niti (Principles)

They alone live, who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive. -Swami Vivekananda

• Serve. My purpose is to serve. Whether to serve my family, my team, my customers, my partners, my community, or the world. Any action that I take must have service at its core. Defining purpose in terms of service leads to a more fulfilling life. Serving also leads to innovation as new ways of thinking, new innovations, new principles can be put to use to help others. Every other principle is subordinate to this one.
• Standardized Processes. I am not a goal oriented person, I am a systems oriented person. Systems are built on processes. When I build a system I start with a crappy, basic system and continuously improve it over time. Good processes lead to predictable outcomes. Every sangh, sakha, and sevaka have standardized processes that are followed.
• Continuous Improvement. I find that the journey of continuous improvement is more fulfilling than an end goal. Continuous improvement optimizes for action over inaction, leads to mastery over time as small, incremental improvements compound over time.
• Removing Waste. In every system there is waste, entropy is a Law of Thermodynamics after all. Waste includes waste of time, money, energy, resources. This waste usually results in inefficiencies, stress, loss of quality, and most of all a loss of a settled mind. So I root out waste in every system I build to ensure that my team and I are working and doing things that focus on serving. By removing waste, quality is improved, and quality leads to a settled, content mind as I can be proud of the work I have accomplished.