Tag: future fit

Every “New Year” is the same! Unless…

~ Parimal Aluri ~ 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!

The anatomy of a crisis.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

For some strange reason the world seems to have ended up being an ongoing performance in crisis management! Whether you label those crisis situations as political melting points, ecological and environmental matters, social concerns or challenges, whether it is the access to a desired quality of holistic life, you name it and you will be pretty sure, not to find one but many similar crisis unfolding around our planet at any given time- the only thing in nature that comes close to this kind of continuous unfolding of uncertainty are the lightning strikes and thankfully as yet we can’t blame humans for that as yet! Join me here as we try to understand this space of “crisis” and make an attempt to the see singularities and commonalities irrespective what type of crisis you witness and why there’s almost always more than meets the eye, no matter what label has been attached to a developing situation! So here we go!

Like those relatives or people that you generally dislike, crisis more often than not- whether small or big always emerges with it’s own operational eco-system comprising of people, resources and technicalities, it is often the failure or a fault within one or multiple of these elements that actually to begin with is the root cause as to why a crisis precipitates in the first place! To this context when you add the whole socially agreed concept of “It’s a busy life”, well chances are that way too often you are crossing a road looking at the wrong side of it and it is only a matter of time that you will be struck by a vehicle- read crisis! So why would anyone a crisis to form, let alone play havoc?

You see, one of the most fundamental and important corner-stone’s of being human in the times that we live today is “The challenge of being able to accept what is, the way it is”! Push back from you chair right now, or head to your balcony and spend a few minutes and try to see how fair you have been in accepting life as it was given to you and how fair were you in doing that? Chances are that like most of us you too would have put up your best foot forward to change and alter the contexts around you to “suit” what your aspirations are, well nothing wrong with this, this is how it is supposed to be, but when you have a huge baggage of misplaced aspirations riding of fatalistic optimism, then you have a serious problem at hand and this is the point from where the crisis in your life will begin to manifest in the area where you have been trying to pursue something that basically isn’t there or even if it is there, it’s not meant for you! No one is asking you, not to be ambitious or not pursue your dreams, that in fact is the very essence of human expressions and of being human, what you mustn’t do is submit to mindless intellectual hallucinations and pursue mirages which manifest nothing but chaos and turbulence! Allow me to explain!

Say, you want to be a pilot, cool nothing wrong and now say, you come from a not-so-good space and you have to struggle- great (for once you achieve your goal you will value it even more!); well part of life- that is what the pursuit of ambitions is all about isn’t it? So in this case the crisis will not be ability to continue education, raise money or qualify as a pilot- all those or milestones that need to be accomplished – after struggle and strife- because the goal is to seek the ambition. The real crisis will commence when you try to do all this, knowing well you are not cut for the job and carry on just because your friend is a pilot- so you want to be! Trust me I don’t even want to be anywhere close to the plane where we may have a pilot like that, let alone be cruising 10 miles above! You may want to argue that people can be trained and they will qualify eventually- well sure they will but at what cost and what risk! If you want more clarity around this, do catch up with some great reports of air disaster owing to human factors and you will know what I mean! Let me ask you one thing, would you to a surgeon for a heart operation who is new and has accidentally killed a few or will you trust the fingers of a skilled surgeon who charges a bomb but has done thousands of procedures with no fatality? Yes, the young surgeon will grow and be better with time, the question, is “Do you want to put your life on the line and manifest a crisis in your life?”

You see a lot of crisis that emerges and comes to strike us whether it is at Individual level or at a collective societal level is almost often owing to treading into areas which are either best left alone or approached by people who are professionals and know what they are venturing into! You never ask a Clown to lead an Army and nor do you ask trained marines to entertain you at a circus- while at a personal level both can do that, albeit in their own way! So you see, crisis is never really about the universe or life wanting to get even with you, rather it is a factor of being in the wrong place with the wrong people and for all the wrong reasons! In fact, even if one of these factors is right, still the other two will have the potency to foment a crisis unless people who in the thick of the things are not alert and careful at what they are!

The other reason why crisis become what they do, is the contextual truth of the surroundings and the inability of the people within to read that right! You see, you may have a dumb boss, a great leader, a messed up economy or a pot headed neighbour- but if you aren’t able to decipher the real picture behind these visual cues, you will more often than not end up taking a route of confrontation rather than trying to unravel what resides behind what seems and instead of solving one issue, you will more often than not add up a few more layers onto the existing one like a nicely done Rainbow cake- which you can’t have!

The fast paced lives that all of us are (with or without choice) compels us to make those (sometimes inaccurate- well most of the times!) snap decisions/ judgements (read- prejudices) and that’s more than enough to create issues that don’t solve the existing one but begin to grow on them to achieve crazy complexities! Hence its becomes vital that to stem a crisis in the very beginning, as the practise of mindfulness suggests, step back, take a pause, rise high and take a good look at what things seem to be and try to deduce what they really are! It is only when you act upon situations holistically with a comprehensive view and understanding that you will be able to solve a problem in the right way and completely stalling it from becoming a crisis in the long run! Quick fixes and an amateurish approach are almost always a recipe to accelerate crisis!

By now if you are starting to think that humans are victims of their inability to read fellow humans or situations around and them by unwittingly allow crisis to foment- well nothing could be farther from the truth! In fact it is the potency of the human mind turned on in the wrong way for a right purpose (read self-serving) is when things can begin to go horribly wrong (read crisis) and too real quick! More importantly it does not always have to be the malfunctioning mind of an individual- when that happens losses are limited to the span of influence and area of control of that singular mind- which is now failing and faltering; but when you get a collective group of people with dysfunctional minds and views that ham can be dangerous and in fact that has been the genesis of many a war, conflict, social strife and unwanted human suffering more than anything else!

So you see, a crisis really in a way is a manifestation of dysfunctional human minds- individual or collective and the potency of that emerging criss will always be proportional to the extent to which the minds have gone wrong and how deep and wide their influence is carried! So is there anything that can be done? Is there a way to avoid crisis completely? Read on!

Well, crisis can be only avoided/ limited or mitigated as long as they are created by self-serving and psychologically malnourished humans, when it comes to the crisis created on account of nature- read natural events- floods, earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis and so on and so forth, you can limit those events becoming into a crisis as long as you agree to not be in or around nature’s path! If you still remain insistent about that home atop a mountain with a sunrise/sunset view or that beach front- well rest assured once in your life time nature will reward you with a bonus issue of “nature’s fury” and all that you would have put in- those millions of dollars will vanish in minutes- you will really lucky if you made it out in time! Crisis emerging from nature are not because of nature by itself- they are largely because of human interventions and people getting into places where they should not be in the first place to begin with!

So, if, by now you are really wondering, what is that can be done and not, well things are pretty simple and that’s where the real challenge is! Crisis manifestation is a combination of attributes- it could be a creation of human kind or nature and based on what that is, you nourish the human mind to health- individual and collective as a society and respect nature as you should and get away from where you have no business to be in! As I said, these are the real steps, simple but very very difficult to implement and follow and guess as long as that goes on- unhealthy minds will keep creating one crisis or the other in one name or the other- labels are a aplenty- the sad part is life is not forever- so whether you want to expend it completely this way or want to create something more meaningful and of value-more that is the choice that each ne of us has and we must appreciate that in the context of what that is and can be!

I leave you here with these thoughts, for now, allowing you time to manage the crisis that you are either dealing with or planing to create! Take some time off, step back, soar high and try to sieve your apparent context from the real one and avoid that unwanted crisis and think before you plan to create one!

Ciao for now, Stay wise and stay clear of crisis!

The problem with “Problem”.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ 1 Comment

As we race about our lives, each day, each one of us is dealing, solving, creating or fixing a “problem” or at least what seems to be one! Join me here as we unravel with this space and try to understand the humble origins about these problems, why do they even emerge, when, where, the how and the why of it and as we sieve through this space, we conclude by trying to know if there’s anything that we can do about it and if the answer to that question is a “yes” what is that must be done! So here we go!

The very mention of the word problem, brings forth a range of emotions- depending on who you are- what your psychological construct is- either you will race ahead towards it or avoid it as much as you and as often as you can or end up having reactions and responses somewhere between those extremes- something that changes with the nature of the problem and the context of what it is to you! That’s how it is supposed to be and that is how it always will be! The whole story begins post this space! What we do and not do about the problem arrives much later! What we need to first understand and decode is what is it about the problem- how and from where does it all begin and come alive?

Humanity has been a saga of success and failures! Each time success has been more than failure, humanity has progressed and each time humanity has had more failures than success, it has regressed! This perhaps is one of the most fundamental of all the truths of our lives and without any discrimination is applicable universally, sure enough the impact felt will be more or less with the progression and regressions, largely depending upon who you are and where you have landed yourself up in the complex web of life!

Problems are nothing but a situation which arise when not expected and/or in the way they present themselves which compels us to think a way through/around/over it to re-establish the “normalcy” to what we were used to before the “problem” knocked our door! Let me explain! In the current situation around the world, what do you see- as I see and as so many of us witness- the pandemic- now the pandemic has been a “problem” on different levels- health, fatality, disruption of the earlier way of life and more significantly the way it hints at disrupting our future- which by itself is so dynamic and uncertain- for that is what the future is supposed to be! So where is the real “problem” in all of this? Is it the Virus? Is it the space of falling sick and dying? or is it the disruption of our way of life?

If you were to wear the philosopher’s hat, grab that cup of coffee and look with some calm and poise about all that is unfolding around you- you will understand the virus was or never will be the “problem”, it is our “attitude” and “approach” to life while it lurks around us is what is the real problem; for that alone determines the ability, extent and intensity to which our lives can be altered in the Now and in the coming times ahead. You see, the virus can only become a “problem” if you and I were to behave arrogantly, recklessly or with gross disregard especially as it lurks around (and when we know that it lurks around!). For it is only this action of recklessness that can put us in the direct path of self-harm and harm unto others which then becomes the real “problem” and from thereon it just starts off a never ending spiral of one problem to the next. So you see the virus is not the problem– it is how you and I behave and what we do and not do that either manifests a problem or keeps away a problem from manifesting! Like with the pandemic so with almost every other area of your our lives! Once you understand how to decipher the right way “what the problem really is” that is when you will be able to manage and control your present to move ahead in a controlled manner to the future that you aspire to realize.

Whether it is the so called problems that you face in your personal space, the work area, with people or with yourselves are often nothing more then ghosts of your own making and the real problems always tend to hide away in this fog of ambiguity and the pursuit to solve something that is not a problem is what majority of humanity is eternally entrapped with even as the real ones’ keep lurking within and around all the time- waiting for the right time to strike and catch us by surprise, at times when we least expect them to arrive! The real essence of dealing with a problem begins by learning the art and science of identifying and defining the problem the right way to begin with! So how does one get to identify a problem the right way? Read on!

It begins with the ability to know about yourself well! Surprised? Well don’t be! The fact remains that, to deal with anything and everything around you and people around you, the very first thing that is of prime importance is your ability to be self-aware- knowing who you are, what your construct is and when you have a fair sense of what and who you are- it becomes easy for your to align yourself to people and life around you- it becomes clear and simple to know what serves you and what doesn’t- this step helps you do away with “problems that seem to be when they aren’t” and what this then helps you get a clear sense of is “the real problems” and once you have developed this ability to identify them well in advance, and on an ongoing basis (like a weather radar onboard an aircraft) you can choose and plan out the only three options that anyone and everyone has when it comes to dealing and managing a problem- go through them, around them or over them!

Problems more often then not, are not what they really are, often they are the amplification of the games that our mind plays upon us and at times are nothing but the ghosts of our own imagination! Problems tend to become real problems only and only when people tend to misjudge, delay to act or resolve or even worse fail to recognize them altogether! The only way to stay ahead in the game of deciphering problems is by building a formidable understanding about yourself and the contexts around which you operate and move about! Like trained soldiers, the human mind becomes a potent weapon when it is allowed to figure out patterns that don’t seem to make sense and to decipher what doesn’t seem to be where it is supposed to be! To have this potency, the first step is to provide the mind with a blue-print of what normal dynamism seems like and it is only when and as this is done on an ongoing basis that the mind will get sharper by the hour and with every passing challenge to identify and figure out the real emerging issues and challenges among the many seeming problems around you!

Self-awareness and contextual alertness provide the much needed depth and sense to differentiate real problems from an apparent problems and this alone can help us to move ahead in a direction that we are ought to! Based on who you are and the context that happen to be the truth of your life, each ones’ definition and ability to deal and engage with real meaningful problems changes and that goes on to change the narrative of success and failure as well! When people spend more time and energy in dealing and engaging with real meaningful problems and are able to overcome them, then magic happens and success is manifested, when people spend more time battling imaginary problems- which are nothing but their minds tricking them in proportion their incompetence-cognitive and behavioral!

If there is any one singular fact that has remained constant with humanity through the ages, it has been the fact that “problems” of today become the “routine” of tomorrow and this goes on! The essence resides in the ability to engage timely, meaningfully with aspects that matter and which must be dealt with (especially when they hint disruption to harm the future). It is the diminishing ability to decipher and engage effectively with real problems which is the real problem! The ocean waves don’t harm the ocean- it is the nature of the waves and the rhythm which has the potential to either provide life or take that away!

I leave you here with these thoughts, urging you to engage and engage well with the real problems that you have on your hand so that you are able to overcome them to create a meaningful and worthwhile tomorrow! Problems are as unique as the person that they meet up with and this is what makes our lives so interesting! All can bake a cake, only a few are able to earn millions through a business, Think about this analogy, the next time you are getting overwhelmed or complacent with a problem at hand! Your problem is the cake that you need to bake, your way to get the flavors of the future that you aspire for!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then decode your real problems and create a meaningful tomorrow!

Are you fooled by numbers?

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

I am not too sure, but perhaps there was a wise person who one fine day decided that humanity must pursue all and only those things that can be measured and all that is been pursued must be measured, this self-defeating thought has led us to a point where that even the amount of happiness that we seem to experience in our lives has got reduced to the digital world of likes, comments and shares! Join me here as we try to understand why numbers are not everything- always and why the context and totality of the circumstances too matter!

Walk into any high performing sales organization, and yes, the only things that will ever matter are going to be number, well nothing wrong with that- whether those numbers are for the sales achieved or for the earnings and incentives made- either ways it works for everyone who is part of that system- but if you were to start evaluating the How and Why of the sale and When and Where of the sale, things will suddenly start to seem much more different then they are! Let me explain! Consider this, you have a young person who has joined the organization in the last quarter and has been able to win back three lost clients but the sale values are less then 50% of his target for the quarter- so has he performed or not? Did he do it the wrong way by investing more time to win clients back, rather than going for the easy kills and hitting that 100% target achieved tag? Well this is just one of those many examples that we come across the corporate world where in all the time people are talking about % achieved, “x” numbers instead of “y” a year back, 125% over the target (ask a puritan mathematician and they will tell you why anything over 100% looks outright stupid! The essence of % is to record what is within the 100% not ever above it!). In all these crazy and at times dumb and outrageous measurements what we forget to factor in is the most important aspect of everything around us- the human aspect associated with numbers!

Consider the pandemic that is being played out, apart from the real health issues that we have to fight and deal with as a society, what is also baffling is the amount of statistical junk and unwanted data that gets thrown out on our face day in and day out! More often then not all these numbers are data that are thrown are pure junk, let me tell you why! When what should be communicated is actual number of active cases (that is real people infected as of in that moment of reporting), often what is shared is the total number of cases since the onset of the pandemic- needless to say higher numbers are shared, more fear mongering and more chaos! If you thought the way we are dealing with the pandemic was bad, just see what’s happening around with the vaccines! The sample size of volunteers for the vaccines is not in the millions or the thousands (at least- what should be when it comes to clinical trials- across morbidity and medical health spectrum),but what we have as 100% success and promise about vaccines is limited to a few hundreds of people undergoing accelerated trials! So when these vaccines tested and cleared on the fast route hit the market shelves- I am not pretty sure if you want to be the first ones to go ahead and take that intriguing shot!

So why have societies taken a sudden liking to play around with numbers and represent only what the numbers say (which often is not the whole picture!)? What is playing out here? Well …read on!

You see, whether you like it or not, numbers have this power which is intrinsic to them (as they are absolute), it is only when metrics are added and when they are added the way it suits the person who is recording it- rather the way the big bosses want it to be- even a healthy number begins to look bad- let me clear this for you- the earlier example of that sales person- who won back three old clients- well so if you were to measure his success on the measurement of old clients won- keeping the target 0- he would have outperformed! but when you measure his performance only against his target- well he will look bad enough at 50%- possibly hanging on to his dear job! So what is the truth? Before I answer that, consider the vaccines’ that are likely to come up- they are 100% safe among how many- 100, 200, 300 and what are the population numbers that are going to get the shots- around 2 billion! Think about that- a trail done on a few hundreds is going to decide the fate of 2 billion people world over- let that sink in! Numbers are never the whole truth or the entire truth- like nothing is- I don’t want to sound philosophical here, but that is what it is- absoluteness is a mirage when it comes to applying that principle to the worldly things around us! So how do we go about this and make sense of the junk that we face day in and day out?

Well, first things first, if you are that sales guy and if you in that spot where you have not been appreciated or even had a mention of your efforts to win back lost clients, you should know right away- you are in a wrong place! You are basically in poker yard- where only sleight of hands matter and if you were to loose a few hands too often, you will be actually thrown out of that arena! As far as the other things that are concerned, the magical % and numbers and averages and fractions, the GDP’s, the Growth and Decline graphs everything that you see, think before you consume it! Practice the pause, and try to see what the numbers aren’t communicating enough– there has to be a contextual set around what has been presented and the first step is to see whether that is the right lens or frame to see and evaluate things through to begin with even before you want to decide what is the right thing to measure! In the case of a pandemic, measuring deaths is perhaps the only definitive metric to gauge the aggressiveness and severity of the infection and the spread of the virus among the vulnerable- everything else is just a statistical model- because eventually all of the other sets/ sub sets of data will live to tell the tale!

So, the next time you come across a hotshot, telling you details about stats and numbers, ask that person to pay a visit to the section of human studies, social construct and public policy, perhaps the person will have a changed mind- if not a changed heart- to revisit the numbers that they have- because they will too realise that- numbers are not the whole truth but a part of the whole truth and the whole truth can never be complete unless the human story is aligned and is part of that narrative! If numbers were truly supreme, the world would have been lead by all the people who had high scores across all the IQ and MENSA tests ever designed and administered- We all know for a fact that- we live in a world where fools have opinions louder than their wisdom and the knowledgeable are at times far too silent to even realsie that it’s not the noise around that they hear but their beating heart- which seems to be racing up and down as it witnesses dumb rule and the wise fail!

I leave you here with these thoughts, urging you to reflect upon how was your relation with numbers, how did you manage to extract completeness from them? Were you able to create value by adding relevant contexts and how did you stay away from adding ambiguity and ensuring that you did not measure what did not serve any purpose!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until than stay wise and yes, do read the text that comes with the numbers- always!

The Teacher.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

As over a billion souls celebrate “Teachers’ Day” in India, what better to write about on this, 5th day of September. If you want to know why and how about this day, click here and get the context! Dr. Radhakrishnan was a great soul, a giant among the giants- it was that time in the history of India, when even within the political class there was space for brilliant geniuses to take centre stage, collaborate, contribute and lead! Well sure enough this piece is not about him, rather giving a context was necessary before we moved ahead to know “THE TEACHER”! What is it to be a teacher? Who can be one? and what does a real teacher do? Join me as we understand, unravel and get a bearing on this subject, which touches us every day of our life!

I had written sometime back on Guru in the workplace- to write about a teacher is a whole new level! India, is as ancient as one can think about and the civilization’s strength were not always the material wealth but more importantly the wealth of knowledge! Wise people, sages, seers and the great philosophical minds across the world have known this singular universal truth, that irrespective of everything and anything, the most potent weapon/ tool as you may like to address it has always been and will ever be the human mind and what goes into this wonder of evolution is what- your teachers nurture you with!

Teachers’ as a term is not limited only to the ones’ you came across in your school or college or your managers and seniors at the workplace, your gym instructor, your yoga or meditation teacher, it is basically everyone and anyone that you have been able to, are and will learn from- learn something that enriches you- your soul- to first uplift you to see a new perspective and than enabling you to share the same with the others around you- who are able to assimilate and sustain that new learning!

We live in an era now a days, where students get to choose teachers’, unlike the times of the ancient Gurukula system when the student would be fortunate enough to be taught by a much sought after teacher! Anyways, there’s not much that we can do individually around that, but what I am now going to discuss, perhaps will be of much value and interest to you as well! Great Teachers’ don’t always have Great Students and neither do Great Students always have Great Teachers! So what does this tell you something about being a teacher? read on!

The essential connect between the Teacher and the Student (apart from their personalities) is the Quality and Value of the Content! Learning doesn’t take place in vacuum, it needs social space and settings to be practiced, improvised, rejuvenated and deployed. Consider this, if you were to learn to swim- fair enough- you can swim in the swimming tank with a depth of 5 metres, now what if you are asked to swim across the notorious English Channel or in the Sea- what do you think? Will you swim or will you sink? Technically you have learnt what it takes to swim- so by that measure you should be able to swim, isn’t it? But, you too know for a fact that taking an approach route of going from the swimming tank to the Sea- will be nothing more than a shortcut to your grave! So why does the learning not help here? For the simple reason that all teaching and all learning happens in a contextual setting and unless there is improvisation done by the student on their own, applying their discerning mind- that learning will ever be stagnated with no way to go- forward and no place to come back! It’s that uncomfortable feeling of being stuck- plain stuck! So how do people achieve greatness, you may ask? Sure enough people do, but the story there lies not merely in the technical detail about what is been taught, but the real essence lies in who is “THE” teacher and who is “THE” student- what are their goals, aspirations, desires, vision. Unless there is an alignment of vision, desire, aspirations between the Teacher and the Student- no matter how sincere the intent is- how genuine he effort may be- the student’s mind will ever remain a half soaked sponge! Unless and until the contextual settings of their lives, the desires/goals don’t sync-in end-to-end, there will be no magic of greatness created and hence greatness is a rarity by itself and when it comes to evaluating that between a Teacher- Student relation, it’s even more rarer! Think about this bit! There are so many sport coaches around the world- not all are famous- but all are competent to be a sport coach! Sport coach may teach thousands of students, only one among them goes to be the game changer- an icon for the game, not all become world famous- only a few! This happens only when the intent/desire/goals/ aspirations of the students and the teacher align and are favored by contextual settings around. This is the singular secret to achieve greatness by learning from a great master and being able to create magic for everyone by deploying those great learnings!

Another vital aspect of teaching is that, the success/ failure of the teacher is not reflective of the competence/ incompetence of the teacher, rather it is reflective of the student- the student’s ability to remain steadfast, focused, observant and importantly the degree of awareness that the student has acquired! Consider this, if the teacher was the problem, you would have had either equally dumb or equally wise students and likewise the societies would have been too uniformly smart or dumb across, but that never happens ( how I wish!), and the reason for that is the fact that, is the Teacher- Student relationship, even the best teacher and the most vibrant content and quality will be of hardly any use, unless the student allows that to impress upon their hearts and minds! This final veto power- rather how that is used or abused is what goes on to shape the students approach, attitude and altitude that they are able to touch in their lives! As long as this is attuned to the philosophies, guidelines, content quality and has been improvised well, education and learning serves its purpose and individuals are empowered. It is these empowered individuals that go on to create vibrant societies and thats what makes the world a better place- as you see variation in the quality of empowerment- the society too will reflect corresponding variance in its ways of life!

One more final truth- The Teacher can be anyone- for the observant and curious mind- if you remember how you were when you were a toddler and a young kid- you went to everyone (unless you were cranked up) and you observed, studied and grasped what you could from everyone and anyone around- whether that was a human, an animal, a stone or a toy! All of that gave your mind a bossier dose of imagination, which as you grow also helps you to dream and perhaps the ability to dream is the biggest gift that we as humans have (sadly lot of them are forgotten, by the time we wake up and only nightmares keep coming back!). As long as you are able to keep your mind young- vibrant- like that of a baby- ever curious, asking questions, re-visiting the basics and reading that subject again and again just to know perhaps you will find something different now, maybe that sentence did not connect than, but now it does….so on and so forth, once you arrive at this frame of learning- you are a student for life and of life and there can be- rest assured no greater Teacher that you will ever meet than the life that you live and the lives that you are able to influence around you!

So what does a teacher do? You may want to finally ask this! Well as the Zen masters have said- The Wise Teacher, doesn’t tell you what to see, but rather where to look!, Likewise a wise Teacher doesn’t ever ask you what to think or how to think- the teacher simple presents the knowledge and the context. Applying your mind, researching, seeing the contrasts of narratives and deducing inference and logic is what the student’s mind is supposed to do! We live in an era, where what we hear, is crap, what we see or are shown is perhaps misleading, at a time when every person lives unto their own truth and one person’s reality seems to be another’s fiction, it only makes sense to empower students, by helping them to know the contexts allow their minds to deduce what they seem more appropriate through their research, curiosity and observation! The higher that quality, the higher will be their relative success in the times ahead!

Teachers’ through ancient history have always been and will always remain to be the unsung heros’ of the progress that we as humanity have witnessed across societies! Societies/ Kingdoms / Nations alike have risen and fallen in proportion to the rise and fall of the quality and value that teachers’ have been able to create and share with members of the society. Whenever and wherever Teachers’ have suffered, societies have taken a dive, when they have been empowered, societies have risen and raced ahead!

I leave you here, urging you to reach out to the student and the teacher within you and see who’s playing on your mind and who’s playing with your mind! Stay curious, stay inquisitive and no matter how far or how high you reach- stay grounded and read those lesson again- as your experiences of life get altered, the same things read earlier, begin to mean different!

Ciao for now! Will be back soon with another article, until then keep learning, keep teaching and stay connected! Observe and Think!

The makings of a banana republic!

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

As the world races from one election to another, one political narrative to another, what better time to actually explore if you and I are part, cause or effect of a banana republic in the making! Join me as we explore, to understand if we are where we should be or we are in some grave tight spot and if that’s the case is there anything that can be done about it? Except the high handed bitching and tea sessions wherein ideas are born and buried with no real consequence or intent!

All banana republics almost always start with an utopian concept- which wisdom says is pure shit, but for reasons varying from society wide ignorance, to war of the narratives everything in between colludes and ends up presenting the chosen path to be THE path and this how the disaster starts to unfold! More often than not banana republics at this stage are always enslaved to what I call as “Sway of the popular idea” These ideas can actually promise everything and anything, but what people tend to overlook is the fact that, these promises are completely useless and never what is actually required by the people! You would have seen recent examples around the pandemic as nations raced to develop strategies, you had everyone becoming an overnight expert on Virology and Viruses – irrespective of what qualifications people had or not- everyone had a brilliant idea (almost short of a Nobel Prize for Medicine) and every two weeks that idea resembled to be as dumb as the originator of it! In that space few wise people across the world gave this brilliant thought of shutting down the economies world wide and ended up transforming a health emergency into an economic one! So you, see examples like these and others are rampant everywhere and this is perhaps the first indication that the society where you are is racing ahead to be a ripened banana republic! So what gets societies and people to this zone?

Ignorance and Indifference- these are perhaps the the most fundamental of attributes that cause societies to become banana republic in their won way- at times – sections of societies pertaining to a particular service area end up becoming a sham or at times whole societies end up becoming one happy-go-lucky tribe and needless to say when that happens- anarchy sets in. The indifference and ignorance however manifests when societies are failed by people who are supposed to lead them and more importantly that goes a long way to speak volumes about the quality of leadership that a society has been exposed to not for a few moths or years, but in many cases for decades and generations! If you look around and want to see the singular thread that binds all progressive, non-banana republic societies it is the quality of leadership! The quality of leadership alone ensures that elements and constituents within society never end up being indifferent or ignorant- whether members of a society like something or not, their being vocal and visible about an issue is at the core of a vibrant and thriving society!

When leadership begins to fail people, ignorance sets in first, if not checked, then indifference sets in and once this overlooked, well nothing actually remains about the original society to begin with! Based on intrinsic attitudes and disposition of individuals few people will embrace ignorance as nothing really matters to them, likewise few will try to be indifferent and try to stay focused only on what matters to them! Let me explain, say you have the most challenged sections of the society- these are those people who, even in normal times are struggling to just stay alive- Naturally they will not give a damn to anything because all that they care is about staying alive and that’s how it is- these are the people who bring in the element of ignorance. Next, you have that section of society which has access to what they aspire for and hence that brings in the indifference to all the other aspects developing around because as long as they are not impacted, they would really not care even if the neighbor’s house burns down! No matter which society you are part of, these two sections can drive a sane society crazy to become a banana republic and societies which have an increasing numbers of these two sections of indifferent and ignorant people, reach that stage rapidly with predictable certainty! So what can be done about this, is there some way ahead?

It all starts with the quality of leaders and their leadership. You see, true leaders who inspire, lead and act not only manage to lead and direct societies, but importantly are able to carry along with them each and every section of the society thereby reducing the number of people who tend to be ignorant or indifferent. True leaders rally empathically and solicit participation from every corner of the society that they lead and this goes on to create live, vibrant societies, where discussion, debate and collaboration become healthy and way to live all done with a singular focus to create a better tomorrow for everyone involved! Needless to say, it is only when real leaders are allowed to lead and connect that societies thrive and are kept away form the impending dangers of turning into a banana republic. So how can you and I make the difference?

Well each time you get an opportunity to select a leader, weigh the importance in this context, you want a leader who can direct and lead to a future that is inclusive and for everyone and not for a select few. You want to elect a leader who thrives and believe in individuality and collaboration as well. It is only when unique individuals collaborate that a vibrant society emerges and it is from this vibrance that stories of human progress and growth get etched into the memoirs of humanity! When you and I become the leader or choose a leader, we are not only ensuring our today but importantly we are creating a promise for the future to ensure that the societies that we are living in don’t end up being a banana republic threat we don’t want them to be! Finally, even if they do, we all know how long ripe bananas live and the rejuvenation is always certain, the only problem that, its painful, rapid and complicated, all of which is better avoided!

I leave you here with a singular thought, that whether you lead or are being lead, do ensure that you carry along with you every single person that goes on to make the fabric of your society, vibrant and thriving societies are the only real promises that we can offer to our following generations to continue the advancement and progress of humanity, the way it should be!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one! Until than, stay connected, lead or be lead mindfully!

The life of ideas.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

With over 7.5 billion of us around, every second there is a thought, an idea coming to birth and dying away somewhere around this planet! This article tries to look into what makes ideas stick, what makes them fizzle away and why some never see the light of the day and importantly why like with everything else, its not about how many ideas but rather, what’s THE Idea, that always goes on to make the difference! So here we go!

As humans, even when as we come to this world as a fragile bundle of soft and hard parts, that wonderful hard wiring of nature- called curiosity kicks in much before we begin to connect and make real sense of the people and objects around us. The initial formative years are where all the difference is created- between genius innovators and smart innovators and day dreamers! Someone rightly said this, we are all born intelligent and smart, it’s the education (really speaking the quality of education) and the social framework that ruins our potential and with that our ideas and the intrinsic ability to ideate! Certainly I am not suggesting that education is bad or under-serving- the real issue is that much of today’s education is directed at asking individuals to think in a particular way (which serves the immediate social context!) rather than simply helping them to master the process of creative thinking! Like the great philosophers have said earlier, real teachers and masters never ask their student what to see- rather they tell them where to look- what they find, interpret, infer after seeing what they do see, is what creates that differentiation between the power of individual minds to be either awesome, rich or average! Anatomically speaking we can’t be comparing about our brains more than what we can about our complexion or natural color of our eyes or hair, what matters is irrespective of what we are endowed with, how well is that we end up using what we have rather than cribbing about what we don’t have (in many cases its good that we have what we have!) Knowing this background of competing complexities, its really a wonder that humanity has been able to come up with clutter breaking innovative thoughts, ideas and implement them and contribute to the progress which has git us to the point where we are today! Not to forget, behind every success story of an idea, are hidden hundreds, if not thousands of stories of failures and second best solutions which never saw the light of the day, simply because, when it comes to ideas-during a bygone time of our history- it was about- who arrived first and now it’s about who markets it the first! Needless to say, behind every celebrated innovator, are hidden in the closet, skeletons of hundreds of equally intelligent and wise souls- who simply were failed not because of anything to do with their idea- but the simple essence of timing- being there in that moment of time, place and audience- when it mattered the most! So where does the journey of an idea begin really? How does it unfold and what is there for us to learn and unlearn about it? Read on..

Human curiosity when given the right contextual settings rewards us back with an amazing result, ingenuity and the ability to come up with complex or simple solutions that provide relief to some pressing challenges which are in front of us! As long as the immediate surroundings are conducive, receptive and eager to adapt the idea into their fold- as a society or a nation- the idea will live to see the light of the day, then what follows the story of its extent of success is more to do with the quality and the content of the idea- how much meat that idea has intrinsically within and how much is that really dependent on the original ideator! Let me explain this! We have all now about the great surgeon in our country who changed the face of some surgical method and thereby made it easy for everyone to access and get healed! Well now since this technique is perfected by that particular individual, needless to say, as long as he stays there, it works, even if he were to train others, there is never a guarantee that they will be as good as he is or if they will continue to remain as economical and accessible as this person was! So you see, in this case this great idea will only as long as this person is there and with his going away, the context of that idea will never remain what the original thought would have been behind it! This is a classical example wherein the idea remains as the sovereign domain of the Ideator!- Nothing good or bad about it- it’s just that some ideas are supposed to stay this way as far as their lifespan is concerned! Great artistes, innovators, designers, engineers- virtually everyone whoever came up with a creative genius of an idea which could be done and executed in a specific manner- always ensured that the idea had a limited shelf life- albeit the lifetime of the original ideator!

Next, we have those moments in history where the opportunities were out there hidden in plain sight and all it took was some casual or directed observation of an individual to create a rage and a new order or etiquette within societies to adapt and move on with a new lifestyle. This is the domain of ideation wherein the birth of the idea has largely been to facilitate ease of living for humanity and all it takes is one person to observe carefully and plan out a way around the problem! Recent examples the drones that come to drop off your shopping bags, the hailing apps to get a cab or a transport, sure enough that online shopping portal- which has simply gone ahead to make our lives easy and expensive! Well, if you have a closer look to all these modern day, application driven or rather technology based ideas that have made ease of living a possibility- one thing is common that is- they are empowering, simplified, well designed end-to-end (else they would not stand a chance for a day) and they are salable, reproducible and no one is ever complaining about the format or the scheme of the model being replicated- because it just goes to add to the reinforcement power of the original idea and thereby ensures that people stay glued to this space- Basically as more and more people tend to emulate- more and more people start to believe this is the right way and tight thing to do- so these are those ideas which alter lifestyle sand bring about change, sure enough they come with their own costs and banes- which we will discuss some other time!

Finally, the space of that club of ideas, which I call them as milestones in humanity which changed the equation for us to advance further like never before! These are those ideas which come through the mind of a genius but then have to be carefully crafted, worked and developed on an ongoing basis to ensure that ideas stays in-sync with the time and continues to serve the purpose that it has been created for! Very often, this is the space of ideas that come from the areas of pure scientific research and applications that go on to work in various areas of our society from thereon! There are multitudes of industries where you can find these ideas, that exist and thrive- whether its the aviation sector, the weathermen around the world, the medicines and medical devices that keep you alive longer than you actually should be around, that technology of drip irrigation which enabled deserts to bloom, the whole concept of renewable power and integrated electronics, so on and so forth, many such- All these are what I call as great ideas that came from one mind but through collaboration, creativity and openness became better and better with time and today our world seems to be a better place largely because of these collaborative ideas that live their own life alongside us- simply refusing to go away in majority of the cases these have been iconic and a blessing; but in a few rare cases these have been colossal disasters and are as yet a looming danger on our head- yes, you guessed it right that troubled double edged sword of the connected world through social media and all that snoopy surveillance that goes along through the gadgets that we use (or at times abuse, should I say) that led to this unwanted and unwelcome development- which also has ended up sticking around with us!

To give it a kind of sense, an idea whose time has come, is perhaps the most potent force, the reality of that fact although remains within the confines of the contexts where that idea is going to be deployed and how far or how deep it serves of impacts societies! An idea, in some cases as we saw, lives as long as it’s creator lives, in a few other cases, that idea which has been crafted stays much longer even after the creator has gone away- like a gleaming monument testimony to human intellectual finesse and in yet other cases, the idea simply breathes through us and lives alongside us- with every push of a button, there’s an automated idea algorithm already shaping the future of that application that you hold today or that purchase you did today and with every action, engagement, and disengagement we are creating and contributing to the ideas of tomorrow which will either ending up serving us the way we want them to or end up altering our approach and behaviors and make us behave the way the ideas want us to! If you ever wanted to get spooked by living in an era of runway idea and ideas created by machines- well we are already into it and at the moment wading through knee deep waters and with time, we will learn to swim and dive or drown away depending upon whether we adapt or ignore!

I will leave you here, for now; do take a pause to reflect on the idea that either you are working upon or shaping and think for a moment what its is all about and whether you are altering it or you are being altered by it, for that alone will define the future of humanity and decide whether we are able to guard our innate curiosity to be ever more enterprising and ingenious or we surrender to technology to come up with predictable scenarios of the future with needless to say predictable outcomes and pathways!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another article, until then stay wise, think, ideate and live that idea!

Simplifying Success.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

Well before you jump to any conclusion about what this article is about- let me right away help you with that bit- read on if you agree, believe and want to understand why “success” is a mirage, the way it is largely talked about- and in reality has more to do about “you” and “what you end up doing with that “you” part of you! Well don’t get confused; success is nothing more or less, but the story about you- me and each one us- success is about how we calibrate our existence and aspirations in the contexts that we are provided with- at times by choice and few times by compulsion! So, join me here and lets understand what really “success” implies and how you can do what you can and must do; importantly also what you mustn’t do!

As individuals we would have defined success over a million times by now! Whether we started that with our first essay at high school, debates during college elections or that typical Monday morning corporate rant about the progress and work of the organization or the team that you lead or are part of – virtually every day of our life- we are introduced to some story of success and the barometer of that success interestingly keeps changing! Well yes- What you measure as success matters, but importantly what also matters is how are you measuring what you measure and are you really measuring what matters? This I believe is perhaps the most important questions that we must pose to ourselves to first understand what is our definition of success and it’s only when that self-definition of success is congruent and aligned to the one that defines success for the form you work at or the business or cause that you live for- that magic will happen and eventually you will end up touching and experience success the easy it is meant to be!

As we look around the world that surrounds us, the person making a quick sale of burgers is as successful as the top-end fashion store down the lane, or the investors in the stock market or that off politician who lives to keep his promises! To begin with everyone’s success is everyone’s individual and contextual truth! So any comparison even between two or more people doing even the same things doesn’t really make sense for the simple reason that no two people are the same ever- even if you were to ask them to draw a simple circle on paper- both of them would do it the way they see a circle or more appropriately the way they are able to express the circle! What matters is how well the same person is able to get the circle more and more right with each time that he keeps at it and that is yet another real measure of success! It’s never about the other person- it all starts with the individual and ends with the individual for the simple fact that no two individuals are the same and each one us brings our personalities into whatever we choose to do- irrespective whether we serve a burger, sell a diamond or make the buck in the marketplace! It is always about how well we can keep doing what we do- over and over again and if that is scientifically reproducible and has finesse- is what success is really all about! You may want to ask me right about now, isn’t success about being above everyone else, lead the race, be that “number uno” and all that crazy stuff? Well, my question to you right back is – Who told you that?

The whole problem, like many other things with humanity is- these “acquired beliefs” were right from the time you show some abilities of cognition, each and every person around you starts to corrupt your amazing brain and the pure grey cells with the whole unwanted dose of “being better than”, “he did that/ she did that”, “you know what” all these kind of narratives and many more like these and what we end up doing is set our brains and ourselves in the trap of always seeking to know where we stand vis-a- vis “someone! Now, this someone could be your co-worker, boss, junior, that vegetable vendor, that beggar on the street, that business tycoon or that sly gambler- well what we end up programming ourselves into are these paranoid comparison seeking machines- who always seem to be anxious to wake up every morning to see how much gain or loss we have ended up doing to ourselves because of “others”! The moment we see we are better off (rather we assume and perceive- which is a different malaise altogether!) than a few or more of the “others” around we are relaxed and feel confident about ourselves for no real reason and yet at other times when we see more tycoons or that odd school friend who suddenly seems to have hit the jackpot of his life- we are left wondering and end up making ourselves feel more anxious and uncomfortable ever thinking what a low life we are (which again in many cases could be far away from what the reality is!). The important fact that perhaps no one told you or possibly you have forgotten to record and etch is that the “other” really don’t give a f**k to what you think, perceive and how you end up feeling about yourself by looking at them, for they continue to do what suits them and that’s the reality of life! Each of us, works to what we can, to the best we can and there’s nothing more and beyond that can be added to this fact and this is the foundation that we all stand upon, whether we like it or not; we build on the foundation that we stand upon- this depends on how we reflect within and how we cherish and aspire to build the structure that we desire! No one ever built a great monument by emulating an existing masterpiece! Know that for now and always! So how do we about knowing what success really is for us as individuals?

Start from the start! Whatever you choose to do- has to originate from within you- Self-Awareness is perhaps the greatest master-key that each of us have to our own lives! It is about not only knowing what all you can achieve given the contexts that you operate within, but rather it’s also about what you must leave out, when and how much is enough- that is basically knowing your trim level! Another important aspect to work towards your success is stop looking for role models- yes I heard it- you are probably thinking I am out of my mind – but this is a fact and the quickly you learn this the better for you and your aspirational part for your ever elusive success! There are a hundred reasons why people become successful and trust me when they do- not one of them want to tell you the whole truth and their real contextual settings around what made it possible- because that is where the secret lies- that bit is perhaps the most ordinary and non-glamorous stuff and it has a perhaps the biggest potential to rob away all that unwanted attention that people end up getting because”few” perceive and create the “noise” about them being “a success story”! People who cherish success from the confines of the social compulsions- and entrapped in the conformity bias- will always do whatever it takes to camouflage the ordinary as some extraordinary bullshit and weave fiction within the threads of reality to create a mirage which doesn’t make sense but people are made to believe because that billion dollar worth mansion makes everyone believe what they see and this is the space which you really don’t even want to get into unless you too want to end up complicating your success story for the times ahead! Let me explain this bit!

Consider this, you come across this person who has become a burger legend- suddenly you have his details all across the tabloids, the local TV channels, radio stations, the social media everyone is going ga-ga- about this sensation who seems to be in his mid twenties and then you have that amazing PR and talk show and that paid- talk show- going all across the nation- where this person speaks how he got inspired by the humble burger! (I mean really?) and then goes on to tell how he walked down the pavement saw a kid who couldn’t have a burger because it was expensive and that became his mission in life! (I mean..whatever!) Further then it cuts to the present- so I worked hard and here I am! Well, how does this shit sound? Inspiration right- now let me tell you what would really have happened! He would have used his rational brain to sense a business opportunity to sell burgers at a specific price point and went to meet a few investors, or a bank ot to his rich uncles (who are obviously hidden from the star gaze) borrowed or begged that money and started a store and which was going to be profitable (read success- for this person) and that’s about it! So now this narrative got a bit low key, boring and non- engaging right? Well, yes, it is and this is the fact of life! Success stories are always more than what meets the eye and unless you train your rational mind to dig and see what is beyond the obvious, all that you will end up doing is end up comparing yourself with fairy tale characters and end up living and being successful in a non-existent world! Don’t fall prey to the trap of believing what is said, shown and sold because “AB” or “XYZ” said or showed or awarded- use your grey matter and rationalize what you see and limit yourself to the stories and the contexts that matter and are relevant to you within what you want to achieve and as you want to define your “success” everything else is pure crap of nothing more than entertainment value! Remember, each one us goes to the heaven we construct- no one else’s heaven or angels are coming to your funeral!

Humanity has reached a pivotal point, wherein a globally connected society has started to turn onto itself to facilitate greed, narratives and ideologies that serve a few and end up harming many! The whole smokescreen that begins with the “very need to define success” is a big illusion! Think about it rationally, if as humans we are different, emotionally intellectually and even as we understand, perceive and communicate- irrespective of all other things around- why and how can “success” be calibrated to a few and pre-decided formats? The answer to this question lies in the annals of societal greed and mass manipulation through coerced narratives to drive societies in a direction that a few want and these “few” unfortunately are the very role models and those aspirational characters that many of us would eventually succumb too, unless we fail to see what really is beneath and around this big smokescreen!

The “few” are and will always remain anxious about everyone else around because of two primary tings; firstly the largely ordinary part of their “extraordinary” success story- the worry of that being exposed and secondly there being a complete lack of depth to do anything worthwhile in the real essence of it! You see, when innovators have faith in the solution that has been devised they collaborate and share and move ahead together with a team and partners so that the benefits reach far and wide and can be adapted to suit and serve the varying contexts around the world- case in point renewable energy sector! A brilliant example wherein harnessing the bounties of nature has crossed boundaries and that has enabled empowerment like nothing else! Sure enough not all regions have been able to benefit to the same extent- but that largely has had to do with the ability and competence to execute a brilliant solution more than anything else! Remember, “real success” never remains within the confines of the “few”, it seeks a pathway and reaches the multitudes, who are then able to empower themselves by adapting the richness of the solution in the contextual settings that suits the given society! So what’s the takeaway? Simple…

“You” are the foundation of your success and stop developing/relying on what you see, are told and what you perceive- everything may or can be a mirage! Your heaven is what you see at your funeral and no two people ever go to the same heaven even though their funerals may be alike! Your “truth” is your reality and this contextual setting is the essence to decide how high, how far and how fast will you be able to surge ahead and when you will stall with the idea that you have! Remember, the idea is never extraordinary, it is the method of application and execution of an idea that makes an ordinary one into an extraordinary success story! It really doesn’t matter what your definition of success really is, it could be that 5$ a day or that 5000$ an hour bit, what matters is how much of it comes from within you and how much of it do you really own and control; because even the greatest idea and thought will be undone once that control and intrinsic value which comes from within is lost! Stop the unwanted and unwarranted comparisons, be aligned to who you are, what you aspire to be and work to the best of what you can be given the contexts that you are set up within and against and once you have this core alignment synced in- you will touch your aspirations and taste the success as you should- irrespective of what others say or as they perceive what you do!

I will leave you here, grab your drink, reflect within and seek who you are to begin with to seek what your aspirations are and from there can begin the story of your success in an original way!

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

The Work From Home pandemic!

~ Parimal Aluri ~ 5 Comments

I know you may think, I am out of my mind, but trust me, when I say the next challenges pertaining to human creativity , collaboration and trust are all going to arise from this so -called magic bullet of work-from-home! Join me here as we try to gauge what is perhaps greatly amiss and why what’s missing here will eventually end up causing the next pandemic with connotations spanning the mental health, financial health and work health of individuals and corporations world over! So here we go!

As the virus came calling, governments did what humans are great at doing- imitation- yes imitate what’s happening with the other nation; so as one nation locked down, so did others- well not to blame anyone for so much little was even known as things started to go from bad to worse and by the time people knew what had to be done and there was too much of cheese all over the place to avoid people from tripping, falling and breaking their bones- so the holy answer to all problems became the lock down and with that piece of unwarranted medical harakiri came the second unintended consequence of “work from home”!

People forgot in no time,even their ability to think and see how suddenly, just because the law of the land said so,working from home became fine! It is the same company perhaps, which would have made you move houses so that you could cut the traffic and reach on time, perhaps it is the very same firm which said, the offer letter could be given only if you stayed within a 10 mile radius and can make it ot the office on time, these are the very same offices which cut your leaves, salaries because you clocked in ten minutes late , three times over in a month just as recently as a few months back, now they all seemed to be just fine- for them- even as your privacy and peace at home has been plundered, looted and laid threadbare- whether it is that pet calling for you attention, that maid coming in at the critical moment through you presentation or the small kid who simply doesn’t understand what the parent is doing toying around with an electronic gadget- all and many such more minute scenarios are laying the foundation for your next disaster in the making and if you are not careful, the next one will even shame the virus- because the next challenge coming your way will be more personal- created by you and can only be solved by you!

To begin with, let’s try to understand what has actually happened! One fine day, your organisation was informed it’s not business as usual- like many others you too rejoiced with the thought of being able to work in your pyjamas and seem cool- to post snaps from your kitchen and show your superhuman skills of being able to work at home and for office at the same time- well this was the first checkmate- you just proved to your firm that the work given by your firm- and the price at which it was given to you doesn’t seem to make any sense- so as a consequence- your work-from-home hours suddenly started to stretch beyond your levels of comfort and sanity- so that now forget the kitchen you also find it a challenge to relieve yourself! Add to this the next layer of complication that gets added when you have more number of family members “working from home”- conversations overlap, conversations are overheard, jokes become a pain point and tonality becomes a point of debate- next any remaining confidentiality- whether its that email to your colleague., vendor or boss- doesn’t miss the attention of the other members and often your emails will be spell checked and langage refined- finally at some point your people from office will know- you have got a communication expert sitting by you helping you counter your one more incompetence which now lies more exposed than ever!

Likewise there will be countless odditties that will come to the forefront and few of them will many a times not what you had been saying all the while to the people with whom you worked at the workplace and now that they have intruded your private space- well the sad fact is there is no place to go further and create ambiguity- so what does this to the trust between people? Well as colleagues you have mental images and comfort evolved dealing with specific individuals- not everyone you know makes you equally comfortable hence- you tell what you think is the level of comfort for both of you- but with this private space intrusion there is a new level of problem- a lot of people come to know what you have perhaps not told- because it may not have been necessary- or required or because you didn’t want to- in any case what that ends up doing (which again is unwarranted) is erodes a small amount of trust and once this process starts, trust me there is no going back and it’s just a matter of time that you will see so-called team re-alignments and working dynamics change and in extreme cases people shuffled across the board and in a few other case ejected from the system! All simply because your privacy got intruded and you really had not planned for this shit coming your way!

To all this drama when you add multiple stakeholders and also add the other work-from-home members from your residence (now which resembles kind of a public arena-because of the kind of activities that seem to start at 8am and end only around midnight!) the chaos and confusion only adds up and in some cases is bad enough to drive you crazy enough to either share some unpleasant exchanges with the people in the zone or simply hang up your boots and say a hasty goodbye to what would have otherwise been a smooth career pathway- the one that you had aspired for and set out to achieve right from your college days! So what’s really happening here? Is there a way out of this and way to manage this? How long will this go on and what’s really the matter- the work or you?

Let’s start from the beginning! Do you remember few of the conversations that you had when you took up this job (which has now intruded into your privacy)? Yes, topics like- work-life-balance, respect for private time, no calls or emails on holidays and weekends, why you must move closer so that you can commute and be in the office! Why the office discourages working from home- because they respect your privacy! and now this very office is advocating the very opposite of all that was said and agreed upon- why? The Virus- not at all- you see, global businesses, whether you are selling donuts or some high end jwellery have been under stress even before the pandemic broke out and globally the capitalists led- world of corporate blue collared elites have been waiting for an opportunity to correct the systemic wrongs and the pandemic just happened to be the blessing in disguise that they were ecer waiting for! This once in a lifetime opportunity gave them the reason to dishonour their corporate lease agreements, defer payments to vendors and staff indefinitely (unless in few nations where in the governments intervened and set the rules of engagement – to salvage some sanity), get even with the governments of the day to extract deep discounting for the next few years so on and so forth, not to forget the reset of their banking terms and conditions (the corporate ones- even as at an individual levels you still get hounded by debt collection calls!) So you see, the real thing about asking you to work from home is the least interest of your safety- but in the larger interest of corporate finance and the compulsions that go around with the nexus of business and politics the world over- nothing to say good about and nothing to whine- because neither I am the business nor the government! and you ended up thinking the work-from-home- intrusion to your privacy was a sacrifice that you are doing for upholding your company! Well keep thinking that way- and wait for the next nightmare!

The other serious level problem that has happened is that as individuals begin working connected through distributed spaces- human brain the way it is- trust erodes rapidly and you add a personality angle to it, this differentiating rate of trust erosion for all the right and wrong reasons helps accelerate the fall of teams and bring in the “new order”- read creating lean teams as the new need of the day- thereby kicking in pay cuts and job losses- each and every aspect of this is linked to the innocent looking solution of “work-from-home”! The things that help this, are the ability to track meticulously- time everything to the nth second and no more- lobby meetings, board room chats and walk around the office so the sudden addition of a 60-80 minutes of additional time through the day- ironically enough ends up making you look more non-productive than ever before and you too begin to loose a grip as the normal way of planning does not help as work seems to get over sooner than you think and as the battle to prove efficiency amongst colleagues takes centre stage- each one send sup undoing the other one and eventually create enough fluidity so that when the time comes- all are swept away in one masterstroke of team realignment! The only way that individuals hope that the organization still holds interest in them is by understanding if their home-office furniture ordered is coming in or not! I mean really! So is there anything that we can do, if this is all a game cast at the upper crest of societies and nations, do we stand a chance?

Well, as history says, when the war is with the system, you need to be in the system to beat the system or develop and evolve it, never has anyone been able to alter the course of history by staying aloof, unaffected or away from it! The fact remains that even as we engage and present ourselves to work with corporates or business houses- irrespective how experienced or inexperienced you are- you need to have your own intrinsic non-negotiable terms and conditions! Like all offices have a office rule book or a manual or better still a code of work , you too need to come up with a code book for your life- I mean, after all isn’t that the most important thing that you should ever be bothered about? Something that core and intrinsic, because when all else and everyone leaves you at some point in time- which they will certainly do- what stands with you apart from your shadow will be the core values systems and the intrinsic systems that construct and make you who you are! This, my friend is the essence of being able to stand firmly and face all the storms and high waves that may ever come your way- by harnessing the strength of who you are and for that to happen you need to be connected within and know yourself as well as you know the vocation that you pursue nor the people who matter you! Once you have cracked this essential adb vital code, rest assured, there could be a hundred more vurusses coming your way, the next time an organization asks you to work-from- home,you will know what is coming your way and chances are you’ll either insist to work form office or politely ask them to get in touch with you once the offices reopen! Exposing your private life for the capitalist greed of businesses and politicians is the last thing that you should ever do- this is similar to a soldier allowing spies into the nation! Think about it! Is anything really worth it -at the cost of peace, harmony and the wellbeing of the core unit that you represent in the society- the family that you have!

The work-from-home pandemic is the greatest illusion and perhaps even more dangerous than the virus, the virus will eventually will be tamed- there be vaccines and solutions through medical interventions, but the pandemic of work-from-home if allowed to get a foothold- will end up eroding the basic functional units of the societies the world over- these units could be families- small or large, could be partners living together, could be friends, or good people working on something bigger and better together! All of it will be lost to be enslaved to the greed of the growing capitalist clut with or without collusion of the political class of the day! The only way through this and to stem this, is by knowing who you are, what your value systems are and very importantly having the courage to say No- when enough is enough and guarding your private zone with every ounce of courage that you have!

I leave you here with these thoughts, for you to reflect, what your experiences have been and possibly urging you to create a blueprint for yourself and the unit that you hold close to you- so that you guard yourself from the next attack that may come your way disguised as yet another some new way of living or working!

Ciao for now, grab that coffee and I will be back soon with another article!

The way of the wise.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

When you think you are mopving about the world, whioch by now resembles a fools’ paradise, all the more improtant then ever before to do what’s in your best intererst and the only key to ensure the safety and sanity of yourself and those around you! The only thing that you can do and must do is follow the “way of the wise”! Join me here as we undertsand what’s this great or rather simple “way of the wise” and why it is perhaps the only thing standing between humanity and insanity in the times that we are livibg by!

Dumbness, stupididty, idiocracy, not-being-so -right, well these and many more such thoughts and obesrevations are mroe or less widespread across the world at the moment as I pen this article! Whether you are in the USA, the European Union, the Middle East , Asia or any other place that you can think of- chances are that the society that you are a part of – is right now struggling (rather made to struggle about an issue or an event). The funniest part of all this is that everyone- who is part of the society has joined the cause to overcome and prevail over the problem without even bothering to define what the problem is in the first place! These are the vital initial signals that you can gauage coming form a society whichis in the bad need to explore and find out tthe “wsie way” that meets it’s requirement to unchackle itself and come out of the fatal interanalisation of problems which are ate times real adn many times- perceived!

Let me explain you with an example- so far the world has lived through the vice-like grip of the pandemic for the last about 7 months now!- yes! it’s 7 months already! What has changed? Well apart from the financial meltdowns, playing our true charatcer to the fornt row audience more often then evere before- nothing else has much changed! Has our behaviour altered- well yes and now- Yes- in terms of how we have managed to while away our time at hand- seeking new unproductive ways to kill it- and No- in terms of anything worthwhile that has been created by any of ius- whcih you could say- Well- I was stuck so I created this as a mark of my reselience and steadfastness! The reason why many of us have possiblly ended up whiling our time without creating or adding anything worthwhile to ourlseves or others around us is becuase we failed to understand the essence of the “Wise way” to go about dealing with oursleves when the unknown manifetss the way it did this time around!

The more we tend to seek normalcy around abnormal situations and circumstances by imittating and copying what seems ot be the normal way of doing- we set ourselves up for untold misery- acts that are often carried out without any forethought and contextual understadning of what’s relevant in a given specific area, are always bound to be shortlived solutions which come back haunting in the form of even larger ghosts that simply refuse to die or kill themsleves! One such vivid example of the recent time has been the “Lock down solution”, as the pandemic set, this became the proverbial master key to find a quick solution to a probelm whcih was hardly understood and was evolving each day! The consequecne- unwanted- unplanned and myopic lockdowns the world over have neded up finishing off livelihoods and lives with it- killing mroe people indirectly by stetting them up for financial distress and failures and if the Virus doesn’t kill them, the financial meltdown and disster resulting from itsurely will! So what’s the solution? What’s the right way? The right way and the only solution for all times- good and bad- easy and challeneging is to follow “The way of the wise”.

The “way of the wise” isn’t a magic bullet that answers all your problems, neither does it solve all your problems- what it does is- it allows you to deal objectively and effectively with the situartions and contexts that come your way! This is what changes the tide in an indidvidual’s favour and this is, indeed the essence of the “way of the wise”!

The Way of the Wise- is all about creating unique pathways and realities to better understand the developing contexts around oneself. It is about having minute to minute awareness and understaindg with ample clarity of what’s unfolding and how that will impact- where- which area- by what magnitude. You see, once you are able to be in the now- and are coinnected with whats around and witin you in the moment- you are empowered more then ever to take decisions that lead you to the contexts which begins to align with you, for your cuase and your objective with every right step that you build over the earlier one! Its these incremental right steps taken one after the other by being immersed in the ensuing moments that allows one to create a pathway which is empowering, liberating and above everything else able ot provide meaningful solutions to the evolving contexts as one keeps moving along in the right direction that one is locked on to!

The way of the wise- is certainly not about having all the answers to all the prblems that come in ones’ path, rather it’s also a pathway that’s littered with failures and unsuccessful attempts that have been done in one moment- to be corrected in the next and this moment to moment perfectioning of the imperfections of ones’ apporaches is also an essence of the wise way! It is a pathway that assures meaningful outcome only once all that is unmeaningful and unserving has been completely ejected within and around you! The way of the wise is about being achored to the objectives of the thought process that seek answers to a moment in time- in a way that these asnwers build upon over a period of time to provide reproduciblee and assured outcomes the way that humanity would want more of!

The way of the wise- is also about being one within and with people around you with an aim to serve and be serviced- this is different then the rigmarole of what can you do for me and how can I help you- believe it or not most of the problems- real and perceived that the world today is grappling with are a direct cosnequence of the second approach I just mentioned! Through the anals of history, turn any page and walk into any era that you wish to across any kingdom/civilization- the singular fact that you will come across will reveeal one thing- Each time that humanity and society has failed on the element of being “Of service” to one another and to each other in the real meaning of the term- humanity has set itself up for failures and disasters-over and over again! The endless pursuit of greed which has been written across all coisties that have ever been created by us- has always been at the cuase of the decline and eventual demise of those societies!

The way of the wise is all about- being glued to the path of purusing the greater good and creating what serves humanity rather being self-serving and self-centric! Its about developing pathways and solutions which resolve contextual challneges both as they develop and also create humanistic benchmarks to ensure that when similar challenegs crop up or seem to crop up- there exist proven and tested approache to deal with those kind of situations as long as the contextual compulsions reamain valid!

The way of the wise- is the collective way- a way that fosters collaboration- togetherness and thrives on shairng benefits and pitfalls alike so that humanity knows where to venture next and where to avoid next- this goes a long way to ensure that given the short life that each of us have as humns- we don’t end up pursuing what already has been achioeved or end up puruing someting that has already been recorded a pure utopia! A fignment of imagination! It’s only the colletcive concoiosuiness that can allow humanity to build upon itself and create societies and nations which are able to gravitate to work for teh greater good and the only way ton esnure that happens is to follow the Way of the Wise- without flinching a moment away from that space or path!

I will leave you here with these thoughts for you to relfect- if you have indeed ever walked the way of the wise- or if you have been among the wise- who had ambarked on that path? Were you ever able to service another human being around you? What was that moment like? Were you able to witness a society in action while it was following the way of the wise? How was that moment? How did that change you? If you have indeed not as yet, felt any of this, what’s your plan to create or follow “The Way of the Wise”?

Ciao for now, I will be back soon with another article! Until then stay wise, stay safe and yes, don’t fix what’s not broken and don’t re-invent what exists!

The power of “Quiet”!

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

Paradoxical as it may seem, amidst the growing chaos and noise the only real hope and sanity comes from the island of “quiet”. Join me here as we try to explore the gifted confines of quietness and appreciate how and why empowerment that comes from the stable of Quietness is more often – the most pivot one and has the ability to lead and effect change and order like nothing else that humanity has ever known! So here we go!

Before we understand how and why, “Quiet” hods formidable power, we must understand what do the unquiet spaces around us look like and what they really are! It is the magnitude, depth and the extreme difference between the Quiet and the Unquiet that directly creates the contrasting effect which makes us choose one over the other depending on what drives us and who we are!

Our routines have always, well almost always have been of getting something done- whether that’s a task at hand or whether it’s about achievement something that we have set out for – for that limited period of time! This simple and singular approach to loving our lives- results us getting into the famed Tunneled approach to life- wherein we start to shut off and ignore everything and anything that doesn’t seem to serve our purpose of movement in the direction of the task or act that we are all set out to accomplish! Well, so far there is nothing right or wrong about this space- each one to his own- as I always keep saying- the last thing you need is a prejudiced coach- which I am not! So even as people keep chipping away and racing ahead- what actually happens is that- people get drawn and consumed by the noise and sounds created around and within them- which are nothing more but the consequence of their own set pieces of priorities, solutions and challenges- at times convergent and many times divergent! It is from these ever increasing divergence of daily lives that people often end up creating more and more noise and sound with each passing moment and end up loosing and forgetting everything about what’s beyond the obvious and often hidden in plain sight!

The times that we live in, are cluttered with islands of noise and sound- few of these are our own creation and many other that surround us at all times are but echo chambers which we end up building and developing either by the element of “likeness” or by the “eclectic groups” that we create as we go by our busy lives- next important aspect to note is that as the multiplicity of these islands goes on increasing in space and time- even at an individual level we are all but drowned in an ever increasing maze of noise and chaos- at times this helps when the resonance is to do with the element of creativity and innovation, but in majority of the cases the whole space gets just drowned into one never ending space of noise and sound- at times the sounds of today and the bedrock of eternal noise for times ahead!

What is even more baffling is that humanity seems to have taken a strange liking to this whole phenomenon of begin heard to, speaking up and creating an impact- irrespective whether true depth and merit of content and context exists or not! In fact societies are increasingly even the rarer occurrence of calm and lack of chatter or noise as unwarranted regression and then are compelled to rake up something or the other just to ensure that there is that noise going around at all times regardless whether that is warranted or not and whether it makes sense or not! So why have we walked to this point? so much ahead that even when a part of our own thinking ability tries to indicate the contrary, we end creating the all too familiar patterns of noise and sound through our self driven compelling approach. What is this all about? What does it speak about societies and about us as Individuals and is there are way around this? Is there anything more powerful to vaporize this automated self consuming behaviour?

Well, to put it simply, globally societies have always been defined with regards to their opulence or success as a factor of how much noise and sound is being created within and around them! This fundamental flaw has ended up eroding any sense of contextual or content sanity that societies would have earlier had – through their traditional disposition, culture and arts! There were times and pauses in history when, no news was a great thing- for that meant- all’s well and no one is getting killed or no one is planing anything radical! Over a period of time, the never ending need (at times regulated, at times self- mandated) to be present in the news, discussions and even to feature within gossip has been made the norm- a social barometer of acceptance- so if you or your idea or your business has not been of late discussed at the eclectic circles and has had no mentions – whether the right or wrong (who really cares!) it meant that you have not yet arrived at the scene and you are yet to be recognized as a true entity! This kind of unforgiving societal bias and social compulsion is what has been at the foundation of the noise and sound laden society that we live by! This singular factor has contributed more than anything else to the tons of electronic garbage and media madness that plays out day in and day out across mediums and across channels endlessly irrespective whether any of that crap makes sense or not and this is the whole reason why this approach has now started to take a toll on the very people who devised this game and now even they are feeling the ice like grip of what I call as “failing fatigue” – the moment wherein you have no longer the power to either manage direct or sustain the nonsense that you had let loose and which is now all geared up to come back at you like a boomerang to extract it’s due!

No matter how hard or difficult it may seem to escape from the space around noise and sound, the fact remains that, perhaps this is the easiest of the things to do and the only way to do that is to tap into your internal power of “Quiet”. Once you have tapped into this small and calm island within yourself-trust me it holds unimaginable power to steer you clear away form all and any noise and sound that you may ever want to- irrespective whether you have been the person who has created it or whether you have the person who has played a role in amplifying it! You must be now wondering what makes “quiet” so effective and such a deadly force to reckon with!

Unlike everything else, “Quiet” needs no audience- for it, by itself is the audience and the artist! Once you know this bit and you have accepted this, your life is rest assured immune to the onslaught of any and all noise and sound that you can ever imagine coming your way! This is that space from where”Quiet” gets its power- that power comes from the deepest confines of who you really are- at times you are aware of and many times you simply are unaware or refuse to accept or acknowledge! The power of “Quiet” comes from the tranquil of the construct that each one of us is as uniquely as we must be and are- when we either decide not to accept or decide to challenge that island of calmness, is when we go about in the world- refusing to stay or remain “Quiet” and create enough Sound and Noise all along the way to such an extent that by the time we realize how far wasted all of that has been- even the largest of islands of “Quiet” becomes hopeless and helpless in front of you!

If you are even left in the slightest of doubts as yet, practice the pause and like the wise Himalayan masters often say- Feel your breadth- for once you have done that at least once- you will for once come to learn- how much of all the sound and noise around you has been worthwhile and if anything at all was ever! “Quietness” or “Quiet” is perhaps the the only virtue that takes you as close as possible to the universal energies that one must tap into or can tap into and once you have been to that place- no amount of attention/ inattention, sound, noise, appreciation or criticism can ever make you feel any way the way your “Quietness” makes you feel! At bliss with yourself- attuned to what matters and ignorant of all that one must be!

I will leave you here, with these thoughts- time for you to connect with your “Quietness” and disconnect with all that sound and noise! The only humans who ever made a difference to humanity have always been the ones’ who have been connected with others through themselves!

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

The hour-glass (effect) comes next.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ 2 Comments

Even as we emerge out of the shadows of the pandemic and pick up the pieces of what is remaining to rebuild and revisit our lives, livelihoods and priorities the fact remains that, we are not going to be coming back to the way the things were earlier at least for the next 12 – 24 months depending on which part of the world you are! Even as we overcome what has hit us, we must prepare for, what I like to call as the Hour-Glass Effect, something which has already started and will go on to dominate our lives for a couple of years at least! This article is about, understanding what this is and what we can possibly do or not do, to be sure that we have our dear life in the right areas of the emerging hour-glass! So here we go!

Let’s examine on the political front, what we see around is that there is an increasingly sharper division among the political class the world over, unlike the earlier times when there was space in the middle to ensure that a dynamic and progressive balance is offered to the nation (to keep moving ahead) without any extreme alignments to the right or the left, now it has become the survival of the either ends of the ideologies that the world of politics is known for- irrespective which nation you belong to what state government you are ruled by- if you are living in a democratic set up- you either are making a choice between a radically polarized nationalist front or trying to hold on o a liberal and more accommodating popular front.Well there is nothing, more that I want to suggest here; each of us is free to choose our own path to to our grave- doesn’t matter which end you lean because at both ends what you have are politicians, the real problem is the stretching of the hour-glass right in the middle- the stretch which would have normally been of an adequate proportion seems to be drawn out and made more and more thinner with each political move and this is what throws the society into further chaos- because the society is compelled to collapse onto itself with no space to move, act or even breathe- let alone exist!

If politics plays its part, how can society be left untouched! At the very moment that I am writing this, thousands of families would have either made it to the upper- more opulent part of the hour-glass escaping the intense pressure and crush at the thinned out central space and there would millions who would have been pushed down back to the bottom – most of them reaching back where they would have been a few years or perhaps even decades back! Don’t be surprised, its relatively simple- as the political class go on to play what they are good at, the economic indicators are often let loose to alter the disposition of societies- at times willingly and few times accidentally by oversight- it’s anyone’s guess about what it is – with regards to the events that we are witnessing now! As this happens, the societies move and adjust to get into the old two class system- those who have and those who don’t and each of these sets then begin to carve out their own goals to co-exist with or without confrontation and as this happens over the period of time you see once again the coming of age of the so-called middle strata- middle class once again and the whole cycle start again as the hour glass gets flipped by then! This is what really happens and given the lifespan that each one of us has- rarely will we have a chance to witness the whole cycle through the meaningful period of our lives- and as depending when this cycle hits us individually either we become those dazzling sunrise entrepreneurs or we are forced into the oblivion of darkness through early exit form the professional stage with no time or resources left to re-build or re-start anything meaningful all over again- simply because there is no time left!

If nations,societies can be impacted then what makes you think, that as an individual you will be spared! In fact to be honest, it is the impacted individuals who go on to make the choices which determine the stretch of the hour glass and the quantum of right choices then enables one to reach a comfortable zone within the right space in the hour-glass and bad decisions are routinely rewarded with uncomfortable positions and spaces which manifest as societal discord being played out in the streets on a daily basis! So you see, it is about the choices that we as individuals make that determines the stretch of the central section of the hour-glass and if we are wise and swift enough to make the right one, we are bound to be at the right place no matter how many times the hour-glass is flipped or shaken! The beauty is that the choice always remains with us and within us! So how do we go about ensuring that we are in that sweet spot and are able to be in a zone that is safe enough ton make the adjustment but stay relevant at all times? Well read on!

The trick is deceptively simple, firstly irrespective of everything and anything else, follow the old maxim of creating friends and enemies that you can live with but get get killed by! Once you have the contextual settings around you in control you are certain to always calibrate your aspirations, risk appetite and recklessness in direct contrast to your immediate surrounding- this ensures that even if you hit the deepest and the oddest of all potholes, you will survive and live to tell the tale and begin all over again! Next, calibrate and define your achievements/ success stories to yourself not to the settings around you! You see, if you are going ton end up building sandcastles by the beach, they will not last, that’s a fact, at some point of time either the sea will claim it or the crabs will use it! As long as your success comes from within you, because of who you are and not because of what is told to you- about who you are- you will be just fine! Each one of us is unique, needless to say, even the thought of comparing our success/achievement with anyone else around is the dumbest things that we can ever end up doing!, so never ever do that! Finally once you have a refined sense of what makes you- who you are; once you have a refined understanding about what is your definition of success; you will always then be scanning the contextual settings around you- at all times; not to compare but rather to know what’s out there which may harm and stall your progress. Your heightened self-awareness will go a long way to provide you with that vital early-warning system which will tell you well in time (more than others) to make the needed amends so that as the flip of the hour-glass occurs or as the constriction commences you are well ahead and safe enough to manage yourself and those around you!

Well the hour-glass will flip and will continue to constrict and expand around the centre in an endless cycle – that is perhaps what life is all about! What matters though is that in the short times that we have, it will only make sense that we make an effort to be at the right place within the hour-glass so that no matter how hard it is shaken, or how tight the constriction is, we are able to prevail for our own well being and for the people who depend on us- whether that’s our family, our society or our nation or the global community, depending on who you are, larger will be the dependence and higher the need to prevail and overcome the hour-glass effect and the only way to do it, is by – Being who you are!

I will leave you here with these thoughts for now, to reflect and contemplate , where you are within this hour-glass and how well you are prepared for whats happening now and what will happen later- because the hour-glass will keep flipping as and when its time arrives!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another article! Until then stay safe, stay wise and keep time!

Intellectual Fatigue.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ 1 Comment

The human brain is as amazing as anything there is in the universe! the only organ in the entire body, that can play the fool with you and offer you respite and nightmares in equal measure as you deserve them!This article is about trying to learn more about the human mind, the manifestation of intellectual fatigue and its’ about possibly learning to stop – when we must- because going about our daily lives with a tired and fatigued brain can cause more harm than you can ever imagine! This is about understanding how we end up possibly tiring our self (much of the time without a reason) and if there’s anything that we can do about- the tired brain and the manifesting intellectual fatigue!

We live in an era, where information is constantly evolving by the second, things change, contexts keep shifting and the mind is exposed to one new truth after the other, without any real time to explore the underlying causation and we are ever driven into a mode to course correct our approach to life, as we learn new things about the situations around us and this loop is driven more tighter by the intrinsic urge of “wanting to get control over our now” and this is the space where all complexities begin to get created and this is where simple things end up being complicated and we begin to add unwanted layers to existing problems- which at many times are nothing more but a passing phase!

The last two decades, have seen a literal explosion when it comes to access to information, knowledge and resources. As humans, we always have been aware of and as societies we have always strived to gain the upper hand when it comes to dominance of knowledge. Go by the number of patents files, the copyrights, the IPR’s all will tell you the same story- the urge and desire to dominate and control knowledge empowered bu human ingenuity which is propelled only by a fit mind- which is not tired and never defeated! This is where we arrive at a fundamental paradox, the abundance of information and knowledge causes intellectual fatigue at the one end while the same resources end up creating innovators and ingenious scientists among us- so what’s really happening? How can the same contextual set of information create two different results- one productive and progressive, while the other being withdrawn and regressive? The answer to this lies in the simple trick of keeping your mind lighter and in- the- moment (NOW) at all times! Let me explain!

When our mind is glued to the onslaught of information with no sense of direction/ purpose, the endless onslaught does noting more than tiring up our minds. At the same time if we are training our mind to seek a specific bit of information/knowledge for a limited period of time and for a particular objective that has been thought about- the same mind operates like a de-cluttering tool and blinds out everything else and gets going to the specific area of what you seek! So like a fine blowtorch the mind is sharp, intense and focused on a small area, unlike being diffused and blunt over a wide area- not knowing what it is supposed to do! This basic difference on how we use our mind either leaves it eternally fatigued or keeps it razor sharp and alert at all times- waiting to be unleashed for the next assignment! So now you may want to know, how to avoid this fatigue in the first place? Do we necessarily have to be always be alert and aiming for some invention? Well no, you don’t have to slog that hard to ensure your mind is healthy and not fatigued! You don’t need to be racing for innovation marathons either, what you must do is- keep things simple and be in the now!

The constant pressure to like/comment or wave at something over the social media space, that urge to contribute to opinions and pass judgement over the seemingly innocent cups of tea- creating half baked views about people and things (who really don’t care who you are and your views anyways don’t make a damn difference), instances like these and many more such episodes end up feeding our minds with an uninterrupted supply of intellectual garbage- and once your input is compromised- needless to say the output will be of a similar order and in the process ends up damaging the equipment- your brain! Remember that old saying- Watch your thoughts, they become your words- and watch your words for they will become your actions and so on and so forth- basically what you think and what you focus on thinking is what you will end up becoming and if your thinking is cluttered and tiring- you will never have an ounce of enthusiasm left to even pick the next grocery bag- forget about leading yourself or teams or organisations! Cluttered minds- are often the most tired ones’ not because they have been constantly at work- rather they have been grossly abused and put to action and think over- almost everything and anything that is around except what is relevant! This is the real reason why our minds get tired or fatigued- It’s not by doing what we want to- but more often it is by doing what we don’t want to , need to or are forced to do- the way we don’t want to!

Tackling Intellectual fatigue can be done by a simple process of alignment! Once you learn to align your thoughts and your approach to the contextual settings around you, with a definite purpose and you have clarity in how you go about your life- automatically the needless clutter will vaporize and you feel lighter and will surprisingly find that your mind too feels energetic! As you create a routine to stay focused to the purpose driven approach that you have and as all your thoughts and actions align to this approach- you will see – you won’t have time for gossip, that social media presence (which never really produces any worthwhile results) and hence with lesser non-productive stuff to deal with, your mind has enough energy left at all times to rise to the occasion and perform at things that really do matter and contribute to the alignment that you have chosen! This approach however must not be mistaken akin to someone to get serious with life- no way- this is about – creating an approach wherein you are aware and invested in your present time- so that you know how much of what to soak in and what to let go and what time- this ensures you have a lighter mental baggage to carry along at all times and as you travel light- you can adjust and harness the power of your minds as the situation at the hour demands form you!

At the workplace intellectual fatigue can manifest from areas and dimensions beyond one’s control, it could be as simple as doing what you don’t like- too easy or too hard or it could be the over riding manifestations of other people dynamics that play out- which seem to continually overplay and dominate the focus or approach that one plans to take- all these or any of these overbearing circumstances can make one feel mentally tired and eventually this reflects through work- lack of focus, mistakes, arguments, etc etc and this often results into the individual being ejected form the system! The way and perhaps the only way to arrest Intellectual fatigue from cropping up at the workplace is – having the right minds at the right places- (not right people). You see, we live in a hyper dynamic work arena and even if we were to have the right people but with the wrong minds- that is more than enough to trigger the fatigue syndrome and if we are speaking about close knit teams than this intellectual fatigue is as infectious as it can be! Sure enough you will be able to replace the old people with new minds across the team levels but you will still not know what hit you- because you will think you always had the right people- the only problem being you had the right people for sure but not the right minds at the right places!

The human mind, is amazing and in a way has a mind of it’s own! The fact remains that a tired and fatigued mind- doesn’t help anyone- nor the owner, neither the people around, a vibrant and energetic mind is always ready to pull off the incredible even in adverse times and provide respite to one and all for a greater good! This is the fundamental truth and the reason why we need to take more efforts to ensure we don’t end up tiring our precious mind for mindless things and the digital garbage that lies strewn across the digital landscape! Use your mind like it should be! If it’s a precious gift that you have, use it like one, if that’s the most potent weapon that you have, use it like one, if that’s the hope you have for humanity and the society you live in- use it to further that cause! Remember the mind is never fatigued when it is used with purpose and direction, it thrives & improves with challenges/ uncertainties and risks; it begins to experience fatigue when the surroundings are unbecoming and too junked for it to exist and operate!

I will leave you with my thoughts here; do think, if you experienced intellectual fatigue and what was it like- and why was it! I am sure whatever that reason would have been, your mind would have helped you to steer away from that clutter to ensure you keep progressing on a path of self- empowerment through an alert and vibrant mind!

Ciao for now, I will be back soon with another article, time for a coffee break! The mind needs one!

What do you “Benchmark”?

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

Benchmarking, by itself is a very interesting space to be in! You see, we all have worked at some or the other time in companies that have always screamed from the top of the world- that they value and respect ingenuity, innovation and uniqueness- then why do they always benchmark these apparently different and unique people when it comes to annual growth packets, opportunities or setting so called standards? What’s really happening? Join me here, as we explore and try to understand what the real essence of ” benchmarking” is or rather should be, where we are now and what can we do about this space- can we really make an honest attempt at making “benchmarks” meaningful?

Catch up with any HR Manager, choose the industry you want, they will tell you how far and wide they have gone to ensure that they have a diverse work force, which is able to add different perspective to their business challenges and thereby provide a superior edge to the organisation over the competition. Now what the HR manager will not tell you is about what happens next! The story about how and why they end up “benchmarking” when it comes to assessing the annual performance of these gifted individuals who were hired because they were unique! I mean, what’s the great logic, when you have got them in, because they were different, how can you then go ahead and measure their competence and performance by “benchmarking” them with each other? How sane does this seem

Benchmarking, if you ask me, (I believe) has its older versions hidden within industrialization; that period wherein people clocked in and clocked out with an amazing accuracy and shifts were calibrated to production output with unfailing accuracy and stiff targets, well back then it really didn’t matter “who” the person was at the station along the product line, as long as the products were delivered through the line the way they were supposed and then the comparisons would start, by seeing which floor supervisors shift was more better than the other- well this was, a decent way to do benchmarking because you had technically hired all of them to do a similar or a designated function irrespective of “who” they were! So you see, you were actually buying in similarity and congruence of skills and competencies and not divergence or diversity of skills! So when a shift performed, the results were evident and when failure happened it could be identified to a specific workstation along the production line and thereby this process of comparison, analysis and developing a reward system around what was always a stiff but achievable stretch target was developed and embraced; and that’s how I believe., we had sown the seeds of modern day “benchmarking”- the only fallacy being today we are using it to create more failures than real sane success!

There can only be two possible routes for effective benchmarking, if you ask me, and these are really simple- simple to understand, explain, communicate and measure! But before we explore any of these two routes its important that we understand what is that we have been hiring people for- whether we are hiring them because they are similar or whether we are hiring them because they are different and based on which one of these holds true for a specific organisation or for departments within an organisation, we need to calibrate our measuring parameters and approach to either calibrate , record and measure the similarities (the convergence) that comes up or the dissimilarities which manifest through diversity (divergence).The impact created by these similarities/ congruence and the dissimilarities/ divergence is what needs to be measured and benchmarks need to set up around these parameters! The mistake that organisations end up doing is they end up benchmarking individuals rather than the process or the task! You see a task can be done with greater impact following either the route or congruence or divergence- but the end result- as in the outcome of the impact of the task can be recorded and measured to its effectiveness.When organisations fail to do this and start with the easier premise of “I did it, so can you” kind of an approach, we end up measuring garbage and instead of creating benchmarked system of performance- end up creating islands of differing competence across the organisation which over time manifest into overall organisational incompetence across levels and processes! This is when, either the organisation is either than shook ground up or rebuilt form scratch- read the much hyped OD interventions to live another day! So to keep it simple, here’s what you must do!

First know what you are hiring for! Once you know whether you are hiring for similarities- congruence or dissimilarities- divergence, create a system to calibrate, record, measure and communicate the impact and efficacy that an individual is bring to the process/task (remember it is very important to understand that in neither of the scenarios are you benchmarking the person- you are benchmarking the impact/effectiveness that the either routes/approached bring to the point of action!). Once this system has been created, let the people know how they are being measured or evaluated– the conversations have to be , more of, “You achieve “x”, by “y” time through the method A or B that you say you are great, we have you rewarded with PQR! (A could be the process aligned to congruence- wherein people are been hired for similarity and B can be for divergence- wherein people are hired for diversity). What this does is essentially brings a level playing field so that people are rewarded based on the competence and skills that they were hired for inline with the reason that they were hired for! Sure enough, this is extra effort and needs a lot of foundation building with regards to processes and acquiring skilled people to drive such a intricate process- but rest assured once this is done right, the rewards are far too many and can create great companies from good ones and help people stand out individually and also as teams, irrespective of the path that they have chosen to excel- whether it is the route of convergence or divergence! This, if you ask me is the real essence and soul of benchmarking done the right way!

I will leave you here, with these thoughts for now, and urge you to explore, what is that you have experienced when it comes to this aspect of benchmarking and what is your chosen route? Were you the one you directed the process or were you the one who were examined by the process! Importantly now that you have the thoughts, that I shared, what is that you plan to do differently to create sustainable value irrespective of who you hire or where you get hired!

Ciao for now, I will be back soon with another article, until then stay wise, stay safe and continue to create your mark, the way you know it well!

Harness your “superpower”!

~ Parimal Aluri ~ 1 Comment

Well, this is about sharing with you, what we perhaps all have, tend to overlook or possibly try to not use it the way we should be using it! Yes, this is about discussing the “superpower” that each one of us has within us; at times we are aware, yet other times, we are unaware and this singular difference between being aware or not, puts us on the pathway to easy success or success through struggle and detours! So join me here, as we try to understand the concept of “superpower” as I see it. Who knows, it may just end up being that aspect, which you always waited for; which may make your life that bit easy!

The most common mistake that people do with the thought of having or not having “superpower” is that it has to be massive, large scale or something that can alter and impact lives around the world- well the fact is. that it doesn’t have to be this way all the time! You see at times, your superpower can be only as much as to ensure that you don’t get killed! Surviving- don’t trust me, ask a war veteran- they will tell you why being able to survive is more than a superpower in the theaters of war! Like everything else, your “superpower” has to be set in the right contextual frame of your life, for you to recognize it to begin with and next use it!

I don’t want to get into a trap of trying to define what “superpower” means, you are good enough by yourself to factor and measure that bit (as it has to be seen the reality of where you are in terms of the circumstances that impact you!). What I can certainly tell you is that, the easiest way to discover the “superpower” that lies within you, is by knowing at the attributes/traits that create the differentiation between you and everyone else!– As we grow up, live our lives around, friends, family, colleagues all of us hand over generous badges or titles to us based on what they perceive us to be, someone may calls us, “smart”, someone may address us as a “hunk” yet another may address us as a “genius” or a “blessed soul”, there could be an endless list of these kind of quoted addresses, but hidden within these, are the first clues of what your superpower may be! The superpower- that we hold within us- has a funny way to it; whether we realize it or not, it keeps manifesting itself through our behaviour, especially at times when we are cornered or in a tight spot! Let me explain!

Have you ever observed people, the successful ones’- who make everything seem like a breeze, maybe you have seen that ace sales manager, who hits the numbers every quarter without fail, you would have seen that bank teller, who has that great eye for detail and speed to move fingers and crunch number insanely! Perhaps you met that ace recruiter, who read you like a book and ended up giving you that career break which made your professional life accelerate ahead! If you have ever met any of these aces, you will notice one thing, they bring their superpower to work and their superpower may never have anything to do with what their work is! You see that, awesome sales person would have been gifted with a personality which has been applied to the work, which came as a blessing! A naturally aggressive nature was met by an equally tough challenge to crack deals! Needles to say as the superpower of aggression got direction and purpose and was supported and developed- it only helped to propel the individual’s career and professional achievements! Likewise the bank teller, would have harnessed the “superpower of attention”, when it was rewarded by a profession, that too excelled and provided an opportunity for the individual to apply this superpower at work! That odd recruiter, would have used the superpower to read people, that intrinsic superpower ability to connect, counsel and help people which got amplified as the opportunity of working as a recruiter became a reality! I can go on giving more and more examples like these,across fields, vocations and subjects, however, the singular common factor that remains and confirms across all the people that I have studied and come across is –“The ability to know ones’ superpower and put it to use in the right contextual frame of time and space”

The question, now is, how does one know what their superpower is, well that’s really deceptively simple! I say, deceptively simple, because, unlike attributes/qualities your superpowers will qualify as superpowers only and only if they are able to serve other through you and not serve you by tapping into others! Consider this, you have this individual who has a great memory, can play songs over the guitar one after the other, without missing note or jumping the string, now how can this person use this ability to uplift themselves? People will often make a mistake by suggesting that playing the guitar is the superpower, well nope, sorry to disappoint you, you may further argue it is about playing the guitar well, well nope- when you play a guitar or any musical instrument you do it to play well, I mean no one plays a guitar to wreck the strings or torture the audience, so what is it?, you may ask, well, in this case, it’s the “Intrinsic qualities that an individual has within, which help that person to play the guitar well- which are his true superpower!“

We are a planet with over 7 billion people and each one of us can pretty much do what the other person does, like say, driving, walking, running, jogging, reading, writing, playing some game, working at some place, doing those jobs with job titles comparable and interchangeable the world over, similar businesses, similar products,services, that’s what is all around us and that’s what living on the planet is all about! Magic happens when we are able to bring from within us, our superpowers and apply them to whatever we choose to do! Perhaps you want to jog or run- you apply your superpowers- you end up becoming an athlete, you apply your superpower of patience and calm to your knowledge of medicine- you become that “ace” surgeon, you add that superpower to number crunching to your vocation- you are poised to rule the financial world! So you see, its never about doing the job well, it is always about getting into a job or a vocation that you can do well by applying the superpowers that you may have within!

The good thing about these superpowers is the fact that, they never go away, they are with us always, waiting to be tapped and used when the time is ripe, hence you find people flourishing and hitting their professional peaks at different times of their lives; by the time a CEO of a private firm is retiring perhaps its the dawn of youth for someone aiming for the high chair of the Prime Minister or President of a nation! Superpowers are essentially the traits and attributes that we have, these can be tangible and non-tangible- see few traits are easy to observe, record and reproduce- say like being good at numbers, ability to memorize, ability to manage and excel at complex science or technological developments, there are yet areas like music, art, creative arenas where the superpowers are not necessarily even and occur as flashes of vivid bursts of creative excellence, when there is consistency developed in these areas you have the icons of the respective field of arts/creative spaces walking amidst you!

As a coach, one of the major roles that we play is to help people realise their own potential and their superpowers, we don’t plant anything, we hold a mirror which allows the individual to reflect and see for themselves with clarity- what they are, who they are, what do they hold within and who they can become by doing what! Once this basic foundation has been established then it is just a matter of time, that people are able to start making progress and move in the direction which remains resonant with their core strengths and traits! You may want to argue, if that’s the case, why aren’t everyone equally successful? The answer to this as I said earlier is simple, if people continue to walk along the way they are meant to and practice and play to their intrinsic strengths and attributes in the right and nurturing contextual settings- we have what is called as an “event of congruence” wherein abilities, potential and opportunities all come together to allow an trait to be applied and developed“, when all these variables are at the same place and time and in-sync it unleashes the complete potential and provides an opportunity to excel way above average and this is the place where masters and leaders are created! If you change one-only one variable around this space of congruence and create a confrontational or non-conducive environment around. even the most gifted talent/person around you will falter and you will see an immediate dip and drag in the output and although people will survive and endure their ability to reach the zenith will get severely impaired and stand limited by the extent of the circumstantial disadvantage created by the time and space around!

The “Superpower” locked within each of us is a statement of who we are and what we can do and wish to do, as long as it serves the greater good of people around you, it remains your “superpower” , the day you try to self-serve yourself with it, rest assured you will feel begin to feel your shine fade away within you! The best part of your “superpower” is– It is your’s and it doesn’t come or go, if you change jobs, move places or eat more or less! It is intrinsic, it’s a statement of who you are and what you bring to the table- the way you do! So you may have millions of similar people doing what you do, but your superpower ensures; you can do it like the way you do it and no one else can replicate that, just as you can’t replicate them! Humanity has ever been as creative it has been and also as destructive as it has been as people harness their superpowers the right and wrong way- the balance of societies and civilizations changes and it all start from an individual and their intrinsic “superpower”!

I will leave your here, giving you time to reflect and assess what are your “superpowers” and let you imagine, how you want to put that to use to serve the greater good of the society around you! Always remember, your “superpowers” are often who you are and what you eventually become!”

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another article!

The damaging myth of Immortality!

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

Ask anyone what they want to achieve in life and the eventual answer will lead you to one definite truth- “Everyone wants to be remembered”, Well reasons can be different-good or bad- duration can be different long or short- but the fact remains- people have this urge to be remembered and recalled and guess that is what is a hallmark of humanity- nothing wrong or right about this space- the real fun begins with the concept, the contextual relevance and the eventual reality of what “Immortality” really means and how it will in all probability manifest! Join me over the next few minutes in attempt to simplify and add clarity to this ambiguous space! to know and learn why, as humans we are the way we are!

To begin with the concept is as humorous it can be, I mean to be immortal essentially you have to die and the best part is once you are dead, you don’t ever know if you really have achieved what you had set out for while you are alive! Sounds weird right? but well that’s how plain stupid and ironic the whole shit is! But wait, in’st the world full of autobiographies and records of great people who have created or destroyed the world- Well sure it is, but if you dig deeper, you will realise the number of such documents only exploded exponentially since the mid- 1700’s once the ability to print and record became mechanical! Search any medieval time frame of history or even ancient records, you will always find that even the greatest of all civilizations that ever existed and flourished had a limited number of documented recordings (compared to the last 400 years) whether in text- or through inscriptions on the stones or whatever medium was possibly used! What does this tell you? A couple of things, firstly, majority of the people who got recorded in history in greater details- lived at a time when they were too brilliant or simply the finest among the best- either they weer surrounded by real idiots to look smarter or on that rare occasion (the period when science flourished early 18th century) you had a dazzling collection of the finest minds which catapulted the breakthroughs in science and technology almost simultaneously across Europe and the Atlantic! Secondly and most importantly, none of the people who came to be remembered for longer times post their departure, never lived their life pursuing “immortality” , they basically kept things as simple as they could for themselves and went through their lives doing what was best possible and the way they could create an impact with what they had within themselves and around themselves in terms of resources and competence! As they say- once you start acting to the best version of yourself the world aligns itself to serve you and your cause! Whether that is a good one or bad one – contextually differs and let’s leave it at that! So you may want to ask me around now, fine so what?

Well, the problem is that people, in today’s era go about their lives as if they are going to live forever and are so obsessed with the fallacy of creating so called “legacies at work”, “signature statements” and so on and so forth, without realizing that, given the level of complexities of our time, unless you don’t do anything which has a radical, immediate and sustaining value of creation for the greater good of humanity- you will too fade away as just another “death count” in the ocean of humanity! Perhaps you will be lucky enough if you your grand kids remember you, well that will be the maximum that you will earn- as far as your tryst with immortality is concerned! Consider this, each day whether you like of hate it- you will touch some form of plastic, nylon based material- how many of you would know the story about the people behind the invention of this material? We all know about the Wright Brothers and the first powered flight of humanity- how many of us know all the fine engineers and designers who went on to develop and build on those principles to shape the amazing machines that we fly today? Well, don’t panic neither do I know all of them, so even I am as blank as you are- this is exactly the point- you see many of these great people would have spent a major portion of their lives- at times their entire life- creating an amazing machine for humanity or some great technological value that made our lives so comfortable- but in their giving up of their whole life for this cause- what have they got in return? Unless you are some kind of driven by research and bitten by the “Why” bug, you will never want to walk into the library and find for yourself from the dusty books to learn what all transpired in those times, through the journals of science and know the efforts that went into making our lives what they are today! We are just fine with a search string on a search engine and more often then not quite happy with the unfiltered and unverified garbage that it throws at us!

As much as it is true that great inventors, innovator’s and fine people who aided and accelerated discoveries and contributed to make our lives the way they are today, never went after the maddening craze and urge to be remembered forever- by uploading selfies, writing and re-writing books or posting online videos etc– well, you may argue had the technology been there- they would have- well, who knows, may be you are right too! But the focus here is- critically about how they lived their lives- they lived their lives with a finite purpose and focus – and yes- except for those few lucky rich inventors and scientists a majority of them were average wealthy co-creators who were able to strike a balance between their work and personal lives even as they went about creating magic for the centuries ahead! So what is this telling you- Not to forsake your today for a tomorrow, especially when you are not going to be around to relish it! Well, don’t jump the gun and say, I am asking you to be selfish, I am just asking you to be honest and accept the fact that you will not be there forever- so for the time you are there- Learn to create more value and whatever that you want to create in the “now” of your time and not being bothered by anything else! Consider this, you may ace a new way to bake a chocolate cake- you use your today- each day two hours each day for a year to come up with this super wonderfully delicious chocolate cake- now you have two choices- either keep baking and serving people as long as you are alive and then the recipe dies with you or write a book – create a video and let the people relish the goodness of what they end up making for themselves! But if you try to start thinking how people will enjoy the cake over next three hundred years, after you are dead- well than you have a serious mental issue which is no more related to immortality but straight way exhibits hallucinatory streaks! These are the seemingly innocent spaces where, the misplaced understanding of immortality ends up damaging people beyond repair in their present! Want to know what immortality is really about? well read on!

If you see the classical texts of any religions or civilizations, chances are that the oldest, the finest and the most famous one’s have been written, inscribed anywhere between 5000-15000 years BCE and some of them are still revered as texts of great value- so if you now analyse the “content” of what these texts say, well they all in a way try to communicate the essence of way of living for humanity and albeit few of them would have created religious or spiritual pathways through the content created- few would be mere civilization documentations mentioning how they went about their daily lives- and whats was meant, how and why- eitehrways the common and the only thread that is unifying and found across all the continents within these seemingly “immortal” creations is the emphasis on “quality of human life, purpose, direction, way of living and societal construct”. So if you are aiming to be immortal- first and foremost your creation has to be at that caliber-that even after 5000 years from now, that work of your’s must hold good and true and if this initial challenge is not enough, you will need to have a mass followership and a real line of disciples who can continue to propagate the idea/thought in a structured manner on an ongoing basis -adapting the same with their tweaks as times evolves through the course of history!

So having given you this secret, if your business or office work- is not helping you come anywhere close to this what I just mentioned, you and I will be all, but a death count and the fallacy of immortality can rest within the confines of our families!- They too will remember if we have given anything to them of merit and value which they perceive! So if you have been wasting your present for those elusive awards, works of fiction, great business numbers and all that- thinking you will leave a legacy and people will remember you- well sorry to disappoint you- no one would really care enough! because we live in times when managing ourselves by itself has become a task unto itself and you too know it very well deep within! So what to do?

Well get a helpful dose of common-sense and start living your life by creating, co-creating experiences which will effect and lead to some value creation for the people around you and the people that you engage with! Stop hallucinating about the right and the wrong- see the context and measure what best can you deliver against the contextual frame that you operate from! If you frame is small and your delivery is large enough- who knows you may just become lucky and really be qualified enough to become an immortal soul! However like it is often the case, we move about societies wherein the societal frames are too wide and too deep and no matter how much we attempt to create a splash the water seldom causes a ripple beyond a small zone and before anyone even reacts/ reads those ripples your life is all but lost within the great history of humanity forever! Lasting fame which remains for the next century or so will be a huge achievement, if you were to ask me what constitutes to modern day equivalent of immortality! Well, and to share with you another secret, unless you work or associate with something that changes the fundamentals or builds further upon or creates value to them, rest assured all that you do or don’t will not go beyond your grand kids!

Living in the “now” to create lasting value makes more sense and is perhaps the only incremental way to achieve fame (although it may only last for a few generations), without wrecking your mind or the people around by pursuing immortality without any real context! Final words- Immortality is the domain of the fundamentals of human society which pivot on belief’s, religions, philosophies and allied areas- unless you don’t create a lasting disruption within these corridors- lasting immortality will not go beyond your third generation!

I will leave you with my thoughts here and urge you to reflect when you hold your next coffee and look away into the distant horizon, to really understand within yourself -for your own benefit- What is that you are pursuing in your “now”? Fame or Immortality or both? and importantly if you are in the right frame to grow large enough to make that count! Never wreck your today for an unchangeable past or an unknown future, the “now” alone matters and that’s the only thing that each of us has got! What we do with it alone maters!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another article! Before I forget, thank you for your ongoing support and the mails that come in! Keep writing and do let me know what next you want to read here!

Meaningful HR & Business Integration-The way ahead.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

Yes, I know what are the first thoughts that are crossing your mind, even as you read the title! No this is not about fault finding with the HR aspect of business neither this is a glorification of how business and HR need to work together and contribute- enough of unwarranted positive shit has been written about that and it seldom works! This is about knowing what really helps or strops from that critical integration from happening and is there anything at all that can be done to ensure true synergy which translates into individual empowerment to the people on the floor and at the desks, irrespective of the product or service that they collectively create!

The genesis of the today’s HR came through the dark allies of the industrialized world, where the given dictum was that the owners of the businesses were out there to exploit available resources (people and material), unfortunately some businesses did live up to that dubious label and with that saw the rise of the union movement which provided the much needed collective voice and put a plug to stop and arrest unwarranted exploitation form time to time across different sectors and industries. Certainly over time, few of these unions too lost their grounding – since they too were run by humans- add to that the element of greed and you have the right recipe to completely compromise business exploits and you reach a point where you really don’t know anymore which side is more wrong! Even as these aspects were unfolding businesses were busy working on scientific finding and technological break through to modernize and make processes and services more cost effective and thereby more profitable and just as businesses learnt to manage products and processes they soon understood that they could also manage people and there is the birth of the modern day HR! Sadly though the struggle of complete end-to-end integration of business and HR has always remained a challenge- at times for the right reasons- where businesses require that sterile distinction or segregation to function and more often than not, because of sheer incompetence either with one of the entities or both of them, in today’s context it is a heady cocktail of incompetence which keep shifting from one end to the other in a cyclical manner which results into a “dynamic yet static space”- hence many a times when you go back to organisations even after few years- seldom things are different! Nothing wrong or right about that- at times that’s what is needed and at times that’s exactly what limits the organisations! So what’s happening here, where’s the catch?

It all starts, with like everything else- right in the beginning, even today, in 2020, there would be hardly a few, maybe less than 1% of entrepreneurs who would want to look at HR as a strategic investment which will provide an ROI to their firm with regards to the qualified talent that it can get in and even more importantly manage and ensure that the ” talent”stays and grows with the organisation- sometimes leading it (at senior level), at times staying in-sync ( at mid-levels) and at yet other times, developing a followership (at the junior level). This foundational mistake of discounting the true value and essence of HR right at the begging- when a business starts afresh, or a new business unit is thought of causes more damage to the entity than anything else! I don’t need to explain I am sure about what price an organisation may end up paying for the wrong people at the wrong time, at the wrong place and at a wrong price! Importantly always remember people are never good or bad, it is their “contextual settings” that either make them shine and excel or dim and fade away! You may have an average intelligent person among dumb idiots and that person may end up looking like an angel to your eyes, out the same person against the backdrop of qualified hotshots from top A schools, you may might as well want to kill yourself for hiring that kind of an idiot! It also than says something about your ability to judge and hire people- well but I will leave that for now and maybe some other write up on that- some other time!

Unless HR is at the table with the business to understand and soak in every aspect of what the grand plan of business is and what’s the whole idea and importantly be listened to- there will never be a true integration! Sure enough in today’s times, even having people stick around at their own positions within the organisations- by itself is a challenge- and that just goes on to compound the integration challenge!– Even today,the normal brief always to HR can look like this- “The organisation would want to have an overhaul or a massive change once a CEO or a A level person moves on or just because the exiting one wants to have the HR do some work!”- you may ask “Why?” well you will almost always never get a sensible answer to that and with no “real HR” to question- the organisation will simply go into an overdrive to reinvent the same old wheel! Everyone will be happy doing that because it keeps everyone in the job and busy- but the fact remains , this unwarranted overdrive often ends up being the classical case of visiting history and needless to say- the results are always the same- “Nothing!” and every few years this nonsense continues and we have people coming and leaving and everything seems to stay exactly where it is! This is the fallacy of the much hyped integration of HR and Business when not carried out in a well thought and objective manner! So you may want to ask how does it look when it works and does it really work?

Well, when done right, HR can empower individuals, teams and business like nothing else can! You may want to ask me now, what is the right way, well the right way is the way of common-sense! If your business is heavily reliant on people and people are the reason for your businesses success or failure and if you don’t start your day without wishing “Good Day” to your HR Head, trust me no matter how big or small your business is, you will falter sooner or later and the reason for that faltering will be the disconnect with your people! So if you are a CEO, running a people centric business , make it a point to throw away your ego( which anyways is good to loose) and learn to walk out of you cabin to spend time with the person responsible for getting you the right people for your team- because when discussions happen here and the more often they do, you will begin to experience magic– magic in terms of the positive rub off that will happen within the existing people across your teams and the new ones that come to join your journey! You don’t need long meetings with endless one-sided communication expressing your dreams, fantasies or frustrations, you don’t need endless boring mails with subject lines reading something like “Form CEO’s Desk” or “It’s your HR” kind of gimmick! All that you need is a simple cup of tea or coffee once a day with the person who is responsible to get the right people for you day-in and day-out!

Now, don’t rush into patting your back, thinking that all the work to hold on to this integration lies only with the CEO’s or the business leader’s the HR leader’s too have to play their part and their part starts by behaving and acting like a business leader- who is leading the business of people! This approach seemingly deceptive but if played right, can make all the difference between having a HR and having a great HR! Awesomeness of HR comes not by knowing the rules and regulations and theories of HR, they do matter, but the real fun happens when HR understands and assimilates the business challenge as if they were their own (because they are their own problems- manifestations which are created by HR!) How?, you may ask, well here’s the simple test, When people leave when you least expect and business suffers, the question “How was this person evaluated and selected even?”, When a person leaves because he gets paid twice and more at the other place- “Why are we paying so less? are we?”, when the person destroys a million dollar machinery because of incompetence- “How did this person clear the evaluation and get in!” Well the lists and situations can go on and on- the fact is a HR disconnected with business problems and business plans is equally liable to fail as the business and what’s more a HR disconnected from it’s business can do more harm than a business that’s’ disconnected with HR!

True integration between HR and Business happens only when there is mutual respect and appreciation about what each of them do and how each one of them contribute to build and develop each other to ensure that the organisation keeps progressing with the right tools, both material and human! Unless Business teams stop discounting HR- assuming they don’t understand or see the point of business and until HR doesn’t stop hiding themselves away in files, operations and social media posts pertaining to job vacancy- this problem will persist! If you always wanted to understand why the HR never called you back or gave you an update for your hour long interview of multiple rounds of hour long interviews- well I presume you would have found your answer somewhere here! A disconnected HR with no insight into business revenues and business action plans- will try and continue the old classical way of reaching out to hundreds of candidates- when it is not required and eventually get stuck when the real time comes to hire- because by then externally the genuineness of the organisation has taken a beating!

There are and there always will be reasons and explanations for every connect and disconnect; some real and some are made up, irrespective of what they are, the fact remains that as long as people are involved and businesses require people, there will always remain a compelling need to to have people specialists and business aces to work together collaboratively in a transparent and purpose driven manner! This alone, If you ask me, this the real essence of integration, driven by purpose and proactive collaboration each playing to their strength, understanding the other team’s requirement!

I will leave you here, with these thoughts, depending on which team you are on- the business or the people team- do reflect on what worked and what didn’t and how can you make what matters work for you and the other team!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another article!

Leaders too need help!

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

At times when the world stands at crossroads battling multiple uncertainties, depending on where you are, whether it is the still looming pandemic, the economic crisis, social unrest, or in general resentment towards the kind of leadership that you are experiencing whether at your national level or its the crisis of leadership at your workplace,its is of paramount importance to note that there are times when even these very Leaders need help- because even they too are human and in times like these they need it more than ever! This article explores that space of vulnerability that plays havoc with Leaders no matter what they are trying to overcome! So let’s understand for sometime what your beloved leader possibly is facing even as they try to keep a smile, a straight face or that mercurial temperament around them!

Who are leaders? They are not super-humans in terms of any anatomical context, but they perhaps demonstrate their expertise and ability to fare better than the cohort that they are part of and that is why they seem to move ahead within the sub-set that are a group of! Look around you, you will find almost every Leader has emerged as being the best alternative in the context of time and space that the Leader has arrived. Perhaps a few years or decades earlier, this person would have been passed off as an average person, a few years down the line, we may not even have people like them in our consideration sets! Since requirements would have changed and they constantly shift and move to wards the next step of dynamic equilibrium which is so much needed for growth and progress no matter what you choose to lead- a company or a nation or even yourself! This dynamic contextual setting within which leaders operate ends up making them fragile and manifest “Leadership Fragility”! Leaders who are touched by fragility, start to become so much risk averse that at times when they are required to act and move ahead rapidly, they seem to freeze and stay frozen from taking any decisions, small or large and thereby put the whole system that they influence into chaos and confusion! This fragility can occur for multiple reasons- it could be because of the leaders arrived at the control too early- without much experience or leadership baptism, it could be that they were given a wrong picture of the operational space within which they were supposed to hold the fort, it could be they were given a wrong army to fight a battle, it could be that the weapons of change provided to them were compromised and no matter what destiny they try to write, the ink simply seems to vanish away each time and they keep starting again and again! These varying aspects of dealing with day-to-day scenarios at work end up making few Leaders fragile and hence you can find their leadership style reflecting this element- when they are intentional slow, take their time, check and double check and re-check and move ahead only when it is the only and the most necessary option and when every other option has conclusively closed!

Leadership Fragility as a concept also shows the flaws and chinks in the armor of the ecosystem within which leadership is supposed to play its role! It opens up the whole contextual appreciation of team dynamics, ability to see through and develop clear view on strategic and operational preparedness that leaders have developed or have not developed which makes them vulnerable to threats within and from outside their ecosystems!

Normally, we always come across leaders who are accommodating, non-accommodating, easy going or headstrong personalities, but what is important is,instead of jacketing them into any of the singular or plural adjective definitions, we must take an effort to understand the eternal , “Why” of their leadership style and what could have lead for them to adhere to what they seemingly are glued upon with no real end in site!

Leaders are in that odd space within the system of things- which is closer to heaven and hell in equal measure with a caveat that nothing from their experienced heaven or hell reaches the earth (where their team lives!). So when team members look up to the leader- they hardly have a clue of the kind of turmoil that the poor soul is dealing with and the only impression that these earthlings carry along with them is whether their boss was good or bad- because they increment was x or y! When the Leaders occupying such tight spots are not the real “owners”of the business, well, needless to say their lives are as miserable and lovable as you can imagine! Imagine a pendulum which swings far away in each direction- one the eternal core of heaven and the other end the core of hell at the speed of light! When Leaders “own” the businesses, they have one and only one benefit- that is ability to decide when to pull the plug off and leave the business- either shut it down or sell it off and start to toy with something else and start a new life by taking a professional rebirth all over again!

Leaders are constantly shifting between managing the pressures that they meet from above and what they must hold within and pass on what they can while ensuring that they soak up every ounce of pressure from below as well! So needless to say often you find leaders who believe in the maxim Mind over Matter, because that is the only thing that stand between them and Insanity- Their Mind applied firmly to the Matters at their hand!

The next time you start to judge the leader that you are facing- whichever reason that may be- think about it- The Leader may be operating from a point of Strength or from the point of Fragility! There could be plans and strategies which the leader may have devised or there can be mandates which the leader has to simply execute and make them operational! Unless you don’t fathom what is the context from which the Leader is acting, it will be unfair to arrive at conclusions in favour or against the Leader or the Leadership style! You may now, want to ask, so what is that you can do about it or should you really do anything about it? Aren’t Leaders paid and haven’t they signed up for the shit that comes along with the glory that bask in?

Well, the fact remains, they too are human, and like most of us, they too sometimes end up singing up for something which they would have either not understood completely, would not have been told about it completely or they would have misread it completely because of the facts and picture presented to them while handing over the reigns to them as they took charge of whatever that they are supposed to lead! There could also be that rarest of the rare case of “Incompetency” playing out – this happens when Leaders arrive too soon to lead on the scene without having a a clue of what they are supposed to be doing and where they are! More often than not, these people end up blowing up and destroying everyone and everything around them, eventually also damaging themselves!

The only thing that you can do while dealing with the Leader that you face or engage with each day of your life is, to appreciate and decipher the contextual settings and studying what is driving the Leadership that you are experiencing, whether it is the strength derived by the Leader because of who the leader is, or is It the strength derived from the position that an individual occupies, next you must observe the pattern of decisions and the impact created around that- if you see diminishing returns on decisions being taken- you know for sure something is not right and sooner or later you will have a changed leader! Likewise when Leaders act from the space of compulsion- driven by the business owners or stakeholders, often you will see that they too will eventually fizzle out as demands and expectations start to borderline around fiction over ground realities of business and facts! Leaders who also own their business, when they start to act in non-coherent manner it is a clear sign of decay and you can be rest assured that a big change is on the way- which will probably involve a change of hands at the business ownership eventually!

It is not always about the yelling boss or the cheerful happy face boss, it is about the undercurrents that keep these professionals on the edge for the right and wrong reasons that either makes them super achievers or ends up pushing them to cramped spaces wherein they experience their fragility and once that sets in you can see it manifest around the team and all that they lead and influence! Next time when you sit and listen to your boss, take a moment and try to read through the unsaid message and listen to the unmentioned whisper, perhaps your boss needs that extra cup of coffee with you more than you do!

I will leave you here, to explore, experience and think around leadership fragility and the experiences that you would have gathered through your working life; being a leader or by witnessing a leader, no matter what the context would have been, the fact will always remain that even Leaders are Fragile and they need help too!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another article! In case you or your firm is looking out for Individual or team Coaching, write in to us today and we will be glad to help you!

Dealing with your job loss.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ 2 Comments

If the title grabbed your attention, there can be two reasons- either you are or have been at the reeving end of this or you are at the end form where this will start! Irrespective of which side of the table you are, this is going to impact you and this article is about trying to see how meaningful this sordid affair can be turned into- how can we possibly create diamonds from the unwarranted pressure that loss of livelihoods brings with it! Rest assured this is no – sermon for the making everyone feel good- but more about how to introspect and make sense of the developing nonsense around you! So here we go!

Well, to begin with, let us get some clarity, the pandemic- the virus per say- is not the only reason- why you would have been discussing your job loss! Depending on your sector, which nation you belong to and the kind of business that you are working for, you would have been getting signals of something not being right for at least 4-6 months prior to Feb/ March 2020. The world economy was slowing down and it was well on its way to hit rock bottom- the only thing that happened differently – unlike earlier recessions this one got camouflaged and over-ridden by the global health emergency and headlines changed to number of infections and deaths from disease – replacing the usual financial headlines that come with an economic melt down! Now your job loss could have happened for multiple reasons- or actually in few cases- for no real reasons at all!– I mean large companies do have a qualified and experienced senior management and business risk advisors who are supposed to save the day for these companies for exactly the kind of scenarios that we are facing! So what were these enlightened ones’ doing as they were scouting for the proverbial “Iceberg event?” More surprising is the fact that their- risk mitigation strategy often starts with the reactive stance of suggesting job cuts- rather than having an ongoing preemptive and proactive stance of avoidance! – About this, I will write, some other time! Now that you kind of know, that you are not entirely to blame to what you are facing- let’s get started with the “dealing” stuff!

If you happen to be one of those unluckily-lucky fellows, who are under 30, the blue eyed resources for the corporations, armed with those enviable management and engineering certifications and as the norm is now- a-days goes- digitally certified- by everyone and anyone that can offer a certificate- well this is a the pivotal moment of your life and trust me you should embrace this as much as you can! No matter what sector you have been working- you took up the challenge- performed- if not excelled- at times surprises yourself and other s around- at times hit rock bottom- gone through the whole baptism of corporate world and just as you thought you were acing the game- well the playground is suddenly closed for you! So now you are angry, confused and in utter shock and disbelief- “Why me”, “What did I do to deserve this?”, “Why not the other person, why was I chosen over that one?”- As long as you remain stuck in these self-serving- defensive and consolatory state of mind- trust me- you will only find it more and more difficult to come to terms and focus on what you must essentially do- Stand up- Dust yourself- and Walk/Jog/Run/Sprint ahead yet again! This easier said than done – can be achieved by clinically dissecting what you have gone through and this is how you do it!

It has to start by understanding well- really well- like an external consultant would do to understand the business dynamics- what has really played out- there could be multiple scenarios based on the nature of business- supplier side issues- vendor payments- accrued debts, working capital issues- managing partner differences, ownership slug fest, failing quality of leadership, as long as these manifestations arise form the work arena- chances are there would have been signals- clear or subtle signals of the fact that- all is not well- and there will be a bump on the way- now the ability to predict the dimension of that bump- whether it will allow the organisation to pass over or will it wreck the momentum of the organisation and rip it apart- is something which comes only with experience- hence for the youngsters- this can be excused- but the plain fact remains that- part of the job loss problem- is because , as individuals we are connected to the task that we perform but often fail to scan the broader pictures around us that are constantly shifting and developing– Its like you are a pilot who is flying the plane- with all attention locked into the instrument panel- and missing the whole picture through the windscreen ahead! When people tend to pick these signals up- they leave and try to avoid getting caught up in the unnecessary corporate warfare which happens through methods! This, is essentially the first learning for your life- before you sign up for that next journey onboard another corporate vehicle- scan the environments around the ship that you wish to embark! Check for operational stability, check for essential fundamentals and check how the vehicle is driven- who has the controls and what does that mean for you as an Individual! You may have a great company with a bad team or a bad company with a great team; and the results through these two scenarios can be strikingly different and the outcome, needless to say would be miles apart! Anyone of these scenarios can make you a great hero or break you completely depending on what is your natural inclination to deal with- as in what you are great at- fixing people or fixing processes!

Once you have understood that there are contributing developments that lead to situations like a job loss- the next thing that you need to understand and figure out is, what is that you could have possibly done to effect a change- a different possibility?- did you do that?-was it possibly to impact a change through the position that you were at? If you have cleared this basic step of understanding that you did in fact give all you could have to the work at hand at the position that you were- than well I guess it is a classic case of having boarded a ship which had embarked on a journey to find icebergs and crash into one! So once you signed up- it really didn’t matter what you did or not, as with time- it was eventually going to break apart and sink- here what matters is or what could have mattered is- how close you have been to the lifeboats on the ship and how well you have understood the emergency evacuation drill! So, yes, it all boils down to having a plan for yourself- the fabled Plan B, which helps you navigate uncertainties of life- everything and anything- form the traffic jam in the morning to being able to find your livelihood back!

Finally the most important aspect,“Learning” what did the event/incident teach you, what did you learn- this is perhaps the most powerful tool and mindset to carry with us all through our lives- A learners mindset helps to develop patterns and decipher our environments more rapidly so that we are better prepared when shot hits us next time- because it will , that’s for sure- as long as humanity operates form cornerstones of greed and dominance!This learner’s mindset will help you clear the cobwebs in your mind- which try to climb and cloud your thinking with tons of self-pity and self-victimization for no real reason- unless you were the person who was in-charge and you screwed up the whole damn business! Even in that kind of extreme scenario caused by intelligence malfunction- a learners approach will do well, to ensure you stand back quick and don’t repeat the same mistake again so that you can recover and race ahead!

A job loss is a great thing to happen- because it presents to you unknown colors and hues of individuals, collective groups- called companies and the whole societal equation that goes around with it! You will see behavioral changes and attitudinal shifts among colleagues, mentors, peer groups, so-called- friends, you will know the power equations secret (the real power is always in the chair- not the person- when it is in the person- chairs don’t matter!– That’s the stuff that Corporate and Political Godfather’s are made of!). You will see how narratives about you change fast, before you and behind you! You will get support from unknown quarters and people whom you would have hardly counted upon, that odd client- whom you always discounted as petty, may come to your rescue with some great recommendations! You will see a lot of things happen around fast- it’s kind of graduating all over again in a short period of time! You understand the power of the contract that you signed up which allows/disallows you to do”xyz” for “abc” months post your severance!

Most importantly you will learn, “To value your Life” in a renewed context, perhaps more time for yourself, more time perhaps for your family an real friends! You will perhaps appreciate, there is no point running a race with no finish line! There is more to see, and experience by pausing and walking and just being around the wold that we have, because once you have exhausted a considerable time through corporate slavery– that time is gone and so are those many infinite opportunities to experience life which could have possibly created a completely different and better version of yourself! Perhaps this job loss, allows that ingenuity within you to arise,a waken and create an entrepreneur that the world has been waiting for! There can be multiple an many scenarios, what remains certain is – The job loss is not really a loss- if you see it from the space of having a learners mindset and if you convert this loss to your gain by connecting with people, things and places that really matter; Elements which will be by your side no mater what!

I leave you here, to reflect, introspect and see how even in a seemingly awkward situation (which largely is always painted with despair and grief), can one also find the seeds of the future, and by knowing the right ones’ to nurture,you can create the pathway to a future which provides better awareness and calibration through the experience digested through a learners mindset!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another interesting article! N, yes, If you are really hit hard and finding it difficult to gather your bearings back, drop me a mail, will be glad to help you- without damaging our mutual sanity and without serving unwarranted optimism and hope!

The virus is not the problem.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ 3 Comments

Many a times, intellectual hallucination and unwarranted cerebral diarrhea leads to aggravating problems rather than solving them and when you try to use the method of applying “collective wisdom” of “empowered group of self proclaimed experts” who have not solved the current problem but something else earlier- we get served what we deserve- More Chaos! This short piece is about understanding how humanity has this unique ability to end up screwing up simple things and create complex problems which tend to become an altogether different problem from the original one! So join me in unraveling stupidity, dumbness and over-rated “specialists” who seem to have answers for all problems that get created while trying to solve the original problem, which remains unresolved!

When the coronavirus problem began, the least I was expecting was a scientific and rational response to meet the challenge and deal with it, but as I look back, what I realized is that more and more people (who are especially in-charge of devising strategies to deal with the situation) have been more dumb and stupid than what their so-called qualifications and experience suggested! Consider this to begin with- The fact that was established way early into this episode of the virus onslaught was that it is contagious and it spreads from people to people when they are in close proximity- within 2 meters of each other- great! so now we know what to avoid- than why the hell do we need to lock down cities, nations and ruin the whole economy of the nations? If there is scientific evidence on how the virus transmission occurs- the common-sense led approach would suggest- have protection, maintain the required distance- whether 2 metres or 20 metres and that’s about- Let the world be what it is! Why do you need to lock down- take way livelihoods- create economic anarchy and destroy a working society? Effective, sustained and persuasive communication in all possible languages and across mediums reinforcing the need of social distancing would have done the needful! Don’t believe me- well , your choice- so can you explain why even after the lock down has been enforced why in few countries the cases keep rising? Well, the answer is simple – Humanity is all about being social and if you ask people not to do something, they will end up doing exactly that- albeit in way that you can’t find out easily! Hence if the messaging would have started with the moral high ground of what one should “Do” rather than “Don’t Do”, things would have been better accepted and hence implementation would have been far more meaningful and so would have the been the results!

Now, if you were to ask the “Coronovirus” what it feels like today, after unleashing mayhem and wrecking the global economy, this is what the Virus would have told you, “You know what, I am simple virus- I hopped onto humans (accidentally or intentionally- you find out!) and found it fun to be here, anyways not many youngsters welcome me that well- so I hardly get noticed- but the oldies do hate me- hence they show their dislike to me by getting sick- and well- that is dangerous for me- because than even I can’t survive- if I they suffer so do I! I never wanted to be within humans any case- I was having fun in the animal kingdom for so many million years! I don’t know how I landed up here! Why is everyone blaming me for economic collapse, I am no banker- I a am a Virus- I may make people sick!,I have nothing to do with economics! You mishandle and misunderstand on how to treat me- how can you blame me for that?! I never asked you to shut down cities and lock everyone in their houses- If people manage their immune system well- by eating well and have personal hygiene- there is nothing that me or any of my cousins can do anything nasty with any of you!

A lot of the problems of the world that we are facing today even as we battle the pandemic is really not about the illness, neither it is about when the vaccine will be available or not, it is far more simpler and I have kept on saying this over and over again! Common-sense deficient decision making is not only ridiculous and foolish it is outright dangerous and fatal! Unfortunately the irony of our times is our so-called experts have all the answers for this pandemic- as if they got killed or survived the last one caused by this virus! The real sane experts on the other hand have been suggesting incremental steps to experiment and deduce in a calibrated manner on- the-go, so that we learn and know what works and what does not in a measured way, rather than creating the global melodrama of the Big bad Lock Down and as if once the Lock Down is lifted we will have the birds singing and spring will be back! This myopic, risk averse and dumb thinking by group of so-called experts has put such a severe strain on all other sections of society that nations will sooner or later feel the shortage of healthcare workers, law enforcement officers and all those who are involved to maintain sanity as fatigue would simple overwhelm them, because they are humans first and no Human being in the entire history of mankind has never won a battle with no definite deadline in sight! If and when societal fatigue sets in, it will rob societies off the very building blocks that define who they are and thereby make each step towards recovery even more harder and difficult, something that will even take time to convince people that everything is safe now! So you may ask me now- If the Virus is not the problem than what is the problem?, and people are dying- so the virus must be real?

Well sure, the virus is real and people are dying for sure- but what is that the people are dying off? Are they really dying only because of the Virus or is the Virus creating biochemical challenges within their bodies which have become fragile because of existing illnesses that is causing the deaths? What are the facts around this? what is the real picture?How many got treatment late? How many were misdiagnose? How many were accidentally killed during experimental treatment? We may know some answers and some we may never know! But this is where the crux of the matter is- Science says that there has to be evidence, predictability, repeatability for things to play out exactly the same way for same set of conditions- well does it work with a virus – the answer is yes and no- yes if the virus is the same and no if the virus – which is a living microbe- mutates! The Influenza virus- cousin of our Coronavirus visits most of us every year- in one form or the other, not all of us die, we struggle and recover- our struggle is proportional to our immune system’s response and wisdom of the healthcare providers! When one of these two factors break down- we have a problem which actually can put us at considerable risk and this is exactly what is being played out in case of the Coronavirus too!

The real problem is the way we are handling the problem- the real problem is “The Problem Definition”. If the Coronavirus has given all the scientific evidence of how that poor little things wants to move from one human to the other, we just need to avoid and break that path- the answer is social distancing- personal hygiene- that’s about it! Personal Hygiene is a private matter-one may say he has brushed his teeth and would not have been doing so for last whole week- you can’t help someone who has a psychopathic mind! Likewise social distancing, like I said earlier it has a lot to do with common-sense- why would you allow a stranger to stand close to you within 2 metres- why? I mean Virus or no Virus- why would you normally also be comfortable with having some stranger sneaking up so close to me, forget about that person coughing, sneezing or even breathing into you face? I mean why? If you say well, that never happens, you manage a high level of personal hygiene, you eat well, you don’t mix with strangers and random people- well than that’s great! so where’s the problem? You just blocked all entry points to the Virus! So what has the Heaven sent lock- down got to do with any of this? Why should you be penalized from taking a walk in the park, walking you dog, picking up your grocery, going for that long drive? Why?

When this pandemic shit is over in a few weeks from now, as the world sits back and thinks about it and as stories will be told to kids who are now under 10-12 year old- they will laugh their hearts out and say it on you face- How come were you grown ups so dumb? Why did you do what you did? Was it really needed? and trust me none of the “so-called” hyper anxious- doomsday centric- “specialist” will have an answer for the virus- well by that time it would have changed itself to be our friendly neighborhood virus which will be kept under check by popping a pill and not Locking ourselves down!

This current pandemic has more to do with the problem of mishandling a crisis and making a bad situation worse more than anything else! t’s a text book example of all that one should not do, during a crisis like this! When problem definitions fail, right questions are not asked and knee jerk- copy-cat solutions are adopted without understanding the contextual realities of life, we set ourselves to a bigger secondary disaster- which at times can outweigh the benefits, making the cure wore than the disease and leaving the original problem unresolved! History is replete with examples when great wars have been won and lost because the challenges were misread or misunderstood, political fortunes and businesses have been created and destroyed all because of incorrect assessment of the gravity of the contextual settings! The problem is not always the “problem”, the problem sometimes is the “way that a problem is perceived and defined” which ends up becoming a bigger disaster than the real challenge at hand! What could have been done, you may want to ask?

Well, simple and straight- social distancing, access to personal hygiene and keeping away risk groups from social arena! That’s about it, three steps implemented well, you have won more than half of the battle! No need for intrusive surveillance, lock downs, travel restrictions and unwarranted narratives! The real challenge with this overly simple solution is that “so called specialists” thrive on making a complex problem even more complicated to earn their brownie points and plain spoken truth gets discounted for unscientific gossip! Until this fixated fashion that “complex problems can only be solved by complex solutions” is not thrown away for good, humanity will keep on suffering from one or the other reason! Simplicity, Plain speak and Common-sense based approaches are the arch enemies of the “so called, know it all, specialists” and that is the real threat, more dangerous than the virus and these threats ensure humanity keeps getting hits by shit in one form or the other from time to time, just to have their inflated hollow egos well oiled!

I leave you with my thoughts here, grab a coffee, take a walk by yourself or walk your dog , eat well, stay fit and rest assured no matter what the “expert” says trust your common sense! Animals have survived with the virus for millions of years and humans have dealt with more nasty visitors coming from mother earth to us than the one we have now with us! So stay calm, and stay wise!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another piece, until then keep that gray matter ticking and learn it well- Simplicity Works and that’s the way of nature!