Tag: human behaviour

The problem with “Problem”.

~ PA ~ 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!

The Leadership Code.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Our lives are constantly touched by leaders- directly or indirectly; they are altered, manipulated and directed by the aggression and subtlety that leaders bring along with them and their style of leadership then goes on to manifest and determine the flavor and texture of the group that is being influenced! This group could be your family, your work place or the society at large- a nation perhaps- whatever it is, make no mistake, it is the choices of the leaders that go on to dictate how you and I see the next Sunrise! Join me here as we take a quick walk through and try to decipher the Leadership Code- the very essence of Leadership which separates Good Leaders from Great ones’! So here we go!

I have written in my previous articles about the need and genesis of leadership per say- why and what of it- how humanity always seeks and needs Leaders’ – this piece is all about taking it a step ahead and understand that critical Leadership Code- The code that creates impact, sets new directions and leads to new pathways and destinations for a society or the people in the context and how this very code can be absolutely destructive and sub-serving when deployed by accidental leaders or when even the best intents are executed in the worst possible manner!

Given the nature of a blog, I will be intentionally keeping it short and sweet and urging you to add further, based on what you have experienced as a Leader (who leads) and perhaps as a Leader (who follows a Leader), frankly I don’t but the idea of Leaders creating Followers’ that is the last thing you ever want Leadership to be or a Leader to be!Whenever you see something like that- just move out of that confining and narrowing space, for it will come back at you hard and fast- it is not about if- it is always about when!

If you ask me, what is the Leadership Code and the essence of it; well it is everything that you would have seen playing out among Great Leaders (not Good Leaders)! I share with you a few of those secrets/ observations here, which I have either been an observer of or have come across through my years of engagement and reading with leaders- who have been leading their lives and of people around them – either in the small pockets of society or on the big centre stage of world politics and business! So here they are!

Create a powerful sustained narrative: One fundamental corner stone of Great Leadership is a continuing and compelling narrative- which reinforces the beliefs and values of those die-hard followers and more importantly creates those important spaces for the undecided to come in and join your bandwagon! It is critical that this narrative and it’s content is supported by subsequent actions and the narrative should within carry and hint at the actionable areas- else- people will see the bluff and in no time- all the struggle and effort taken to reach the space of Great Leadership will begin to crumble and in no time- the regression from Great to Good to Nothing will be set off!

Great Leaders and Great Leadership is Infectious: One common feature across the board- when it is about Great Leaders- is the fact that they are all highly contagious- infectious; sure enough we are in the times of a pandemic- but trust me- if you ever walked around or with these rare breed of leaders- their persona, charisma, way of life and leadership is all compulsively infectious and that is an unmistakable streak of some Great Leadership at play! This is where all the learning happens and this is the space where Followers are converted into the next line of Leaders! How well the rub off is what goes on to decide whether the next line of Leaders is Good or Great!

Great Leaders Simplify: Unlike Good Leaders who operate on different levels of secrecy (with regards to guarding their knowledge and special art and skills- with regards to leadership), Great Leaders- almost always are open, transparent and have this one unique unmistakable ability to simplify and de-clutter- on an ongoing basis- whether it is the content of their talk, a column that they write or a message that they want to send across- they are simple, clear, crisp and powerful! This build trust and clarity of thought and action across levels and cadres and the by goes on reinforce their Leadership and keeps it nourished, well oiled and potent at all times- with or without power!

Great Leaders embrace failures and risks: Great Leaders embrace risk and failure- what is crucial though is that, they almost always embrace calculated and measured risks and failures! Very rarely they play blind- when that happens- it is a turning point in the history of the world! Good Leaders (typically the corporate world is replete with this variety) almost always stay away and steer clear from risks (even calculated ones’) and almost always want to dabble with only things and work that gives them success (even if that is 1%), never will you see them dabble with something that has never been done, something that has a low chance of success and so on and so forth! Well there could be valid reasons for that, but this is what separates the Good from the Great! History of the world is never written by operating from the comforts of the known spaces- new beginnings always are created from spaces where the known perimeters end!

All Great Leaders, Listen: Don’t mistaken, I don’t suggest that other Leaders are deaf! This listening is different and very potent- this is the space of directed listening and intentional listening. This is what provides Great Leaders with depth of frame and context, when people engage with them- this is what helps them set focus and be able to see far ahead into the future than anyone else! Potent Listening is much beyond paying attention to what is being said, it is also about listening to the why of what is being said and how and what can be done about what is being said! As the old wise adage goes, The more you listen, the lesser you need to speak! The problem with humanity is that majority of us are only listening to the point or to the extent of what we want to hear and this where everything goes horribly wrong! This is why we end up living and experiencing lives and leaders which are sub-serving and myopic!

Great Leaders choose to win Wars over Battles: As Great Leaders know the value of embracing failures and risks, so do also know the value of winning some and loosing some, what makes them so potent and effective is their ability to know which to loose and which to win! This trait goes a long way to make Good Leaders move up to become Great Leaders and when there is an error of judgement in this space, needless to say Leadership legacies are created and destroyed in proportion to the damage incurred!

Great Leaders practice proactive Empathy: Great Leaders know the value of investing in others, that way they ensure that their ideas and plans are not only accepted but also improvised by the people who embrace them and for this to happen, they need to practise and display proactive empathy- the art and science of knowing what the other person feels, thinks and does by being who they are and every Great Leader know, unless this vital step is not completed, nothing of greatness can ever be achieved or lived by anyone!

Great Leaders live their Values: All Great Leaders live the values that they believe in and in a sense are the living embodiment of the values that hold close to their heart! Great Leaders stand for something that they believe in and something that is intrinsic and non-negotiable to them for any reasons and their whole approach, attitude and action is aligned to this. This is what helps Leaders create more potent leaders over Followers, as the Values and the benefits of embracing them becoming evident and worthwhile, in no time you have a whole mass of humanity aligning themselves to the very same Values and what you then have is the pinnacle of Great Leadership- where the whole society seems to resonate with the singularity of a cause and belief which stand strong and firm on the foundation of the Values that are being cherished!

Great Leaders speak less and act more: Although it may seem contradictory, this is a fact, every Great Leader that you cherish, no matter how much news byte they offer or not, the fact is they are always in the action and in the thick of the things more, much more than how much they speak and communicate! Great Leaders know, that for them to be successful and relevant, every word that is spoken needs to be backed up by action and that’s why they choose to speak less, but frequently and keep displaying actions of their earlier words which goes on to reinforce their commitment to the audience that they hold sway upon and that further provides the much required fuel to sustain and further develop their Leadership by amplifying their Followership base!

Great Leaders take efforts to reach out!: All Great Leaders know the power to forgive and forget! They know when it is okay to forgive and when it is okay to forget and when it is vital to do both! This is what helps build empathy and at the same time display generous attitude to one and all and make a clear, visible statement about them as a Leader and about their Leadership style and Value systems! All Great Leaders know the power of connecting people and bringing them together, because it is only when many believe and embrace what is being communicated that societal change happens and manifests and unless there is a comprehensive okay from across the sections of the society, even the most noblest of intents will end up being defeated and that’s why reaching out is so vital and critical, whether you lead a nation or lead an organisation, unless the last person is won over to your side, it is never done!

Great Leaders know when it is time to exit!: All Great leaders know, that what they are pursuing is an endless pursuit and cause which is firmly planted on few core ideas, beliefs and values and importantly that journey must continue even after they no longer are at the helm of the affairs. Hence all Great leaders invest and share what they can and must among those who they must all that is vital to ensure the continuity of the ideas and values of what is being pursued even while they are firmly in the saddle and even as they call the shots! This ability to share and empower others without any hesitation is perhaps one of the most important hallmarks of Great Leadership! Great Leaders plan their exit even as they start to build and work upon their ideas right from the beginning! Great Leaders know the value and merit of the second line and they always have that around- so that no matter what happens the idea and the belief always lives on and that is the very essence of any Great Leadership model or the hallmark of being a Great Leader- the ability to influence long after you are no longer physically available!

I am sure there could be many more facets that go on to create the aura and magic of Great Leaders and their equally Great Leadership, but I leave you here with these thoughts, for you to reflect and perhaps add further on what you thought were other vital elements that went on to make a Leadership that you came across Great! I have intentionally not put names to the “Great Leaders and Great Leadership or even tried to suggest examples of Good Leadership, simply because all of those observations are always contextual and why I see through the lens of my intellect may not always be the same for someone else and every truth is equally justified from the lens of its beholder!

I leave you here now, urging you to connect with the passive Leader within you and the active ones’ around you to embark upon the journey to experience Great Leadership by being a Great Leader! Remember everything related to Leadership always starts by Leading yourself first! Be the Leader you always sought! Begin the journey to seek your Greatness and the first step to that is, to define the Leader in you and the Leadership that you want to bring with you!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one! Until then stay wise and keep inspiring!

Creative Fatigue.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

I did tell you sometime back I will write something around “creative myopia” well, here we are! No, don’t jump to think this is only meant for those eclectic designers, and creative folks, in fact there is much more to this whole space and whether you are able to use a color pencil or not, creative fatigue manifests in funny ways- whether you are an artist or a teller at a cash counter- the day you get hot by this space of creative fatigue- life begins to slip away as you have known it and the same exciting burger that you so cherished,starts to look pretty ordinary! Join me here as we take a tour down this route and understand what is creative fatigue, why does it happen, what is that we can do to manage it and why all of that is so vital irrespective who we are!

Humanity and it’s hallmark or stamp of authority is nothing more then the pockets of creative excellence here and there! Think about it, whether you live in the top 10 cities of the world or some quaint town in the countryside- what drives us is the quintessential space of being able to find solace and sense in the contextual surroundings that we live about and when those surroundings stay exciting and dynamic- is when our mind is stimulated and empowers us to keep thinking to keep that dynamism alive and when that surrounding fails, we stagnate- intellectually and creatively! Let me explain!

Remember the first time when you saw that train pull into the train station, or you saw that airplane take off high above your shoulders, what was that moment like for you (I am assuming you were a kid then), liberating and something magical right? And as you grew up and began to decipher the science and art behind those instances what happened- well chances are if you have already killed that kid in you- you would have all but lost that excitement of seeing that train coming in or that airplane taking off- simply because those instances now, no longer stimulate or “wow” your brain, well sure enough makes rational sense, but it is within these spaces when you are able to still retain that kid like excitement to seek joy and happiness even as you grow up- that you will be able to see some different context and who knows bring in that creative stroke of a genius and create something altogether new or add lasting value to what exists around you!

If you want to get a sense of examples of creative fatigue, you need to first understand the space of creative magnificence! Creative opulence through architecture, buildings, technological solutions, designing of processes, creating lasting value through access to resources and empowering the ability to think beyond the now and allowing people to dare to dream and fail forward, these and many such thoughts, attributes and attitudes to life go on to make what our world really is- a creative melting pot! Whether it’s that great skyscraper or that piece or music or that communication that melted your heart- each of these has the hallmark and stamp of creative excellence and this is what helps to build hope, give pathways and chart the course for the future of humanity. This is an ever ongoing dynamic space which flows with it’s own highs and lows and problems of creative fatigue begin to emerge as this flow starts to get dammed for reasons that are not natural to the process of that creative flow!

Creative Fatigue begins as societies start to get lazy! Yes lazy and lax, and contend with what is there and not wanting to go to the next place or the next best place,imply because the comforts of today outweigh the hardships of today for an unknown future! How does this play out? Well just look around you, if you are in middle of a residential block or a business district in your city, what do you see- buildings and buildings built to the same specification and exactly the same way- sure you can argue the plot size is same the approvals are the same, still what stops from making them with a strong identity for each one of them? Aren’t Architects supposed to breathe life into these structures? Move ahead and get into corporate world- what you see, similar broad based actions taken at certain levels accompanied by the senseless play of designation labels- which proclaim a lot but mean nothing! Look closely what do you see in the space of imparting of knowledge, education, training, year on year students learn the same things and move ahead (irrespective whether the contextual validity of what has been taught has remained or not!) Sure enough contextual background is much needed as we advance and move ahead as a society but that does not mean we end up having graveyards of creativity in our back yards even as we want to plane the design for the front lawn of our house!

Typically societies, which don’t compel themselves to stay ahead on the creative curve to embrace the next big idea, moment to moment, often fall back on older ideas and though process and keep on endlessly tweaking and working over them, at times to such a point that it starts to get outright boring and an intellectual pain rather then a creative gift of any kind! The easiest way to come across this is the crazy world of communication- yes- that space where the marketeers rule and leave no stone un-turned to sell what they want- irrespective whether you need it or not and doing that by telling you stories which at times are magical and creative and more often outright dumb, boring, condescending and absolute pieces of intellectual hallucination, in plain speak outright dumb! When creative fatigue sets in this world- you end up forgetting the product or the service and just remember the music or the lyrics and never really know what it was actually for! A classic case of the bridesmaid being one step ahead of the bride! As creative fatigue sets in, societies suffer from an intellectual diarrhea of unimaginable proportions, everything starts to get painted in the same color, tonality, conformation biases are stronger then ever, rules are made, re-made and just keep adding up, with no one ever knowing whether the rules are for the people or whether the people in the society are for the rules that have been made!

As comical it may seem, when creative fatigue sets in, it can turn outright deadly and fatal for the society! Think about it, if as an Individual if you were to loose that creative spark and now multiply that by thousands who go on to make the society in which you live- what do you think is going to happen? Yes, more sulking, more downward spiral and reinforcement of a common belief that nothing can be done and no good will ever happen and it is when societies reach these spaces that all the negative thoughts and attributes begin to get a hold on the value and belief systems and that begins to gnaw the society from within with each passing moment and the damage that is unleashed with time is simply beyond repair and often fatal!

If you happen to be in a society where challenging the norm is becoming increasingly difficult and if you come across many people around you saying , “what difference will it make” for every idea that you share, you have your first clue that you are seriously with the right mind in a wrong market place! Creative Fatigue starts as societies and elements within the societies start giving their golden “ok” for anything and everything simply to have that task moved out of their way- not bothering for once to realise the impact that it will have! Sure enough, I am not suggesting that every building in the neighborhood has to be an architectural design marvel or every aspect of work has to be reactive and there needs to be some entertainment in allow that we do- well surely none of that- we don’t want our doctors or cops dressed up and showing up like clowns- but the fact remains we don’t want people to unnecessarily live a monotonous and more then serious life either! You see, there has to be that balance- a dynamic balance which keeps yup the buoyancy of a society so that it moves forwards and stays progressive no matter what the hardships and no matter what the challenges that it needs to overcome! This is the essence of dealing with and managing creative fatigue before it can run amok and do irreversible damage! So what’s the plan? You may ask!

The plan is really to be alive, being alive and being connected with the people around you and that is around you, for that is the very essence of what will empower you with the spark to break the norms and set standards and benchmarks in whatever you choose to do, whether big or small , once in a life time to every day of your life and this space of empowered application of creative thought alone is the way to stall and stop the setting in of creative fatigue! As along as you stay committed to find something new, better and more effective and more impactful to communicate what you do and follow in life as your way of creative expression, you will hold the flag of creative renaissance high and ensure that no stalling comes your way and you keep advancing and more importantly keep inspiring everyone around you on your journey! Sure enough, not every moment can be a moment of creative excellence, but every moment can be and must be the one of creative inspiration and that is what alone can set the course for individuals and societies to seek and manifest what is missing and make things more meaningful and purposeful thereby keeping the pursuit of creative thinking and creative expression alive and vivid as ever!

I leave you here with these thoughts, urging you to do your bit to stall and keep away the elements of creative fatigue that may come your way- knowing the creative person who you are and do what it takes and as it takes to keep that creative inspiration always high and always alive- so what even if you are going to build only one masterpiece in your lifetime or so what if your work is plain and monotonous- it is the ability of recognizing that speak- which can inspire creativity as you go about your life is what is needed and for that- you can be almost anyone doing any job you think is fine and yet be someone creative and more importantly someone who inspires others to be the same!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one! Until then stay creative and keep inspiring!

Allow Thinking to be Intrinsic.

~ PA ~ 1 Comment

Thinking- the space which defines who we are and will become with the passage of time. Thinking that empowers us to create history or become part of it, which has the power to liberate us or bind us into timeless shackles of our own imagination and the ghosts that emerge within our minds. Thinking is perhaps the only one singular virtue which sets us apart and helps each one of us get that unique intellectual signature which has the hallmark of our unique thinking design all over it! Join me here as we take a fleeting look into what makes thinking so intoxicating and empowering and how something like that has the power to liberate and bind us in the same context of time but in a different context of arrangements around us! So here we go!

If there has been ever one thing that had the potency and the power to differentiate each one of us decisively, it is that intrinsic ability to Think! As simple it may sound, trust me there is nothing more complicated then this bit over here! The reason for that exceeding level of complexity with a simple act of Thinking , resides not in the ability to Think or not, it resides in the ability to be able to Think Intrinsically from the very core of who one is, as an individual and as discerning human! This is what is the holy grail of meaningful thinking is all about and this is what makes this so complicated and for the majority of us almost always a case of slip between the lip and the cup!

In the rushed lives that all of us lead, we are ever faced with that challenge of requiring to take decisions like that, hiring people, firing them off, picking up stuff for the home, planing that vacation, going for that event, that award ceremony, those bills that need attention, the modern human brain is simply working at its peak capacity – if I may say so- when it comes to enforcing the mind to take decisions like- now and here! You see the human brain was never designed that way, it was always designed to observe and record , calibrate and then decide- how fast and how rapidly these events unfolded and at what frequency well that would largely depend on what situation an individual is- say you are out there on the primitive woods and been stalked by a predator- your brain is going to race up and make you take those fight or flight decisions based on its assessment of the threat and your abilities to deal wit it, likewise if you have to select two packets of bread from a super market shelf- well- it’s going to allow you to take all the time in world that you need simply because it knows there is no urgency unless you are about to collapse out of starvation! This intrinsic default mechanism has of late, been put to much lesser use- in context of the ability and the quality of decisions that one can make good vis a vis what we end up feeding the mind with and the kind of decisions we ask it to make! Let me explain!

If you were to sieve through the last 1000 years of humanity and tried to find when were the greatest observations and intriguing questions were ever asked- chances are you would land yourself in the times of great civilizations, prosperous kingdoms which alone allowed the human mind to explore the fullest potential to question and more importantly Think! Think as in really think- not the mundane thought process of “What I tell my boss?” or “when do I get the next pay check”. Sure enough people back then would have been there who would have had similar challenges and questions bothering them as well, the only change for our times now is that more of us are engaged into Thinking about things that don’t really serve us and very few , very few of us are really asking the most pressing questions and Thinking as we should! This skewed off take between the overpowering density of useless thinking and very limited valid thinking is what keeps on drowning away any relevant voices that a society may have and thereby ends up pushing societies into that singular direction of less servicing and myopic scenarios.

Sure enough, I am suggesting we move to societies where we all have only philosophers asking finite and potent questions and finding the answers to these questions and we go about our utopian world just discussing! No, not a bit, what I am trying to share with you here is the compelling urgency that each one us must pay attention to make a choice to ask at least once in a while (if not often) some pertinent and valid questions which bring some justice to the fabulous thinking machines that each one of us has been gifted with! It is only when you allow that space to ask and get surrounded by intriguing questions once in a while that your brain will be stimulated enough and forced to come up with answers to perplexing observations that are beyond the routine and thereby provide your brain with that very much needed dose of stimulation to keep it abreast and tuning it to be always leaning and looking forward rather then only relying on past experiences and accumulated knowledge repository that is available at disposal on the click of a button!

The whole idea of allowing Thinking to be Intrinsic, is to allow it to be free of any pride or prejudice coming in either from the individual or from the surroundings that one may be in- for once that happens, then you are no longer thinking but rather aligning your observations and thought process to certify and validates what is around and what you desire for and this is where the fundamental disconnect happens and you are then entrapped for ever in a never ending circle of self- gratifying thinking either for yourself or for the people and things around you! Another level of conformation and compulsion just to get a sense of belonging among a groups- which again happens to be a hallmark of what humanity is!

Sure enough, you don’t need to think- the intrinsic way to buy that ice cream or those movie tickets or have that vacation, Intrinsic Thinking is for the more compelling questions about your individuality- about what you are – who you want to be as you transform through the stages of life and what is that you aspire and what to leave after you as a legacy that you have created- even if that has to be limited only for your family tree- if the stakes are higher and you have ever thought about influencing a society or a nation- then needless to say you need to have and embrace this space of Intrinsic Thinking more often then the others around you and need to also ask the right questions to have the right answers coming back to you in the time that they must! Thinking loses it’s potency as the quality of questions fall! Poor questions lead to poorer answers and thereby miserable solutions which lead to a myopic understanding of the life around us and then we are always left in that short served context until that next person arrives on the scene who asks the right questions, making it possible for the right answers to come in and thereby bring in the much needed change that the society would have been waiting for! So what is it that really makes Thinking Intrinsic? Well read on!

As I said earlier, It has to come from within and has to be pertaining to something that is compelling and which seems urgent in the context of the answers that the questions may provide- this is the space where great research, philosophical enquiry, scientific validations and myth busting takes place! Intrinsic Thinking is perhaps the purest form of thinking by staying focused on a perplexing question of high quality and then compelling your mind to provide equally high caliber answers/ solutions which are able to provide solutions or pathways which seem to deem fit to the quality of question asked in the first place! Once this is achieved (which in itself is a huge ask), what follows through the implementation of the solutions, needless to say is almost always in line to serve the greater good for humanity on a big scale! Use this Intrinsic Thinking with the wrong questions and what you get is the power to unleash hell on earth and cause misery to the millions around you! Intrinsic Thinking is all about carving a pathway to empowered thinking to allow individuals and societies to lead empowered lives by answering compelling questions in a way that high quality solutions and answers are found!

What happens when we do away with and shun this effort to allow and make way for Thinking in an Intrinsic manner? Well, you get what you are facing now! Screwed up ideologies, competing value systems and an omnipresent overbearing haze of ambiguity and myopic thinking across all levels within the society- right from individuals to the highest offices that a nation may have! When this happens, needless to say, everyone suffers, then it all falls back down to the scale of the majority- if the majority are wise – who practise Thinking the Intrinsic way- you still have a chance to think in an authentic manner and keep your head above the water line- but like it happens- if you are in a crowded society replete with idiots and dumbness, well you will have no other option to save your intrinsic thinking to just ensure you don’t get killed and walked upon over by the dumb-wits all around you!

I leave you here with these thoughts and urge you to mark that moment when you would want to deep dive into thinking by the intrinsic way and come up with some great answers for the great questions that you would have challenged and then race ahead to apply those finding to live an empowered life and perhaps also lead others through the empowered way!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one! Until then stay wise and keep Thinking the Intrinsic Way!

The fallacy of festive celebrations!

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

If you ever wondered why you wait for the whole year for that one big festival ( whatever that you want to choose and define as one for your sake!) and then ended up being more miserable towards the end of it, well this quick piece is just for you, to help you know why after the highs get higher, the lows are simply unfathomable! So join me here as we unravel this space of humanity and try to know why and when do celebrations fail and what is that we can do about that bit, if we want them to linger on as something to look forward to in the real essence of it!

Humanity is perhaps the only other thing alongside wine that tends to get exciting with time! to know the fallacy of festivals, we need to take a step back, in fact, quite a few steps to try un and understand how the whole concept of festivals perhaps evolved- no I am not an anthropologist, just plain uncomplicated stuff based on common sense and science and sure enough you can read about this in more details by going through the favorite books of your choice of human geographers or anthropologists- whatever comes easy to you!

So the story starts right at the very beginning, when humans were able to form the very first types of ordered societies – the very first time! to monitor and create order within those- coupled with the existing and evolving belief systems/ values (which were developed over time), the dawn of festivals was ushered in! Back then festivals were more of a method to mind societies so that the element of cohesiveness and divergence was visible and was always within the allowable limits as set by those who ruled those societies! One way of doing that effectively was to align these festivals to the broader belief systems/ value systems and make them as a bench mark for social conformation! So typically, if you were part of society that broadly believes in the belief or faith type”A” then alongside with the duties and responsibilities of following that faith/belief the rewards would be these much sought after festivities which would further more work to reinforce the ongoing prevailing value/ belief systems (as they have been rewarded with the festive spirit!) All is well until this point as societies are still fragmented not much inter connected among each other and there is a more or less a steady space as far as the mix of the value systems/ faith/ belief followership within the social frames that exist. This ensures that festivities are held orderly with a purpose with an intent and with a solemn reaffirmation of realignment to the broader cause of the established belief/ value system of the said society!

Now if you were to move ahead in time, say the more evolved societies the age of the Kingdoms around the world, what you witness is a racemic mix of belief systems and value definitions leading to multiple approaches to festivities, the definition of the whole concept of a festival and this is the time in history where festivities begin to compete among each other as a mark of opulence and progress by one set of value/ belief system over the other in a given social construct! This is that point of inflection where, societies which failed to manage and keep these competing ideologies and their assertion through festivals in balance that problems have begun and festivities rapidly began to drift away from the ancient path of being aligned to the puritan belief system/ value system to something altogether new- the embracing of the narrative of the rulers/ governing establishments on how and what the festival must be and when and how it is defined as successful, a grand one so on and so forth! This is how festivals and the celebrations around them stepped into the modern age- already skewed away from what they really stood for to begin with!

Irrespective where you live and what you believe or not, if you take that fabled pause and ask yourself how much of value addition have the festive celebrations done to your own personal life through the years of your life- chances are that you would have too felt the diminishing value of their impact, sense and sensibility like the diminishing value of money! This is nothing to suggest that the value of the festivals or their celebration would have diminished with time, but rather the method, the way and the impact of the conduct has certainly undergone a sea change which has furthermore added to skew festivities and their associated celebrations more further away from even the fundamental belief systems/ values to which they would have been rooted! It’s a classic case of enjoying a party not knowing for what it is and by whom it is! This singular aspect then further easily destroys the remaining core of the celebration and then what we are eventually left with are shadows which are larger than what the festival would have earlier been and more irrelevant then ever! How does this all pay out and manifest? Well read on!

Choose a value systems/ belief system/ faith whatever you may want to refer it as , and seek one festival associated to that system and check for yourself how the values of that festival have eroded with time! You will be surprised when you take a pause to reflect to see that how even you have ended up unwittingly contributed if not accelerated to making those celebrations more and more irrelevant each time that you celebrated more and more! No, the problem is not the celebration of the festival, it is the problem with the changing narrative and the method that has been implemented to define celebration which has created more problems then anything else!

I have intentionally not mentioned any names for the faith systems or the value systems, simply because that sets in prejudice and then one things will lead to another and the whole essence of the subject will go astray! You see, there was never, nor is neither will ever be a problem with the celebration of festivals aligned to belief systems/value systems that’s fine, the challenge starts as the way and method of these celebrations begins to slip away with each passing year and more importantly at times takes or manifests exactly the opposite forms of what the original intent would have been! The result? More and more shopping competitions around every festival, more and more of “display”, “senseless consumerism” and “needless unwanted one upmanship in one way or the other” the result, more fractured societies and and more confused individuals, who know they are celebrating, they know what but sadly none one ever knows what is the right way and what is that should be celebrated!

This is why the moment the “New year” is ushered in come January 2nd and it is aback to to the same old grind of whatever you have grinding upon or been ground into! The moment that instance, the moment those high days of the festivities are over, there is this bounce back to the routine norms of sharing “displayed celebration” over social media handles (which has now assumed sort of compulsive obsessive disorder space now!), those senseless bithcihng around with friends (well that’s a whole new definition now a days!) and family and that non-stop gauging and comparisons of opulence and gaps in the furniture which just go on and on until the next big festival hits home, calling for another celebration and this mad circus goes on with no end and no real rhyme or purpose! All simply because, the original ethos and the connect around them have been forgotten and lost, some intentionally, some accidentally and overall this leads to depleting value and belief systems and that downwards spiral leads one thing to another which eventually leads to societies- where some or the other segment is always celebrating something or the other- whether that makes sense or not! You think you know some society like this? Well! Stay Blessed! and Stay Safe then! So what’s that we can do?

Simple, get back to the basics! That’s the only way to salvage any remaining sanity that a society can possibly do, especially when it comes to aligning festival celebrations to what they ought to be- celebrate a festival- a path way of thought, ideology, belief, value system and you know what the best part is, all of that can be done without needing to have a shopping festival , a discount sale, a selfie contest, posting on social media, none of that is anytime needed and that is perhaps the only way to take your time away from these non productive and senseless pursuits and align your self to the more pressing and more real matters pertaining to the festival and the values/ beliefs that it brings forth and do what you can, to spread the warmth through those timeless values and that, if you ask me is the real essence of the festive spirit and anything and everything to do with celebrating festivals!

I leave you here with these thoughts, urging you to connect with your value systems/ beliefs in a more authentic way so that once you are plugged in right, you can reflect all that matters right and importantly in the way it is meant to be! Festivals and celebrations are no doubt the hallmark of humanity in terms of the civilizational and societal progress, but all that only makes sense only and only when there is meaning to those celebrations and there is a definite method to the madness! Life by itself is no less then a celebration! Celebration of moments form one unto the next and the only meaningful way to celebrate is to utilize the fleeting golden moments as wisely as one can and create values around which outlast the time in which they were created! Think again the next time you head on to celebrate something, take that pause and see if you are living the ethos of that festival by the way you choose to celebrate it!

Ciao for now, Will be back soon with another one, until then keep the festivities on and if nothing else practise the art and science of celebrating life for what it is and what it can be!

The oncoming Leadership pandemic!

~ PA ~ 2 Comments

Among many lessons that 2020 has brought ti us, one important one is about the fragility of leadership even as establishing the point why it is so scared and important! It is between these spaces the seeds of the next pandemic can be found and this one relates to the leadership pandemic and how well we are able to steer through this one will largely decide- as individuals or societies whether we progress or regress and whatever we choose to do- how fast or slow will that onset be! Join me here as we take a quick look through this concept and see what this is all about and what is that we can do about it- of we can do something about it!

Needless to say there is a whole lot of art and science to leadership, but what is equally important is the fact that neither can leadership be enacted in vacuum and nor can leadership be made available on demand! The whole of 2020 has seen the world over inter-personal engagement dynamics change- some of these may be welcome and few others may have been not that so welcoming but irrespective whichever one you have witnessed or have been part of there certainly would have been one certain casualty of all this disruption and that would have been the Leadership aspect!

Leadership was and never will be about recorded video logs of company CEOs, PR generated perfected newsletters and “From the CEO’s desk” communication”, simply because no one really gives a damn to any of that and none of that really matters! What alone matters to every soul on the team is the simple pointed question-what is my role in this changing space and how long am I needed here and for what! This is yet a very smaller instance around just the communication disasters that leaders worldwide have engaged with their colleagues and team members over the last few months! There are far more graver ramifications which perhaps have already been unleashed and the results of these will be needless to say more impactful, visible and played out in the open- through failing products, services, and organisations in the days and months that follow us in 2021! The primary reason for all that to set in, is not only the failure of the existing leadership mechanisms within organisations, but also because there are more than required number of organisations which stand out as brilliant examples of colossal organisational incompetence especially related to the critical space of Leadership and this in turn sets off a chain reaction- driving the firm and the people therein into a never ending death spiral of fading and failing leadership across levels- one level at a time!

What the pandemic has done is, that it has effectively stripped away the whole corporate world of all the necessary and unnecessary camouflage in one go! Needless to say, like a chameleon who has lost it’s colors, every element in that corporate set up lies exposed like a striking contrast to the chosen background- which makes it all the easier for the the other chameleons (read competitions) and the enticed viewers (read clients/ customers) all the more aware and clear of what really lies beneath the hood and thereby taking away all that built your charm, energy and warmth that would have ever been there in that ongoing engagement! Not only that even within the set ups of the myriad departments and organisational hierarchies, it has been now then ever before (thanks to the pandemic) that reality has set in and for once people know- who really works hard, smart or not at all and all those time-sheets have been begun to offer productive data which is far more meaningful now then ever it was earlier! In all this churn, there are casualties, many simply because they happened to be at the right place at the wrong time and few whose luck had eventually ran out- again the Pandemic to the rescue! Either ways what has now eventually evolved is a scenario where there are a few leaders left at the top, few people at the bottom and a middle level surge- where everyone seems to be herded together- with very few among them having the competence, knack or the finesse to lead that flock as the time moves ahead! But you may ask why should this happen? Well let me explain with a simple example!

For all those of you, who have spent some time being alert in the corporate world- a few things would have been absolutely clear- there are groups, group-isms, favorites and teams that work and teams that don’t work, leaders who work and who don’t so on and so forth! Before the pandemic hit, each organisation no matter how large or small it was, had the space within to navigate and allow a certain permissible and width of non-performances simply because it would be too costly, difficult and tenacious to monitor and track that- the effort wold have been more costly than the result of that observation! Hence earlier when colleagues said they had “Lunch meeting” you were never sure how much of that was Lunch and how much of that was a meeting! You never knew how much of meeting time was really required and how much was taken up! Before the pandemic you always needed the large conference room – full of people with additional chairs drawn in and tea and coffee raining all over the conference tables within the maze of wires and cables- only for everyone to come out of that conference room- agreeing on one thing that had to meet again! It is in instances like these that pandemic had eventually ended up being a blessing in disguise!

As soon as organisations, got their act together and established process and policies for the new world standard of the “WFH” (Work from Home) they began to realise and see their folly! Vendor expenses started to go down- no more travel, no more endless headache of tea/coffee, canteens, food orders so on and so forth, worrying about the light’s been left on, that AC left on – noting of all that at all! Furthermore if that was not enough, now you had a perfect chance to track and trim performance to the minute! No tea breaks, smoke breaks, no saying , “I was there”, “I was in a meeting”, all those long meaningless and conclusion-less meetings suddenly started to get productive under 30 minutes- simply because now you had to write the agenda in the subject line with the expected outcomes by the end of the meet (God alone knows why people had to wait for a pandemic to just get this bit done!)! Another fallout of this, unwitting expose of performance and competence/incompetence needless to say would be the head rolls, doing away with people and processes that do not matter anymore simply because there is nothing forthcoming from those areas in the Now or in the times ahead! This is the space from where the real onset of the Leadership pandemic starts!

Now that there are a handful of “resourceful leaders” having done away with “the ones’ not needed” and with middle layers of the organisation being told decisively that they hold the key to the future (not sure whose- theirs or the organisations) and not many junior level positions being retained or replenished (so that the mid level takes upon the incompetence of the higher ups and makes up for the loss of productivity due to the lack of resources at the lower levels!) the game is all set to usher in failing and fatalistic Leadership Incompetence! Why! Well, simply because organisations, as we speak right now are replete with doers’ they may be great no doubt but if you don’t have the visionaries who behold the vision of the future to lead and the support of the enthusiastic and curios generations that er to follow, every attempt to try and do something different or do the same thing better will fail- always and each time! This is how the leadership pandemic will manifest and play out as severe and un-treatable incompetence- simply because the real leaders are no longer steering the ship and with amateurs at the wheels who think it is easy to swim by reading a book, well the outcomes are almost always predictable and far way from the desired ones’ that an organisation would ever want to have!

This mindless rejig of organisations, by doing away with people and process without applying detailed thought and process and furthermore trying to expect the mid level to rise to the occasion ( at the same expense/cost and provide an output of the higher level!) and deliver what the seniors couldn’t with ever diminishing support from below and around, well it’s anyone’s’ guess what we are setting ourselves up for and what kind of leaders will emerge- if they ever do from these scary shadows of corporate dumbness! You may still want to present you case citing, why should thins be a problem- if there able people at the mid-level then why shouldn’t they rise and deliver! Well, I am sure there are and there will be- the problem is not about they being able to deliver- the problem will arise in the space of “how the deliver” well you can bake a cake as long as you learn how bake one, but to come up with the finest of them, you need to know the intricacies of the process and those magic moments where things begin to happen for taking that bread from the ordinary league to the premium league and this is what is missing at the mid – level- simply because the earlier masters would have forgotten to handover that secret key- either intentionally or unintentionally and without that no matter how many time you bake- your cake will yet remain ordinary! The story of Leadership pandemic is the story of rise of incompetence to further complicate things simply because the original masters are no longer on the scene!

If you look around you, you would have by now experienced some fall in the level and professionalism in the services that you seek, may be that engagement centre, the communication tonality, it could be the lacking warmth or simply renewed alignments on the agreed way of engagement- whichever way you are able to perceive what you do- the fact is that all of this is emerging out of the ever increasing leadership deficit, which is doing nothing but accelerating the onset of the leadership pandemic! If you thought this was limited only to the corporate world, think again! Just take a moment to pause and reflect on what can and will happen when this leadership pandemic sets in powerful offices which lead nations and societies! That is when the real ramifications will be felt and hit hard and fast and needless to say they will not be even an ounce pleasing to anyone for that matter! You would end up societies and nations having dumb rules and even dumber ways to manage that ever increasing dumbness within and around! Want proof?- I am sure, wherever you live, you would have heard about night curfews to manage the virus! There are many such subtle examples of dumb decisions coming up from powerful offices, for only one reason- the leaders (who are supposedly advising) are the ones’ who are part of the leadership pandemic and even as they are failing fast, they are preparing a whole new nightmare of even dumber people coming into succeed! So what’s the way ahead, can anything be done!

If you ask me, the only way to fix a systemic problem is either to set up a completely new system sans the garbage of the old ones’ or start rectifying existing systems at multiple fracture points and repairing them in tandem and ensuring that the right people are always at the right places ( no matter what their price tag) for quality has a prices and unless that is paid, rest assured all of us are on a one way ticket to a hellish dumb future! perhaps the only saving grace about Leadership is that it has a core intrinsic value- something that can’t be wiped off or taken away and if you are a leader in the real essence of that word then the chances are that you would be among the few people standing between complete chaos and method to the madness scenarios that we collectively look forward to face in the future!

I leave you with these thoughts for now, urging you to stay ever vigilant and practice what you can by being the Leader that you can be for yourself and the others around you so that we are able to stall the onset of the forthcoming leadership pandemic at an individual and a collective levels alike! Feel like you have already experienced instances of failing leadership- have heart- if you have noticed it and have been able to discern it- chances are you have the way around or over it to stall and overpower it!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then stay vigilant about this leadership pandemic!

Be an Artist!

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Your life is but a piece of art that you create, by being the artist that you are now, will become and will continue to be, moment to moment! Join me here, as we unravel how artists can teach us more than we think, they can and how that can be a game changer to look back upon what we do, the way we do,what we do and how those choices can get altered, the moment you realize that, you are the one who is going to be eventually recognized for all the achievements and all the brickbats that you ever get in life and how being an artist alone can save the day for you, by learning to deal and engage with things and people around like the artists do!

In the mundane life that all of us are blessed with (apart from the excitement that the pandemic has brought into our lives- whether we like it or not!), everything seems to flow in a sequence and order and is often repeated over some cycle- for few of us these cycles are short/annual and for few others, these cycles of life are longer- occur every few years or perhaps once in a decade- but that is what the whole story of human life is, choose a part of your life- any part- professional, personal, student life, being the young professional at work, or that leader who has been leading that large corporation- whatever that you may be doing and whoever that you might be, the plain fact remains that each one of us is more or less tied down to a routine with a limited flexibility and thereby we end up creating our future instances within the limitations of the flexibility that we allow to govern us! The Artists are the only ones’ who have the ability, the craft and the context to break this monotonous life cycle and embrace multiple truths through fleeting windows of time by practicing their craft and thereby ensuring that they live a thousand lives in one life time and mesmerize us by what they achieve and what they don’t!

Very few of us, ever realize that we just end up consuming the limited resource of time, irrespective of what we choose to do or not and importantly that is one commodity that still can’t be made good no matter what you say and how you try! As readers’ of my blogs, I am sure that most of you would have at some or the other time spent time in meaningful contemplation, checked what worked, what did not and well left it at that and rarely done something around that- whatever it would have been- eventually after some time- you would have ended up with the same mixed feeling of being directionless, confused, confident, happy and sad all at the same time and well that’s pretty much the story of each one of us around the world as we flow through our life journeys’- one moment to the next- if there’s anything that beats this- it is only the mindset and the magic that can be woven only by an Artist and this is the compelling reason why we must all reach out to the Artist within us- not to escape- but rather to liberate- our thinking, our contexts and our truths and fantasies- for only once this has been done- will you be really aligned to what is the meaningful and real purpose driven meaning of your lives’ journey and that is something that you will thoroughly enjoy, irrespective of that corporate label or not! So how do Artists get into this zone, how can they beat the mundane path and who is an artist really? Read on!

The Artist- is perhaps the most evolved expression of being human- whether it is the dazzling world of celluloid stars, the silver screen experts, the fine painters, the lucid dancers, singers who are soft as velvet, the sculptors who breath life into stones or the ones’ who are gifted enough to mix the worlds of philosophy and science to bring to life timeless innovations, discoveries and much more- each one of them, and all of them are an artist- in their own space and unlike the many of us who have been perennially entrapped into the mundane patters of life- the Artists are the ones’ who are liberated by the virtue of their ability to express their presence through their craft and stay liberated even in the times of utmost confinement!

Consider this, you have that famous celluloid star, the many roles portrayed- which made you emote while experiencing the journey of the character played by the star-in that short span of 120 minutes, leaving you with a variety of emotions, ideas, thoughts, inspiration and what not! Now if that one character played by your star has left you with so many experiences, thoughts and emotions, just take a moment and imagine, what that Artist goes through in their lives’ as they portray and play o over hundreds of such colored characters as part of their craft! How much would all of that script reading, embracing the character must be rubbing off them and how challenging it must have been for them on an ongoing basis to retain who they are – their authentic self- in face of the ceaseless onslaught of all the personalities that get imposed on them as they play to the role! It is the knowledge of this secret that often goes a long way to make these Celluloid Artists so humble, accommodating, down to earth, knowledgeable and humble! Through their study of human characters (some fictional some real) they come face to face with all that could have worked well and gone horribly wrong each time they choose a project and that character ends up being their teacher for them for that period of the project- leaving the star with key learnings and ensuring they stay humble, grounded and grateful for all that they are- for the better could not have been managed and any worse would have been a terrible way to live! This is why real stars are never all that glam and dazzle but on the contrary are all the humble, polite, grounded and selfless- holding on to virtual nothingness, for they know that the more you hold on to- the more tougher it is to surge ahead- unless you liberate yourself from the chains of your current perceptions and entrapment and and all effort to reach a new and better tomorrow- a goal or a place will be in vain- unless you severe the chains of your today that limit your abilities to move ahead on that journey of liberation and seeking something new and better! As they say, what did not serve you until now, will never serve you to get you where you want to be tomorrow! A new future, demands a new version of your thoughts and efforts!

If you thought, being an Artist, was always only about being on the celluloid or silver screen, think again! As I said, earlier, every form of artistic expression is a statement by the artist- painters, sculptors, designers, singers, musicians, writers, every aspect of human expression which embraces creativity and originality is a piece of art and the person beholding that super power is an artist- doesn’t matter whether that artist is widely recognized or not, whether that artist is awarded or not, what matters is that, that Artists has learnt the Art to stay liberated and continue to progress on the journey of creative expressions despite and irrespective of the settings around! These liberated artists and expression of art is the real essence and a vital indicator of the development metric of the society that they come from! How an Art form is respected and how well Artists are treated is a measure to know how mature a society is and how progressive and promising its future can be! You may ask, why is this important and how does this impact you and me- we may not be technically “artists” or are we and we know not about it as yet?

Each one of us, everyone of us is an artist in our own way and right- the only difference between those who make it big on the canvass of the Artistic horizons and us is that we do not pursue the abilities that we have professionally as our lives’ calling and we try to spend most of lived trying to apply that unspent artistic level on mundane things! Let me explain- ever known about that friend who bakes really well, that person who clicks a great shot always and that person who could act and drive you crazy- not allowing you to know when it was real and when it was a joke- well all these and many such incessant are nothing more but those streaks of artistic brilliance that ooze out as the opportunity arrives, simply because we never exercised them, the way we could have and instead settle for the routines of life as they seem more safe, predictable and long term! I mean given a choice between being a painter- who ever keeps wondering when will his next painting get sold and being a creative director at a firm, majority of us would end up choosing the later- not because we are not great or good or there is a challenge with the competency- but simply because most of the times our immediate contextual setting simply don’t allow enough lee way to exercise that freedom and when an assessment of the choice is done, the earlier route seems far more risky than what an individuals risk appetite could be! This is why you will find hidden streaks of artistic flair among the majority of us and give the chance, you will find people around you perform like there’s no tomorrow- simply because they are delivering their art from their soul and that connect is beyond anything and everything! So what’s the takeaway, you may want to know!

Well, the takeaway is simple and clear- You are the Artist of the Art form that you behold- whether you want to pursue it as a professional or allow it to accompany you and embrace you occasionally or whether you want to use it to surprise others occasionally is a choice that you make! Whatever the path you choose to take, as long as you embrace the art within you, the artist in you will be able to liberate you and keep you steady, and progressive in the pursuits of your life- whether you choose to do that by living the one life that you have or by portraying a thousand lives on the screens and the mediums that you can touch! Allow that artist within to lead you and you will be surprised to see how well and easily you are able to do away with mundane routine of life and embrace and live it further and deeper- sharing and experiencing all that you behold within and around by virtue of the artistic flair that you have!

I leave you with these thoughts here, urging you to take that long walk and reach out to the artist within you and embrace the craft that you have, for you never know, you may just get to live that many more lives in the one life that you so dearly hang on to!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one! Until then stay artistic and allow your life to be one great Art Story!

Know your buffet!

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Simply because ignorance can’t be bliss anymore and indulgence can turn fatal, knowing your buffet is perhaps the most important thing that you can decide to master! Join me here as we take a quick fleeting look to understand this space!

Our lives have never been serviced or should I say, over-serviced like ever before, to the extent that even a pandemic which was supposed to halt the world dead in its tracks, failed to do so completely! At the most what we witnessed collectively the world over were mere hiccups and even as nations and societies went into lockdowns and closures, it was clear that this was not going to be the real solution to the overwhelming problem! Our lives even now, irrespective of the level of restriction that we live in are sprinkled with instances of deficit and over indulgence in various areas! It is within these contextual settings that it becomes important than ever before to know your buffet and ensure that you are nourished well enough with all that you consume, but are never malnourished or overtaken by gluttony! So what is is this all about? What is this buffet actually?

This buffet that I am referring to here is the buffet of your life! Yes, every second that you spend, you are being served with a buffet, a buffet which consists of ideas, ideologies, facts, fiction, realities, perceptions, truths and conspiracies and everything that you can ever imagine of through the workings of your mind, simply because all that manifests in front of you each moment is all but a figment of imagination or reality or the perception of reality of someone else’s mind! Think about it! What you consume from this dynamic spread in front of you goes on to further determine your next buffet and that’s how we make choices- individual and collective at times- which take us from one buffet to the next, as we continue to consume what we choose to and how we choose to! It is within these pockets of making a choice to consume in a moment that our buffets and course of paths get written, re-written and inter-twined at times with purpose and many a times, leading us through meaningless wandering and false pursuits which simply go on to amplify the impact of having consumed something which we were not supposed to!

You see, as you go about your daily chores of life, whether you lead a nation or lead yourself or even just drag yourself, every point you are making a choice and that choice that you make (either by a free will that you have or as a coercion) is indeed made by reviewing the buffet that exists in front of you. The buffet that presents itself to you at any moment, at all times comes from the choices that you made previously- so your story can either be one of moving from one fulfilling buffet to the next or one unhappy buffet to the next, simply because, what you desire is not presented or it either gets presented the way you can’t really do much around it! So how does one ensure that the buffets being presented always and at all times are the ones’ that you would be the ones’ that serve you and you can look forward to them?

Well, the answer to this question is simple and at the same time, that much difficult to implement- simple because it is you who- can begin the journey of one buffet to the next and difficult because as the variables of the contextual settings get added upon- there will be more and more distractions that will tempt you at all times to have that dish which will simply conclude your ongoing buffet and short serve your future ones! As long as you make choices and aim for the right stuff at the first buffet that you come across your life, rest assured all your subsequent buffets will get aligned to what your purpose is and that’s when you have a life as mentioned in the fairy tales! When you make incoherent choices in between the matrix of making them, at times you are forced to take a few steps back, at times take detours which are demanding and at times, it simply the case of too little too late and you have to settle down with what you are then eventually served and left with no choice to make the most of what you have around! So you may now want to know what is that First Buffet really about, what is it like? When do we face it and how do we know we are facing one now?

The First Buffet is different for each one of us and unique to who we are, for some it is about that first choice of a school that is being made, for yet others it is the first million dollars earned, for yet others it is the first 100 millions dollars invested and it really depends on who we are and at what point in time one comes face to face with a question that demands a decision- a major one- either by choice or by being forced to exercise that decision! Let me explain! Consider this, you may be a stable, well to do businessperson, but then one fine day, you come face to face with a decision- to stagnate and level off or should you go for the leap of faith and plan for the being bigger and better- that moment in this case – is the first buffet and the buffet is served with a plethora of options of, “If this then that” scenarios and it is the individuals ability to use wisdom and intellect in those moments that either propels them into the next orbit of greatness or holds them captive in a never ending loop in the orbit where they are! This is the real essence of The First Buffet- It shapes and forms your paths ahead and mandates the time when you will be able to achieve what you pursue. More importantly it also indicates, whether you will really reach what you are pursuing or will you be left to settle with something that you had not bargained for and if that is the case how much of value will you be eventually be able to make out of all that manifests!

People often rush through decisions on a daily basis, not for once realizing that every decision taken is either taking them towards or away form what they pursue or what their goal of life is. Sure enough no one is asking to have a brainstorming session for buying that pack of chips, but then there are those seemingly innocent and harmless decisions, like what to study, where to work, with whom to work, when to start your own venture, is it now or later to do “a” or “b”- it is these situations in the buffet space of life that go on to create our realities and perceptions for others! Needless to say a lot of success stories around the world are more anchored on perceptions of others than the realities and the truths as experienced by the people who live that tale! Think about it! This is why to unleash the potential of your life and the purpose that you have either chosen or want to be chosen for, it becomes important to weigh those “yes” and “no” well in time as much as you can, you will not succeed always and that’s how it is supposed to be- the trick is in failing less and succeeding more and ensure that even if that margin is as slender as it gets, your “yes” are leading and this alone will ensure that you are making progress from one meaningful buffet to the next with minimal detours and unwanted set backs!

The options that the world today presents are mind boggling, it’s no wonder that you come across many people who walk into buffets thinking one thing and end up doing the exactly the opposite or something different purely on impulse and in majority of cases that choice made through fleeting moments comes to bite back at the very pulse of existence of the individual and sure enough in those rare instances, these impulse driven decisions go on to create history and usher in a new future for humanity! So what’s the takeaway?

Well, it’s simple- Life is all about the buffet that you get an entry to and then from that moment, it is from one to the next, to earn yourself a ticket to that right First Buffet is a matter of wisdom, intelligence and at times a chance or luck as well! For that first step goes on to decide whether you lead and live a life narrated in a fairy tale or have to embark upon a crusade for yourself and others battling the odds and wining and loosing, just enough to keep moving on the path to your purpose and goals! The essence also lies in the ability of an individual to stay aligned and focused through the distractions that the typical buffet of life comes with and as long as one doesn’t succumb to them, rest assured you will have a sumptuous life!

I leave you with these thoughts here, for you to figure out, how your buffets have been, if you are in middle of one now or if you are heading into the next one anytime soon! Whatever the case may be- just remember- The First Buffet is what will define your subsequent ones’ and the more right choices you make, the easier will that journey be, from one buffet to the the next!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one! Until then Stay safe, stay wise, and hit the buffet now! Go ahead and make an empowered choice for now and for the times to come!

Acquire the Presidential Mindset.

~ PA ~ 1 Comment

As strange as it may seem, but another trick to empower yourself is by embracing the Presidential Mindset! We are just about a month away from perhaps the most crucial and important elections on the planet- The election to The White House and what better time than now, to share a few thoughts around embracing the Presidential Mindset- so that even if you do not want to necessarily lead a nation, you can always be sure enough that the choices that you make to lead yourself and those around you are at all times as aligned as they can be to what the chosen path is! So join me here and let’s decipher how this unique Presidential frame of mind can go a long way to assist you to counter challenges as they manifest!

No matter which nation you live in, the most powerful office- almost always is going to be the one that belongs to the Head of the State- some nations have Presidents, few have Prime Ministers and yet a few have Monarchs or Rulers! Irrespective of what type of designation label you have on that chair, the common strand that runs through each one of them is the simple fact that- It is THE OFFICE that decides the fate of millions! That Chair comes with it’s own contextual frame and irrespective of who occupies it- the moment the person is seated- THE chair has the power and ability to transform and extract all that is due from the person who beholds it! Very often people are inspired, in awe, at times in disbelief and yet at few other times left wondering- did we really put this person to be on that chair! But there are then those times, when the people of a nation also feel, Thank God! We have this person on that Chair! So what is so special about THE Chair and what is the real transformation that happens- which manifests in front of the nation as leadership in action from these power corners?

You see there are two basic aspects to deciphering the Presidential Mindset- One is THE CHAIR and the other is THE PERSON who occupies it! Let me explain, this bit quickly! The Chair really acts like a calibration device- it safeguards to a greater extent that irrespective who comes to occupy it- the fundamental fabric and duties that are expected to be discharged- in the normal contexts (which are so rare now a days) will not be disturbed. This is what lays down the rules of engagement- if you want to see it that way and then allows the person to play to that game using the allowances that the chair has provided. The Chair- gives an opportunity to enhance the service quotient and reduce the tape around- but very rarely will you find anyone occupying it- wanting it to be used that way! So to give a sense of it, THE Chair sets up the trim level- you see as a President or a Leader of “ABC” you will be able to only extract “xyz” and not “pqr” as someone else occupying the chair of another nation can do- simply because the trim level of the Chairs around the world are set and every time nations have tried to play around with that bit- results have never been in anyone’s favour- be it war or the economic crisis!

Next you arrive to meet The Person- Unlike what normally people seem to think, decisions of THE Chair are never really an individual decision of the person on The Chair, but rather a collaborative effort and a consensus driven decision of the “Inner Collective”. Sure enough, the decision, to pull that plug off some nation or whether to hit that button to unleash a device, rests with the Chair and the Person who occupies it- but to arrive at that, the “Inner Collective” presents well informed scenario’s that may stem form the “Go- No GO” situation and this why you find that any Leadership of a Nation is not only good or bad, because of the Person who leads it, but rather more importantly is a function of the “Inner Collective” who are by the Leader and suggesting/guiding/ advising/ collaborating at all the time! So you may want to ask, so does the “Inner Collective” really run the nation? Well the answer is Yes and No! Yes- Because the “Inner Collective” is the Guardian of the laid down principles, ways of working and internal and external connect of the nation and No because- unless the Chair doesn’t allow the “Inner Collective” to function, it may have all the solutions to all the problems, but simply will be ineffective as it can only make the difference if allowed to do so! So what is this Inner Collective?

The Inner Collective is the whole association and ecosystem of people and processes that go to present the Leadership with information of challenges on hand and the possible solutions and the timelines of deployment and execution and these are the people who get the things implemented on the ground once the Chair signs them off and for the Chair to sign things off, unless the compelling case isn’t made (which promises some socio-economic benefit, needless to say with a political one) it won’t go ahead! So you see, in a way the rise and fall of a Presidency or Leadership of a Nation is not only about the Person, but rather is a reflection of the whole ecosystem and the quality of the Inner Collective that the Chair has, as it’s support system! It is the totalitarian impact of these wise people that advise, guide and implement what they must in accordance with the Presidential Consent that goes a long way either to create a legacy of accomplishments or a story of blunders! and the only one person that gets to be labelled by the rights and the wrongs is always THE Person on THE Chair and not THE Chair, neither The Inner Collective! Think about it! So what am I trying to tell you here and how is that relevant to you and me?

Just like, The Presidency is as an outcome of the Inner Collective, The person and the boundaries set by the Chair, each one of us, is an outcome of who we are as a person- the chair that we hold or aspire for and the Inner Collective that we have around us- The family, friends, colleagues, mentors and all that can influence and nudge you as an individual!

Acquiring the Presidential Mindset is all about harnessing the power of the Inner Collective that you have, the Chair that you hold or aspire for and becoming the Person that you would want to be , being on that Chair! The Presidential Mindset can go a long way to, not necessarily making you a President in the literal sense, but making you lead yourself like a President and once you do that with finesse, you will be surprise to see the ease with which you can de-clutter and streamline your pathways and realize your goals with considerably reduced friction and unwanted challenges as many of them are managed and taken care by the Inner Collective- that you chose- so that you are aligned to only things and pursuits that matter the most and are not left battling out every small disagreement and battle on the way!

Once you have developed this knack to understand that to lead yourself, is nothing short of leading a sovereign person that you are and begin to know the value and importance of having the right Inner Collective around you, rest assured you will be well on your way to create a lasting legacy and govern yourself! As you pursue your aspiration to reach that Chair- which then becomes the final icing and final frontier for empowering you- you will continue to become the person that the Chair demands and needless to say your Inner Collective will get aligned to your dynamic needs as you stay glued to the path that is needed to reach where you aspire to be!

Sure enough, I could have gone into further details and discussed here with you, how President’s think and how they don’t and how good decisions go wrong and and sometimes how even the most brazen ones’ align to the most progressive developments, but, given the limitations of a blog, would not wont to deep dive in this piece for now, this piece was more to let you know that, like the nation you live in- You too are a Sovereign entity and You too can lead yourself like a President of your own Sovereign Mind and Space!

The Presidential Mindset is the secret to lead yourself like a sovereign state, by drawing up the principles that go onto define who you are as a person-state and more importantly as you do so the quality of your Inner Collective and the choice of it, will go a long way to decide whether you do reach The Chair that you aspire for and if you do so, for how long you will be able to sustain it and if you do sustain, whether you end up creating a legacy or a story of blunders!

I leave you here with thoughts, for you to seek your Presidential Mindset, know your Inner Collective and seek That Chair so that you too can write a story of the Person-State that you are!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then keep Leading!

Know the knot.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

As trivial it may seem, do not be fooled, for the humble knot tells a lot about who got it done and who will get it undone! Join me here as we try to fathom this seemingly simple aspect of our life, but has a big message for all of us, whether we are the ones’ putting the knots in, getting them out or simply playing the role of an observer.

Perhaps the biggest playtime for few kids, and I say few kids here, has always been about getting to know the knot and in that process, getting to know a little bit more about themselves! You see the knot is essentially, by itself -nothing, but it rather becomes easy or difficult as a function of the person who decides to have a go at it, either by tying the knot in or by untying the same!

The biggest strength and perhaps the most fragile aspects of the human brain lies in the ability to perceive what is being presented- more often people end up spending their lives battling and waging wars against perceptions rather than focusing on what really the matters are or perhaps ought to be! This is what also is true about the “knot”! People often come in two broad groups, if you ask me, one is the group that simply relishes on creating the knots and untying the knots and you have another one which has no other role but to either avoid the knot either out of ignorance or fear, or just look out for people to help as soon as they realize that they just have unintentionally either created one or untied a knot, which was meant to remain the way it was!

So why is that some people relish the knot, while others avoid? Well, there could be varied reasons for that, but this happens to be the fundamental aspects of human societies and the way we shape ourselves, individually and collectively as societies, this is also what further gets reflected into the advancements and development potential that societies are able to embark upon- societies that have an uncanny accommodating approach to knots – creating them and deciphering them needless to day, race ahead and stay in control of not only their immediate contextual needs of today and tomorrow, but also play a pivotal role in determining the path for the times ahead for everyone else to follow, collaborate and share!

The whole human defiance and avoidance of the “knot” arises because the normal- majoritarian views about the knot across societies have been associating it with a problem- and more importantly as a difficult to solve problem, but the point that majority of these societies end up missing out completely is that, beyond that problem stance lies the real realm of creating something new, unveiling new frontiers by answering questions never answered before! The tighter the knot, the more exclusive the knot, the rewards for finding that answer by untying the knot are all the more greater and satisfying! Need proof for this, check all the discoveries and inventions of the 19th century- whatever field you choose- you will see a singular construct of the relentless pursuits of intelligent minds to answer a question- a pursuit to untie the knot and create history by opening up possibilities that were locked in time of the knot that locked away!

There is another aspect to the knot thought and that is of letting the knot be where it is! You do remember when the knot would have saved the life of someone you know- if you were anytime with the scouts or the national defence guards or some sort of civil defence set up on your society! If you are a mountaineer, who else will be better to know the value of those fluid knots on that rappelling line! Those are the fleeting moments when your life is literally hung on by knots on the line and the flex over the line! If one goes wrong, you are sure to find yourself in some trouble!

Knots, like human virtues have no other layer to who they are and what they are- the only thing that differentiates between a workable and meaningful knot and the odd knot (which is meant to be left the way it is) is what lies within and beyond it, once it is untied! So this brings us to the effort aspect of untying the knot, as I said earlier, only a small portion of humanity will ever want to untie a knot, in the era that we live in, where cutting the line almost always sounds, fast, classical and effective- well nothing to argue on that bit, next time try asking the surgeon do it while your angioplasty is on! Knots that hold value/ contents whose time has arrived are meant to be unlocked and these are the knots that propel humanity ahead- a few risk to solve the challenged at hand and serve the whole humanity- development of cutting edge technologies in aerospace, medicine are all a apart of this space! Next, you have those knots- which are best left untouched and unmoved- for they hold the power to undo everything that has been achieved till that moment- these knots can manifest either as a technology that has a larger double edged attribute or some ideology that has the ability to ruin everything that has ever been created until the moment that they are set loose! Sounds, familiar, yes pretty much they are and in fact it is the fallacy of humanity that as a race we have globally ended up untying more and more of these less serving or rather counter productive knots than the ones’ we should have actually untied! Why we end up doing this? Well, the answer to that lies over the past knots that we have chosen to untie!

If you think everything to do with knots has limitations only to the societal frame, well think about it! Take a pause and reflect into your own efforts at the very intrinsic level and what do you see, what are the type of knots have you been tying up, untying, avoiding, dealing with and how has that effort lead you to where you are in the journey of your life, has that propelled you or has that made you take a detour or has that halted you dead in your tracks to where you want to go! Well this is the space where the knots become very private, real and intense and it is the choices that we as individuals then go on ti make- informed or other wise that ends up us either being served by these knots that come our way or we end up being entrapped within them and then are just left at the mercy of one knot unto the next in a seemingly never ending knotted existence of our life- where the only goal seems to be moving form one knot to the next, while untying none!

Knots, have a character too and that character is a combination of what that knot is about and who is tying up that knot or untying that knot! As the knot gets untied or is let loose, all that character is let loose and how much one is able to manage that aspect goes on to determine what element of that knot will come to play a major role!

Well, given the limitations of being a blog, I would not want to (no matter how much I would have loved to) dwell and deep dive into the different types of knots their manifestations and the whole aspect of either dealing with them or living with them, but I would want to stop short for now, here with a thought- a singular thought that says and conveys only one thing- Know your knots, for which you untie and which you keep closed- determine where you head and what you become and perhaps what you don’t become!

I leave you with these thoughts for now, take a break, grab that coffee and think about the knots as you have time- examine which served you well and which harmed you well, for what you are today is a sum total of all those knots that came your way and all those that are lined up will go on to make who you will be in the times ahead!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one! Stay safe, stay wise – knotted or otherwise!

The antidote to mindless pursuits.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Much of humanity loses its breath and time pursuing a thousand of acts for one or the other justified reasons to eventually achieve nothing! Whether it is about the career that you want to pursue, that college you want to be in or that big corporate brand that you want to be associated with or whether it is the eccentric dream that you are caught up with to create something great and awesome or perhaps none of these and you just want to be doing what pleases you in the moment that you are, without giving a second thought for the next moment- well each of these aspects have been one of us at some or the other time in our lives and many of us end up realizing that- whatever that pursuit was, it was a colossal waste of time and energy, because you never ended up where you wanted to be, by pursuing what you did! So what’s unfolding here actually? Read on!

The human mind is at the forefront creating this overbearing drive to pursue! Well, there is nothing wrong to seek enquiry and then go on to pursue to find the solutions; problems begin when the whole pursuit not because of what it should be, rather it is because of the created simulations of the mind which fog out clarity of thought and purpose! Let me explain!

Like with anything else, the mind works exceptionally well as long as it is nourished and is utilized to pursue what makes practical and realistic sense, sure enough taking risks is a part and parcel of life (without which nothing great would have ever seen the light of the day), but the key word when it comes to risks is calibrated and measured risks- risks from which you can walk away- should your attempts fail! It is when people remain stuck with ever failing attempts and simply refuse to budge is when the pursuits start to become mindless! Yes, there are stories about scientists and innovators who failed and failed and failed only to succeed after the 10th, 50th or perhaps the 100th time, but the only factor- albeit a slender one which stands between their pursuits still being meaningful rather than being mindless is that – their risks were fundamental to alter the course of history and thy knew about it, even as they embarked upon it! You see, once people become clear what is at stake, then it becomes easier to know what is that must be pursued and what is that must be left alone and when it is the time to walk back to seek a new frontier! But then what is it that makes the human mind go berserk and get off-course in the first place?

The trim level of any machine is not always determined by at what point it fails (sure enough that is a key parameter), but rather what does it do- how does it react when it is made to stretch to a point beyond normal and the scenario of failure is eliminated! This is precisely what fails the human mind and makes it wander into spaces which yield nothing more than an intellectual experience that can be either rewarding or a nightmare! Once the option to fail, breakdown or stall is done away with, the human brain, pressed on and on- like a machine whose stop switch has gone wrong- will simply keep wandering in the universe of thoughts and self-reflection (bordering on either self-doubt or unwarranted over confidence) and this the moment from where that journey into nothingness commences!

The human mind as potent as it seems, has this feature to take you to long never ending scenario simulations- which at times are like a free movie premiere- for a movie which only you can see and experience- simply because it has in all probability got to do something with you! More importantly it has got everything to do with what you have achieved and not achieved and it’s often the things that you have not achieved that trigger your mind to carry you along into that mindless journey with no end and no result in sight! Let me explain this

Consider this, you have been a good doctor- you have treated people well and you have not ended up killing someone due to wrong diagnosis-but despite years put into this, you have never received the recognition or that position where you could influence many and address the crowds! So in this backdrop- although psychologically you are fit and fine, these unrealized desires, when the time comes take shape and they can shoot off in any of the two ways!

One- either by your involvement and proactive management of your mind- you can ensure that you get more busy doing what you are good at and make peace with what the fact is- that your social recognition for service is not coming now or anytime soon or may never come!

Alternatively you can allow your mind to take control and start to create simulations of forced thought which essentially all begin to provide creative solutions on how you may get that elusive recognition, which you logical and rational thinking has said you can’t! It is fine until this point too! A whole part of creative reflection, contemplation, over passed detours and challenges is what makes people wise to deal with their approaching times in a more progressive and directed manner- the problems start as soon as people start to act on these simulations, without thinking whether it is really meaningful, sensible and practical to take that route!

As long as that odd eccentric scientist, continues on the path of pursuing what is a figment of imagination of the mind, with no current science to back up or no rational thinking to cover the actions, the only possible outcomes that will ever play out are either a ground breaking invention which will alter the course of humanity or the deafening silence of lost hopes and misplaced expectations that will play out privately, leaving the scientists all alone to defend oneself and either course correct or walk into a trap of yet another mindless pursuit!

You may now be tempted to ask, if these are indeed the two levers on which the human mind operates then why sweat? Choose one over the other and keep going and when one fails, go back to the other, well sure enough that’s the only way around dealing with the mind, but that’s easier said than done, for the simple reason that, the judgement to know when to use which facet of the human mind is the key to keep a check on the mindless wandering and yet harness the creative genius that it has to offer and this is the only antidote to stay away from mindless pursuits!

The ability to harness the potency of the mind effectively and in a timely manner between the flex and the rigid stand is the only antidote to keep that urge to mindlessly wander under check! The mind works well and in fact very well, when it is given its own space and time to stretch and limit- stretch is important to allow it to create simulations- wayward- meaningless and out of the world- for it is in this realm that magic and new age solutions appear seemingly from no-where, limiting the mind on the other hand has the power to make it answerable to the faculties of logic and rationality- whatever the thought is, has to abide by the laws that govern the universe! Say you even wanted to imagine a spaceship or a faster than the speed of light craft- it has to adhere to the principles of physics and astronomy to even get to the equation board!

Given, the limitations of a blog, I will leave it here, urging you to experience for yourself-how were the times when your mind wandered away in pursuits- that perhaps yielded nothing of what you have now with you or perhaps that wandering itself has provided you with everything that you have with you now! Whatever, the outcome would have been, sure enough that has gone a long way to make you more wise and progressive when it comes to choosing your pursuits and perhaps has kept you aligned to your goals despite the detours and situations that would have arisen owing to the pursuits of your free mind!

Tame your mind- to stretch and flex, limit and expand as you demand and not the other way around! Once you have developed the ability to sustain this ability, you will be able to tap into the vast reservoir of imaginative and creative brilliance that your mind has to offer you, and trust me you too will be surprised with the way solutions begin to present themselves, only because you have learnt the art and science to tame the waywardness and limit those mindless pursuits!

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

Why Simple is so Complex!

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Humanity seems to thrive on presenting complex and complicated reasons,logic and everything that there is and the reality is that there could be nothing more contradicting to the truth- which is- simplicity is the only and the most essential building block to develop and build upon whatever that you choose to create! Join me here as we explore this space and try to understand why simplicity is omnipresent yet so elusive!

The progress of humanity has been a story of moving from simplified structures to more and more complex systems; whether it is about societies , the rules and regulations, belief systems, whatever you choose as an example, you will find that as humans we have this unwarranted and compelling desire to complicate and make complex things as scale begins to grow and perhaps the only industry which works in a complete contradictory manner is aerospace- where – minimal essential is the key word! If you observe the journey of a business conglomerate, you will see that when the beginnings were humble with a handful faithfuls believing in the dream and aligning themselves to the cause- rules of that fledgling organization would have been minimal and they would have worked well to propel and empower decision making and progressive styles of working hereby making it possible to writer the unfolding success story in the years that followed. But once these very organizations reach critical mass, they have more and more and ore rules to be followed and in all that, the whole pursuit and purpose of the work and the organization gets fogged out- may be not completely- but it tends to wear off its sheen and the sharpness of the earlier days and than that greatness just stays overhead by virtue of who they are and not because of what they want to be! Sure enough rules and structures are important, but there is a big difference between creating rules for people and having people for the rules!

As long as rules work to simplify and empower people, they can stay simple- that is the power of simplicity! The challenge commences as people begin to manipulate this simplicity to pursue what is not within the mandate and purview and there by necessitating building additional layers on exiting simplified rules and approaches- this intrinsic trait of a few to bend and flex simple rules is what pushes the majority into having to adhere to complex systems- even as this silent majority would have been compliant enough to follow even the simplified rules! Let me explain!

When was the last time you decided to board a train without a ticket, well possibly not, never unless it was in your teens when you were hanging out with your invincible friends in an attempt to show off your unique skills! But if you see around, even for simple things like booking of travel tickets, no matter where you are in the world, you will end up having to comply with at least 2-3 additional documents- whether you travel domestic or international! SO why did we end up building a complex system for something as trivial as booking or buying a travel ticket? Well, yes, you guessed it right, that predictable ability of a few eccentric characters, who believe in hacking, bending and flexing the system for their benefit, has ended up the majority to comply with additional check points and verification systems. If you thought this is just about the social aspects, just observe your work place- what do you see?

Even when it comes to the office world, even to swipe-in you have a minimum of two systems tracking you- sure enough you may say, part compliance, part redundancy, but that takes an altogether new meaning when one system shows you present and the other one marks you absent, simply because you did not log in through your device that day! beyond this, as you try to access your official tools, whether it is the mail system, the much hyped ERP, MIS systems, every point you will see systems have been designed not to suggest that “you can be trusted” and “you will do what you must as you should”, but rather on the premise “that you will not do it well and in a timely manner”! Remember the escalation matrix, well that’s not for you to be happy about, it just tells you the broad premise that your office is working upon- that you cannot be completely trusted! You may want to argue that, this is a process and this is how it is done everywhere, may be true, but all of that argument doesn’t answer, why it has to be done that way? and if you are the one who is going to solve what comes in your inbox, what’s the whole point of escalating and if something indeed needs to be escalated(because you aren’t empowered to deal with it) then why should you even be receiving all all that in your inbox to begin with! So, why is that, we have this mad dash for complexity and why is the ability to stay “simple” so elusive? What does all this really tell us about who we are and what we do with our lives? Read on!

The urge to complicate or rather create complexity on simple aspects has it roots in the foundation of human thoughts and belief systems, like modern day thinkers, much of the mid-age thinkers also saw humans broadly in two buckets- one who are self-driven, selfless, purpose drive and have a sense of community duty and the other set which was more self-centered, who would act only for reward and cared a damn for what unfolds around- either by being indifferent or being ignorant. Needless to say, if you see around, these broad buckets still exist around and the fact is that the second lot is in the majority and it is for this second lot that complicated rules are needed just to ensure that they ( by compulsion) contribute to what the first lot is doing (on their own accord) & more importantly these complex rules guard (to a certain extent) any attempts of sabotage that this majoritarian self-centered lot may want to embark upon.

So is there a way to promote simplicity over complexity? Well, the answer is yes and no! Yes, because you can embrace simplicity to empower your life- as an individual in that private space that you live about in- by uncluttering and doing away with everything and anything that attempts to cloud your mind space through unwanted complexity! But when it comes to the larger social construct of the society, as paradoxical it may seem, the fact is, those complex approaches help to prevent attempted sabotages of the existing visible simplicity that societies may have on account of the majoritarian lot who thrive on the chaos and ambiguity that complex systems get along with them. As they say, complex rules and regulations are for complicated people! So what next?

Well final words if you ask me, the fine balance of being able to deploy and work with simple systems and complex set ups is what will eventually ensure that all progressive efforts that you embark upon, both as an individual or as part of the social construct will alone determine whether your life gets written more about the simple and clear approach that you have taken up or the complex methods that you have developed and sustained to ensure that the fine balance between simple and complex people, systems and everything around only helps to progress and aligns to what you pursue!

I leave your here with these thoughts, urging you to get that balance of being simple and dealing with complexity right- for yourself and the people you lead!

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

Fight Fear with Fear.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

As paradoxical it may seem, the fact remains that only fear can be used to quell fear! Join me here for a breezy read through on how this works and why it works and when it works to your advantage and when it doesn’t work to help you!

As part of the evolution of the human race, the element of fear has helped us to survive and dominate, the slender difference between what to survive and what to dominate is what comes only by embracing and understanding the very nature of the fear that you come face to face with! Let me explain, this quick! The evolution of humans from small dispersed populations, fighting to survive the elements of nature, to being able to establish structured societies is noting short of a miracle of human intelligence and the milestones on the way have been knowing when to tame which fear and when to surrender and stay away from the one’s that are simply overbearing and all powerful! You see through the thousands of years, we learnt to defeat and overcome the wild animals and tame much of what the wilds had to throw at us, however few aspects like natural calamities have been ever challenging and even to this day, with the best resources at hand, still we often end up getting caught on the wrong foot! Sure enough there is no “fear” as in the “fear” of dealing with a wild animal while you deal with a flood, but that again will end up depending already on where exactly you are stuck in a flood! On high ground you can click your photos and thank your stars that you are safe, but if you are the one trapped in between fast flowing flash flood streams, the whole dimension changes! So you see, like everything else, fear too has a contextual framework and the first step of overpowering fear is gauging this contextual framework right!

Once you have learnt this bit, you know what you are dealing with, whether you can tame it or not and based on how that unfolds, you have the path ahead to decide how you want to fight the fear that you face, with nothing else, but fear that looks more menacing then the one that you face! You may want to now, ask why should I do that, whys should I deal with fear by deploying a larger fear? Well the answer to that is pretty simple, the only thing that can halt the menace of fear is an opposing and more powerful fear equation, don’t believe, well just look around the world and observe what the governments of the day are deploying to manage their affairs! Yes, fear one over the other, disguised and camouflaged as a rhetoric that blends into the contextual settings of the society that they govern! Well, even if you were to ignore what the government wants to do or not, the fact is that the reason why only fear can tackle fear is because there is nothing else can match the speed, surprise and intensity that fear brings along with it!

Consider this, you are taking a walk and suddenly you are attacked by a dog, that very moment as fear hits you, you have two choices, escape (if you really think you can outrun a dog! good luck on that!) or then with the same intensity try and instill a bigger fear in the dog’s mind!You may ask, want a peaceful way work, well when an animal is about to attack you try talking peace! The essence of dealing fear with fear is more of a mind game, stratagem and being able to accurately gauge the pulse of the fear that is coming your way and devise a counter strategy to overpower and quell the same.

The reason why fear works is because fear is formless, sure enough you know what’s arriving, you may also know how, when and where, but you will never be able to know how and why will you react the way you do when it hits you and this element of fear is what makes it so unpredictable and difficult to deal with unless and until you too have a similar counter strategy with an equal or more overpowering stance! So how do you develop the right amount of fear and how do you know when to deploy it?

The whole world works on the currency of fear equilibrium, small nations fear bigger ones, tycoons scare off mid size businesses , bigger corner offices instill that fear within mid-level workers and that’s how things work- well they do work as long as the amount and quantum of fear- intensity and frequency is calibrated.The moment this calibration goes haywire, fear loses its potency and becomes nothing! Let me explain!

You would have come across that boss or that teacher or that parent, who kept on yelling, threatening, shouting on an ongoing basis, how was your reaction? Well, sure enough the first time you would have got worried, but as you learnt to study and decipher what was unfolding, you would have started to ignore and disregard! That’s because you now have deciphered the intensity, authenticity and intent of that seemingly menacing fear in its reality and discovered it to be really nothing! This is why fear is so over rated! So how does fear quell fear?

When you are able to deploy fear as a counter measure effectively what it does is, it not only stalls the advance of what’s coming your way, but it also reasserts your position on an issue from a place of strength and ensures you get that vital seat at the table when its time for negotiations!

Embracing fear is the first step for being able to deploy fear effectively! As long as you are able to deploy fear in a calibrated measure with visible manifestations, fear will be your slave and work for you, on the other hand if you were to end up using it just as a propaganda tool, sooner or later that bluff will get blown away and you will be left with no defence when serious stuff hits you!

Like with anything else, once you have known how to manage, fear, it no longer baffles or creates that overwhelming mirage, but rather accelerates your journey to reassert yourself and helps you stay aligned on the course to face challenges, overcome them without being fearful about fear!

I leave you with these thoughts, urging you to develop your approach to deal with the fears that come your way, you never know you may be fearing just a large shadow to a small problem!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another article! Until then take care and stay safe!

Why Inspiration and Motivation stalls.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Being an author, rather being into writing, speaking and coaching, one striking thing that I have always come across is that people are just as fine as they should be and each one is good at a few things and great at few others and a genius at one thing! More often than not majority of us, end up wandering away from that unique “one thing” that holds the key for us to realize that zenith of who we can be from who we are. Somewhere around all this hectic and urgent business of trying to know oneself, people begin to get flooded with a sea of books, talks, podcasts, workshops and what not all promising to bring about radical change, promise that they will feel inspired and will gain a new sense of motivation and so on and so forth, but the fact remains that only a tiny fraction ends up being where they ever wanted to be- without any of these tools and techniques- some trained some not-so-trained and few inspired, few motivated but all of them driven by purpose and an objective! So the question here is does inspiration/ motivation really work? If yes, why do they weave the magic only on a few? Why isn’t every person in that workshop proportionally successful, if all of them got the same tools, wisdom and opportunity? What makes motivation click for a few and why do some people succeed even if they are uninspired? Join me here as we try to unravel, how and why this whole business of inspiration, motivation works and doesn’t!

Since time in memorial, people have always looked up to someone- either it was their Gods’, their spiritual leaders, their protectors ( Rulers, Kings, Queens, Emperors), as the new age arrived, people of eminence too started to be looked upon, studied & admired for they seemed to have answers for questions that plagued humanity in the contexts of those times! The more recent modern times have seen people seek stories from the field of sports, arts, theater, music, films and many other diverse areas- choose an area that you can think about and you will find this space of people wanting to be inspired and who are either in the process or already aligned to that one source! In all this pursuit of looking up to people, there’s only one real mission, that of seeking a common ground with regards to something related to either skills, competencies, abilities, aspirations or craft which provide that ray of hope to drive through the challenging times that an individual must overcome to surge ahead and make their mark!

The whole process of Inspiration is a fallacy of the prevailing social biases and social compulsions, sure enough there would be genuine contenders, I am not denying that any bit, but if you see what drives or what majority of humanity uses the word “inspiration” for is to either relate to someone, feel a sense of belonging for someone or thing or just try to align their social acceptability by falling in line with what the majority of social behaviour seems to be! In the context of the recent times, people all over the world, say they feel inspired by healthcare workers, well that’s fine only to that extent, because half of this inspired world, doesn’t give a damn to the guidelines issued by their inspirational health care workers and end up jeopardize everyone in the game that is being played out now!

The other immediate cousin of inspiration, called motivation too faces the same challenge, you see, people are always (as they claim) motivated and self-driven about themselves ( that is a good part) , the real problematic area is, “motivated about what or by whom and for what?” A lot of human tragedies are nothing else but a result of these misplaced motivations and uninspiring inspirational stuff! So you may, now want to ask me, so what’s the point? Well, the point is really simple, Inspiration and Motivation, stall, become ineffective , not because they have a problem or the beholders who personify it have a problem, the problem lies within each one of us, who end up getting inspired and motivated by the right things at the wrong times or the wrong things at the even more wrong times! Let me explain!

Let me take you back to your early childhood! Remember, “Twinkle Twinkle little stars..” that wonderful nursery rhyme! Believe it or not, that perhaps has been the very nascent seed that has propelled many careers of people in the areas of aerospace! This is what pure and unadulterated Inspiration is like! It connects with you at the level of your soul and nudges your mind to follow that essence and undertake that journey, no matter how easy or difficult to achieve what it must to live that moment of being among the stars either seeing them out of an airline cockpit window or seeing them through the space modules high above the earth’s atmosphere!

Likewise if you think about that school sports competition that you won for the first time, someone or something nudged you and your team mates that day, and for that reason you played the game of your life (until that moment) and ensured each one of your team mates did and thereby translating those moments into a memorable victory! That is what puritan motivation looks like, no prejudice, no information overload, just a nudge, perhaps that motivation was a treat by a group of friends or the name of your team mates being called out during the school assembly, or perhaps receiving that shiny medal- whatever that it could have been, it was just a nudge- at the right time, at the right place for the right thing!

So you, see whether it is that inspiration that you seek or that urge to be motivated that you have- as long as you try to seek that by looking at others, the chances are you will end up complicating your matters more, then solving them- especially when you tend to start focusing on the person, and not on the content!

In a lot of cases when people go to workshops, seminars, events buying those valuable tickets and tables at the show, waiting anxiously to be drenched in the seeming elixir of truth that the presenter is about to share, what they end up actually doing is that, they end up buying some hope and optimism instead of inspiration or motivation!

The reason why inspiration/motivation stalls and fails to work its magic is not because it doesn’t work, but rather because that piece is simply not aligned to the contextual reality of who you are! Let me explain! You may sure enough get lucky to witness some “A” grade speaker, who is renowned to motivate speak, but the fact is unless the speech, the examples and the proportionality of the challenges that you face are not aligned, neither that talk will motivate you nor will you know something that you weren’t aware of! It will all end up being the first row ticket to a one act play! It is vital that you find a common ground, a connect which is based on proportionality of contexts for inspiration/motivation to work its magic upon you, else you will either be left indifferent, ignorant or confused more than ever before!

Another factor is the construct of who you are and what the contextual realities of your world are! You may get lucky and you may really get that vital inspiration or motivation, perhaps that great speech, or that great book, or that sudden incident, something right may just cross your path and also the timing could be as great as you ever desired, but unless and until, you aren’t constructed to embrace all that coming your way and unless your contextual settings – the kind of society, the social norms, social viability aren’t in place, even the greatest of opportunity will slip away from your grasp and in many cases, you may actually end up passing that idea to someone less inspired and less motivated, perhaps less deserving, simply because there was a framework available to deploy and act upon once that seed was made available! Say you always had a vision to provide education for the economically challenged kids- but if your local laws don’t allow you to raise the funds and run the show the way you want to run and manage it, chances are your idea will eventually get picked upon and played upon in some other society where there is a favorable climate to implement and execute! Needless to say the execution may not be that impactful or effective as you would have planned simply because the other person may not be even as half inspired or motivated to do! This is a classic case where the right motivation/inspiration comes at the right time but in the wrong frame and you have perhaps no other choice but to let it pass!

Finally you have those instances where these very rare and gifted individuals who never give a damn to anything that’s unfolding around them! The reasons could vary, at one end of the spectrum you may have that eccentric artist, who likes to lock away and keep doing what pleases irrespective of who says what, or that politician who likes to ruin a nation under the garb of running it! This space is the pinnacle of human behaviour and intent, above and beyond all inspiration and motivation, simply because this is the impregnable fortress of the self and this is the area where only one maxim works- “My way or the Highway”! It is in these by-lanes of self serving, self-centered personalities and human attributes that a lot of inspiration and motivation is wasted and what’s more damaging is that this time around the people who come forward to share and care end up going back with bruises and small patched of self-doubt no matter how inspirational of motivational they are!

My final words, well, inspiration and motivation like everything else will work only when there is a human connect to it, nothing that has progressed humanity has ever worked in isolation! As long as there is a conformity of alignment between the inspired, the being inspired and the contextual settings around both of them, things will work and work remarkably well, nudge one element in that equation and you may end up the Motivators and the Internationalists of today needing a master class on their craft!

I leave you with these thoughts here, urging you to nudge yourself and know whether you Inspire, get inspired or are you indifferent?

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

Score through moving goal posts.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

We have always heard about people complaining and expressing their inability to achieve something simply because the goal post (owing to the conditions/situations/circumstantial realities) changed even as they took their shot! Join me here, as we try to decipher this and possibly ensure that no matter where the post moves, you always are able to take your shot and celebrate that elusive accomplishment! So here we go!

Needless to say, we come across a majority of people who are living a life that they never wanted in the first place! Well, this is not to be confused with whether someone is rich or poor , happy or sad, well off or struggling, no, none of all that! The plain truth is that majority of humanity ends up doing what they don’t want to and that’s at the very foundation of the whole aspect of the moving goal post! Well, not to take a prejudiced view about anything, never helps, the fact remains that majority of us get bogged down by the failures and challenges that we face, at some point! Based on who we are, what our construct is, what our approach is and what resources we have , that point in our lives will arrive sooner or later! Hence, if you see, you can find people settling for doing something which they never wanted to, simply because they don’t want to go on waging that battle with the overbearing circumstances that surround them- it may be a good thing to do or not a good thing to do, because that depends alone on what you are set out to do! What your original goal post is! Let me explain!

Consider this, you are a scientist and you want to find that pressing cure for a dreaded disease, now as you research through those long years, in obscurity, with no fame, recognition, perhaps investing your fortune for furthering that cause, unless you reach that goal post of finding that solution, you will not quit and this is where magic happens and this is that space wherein the goal post doesn’t move, irrespective what the challenges are! Now take another example, say you are designing a writing instrument and you reach a point where you find that a crucial resource for that device is not available or even if it is, your initial cost estimates are all over the place! So what do you do next, well you have two options, just junk everything and let go (normally what people do!) or, see what you best you can do with, where you have arrived and this too is a vital element of scoring through moving goal posts!

Go back to your childhood and try remembering what you wanted to be when you would be grown up, 9 out of 10 of us are not what we said we will be when we were in our schools, graduating and perhaps even when we did that specialization later! So what happens here? Why do things unfold the way they do? Why do people end up doing what they never wanted to and what can be done about this, can anything be done?

Well, it starts with the intention and desire, yes the very basic of all attributes that one can think of, as long as that intention and desire is not focused like a laser beam to back up what words you say or write, everything stays fluid and then, even at the slightest nudge, you run for cover and are happy to alter the course of your whole journey and never tread that path for whatever the reasons might have been- this is why 8 times out of 10 you will come across people settled and content- because anyways they are doing or pursuing what they don’t care about and their quality of work too then reflects that space! These are the people who you find in the “one size fits all” industries wherein the emphasis is more on processes, mechanized, semi robotic working environments, don’t mistake thinking that the people here are any less intelligence or qualified or able- they have simply at some point in time, resigned themselves form the pursuit of the shifting goals posts that they were trying to hit, either they aimed for the wrong one or they did not or could not give their best when it mattered the most and things would have all been but against them! So how does one really go about scoring through moving goal posts, what’s the approach?

Well if you ask me, it’s simple, first, have that desire and intention and next calibrate all that to who you are! You see, even I want to be on top of Mount Everest, but well when reality comes vising through your medical reports, you know how far you can stretch! So it starts with stetting and evaluating the right goals and sure enough, given the times that we live in, no goal post is static in the sense of the term, whether it is the routine job you want or that excellent career you want to pursue, everyday is a new day, as things change, rules change, software’s change, rules of engagement change and all these dynamic variables in the work areas go on to make the seemingly achievable goals of routine work life as elusive as being on Mount Everest! Consider this, everyone in your team wants that promotion, there is only one slot, not all will get in, only one- and what do you think will still differentiate between all of them,if competencies, experience, qualifications and skills, performance are all equal and personalities are alike?

The critical differentiating factor is the unfailing ability to decipher what is likely to unfold once the chair/position is acquired! You see, you will be only able to hit a moving target when you can predict where it is likely to move next, when and how fast an for you to know that, you will need to know your target too well and sure enough you will not necessarily get it right all the time, that never is the point, the point is the early acceptance and acknowledgement that all that you aspire and aim for is a moving target and will not be what it seems to be when you acquire or reach it! The earlier you understand and unlock this dynamism about what you aim, you will also start to realise whether you really want to pursue that target to begin with and then if you still answer yes, you will automatically come up with plans and strategies to ensure that your hit ratio is higher then the average so that you begin to excel at what you do and what you aim next and that is the secret of growing and touching success even as your goals and targets keep shifting and moving all the time!

The whole idea about being able to hit and score as your goal post keeps moving is aligning yourself to what your desires are (not wishful thinking), calibrated to who you are and then all it boils down to is being able to decipher the goal post itself, what it is, what it seems to be and what it is not, being able to relate the way it is, how it may move, how fast and what is that you are going to develop within yourself to ensure that you match that speed and maneuverability to present yourself to the goal in the space of dynamic equilibrium -a moment where your movements nullify each others and you arrive at the right moment, at the right place and with the right preparation to embrace and control the goals and targets that you had set out to achieve and once you are there, the goal posts seems to be stationary as long as you are able to be in-sync with its’ movements.

The essence of scoring through moving goal posts, is much of who you are, and who you want to be and separating that from who you think you are and you you wish to be! Once you have anchored well, you are more equipped to evaluate and choose the goal post that you want to hit. Any goal post that you evaluate and decide to hit, once you have anchored yourself is almost always within reach, as long as you are also able to decipher the whispers that the goal talks back to you!

I leave you here with these thoughts, urging you to reflect upon the goal posts that you hit and missed, which moved and what did you do as they moved, did you resign yourself or did you get going! If you did resign, why was it then, and if you did hit, how was it then? Grab that coffee and think!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one! Until then stay wise, stay safe and keep hitting those goals!

You are a collection of invested moments!

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

As you get ready to face a crazy Monday, whether you are working from home or racing away to your workplace, what you do next will go a long way to determine who you become! Sure enough, knowing it’s your Monday, no long read for now, but just a reminder that all that we become in the moments ahead, is nothing but a net result of what we have done in the moments bygone! Join me here for a quick take to understand what this is all about and what is that you can do to ensure that you become who you really want to be!

We all are aware of this old adage that we end up becoming what our thoughts are, or we end up becoming like the people with whom we spend the most time with, so on and so forth! That, may be perhaps true, but what really matters beyond all of that is, what is that you are planing to do in the now- so that your coming moments align you more and more towards the person that you aspire to be! A lot of people get into what I call as the “sulk trap”, you would have come across these gifted individuals who just go on and on in an endless loop whining and complaining about everything that they can and as often as they can! but will simply refuse to do anything at all to alter the outcomes so that they may be as they want! These people are the ones’ who will go on and on to tell you glorious tales of the past and the greatness that they achieved and then, how all of that came crashing down, but they will never discuss what are they doing about it now- are they even planing to get up, dust themselves, roll up their sleeves and get going again doing what they were so proficient doing or what is that now they want to be! So why do these people behave this way to begin with?

The human mind is very funny at times, to an extent that human intelligence ends up sabotaging human potential many a times! You may be amazed, its more of the intelligent people that cause more grave dangers to humanity than the odd dumb wits out there and this has to do with, what I call as “Intellectual Inertia”. Intellectual Inertia, is very similar to the whole Newtonian concept of inertia, the only and life changing difference being that here the inertia is that of the mind and this is not only detrimental but at times can also be fatal! You see human mind is a great machine, it too always wants to achieve the bare minimum with the least effort- so if your brain is given a choice of achieving 80 with a 20% effort Vs achieving 100 with an 50% effort, it will gladly settle down at 80! This is natural and there are good enough reasons why it has been constructed that way- it is for our own survival! You do remember, the old stories right- evolution of the human species and about the grand development of our thinking faculties! Well, sure you do and this is all a part and parcel of that ever ongoing process!

When the body is well nourished and the immediate social structure around is stable, it is but natural for the human mind to get lackadaisical and hence if you see through history the greatest of discoveries, inventions and innovations have only come to see the light of the day, when there was pressure and some compelling reason applied that made individual and teams to collectively keep thinking in a coercive manner to seek solutions about problems which to begin with were thought to be an impossibility to deal with and this in fact, is the very essence of why your next move will eventually determine who you become! Read on!

As long as there is no coercive pressure either from within us or from someone who we work for, you and I both know the story of our efficiency at work or getting a job done, it’s only when the shit hits the roof, that we scamper around and since the reprimands can be very severe we try to salvage the situation as we can and try to make the most of what we can; never ever in a moment realizing that, what we do in all that under pressure survival mode is prepare ourselves for the subsequent moments that follow- whether they are of glory for having achieved what we were meant to or whether they happen to be of despair and challenges, if we indeed end up loosing out on what he had set out for, is what determines the outcome of who we become post those moments! Those moments of being a victor or a survivor is what goes on to create the pathways for us and irrespective of what our aspirations are, these developing pathways go on to make that journey either easier or that tad difficult as we keep moving ahead! So what’s the story, you may ask?

Well, the story is really simple, as long as you know how wisely you are investing in the moment that you in the now, that much easier will it be for you to govern and control the ones’ that follow and thereby ensure that time as the master of these moments strides alongside you and you are able to become what you aspire to be- by simply being mindful about your moments- the one that you are in the now and the ones’ that follow! It’s the impact of not being mindful- perhaps to the extent as would have been required, is why most of us, almost always arrive at the crossroads especially when the signal is red and then go on wait endlessly until we have earned that green signal to move ahead and well, I need not speak about what happens when we plan to jump that red signal!

These moments alone are what go on to make who we aspire to be and that either happens the easy way or the difficult way! As long as we are aligned to the aspirations that we seek and we ensure that our approach and utilization of each second that we have is invested (not spent) towards that aspiration, we have universal congruence working for us and that makes the journey more relaxing and seemingly easy to achieve. The minute there are discords and detours from the paths, conflict of aspirations and so on and so forth setting in, we not only begin to face an investment deficit (sine time is no longer being used up for what our aspiration are), but also we start to spend away all that we would have gained until that moment and end up depleting ourselves with whatever resources that we would have internalized within (setting off a barrage of confidence and self-doubt issues!)

You see, it is our over intelligence or baffling dumbness that goes on to complicate matters and we end up becoming the lower version of ourselves with each passing hour! Unless there is coercive effort of directed thinking and pursuit by being invested in oneself, whether it is the business goal that you are chasing or it is that target for your boss that you chase, none of that will come to you, unless you have truly stayed invested with intent towards those aspirations! The way to do that is avoid arrogance and repel ignorance!

Perhaps the only way to create value and be a value, is to stay invested in your moment- the moment that you are in, for that is the only real way to reach your aspirations and goals! Unless you aren’t invested within, creating value for yourself and being true to the aspirations that you have set out to achieve, everything else will be nothing else but a mirage of wishful thinking and self pitying self-talk about why nothing ever got done and how you were always right and everything and everyone around you was wrong!

So final words? Well, just accept this one truth of your life, we all are nothing more or nothing less, but an aggregation of moments, one unto the next and it is the choices that we have done in those, which either go on to align us to our aspirations or end up taking us on far away detours’ in one case we will be able to stay invested within and in the other case we will rapidly deplete ourselves and even if we reach what we aspire for, perhaps we will end up reaching the destination more famished than nourished! The choice is of your’s to make, how do you want to be in the next moment that is on the way to embrace you and the subsequent ones’ that follow, for you are nothing more than a collection of invested moments! The more invested you have been, the more enriching your journey will be and the more aligned will you be with regards to your aspirations!

I leave you here with these thoughts, take that pause, make that pledge to stay invested within yourself, for that alone is the way to reach your aspirations, more nourished than being famished! Each one of us, is but a personification of our invested moments!

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

Your wind-screen wiper!

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

As humble it may seem, believe it or not, the little wind-screen wiper has a lot to teach us as long as you are wanting to learn! Join me here as we take a quick look into the health of your wind-screen wiper and understand why it is so critical for ensuring you stay relevant and don’t become “was” from “is”! So here we go!

Well, you do certainly remember that time when you dared to venture out in the rains and git stuck really stuck as your wiper would simple not move, or if it did, it did not move the way you wanted it to and either you reached your destination late, tired, famished, exhausted or you banged into something and limped your way to reach where you had to! Coming to think of this scenario, to begin with, you would have probably known that the rain was on it’s way, you would have known the route, you possibly- just possibly known your wiper’s health, then why did you still move out? Even if you did so, you have a good pair of eyes, so when and why did you become so reliant on the wiper that you almost became blinded by the lack of it!

Remember, it’s not the rain that blinds you, it is the inability to wipe away those fast hitting drops of water which creates that blindness! So in a way, a failing wiper is good enough to blind you (in the context of that fleeting moment) and that small capsule of time is good enough to force you to come out with the best that you can be or you can resign to your fate and allow time to what it wants to! So what’s the whole point? Well the point is simple and straight, as humans we have this small intrinsic percentage of our personality where we throw caution to the winds and go about doing what we please- when that percentage dominates a personality, that becomes- brash, reckless and dangerous- which can cause self-harm or put others in harms way! If that is absent, it makes you a resigned pieces of furniture, very often the first people in the organisation and the last to vacate! The trick lies somewhere in between those two aggressive and resigned approaches to life, a calibrated response to what we do and how we go about doing what we do and that is the essence of the wiper!

You may have the best of the cars or you may be flying the most automated jets in the world, but when the heavens above open up and if you happen to be in control of that car or flying that plane, sure enough one thing that you essentially need and badly need is a well functioning wiper that responds and reacts as per your request so that you can than direct your vehicle or that jet to where you want it to be! So what is that wind-screen wiper really about? Is it just about a wiper, what is it’s significance? Read on!

The essence of the wind-screen wiper is to be a tool, a proactive/responsive aid that aligns itself to your demands and helps you meet the desired objectives that you have set out for! There is no doubt that the wind-screen wiper works only when it rains and doesn’t really do anything else, but that’s what the whole point is, it works well and awesomely well, when it matters the most and ends up being that critical nut in the machinery without which that million dollar car or that expensive jet all will become useless in the face of pouring rain! That wind-screen wiper is your mind and that vehicle or jet is you!

Like the physical wind-screen wiper, your mind is the most powerful tool you have, which alone has the capacity to flex and stretch as the time and situation demands and once those challenges are overcome, it has the unique ability to store vital information and race back to the original state. Once the same external trigger is applied again, the response is more emphatic, at times proactive and certain with outcomes always aligned to what meets your requirement! You see, like the vehicle or the plane, you may have the best personality, aura, eloquence and may be perhaps the best ever “engineer”, “manager” or whatever other label you want to think about, the fact is that if you have a faulty mind (a broken down wind-screen wiper) you will almost end up ruining every opportunity that comes your way and end up complicating the simplest of tasks at hand!

The blinding rain, that I had talked about, well that was not the rain essentially only limited to that context, but are in fact the real life blinding rains of the innumerable challenges, problems and sudden developments that our mind is supposed to deal with on an ongoing basis! Unless you have a functional mind, the rain storms of your life will never seem to cease of go away and you will be left moving from one to the next, in a never ending loop all because of one reason that you had a malfunctioning wiper! You may want to ask, fine, got the point, the mind is the wind-screen wiper and the rains are the challenges so what? Isn’t the mind supposed to address those challenges on an ongoing basis, that’s the role right? Right, it the role, but as I said earlier, you keep on going in the same loop again and again, your mind will also at some point begin to give up on you and that functioning wind-screen wiper will start to stay stuck leaving you blinded for a longer time than you can think! So what’s the plan? What is the way to manage the wiper and also the vehicle?

The vehicle or the plane I referred to you, is “you” your construct, your intrinsic resources, your value systems, your beliefs and your purpose and your competence and everything and anything that goes to make “you” who you are! It is but obvious that a beautiful body is reflective of a beautiful mind! Let me explain, if you are a start of range sedan, you get a wiper aligned to that model, because it’s functioning is calibrated to that vehicle make, likewise your mind and it’s ability is calibrated to you, your physiological, physiological and physical construct and as long as all of this is in-sync with the mind, you have a great vehicle and a well functioning wiper! The moment this balance is breached for some reason, you will start to see that, as problems begin to manifest within the vehicle, the wiper starts to work erratically and this is how vital the whole connect between the Human Mind and the Individual is!

To overcome the challenges thrown at us, on an ongoing basis, we need strong minds(a functioning wind-screen wiper), to sieve through all that races towards us, essentially de-clutters all that one must and helps us align our efforts towards what is necessary, relevant, what creates value and serves the greater good! You see if you are a jet plane and have a wiper that takes 10 seconds to complete one swish you will be toast!Likewise if you are a sedan and you have a wiper going 10 swishes per two seconds, that too will not help you! What is critical is the balance of the swish to the vehicle that it is mapped to! Your mind has to aligned to the body that you are! Unless that foundational sync is not achieved, you will always have cases of the wiper breaking down or the the wiper swishing away even as your vehicle stands stationary!

The whole crux is embedded in the fact that for being able to overcome challenges that life presents us with, it’s but imperative to have a resilient and strong functional mind which is able to sieve challenges and obstacles in sync with our motion and direction of progress! Keeping away all that should be, and responding the way it should on matters that matter! Unlike the wind-screen wiper, the mind is used on an ongoing basis and hence it becomes even more imperative that the sync between the body and the mind; the vehicle and the wiper is, as it should be. Any weakness in this arrangement provides a potential for future discord and than it becomes a matter of not “if” but of rather “when” that gets manifested!

Final words, like in the earlier piece, that I had written about the “rear-view mirror”, it’s important for each one of us to realise the importance and value of the wind-screen wiper (our mind) that we have, it is the only thing that stands between us avoiding a problem or running into one! How we map it to who we are, what we do and how we align ourselves to the mind that we hold and what it’s construct is will provide us with our unique pathways to success and achievements that we so much long for! As bad as it seems to have a dysfunctional vehicle or a dysfunctional wiper, what’s more worse is to have a functional wiper of of a plane fitted onto a sedan or vice-versa! It is the balance that goes on to make the difference and ensure that we end up having the wiper that we need, for the person who we are and that in turn empowers us to create the tomorrow that we cherish for!

I leave you here, with these thoughts, take some “me time” and tune your wiper, have your vehicle checked, for it’s well being and ensure you have an empowering collaboration, for that alone is the key to your future and beyond!

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

Fail before you Lead.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Irrespective about what ideas you have about success, being the victor and about leading yourself and others, the singular fact remains that, unless you fail, you will never be able to lead- neither yourself and nor anyone else! Failure, ironically teaches more than success can ever and this is the essence of this short piece! Join me here as we explore, what makes Failure so intense and educating while success reached without it, just seems to fizzle away unless it has been forged on the robust foundation of failure from where one can rise above! This is the space where learning from failing and failing forward (as someone has said this) matters! So let’s roll!

If you pick leaders across the spectrum of politics, business, community service, the corporate world- one singularity will come back hitting you hard and that is the fact that the most revered and successful ones’ have been the ones’ who have either been spectacular at failing or have kept failing predictably and yet achieving what they had set out for! But aren’t people supposed to be crushed and finished by failure, we have corporations and business go bust and never rise back again, we have examples of political careers wiped away and business vaporized owing to leadership failures- what about that bit? Well, sure enough even the other space exists and this is what makes failure so interesting! Failure rewards only as long as you learn from it or when you learn when enough is enough! You disobey either of the two rational scenario, try stretching your luck a bit too far and you are history in the works and sure enough not for the right reasons! So let’s understand why and when failure gets fatal!

We have heard fables about politicians, who went on and on loosing one election after the another, we have heard about that self-driven, eccentric business boss who went on and on with his rant and obsession to do what he deemed right, we have come across those proverbial managers (damagers) who went on and on to spell check you mail and insist what you say, write and do (something that would even put your family to shame!)- when you eventually look back and analyse what has happened to most of them- well in all probability they have either hit their trim level of incompetence and settled down in their little pond and called it “The Pacific Ocean” or in few cases have managed to have themselves completely erased away- as in physically from the realm of the planet! So you may ask, if failing is going to lead to success, why don’t these scenarios qualify for that? Well, the reason for that is, as I said earlier, one needs to know when to stop and when “enough is enough”! like everything else, failure too gives you a fair chance to bounce back and re-align your life, but failure gets brutal and fatal once you stop learning from it and keep doing the same things again and again expecting different outcomes!

It is only when people begin to embrace failure- from the context of being able to learn, improvise and realign themselves that things begin to change and that change comes from within you! The first things that meaningful failure does to you, is that it will change your context and approach to the things that you are failing at (as long as you are ready to learn and work over it). All great leaders, that the world knows today have been baptized by failure first and it’s only when that baptism has liberated them to seek more clarity, touch gratitude and realize their trim levels in the honesty of it, that they have been able to change to create the success stories that we all get to witness today! So how do few people manage to learn from failures, while most withdraw and stagnate themselves- shelving away all their aspirations by giving themselves the permanent credentials of a certified failure?

People who emerge as Leaders, post failures and setbacks have a few things in common. To begin with they have a clear purpose and they want that to be achieved and are ready to receive the accolades and brickbats on that journey even as they begin to walk it! This mental resilience and conditioning to embrace things as they come, evaluate if they serve the required purpose or not, check if they create value or not and keep going is what makes these people formidable learners, adapters and artists in the way they deal with challenges thrown at them and even as the world gasps in abated breath for the news of their impeding doom, they almost always bounce back and come out as not only a survivor but also as a victor! Importantly people who learn from failures know when enough is enough and are absolutely clear about their trim levels!

Think about this, why do you think that not all great businesses are able to be the same spot – all at number 1? Why are even great businesses trimmed at some levels and numbers in the leader board- even though they are successful & progressive- this is because their leaders and the people who lead and direct have held on to the purpose and clarity of what they do and why they do, what they do and more importantly have resisted all temptations to avoid getting into doing something either what they don’t understand or don’t concur with! The first thing that failure teaches you is the zone that you belong to- you see, whether you are an individual or a collection of individuals (that is what a firm is), as long as you learn from failure what your real competence is and where the trim line for that competence is- you will be great because then you know the top line and you then just have to focus on improving within and that’s really easy once you have the right people to help you with that! Let me explain!

Say you want to build house on a plot that you have, well wise people will assess the context of the plot, know the purpose of the house (the utility aspect) and then decide how to design and build that beautiful structure knowing the limitation of resources at hand (people, technology, skill, competence, time and money).So gauging this, you will probably settle for a state-of-the-art, beautiful, one or two floor building that meets your need within the parameters that you can work in. This is what calibrated success looks like( sure enough you don’t necessarily have to fail first here because you have analysed well to start!). Now, instead of this, if you were to just go on building floor upon floor, not knowing when to stop and why you are building that thing to begin with- well the inevitable will happen- either you will break financially to continue building that never ending structure or the structure will collapse on accord of the sane principles of physics and gravity!

Even as many leaders fail, very few learn from it and even fewer apply those learnings to their today to create a more valuable tomorrow! This is what differentiates between Good and Great Leaders! Good Leaders will help you navigate your today, for that serves their today as well- This is the stuff that you come across successful managers in the corporate world and those content small businesses who are happy earning the same annual amount even if the inflation has changed and cut their profits by half! What great leaders do differently is that they not only apply the learnings of their failure to their work and create awesomeness at work, but they are at the same time, consistently failing forward at something else- experimenting with new ways, processes or even new businesses and even these failures present valuable lessons which go back to create more value to the functioning business to make it better and should the other experiments click- which they will- needless to say you are just witnessing the birth of a conglomerate and this is how business empires are built- by sharing the knowledge of failures across the board and applying those valuable lessons across to create value and control in a more meaningful manner!

On a more human level, failure brings in humility and sanity, it teaches you to embrace and learn from everything around you and also presents you with absolute clarity about what matters, and what doesn’t and makes a real shortlist of valuable resources- people or otherwise! Not all failures are owing to a person or a collective of people running a business at times, it also could be circumstantial and beyond human control, but again in even those scenarios, the ability to learn, analyze and apply those learnings back to the business as the group hits the re-start button is what creates the difference- the difference in terms of chosen trajectory, speed, expanse and the choice of people for the new journey! It is only when the limits of competence, skills and contexts are properly calibrated post a failure and applied to the purpose on hand that magic is created and progress is made on the chosen path!

Final words, as they say, “Failure is never fatal and Success is never final”, that may be true but for that to manifest this frame of being able to consistently learn from failures, embrace them and seek them is what is vital to create the shift from being Good to being Awesome! Failure does’t finish one, it’s the inability to learn from failures and apply those learnings to life and business, is what makes failure dangerously fatalistic!

I leave you here with these thoughts, will be back soon with another one, until then stay safe and stay wise! Ciao for now!

The cost of leadership.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Everyone wants to lead and everyone has an opinion (valid or not) about the leader that they see, everyone concurs that they, are better, smarter and more able than their leaders (especially when it comes to the political or community space), whereas the fact remains that, none of this is really true, authentic or accurate- for the Leaders alone knows what holding on to that leadership position has cost them- the untold saga of sacrifices, decisions going wrong and being coerced to choose between the evil and the lesser evil! Join me here as we try to decipher what plays on the mind of the leader as they sieve through multiple decisions that they must take, to continue leading what they lead and ensuring that all the stakeholders are safe, secure and the greater good is served over everything else at all times!

To begin with, one needs to understand that Leadership and Leaders are quite different from Mangers and the Bosses that you come across every now and then, Good Leader by default make great managers or bosses- that is what leading is all about, however the converse is not true! To that effect we must know what leadership and leading is all about! Sure enough there are volumes and volumes written by experts who have worked in the area of leadership and leading teams, but if you were to condense all of that and try to decipher what is the essence of leadership- it will eventually come down to a few things, like Leaders are courageous, vulnerable, rooted yet able to soar high and apart from many other things they are, they connect heart to heart and lead from the heart, creating more leaders then followers! Certainly Leadership experts, will add more aspects to what goes on to define what leading is and what leadership is, but since this is a blog, having the limitations, I will not dive further into this space, but now move ahead into what we are here to discuss- the cost of leadership!

Ask any Leader, that you come across and you will at an instant notice, leadership or leading people, is nothing like the way it is marketed or the way fables are written around it to motivate and inspire people! Leaders & their Leadership comes often with an intense and intimate cost; which rarely leaders will admit in the open- whether the costs of their leadership is the price paid by their family, their health or simply the acrimonious contextual settings that they operate in (based on the society that are in); every and all leadership comes at a cost! These costs at times outweigh the brief of the what is been lead and at times, the greatness of that position, makes any cost look too trivial and leaders keep pushing ahead to serve and lead upon what they have embarked! Let me explain!

Consider this, let’s say you are a leader (not a manager) and are given the task to lead a faltering organisation and get it back on it’s feet, given the fact, you are a leader, you will get it done, you may take a few months, a few years, perhaps a decade- based on what the organisation is, how complex the challenge is, but you will persevere, stay put and deliver- that’s what leadership is all about, isn’t it! Now, add a little twist to this, say while getting this assignment, if you were told that, you know what, by the time you finish getting this done and dusted, you will have probably increased blood sugars, an enhanced blood pressure and added waist line and you can meet your family only once a year- now- – what do you think will happen? What would have you done? This is the point where every leader evaluates- and rightly so- this is that moment which every leader undergoes before saying “Yes” to any assignment that comes their way- this evaluation of what is at stake- what is the cost to be paid and who will it involve is what plays on the Leader’s mind and sure enough, once this is settled the Leader’s are quick to start with the business and hit the ground. Now if you want to raise the stakes higher, how about if you are given the chance and choice to lead you nation? Feel the shivers? Based on where you are on the planet and whether you are dealing with millions in a multicultural society with sharp ideologies or in a bipolar society which just thinks the society and the world is either black or white!, You have a touch assignment and then start adding up layers of diplomacy, political prudence, media glare, intragroup rivalry, opposition pressures, international alignments and yes that ever looming threat being the person on the chair! You still want to lead? You see, it is very easy to give opinions and say things about people in power or in general about leaders- but if you only knew the cost that have paid to be where they- you will have a rethink before you race to say anything to them either appreciating or criticizing them! You may want to say, but that’s what they have signed up for!

Sure enough, Leaders do sign up for challenges around the work and for leading people and holding them together as they achieve goals that they have been entrusted with; but Leaders never sign up for the price that they at times end up paying which can far outweigh anything & everything that they would have signed up for! Like the earlier example, if you were to take up an assignment knowing your health will be irreversibly damaged- well then your move actually puts a whole big question mark on your leadership competence- Simply because Leadership is not Suicidal! If you were to say yes and go ahead with that corporate offer to lead compromising and damaging your own health, rest assured you will end up rubbing the same down through the team and the consequence would be higher medical bills for the organization to settle, increased health related absenteeism and in that rare event death on the job!

Leadership is raw, painful, thankless, invisible yet omnipresent, rewarding and fulfilling- the real leader knows the way to find the right essence between being an eccentric genius and a soft spoken suave presence. Often than not the real cost of leadership is never seen in the open and except for that small inner circle of the leader, hardly ever will everyone know the multiple battles and jugglery that the leader undertakes just to ensure that the team still has their job in the month ahead and your salary cheque will reach you as it should! Often the biggest misconception is that the “Corner Office” people have nothing to do, just go on for endless lunch meetings and evening catch up’s on the way back home!

What people miss out is that, it’s these very lunch meetings that usher in the promise of a sustained lunch for all the people that the Leader leads and the meetings on the way back, suddenly extend robbing them away of their family time, more than anyone else! Given the construct of the culture that we have and the working associations and equations, Leaders will rarely open up to tell you how they felt nervous before the client said or whispered that “yes” over lunch, neither will they tell you what kind of ruckus that they had to face, simply because they could not attend their kids school function…the list is endless and this selfless sacrifices, measured and done on a daily basis, is what Leaders face!

Whether you lead as a doctor, a cop, a defence warrior, a corporate head honcho, or you are that next big start up success story- you could be any of these or you could be as simply as leading yourself and you will see even the effort to lead yourself too comes at a cost and the cost that you pay to lead yourself is the time you waste/invest in creating greater value for yourself to become a better version what will be relevant in the approaching tomorrow! Every Leader starts by Leading themselves first! It really doesn’t matter what you have signed up for, unless you are game on and you are able to spread that contagious warmth and exuberance among your team mates, the whole journey will end even before it starts!

The simple and singular fat is leadership and leaders pay the price or rather should I say the cost for the leadership that take responsibility for, at times the decision is far more important than their personal comfort and there is a greater social cause and hence must be held on to and at other times, leaders begin to soak in more and more into their work, not because they are workaholic maniacs, but simply because they can’t allow the team to fail, for the team’s failure is their own failure! Every leader weighs and evaluates the cost, even before they start and for some reason if they miss out on this bit, we get to see what is a full blown leadership crisis in the workplace and you can see leaders come and go- simply because there is not contextual setting and clarity on what is to be achieved and at what cost! If you ask me, another term for Leadership is Clarity of Purpose- when you have that, you are able to lead, yourself first and as that conviction led warmth spreads, other join you sooner than you think and you are well on your way to create new milestones in the task that you have chosen ahead!

To wrap it up, the next time, you come across a leader (not a manager) just know this, that the person has sacrificed something, you may know that or may never know that, but that is a given! Leadership is never about Lights, Camera, Action, It’s all about sweat, grit, determination, failures and bounce backs from one moment unto the next until the objective is achieved!

I leave you here, with these thoughts for no, do reflect, think about all the leaders you ever came across and what do you think their leadership cost them, and if you happen to be a leader (not a manager), what is the cost that you have paid and is it worth it?

Ciao for now, will be back soon! By the way, do get in touch with us for appointments pertaining to Leadership Coaching that we have now commenced! For more details drop in a mail or visit us at http://www.simplifylives.com

Lose battles to win wars!

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

As strange it may seem, but ask any military commander and you will have plethora of stories that go on to prove the point, why at times loosing a few battles, irrespective how hard or easy they are is in the larger interest to win the final war! No, I am not a military strategist, but this principle perhaps fits aptly to the lives and times that we are going by and more than ever before, it has now become more important to identify which aspect of your life is you war and which one is a battle! Which is the one that you can let go and which is the one that you must engage with day in and day out until you accomplish that ever elusive objective! Join me here as we explore this space and understand why loosing at time is the final step to a magnificent victory!

If you have read any of the authentic memoirs on World War I or World War II, you will perhaps get a quick understanding about what, “The fog of war” means! When you have military action unleashed across many theaters, and with military strategy at work between both sides, as the war ensues each side will try to deviate, distract, dodge, trap, escape and beat down the other side, even for that to occur these multiple theaters of war though acting independently at first glance necessarily need to deliver results at the right time and place to tilt the balance of the war in their favour and this is the essence of loosing a few battles to win the war (the main battle- to put it in another choice of words!)

As in war, so in life, irrespective whether you are a young student trying to make your mark in the world of academics, or a young professional racing ahead that corporate ladder or a seasoned professional trying to create the next set of industry wide benchmarks- across each of them lies a common thread- that commonality pertains to the fact that irrespective of whoever you are and whatever you choose to do- unless you have identified what is equivalent of war in your life and what is the equivalent to the many battles that you must wage (albeit winning some and loosing a few), you will always seem to be challenged in an ever increasing complex pattern both externally and as well as within yourself!

Each day, we are compelled to make choices and as I had written in my earlier article, choices are what eventually make us but, largely dependent on other aspects associated with it! It is from here that as we begin to decide and check out what aspect of our life is the war that we must win and what aspects are the battles- which we are fine wining some and loosing some as long as the War is won.- So what are these battles and what is this war all about? Read on!

The battles that we need to pick and choose as we go about our daily lives can crop up from any area of our life and are related to our value system and beliefs that we end up anchoring upon as we grow. If the value and belief systems remain congruent to the ones given to us and the ones that we experience around- the number of battles to be fought reduces considerably! The moment there is disconnect between what we have been given to believe, follow and aspire to be and what we experience as individuals, conflict commences and like any conflict there is only one side that can win- either what you have been given to believe or the ones’ that you have experienced first hand! Depending on which side wins- that etched moment will further add a layer of foundational belief and character to who you are. If that new acquired character serves you to win the big war that awaits you- this battle was worthy enough of a victory- else a defeat here- by giving up your new acquired beliefs over the older ones’ would have been more valuable! Think about this! Let me explain this!

Consider, you are aspiring to be a cop, now as you grow you are going to be exposed to all the right and wrong that exists with any law enforcement society- this is your battle front and the aspiration that you want to be a cop is the war that you must win! Now if you start to despise all the negative aspects of being a cop- corruption, political pressure, seemingly in-efficient judicial recourse- and start thinking that none of this can be changed and you begin to ignore and start to act recklessly by trying to course correct people and situations assuming you are the law- by beating up people- you will perhaps win the battle of being right in that moment- but all and any chances of you being a cop will be dashed beyond repair- in a few societies permanently! This is a classic case of winning a battle emphatically, myopically and loosing the all important war altogether!

In another scenario, you see all this negative- understand why it is what it is, and wait for your time when you have the power to change that from the legal stand point! So here even if you seem to be submissive in the shorter time line over a period of time as you harness the power of the uniform that you wear, you are able to make more lasting impact with changes that you always wanted to do and more importantly winning the war by becoming a cop that you always wanted to be even if you would have lost a few battles on the way before becoming ready to have the power to change their outcome in your favour!

I can give you similar examples from virtually all arenas of the lives that we live, corporate, theater, art, politics, you name it and there will be stories having uncanny similarities but the singular point will be the fact that, people who are able to win the war of their lives are the ones’ who have learnt to lose their battles and more importantly know which to loose and which to win so that the balance of war is always tilted in their favour! So what’s the key here!

It all boils down to this simple truth of life, sounds a bit philosophical, but then truths are truths, once you have identified that golden purpose, objective of your life- that accomplishment of that desire/aspiration becomes the only and all important war that you must pursue and win- win because that moment of victory is what will go on to define who you are and what your life has been and what is the legacy that you will leave behind! With so much at stake, it’s but obvious one needs to apply time, patience and intelligence to decide what that war will be and time it right! Once you have identified the War that you must win, needless to say, like ghosts from nowhere you will find scenarios and challenges coming towards you, multiple of them a few times, feeble sometimes and strong at other times, these are all those battles which you need to weigh carefully every passing day/ hour to understand which to fight, which to delay, which to ignore and when you do fight, when and whether you fight to win or fight to loose- all these decisions need to be aligned in a manner that ensures that you are always congruent to your final objective of winning the war!

Battles that sap your energy, drive you crazy, take you away in opposite journeys and directions from the direction where your final war zone is serve no purpose and these are better ignored, delayed or if necessary lost! Battles that mark your presence like a milestone and which keep you aligned to the trajectory of your war zone are the ones that you need to win, because each victory on the way is a statement- a statement of your arrival on the war theater and ask any military commander, they will tell you, apart from the loud noises that the guns and machines make, if there’s anything else that melts the resolve and minds of the enemies it is the courage and achievements of the people in command.

Once you reach the war zone of your life empowered by your won battles and humbled by the ones’ you have lost- you have a finer judgement to time your move and ensure that no matter what the odds you will be able to achieve your objective- whether that is a job as a cop, that corporate CEO chair, that leadership position in an office, starting your own enterprise, serving the people- whatever is your war cry- all of that can be realized once you arrive at the war zone as a battle hardened soldier whose vision is focused and glued to the victory of the final war!

Learning what to let go, learning what to hang on to and choosing to loose a few and never loose some, is an art and science which gets perfected not in any school, but in the lab of your life! As unique as we are, so will be our battles and wars- each one cut out to mold us, shape us and push us ahead- willingly or unwillingly so that we are able to reach the war zone to win and achieve what we have set out for and while doing so we are able to give up on things and people that don’t serve us in the context that they tend to drag us down rather then propel us ahead! It is certainly not a call for being selfish, rather it is the interest of selflessness of serving the greater good for the people around you that you must lead, by loosing some and winning what you must- it is only then that as individuals and societies we will continue to have real life everyday heroes who make the difference by doing ordinary tasks in an extraordinary way and thereby keep the human spirits high and hold that promise which says, as long as you know where you want to be- you will get there once you have made up your mind- and as long as you are wiling to pay the price that it may cost! Whether that cost is justified or not is another story because success is finally something that has to be shared with the community and in isolation nothing works, neither happiness, nor leadership nothing!

I leave you here with these thoughts, urging you to take some time this weekend that you have, think deep within and decide what is the war of your life which you want to get into- which is that war that will define you, to create a lasting legacy of values and beliefs that you stand for and what are the battles that you are ready to win and loose to tilt the balance of this grand war in your favour!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one! Until than stay wise, keep thinking and yes breathe!