you can't have what you want. Alibis like "I don't have time, I have family, I'll do it when I have more money etc". Stories that convince us that it's ok not to follow up on our dreams, that it's ok not to do what you love, that it's ok to just keep doing the everyday drill.

Like Tony Robbins put it - "The only thing that's keeping you from getting what you want is the story you keep telling yourself about why you can't have it"

What are we waiting for? A perfect day when all stars would line up in just the right direction and you would be guaranteed success? It never works that way. That moment of glory never arrives. All circumstances will almost never be in your favor. There will always be something that would be challenging. You just have to bite the bullet and take the plunge. When we set out to create Rootein, we didn't wait for everything to be just perfect, much as we would have liked. We just dived in. We started developing rootein while we were working full-time. We loved what we were doing and we did it while keeping our day time jobs. It wasn't easy, but it was fun because we were chasing our dream of working for ourselves, building software that we were passionate about.

May be it's just us. May be we are weird. May be we are foolish, but we would rather be foolish and strive to live our dream than come up with some alibis. True success is not money driven, it's driven by love and passion. You've got to love what you are doing and you've got to be passionate about it.

Failing is not scary. What's scary is that you are 60 and reflecting back on your life "May be I should've given my dreams a chance, may be I would've succeeded, may be I would've lived my dream" But now it's too late. You might have missed the boat.

Don't be scared to follow your dreams. That's the worst thing you can do to yourself.

Rocky sing!

"So many times, it happens too fast
You change your passion for glory
Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive"

UPDATE: Truly overwhelmed and humbled with the amazing response we've received. Thank you all for the comments and the Tweets. To maintain posterity and not grow this post any longer, we've posted an update regarding questions raised through some comments in  this article here - An Update to "For God's sake, follow your dreams"

All right folks, we are happy to announce that you can now login via Gmail, Yahoo, Facebook or OpenID on our mobile site as well. This was one of the most requested features and we would love to get your feedback on it.

Just visit http://rootein.com from your mobile device to see it in action.


While it should work flawlessly on most mobile browsers, please let us know if you encounter any problems using it on your mobile device. Feel free to leave us a comment here or email us at mail@rootein.com

We launched a new feature over the weekend- the ability to mark your rooteins as done via email. If you have email reminders enabled for your rooteins, you may have noticed a new secret link in your reminder emails. You can now click on this link to mark the rootein as done. No need to login. No need to click on the calendar to mark it as done. Updating your rooteins just got even more easier and simpler.

How it works

1. You click on the secret link from your reminder email
2. Rootein marks it as done and shows you the status of your rootein.

   Or if it's already marked as done, you get -

   

That's it.

Why is it important?

We believe that a sense of achievement is very crucial to keep us motivated. We all love achievements and we stay motivated when we see some progress. It's what we call the "feel good" factor. So, it is important that we make getting that sense of achievement easier and quicker for you.

After you have done your rootein, what you are looking for is some reward, some sense of achievement. You already get that feeling of instant gratification when you click on the calendar and see that green check mark and making that badge "green".

Now, we take it a step further. Simply click on the secret link provided in each of your reminder emails to mark the Rootein as done and watch Rootein give you back some love. Your awesome "Feel good" badge! It's that simple.

Of course, you can always login and update your rooteins like you always have. But now you have an easier way to mark the rooteins as done.

All you need to do now is make sure you don't break the momentum, you want to keep the badge green for every rootein. "Keep it green" as they say is the goal.

Things you should know about updating Rooteins via email

• The secret link is specific to the day the reminder was set for. Clicking on that link will mark the rootein as done for the day the email was sent on.
• If a rootein is already marked as done, clicking on the secret link for that day would simply direct you to a "You've already done this Rootein" message
• Do not share your secret link with others, unless you want them to mark your Rootein as done :)

Go ahead. Play with it and let us know what you think of it. We would love to hear from you.

We were pleasantly surprised to see the folks over at Demogirl do a Rootein screencast. Simple, to the point and, frankly, rather beautifully done. If you still haven't signed up, this screencast is a great way of finding out what's inside. If you are a Rooteiner already, it's ideal for introducing Rootein to friends/ family.

We couldn't have summed it better, really. Check it out now!

Some users have reported having issues with the reminders and slack alerts over the past day or so. This includes receiving multiple alert emails for a Rootein and/or delayed reminders.

Please be assured that our engineers are currently addressing this issue. We will be back at our "rootein" self very soon. Thanks!

EDIT: We deployed the fix and after carefully monitoring all reminders for almost 2 weeks, we are happy to report that this is now a "non-issue" :-)