One fundamental challenge with books that are written all over the world, classified as “Self-Help” which by itself is a little ambiguous section is the fact that, these books more often than not pick up stories of success- either failure overcome to script a success or a the story of toil that eventually ends up manifesting as success, there is noting beyond this! Then you have the few titles which go on to bring in the elements of the network, social parameters and the essence of timing things and actions, well so far so good! What all of these end up doing importantly (which is real of great essence) is that they simply tend to overlook the most critical aspect and the crucial person in all this haste to narrate stories that appeal to them- they simply forget about the reader- “You” who is reading that book, who really is seeking an answer from within and couldn’t really care enough how “x” became a billionaire after doing “abc”! Join me here as we take a quick look into this core space and understand why seeking the person you want to be from within is so vital and life changing and why this is the only thing that will even appeal to you or make sense to you! So here we go!

Right from the beginning, even as we are toddlers, we begin to undergo social conditioning which is really all flawed and dangerous as it tries to dampen our core identity (of who we really are and what we can thereby achieve). Let me explain!Have you ever experienced that family get together over the holiday’s when you were in school or in college and how every relative that walked into the room had an opinion about what you should do with your life -academics, profession, settling down and all that? It was painful right? To the point you felt like asking the person to just f**k off and get a life! Well and if that was not enough you see these behavioral intrusions continuing all the time , your work place, your friends, your colleagues, even that odd stranger who met you on the last flight or that train ride! So what’s really happening here? Why do “educated” people behave in such a condescending and intrusive way when it comes to others, even as the reality and chances are they themselves would have achieved much less that what they would have set out for, when they started to walk on the road to their aspirations? Read on!

We humans are really one of a kind! You see, within us we have that fundamental sense of being belonging to a community or a group or an identity and that’s never going to move away! This is an evolutionary mechanism that is meant to protect us if ever as a species we feel threatened- this is the emergency button – when activated ensures that humans are able to keep their individual and community based differences at bay and rally behind defending the larger community- haven’t we seen this unfold the world over as we deal with the pandemic! How effective this is or not and what is the effective way to harness this space is a different matter! So this habit of continually looking out for the other person subconsciously with time has changed into looking into the lives’ of the other person- warranted or not! This slight change has ended up us collectively wasting valuable human talent and resources the world over- doesn’t matter what society, what ethnicity or how much access one has to resources or not- this behavioral intrusion has led to the failing of many dreams and aspirations even before they saw the light of the day!

In the wild too, very often you find animal parents guiding their offspring to varying levels of intelligence as necessary for the species to survive, likewise in humans too this intrinsic value persist and is all meant to ensure that kids survive and emerge as “successful”, things begin to get complicated as the perception and reality between the definition of “success” as seen by the kid or the person in question and the others start to deviate ans this is the point from where all human hustle of life and for the aspirational life commences! So is this good or bad? Well, depends, on whether it empowers you or robs you off the very essence of who you are!

Human Intelligence is the only parameter that continues to bring about the changes that we see around, that constant urge to have something new, better and more efficient to be created to empower humanity is perhaps the singular frame from where all innovation, invention and development is pursued! The flip side of this has been that, expectations of humans among themselves have gone to take a hit!Parents expect intelligent children, when their own intelligence could be hardly average! You have bosses who want great juniors, when they themselves have been great corporate disasters! You have that company who want’s to be number 1 and knows that they are not even in the consideration set of the competition! It is this kind of distorted and hallucinatory approach that ends up shattering whatever remaining intelligence an individual may have and more often than not what you come across is human zombies- all around you- people who are doing things, because they have been told to, asked to, instructed to without batting an eyelid- for they know (sometimes) it is futile to wrestle with dumbness and at times peace is more valuable than an unintelligent and unending conflict! But why does all this play out like this?

It all starts with what is being done with an individual- Are the people entrusted with the development and progress of this individual (and in that way of humanity) empowering this person or taking away the empowerment and creating dependent zombies for the future? What is that frame that is being applied to usher in progress and growth? If you take a quick look into the the recent human history and try and find streaks of geniuses of human intelligence, chances are that many of them and most of them have been in the period between 1700 and 1950. These 250 years have witnessed advancements in human societies the world over unlike ever before and laid down the foundation of what the societies have ended up becoming today! The flaws and challenges of “followership modelling” which gained wide momentum in the last 40-50 years has systematically wiped off any and all of original thinking that a human being can be capable of and the onslaught of requiring to be complaint to social biases continues to haunt advancements of our lives across spheres to this day! So how does one escape this trap and seek originality of thought and practise?

The simple trick to stay authentic is by being the person who you always want to be, by trying to become the future self that you seek for yourself- it’s be modelling your life on the future version of yourself that you want to be rather than anyone else! This is critical because, your frame of context is unique to you and the ability to apply intelligence in that frame is what makes you who you are! This is where the magic happens and this also the reason why “self-help” books don’t help- the only people that they help are the publishers! Unfortunately the social biases and the belief systems more often than not shun the propagation of original thought and space- at times because the social context is too risky and yet at other times the challenges- financial and personal are simply too much- at times this is valid, but many a times, this fleeting judgement erodes away a possible magical future for the person in question and in a way not only robs the individual of a great future but also does great dis-service to humanity as a whole! Even as we celebrate the new gadgets, innovations, inventions and discoveries and breakthroughs, rarely we know about the people and the experiments which were crucial and meaningful, but simply were not taken ahead- because they don’t make profitable sense! Who knows what great dis-service we have already done to humanity until now, by this one simple narrowed approach to thinking!

Staying original and contextually relevant is perhaps the most important thing that humanity requires today! It is this paucity of original thinking that ends up killing innovation, invention and creative thinking which can go a long way to empower individuals and people around by simplifying the complexities of the life that they have either created for themselves or have inherited! As Individuals start to shun leadership worship and pay attention to the latent leader within them and align themselves to the purpose that they can sense within- magic will manifest and as long as that purpose holds the promise for serving the greater good for people- in no time- the results of that original approach will be rewarded! Want proof? Think about the best book you ever read, think about the medicine that helped you overcome common cold faster, think about that car which gave you better mileage or more ease of driving through automation! This is how original thinking manifests- it simplifies lives for others and for the owner of that thought as well! For all and any of this to start, the first step is to decide to pursue a future/purpose by seeking your won future self! There is nothing wrong to be inspired, by others and appreciate what they have done, what is wrong is allowing inertia to build within and begin to think that someone else will solve something that you are thinking about! It simply doesn’t happen that way- even if thoughts are the same, approaches are unique and it is within these unique approaches that the stories of success and failures get written and it all starts by getting aligned to the leader within you- who can lead you to be the person that you seek within other around and ensure that you are able to be the future self of what you want to become by pursuing what you must! Think around this! There must be a reason why you are, who you are in the frame that you are in, seek that by connecting with the leader within and empower yourself by becoming the person that you always sought to be!

I leave you with these thoughts, here, take a pause and try connecting to the leader within you and sense where that leader wants to lead you to and what is that definitive purpose that you can get aligned to, so that you end up being in the times ahead the person you always sought to be! Your greatest powers come from within- contemplate and execute!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then think and think and sure enough, apply that thinking!