Your life is a beautiful gift, unique to yourself. There is no other person in this universe quite like you. Which is why my life story in itself is not important; the important thing is what you take away from it. Even as you find some of my lessons interesting or useful, what really matters is how they lead you to your own reflection and your own life lessons. Nothing works better than that. And more than just living your life, the capacity to behold it is even more beautiful.
Displacement: It is important to know that quite often displacement is the key to progress. When you are in continuously displaced, you make friends easily. You have low expectations from the unfamiliar; hence you are more pleasantly surprised than frustrated when faced with life’s many ups and downs. You explore everything around you, develop curiosity-new lands, customs, food, and ways of doing things begin to draw you in. You learn to survive on the strength of who you are, just for this day, today. You build ingenuity in order to survive. You trust strangers and hence, strangers trust you. You build intuitive capability to sniff trouble-which can tell you when to leave a bar! You become an interesting person, because you have lots of stories to tell. Finally, you learn to move on…
Adversity and Faith: The world is not divided between the living and the dead; there is no difference between what is animate and what is inanimate. Animate and inanimate are distinctions born of perception. In reality, everything is living. Our vision is not always a function of our capability to see, it is our willingness to open up our inner eye to the limitless universe that lights up the path of our existence.
Grace under Pressure: There are the inevitable times in every life when we all must step on a thorn. It is never pleasurable feeling, it is not meant to be. In that moment of pain, more often than not, we are focused not just on the pain itself but on the anguish of being singled out, asking the inevitable “Why me?” question. In the larger scheme of things, that question is as relevant as the pain itself. All of us realize this sooner or later. What many of us don’t comprehend is the futility of carrying the baggage of that pin into our future. As we step on the thorn, of we begin to blame the thorn, the pain has a tendency to linger; sometimes the pain expands as time passes, its memory holding centre stage, coloring how we view and feel about our lives. In life, we can’t avoid pain. What we can do is learn from the pain and move on…
Power of mentoring: In many ways, we are all surrounded by many mentors all the time-sometimes they are siblings, sometimes friends, teachers and co-workers. As we get on with the concrete busyness of life, we lose our capacity to receive from people. The capacity to receive asks for humility. Humility makes the mind an empty vessel that can receive. The capacity to receive expands when there is the willingness to give back-only when we return what we receive, are we blessed to receive even more…
Building memorability: Most people we meet don’t have a special reason to remember us, nor are they interested in what we have to say or what we actually do. We live in a world of information overload and attention deficiency. People we meet are often looking at us but thinking about something else. Given that, it is important that in every situation one has to be not only well prepared but razor-sharp to create instant engagement. Be it a job interview, a presentation, or a meeting, we all have a very short window to make the right impression, and unfortunately most of us miss it…
Future of desire and fate: Our lives are like rivers-the source seldom reveals the confluence. Does a river fret over the long journey and about its end just as it is about to spurt? It simply does not do that, caring instead to flow, to begin its journey, and on its way builds a beneficial relationship with anyone who comes in contact with her…
Learning to fly: Communication is a key requirement to be an effective leader in a large organization. Those who write well learn to synthesize their ideas better; it makes them better thinkers. Leaders, who generate content even as they perform their work, help their organizations learn. They are able to create alignment with larger groups of people within and inclusion with the world outside. Affection for content helps to build and disseminate points of view effectively. Like a sport, writing requires cultivation over a long period of time and come become a fulfilling occupation. We all have some talent in us- be it singing, writing, painting or sculpting. If we nurture and cherish it, it makes our life fuller. Yet so many of us choose the uni-dimensionality of a work life, always citing lack of time to pursue a hobby. If we make a small commitment towards keeping our talent alive, one day it becomes a beautiful gift, which nourishes us, makes our lives complete…
Good Leader: All battles should be based on principles. And in a battle based on principles, it is not the size of the adversary that matters; it is the size of the principle. A leader’s job is to focus on what is delivered, not on what a person’s quirks are. Competence to do a job has far greater weightage than personal reverence. When we look to hire people, we invariably look for sameness. It is so much more comfortable. But progress requires intelligent friction, push back, points and healthy counterpoints. The job of leaders is to build high personal comfort with contrarians who think differently, create alternative points of view and have the power to question the state of things…
Life’s personal angels: In the journey called life, as we are engulfed in the everyday grind, chasing our successes and trying to survive the failures, we constantly look for the golden formula. In reality, there is no golden formula, just a set of lessons. Some are delivered to us by people, whom we come in casual contact with, and as time goes by, we begin to understand that each one of us has personal angles-the people who live in our midst…
Go, Kiss The World! – Important lessons learned:
It’s all in the mind: The most significant lesson that everything we achieve begins in our minds. If we believe in the idea strongly enough and are willing to give it out very best, everything is possible. It is our own conviction that breathes life into an idea and makes a living thing.
The power to receive: The power of receive is far more important than the power to give. The act of receiving is far more significant in the overall scheme of things. It is an important lesson for those who give and then see that their giving has made no difference. One has to be blessed to receive. In a family, though the inputs from the two parents’ remains same, the output is vastly different; all the children grow up to be very different people in their own lives. The power is then not in the giving; it is in the extended hand that receives. What matters is the capability to catalyze what you have received.
To get, you must first give: People who give are the people who get. We need to develop an expansive view of life; we need to believe that there is more in it for everyone if everyone is involved and benefits. Leaders must develop a mindset of abundance, not scarcity, as they build their organizational vision.
Connect with people: As human beings, we feel even before we think. People who connect with us at the level of our feelings build memorable association. It is our empathy that helps us connect the world. When a leader connects at the level of feelings, he can get his people to aspire to dizzying heights and create in them the will and ability to scale them.
Life is constant negotiation: In life everything is possible, but everything is negotiable. Life throws the proverbial curve ball at us as we grow up and we begin to realize that nothing is given, there is no such thing as a status quo. This extends itself to agreements and understandings that we reach with partners, customers, suppliers, parents, siblings, our own children, and spouse. Situations can change overnight. Such is the dynamic nature of the world that we need to face an emergent situation with an even temperament and look for the most beneficial outcome for all concerned, given the new set of circumstances. Leaders must look at things as they are, not as we wish they should have been. While a leader’s job is to alter the reality, he can’t begin by looking at life with an altered reality.
The slippery slope of overachievement: One frequent theme for high achievers is frustration. High achievers set high standards for themselves and expect everyone else to follow them. This is a legitimate but sometimes unreasonable position. As a result, they tend to get easily frustrated, especially with the system. Frustration without the capability to change things is like a radioactive material burning inside you. Your frustration is the difference between your ambition and your capability. Either you improve your capability or lower your ambition. Do not just sit there with the radioactivity turned inward. Not everything around you can be changed by you. The world’s job is not to follow you just because you have figured things out before others. You should only be pained to change things that you can take charge of and create a sustainable impact.
The marginal person is important: Trying to please your boss is not beneficial in the long run. For the boss who expects you to curry favour, no gift is big enough; he will always think of it as his entitlement. On the other hand, if you are considerate towards your juniors, those below you, greet them with a pat, a smile or a nice word, you will be remembered for a lifetime. In exchange, they will walk to the end of the world for you. So, do not waste your time trying to please the big bosses. Focus on the little people. In a harshly competitive world, that may sound counter-intuitive, but when you focus on the small folk, you create a constituency that no boss can ever ignore.
Passion is what passion does: Too many people know what is wrong with the world. Their knowledge and intensity do not matter. What matters is making a small but real difference. That is why the Mahatma said, ‘Be the change that you want to see’.
The power of resilience: When we look around and see great people in positions of organizational leadership and then compare them with their juniors, we find the latter can often be more brilliant, more competent and more intelligent. But the leader outshines them in his resilience. Sometimes, it is not inherent competence but one’s resilience that decides who the winner is, particularly in the long run. As a marathon runner knows, success is about your capacity to withstand pain, longer. In business and life, we come across numerous instances when we feel that all the odds are stacked against us, life is truly coming to an end; the prophets of gloom will provide us convincing data on why we should leave and never come back. In times like this, just hand in there.
The key to happiness is not money: You can acquire any amount of material success you want, but don’t expect that to be the source of your happiness. This does not mean that you should give up the desire to earn, but in doing so, keep low expectations on its ability to give you happiness. Money is important in life but not the source of any lasting happiness.
Look beyond yourself: Most of the times, our pain is only as large as our inability to see pain elsewhere.
Real men say sorry: As we grow up, from time to time we make mistakes. Sometimes, we hurt people’s feelings. In most instances, the hurt caused is unintended. But, nonetheless, for the person who feels the pain, it is real. Once we realize we have hurt someone, we spend an enormous amount of time explaining rationally why the other person should not have felt that way. This is unnecessary; the only reason we get into all that explanation is our ego. The moment calls for just three words: ‘I am sorry’. Great leaders are people who can quickly and genuinely say that they are sorry. By saying sorry, we don’t become weak. We shorten the path from the head to the heart.
Self-doubt is positive: Periodically, we are all entitled to self-doubt. There will be moments when we feel we are at a crossroads; times when we question the very meaning of life and the existence of god. People who create great impact suffer from moments of great soul-searching. In itself, it is a good sign because from the depth of our self-doubt we learn to let go; from that emerges a conviction and with it comes the capability to go kiss the world...
Note that the figure is made up of the 6 characters (GANDHI) below that. Amazing, isn't it ?
