Category: communication

Are you lost in your wonderland?

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

As you go about your busy lives, what is that you are actually engaged in? Are you by any chance a victim of being lost in your own wonderland? Join me here as we take a short walk in this interesting space and try to understand why a major part of humanity almost always ends up living a life entrapped in their own perceptions and hallucinations and what is that we can do about this to break free of these limiting shackles and propel ahead! So here we go!

No matter where you have grown up, all of us have some or the other time read about, “Alice in Wonderland”- that sublime story of adventures of a young girl – something that even to this day brings a smile to any face- just by thinking about it- perhaps one of the most potent examples of great writing and story telling! Coming back to the real world, each one of us too, are entrapped into this “wonderland concept”. You see, you and I included all of us end up living our lives in our small or big wonderland- ever checking into something new, getting excited with something that goes as we plan and getting sad when things don’t measure up as we expect them to- well nothing to complaint about this, because this how human life is supposed to be- the regular journey between achievements and near misses! But the important aspect that we tend to miss is that, we almost always end up limiting our lives within our own found wonderlands!

Now if you have started to wonder about, what kind of wonderlands I am speaking about here, well yes, these are made up of all the perceptions, hallucinations and unfound realities that you tend to stay engaged with on an ongoing basis! What’s more funny is that, often people end up living their full lives running after their limited pursuits confined within their wonderland. So what is really happening here? Well, people are more often then not tricked by their minds and sold into believing what they think with regards to their view and approach is just fine and this is where the “wonderland effect” commences! You see, unless the mind has a ceaseless ability to question, enquire and re-validate whats around and what is being observed on an ongoing basis, people end up calibrating themselves to some metric or standard, which may or may not be relevant and thereby begin to set all their pursuits against this flawed calibration of their own abilities and competencies!

The wonderland effect is operational all around us, all the time, it goes by how we define our life, our approach and what we set out to achieve, the only problem here is that as we succumb to this effect and we tend to forego what we can be really capable of and end up short serving ourselves and others around! You see when you begin to get comfortable with all that is around you- whether it be that job or business you are engaged in, that apartment that you stay in or any other facet for the matter- you are actually ending up short serving yourself- if you tend to say quite often , “I would do this, if only…” for all that is around you! You see the wonderland effect, is all about getting lost into the maze that you have created around you by accumulating unwarranted clutter of people and things- which don’t serve you in any manner and on the contrary tend to drain you to the last drop of sanity that you are left with!

Your wonderland, rather each of our’s wonderland is a reflection of the horizon of our minds where it limits ourselves! This is the zone wherein we become comfortable about who we are, what we can achieve and how we are set on the path of our journey, the reality, sure enough is something altogether different, the reality is all about, going beyond and further then what is apparent and this is exactly why the wonderful effect is so dangerous and damaging- it holds your mind captive to its own imagination! Human minds, are almost always limited by their ability to think and that thinking is limited by the wonderland that we end up gifting ourselves, which, of course again is a product of our thinking, with a touch of our life’s learnings and experiences! If you have observed, I have not said, what is the right way, or the wrong way around this space, simply because there is none and that is what is so wonderful about humanity! It is only when people begin to accept the realities of their wonderland over the truth of their existence and ability, is that problems begin to manifest!

These wonderlands can be a thousand different things to a thousand people and more often then not the hallmark of the wonderlands stems from the foundation of insecurity, missed opportunities and mediocre acceptance before giving a worthy enough fight and attempt! You see, if you take a step back and try to rethink just around who you are, what you could have or can be and what you are currently doing, you will know the essence of what I am saying here! Sure enough there is nothing to sulk, complain or stay pessimistic about whatever life you have chosen or what has come your way- in the case where life ends up choosing you; the million dollar question is, whether you have the realization of the fact that, the life that you have given unto yourself is a sliver of what it actually could be and can be, simply because you are entrapped within your wonderland! So what’s the real story?

Well, as you stay locked into your own self-propagated wonderland, you will run a risk of not achieving what your true potential is, because that always will reside beyond the confines of your wonderland! This is the reason why you find so many people lost and confused each time whether they don’t get that promotion that they desired or when their business does not proceed the way they thought it would! People often end up living a confused life confined by their wonderland, never ever realizing what their real potential is or could have been and only if, they would have taken that one step to move beyond that comfort and predictable zones of their lives- which gives them an enduring sense of surety and safety- both of which are an enduring illusion which melt away as soon as the first major crisis emerges!

How big or small that entrapping wonderland is well largely depends on who and what you are, but more often than not it is proportional to the fears, anxiety and self-doubt and inversely proportional to the intrinsic wisdom and courage that a person may hold! So what’s the ahead?

Well, the only and perhaps the only meaningful way ahead is all about being able to know your wonderland, live through it and while doing so, stay ever aware about the greater world that resides beyond it’s entrapment! It is about developing enough intrinsic courage and leading yourself when the time is apt to move beyond and away form your wonderland to create a new reality for yourself and those around you! Enduring success becomes a lifestyle when you begin to make your wonderland a place of recreation and ensure that you come to visit it once in a while and don’t get trapped within it’s convenient and appealing comforts! The real essence of creating a meaningful life almost always resides beyond your wonderland , unless you are Alice!

I leave you with these thoughts for now, will be back soon with another one, until then stay safe, stay wise and get going for your real life beyond your wonderland!

Ciao, take care!

Thinking-Default, Design or Unique.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Human societies the world over are a reflection of the potency and efficacy of their collective thinking which again is a factor of how empowered Individual thinking is! Join me here as we take a walk down the path of the very essence of thinking and try to understand what makes us think the way we do and what is that we can do to sustain and walk the path of empowered thinking! So here we go!

Needless to say the human mind has been at the centre of all medical research and even till this day, we learn new things about it on an ongoing basis. Not going into the space of the clinical aspects of the brain, but staying aligned to the other aspect of it- that is the Thinking Mind- is what seduces Psychologists and Psychiatrists the world over! It is the sheer number of approaches that a Thinking Mind can take to events and triggers that baffles the professionals and even for someone like me who has been engaged in observation and study through behaviour, it is really an engaging discovery!

Through evolution, humanity has been able to harness the power that the brain has been equipped to first secure the “need to have” and then move further to secure and pursue “the good to have”. The essence of human development is the ability to Think! It is when this thinking begins to serve or stall that we experience progress or regress even for Individual, which ultimately ends up becoming the story of the society, simply because thinking too is infectious and contagious! No matter who you are, what you do and how well off you are or not, Thinking typically, if you ask me is either by Default, Design or Unique and based on the extent of mix that an Individual embraces around these three attributes, the space around original Individualistic Thinking is born!

Thinking by Default is pretty simple as it sounds, within this realm, Individual thinking approaches are reined in by set “acceptable” and “conformation” norms (which may or may not be relevant) and furthermore as time progresses, reinforcement of this approach creates compelling patterns- which are picked up by others (as they require) and what we are left with is a society that Thinks in a methodical and directed way (even as the reasons may or may not be valid!). This is the space where emphasis is given more to the process rather then experimentation. When genius stumbles across this space, they have only two options, be a rebel- create a great disruption and alter the narrative of the social construct or simply move away and out and pursue what their Thinking Mind calls for at another place, another society where their thinking is adequately rewarded and not bound to the chains of templated and default thinking!

Default thinking is a great equalizer, that is- it gives everyone a chance to trim at a level and as long as Individuals are ok to accept their trim they will seem to be ultra comfortable at the place where they are. The only risk with Default Thinking is that, it is predictable and can be read with great ease to a greater detail! So when you have Individuals and societies practising this method and approach, all it takes for the other person or a society to create an imbalance is to seed in a conflicting narrative or disruption (big or small- doesn’t matter!). When there are continuing small disruptions, that makes the journey of Default Thinking, tiring and testing. When disruptions are larger, it only makes the approach of Default Thinking that much more difficult pushing it back to a limited Defensive Thinking- simply because the Mind has never been conditioned to deal with what it has come face to face!

When you walk into the space of Thinking by Design or Design Lead Thinking, the whole narrative and approach towards Thinking changes and this is the birth place of Empowered Thinking- Thinking that is empowered by the elements of Design and ushers in a new dimension and potency to Human Thinking- both at Individual and Collective levels! When you begin to think by virtue of the design around you and the one that you behold within, you are directing your thinking in a powerful way to manifest what the design aims for! This is not to be mistaken for “Design Thinking” this is the space where Human mind begins to think and accelerate owing to a trigger from an omnipresent design space- which nudges the brain that can decipher it to work upon it and create new solutions for perplexing problems at macro as well as micro levels! Great innovations and discoveries are indeed a result of the human mind nudged by some compelling contextual design in the space around it! It is confluence of a fertile mind and a contextually empowering design around it, that great marvels of humanity come to see the light of the day! However there is one more higher stage wherein the human mind stays empowered and vibrant like nowhere else and that power emerges from the depths of original or unique thinking- that power is harnessed by diving deep within and coming up with solutions and answers to perplexing questions that plague humanity and when the answers are found, they have the power to alter the course of human history on a massive scale!

You see, original or unique thinking and the ability to do so is deep rooted into the very fabric and essence of the Individual and carries a vibrant stamp of Individual brilliance! This brilliance then waits for no one and has the power to create complimenting contexts and at times even change or alter conflicting settings to become helping or neutral so that the manifestation of the idea (which is held within the empowered original thought) lives to see the light of day! This is the space where iconic business tycoons are born, award wining researchers, scientists, technologists, bureaucrats and politicians all of them are to be found!

In fact if you were to turn back to any page of human history and see narrative altering spaces along that history, you will almost always stumble upon the empowering and original thought or an idea of one individual which had the potency to align everything around itself and set a new path for the society at large! This is where seeds of great revolution are set and this is the path where humanity begins to rally each time it seems to hit a wall or ends up loosing traction for some or the other reason! Hence you see, when nations seem to fail, the population almost always rallies behind a powerful leader who think different and are original and not one among the many templated solutions available and when societies elect templated leaders who are predictable- be assured that society will have a predictable future for both growth and regress- simply because everyone knows when what is coming and how to encash that time and space!

Another way of looking at this space, is that as a fact, each one of us are a combination of all these three approaches and whenever we apply our unique and original approach to what we are dealing with, you will almost always notice that you surge ahead- whether that is a positive or a negative aspect largely depends on what you end up doing with your originality- when you deploy your strengths to serve only you alone- the world is likely to take that as a negative trait, when you display an intent to serve many (that’s what normal societal norms are all about!) automatically what you choose to do, sounds humanistic and is taken as a great deed or idea! Have doubts? Well, just observe the business landscape around you right now and the political leaders of your choice, you will know what I meant here!

There is a good reason why Thinking is so vital (all of which is visible around us as it begins to get manifested!) and the path that you choose to take- rather the segment that you allow to dominate as your natural approach to think and manifest, is what will bring to life- what you manifest for yourselves and those around you!

I leave you with these thoughts for now, keep thinking and think as you must and as you can and as often you may! Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one soon!

Stay safe, stay wise and yes Think!

Empowered by Alignment.

~ PA ~ 1 Comment

Whether you want to be the President of the USA or head that major business global conglomerate or perhaps let alone everything around aside, just plain survive and live another day, each of these scenarios have one thing in common, which is that, all of them are empowered by alignment- alignment to the contexts, people and places which play a vital role after you have encashed your intrinsic attributes! Join me here as we explore this space and understand how alignment empowers and what is that You and I can do to ensure we have an endless supply of this potent empowerment! So here we go!

Books written around success and failures are more often about specific instances and stories that are meant to share some insights about the times and places that went on to contribute to either make the people who they became or not! Importantly what they often miss out or perhaps intentionally leave out is this vital piece (may be a small sliver of information) which primarily provides clarity on the space around the alignment which went on to create what has eventually manifested! You see, the food used in the kitchens of our homes is almost the same, but the magic happens only when a chef touches it! Not that we end up cooking bad, but it is simply about the ability of the chef to excel and surge ahead, making even our best efforts ending up looking average! So what is alignment all about and how does it empower?

To understand alignment, you need to imagine left in a room with everything that you probably need in life, strewn across the floor, sounds overwhelming and challenging? Well, yes it is and that’s what perhaps life is all about! Sieving through challenges and being able to get answers in the nick of time as and when they are most needed! All of us know, a sorry doesn’t make a dead person come back to life! But at the same time, merely having all that we require through our life around us, doesn’t assure progress or success! This is the space where alignment steps in- by default for some and by design for yet few others and by accident for yet others; it is only when alignment takes charge that things around- people , places and contexts included- each one of these begin to make sense and as these are deployed with intent and purpose magic begins to get created and people find their lives turning in the direction that they wish it to and that’s when you begin to hear the phrases, “Success has been magical, I just had this thought and then everything seemed to conspire for it’s success!” This is why and how alignment empowers and accelerates an individual’s life journey!

Alignment can mean different things for different people! People may have challenges with the very fundamental aspect of aligning their life to a meaningful purpose to begin with, if that is sorted then there can be a challenge to find alignment to the right path to take them ahead on the chosen path, and if that was not enough, there are the ever going alignment issues that are dynamic- which deal with the people and the contextual surroundings around! It is only when people are able to decipher these fine areas and apply their pursuit consistently in a way that it traverse these questions that, alignment is felt and experiences, that is when you begin to meet all the right people, at the right time and at the right places and when this is empowered by your intrinsic intelligence, drive, purpose and intent- success is more or less assured- how big or small that will be, whether it will be momentary or a long term one- that depends on the dynamic elements of people and contextual settings all through the cherished journey that has been undertaken!

So does it mean that without alignment, you and I are destined to fail and falter? Not at all, in fact depending on what your intrinsic construct is, if you are the type that enjoys more challenges and have mastered the art and science of enduing sustained pain and challenge- a misaligned contextual setting of life around you may actually make you work with a more fierce focus and intent thereby not only assuring your success, but making you someone- about whom mentions are etched in the books of history and human excellence! Alignment only ensures that you can reach and achieve what you set out for, in the most optimal way as it should be! Deviation from alignment is an indicator that one of your elements that contribute for alignment is not firing well enough and in fact, creating divergence rather then congruence within the finer spaces of an integrated pursuit of your goals!

For alignment to work for you, it all begins by tidying up your room! It all starts by putting in that first step of having your resources well marked and well identified at the right places- seems selfish, but that is how it is supposed to be, something as elementary as identifying the scholarship that you wish to have during high school to the city where you would like to pursue your research or those mentors under whose guidance you would like to appreciate the subject of your choice- choices like these and many more- are what go on to make alignment become real, meaningful and something that serves your pursuits so that you not only achieve what you have set out for , but do so with optimal ease and maximum efficiency! This is the very essence of having an aligned approach to your life! Once you have taken that extra effort of the first step, rest assured as time flows, a lot that doesn’t serve you will be washed away and what needs to stay gets cemented and reinforced and at times acquires the flavour of your personality and thereby help you to stamp that iconic style that you eventually become- simply because you led an aligned life which has empowered you!

Sure enough, based on who you are, what you do and where you want to be, alignment, it’s nature, effort and variables will change, some will be easy, some difficult, but irrespective of all that, one singular fact always remains and that is; alignment has the power to empower and for that to happen the first step begins with You, tidying up your life and then pursuing meaningfulness, designed along the journey and the destination that you choose to undertake!

I leave you with these thoughts for today, urging you to take some time off and run a “C” check on your alignment space, who knows, it may just accelerate your empowerment in the year ahead!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then stay wise, stay active and align to empower!

The Influence collective.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Every second of our lives, either we are being influenced by someone or something or we are the ones’ who are influencing someone! Join me here as we travel down this route and understand how Influence plays such a acritical role and what are the aspects that make it work for us or against us! So here we go!

Humanity is but a story of Human Influence! Whether the influence is a positive reinforcement or a regressive one, that is not really the question- simply because a singular event can mean a thousand different things to the different people who are witnessing it or are part of it! Influence perhaps is what has empowered human thinking more then anything else ever! It has enabled humans settle across continents, innovate and experiment, fail and succeed within reasonable margins.Influence can operate at different levels- Individually we are influencing every member of our family and friend circle that we have around us and those who seek us, when we expand that radius of influence a further outward- we are then in company of the chosen professional or creative pursuits which pull us, push us and eventually play a great role in shaping us- to become who we become and come to be known as with regards to – not the person who we are- but rather by virtue of what we are good or great at doing and undoing! Move a step further out and now you have expanded your radius far and wide enough to Influence and get Influenced by the major headwinds that shape aspects of the society that you are a part of- whether as a constituent- as an enabler or as the one who wields the power to alter the narrative and usher in a new chapter! So you see, from your own individual self to the big broad world all around you- everything is but a sum total of Influence- how much and who is pulling and pushing around and about what- is what the connected stories of the world really are all about!

Influence is by nature contagious- infectious if that’s the word you like more! Something really sublime and people will fall for it- how much and for how long- that depends on what is at stake, who is influencing, and whom and for what – what is there in it for everyone who is a part of it! the human mind is always seeking the elixir to an easy life and one way that the mind has come to think of as an answer around this – is lapping up Influence and for some reason- more vocal the Influence is- the easier it gets sold! Think around it- se the examples around the world- even as we know and would pretty much agree upon- religious heads, pastors, evangelists have far more less followers and practitioners- then politicians, bureaucrats and corporate founders! What does this tell you about Influence itself? Whether you are a believer or an atheist- you are bound to be Influenced by something that urges you to take a stand between those two extremes- but even that Influence pales in front of the Influence that Leaders (Political and Corporate) have- this is simply because what they do and undo- straightway impacts on how well you live or survive or exist! You see, when it comes to crunch time where your mind is making fast and rapid decisions to ensure you live to stay another day- it is also calibrating the Influence that you must receive and what is that you should do with it, This space around dealing with the diverse Influence that our lives are subject to is the essence of the Influence Collective and our Lives more often then not resemble, reflect and eventually end up becoming what they do based on which of the prevailing Influences get an upper hand over our mind!

There is nothing like a grading system or a ranking system when it comes to Influence- you see, you don’t get sold to be influenced by a Pastor or a Writer- simply because their marketing collateral says that they have touched a million lives and a million best sellers have been sold! You buy into their influence, only and only If , that Influence stays meaningful, relevant and of value to you in the contextual settings that you are in, as long as an Influence promises to provide answers for the questions of your today and fast approaching tomorrow, you will tag along- the moment you sense that the potency of the Influence is waning and it is unable to provide you clarity on the bends ahead, you will begin to seek alternative sources to stay Influenced, Inspired and to ensure that you stay aligned to your chosen path to achieve what you have set out for!

The journey of Influence begins with our childhood and ends up with us in our graves! Our lives are modelled and shaped by forces of competing and perhaps at times of conflicting Influences- when people are able to soak them up and improvise them to serve them- these people often end up as magical beings, seemingly rock solid and with amazing clarity of mind and soul, and yet at other times when people tend to succumb to Influences- they end up just living a life at their lowest potential- completely broken or faltered for no fault of theirs!

Influence is what has moulded, shaped and nourished human minds through time in memorial, whether it is about the potent minds of the scientists, engineers, creative wizards or whether it is the case of minds gone wrong-who have shown others- the not so accepted path to achieve fame, all of them have been stories of Influence- stories where conflicting and competing Influences have come to shape human minds- their thinking and what’s more interesting is that, what Influences the mind today, may not necessarily Influence the mind the next time around- hence the mad scramble to sustain and uphold one ideology- one thought- no matter what it takes- just to ensure that the fleeting mind does not get even a tiny window to explore or taste some other Influence- which may end up creating new and more racemic outcomes- which may or may not be helpful!

Another interesting facet of Influence is that it shows up the way we You and I behave and engage with the world- all those serving and un-serving Influences whether played out openly (like Politicians do) or shared like a select deck of cards (like what the corporate world does) all go to reflect and make a statement about who and what we have ended up becoming as a net result of the Influences that we have been exposed to or in some cases what others and people around us end up becoming because of what we end up serving to them as part of the Influence legacy that we wish to further!

You have all seen the flowing waters of a river- the name of the river never changes, but the waters are never the same! Likewise the concept of Influence is paramount and fundamental to the story of humanity- all the highs and lows included- what is worthwhile to remember is the fact that every Influence, no matter how similar it may seem, is always new, fresh and original simply because the minds that are engaged with are dynamic, ever evolving and the contextual stories around too are always on the move! This is what makes Influence even more trickier in that context! Just think- religions and belief systems have persisted for close to 10-20,000 years for now- across different cultures, civilizations by one name or the other , yet even till this day- there are divergent views, converging ideas, conflicting assertions and competing narratives for almost every space around these subjects! Add to this the cladding of Influence- the greater the Influence, better it gets for a specific narrative to be furthers over the others and the journey goes on!

Sure enough, this does not have to be the realm of philosophers and seers, even when it comes to the routines of our mundane lives, you will almost feel the pressures of conflicting and competing Influence and how that goes on to play havoc with your mind and as your mind gets more and more compelled to make those choices day in and day out on an ongoing basis- it eventually starts to act bizarre and begins to choose what suits it and what is convenient – completely overriding and overlooking the contents part of the Influences coming its way- the result- you have nations wondering, “how the hell they ended up electing the people they did and how did they end up being the society they have become!”

So what’s the wise way? Well it all starts and ends with You! As long as you are able to use and deploy your self-awareness as a pivot to discern the world around you and know what your pursuit is and then go on to align the Influences in a way that they provide required value to your pursuits; you will be safe, wise and well on your way empowered by the meaningful and serving Influences, even if they are competing or conflicting! The moment you fail to know yourself and what is the purpose of your life’s journey- even the most potent of Influences will become completely meaningless and un-serving!

I leave you with these thoughts for now, urging you to take some time off, grab that coffee and try to appreciate the two fundamental aspects of your life- what is Influencing you and what is that you Influence and in all of this what is that you are ending up becoming for better or worse!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then stay safe and stay wise!

What you search is what you find!

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

The real essence of human excellence resides not only in being able to have the right answers or solutions on hand, but importantly it is about being able to ask the right questions! Join me here as we take a quick short tour around this space to understand why being able to ask the right questions, matters more than having the right answers!

The greatness of humanity is seldom an act of accidents, rather it is a culmination of events one after the other, either synchronous or asynchronous all based on the potency of the questions raised by the ever curious and nourished mind! Societal progress has been a factor of having more such potent questions which go on to engage the brightest minds and thereby alter the course of societal growth and pathways!

The mind limits its pursuits in accordance to the questions that it is engaged with. As long as the questions are not routine and are original, the mind will be compelled to seek answers and depending on the rewards that go alongside will be steadfast and consistent until the answers are found! This is the very essence of great inventions and discoveries! A state of human mind where it simply is programmed to achieve what it has set out for and all that being made possible by the essential first step- that of asking a potent question!

Sure enough, this seems to a philosopher’s territory, but isn’t that who we are at the very foundation? Modern lives have set us up for some fast paced lifestyle where our thinking, questioning and solution seeking has all ended up being another menu on the fast- food table! We tend to seek short ended questions and sure enough get served with short serving answers! There is nothing right or wrong around this space- As a coach I can tell you that, you see everyone has the right to calibrate what their life’s mainstay should be or can be, but what then becomes singularly important is the fact of acceptance of life that comes your way- it has to be firm and unambiguous! You see, you can’t expect a great and iconic life or life style if you are hinged to mediocre questioning mindset! Neither will you be able to lead a normal and ordinary life if you stir up the hornet’s nest by taking a deep dive into fundamental questions that perhaps plague humanity or your society and when the answers come you way- there is no escaping, but taking them in your stride and working selflessly to execute and deploy them as it is meant to be!

We all are pretty aware of the elementary facet of the human minds’s never ending curiosity and wanting to seek more and more- but within this space of wanting to seek more- bringing in the qualitative part of the question becomes critical! As long as the questions have a great amount of depth, consistency and potency in terms of their influence and impact, rest assured you will always reach meaningful solutions and answers and once they come your way- your ability to deploy has the power to establish a new order! But how can this be made possible? Is the mind able to deal with this level of engagement on an ongoing basis without being entrapped into fatigue?

The secret to this answer lies in the intrinsic alignment that an Individual has when it comes to the space of enquiry! Some of us are naturally more inclined to ask questions that are compelling, far reaching and more challenging and there are few of us who are quite contend with the answers provided to the routine questions that life presents us with. based on what is your natural alignment, you will find it comfortable asking questions which are mapped to who you are and hence even the potency of your questions will be sharper or diffused accordingly! Ever wondered why not all researchers end up getting the coveted Nobel Prize, or why not all Actors end up getting The Oscar, part of that answer lies in this space! People who end up creating and weaving magic or some breakthrough almost always are engrossed and hooked up to some compelling fundamental questions and unless they find a meaningful closure which befits the question, they don’t stop and it is this pursuit which ends up defining what their life is all about and hence- in a way- you can say- they end up living a life which is nothing more but a pursuit of one fundamental question – which their curios mind has set them up against as their seeking of a lifetime!

As it happens with Individuals, the same can be sensed at a societal levels! As long as societies are able to ask pertinent questions and seek meaningful answers, societies progress, the day societies tend to get myopic and begin to hang up on short term questions for quick short term answers, in the long run they almost always are left short changed with no real purpose of direction and no meaningful leader to lead the way! So whats the way ahead, you may ask!

Well, to really keep it simple, the meaningful way ahead is to behold a dynamic balance of questions- few pertinent – long term and fundamental and yet a few others which are meant for the short term and that yield short term answers- because all of us can’t be philosopher’s and neither can all of us as part of humanity get dressed up everyday for a party that doesn’t exist! Unless Individuals and societies understand this bit and are able to deploy a balance in meaningful pursuits through a healthy mix of different types of questions, progress will tend to get sporadic and sublime, rather then being consistent and predictable!

Whether it is the pursuit of a belief system that you follow, or that of your favourite philosophical approach or perhaps a directed and focussed contemplation about the world around you, whatever your compelling need may be- all your pursuits will almost always end in proportion to the quality of your questions and what is that you set out to seek- as long as you are consistent with that bit! This is the reason why life is almost always all about serving you, with what you set out to seek, seek greatness you shall receive it, seek the routine pursuits and that’s exactly what you will end up having served to you!

I leave you with these thoughts for now and urging you to make an attempt to understand what is that you have embarked upon as a journey, based on the questions that you behold- for the answers and the manifestations, all of them will only be aligned to what you begin with and what you seek!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another piece soon! Until then stay wise and seek great solutions through some awesome questions!

More than meets the Eye!

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

If you have been simply overwhelmed by what’s unfolding in the US or getting tormented by the worsening pandemic in Europe or being simply anxious due to the lack of focus on your nation by the big world of news, relax and breathe easy! There is always more then meets the eye when it comes to scenarios like these and many more, what’s more important is the fact, that these aspects not only impact the social fabric or nations, but also impact the way we engage with people around us, family, friends, clients, vendors and co-workers! Join me as we explore this space and perhaps understand what really is happening, why is it that way and what is that we can do about it! So here we go!

Irrespective of how we want it to be, our world tends to remain as complex as it is and moves a notch higher with each passing day complicating even what was uncomplex earlier, whether this is good or bad, right or wrong is not the question, the real question, is why is the world allowed to function with this approach even as so called experts and eminent people are at the helm of affairs- no one would argue right? we have the best brains at the best places- fair enough you may say, you don’t with a few or many- but the point here is- we have the finest human minds around- all societies across segments- yet we allow this ever increasing complexity around and within our lives- why does it happen? Well read on!

The essence of our modern world is all about distraction and deviation! If you have any friends in the community that wears an uniform or even in the ones’ that don’t, do ask them! The arena of global geo-politics has always been about deviation and distraction for the simple reason that it gives nations some time on hand to tweak what they must within their nations to be ready for the externally altered realities as they unfold! The real mess begins when nations start to deploy this age old technique to manage and govern their own citizens. As this sacred instrument is used rampantly for no real rhyme or reason just to score some political brownies points for stupid reasons, what it ends up doing largely all over the world is that we end up having more confused societies that are replete with overconfidence of what they believe reality is! Furthermore once you add to these different influential and sensitive attributes of a society like access to education, health and poverty- you have a complete disaster unfolding at any given time across some society, some nation! If you thought these problems end here, well think again! What manifests in the broader spectrum of the social space, ends up walking into the corporate world and at times even goes further to impact Individual behaviour and their dependence!

You see, as long as the game is played to safeguard national interests with limited collateral damage of assets, things are generally acceptable the world over, however when usage becomes rampant, uncontrolled , unchecked and importantly when private firms – read Big Tech’s assume and seize control to manipulate and complicate things further, the world ends up being a playground of the select few, who at any given time are playing out their moves to fulfil their short term and long term agendas and you will be surprised to learn that at times even the most seemingly powerful political establishments of the world, end up being mere rubber stamps and allow them to flow unchecked (simply because it is a case of tiger which was raised mistaking it to be cute kitten! Think about it! Just choose a political development of your choice, do you really think that the highest office in your nation would not have been aware of what is likely to unfold? Think! As I said in my earlier article, when big stakes come in the picture, the games are bigger and the moves are equally unforgiving and outright dangerous!

When it comes to the corporate world, remember the last big institutional sale you made, or someone you know made, or that government order, someone from your firm got, what was the story like? You got it right? There were those missing links which you would have never known- even if you would have sold some service or product- this is how this aspect of “More than meets the eye” plays along in the corporate corridors! Whether it is that surprising rejig, new appointments, dismissals, resignations, joint ventures, sell offs’ the whole spectrum of business moves is almost always shrouded by calibrated distractions and higher the stakes, higher, wider and deeper is the distraction! So what is that we can do about these aspects, is there anything that we can really do, if all of this is so deep rooted and widespread?

Well, to begin with, if you ask me, perhaps the only way to emerge wiser to the other side, while dodging all this, is by verifying, checking and fact checking multiple times across different contexts, people and settings, simply because, everyone’s truth is owned by each one of them and one person’s truth can be another person’s lie or nightmare! Sounds daunting right? Well, but if the stakes are as high as running a nation or taking a call on a billion dollar deal, what else would you do and how else would you go ahead? Sure enough no one is asking you to deploy this approach as you rush to buy that soft drink or pick up your burger, but you need to calibrate and seek your own level at which you would want to and should deploy a greater understanding about what’s unfolding around you with regards to a chosen area that impacts you in a greater way the perhaps the way it does you friends siting next to you or anyone else for that matter! That is the real essence of dealing with the deployment of deviation and distraction- by enhancing your understanding and mentioning on things and spaces that really impact you greatly to a point that neglecting them could land you up in what I call as existential crisis!

You see, deviation and distraction is an art and science much needed when it comes to securing nations or societal safety, but when this is used too often and for wrong reasons,it can have disastrous consequences and further complicate the matters to a level that segments within the society begin to mistrust each other and when that goes further unchecked you can feel the same vibes as you begin to interact with and work with people in a given society- that is when you start to see social segmentation and preferences gaining more speed and priority over Individual competence and that’s how social degradation commences!

Final words before I conclude here, whether you like it or not there is always more than meets the eye, in almost everything around us and when it comes to big stakes, greater is the deviation and distraction- be wise enough not to get sold into what is seen or shown to you- reality could be something else and the truth can be something altogether different!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then stay safe, stay wise and see what is hidden in plain sight!

Deciphering ” The Radical Thinking” mind.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

If you are left wondering about what happened at the Capitol Hill on January the 6th and are feeling anguished, angry, dejected, proud or sad or perhaps little bit of everything, this piece is for you; simply because what happened at the Capitol Hill is not an isolated incident as it may seem and is played out across societies all over the world for one or the other reason and depending on which side you view what’s unfolding, either you will be elated or sad and either ways- what unfolds seldom serves you or the society in terms of moving it closer to the larger and greater good! So join me here, as we go further to understand what the so called, “radical thinking” is all about, from where does it emerge and what is that can be done about it- does it only harm or is it helpful too? So here we go!

The dynamism that human societies have witnessed in the last century have laid the foundation to what we witness and experience as our societies around us! Societies which have typically witnessed oppression, war, strife, struggle, more often than not tend to become more mellowed, humble and accommodative with time and as people in those societies begin to get equitable access to opportunities of growth and learning! On the other hand, societies which have always had a very intrinsic and unipolar view of the world and about everything and everyone around them tend to live and die in their own unwarranted over confidence or lack of it!

The challenge that societies have always faced and continue to is about being able to share the dividends of progress in a proportional manner- no one is suggesting socialism here, neither am I suggesting Capitalism is bad, what is relevant and contextually important is the fact that, unless the fruits of labour of progress are not shared in a proportionate manner (whatever that proportion is), societies will feel moving at different speeds within the sub-segments and thereby- you will witness people racing ahead and people being left behind and it is from these extreme scenarios of societies that radical thoughts begin to emerge- the ones’ who are racing ahead feel right about what they do because they are enjoying what the aspire and those who are being left behind, tend to feel right about what they do, thinking that is their way and approach to reach their unfulfilled aspirations! So you see in a sum total way, the essence of radical thinking emerges from the extreme ends of societies hinging on their association with their aspirations- at one end- being enjoyed and wanting more and at the other end wanting the basic ones’ first! Based on what society you live in, you will have different standards for aspirations and different levels of volumes at the extreme end and in the middle of the given society.

As long as societies have the majority of their constituents around the centre, the few on the extreme ends can be managed, but as polarization sets and more and more people start to feel compelled to take extreme stands (as part of the larger social conformation bias) the societal balance is thrown away and what you are left is with few people standing in between of two extremely polarized sections who have a large volume as well! This is what the story of many societies across the nations is today! The cause of that polarization could be anything from, political ideologies, personality worship, religious belief’s, genuine like or despise of available quality of leaders’ , whatever other hundred reasons that you can think about- the fact remains that no human is ever born with a polarized mind or heart and it is the society which goes on to indoctrinate that aspect and whether that helps or harms largely depends on what is injected into the impressionable minds of the people through their forming years and this is perhaps the on stage where societies can strive to check the run away polarization that only comes back to bite them at the end! But how and why do people get sold into extreme views or end up taking a radical stand?

As people begin to race ahead or begin to get left behind, despite and inspite of everything, the ones’ ahead are ready to do anything it takes to stay ahead and the ones’ left behind are ready to do anything that it takes to make that move ahead! For achieving this, whatever comes to their rescue works! This could be taking hardstands on political ideologies, personalities or perhaps even using matters of faith as deemed appropriate, all of this- just as tools or instruments to achieve something that is totally different and what’s worse is that, scoities which allow this to develop and get strong- do so with unwritten laws and incentivization based on how far to an extreme a person leans to! More often then not the heady cocktail of the political class and the people from the society and tool used for the hard-line stand ends up destroying and ripping away whatever would have been the unique identity of the society itself!

Before the rampant industrialization, societies had time and space and were more accommodative and allowing for people to pursue without the fear of getting left behind nagging anywhere around their minds! Today’s world is a different place altogether, trust me if Picasso or Gustav Eiffel or Einstein would have been present today, they would have at the most ended up leading the design or science lab at one of the large corporate houses and that would be their limited claim to fame! They too would have ended up being enslaved to fit into the social frame either as leaders racing ahead or as oddity left to struggle and sink in their own corner- which again are the same positions of the two extreme ends of todays’ world! It is almost easy to go on to a television debate show and claim that there should be no space for extreme thoughts in the society, well the problem with that statement is that all great discoveries and innovations have always had when extreme and radically different thinking was applied to something that can serve humanity and hence the problem is not with the space of radical thinking but rather the deployment of that ability for the serving or unnerving causes! So what’s the plan?

The plan is simple and straightforward, it is about creating enough space within societies to accommodate all the voices, feelings and thoughts that are there and try to resolve and address them the way it should be done! The maddening race to be ahead and the unwanted fear and anxiety of being left behind has to be done away with in totality- sure enough a tall and utopian order, but unless that happens, societies will keep drifting away from humanities foremost agenda of meaningful and purpose driven progress and end up sub-serving ourselves and the generations that rely upon us! If you though this is just a civic problem or the ones’ that politicians should be left to deal with it, think again!

The elements of societies are all of us, You and Me included, as we walk in and out of our offices, get driven in the cabs, are taking trains, buses, co-workers, vendors, clients, visiting stores and going about our social community engagement- we are knowingly and unknowingly touching and connecting with various segments of our society and the way we carry ourselves, behave and speak we are sending out a signal not only about the society around us but importantly also about who and what we have ended up becoming as Individuals while we have been either busy either racing ahead- to stay ahead or we have been striving and struggling to catch up as we have got left behind!

It is only when societies are able to create enough space for all constituents within its frame and enough scope for them to express and explore that we will see the beginning of the end of radical thinking and radicalization! may sound utopian, but that is the only way, human progress has been a story of the ingenious ability of the human mind to come up with new thinking and new solutions for perplexing problems at hand, with time sure enough, even this problem of radical thinking will be addressed- once the root causes that accelerate and provoke it are taken care of!

I leave you here with these thoughts for now, not pushing you to either edges of your thinking mind, and just sharing a final thought with you that, the problem is not about the human mind that thinks, neither it is the problem of the mind that thinks radically, the real problems is about what is the contextual truth around that mind which makes it to think the way it does! Fix that and you have fixed all the minds around you -fixed for good!

Remember, average thinking always produces average results, great thinking produces great results and all great thinking happens at the very edge of the thinking process and that is what Radical Thinking is all about- use it wisely and humanity will be endowed with gifts and bliss unlike ever before!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then stay safe and stay wise!

The game of Presidential Checkmate!

~ PA ~ 1 Comment

When the stakes are really high, the players too know it well and the game goes that way, all the way! Join me here as we take a fleeting quick look what the latest developments in the United States of America really imply and how irrespective of which side your heart beats, the collateral damage that has already been done and the damage that will come in sometime will once again end up creating more questions than answering the present ones’! Nevertheless this article is not about the political stand point that one may have around what is unfolding, but it has more to do with the high stake games where we come across, what I term as the “Presidential Checkmate”! So join me here as we take a fleeting look around this space and whether it is the office of President of the USA or of any other world leader, if they are not careful to choose their inner circle, they will sooner or later have to come face to face with this space! So here we go!

Higher the office, higher are the stakes, m,ore are the people working for the success of the chair that they rally around and many more than that are always around that inner-circle eternally exploring the proverbial “clinks in the armor” to weaken, sabotage and derail what that chair stands for and what it promises! To add to this, when you get a even more powerful invisible conspiring cloak of big businesses that control the audience of the societies (read the Big Players of the Social Media space- you know who I am talking about!), you have a really deadly game of chess which you really want to avoid, but should you get into the cross hairs of that, because of the chair that you occupy- that of being The President- well, you have no other choice but to play, survive and win! Now the million dollar question, but why should this happen? Why would people want to be gunning down the most powerful office in the nation and perhaps in the world, after all everyone comes from the same societal cohort- called The Nation! Read on!

The real essence of what we see playing out in the game of the Presidential Checkmate is a reflection of the very society itself! The more a society is self-serving, selfish and ungrateful, higher are the chances that sooner or later The President will have to come to terms with a checkmate and how well and effectively that is dodged will all depend on the Intrinsic competence and political acumen that the owner of the Chair beholds! Apart from this, there is the compelling overbearing pressure from the blue eyed tycoons- why? Well needless to say in a world that is replete with favors and exchange of pleasantries, when the times comes, these seeming tycoons, turn into the most murderous negotiators who venture out to demand their pound of the flesh and when negotiations don’t work, don’t even blink before they begin to destroy, undo all that possibly would have been achieved and the most scary part of it is that, all this mudslinging is played out in the public (through the social media) and by now if you have guessed it right, what is served and how it is served is almost always far from what the truth perhaps is!

So you see, whether you like The President or The Leader or not, even as things seem normal on a daily basis- that Chair and the Person beholding it- is always battling endless ongoing onslaughts from one or the other quarter, where everyone is wanting and demanding something or the other and even as that is been done, even the ones’ asking or rather demanding what they do, know pretty well that any giving in to their demands will end up jeopardizing some other section, but as I said earlier, no one cares as long as their self-serving agendas are met! This is why you find The Presidential offices, moving and fixing one problem after the other- at times resembling more of a fire station rather than a Presidential office! But there is one more sinister angle to all of this and that is when the game really becomes ugly and dirty and that is perhaps what is been played out right now on the screens in front of us!

It is when non-state actors or state-sponsored actors from other nations begin to get embroiled into what is unfolding within another nation and end up making alliances either with the blue eyed tycoons or some pivots within and around The President’s Chair, that is when the game gets really ugly and deadly- read political and societal instability and regression – why this- well as the old adage goes, “When you can’t increase your speed, do what it takes to reduce the speed of the competition”, and this is what is being played out at grand scale as part of the Checkmate game! This is perhaps what America is witnessing now and this is what the other nations will witness if what is being done now is left unchecked and allowed to propagate as it has been this time! The incidents flowing out of the USA right now are being watched and studied by experts, strategists the world over and depending on which side of the line you fall into, people can use and deploy these new learnings as as successful templates to discredit and pull down all that they please and when they please and this is the real and present danger! So if this is now high, deep and wide these conspiracies can run through and can have so many actors- direct and in-direct- is there nothing that The President can do? Well, read on!

The answer to this question is Yes and No, Yes- because The President is the Chair which is all encompassing and all powerful and till the Chair is being held by the owner firmly and supported by the vital components that are the pillars/legs to this char- The Military, The Judiciary, The People, The Legislative and The Constitution- The President can deal and effectively demolish all that may be thrown at the Chair by the plethora of the Conspirators and No- If any of those supporting legs/ pillars go weak or get compromised then the situation is dire and ends up being nothing more than a calculated risk and whichever way the game is then played- sooner or later there is a price which it will end up extracting from someone within and around the system which is the Nation!

Never lap up what is being served unless you have valid access to first hand documents and facts and figures which are credible in the real essence of the word credible- I have already written about the Experts’ fallacy– you may want to read that along side this piece! No matter which side of the political spectrum you fall in and what you support or not- irrespective of all of that- its worthwhile to remember that when the game begins to Checkmate The President- the very fundamental fabric of the society gets altered- for better or worse- that depends on who you are and from where and what contextual truth you observe what unfolds! But eventually in this game, as The President gets a checkmate- it is not The Person, but The Nation, that pays the price for it and sooner or later and everyone and each aspect of the society gets pulled into that bit whether or not they like it or not and whether or not they played a role either side to manifest that Checkmate!

I leave you with these thoughts, for now, just remember, if the big companies could go ahead an put a communication lid or embargo on The President of USA’s office, you stand no chance and when the game of high stakes comes visiting your nation or the society you live in, you definitely want to get out of the way- because if the world’s most powerful office can get undone and miscommunicated on an ongoing basis- nothing else really stands a chance! No matter what, always remember, the chair of The President is about The Nation and The People- any disrespect, undoing, mischief around and to that Chair, is a disrespect to The Nation and its People! and yes, finally, to tell you something that I always believed in, the plain truth that “All lives matter, all the time, everywhere and each time! The power of The Chair of The President, is a reflection of The People and The Nation that it belongs to!- Nothing more, nothing less, the next time you find your President being compelled into or driven into a corner- stand up and stand by The President- for The Presidency speaks more about The Nation, then The Individual who presides over it for a few years, every few years!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one! Until then stay safe, stay wise! God Bless America and God Bless The President! In God We Trust!

The “C” check approach.

~ PA ~ 1 Comment

The “C” check is perhaps one of the greatest learning points that we can borrow from the aviation industry! Typically in a “C” check the aeroplane is take out piece by piece, section by section, to have a through inspection, fault rectification and retrofitting of latest technology updates, hardware and software and so on and so forth- all with a singular purpose of making them as safe as ever, create that feel of newness and importantly to do away with accumulated clutter- through wear and tear and perhaps juts by being there! By the time you complete the comprehensive “C” check on the aeroplane it is as good as it gets- perhaps a shade short of being a totally new piece! Join me here to understand how this “C” check coming from the aviation industry is so relevant to who we are as Individuals and what is that we can learn from this space and apply to make our lives a shade better and brighter so that we feel empowered enough to keep soaring higher and flying further as we pursue the goals of our life!

Given the kind of complexity, that we have given to ourselves through the modern lives that we live and lead, we too are a complex piece of bio-engineering with a fleeting, thinking mind all empowered through our available sensory and extra-sensory perceptions! Like any other machine, we too fail, at times that element of failure is manageable and yet some other times that can end up being a disaster- as you have with aeroplanes- sometimes they have minor incidents and at times big disasters unfold! So what does the “C” check really do?

Well, sure enough I am no aeronautical engineer, but in plain speak- the “C”check is when the aeroplane is completely dismantled piece by piece and section by section and experts for relevant areas are put to work to check what’s working, fix what’s not and make better what can in the areas that they have expertise! What this ends up doing is, that by the end of the “C” check, the aeroplane is almost as new as it can get! The “C” check is where, the obsolete hardware and wear and tear is taken out- what doesn’t seem to be the right thing to stay on the aeroplane is done away with, what needs to get updated- does get updated and while doing so, all the relevant flight deck logs are checked for the aeroplane in concern- comments by pilots, observations by flight engineers, dispatch notes, cabin crew remarks- anything and everything that can be accessed is accessed with a sole purpose for getting as much as details as one can get so that the teams can fix all that is essential and all that is possible, so that the need to have is done right- first always and all the time and the good to have is too cared for as much as they can! When there are issues and things aren’t seemingly going anywhere, adequate safety guidelines and measures are updated and communicated to those for whom it matters and that’s how after a “C” check you have a completely rejuvenated and re-calibrated aeroplane- ready once again to touch the skies and travel the world!

Given the kind of complex machines that we humans are, it is just a matter of time before we begin to experience our kind of wear and tear- for some it is part emotional, intellectual and part physical, for few it is one of these three and for yet others, they experience varying degrees between the three at different points in time of their life and the fact remains that no matter how well you manage to pilot your life- you will hit turbulence some or the other time and you will have odd days while landing and taking off- so you too will end up having considerable wear and tear in areas where the exposure is the most!

Like with the aeroplanes, with humans too a complete resurrection is possible, but for that too happen, we must be ready to get ourselves grounded for some time! the societies we live in today are fast paced that even the compelling visit to the doctor often ends up getting optional – result- what was a simple problem, more often then not ends up getting more complicated and complex! Unknown to most of us, many of the problems that we end up facing are largely apparent and a result of the inadequate time that we are able to provide to decipher and appreciate what is unfolding around us as we tend to rush through the daily routine of our assumed lives! The first and most important compelling condition for getting a “C” check done is not when problems begin to become frequent or when a disaster unfolds, rather it is much before any of this can manifest- the time for the “C” check is every few months, years or perhaps a decade depending on who you are and what is your contextual reality of life! Your “C” check is directly hinged upon what you do and what you don’t, what you think and what you don’t, it is deeply intrinsic to who you are and the “C” check will only work for you as long as it is designed and deployed the way it addresses the challenges faced by you! So what is that really can be achieved and done through a “C” check for the human machine- that is what we have become!

Well, to begin with , always have all the checks , “scheduled”. There is no place in aviation for breakdown maintenance, the whole industry is all about preventive maintenance, we need to apply this space and ensure that, based on our intrinsic and unique requirements we are able to schedule our routine pit stops and checks and even the all important “C” check. Depending on who you are and what you do, this “C” check could be once a year, once every few years or perhaps once in a decade and it is also vital (for most of us) that we have a separate ‘C” check for our intellectual, emotional and physical health simply because, in the times we live in- we are very unlikely to have a sync or unity of gaol and purpose across all the three segments that go on to govern and define our health and well-being! But what will the human “C’ check be all about- rather what can it be about and how can it help?

Well, on each of the segments that go on to define our well being (the physical, emotional and intellectual) we need to choose our scheduled “C” check and as we do that, the more wear and tear we have in any one area, will begin to stand out and you will know with absolute clarity what is that hold you back in a given area and what is that you can do to resolve it! Whether it is the challenge of a career you have at hand, or the challenge of embracing a healthy life style- whatever that could be, once you schedule your “C” check and decide to take an adequately long pause- you will be able to come to terms with what is that really holds you back in a given area and disempowers you from realizing your fullest potential! Once you are able to do this and decipher the challenge , you will find that with each new “C” check up your problems and challenges will begin to get more unique new and something that progressively uplifts you to the next level of who you can be!

Your “C” check is a deliberate time that you are ready to invest in yourself so that once the creases are ironed out- you are a tad better then what you were earlier and are able to focus on what you intend to with a renewed approach and zeal! Just as in the case of the aeroplane, during the “C” check as every component is checked, double checked, calibrated and finetuned for the aeroplane’s performance, your “C” check too is meant to transform your life for the days ahead in a similar way- something that empowers you and aligns you to your chosen path of progress and pursuits that you may have!

I leave you here with these thoughts, urging you to take some time off and have your first “C” check scheduled in the area that troubles you the most, rest assured as you come on the other side of your scheduled down time, you will be more aligned, focussed and rejuvenated then ever before!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then stay wise and stay safe!

Shaping the future of our Future!

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

We all know this too well, that the future of humanity is not in the workplaces or the offices as I type this, but rather it is across the different grades of lower school, middle school and high school across societies at this very moment! Join me here as we try to take a look into what is unfolding around that space and why we must be so concerned and what is that we can do to influence our future, just enough to nudge it in the right direction so that they have a wonderful future! So here we go!

If you are able to take that necessary pause and just observe around you, what you will see is that, unlike the earlier times (perhaps when you were a kid) there was a enough space and content for you to imagine, research and innovate. The current lifestyles that societies have embraced have simply ended up the free space and time for introspection, reflection and enquiry. No one is suggesting you to pursue philosophy, but the fact remains that unless the human mind is able to perform directed and focussed enquiry, nothing worthwhile or meaningful can ever be achieved or realized, individually or collectively as a society!

Societies around the world, even right upto the early 90’s were spaced out in the sense that, there was a choice that people could exercise, with regards to what they wanted to pursue and how they wanted to pursue it! Societies then had the space to accommodate and facilitate much of the diversity that society had to offer. If you have some doubt around this bit- just study the great organizations and icons who have made their names in the last 10-15 years, chances are they were a product of the societies of the bygone era and what they were able to create was a direct consequence of the society that they moved around in and that’s how magic and an enduring foundation for human progress has always been built!

Human imagination and creative pursuits require space and time, both of which have become a rarity- given the way societies have gone ahead and embraced the lifestyles in the last two decades. If global connectivity has been a great asset for accelerating progress and development of human societies, the same has robbed away societies of valuable space and stretched time which are so vital for ensuring that innovation and pace of progress is managed and furthered on an ongoing basis! This is why it becomes so important to understand what is unfolding around today, because all of that influences the young minds and since they are the future- the ability to create their future becomes easy or difficult depending upon what is happening in the now!

Our todays’ are invariably unforgivingly compressed and intense which leave little or not time for that much needed spaced out enquiry and that is the real danger that the current young minds face across societies all throughout the world! What this is invariably resulting into is a world where everyone is just thinking and solving apparent problems which they may have to face as long as they are and hence nothing enduring or worthwhile is ever made or come to life! Whether it is the arena of science, creative arts or even perhaps commerce- all equations and strategies are aimed to solve the problem of this year and perhaps the next few years or may be at the most of a decade but no one is really focussing enough for what resides beyond that horizon and this is what needs to be changed and that too pretty urgently- unless we want to end up handing over the world complete with myopic solutions to the future generations who in turn end up creating further such myopic visions and that eternal short changed world keeps moving on! So what needs to be done?

The first step to get humanity and the youngsters out of the rut of boxed and good-to-have thinking is all about ensuring that they have access to adequate time to think and observe what there is- rather than being asked to observe “few things around”. This small yet fundamental change can go a long way in empowering young minds to see beyond and observe aspects that surround their lives in a more holistic manner so that when the time comes to apply their thoughts, innovation or action, they are able to discern well enough and now how pulling the chord at one end of a social fabric can unleash cascading impacts not only within their society but also perhaps across societies around the globe! The only way that young minds today can insure and safeguard their future is by being able to direct their thinking and observation more towards what will be and what is that they want there to be, rather then focussing on what is and what can be- that is what happens as young minds take the first few steps of the corporate world!

Sure enough there are great organizations which allow their work force to innovate and possibly develop solutions that seem to be the promise of the future ahead, these manifestations only happen in organizations whose founders have appreciated the value of the human mind, its potency to seek solutions through stretched space and slowed time! What we can do today is that we can create that much needed stretch of time and space for the young minds around us. This can be the first and foundational step wherein we begin to encourage enquiry of all that is around us an prompt these young minds to seek advancements that outlast their lifetimes and go beyond! This change of approach to thinking wherein Individuals and collectively societies are urged to seek solutions and answers to what is around for a long hauls, is what will go on to make the big change and difference in the young minds and empower them enough to pursue a future that they will be proud to behold and pass on!

Humanity’s progress has been a testimony to the fact that great advancements have been made possible only when the most gifted human minds were free from oppressions, directed thinking and boxed-in settings! All great discovery and meaningful greatness which has lingered on for centuries and beyond was only possibly when the human mind was given that critical space and time to ponder, observe and infer in a way that serves the larger good for a longer time for everyone around!

I leave you with these thoughts for now, urging you to get that free space and slowed time for yourself to begin with to hold that meaningful enquiry which can set you on to the path of enquiry and once that happens you can go on to influence the young minds around you, so that they are able to emulate what is more potent, dynamic and answers the challenges of their tomorrow and not of our today!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one! Until then stay safe and keep pondering about what could be the great idea of your life!

The “Comparison pandemic”.

~ PA ~ 1 Comment

We all have been at the receiving end and also at the origin of this comparison fallacy and needless to say, no matter how you or try to do something about it, we almost always end up creating another case for comparisons and comparative approaches! Join me here as we take a quick look into this space of what I call as “the comparison pandemic” and decipher when it is ok and when does it begin to slip away from being helpful to being outright harmful! So here we go!

Right from childhood, what individuals normally experience is the ongoing onslaught of comparisons! Irrespective of the fact whether those are valid or not – that is not the primary concern (though a concern, for sure!), the more compelling issue is, why do we do it, encourage it or even allow this bit to propagate- even as each one of us who has lived the life of a child despised it so much. The other aspect around this “comparison pandemic” is that it doesn’t stop with our childhood and this runs deep- at times subtly and at times loudly through our college days, professional lives and even to the moment right upto our graves- because even in that fleeting moment (perhaps a little short of it)- as a human- if you are able to communicate- you still will strive to make that comment which just wants to reinforce the space that you lived a better life than “abc” or “pqr”! Even as comical and harmless it may seem. this “comparison pandemic” plays havoc and has caused perhaps the greatest damage to humanity by stiffing away young innovator’s and humanists even before they could embark on their journey to make humanity a shade better! But why has this been allowed, how did this space of comparing take on these pandemic proportions? Well read on!

Human societies since the bygone ages have been an effort to make the life experienced by the society member better- better in the sense of ease of life- starting right from the primitive goals of being alive (not getting eaten by other predators), then moving on to a life of shifting settlers and further on to eventually be permanent settlers and then go on to develop rapidly into settlements, villages, kingdoms, empires and in today’s contest the nations that we know them as today! Through this journey of the ages- every inflection point (where something meaningful and great would have been achieved) has always been when the normal ways and practises have been reset, improvised or changed completely- at times this has world and yet few other times this has been detrimental for humanity and it is from these spaces of compelling change and transformation and the creativity and destruction that goes along with these period that a vast majority of the social set- felt the urge and need to stick to what was momentarily comfortable rather then wanting to dwell into the risk prone attitude and approach (especially when things didn’t work in the societies favour!) This is the space and context from where the baby steps of the art of “comparing ” perhaps have emerged- as a survival guide more than anything else!

You see, I see you clap your hands, and you are unharmed, I too will want to do that bit and experiment, I see you cut the vegetables and accidentally cut one of your fingers a bit, well, I sure will venture ahead to chop them, but with some caution- it is these kind of everyday observed and indoctrinated ways of life that go a long way to reinforce the comparative approach and once you have become comfortable around this, you have automatically enrolled for a life of mediocre pursuits for yourself and all those who rally around you- simply because you will not move beyond a set range and the reality of life is that all great and iconic stuff happens much beyond the threshold of comfortable range! This is why when you promote the comparative approach- you end up creating intellectual clones who are as smart or as worse as the next one around and then add to this the intrinsic incompetence (which only grows with time) you set up the individual and societies with such individuals for a downward journey and a mediocre approach for eternity!

As Individuals get compared and kind of get calibrated to what is acceptable and what is not, people around often tend to overlook the intrinsic construct of the Individuality of the person and thereby anything of value that can be there is simply walked over and done away with- so once you have someone’s core intrinsic value taken away- by suggesting that what they behold is not needed in the world- instead “be like that person” who does “this or that and there and how” well, you just end up creating a templated robot who is cloned as much as possible to the so called role model! You see, being Inspired or Motivated by people who have been successful or icons is not the problem, it is when these people and their achievements are presented as the only way and approach that an Individual should pursue as their life path, is where problems begin to manifest, simply because, no matter what you do or not, this person can simply be the Master for a thousand reasons- the most fundamental among them being the “contextual settings and truth of the time in which the people lived and worked!

You may want to argue, whatever happens to the whole space around Being Inspired and Being an Inspiration for someone, well, no one is discounting that bit, but if you begin to sell Inspiration with an intent to change a crow into an eagle- you will most probably end up having a very dumb crow which just gets beaten up by the other crows! What the whole “comparison pandemic” ends up doing, is just this, creating asymmetric and unqualified ways of relativity and expectations and when these strike a cord at the fundamental beliefs of individuals- either they become more rebellious to go ahead and assert their Individuality more strongly – a kind of statement which says, “You know what, this is who I am, live with it! or at times they simply crumble and accept a life that is being thrust upon them – like a never ending role play- and with every passing moment- ending up being more fake and disconnected from within and from who they really are- could be and aspired to be!

Well, you may but what about being ambitious, what about trying to be innovative- how can we do that without comparison? Well, no one is asking you, to give up your innovative spark and neither is anyone asking you not to be inspired or learn or observe from what is unfolding around you- what is important is that you don’t end up fooling yourself, thinking that you are being innovative even as you possibly end up copying or cloning some original idea! You see, the whole premise that innovation or iconic stuff needs some comparison is absurd and wrong! If that was the case- we would have all cars similar in design and all what you see around in the world- would have ended up being just copies of some or the other things around and we would have embraced a templated world! That is not the case, isn’t it?

You see, as long as we are able to have clarity about inspiration, contextual truths of the examples around us and are fundamentally aware about who we ourselves are as Individuals, we will be able to keep in check this innocent looking yet dangerous pandemic of comparison! The Human mind is fickle by the very construct of it and what it appreciates at one point in time will be easily junked away as something better comes to it’s purview- this is- believe it or not- the evolutionary safety valve of human thinking- thousands of years back- who would not want to run into an orchard of apples or some wild fruits which could promise an abundant supply to the group, than having to risk every day in and day out their own lives as they went out for a hunting spree!

Comparisons, aren’t all bad, but how they are done, for what and the contexts more often than not make them a nuisance holistically! Not going too back into human history, the recent Covdi19 pandemic was and is a glaring example- how governments after governments went on to copy what the others did and how that ended up screwing up one nation after the another in their won unique ways simply because all similarity with human kind ends with the fact that we are humans and beyond that point each one of is differentiated or levelled to the society that we have got to live around in and as diverse societies try to strike a common line of similarity- almost always the outcome will be disastrous!

Meaningful comparisons stand true in the test of science. The big corporate world- though having its own set of challenges has fared a shade better when it comes to do meaningful comparisons- You see when the corporate world is able to make meaningful comparisons based not on the intrinsic individuality of the people, but rather on the Authority, Position, Span of Control and Sphere of Influence, that is when magic happens and you are able to find it much earlier when teams and people are performing or perishing and the possible why around it becomes easy- as long as the study is on the process and not on the Individuality and Personalities of the Individuals!

Well, to put it simply, comparisons to work, they need to be meaningful and they need identical (not similar) contexts of time and space- everything done without this fundamental attribute under the garb of comparison is plain stupid and is actually meant to drive some or the other human agenda based on what the content of study is and what is being compared and why!

I leave you with these thoughts for now, urging you to shun the space around the “comparison pandemic” in your lives and around you and embrace Individuality of people around you, as much you would like them to reciprocate the same! Just remember- there is a reason why nature is asymmetric and why each one of us is unique- even if you happen to be that Identical Twin- that is how far your similarity will go- rest all is about the matter that the mind beholds within! The next time someone tells you, “You are not like , B or C”, just tell them who you are and possibly reintroduce yourself! Their feeble minds should start working from that point!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then stay safe, stay wise and yes- compare what is meaningful enough to compare; everything else, is best the way it is!

Being Mindful is also about being Creative.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Hello there! Now that you have changed the calendar, settled down on to the new countdown for a new year, what better then to begin the year by taking a shot at what matters and what can create value to you and me alike! Join me here for a quick journey to understand the whole space around being mindful (which you will hear quite often through 2021) and why it matters and how it propagates creativity and why individual creativity is of paramount importance for all of us in the times ahead! So here we go!

Unlike what is presumed, being mindful is not about being passive or trying to escape or avoid challenges coming ones’ way, rather on the contrary it is being able to offer the best that one can moment to moment in whatever is been dealt with so that the very possibility of emergence of problems or challenges is halted right in the bud! The daily chaos of the corporate world has offered this vague presumption around mindfulness that it is for creative people or for those who work on their own pace and aren’t governed by the laws of pressure and corporate dynamics! The easiest way to understand this is that, many a times book stores will have books on Mindfulness not in the Business Management or Wellness or Health section but rather in something called as “Self Help” a section, which by the convention of it’s name itself discourages people from walking close by, let alone going through the titles and trying to make the sense of the contents presented! The creative human mind is always seeking and trying to create new realities and rationalize observed facts around it, this continuing subconscious act of the human mind only is empowered when the mind is trained to be mindful and anchored where it should be! So what is being Mindful really about? Well, read on!

Mindfulness, if you ask me is the ability to rationalize, accept and work through, around and over compelling and favorable contextual settings alike! You see, mindfulness can’t and never works in vacuum! It needs the relevant audience, the task or simply put something to be worked upon by someone and when we understand this bit, we then now why it is so elusive; well the moment you have “the others” in the sterile contexts of your life, you will feel the push and pull of all that gets around you and it is within these spaces and confines of our everyday world that mindfulness gets reduced to fleeting moments of temporary attention and is almost always lost and disconnected at the drop of a hat! You may be tempted to ask, don’t meditation and allied techniques foster and promote mindfulness? Well they do but that space of mindfulness, it is all related to introspective enquiry aimed to empower the vibrance of intellect and sharpness of awareness.

The nature of day to day mindfulness that is required for us to “stay in the moment” is all about being able to give our best in the fleeting moment on hand for the task undertaken- nothing more nothing less! Whether it is the talk that you give, that meeting you conduct or the orders that you pay attention to, when each f these and many such tasks are dine with utmost deployment of directed mindfulness you will find, your day change dramatically in the sense that- you will always seem to get more clarity than earlier and this will empower you to take wise decisions and this cycle of empowered thinking and empowered action will go on as long as you are able to apply your mind holistically in the fleeting moment that you are in! This,if you ask me is the real essence of begin mindful in the context of the type of daily lives we lead and are part of! So what about the Creative part of it?

Well, as the mind becomes aligned and focussed to being “In the Now”, needless to say, it always is seeking to decipher recognizable patterns (that is what it always does to reduce the burden of re-wiring and re-recording observations!) and as long it manages to come up with some intrinsic and unique ways for doing that bit, rest assured even routine tasks and days will begin to become awesome and you will be able to find something new and meaningful even in a seemingly “same day, all day long” situation! The creative mind is perhaps the most potent tool on the planet, from tooth picks to nuclear weapons all have been but a manifestation of the creative abilities of the human mind and when this is coupled with the power of being mindful, all that you can expects is magic and the magic felt is all about bringing in newness, opulence and a continuing differentiating value to life on an ongoing basis!

The creative mind has this innate advantage to decipher a challenge in multiple ways and more importantly wrap the solution as aptly as it can to the contextual settings of the problem, thereby making it look better then what it is (if it’s not really good enough!) and when it’s a real doo one, it simply empowers it to shimmer and provide a newly laid pathway to address the compelling problems! you add mindfulness to this space and you have a state of intellectual bliss! You can harness the best of what your mind has to offer- being focussed like a laser and at the same time being able to work out meaningful alternatives (solutions) at a rapid pace- with each one trying to be the better then the last- thereby ensuring that the task at hand is dealt with a high level of applied intelligence so that outcomes are almost always best in class!

If mindfulness is the space that allows your mind to stretch, creative approach adds that, much needed flex to it and together they are able to manifest innovation, breakthrough’s and answer problems of humanity like nothing else can!

I leave you with these thoughts here, urging you to harness your trim level by deploying your creativity in the mindfulness that you are able to touch! Ciao for now, will be back soon with another article soon! Stay safe, Stay wise and Yes, have a great 2021 – the mindful way!

Welcome 2021 the 2020 way!

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

As ironical it may seem, the fact remains that what did not kill you probably nourishes you! Join me here as we take a quick look through this last blog on 31st December 2020 about what 2020 really signified, what were it’s whispers (which were heard and which went unheard) and what is that 2021 is already signalling even as you eagerly await for it’s embrace- which either could be a warm hug or a deathly embrace! So here we go!

Sure enough, each one of us would have had many small stories of personal victories and success and all of that went down the drain- literally in 2020 and pretty much rapidly everything and all that seemed to be humanistic and normal began to seem absurd and all things strange and stupid began to become the new bright thought of new age thinking! Remember those endless meetings in the office meeting rooms before the lock downs and then the ensuing disaster that followed for you to having to deal with the same ordeal with an added layer of technological complexity compounded by your technological incompetence and ignorance! Well this perhaps would have been one of the many such moments that 2020 brought to all of us where the singular message was , “If you think you know it All, Life always has a plan B and that plan B has the potency to uncomplicate what you complicate and complicate what you strive to simplify!”

Each one of us began 2020, the way we usually did all our lives and when the spanner was thrown it showed us the fragility and the momentous existence that all of us hang by! Needless to say, few of us have been humbled, few destroyed, yet few counting their lucky stars and yet others who did feel nothing much- but all in all humanity has been impacted and what we have seen unfold and what we will see unfold will all be but a testimony about what happened to us in 2020! People and their disposition in 2021 will all be but stories about what happened to them in 2020 and how they dealt with them! Furthermore it will be a test of human resilience and fortitude to keep battling what 2021 keeps throwing at you, day in and day out- sometimes as extensions of the prevailing pandemic and yet at other times nudging people into a tight corner- require them to re-calibrate and re-assess – promoting the new onslaught of innovation!

If there is something else too that helped people survive if not thrive, it was their ability to fall back on their intrinsic abilities- basically living their lives and finding a way through their lives- for one time- by being who they really were! You see, until the pandemic arrived, everyone always had the liberty to cloak their reality and move around the world pulling over suitable attire that could match an occasion and thereby successfully hiding away the real and creating more and more compelling illusions and camouflage around them, just like everyone else did! No sooner the virus came calling, these mansions built on created and apparent illusions and hallucinations owing to societal compulsions cam crashing down like a pack of cards and soon enough societies across the globe soon began to find their new definitions across the strata and these newly established definitions will linger on for a good time to come- because the new founded world order within the social strata has just begin to form and it will take some time to formalize the agreed ways of engagement once again and 2021 will be a story which will capture this essence of humanity in great detail! People will see societies simplifying, expanding, contracting and getting more wrapped in or vocal based on what is being played out on the home turf within those pockets across the world! People within societies who successfully align to these dynamics will be safe- those who choose to take a different route either will emerge as lighthouses or perish as unsung sand bars- depending on how well they choose, what they do and how they time what they choose to to!

Given the fact that 2021 will have lingering shadows of 2020 and haunting visits of the year bygone, intrinsic abilities will be tested like never before and individuals will have to bank upon them to begin re-connecting and re-engaging with fellow members of the society in a more meaningful and purpose driven manner. It is just a matter of time, in 2021 that so called “experts” will come to the foray and start writing articles and papers on the “horrors of work from home” and begin stressing for people to engage and communicate, well, I had actually talked about this much earlier! The ability of individuals to see and sieve through conflicting narratives (as they did in 2020) too will be of paramount importance to ensure that they don’t end up entrapping themselves in some illusionary challenge and end up fighting a war that no one cares about and nobody is watching!

Similarities for all the years begin and end with the societal set that will be influenced and that will influence it and this is why it becomes easy as well as difficult in the same breath to navigate changing calendars! You see, the rational part of the mind says, that same problems have similar approaches and solutions that would have previously worked, while in the same instant, the mind desperately seeking some “kick” want to experiment and try out and at times this unwanted and unnecessary indulgence ends up screwing up even the most noble of intentions and efforts!

Finally what will remain at the foundation of what you and I do, will be the humanistic construct that we behold within ourselves and how we plan to deploy that to serve others and take a persuasive stand to ensure it goes that way! 2020 was all about being in gratitude and being grateful for what we had, have and what we aspire to have and this practise is what must and will continue in 2021 as well. As long as this approach to life enshrined with gratitude and humility prevails even the challenges thrown by 2021 will seem to fade away rapidly then before and importantly will accelerate the pathways to create new approaches and solutions for a more meaningful interconnected cohesive human existence with shared experiences and values which go a long way to nourish the essence of being human!

I leave you here with these fleeting thoughts for this last day of 2020 and hold each one of you in my prayers and thoughts- for the journey together will certainly continue with a fresh promise, new hope and unfailing human resilience- that is the way which saw humanity through 2020 and that is what will also empower humanity to see through 2021 and enables you and I to come up with compelling stories and narratives of hope, success and humility in all that we achieve and also in things where we fall short to achieve! Always remember, there is a reason, what you and I have come this far and the onus is now upon us- each one of us to ensure that with the Life that we have, we make sure that the reason why we came this far- creates something meaningful and purposeful- something that serves not only us but to the many around us who reach out to us and perhaps even those – to whom we need to reach out to!

What worked to overpower 2020, sure enough will help you and me to prevail over 2021 as well, should the need arise, but that is where the similarities end and it is beyond this space, when we apply who we are to what we choose to do is that we will begin creating differentiating value and empower ourselves and others around us to surge ahead and stay ahead in the race to carve out meaningful existence in an ever changing dynamic and chaotic world that we own!

Before I sign off, Here’s Wishing Each One of You, A Very Happy New Year and hope you are able to weave your magic the way you aspire to do so in the year that promises to be both same and different in the same construct of time and space! Stay Wise and Stay Blessed! Ciao for now, will be back soon with another article- in the new year and our journey, goes on unveiling a new sunrise for a new pursuit!

Leadership nuggets for a new world order.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Well, sure enough you may be busy right now, packing your bags or navigating your travel for that much needed and required escape from the realities of the life that you have been blessed with; here’s a quick share with you on what is that the rejigged onset of leadership will possibly seem like as you arrive back to your workstations! So join me here and let’s take a quick sneak peek into what promise the corporate world holds and what is that you and I can do when it comes to leadership and deploying the same!

Well, if 2020 was what and how it turned out to be, it just goes on to stress the importance and relevance of leaders and leadership! Whether the space is about being a leader in the public domain, whether it is about leading a corporate house or whether it is just about leading yourself, irrespective of what is the mandate that you are accountable for, 2021 will be more of a benchmark timeline wherein new leaders will emerge and current leaders will have to reinvent themselves and their leadership styles to meet with the changing dynamics of the social construct around them and the evolving contextual realities! Importantly, whether you just choose to lead yourself or others as well, there will be few fundamental aspects that will have to be met with and which will go on to set up the narrative for leaders and their leadership in the times ahead! These fundamental spaces are what will go on to make leaders and leadership relevant or obsolete depending on how well these are either assimilated and deployed or ignored and forgotten! So what are these aspects? Well,read on!

Empathy: Empathy perhaps is the biggest pivot that will have to be deployed and leveraged upon in the times ahead! As humanity begins to take baby steps to re-connect and re-engage trying to establish the new normal or in-person connect, empathy will be the foundation on which everything else will reside. Leaders who are able to sense this aspect and demonstrate adequate amount of empathy will find it easier to collaborate, lead and inspire fellow members and thereby paving the way for an accelerated growth or that of a rapid pursuit of what has been set as an objective.

Intentional Listening: The times ahead will demand a new age of focussed and directed listening, what I call as “Intentional Listening” wherein the whole approach to listen is not to respond or react but to understand the contexts around what is being discussed and said and analyse the content with a holistic lens of what the matter is, who is delivering the message and sure enough, what the ecosystem is within which the impacts will be experienced and improvised. Leaders who invest more time in this space of “Intentional Listening” will be better equipped about the real over the apparent and thereby will be able to take empowered and decisive decisions based on a holistic detail that they will be be able to decipher through this space!

Simplified and Focussed objectives: The times ahead will demand leaders to provide ongoing clarity and demonstrate a continuing ability to uncomplicate complexities. With majority of humanity already tested to their limit of mental resilience in 2020 through the pandemic, before it and now after it, the last thing that co-workers, colleagues and members of the society want will be any remaining element of ambiguity or chaos – especially when it comes to areas of work and societal equity. Leaders who are able to uphold simplicity and clarity will be able to race ahead and make significant impact over others as they engage and work alongside teams to create magic like they did in the good old days!

Intrinsic Leadership: Sure enough effectiveness through leadership can be achieved by leaders emulating different styles and approaches, but the times ahead will demand a new way and that is the way of the “Intrinsic Leader”. You see, given the contexts from where societies are emerging and the challenges that they face, leaders who are able to share, display a strong intrinsic, unflinching and unwavering leadership approach in areas that they represent will see a surge of followers and leaders alike simply because “Intrinsic Leadership” is highly contagious and it is that super glue which empowers societies to move mountains, should the need arise. This enormous power comes from the fact that Intrinsic Leaders, lead from within and as they do so, they rely on their superpowers and their uniqueness to create unparalleled approaches which go a long way to address compelling challenges on hand!

Automating Human Intelligence: Leaders who will be smart enough to focus on the aspect of automating the available human intelligence within their teams and around them, will be the ones’ who will be able to make the most optimum use of any technological automation that happens around them to further their business objectives! You see, you may have the bets dashboards, the greatest MIS tool, or the simplest automated diagnostic tools at your disposal to propel your business or social experiment, but if the “people” who are entrusted with their management and design are handicapped in their ability to think the human way- well even the best automation will go waste and will end up being another piece of glorified digital garbage! Leaders who are able to fine tune their technological automation in line with the human intelligence at their disposal, will be able to take significant advantage and there by create an innovator’s edge to provide unique solutions and niche approaches to problems on hand! Global Leaders know this space too well and hence if there’s one thing that happens all the time behind the scenes with regards to artificial intelligence is the effective and resourceful deployment of human intelligence behind the scenes to ensure that what unfolds in services stays relevant, meaningful and viable! Leaders who are able to create an ongoing handshake between human kind and automated technological interfaces will be the ones’ who will be at a significant advantage and will also hold the key to create new bed rock for subsequent innovations!

The Humanistic approach: Leaders who embrace the humanistic approach will stand tall to reap the benefits of their approach, especially in the arena of public and societal leadership. If 2020, has done one thing, it has been a great leveller and a great teacher for humility! Leaders who continue with this belief will be able to see beyond the routine people engagement and will be able to carve out meaningful and directed interventions to serve humanity in the context of their span and reign of influence and control.

More the Leaders Greater the Influence: Leaders who recognize and are able to deploy their Leadership through others- by creating more leaders (as opposed to followers) too will define the Leadership style and success stories of the future! Humanity has learnt through 2020, that the same work can be done through different ways and even as that is been done- the efficiency or effectiveness would have more or less remained in the same broad range (else you would have either shut your shop or would have begin to hate the color pink- because of the slip provided!). This has created opportunities to devise new definitions of success for leaders and leadership alike and one such compelling metric involves the ability to influence so as to create more leaders and and thereby enhance influence through more leaders- rather than followers! Companies of the future that are able to identify and encourage more leaders will stand to gain as more leaders will go on to create a larger circle of influence overlapping among the leaders in an organization and externally create a more positive story for the services through their leaders and their leadership style!

Being Authentic: Finally this is one aspect that will matter in a big way, simply because the disruption of 2020 has brought home a vital lesson that templates don’t necessarily always work and that uncertain times call for unconventional solutions and answers! This can only be realized and delivered as long as Leaders and their leadership style empowers people to stay authentic and have their original ways of thinking working alongside the routine “work to order” set of thinking! It is the power of original thinking that has always empowered and rescued humanity from calamities time and again and history is replete with such miracle of human mind, especially when they were allowed to think independently, unconventionally and by being who they were, that is encouraging thinking in an authentic manner!

I leave you with these thoughts for now; sure enough this is not a limited list and you would want to expand it further and develop it in a more aligned matter to all that you pursue. Be the Leader that you always sought and deploy the Leadership that you always wished for and then you will be surprised to see the change and empowerment that you bring along for yourself and the ones’ around you!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one soon, until then get that much needed break and gear up to face another impressionable day!

Live your life The Santa Claus way!

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

As we approach Christmas, what better then to discuss around what it takes to be a Santa in the real essence of it on the Eve of Christmas! Join me here as we explore the space around this and understand why perhaps living the Santa Claus way is the only way to regain and restore sanity in the crazy world around us!

Santa Claus has captured the imagination of every child around the world like nothing else ever has and perhaps it is the first real unifier moment for kids all over the world irrespective of what their belief systems or ways of faith are! As kids, all of us knew very well the promise that Santa brought along and what every kid was required to do for being able to qualify to receive the gifts from Santa! We begin our journey from this lens and try to make sense of what it is firstly to receive what Santa offers and then we move on to understand what it takes to become a Santa! So here we go!

The promise of Santa, tells us something far deeper and valuable about who we are as humans! Even as kids, we learnt early the values of being able to share and care and no matter what faith your follow or not, these values are perhaps the most fundamental values to each one of us and for kids- the Santa coming to town and pushing the gifts down through the chimneys, as a reward for good behaviour and being who one is meant to be, has been perhaps the most iconic and visible communication pieces that connects with kids the world over! The simple act of being good and kind can be rewarded and that being instilled within young kids is what keeps hope alive for humanity as a whole!

As we grow up, somewhere as we begin to figure out the rational space around Santa and the gifts that Santa provided, we end up not only disregarding Santa, but (unfortunately) even the very essence and the soul of what Santa represents! This is where societal divergence begins and this is why grown ups in offices need a complete leadership training around building empathy- simply because they lost that bit as they lost faith about Santa being real! This goes on to get replicated with many other facets and value systems as well and that is how even as each one of us grow with and through the values enshrined by Santa, sooner or later, they get ripped away one by one slowly but surely!

As we grow up, given the societal contexts that we operate within, we begin to embrace and practice all that takes us away to the diametrical side of what Santa stands for. Sounds too philosophical, well yes, it is and sure enough nothing to blame anyone or suggest what is right or wrong- the simple fact remains that as humanity begins to slip away form the core values of sharing and caring for one other and disregard humanity as one big family, not only do we end up loosing the values that Santa instilled in us, but we also end up the part of Santa that actually resides within each one of us!

It may sound that I am trying to oversimplify the challenges and the problems that we as grown ups face day in and day out, but if you take a pause and listen to your heart and see within you will know instantly that the root for many a problems resides in the very basic and fundamental space of disregarding core values which define what humanity ought to be! Whether it is about the communication break downs among colleagues, friends, families or whether it is the challenge or begin able to collaborate and work together in a work area or within the society- aspects like these and many more simply signify the fact that as we tend to move away from our core values and belief systems and to put it more aptly the wisdom of Santa, we just set up ourselves as failures in the world that we roam around in! So what is that we can do to get Santa back again and guide us along the path ahead?

To get Santa back into our lives, the best and the most simplest approaches would be to get that kid back! Sounds funny, well think about it! Once you get the humility, you had as a kid and the zing of curiosity along, soon enough you will end up surprising yourself on how differently and how refreshingly you are able to see the same problems that dodge you day in and day out and how this shifting mindset – rather holding the mindset of a Santa helps you to sieve through apparent blockages and empowers you to see pathways and solutions where you saw none! No way am I suggesting you to be casual or adopt a hippie like care free approach to life- rather on the contrary it is about approaching life with due respect but empowered by the curiosity and humility that the kid in you can provide you with for it is within this space that you will feel responsible, light and driven at the same time and more importantly be aligned to values and teachings of Santa and this will go on to provide you an opportunity to live your life the Santa way!

Living life, the Santa way, is not only about sharing and spreading the goodness of life and rewarding humanity where it is due, it is also importantly about being forgiving and forgetful of what one must be and how one can be! The Santa way of living is all about seeking and touching empowerment from the pivot of your own soul and harnessing all the goodness that resides within and ensuring your keep enriching it all the way through your journey and share that aspect with people around as you continue your pursuits of life! Sure enough, there will be setbacks there will be problems and there will be days and times when you will have to retreat and takes a few steps back, but what matters is that as long as you build your foundational values on and around the Santa learnings, you will be able to bounce back and surge ahead- how fast you can do that and how often you will be able to do that- is a factor of how well you are able to imbibe the spirit of Santa within you and how well you are able to share and spread the Santa within you, around you!

I leave you with these thoughts, on a Christmas Eve, urging you to connect with Santa, get rewarded for the goodness that you have been able to hold onto and this Christmas, make that effort to be a Santa for someone else ad share what you can and care as you can- this is the only way that you can embrace the Santa way of living and make the world a shade better than what it seems to be!

Ciao for now, Here’s wishing everyone A Merry Christmas! ; And yes, humanity needs Santa and each and every one of us has Santa tucked away within us- Perhaps it’s time that we let the Santa within us, out to make the difference that we aspire for as Individuals and collectively as humanity!

2021: Calling Leaders!

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

If you thought that 2020 is coming to an end, think again, the impacts that we have felt and observed and the developing residual effects are far more over and threaten to play mind-games with humanity for many more years to come then you would have thought! Join me here as we take a fleeting look at this space and appreciate why this becomes the perfect compelling case for more Leaders to emerge from the shadows and bear the torch once again so that humanity can break free from the shackles of disengagement and disconnected togetherness! So here we go!

Unlike the earlier years what 2020 has ended up doing (much to the amusement of many, who have still retained their sanity!) is that, it has created contradictory narratives for every sphere of human life, across societies, nations and every imaginable constituent of the society! It hasn’t been that there have never been competing or contradicting narratives earlier, they sure did exist- but they had one fail-safe valve and that valve was of moderation! This moderation was done by different elements of a society at different times and to varying degrees of efficacy. This ensured that no matter what happened narratives and contradictory spaces within a society always grew only to the extent and proportion that the society could cope with! Each time the narratives seemed to threaten to run away with something or fuel discord or anarchy the moderation mechanism would step -in ( most of the times) and save the day for everyone around! 2020 is the year, perhaps the first one, where the world was shown how the fail safe moderation system can be broken down, over-ridden and at places shredded away by the other vital pillars of a society- singularly or collectively! This sure enough is something that the world has been presented with for the first time and the worry is that this won’t be the last time!

You see, 2020, has provided alternative and confrontational narrative for every element that a society chooses to deal with! Whether it is about politics, it is about faith, its is about science, it is about upholding values or throwing them away- almost each and every of these aspects have been debated and discussed as always (which is what the way should be) but what 2020 ended up doing is largely, has made the whole issue of having a divergent or a different point of view a taboo and something that has not been welcomed by societies across the world in 2020. Humanity for long has dealt with perplexing issues and that has been the hallmark of what has made it successful yet turbulent. However, the new challenges presented by the recent developments have made a strong case for harnessing the pivotal power which can make amends and restore all that is broken and that power is Leadership!

The problems presented in 2020, were not all, necessarily something unthought of or not factored of, they were allowed to emerge (the way they did) a good deal simply because of the incompetence and incomprehensibility of the people who were dealing with what they had coming at them! Sure enough, you may argue that, any person (with the kind of crazy stuff that 2020 has been able to throw at societies) would have filed or faltered- perhaps you are right- but the point here is not that of “not failing” rather it is more to do with the ability to recover after failure and that is where real Leadership thrives! If there was one thing that was strongly felt and needed in 2020, it was the “Leadership Deficit”.

Much of what societies have had to endure and deal with was also a factor of having myopic leaders and their wayward ways of dealing with what came their way! Whether it is about the civil unrests, protests, social issues, the sections of societies contesting a point or the pandemic – whatever the cause would have been 2020 showed all the wrong ways to deal with people and their challenges and provided a masterclass on how leadership should not be! This I think should be among the most fundamental takeaways from 2020, a fact that as humanity we had through our agreed social construct possibly asked the most incompetent ones’ to lead us- to nowhere! Sure enough, it would be simply unfair to say, nothing worked and all were incompetent or lax, but that fact is that, as the majority tend to emulate what a few incompetent ones’ do, soon enough, the few good ones’ are sidelined and resigned to fighting their own existential battles! So if this is what it is, how can we expect 2021 to be different, is there anyway that change can be infused when incompetence and myopia is rampant at the leadership levels?

Well, “Leadership overhaul” begins from the top and when it comes to rewiring leadership in the societal plane it is almost always the case of nudging the leadership at the top from within and around! You see, when it comes to correcting and bringing in efficacy of leadership, that has to happen by setting up alternative leaders as proposed challengers to the existing system and that challenger needs to be supported by equally proactive and aligned base around the challenger! Unless societies agree and realize that there needs to be a fresh impetus to lead a new way, the urgency and push for this overhaul will only go on to delay what societies in general are rightly entitled to – Dignified Leadership which rises to protect and share equity among humanity the way it should be!

2021 provides an immense opportunity and rather makes a desperate appeal to have meaningful leaders and meaningful, purpose driven leadership to steer societies further and away from the chaos of 2020 and to create new pathways and ways of life to make 2021 and years beyond more sensible and humanistic! The breed of new age leaders for 2021 and beyond is not about having some magical new formula or theory at work, rather its is all about revisiting the basics and the most fundamental aspects of human society and getting attuned to the core values and essence of being human! The new leadership has to create enough sense and sensibility to let everyone know that even as humanity races ahead with automation and technology powered interventions, unless human intelligence is not automated and put to use as default to begin with every attempt to arrive at sane solutions to ever increasing complex challenges will come crashing down as they did in 2020, when AI models were used in the beginning to predict doomsday scenarios worldwide, while none of them was even sensible or enough meaningful!

The new leaders of 2021, require to harness the limitless power of common sense, science and rationality in that order and always understand the essence of deploying “just enough” as they go about dealing the problems of the day! You see, you don’t see a neurosurgeon for a headache pill, sure enough that can help, but that is not how it is supposed to be! The Leaders of 2021 will have to work hard to create enough space for competing narratives without having any of the narratives to be ridiculed and disregarded simply because they emerge from a certain pocket or section of a given society or social framework! More importantly as societies tend to get more and more vocal and local about how they feel, think and live their way and express to have their way- the leaders and their leadership will have to work overtime to ensure that this doesn’t end up trespassing into someone else’s pathway and way of life!

If 2020 was about, faltering and failing leadership across societies, the leadership stories that get written around 2021 will be the ones’ that are abe to turn the tide fast and take the hard turn safely enough to navigate the challenges coming to them without loosing the focus on what they wish to aspire and reach! The Leaders of 2021 will have to work extra hard to do away with the weight of humanity’s dumbness quotient and try to instill the much needed sense of being human the way we are supposed to be!

If you have been thinking this is all about the social space, well, this is also about our workplaces and it is also about how we lead ourselves- because it is only when the basic constituents within a social fabric begin to fail and falter is that societies begin to derail and this brings to another essence of the 2021 leadership challenge which is about, “Personal Leadership”. 2021 will also be all about Individuals- you and me and about how each one of us is able to and not able to display and deploy the leadership that we wish to demonstrate as individuals who we are! It is from these confines that the new age leaders of 2021 will emerge- to lead societies, business and themselves and the people who they wish to influence and share the story of progress with! The only real fundamental thing that has the power to create a big impact and bring about a wider influence across societies through 2021 and beyond will be the leaders and their amended and meaningful ways!

I leave you with these thoughts for now, urging you to take some time through this holiday season, and figure out your own defined space for the leadership that you want to deploy and the leader that you want to be! 2021 can might as well the moment that you have always been waiting for to take charge and lead the way- for yourself, for others or perhaps for the community that you come from!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then stay wise, stay blessed and remember, every increment of progress is the promise of your leadership!

Every “New Year” is the same! Unless…

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

We are now racing towards the very end of the whatever is remining of 2020 and needless to say, like all the other bygone years, 2020 too would have been no different- the exception being that people would have had and borne the brunt of amplified experiences and learnings, irrespective whether they were happy stories or grim reminders! This article is not about this space, rather it starts from here, this is all about, what is that you and I can possibly do and not to ensure that 2021, doesn’t seem like the year bygone and what is that we can do to ensure that we don’t end up walking into the trap where “Every New Year” begins to seem the same! So join me here as we decipher this space and try to figure out what is that can be done and how much of it- to ensure that 2021 is more meaningful in an absolute sense, not banking or calibrating on 2020 which I believe would have been an intellectually exploitative year for all us irrespective what we did , or not!

To begin with, we need to accept and understand, “why do all new years’ almost always end up the same way!” You see, you need to be really honest with this space, think and reflect around yourself, see what has been unfolding around you and within you, are you getting a sense of moving around in circles (so big that, you actually think and feel that you are walking straight only to realize around every December, that you ended up walking a whole year, to come back to from where you started? Whether it is your job, the business that you, or the art that you pursue or whether it is about the people that you engage with, what has been your story, year after year? Are you actually living the same year, multiple times through your lifetime? or are you at least putting up that vital effort to create and make a difference for yourself to begin with and then for others, so that the year that you live and goes by, actually begins to stand out as something radically different and meaningful over the previous one? What do you think is really unfolding within and around you? take your time and read further as you get a perspective on this question, for that is really important for anything else to make sense and help you with! As long as humans end up living the same year, again and again and keep celebrating the change of calendar; with nothing meaningful or worthwhile done or accomplished, humanity will suffer- simply because as more and more individuals tend to accept mediocre approaches- sooner or later societies and nations begin to pay the price for that mass level idiocracy and journey to nowhere!

You see, all of us, each one of us, take a pledge whenever we hit the new calendar year- whichever calendar that you may want to choose, the problems begin as we start to fail and falter very much on own own set intentions and aspirations, why does that happen, well there could be many reasons- intrinsic and externa- I have written about this in detail, recently- you can find that over here. As people falter, they do only one thing that everyone should and can- revert back to what was safe and what has been time tested! This is the “on mode” of your mind to keep you safe from damage beyond repair and for ensuring that you re-group and rejuvenate well enough to fight your chosen battle yet another day! Once this is done, you are automatically going back to what you are familiar with, what you feel safe and comfortable with and with all that- any bit of risk taking, enterprise is all but taken away! Well at times in life this is fair enough, but when this is the only things that keeps happening over and over again, you basically end up living the same experiences and same problems with variations in intensity, thereby living that same year all your life! So what does it really take to create something meaningful and really have a “new year”, well read on!

Unless, you make an effort and rather a very serious one at that, to create value and meaningfulness aligned to the purpose that you seek to achieve, everything else that you propose to do will eventually fade away bringing you endlessly back to the beginning each and every time! A careful observation of the few who end up really creating meaningful “new years'” every year will let you know that, the only way that is possible is by doing and trying what was never done before and trying to accomplish something that has never been! Sure enough, not all of us need to fight with the polar bear or climb the Mount Everest, it is simply about creating a sense of purpose and direction within us, just enough so that we are able to focus with clarity and drive on what “new” we want to create or reach out for! It could be as simple as trying the new ice cream flavor or as complicated as building the next rocket engine which will make space travel simple and uncomplicated for humanity!

There is no rule book on who one can achieve or find their concept and space of trying or doing the “new” simply because each one of us is as unique as we get to be and when it is about the stories of our life- who else can be better than ourselves to write, re-write and manifest something that is inspiring and lingering! This is the strength and the weakness at the same time, simply because, it takes a lot of grit and determination to prevail and overcome the intellectual inertia (which always makes us so comfortable- simply because it is safe-tried and tested). When people succumb to this inertia, they end up allowing their uniqueness to become their greatest weakness, but when they are able to thwart the ongoing onslaught of their inertia and move ahead- irrespective of the pace- they go on to make incremental progress which when done consistently and repeatedly over time- compounds into creating a completely new person, a new journey and needles to say the manifestation of a new destination altogether! It is this intrinsic ability to overcome the internal inertia which alone can help people create a real “new year” and pursue meaningful objectives to add some purpose and meaning to their limited lives!

I leave you here with thoughts on a busy Monday, even as we race ahead to Christmas and want to catch the once in 800 years celestial spectacle of Jupiter and Saturn coming together; urging you to do what it takes and devise the way that suits you fine, to ensure that 2021 is meaningfully enough a real “new year” in every essence of what it should be for you!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then keep moving and stay unique for that’s when magic happens!

Managing your Intellectual Graveyard.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

The human mind is the birth place and the reason for all that is around us and within us and it also is the eternal graveyard for all those things that didn’t manifest (for good or worse) and for all that we didn’t become! Join me here as take a quick trip to understand what this graveyard of our mind seems like and how it nourishes us even through the power of seemingly dormant ideas and experiences! Sounds creepy, but that is what humanity has arrived to be- in some or the other form- facts being stranger then fiction! So here we go!

Philosophers for long have stressed on the value and the potency of the human mind- whether to create lingering masterpieces of art, to raise kingdoms that seemed eternal or the aspect of bringing in utter destruction and misery to humanity- each of these facets have been nothing more but the coming alive of human mind and more importantly the human intellect held within the mind being deployed to manifest what it aspires! This is the space of living ones’ dream, ambitions, so on and so forth and being able to make that indelible mark in pursuit of immortality- the reasons could be right or wrong- again that remains to be at the mercy of the viewers lens and frame of context about what is being studied! But our story really starts as this episode ends!

As long as people are able to flush out what they think either by their expressions or by acting them out, the mind tends to remain dynamic, engaged and productive (which can be a matter of debate, simply because the aspect of “productivity” is a function of the contextual frame and who you are, as you witness the same!). The problems start as the minds begin to get stuck and drowned in their own ideas and thoughts as they get pushed deep within the confines of the mind and soon enough the mind begins to resemble an intellectual graveyard! You see, every human being is constantly abuzz with a hundred thoughts each day and within these few stick on and within that bucket, yet a few get experimented upon and if the idea is really a contextually relevant one than it goes into execution and thereafter it’s measured by defined metrics to be called as a success or a debacle! As the rejected or unused ideas and thoughts begin to stall and stagnate they get moved to the graveyard within your mind and unless they are able to be re-designed or resurrected in some way- their final resting place here is final and if this graveyard is not tended to aptly, it can unleash havoc to wreck even the most potent and brilliant ideas and thoughts and end up creating more chaos and anxiety rather then allowing one to bask in the glory of their potent idea or thought! So what is really happening around here?

The human mind and it’s efficacy is all about having a dynamic forward balance between the ideas that work and the ideas that have stalled (for whatever reason it could be!). As long as the mind is able to keep progressing ahead, things are fine and like the case of many of our lives- it is the instance of daily struggle and strife to overcome what we must to reach where we ought to! It is only when the dynamic of moving ahead is much much greater is that magic happens and great ideas give birth to great actions and thereby equally great manifestations! But when this does not go this route and as minds falter and fail owing to the pressure of more and more failures or stagnation of ideas (rather inability to deploy them as intended) these redundant ideas and thought begin to flood the mind and drown the mind from within leading to more chaos and turbulence. This in turn goes a long way to adulterate the quality and character of the emerging potent thoughts and thereby begins to skew the very originality of an individual and thereby with every idea, every thought the individual begins to move away from what really is the essence of the individual and begins to embrace acquired circumstantial relevance! This is why the size and depth of the intellectual graveyard matters!

As the mind begins to get cluttered and strewn with the corpses of the failed and faltered past-ideas and thoughts, it soon starts to loose it’s potency and efficacy on what it can achieve as it’s approach begins to get fogged out and this is what makes the intellectual graveyard so interrupting and dangerous- it simply stalls or tries to stall efforts made by an individual to re-focus and rejuvenate each and every time an attempt is made! So what’s the way ahead around this? What can be done?

Well, the only meaningful way to do something around this is to ensure that the graveyard is managed to a size and depth so that it doesn’t develop the power to interrupt the ongoing progressive intellectual pursuits. For this to happen it is very important to practise complete burial of thoughts and ideas and practise detachment (like so many belief systems do!), unless this complete surgical clean cut from the failed and faltered efforts and past is not done completely every effort and every attempt to move ahead and latch on to progressive and forward thinking will be blocked and challenged by the un-serving bygone spaces residing within the graveyard of the mind!

How this is achieved,well that will depend individual to individual and context to context since, each one of us is as unique as we can be and hence there is no real text book or one size fits all solution to solving the challenges poised by the intellectual graveyards!

I leave you here with these thoughts for now, urging you to practise what you must and can to manage your own little graveyard well enough so that it doesn’t overpower your today to dictate your tomorrow!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then stay wise and keep thinking to manage your own little graveyard well!

The 2020 Masterclass.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Whether you liked 2020 or not,whether it helped you or harmed you, irrespective of all that space, 2020 has undoubtedly one of the years from modern history- which I call as “A great leveller” 2020 has been a year whether you had money or not, whether you were rich or not, whether you came from a developed nation or the third world- humanity for once has been humbled and brought to face with with what nature can do and undo for all the right and wrong reasons! Join me here we take a quick look on, what I believe have been the foundational elements of 2020- the fundamental aspects of the masterclass that the year has been about- in ways more than one! So here we go!

Humility: As I said earlier, 2020, has been a masterclass on humility, whether you were a proud nation, with the most technological advancement at your disposal or whether you were a struggling nation already battling some existing challenge- as the pandemic took it’s grip and began to sweep nation after nation- it only became clear that the pandemic was dishing out a lesson in “humility”. Humility about knowing that human life is fragile as it can be, Humility about the fact that no matter how smart you think you are, when nature begins to play it’s tricks, you really don’t want to be there!, Humility about the space that having money was no guarantee of access to life and Humility brought to leaders in different areas – from Politics to Science- letting them know- once and for all- why weighing their words matter and how people see the bluff more too often then they think they do!

Re-calibration of the concept of work: People for once came face to face the real value that they hold and share in areas of their work and for once felt the impact of being value deficit either by being let off, having being asked to go or simply by the whole organization folding up! No one is suggesting that people caught up in these spaces of lay offs and pay cuts were worthless or having less value’s , but 2020, brought the singular fact to the forefront that you may be an exceptional talent, but when the corporate world begins to count it’s own vulnerabilities, you happen to be the first one that will be corrected either through a wage cut or by that golden hand shake! This has made thousands and thousands of minds across the world think for once, “was all that struggle, day in and day out to reach the so called “work place” after all really worth it- at the cost of personal relations, family time and self-development time! 2020, has indeed paved the way for a new definition of meaningful work engagement and the onset has just begun with re-calibration of the compensation being offered to the expected work in a new light, few people, fewer pay outs and far higher deliverables- new age slavery- well you may think it that way- more son simply because- whatever remaining creative space was available has now been completely taken away and at least for the next few years work spaces will be more of “I say, so have this done” kind of environments- simply because there is nothing to stretch and flex withing the organisation. 2020 has gone to make a fundamental change to a fundamental aspect of humanity, that pertains to “how humanity works and works for what”!

The human equation: 2020 brought forth human emotions, like no year ever before had possibly been able to do! The stories of families facing stress and tribulations owing to the hyped “work from home” methodology- which just went onto add further to the corporate slavery; stories pertaining to the lack of space and genuine challenges which people faced to get that so called “sterile office” kind of feeling within the limitation of their homes or in some other cases the rapid loss of employment followed by loss of shelter- leading to fragmentation and destruction of the family in a comprehensive manner- each of these and many other instances within these extremities are a testimony to what 2020 was all about it! Perhaps no other year in the recent past would have seen such a wide range of human emotion at play- and if you thought this happened only at the individual level, think again, entire societies and nations have been a witness to human sentiments and emotions played out from the highest offices of the land like never before! At some places societies have got together more cohesively and few other places societies have been fragmented even further and more deeper, likewise are the stories of individuals and the families that they are a part of!

A portrait of resilience: 2020 will also go down as the year which was indeed a significant display and application of resilience. Patience, Perseverance and Hope all served in bountiful measures and those who lapped these up, were able to tide over the challenge a shade better than those who were neglected, left around or simply refused to believe in something and resigned themselves into nothingness!

The face of Leadership: 2020 brought the world face to face some great leadership stories, few which elucidated success and few which facilitated failure! If ever there was a masterclass on leading through crisis, I believe 2020, had it all! National leaders, subject matter experts, individuals, societies at large, pick and choose any group that you would want to analyze, chances are you too are aware of some sharp stories of success and failures in the same contextual setting that you see your life through and this whole episode just goes on to amplify the urgency and need of having meaningful leaders and meaningful leadership being practised at all levels for a society to work and stay progressive despite and Inspite of what may come towards it as a challenge!

The spirit of human ingenuity: This one aspect also has stood tall all through 2020 and perhaps this is one of the pivotal reasons why and how societies have been able to turn the tide of the challenge that humanity faced this year and more importantly this is what upholds the promise and also points to the fragility of human kind for the times ahead!

The law of uncertainty: 2020 taught the world one thing, you may plan, you may plan blind, but end of it what rules the day will be the eternal dice of “uncertainty” and what goes on to define what you become further all boils down to the singular fact about how well you have been at dealing with the uncertainty that came your way- as an Individual, a society or as nation! As long as humanity appreciates this space, it can be assured about its progress and existence, irrespective of how big or deep the challenge may seem to be! As I say, Life is all about being an “Always on test mode”

Think and Feel: 2020 also brought forth the relevance and importance of requiring to have a balance between thinking and feeling, simply because every time this space went skewed people have ended up paying with their lives, especially this year and it really didn’t matter whether these people were mute witness, part of the problem or were the problem themselves, the fact remains they paid the price for the imbalance between thinking and feeling and needless to say even though thinking and feeling is intrinsic to the human kind, a balance is vital and critical!

Shifting narratives: 2020 presented fast paced, ever shifting narratives with absolutely little or no space to decipher, apply or manage what the narrative said or meant! This ended up nudging a vast majority of humanity to the edge and people- individuals to leaders were left with no choice but to make choices on an ongoing basis, based on what the shifting narratives were, only to rejoice or repent later as the outcomes of those decisions began to get played out! In these war of the narratives, the louder and noisier emerged out as the winner, nudging out everything around irrespective whether that was right or meaningful! As people soak into these narratives, needless to say they stay entrapped to the present with no clue about the arriving future, anxiously waiting to be served by the next narrative!

Given the fact this is a blog, I leave you here with these thoughts and reflections, for you to add further and build upon these observations and possibly embrace what 2020 has really meant to you and what is that you wish to take along with you in the times ahead and what is that you would rather have left buried in this very year itself! Humanity comes across inflections points in it’s story every few centuries and 2020 was one such point that has made each one of us re-think, re-assess and re-calibrate all that we do and aspire to do and perhaps even the way we want to do it!

If you ask me, 2020’s message was loud and clear, there is a solution to every problem and every solution can be the next problem!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then stay wise and stay connected!

Social Divergence: A story of our times.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

The wealth of nations’ must never be about and can never really be about how opulent the opulent have become- rather it has to be a story of how richer poverty has got and how much higher as it climbed up the ladder to sustainable quality of life and aspirational meaningful opulence! Join me here as take a fleeting look into this space and try to decipher what really drives nations’, who are the powerhouses and what is that is right and so wrong about this space! So here we go!

Irrespective which nation you live in, chances are that as soon as you cross, what I call as the “Circle of Opulence” you will be struck by abject contradictions and challenges that seem to land up in front of you from some bygone era! The holidays are around the corner, if you can move (if it is safe, and allowed to move around), do try to move away from your radius of opulence (I presume that’s where you are), and observe what greets you! This circle of opulence can mean different things across different societies and even the very definition of opulence can range from as simple as being alive to enjoying the latest eclectic wine or having that latest gadget or business jet to fly around in! So how does one come to know that they are within the circle of opulence and and how does one know as they move out of it?

Well, it’s really simple, if you have the five things that are “good to have” and already have access to “the need to have”, chances are you are living “the opulent life”. What these “good to have” and “need to have” are will vary from society to society, but importantly- they will help you know how deep within the Circle of Opulence you are in and how far the edge of that is. You see, when you hear people speaking about the “up’s and down’s of their financial fortunes they are basically getting moved around – still within the circle of opulence- the only thing being as their fortunes deplete they begin to drift towards the edge of that circle and as they begin to amass wealth they begin to re-assert and plant themselves firmly towards the center and sure enough, each society will have their own definition of the center and highest manifestation of opulence and so also about the edge! This is from where all struggle, strife emerges in a society, the ones’ outside the radius want to get in, the ones’ inside want to gravitate towards the center and amass the most for themselves- what is right and wrong, is all contextual, what is absolute within this frame is the fact that, each society has just so much space at the center of the circle, within it and around it and as struggles ensues, you witness the victors and the defeated strewn all across this landscape. This is the very essence of humanity’s existential paradox, where everyone wishes good for the other but seldom facilitates that bit! Think around it!

All this ends up creating divergence within the society and although having diversity within societal blocks may be a good thing, but add to that a dash of divergence and if your further allow that too run amok, you will start to see issues emerge! What this does is, it further reinforces thoughts and feelings (which may not be always be true) among different people within a given society the feeling of being left back, neglected, intentionally side tracked and so on and so forth and when that happens, the human mind begins to look for patterns and tries to develop reasoning for what it experiences and this is how false narratives and incorrect assumptions begin to take birth. If this was not enough, people at the center of the radius, within and around it do what they can do build narratives majorly to stop people getting into that radius and at at times to shed off the exceed within the radius and this is the playground of politicians and policy makers who do what they- at times to help and some other times to harm- but each time they do what they do- they almost always end up helping few and harming few- who gets helped and who gets harmed- well that again is a contextual story! So what next?

Well, as long as societies go about doing what they do, oblivious to what is really playing out, the why and the who, the daily struggle and strife that we witness, will remain, intensity may vary society to society- but this ongoing discontent and chaos will ensue. Sure enough, I am not urging you to believe in any utopian or hallucinatory concept of a perfect place, society or nation, simply because imperfection is the hallmark of humanity and nature alike! So as long as the struggle is to correct what must be and what needs to be- it’s I presume a fair game- but the society must too think alike and a majority of it- when that happens- you have what we call a revolution, the arriving of a new age! When there is a disconnect among the various elements and narratives end up being competing and conflicting rather than being unifying and reinforcing- you have a society which is stationary yet travelling in all directions at the same time with a net result of being regressive rather being progressive! So what’s the plan?

The onus of course correcting a society resides with each one of us, however small that effort may seem, it is only when every element within a society aligns itself for the larger belief and direction that societies will commence to move in a decided direction with commonality of vison and purpose, sure enough this is a tall order and that’s the reason why mass movements that usher in change are so few and far in between! Societies do take time to arrive at a consensus!

What we must not forget is the abject paradox of the lives of humans around us- it is not only the opulence of material wealth, but it also is about the opulence related to the creative expression of the human mind- because that too is a benchmark of humanities progress! What hampers human progress is this paradox, you see, like I said in my previous article, we all come from the same bucket and the more complicated the bucket gets, the more chaotic, yet colorful our lives end up becoming! The human dexterity and ability to prevail over this space and put it to some sane use, is what actually defines what we are, collectively and individually and that further spells out where we will be and as what in the times to come!

The next time, you come across someone less fortunate then yourself, know a few things well, you too are part responsible for allowing that to manifest around you,simply because you are all part of the same social framework- you may not have intended for that to play out- but whatever you did intend for has manifested what you see around! I have for long believed that charity is a way to reduce the burden of guilt to a limited extent and that is what unfortunately it seems to be; as we witness,the way things emerge across societies in the world today! I leave you with these thoughts for today, urging you to take some time to reflect and figure out where do you reside as far as the circle of opulence is concerned and where are you heading- towards the center or are you getting edged out!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another piece! Until then stay wise and stay anchored as you are meant to be!