The journey from shock to indifference.

Humanity and the human mind have a strong intrinsic ability to flex and stretch, depending on what direction this flex and stretch takes and what purpose it serves or not, the space around and within that churn will either comfortable or simply daunting! Join me here as we take a look at a simple space which explains, why, whether it is about the pandemic or something routine about our lives- the phases that we go through will always remain the same, albeit the intensity and the impression may be stronger or lighter on us! So here we go!

Through history, if there has been a singular constant about humanity and the human spirit, it has been its ability to overcome all that nature or fellow humans can throw at them! The way of coping up with a new order almost always begins with a state of shock. The state of shock, which is more of, “what is this happening”, “I don’t believe this to be real”, “Why me”, “Is this for real”, “Is this the end” and so on and so forth. How long this stage lasts, determines how well and when a given society and individuals therein will be able to bounce back! The shock in itself has stages, the arrival, the onset and the subsidence. Often the arrival of shock , it’s onset leaves people confused, overwhelmed and hence many a times even after the shock subsides, people still continue to linger under the overbearing cloud of uncertain thoughts, which if not checked in time tend to become unfound fears or meaningless presumptions which go on to take the shape of limiting beliefs and thereby severely limiting the horizons of individual and collective possibilities for the society!

The way to overcome these limiting beliefs is more to do with the swiftness of acceptance and appreciating that the shock will subside. Acceptance is a midway beacon between shock and indifference. It is in this space that individuals and societies make a choice and that choice post acceptance of the shock and deciphering of the shock determines whether the society will move towards compassion, cohesiveness or embrace an unqualified and unwarranted indifference to everything that comes their way in the times ahead!

As long as acceptance is cohesive and progressive, societies and people are able to build themselves back and recalibrate the new terms of engagement and go on to create a meaningful life one more time all over again! But when this gets fragmented and societies emerge from the shock societies are more torn and race away to the final destination of indifference which then starts the timer tracking the imminent collapse!

Indifference is the hallmark of societies that are fragmented and divided in their attitudes and belief systems. The more the fragmentation , greater the indifference and when a challenge arrives, unless it is an existential one, almost all the time you will find one section looking towards a problem and another section looking away from it! This indifference then sooner or later creeps into the very nature of individuals and then you end up in a real time risk where no one really cares what is happening to anyone else, unless they face a similar and greater threat!

But then why is all this so important, how does it matter? Well if you have been awake through the last year and have been a witness to the unfolding events around you, is should be fairly easy for you to notice and identify societies that have been together and that drifted away and how that singular factor altered the future of the societies therein! Each one of us as individuals, soak in what we can, from what’s around us, if we are part of a fiercely cohesive social construct the whole approach towards a problem and the oncoming shock will be radically different, had we to tackle the same shock being fragmented and disconnected. It is in this journey from Shock to Indifference that, individually and collectively we end up making choices which either keep us aligned to the progressive path or at times we get thrown off guard and take a detour which comes at it’s own cost! So is there a meaningful way to stall and avoid indifference and should indifference not be allowed at all?

Like with anything else, what you decide to be Indifferent to and how, matters. Whether things are important or not is a very subjective area and what may be one person’s nectar could very well be someone else’s poison! How long that indifference is, and how that is impacting you in return is what will actually go on to decide how emerge out of a problem, whether you allow that shock to sink in more then it is required to or whether you deal and engage with it at a level where you should, and dissolve it completely!

As societies grow and emerging challenges continue to shock us, how we accept them and how we shape our indifference- whether on the pivot of wisdom or ignorance will determine the collective fate of a society.

I leave you with these thoughts for now, grab that coffee and think- what shocked you, how you accepted it and how did you emerge on the other side- indifference that helped or harmed! When you see this unfold in your individual space and are able to co-relate to the developments within the society, that you will know how aligned you are to the society you are in and if there is no alignment what you must do to ensure you can protect your sanity, around the chaos that you get caught in!

Ciao for now, stay connected and stay safe, will be back soon with another one!

(Painful and Lasting) Lessons from a virus.

No matter what we think about the virus, from where it came how it came and who can be blamed or not, all of that really pales when you try to assess what is that the Virus has taught us the real hard way and ironically enough, these are the same lessons that all earlier calamities and challenges faced by humanity on a global scale have brought along with them, and like every time, history is forgotten in the greed for creating new economics and geography, putting us all in the direct path of oncoming peril- which then becomes a question of not, if such an incident will happen , but rather more about how and when it will happen!

Arrogance is vain: Human history is replete with examples where arrogance has been proven time and again to be as vain as it can be. Y:et our own choice to selectively delete important lessons from history often ends up leading us to repeat the same mistakes and that’s why History repeats itself! Whether it is the arrogance of an individual about not wanting to mask up or that of a government to claim everything is under control- the virus doesn’t care a damn and given an opportunity it will do what is is supposed to do- unlike humans, the virus’s choice and approach is singular and focussed- that of to infect. We ironically entangle ourselves into this space not realizing the potency of a microscopic organism and our mountain high ego’s and arrogance is the last thing that can ever help us! Whether to mask or not, you may want to debate, you may want to debate about the jabs, but for doing any of that, you need to be alive and that you can be- only when you shun the unrewarding arrogance around the virus and learn to accept a few things with a pinch of salt even though you run the risk of burning your ego!

Quality of Leadership matters: Every society is a reflection of the broader collection of it’s constituents. The quality of choices we make as individuals, translates collectively and this collective quality throws up leaders who we deserve. The one thing that the pandemic has exposed in a very uncomfortable way is the gradient of incompetence when it comes to leadership across levels and across segments of the society. The gross mis-management, wrong people at the right places and misplaced priorities and actions are all but a reflection of the quality of leadership! Whether it is about dealing with a virus or sending a spaceship into heavens above, as long as an Incompetent, myopic and faltering leadership leads, the results almost always will be disastrous.

Collaborative Trust: Whether you are a nation, the dozens of different agencies or local bodies, unless you decide to work together with focus and intent to stall the progress and onslaught of a common challenge, nothing meaningful will ever be achieved and you will sooner or later end up revisiting your past form time ti time as you try to fix the loose ends with no end in sight! The lack of this collaborative trust or the lack of its effectiveness is a direct consequence of the first point that we discussed earlier- Arrogance! At one end in this pandemic at a bio-molecular level we have viral mutations and progress wherein the virus seems to know how to make the most through infected host bodies and cells, even as we end up struggling to collaborate and share our resources to deal with and defeat this menace! The more worrisome part is that, the absence or presence of this collaborative trust is going to go a long way in showing future human societies engage and interact with each other and how effective that engagement will be!

Quality Resources are limited: As a geologist, coming across quartz samples was perhaps the most exciting thing for me during my growing up days, but with time and better understanding the whole aspect around quality, gradation and value of a crystal began to become clear and son enough even when many samples were placed around, the trained eye would almost always get locked on the most clear and pristine piece within the lot and this is what the human fascination with quality is perhaps all about- the flipside being- these high quality pieces are few and far in between among the vast ocean of resources that one may come across in a quartz mine! Likewise when you are hit by a challenge at a grand scale- needless to say- your resources, especially the high quality ones’ and the most promising ones will max out more quickly the you can ever realise and unless you have the dynamic ability to grow wings in flight and ramp up the quality circle of the resources and approach across the teams and stations, you will be left with more and more chaos eventually burning out and exhausting all of the limited high quality resources that you may have around you! Ins’t this what the pandemic has actually ended up doing? whether it be human or material resources, the very aspect of having sustained supply of high quality resources has got challenged and compromised like never before and even the best of technological interventions have seemed to pale every now and then as the infection spike keeps moving up and down across the continents!

Collateral Damage is real: As is the case in any warfare, when you are in midst of a pandemic, which is nothing short of a bio-war, collateral damage which goes beyond the immediate loss of lives is almost certain. How well you are able to minimise this depends on the points we discussed above and this collateral damage is in direct proportion to the intelligence or lack of it as people deal with the challenge at hand! What we have witnessed around the world, unfortunately has been a story of excessive collateral damage- broken families, shattered businesses and despair seemingly beyond hope!

Rational mind is the only potent force: A thinking (not overthinking) , rational and alert mind at both an individual and collective societal level is the only master key to deal with a challenge that tends to be larger then what you can deal with.Death by over-analysis and policy paralysis are well known terms and when you are up against a fast moving virus, the last thing you need is getting stuck in your mind games and staying entrapped within. The only meaningful and effective approach to deal with an overbearing situation resides in the ability to decipher whats unfolding and then act swiftly and decisively to minimise and mitigate the risks coming your was as much as you can. Confrontation of a problem coming from a wide scale event is perhaps not a sane way, even though it brings along a charisma of being a heroic effort, true heroism lies in staying low and waiting for the tide to wash over and rising again when the time is more conducive and when the opportunity to strike back is more realistic and the probability of a decisive counter strike are more!

You are responsible for your Life: Irrespective of who says what, how rich or poor you are, how well to do or not you are, nothing of that will ever matter unless you are able to take total ownership and responsibility of your own life! Over the last year, across the world society after society, as it got overwhelmed by the pandemic, the citizens were simply left to fight at their own level with what they had and what they didn’t! This is bound to happen each time and every time a systemic collapse occurs in face of a sever challenge and this is something that can happen more often then you think and hence the whole importance resides in being able to take stock of things around you and always be responsible for your own self- when each one begins to do this, the burden of collective responsibility reduces and immediately bounce back becomes more easy for a society.

I leave you here with these thoughts, given this is a blog, I stop here with these thoughts and you may want to add and curate your won list further, based on how you have experienced and felt the things around you, based on where in the world you are.The fact is, it is a pretty lonely place to get entrapped into- should you ever land up here, well you will have to throw everything that you have got to overcome the challenge and reclaim your rightful life back!

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

The leadership pandemic.

If you thought or still think, that the virus is the problem, well think about it one more time! Sure enough the Virus does what it does and brings along, all the unpleasantness and unwanted scenarios, but what really allows all of that to manifest and emerge is the quality and quantity of Leadership that you have around you! The story unfolding around us, this very moment is a story of “Leadership Pandemic”- An emerging challenge of sorts which brings us simply back to fundamental spaces of how societies are built, operate and progress! Join me here as we take a look around this space and understand, what really is happening around us and what is that you and I can do or not do in this fluid state! So here we go!

History and even the present times are a testimony to a very powerful reality, which is a simple fact that “The problem rarely is the real problem”, the way we choose to respond to a situation is what either resolves it or ends up complicating it further, making the problem more menacing and complicated to deal with! The current context of the pandemic around the world is perhaps a glaring example of this! So now the real question, why would this happen, or rather why would we allow this to happen? Well the answer to that resides in the whole social space around “expert worship” and “conformation bias” orientation!

Even as the pandemic travelled across the world, taking down one nation after the other, the inherent inertia, ignorance and colossal refusal to act in a timely and decisive manner, failed one nation after the other and what perhaps could have been a managed and controlled health risk, was overnight transferred into a global health emergency. All of this boils down to the simple one question, “who was taking the decisions- For the resulting success or failures are nothing but a manifestation of the wisdom or stupidity of the leader’s mind- the ability to gauge, analyze and think ahead! This is from where the real problem begins and this is the space where the leadership pandemic begins to take shape! With that simple act of taking or not taking a meaningful action!

What really unfolds in a leadership pandemic is that, a problem at hand ends up being more complicated and what could have been easily or with less hardship overcome, tends to just keep getting bigger and bigger with no end in sight! The current spread of the pandemic is a classic example here, sure enough when the menace started everyone was taken by surprise (which as a thought itself, is too good to believe!), so needless to say, we can overlook and say everyone did what they could do best with the limitations and access to resources that they had, but when you see the same problem persists over a longer period of time and returning in a more menacing manner, well then what you need to look at is- what was done or not done in the in-between period of perceived calm and this uptick of the second, third resurgence! It is in the crucial months and days in-between the calm that the fostering of false sense of complacency , the “everything is fine” and the usual self-centred, self-glorifying approaches of establishments have led their societies straight into the path of an even more bigger disaster! So what do we do about this? Well read on!

Sure enough by now, many leaders both public and private are pretty much exposed with regards to their proven ability to deliver and inability to rise to the occasion, this brings us to the vital space that deals with the quality of leadership! The world right now is stocked up with leaders who are accidental at their best and have ended up being where they are simply because they happen to be better then those around them- not necessarily because they bring with them some defining vison or charismatic skill to lead or be a leader! Sure enough, there are a few original and authentic leaders across the political and corporate world, but there are few and far in between; given the kind of mess that humanity has got into- it just goes to exemplify what happens when few wise whispers are overlooked by the noise and chatter of proclaimed experts and leaders! Fair enough, you may argue, but what is that we can do about this?

Well, to begin with no one is asking you to hold a protest or get on to the digital world and express your opinion, emotion and bring about a change- well these may be valuable ways as long as you want to push in some constructive and creative element for a positive way to tackle a problem and bring about the necessary empowering alignment, but the whole point here is, “what is that you are doing about a problem at hand, at an individual level? How are you leading yourself?” Very often when it comes to compelling questions that a society engages or deals with, people tend to perceive those questions to be “they” as in the society versus “me” as in the individual, the fact is that all social challenges , whether global or local start at an individual level and depending on how powerful that individual is and what position and power equation are at that individuals disposition, the challenges will either accelerate, get complex , assume a larger and widespread scale or end up being limited and localised to a pocket withing the community or even perhaps to a few units in the community or just perhaps that individual! This is the foundational bedrock that needs to be visited and addressed if any society wants to being about even an aorta of meaningful and progressive change for a few or the many!

Unlike what gets played out on the TV screens day in and day out, depicting people in important positions as success stories of failures, the whole gamut of meaningful and purpose oriented leadership begins with each individual. Unless each one of us doesn’t take responsibility of who we are and what we do, it becomes impossible to check the quality of what someone else may offer- simply because we ourselves don’t behold the flavour and essence of meaningful and directed leadership. Unless this changes and we assume charge to lead ourselves to begin with, every and any attempt to deal and engage with social or community wide issues will almost always end up being a stop gap arrangement with no enduring or long lasting solution or approach! How we treat ourselves, is how society will end up treating us!

An empowered society is not about one magical leader dictating what others must do, on the contrary it is the ability to empowered individuals to keep their chosen, qualified leadership on the toes to achieve and foster what they have as individuals for the wider audience of a society or a community. This is how and when meaningful and progressive change and development happens! The real problem is and was never the problem, it has always been and will always be the response to the problem, which either simplifies it or complicates it! That well, depends on how bad the leadership pandemic has set into a given society and within the individuals who go on to make that society!

I leave you here with these thoughts, take a pause and do think about it, what is the real problem and what is a more failing pandemic, the one on our hands now or the one that always has been! Ciao for now will be back soon with another one until then, stay safe, stay wise and think!

Empowerment through Inaction.

Contrary to popular belief and what our minds are almost always trained to do- in one way or the other- not everything that comes your way- calls you to act and not everything that comes you way requires you to act! Join me here as we take a quick look around this intriguing space- where Inaction- Stillness and mere Presence can create more empowering pathways which build clarity and direction and how this can eventually help you stop the habit of unwanted and unwarranted pre-empting behaviour which at times can work potently to disempower you and short change you- in the short and long term! So here we go!

We live in an era where “hustle” is perhaps the key word- whether required or not- we see millions of people day in and day out racing to their work desks and places of work to accomplish something that will be life changing, only to realize by evening that they have to go on with it for another day, then another and then another…the endless tomorrow simply sticks like super glue and the never ending hustle seems to live on! It is certainly good to set measurements, metrics, achievable goals and so on and so forth, for that is how human progress is made and monitored, but when the hustle keeps on going on endlessly with no real rhyme or reasons- eventually the only person who gets hustled is the hustler! You see, you don’t call for an earthquake to shift the furniture in your house- that is not how it works and that is as simple and straight an explanation why endless and meaningless hustle is not good and in fact is very much counterproductive- a major reason for may burnt out minds, failed hearts and lost-in- travel-personalities! A lot of chaos and complexity that we end up giving to ourselves originates from these rushed spaces of hustle which often are accompanied by bouts of instinctive and impulsive decision making- while that may work well for a few most of the time, for the many, it almost always ends up into manifesting even more chaos and begins a chain reaction wherein the individual is left with no other choice, but visiting one problem after the other and this newly found hustle of their lives, soon enough becomes all consuming!

A lot of hustle that we witness around simply evaporates with time, in weeks, months or perhaps a few years, but it will and it does- the real area of concern here is the damage that we end up doing at an intrinsic level to be part of facilitate hustle which is agenda driven to get something in the now, with no real essence or application for the long run- well that is the real story in most of the cases! You see, you may be a hustler and hitting your business targets year after year, but the question is at what cost and at the expense of what! The day you walk out of that business or office, you are only left with scars which tend to damage you at an intrinsic level more then anything else and that is the real and lasting price that one ends up paying for being caught up in mindless hustle of the world! Whether you are a victor or a survivor really doesn’t matter, because by the time the mindless hustle ends, you would have lost perhaps the most valuable thing- Your Time! Which, no matter what you do will never be back! SO does this mean, that hustle is not relevant? Or does it mean that we become passive and take things as they are and stop the effort to usher in change and a better tomorrow? Well none of that, the problem is not about the hustle itself, the problem is with the hustle for things that don’t deserve it for one or the reason! This could be different for different people and it is within these specific contextual realities that one needs to find the real mindful hustle that one needs to pay attention to! This only become possible through Inaction! The primary step before you decide to do something! Empowerment through Inaction is perhaps the only meaningful way to harness and manage purposeful hustle that creates an impact the way you want it to!

Inaction is not about being lazy, neither is it about being passive, Inaction is rather the ability to make a deliberate choice – a choice of not doing anything – because there are many instances, when you allow things to untie themselves they do and it all becomes relatively painless and more importantly when you do decide to act, you actions are empowering and potent enough to bring in a change or shift as you want them to! Inaction is an effective tool and approach because it allows you to observe, monitor and record- patterns, behaviours, impacts and allows you to create a meaningful cause and effect association of things that are unfolding in front of you, if you were to rush in and try to solve something, chances are that even as you try to solve one aspect of a perceived problem, other things will seem cropping up and then the cycle goes on endlessly with no end in sight! When you apply the approach of Inaction, what you immediately end up doing is you stop feeding into perceptions, unfound fears, rushed conclusions and skewed observations that would have been shared with you. You are able to see the dynamics of things as they unfold, people, processes and everything that goes along with it. It is only when you have captured enough of the depth and width of this unfolding drama and you decide to finally act and take a stand- your actions will almost always be decisive, clinical and laser shape- which is normal parlance of the working world spell out effectiveness or productivity!

Inaction is not the inability to act, rather it is the choice made not to act- simply because more needs to be known and understood before taking steps and moving ahead! Like I have mentioned earlier in my other articles, the pause is perhaps the greatest enabler that we have- whether it is the chat that you need to have with yourself or whether you want to assimilate the learnings coming your way and make an impact outwardly to the world. The next time you want to do something, like that in a snap of your finger, hit the inaction brake and take a walk- spend the time that you must in proportion to that impact that your decision will have- it is only when this practise becomes natural that you will be able to shift and sieve through rapid decisions and choices as your mind develops an ability to be in the state of inaction over one area even as it is engaged and implementing action for some other area once that has passed the space of inaction! Meaningful Inaction is always proportional to the probable impact of the ensuing action!

Even as communicators’ we have always been told the value of silence- which conveys so much more- then the spoken words- what silence is to verbal communication, Inaction is to the world of Action and Implementation! It is the vital space within the noise and rhythm that goes along with any implementation and any action, but it is within this pocket that a great sense of clarity and purpose can be derived and many a times the predestined course of impeding actions goes through a radical and decisive change to serve a greater cause and for the greater good!

I leave you with these thoughts for now and urge you to seek your meaningful Inaction to create an even more empowering actionable presence!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then stay safe and yes, embrace the silence in your action!

Your real priority.

Half way around the world, either you are planning to spend a calm Sunday or you are perhaps already preparing for the approaching Monday- well irrespective of that bit, no matter what you do or not, whether you are opulent or not and whether life has been fair or not, the game really is all about your real priority! Join me here as we take a quick paced walk down this route and decipher why most of us run the risk of running into and carrying further conversations which are more about “what could have been” rather then allowing it to be about “what can be”! So here we go!

Whether it is through the upbringing years at school, the formative years at college or the years spent through the corridors of the corporate world- we almost always end up leading a life – knowingly or unknowingly that is run and directed based on the priority listing methodology of someone else- who ever that could be and this is where the divergence commences!

If you are able to step back and embrace the pause, you will observe that many a things that “were high priority”, “so called defining moments” all tend to fade away and become meaningless or irrelevant with time as contexts change and things move ahead. Sure enough you may argue that, this is what hold true for almost everything and anything around us! Sure it is, but we don’t end up sabotaging ourselves the way we normally end up doing while we pursue the “so called priority” which almost allays is a case of someone else’s dream, requirement or necessity! It is this disconnect that ends up creating students graduating each year with ever more confusion about what they want to do next, with companies re-visiting their corporate strategies every now and then and wondering whether they should continue a product or service or not and governments who end up delivering what is not promised and never seem to deliver what has been promised. The whole social maze around strife and struggle is a whole lot because of this space of misplaced priorities and conformation narratives!

Through the student days, marks and grades are a priority – for that bit is sold to you- as the only assurance for an opulent life and only way to beat the race and stay ahead- well I am not saying this is not correct, the problem is this is not entirely true! You see if there are top 10 students across the thousands of universities then there are the next 20 from each one of them- so even for that visibly small variance of percentage or grades – as far as marking goes -which will never be beyond 10%, to believe that , this 10% difference can create such a wide and un-breakable barrier to earn and live an opulent life- simply doesn’t make sense and neither is that true! You have back benchers leading firms, business and doing exceptionally well, by the simple fact that they are able to hire the top performers at the price that they demand! So if the priority while being a student was only to get good grades or marks- why does this logic fail to deliver beyond an eclectic top 10-15% of the millions of students that exist at any given time?

If this was not enough, see what unfolds in the corporate world- you walk into that grand office each morning- or in today’s context, you hit your WFH desk to open up emails each morning only to find that “new priorities” have come in and as the week and month’s go by- if you ever reflect on what actually has happened- the corporate world end sup being a scene of accidental priorities and misplaced strategy- which often ends up achieving quite less when what could have been- simply by the latent power of the human potential that exists within each organization! You may want to say, that as organizations respond and react to market conditions things are bound to change- sure- but what is the meaningful variance- what’s the whole point of calling something “a priority” if the next market situation is going to ask you to throw all of that into a dustbin and sack half of your team? What does this speak about the whole approach to setting up and defining what a priority is, should be or can be? Think around this!

If you thought, this is limited to only the world of corporate and things that impact socially, think again, just see what has unfolded closer to you- your inner circle- your relations, ideals, mentors, coaches and what not! If you think that anyone or any of them were a priority for you- the essence of the word priority would imply that irrespective of what has unfolded or not- whether things have worked for you or not- you would still stand by them, their guidance and so would they too! But is that how it really gets played out? Well chances are they will not get played out that way and if they do, trust me and count yourself to be the luckiest among the lucky people to have some support system like that going around for you! So what is real priority then? Why is it vital and what makes it so encompassing and omnipresent? Read on!

Well, the real and perhaps the only meaningful and enduring priority that you will ever have in your life is “You”. Unless you make it a practise and a directed effort to place yourself and your core priorities first, no matter how successful you are or not, how rich you get to be or not, end of the day, all of that will be hollow and things will crumble at some or the other time sooner or later- simply because you have no control as you keep working and slogging for external priorities which are perhaps of core importance for someone else- a person or an organization and the trick in that space is, if you are not willing to stay enslaved for that, there will always be someone else to get that done and hence whether you like it, hate it or are good or bad,no one really cares a damn and irrespective of what you gain through that association, you will always end up loosing yourself from the context of failing to give priority to yourself!

Giving yourself priority is not about being self-centred, selfish or being disrespectful or disconnected or disengaged to working for others, with others or anything around that! On the contrary, once you are able to give priority to yourself, you know the value that you carry at an intrinsic level and that becomes a formidable push to achieve more in less time- especially when you are engaged to fulfil something for someone else- simply because you know that- only once that is done, will you be able to act upon what really matters to you at an intrinsic level – that is to work on your priorities! This is the real essence of moving ahead with a meaningful existence- being able to strike a balance between your real priorities- your intrinsic priorities and the external tasks and assignments that you race ahead to complete by virtue of your worldly engagements!

It is only when you begin to arrange the world around you by placing your priorities- which need to be aligned to your urge for expression, creativity and brilliance will you be able to contribute in any meaningful and uplifting manner to anyone else! You see, all of us want to be leaders and lead, but before we do that, what we must first and always do is lead ourselves! Unless you decide to lead yourself- why would anyone else even want to follow you, let alone being lead by you! No one likes to be lead by leaders who don’t have stories to share or who don’t have a compelling narrative and clarity- and for the leader in you to behold these aspects- you need to first put yourself at the highest priority. It is only when you act with clarity, decisiveness and meaningful directed purpose- will the others around you begin to trust and believe in your abilities and willingly surrender to follow you! Unless you don’t chart a course for your own life, you will not be able to make a great headway to lead a business, a nation or anyone else for that matter- simply because you too would be as lost as the person whom you are supposed to lead- only because you failed to recognise your real priority- which is no one else and nothing else but “You”!

I leave you with these thoughts for now, urging you to think around this and do take some time off and think around”what is your real priority?” Shouldn’t it always be you? The world is replete with examples where people keep racing ahead in a straight line along a circular track, to reach the same point where they started year after year, instance after instance- all simply because of missing the essence of who they really are!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then stay safe and stay wise! Remember, it all begins and ends with “You”!

Connected to disengagement.

Even before the fabled pandemic came visiting, human societies the world over have been and continue to grapple with an even more subtler and far more dangerous issue and health emergency and that is about, humans loosing the essence of what it is to be human! Join me here as we take a look around this space and try to understand what is unfolding and what is that we can do and not do about it, to preserve our limited sanity! So here we go!

Societies across the world are increasingly becoming a reflection of technological enslavement either by design or by default- this has further gone to result into loss of human engagement and the very essence of it! result? Well you have a family that sits together engaged and connected with their different world’s and not for a moment realizing what is amiss! We are increasing creating societies where short abbreviations and “yes”, “no” or “idk” are becoming the acceptable norm! Instead of protracted ideations, sharing of thoughts, debating over them, refining them or junking them which always created an uplifting and enriching space for the human mind and fueled the endeavor and enterprise that a human mind is known for. This sort of meaningless self imposed isolation and lack or urgency to connect and engage with fellow humans is making us more and more dangerously dumb and enslaved to structured protocols and ways of life- which almost always are designed to serve and profit the few who want to rule over the many! Sure enough there are many facets to this space and there is nothing about being morally right and to take up one point of view over the other, but as long as this evolving and sub-serving ecosystem of disconnected behavioral dispositions exists, meaningful pursuits which can cater to the greater good of humanity will always stand stalled and lost in unknown fogged corridors of the worldly ways!

The problem of disconnected humans and engaged gadgets is not new per say, sure enough technology has been a great tool and instrument for change, however the million dollar question is whether it has changed what it should have or what is shouldn’t have! At the end of the day, whether you call it Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning or whatever the next thing you want to call technological advancement, behind each of those developments are potent human minds who have now deciphered the power and vulnerabilities of what has been unleashed and it is now a simple bidding game where the highest bidder gets access to unleash what one chooses to do- whether to influence and market a product or service or whether to change the social narrative. This is the danger- real and present which threatens to hijack all original and human centric essence of humanity to enquire, answer and progress and this is why whether it be family tables or office work stations, you will find more and more people who are glued to an electronic screen searching something or the other- either mandated or required- which often really does not make any long term impact in terms of value creation and enrichment to an individual’s presence!

I had written sometime back about our disconnected times, but the only reason I was compelled to take this up against, was not because I am technologically challenged or despise technical advancements, but rather to share the fact that humans are becoming more and more enslaved to the developing technological advancements rather then being liberated by them! This is what is perhaps will be the next biggest pandemic- a pandemic of enslaved societies and community spaces that drive and further the agenda of an eclectic few, even as the many stand the risk to suffer and be lost into the oblivion not only in the modern terms of definition of the word “success” but also in the context of the ability to behold the human spirit of questioning and progressing in a manner that nourishes the human soul. By now, you may wondering, what is this rant, all about and what is that I am trying to say? Well plain simple words, societies need to decipher the clear and present risk and danger that our modern day adapted “social hashtags” driven lives bring along with them! For now they are busy robbing away the concept of original thinking and meaningful innovation, the next stage will be where, humans will end up having to prove their worth to a machine, to get access to any service or social benefit that they may require! So what is the plan, what can be done to manage this space well and in a purpose driven way?

It’s pretty simple, as Individuals, as long as we give common-sense, rational thinking and clear headed prioritization a chance, we are most likely to harness the power of automation and artificial intelligence (or dumbness) to impact, influence and serve the intrinsic attributes that make us who as are as humans and that alone is the foundation to achieve any meaningful greatness in the times ahead! For this to happen, people need to practise deliberate, directed disconnect from meaningless engagements over the # world and circle back to the original way of people to people dialogue for it is only when this happens that any automation can be really developed and brought in to serve the people in a more engaging and meaningful way! No one is saying automation is bad, or meaningless, the whole point is as more and more people spend more and more time doing meaningless acts over the # world, they are robbing away valuable time either from their personal space or their professional settings, both of which promise to give in a lot more if nourishes and catered to- unlike the likes, hashtags and shares over the digital world arena!

The time has arrived to say “no” to undeserving digital presence, which does only one thing, pushes in your face a string of algorithm built menu, suggesting you every now and then what is that you should do, shop or consume! The real problems here is two fold; societies are rapidly getting templated to resemble a broader sense of similarity- no matter which part of the world you are in- as good as this seems to be- within that goodness resides the problem of possibly loosing out on the nascent flavour and originality of a social space and what it stands for- call cultural dilution or cultural alteration based on driven and directed agenda of a few! Well, to give you a case in point, good until three decades back, packaged drinking water was an option and today- well it has become almost the new normal! The world- over the menace of web searching experts and their expert solutions (derived from these protracted- unverified searches) are yet another league of chaos creators! Every second you take time to be online, you are doing that at the cost of not being available offline- and trust me, as yet, at least- we are all born offline and guess that’s the medium of communication that we are meant for- else we would have lived and died online like any other portal or web service!

The essence of human progress, both as Individuals and as a society, is not only about being technologically advanced but more importantly being able to stay fundamentally anchored to the core values that a society represents and embrace the identity of who you are and engage with other people around proactively in a progressive way! Sure enough sounds great to send an digital invite to your next door neighbor, but when you are traveling through the same elevator, makes more sense to share a warm smile rather then texting a smiley!

I leave you with these thoughts for now, take your time and do reflect on what is that you are connected with and what is that you are disengaged with and do check if the priorities are right the way they should be!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then stay wise, stay safe and yes, speaking to another human being is completely legal and you don’t need to send an email or a digital text before you do that!

Don’t allow others’ dream to be your nightmare!

Stories related to the working world are always compelling and the one singular factor that runs almost through all the stories which have strife, struggle and success relate to the aspect of dealing with dreams and nightmares! Yes, join me here as we explore this space to decipher what exactly does it mean to work – work for someone’s else’s dream and what is that you can do to ensure that even as you do all of what you do, you don’t end up having living nightmares of your life furthering someone else’s cause! So here we go!

Sure enough this is not call for socialism or communism or any other “ism” that you may want to think about, this is all about what unfolds around us all the time; millions over millions of people striving hard and toiling their way to simply ensure that “a golden dream” of an entity is realized- which more often then not translates into serving the few of any society that you may want to consider! Whether you are somewhere in Asia , Africa , the EU or the Americas, the fact remains that as workers day in and day out you are doing nothing more but just realizing someone else’s dream and even as you may want to come racing back at me, arguing, what’s wrong with that; well much of the clutter, drama and nightmare that you live to see in your life- actually stands on that fluid foundation of you working the time of your life for someone else!

Well, as with everything else, there is nothing right or wrong about what you choose or what you choose to believe! For some, working for others and sacrificing their lives is the goal of their life and just like that we also have those few whose goal of life is to ensure that they have an enslaved cult disguised as whatever that could be ( a large political party, a big corporation or any entity for that matter) to serve them for attaining the dreams that they have set out to achieve! You see there is no real problem collaborating, sharing and caring- that is how it is meant to be, but when any of this is done by placing gross disregard and dis-service unto yourself to begin with, rest assured all and everything that you wish to pursue and seek will eventually falter and fail! Unless you have been able to live your dream and strive for it, you will never be able to contribute anything meaningful to anyone else’s dream- by choice or compulsion and rest assured you will end up creating nightmare’s for everyone around- yourself included! So what’s the way ahead you may ask? Well read on!

Human story has indeed been one of many working for a few (whatever or whoever those few are) and it is within these spaces of willing and coerced work areas that all the greatness and darkness of human behavior, intelligence and value systems have come alive. By itself there is nothing technically wrong about working for another person’s dream,say you want to help your kid realise a dream, perhaps your spouse, perhaps your friend, so on and so forth, the problem begins when that collaborative spirit or contribution is called for in exchange of who you are , what you stand for and the very expense of your space and dreams- which very often get lost, altered or overpowered as the case may be and this is when the real nightmare starts!

We live in a world of enslaved cult type blinded concept of selfless service! There is nothing wrong to be selfless, no one is asking you to be selfish or self-centred, but being selfless by exposing yourself to the risk of being reduced to nothingness is perhaps the greatest danger and when you see carefully sieving through the numbers of jobless and the growing number of compulsive entrepreneurs, you will know that their story has been one of being enslaved to the dream of someone else which made their own existence and life nothing less then a nightmare! The real crux of the matter is the altered sly quotient which is replete with gross disregard of the concept of humanism. You see, you never see so-called human rights activists- fighting for you when you are made to work long hours even as you are paid for a few, or when your wages come in later then when they are promised,they would be happy to do a road-show on protecting the planet and uplifting poverty, even as their inaction and indifference to the menace of enslaved corporate rituals ends up pushing more and more people across the world into the same dark alleys from where they wish to rescue people! Just think around this!

Furthermore the most sad part perhaps, is not that people are part of this whole arrangement (either by choice or compulsion), but they seldom do realize what they really are trading away with for achieving someone else’s dream! Think! This is the only life, the most wonderful gift that you have and whether you are affluent or not, you have the power to make good with what you have and what will come your way- only and only if you have the time and space to observe, experience and transform- each of this being vital and critical to usher in a new empowering moment that uplifts you so that you can share the gifts coming your way with others around! The problem with the enslaved lives that we lead to fulfill others’ dreams is that it robs us from the valuable time and space that we need to rediscover and connect with ourselves and know who we really are and what is that we can really do with the gifts that we have been endowed with! Tragically enough, many end up embracing their graves never realizing why and what they were really born for! In a world that is hyped up on the compulsive obsessions of meaningless recognition through digital spaces, business cards and where meaning to life as a whole has been reduced to being connected with an organisation or a social identity, it’s no surprise that the magic of bygone era of individualistic brilliance is such a rarity in todays’ times! So what’s the way ahead? Well read on!

Perhaps the only simple, effective and meaningful way to deal and tame this nuisance of social enslavement for one or the other reason begins with getting to connect with yourself and trying to decipher who you are, what your gifts are and whats is that you can do and how to make a compelling narrative by utilizing them either all by yourself or with assistance form others! Sure enough, you may argue that, doesn’t that translate into being a slave master- when you call for others, well as long as you don’t become a parasite and rob away all of their lives meaningful time, it doesn’t matter, but the moment you do that, it does!

The real essence of human life is in a sweet spot of harnessing the greatness of solitude and of being able to creating long lasting social impact, whatever way you choose, as long as you are able to pursue it without stealing other fellow humans off their humanistic attributes, you will do well, as you miss this secret, you too will end up being among the many who embark on the bandwagon of proclaiming to bring in change and a new future while enslaving the very today of everyone around them!

I leave you with these thoughts for today, urging you only one thing, reflect and think, whether you are enslaved to someone else’s dream which is transforming your worthwhile life into a nightmare or are you one of those who create hell on earth for them by signing up them to slavery for realizing your dreams! Either-ways you need to perhaps reprogram and recalibrate your mission of life- if you really want to make that meaningful humanistic impact!

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

Know your Knot.

Our lives revolve around the “knot”, well seems trivial, perhaps you never even get to notice it, but that remains to be a fact! Our modern world is all about knowing which knot is the one that you need to keep knotted and which is the one that you require to liberate, end up opening the wrong knots or tying up where you don’t need any and you will sure enough end up creating more problems, rather then solving the ones that you already are dealing with! Join me here as take a quick look around this space and understand what could be a meaningful way to engage and deal with a knotted world that all of us have inherited and continue to share and pass on! So here we go!

The extent of simplicity or complexity or the extent of being empowered or feeling disempowered is a direct measure of how astute one has being with regards to the ability of dealing wit the knots that have come their way! The more knots your come across the more enriched your life will be through the lens of the experience and stories that you are able to gather. The prudence and wisdom that you display by leaving a few as they are and focus on opening up the ones’ that matter sets the course for the trajectory of your life’s story and everything around it! How far you will reach, how that journey will be and what that long lasting definition of success will mean to you- whether that is an expression by virtue of harnessing opulence, staying simple, being empowered tom lead for others or creating narratives for empowering others!

The approach to play around with the knots can be many and as unique as who you are as a person! The compelling need for you to open up a specific knot, may not be that high for someone else and like with truth and reality- end of the day it is each one to their own! Nothing right or wrong- the knots that you come across are only for you- what you choose to do with them today, is what sets the tone and pace for what comes your way in the future! The whole essence resides in knowing which one to open up and which one to leave alone for that time or forever! So, how do we get this done? Read on!

To keep it really simple, just know that there are fundamentally two types of knots- one which you must untie and the others which must be left as they are! Within the first types of knots- the essence of untying them comes up with two important aspects- one is the timing of their opening and second being able to manage with what emerges once you have untied that knot! If you have wondered why humanity- most of it is, almost always complacent and good with status quo- it is because once they have untied that knot- they seldom know how to deal with what begins to come their way and it is this incompetence or not being prepared to deal and engage with the new realities of the world around that many people tend to fall back and begin to seek comport in the known zone- never realizing that, the known zone for everyone, each one of us is shrinking by the moment and every time we try to outgrow our lives through any enrichment we bring it- that known zone will shrink even further and eventually push you to experience life as it comes to you when you are probably the most vulnerable and least prepared- simply because you opened up the knot and never learnt what or how you will manage what emerges from that!

Sure enough you may argue, that how can one be prepared to meet the unexpected and the unknown- well, this is why- the whole concept of “self-awareness” and being attuned to yourself (forget about anyone else around) matters so much! It’s not only limited to the knot, but for that matter any action that you decide to take- without being immersed into it completely will always short change you even if the results are in your favour! If you have ever instinctively slowed down your vehicle at a pedestrian crossing even as you saw no one and then actually in the last few seconds, got zapped by someone just umping across- you know what I am talking about!

That instinct to slow down is your signal to open the knot and being able to think in the hindsight about being aware of things developing around ( to stay secured) is what empowers you to deal with the sudden surprises that a new untied knot may throw at you- as long as you are aware of this space and are vigilant to ensure the greater good for yourself and everyone around- rest assured you will almost always stand to benefit from the untying of the knots- as long as you untie the right and meaningful ones!

You may want to really decipher what are these knots all about to begin with? Well, depending on the layers of life that you have added to the canvas of your soul, you will find these knots opened up, half open, locked away at every layer across the layers of your soul! There are these passive knots of dead secrets, lost relevance and unwise narratives which serve no meaning in your now or the approaching tomoror0w- even as they serve as valuable lessons of life- these are best left to where they are in the graveyard of life’s mystical manifestations- call them hallucinations, unwanted bravado’s or perhaps simply mistakes or grave miscalculations- each and all of them are ought to be here and that is the space where they belong to- never to be touched or re-visited! This is the space where the remnants of your life’s expeditions stay buried for all the right and wrong reasons- but each one of them having added their colors and shades to make who you are in the now- before they went silent!

Then we have the set of knots which are meant to be opened up and acted upon to create more meaningfulness, empowerment in our lives’ for only then will you be able to create some meaningful narrative to others’ life! No one ever became an influence unless that person was able to first and foremost influence and lead himself or herself! This is what brings us to the “knotted thinking” which very often has the potency to stall and confuse even the brightest of minds and unless there is an adequate space of checks and balances around- people often fall prey to this knotted thinking and end up living a life- much mellow than what actually it could have been!

This space of knotted thinking is visible everywhere around us, each one of us has this and sure enough is an essential construct of our human mind to ensure we don’t become unwisely reckless or risk driven- which can jeopardize others too around us! But when this very knotted thinking begins to replicate and follow others and the human mind begins to get comfortable with conformed thinking, is when meaningful knots that are supposed to be untied begin to get tighter and tighter and eventually end up becoming too many to deal with- resulting in a complete depletion of originality and potency of thinking that finally takes a toll on how advanced the society can eventually become!

The essence of success and being able to create a meaningful narrative resides in an individual’s ability to untie the knots that one must and leave alone the one’s that must not be touched! It is only when you play around with meaningful knots and begin to decipher new aspects of life is that you will be able to come up with a new unknotted way of thinking to provide new innovative ways to deal and engage with the new reality that you begin to create through the opening of the meaningful knots which come your way as challenges or problems! These meaningful knots take on different manifestations in our real world- family, friends, work places, social fabric, outlook towards tomorrow- and many more such spaces- as long as you are able to traverse these spaces by opening up knots when it matters the most and how it is meant to be opened up- is that you will be able to better harness the new reality that comes you way and rest assured be more equipped to deal with it!

The irony of our times is that people often end up investing a lot of their limited time on opening up unmeaningful and wasted knots and then keep wondering around those futile bygones, futile because, nothing can be now corrected and nothing valuable can be applied to your now or tomorrow by re-visiting those spaces again and again! Sure enough the past is important and that is why it is your past! Your today, stands on the foundation of what you do today guided along the path that you have walked upon to reach where you are now! What matters is that the next knot that you go on to open will decipher where you reach next and that is when- your now will become a past- to be knotted and kept away, even as you race ahead to open up a new knot coming your way!

Final words, choose your knots wisely as you can, for what you are able to do or not, will depends upon your ability to decipher the knots that you open up and more importantly which ones you leave alone and which ones you engage with! As long as you are able to figure out the meaningful and the unmeaningful knots in your life and around you, you will be able to make progress on the path that you have chosen- the more time you waste dealing with unwise knots, your journey only ends up becoming that bit tiring. Whether these knots coming your way, are the people around you or the things around you or the work around you or a mix of all of these (which will normally be the case!) doesn’t mater, what matters is how well you are at selecting and engaging with, which one of them at what time- for that alone will set you on an accelerated course of progressive life learning!

I leave you with these thoughts for now, will be back soon with another one, until then stay wise and yes, open up the knots that matter and that begins with opening up your knotted mind to embrace the unknotted soul that you are! Ciao for now! Stay safe, stay wise!

Decoding money.

This is the time of the year, when nations are racing ahead and so are corporations for their favorite annual activity- the matters of the budget! No matter what your take about money is, whether you have a lot of it or struggling to arrive at your desired lucky numbers, the fact remains that irrespective of the varying facets and lenses that you may want to apply for deciphering what comes your way, the universal truth of societies has been that; ever since the modern concept of “government controlled money” has come into existence, social disparity has only widened and will continue to do so! Join me here as we explore this space and try to understand what really is unfolding and what is that you and I can do around it to make sure we have enough to survive and some to spare! So here we go!

To begin with the whole extreme concept of money being either useful or useless is a complete illusion! The truth about money and all money matters resides somewhere in between mapped to your contextual realities and the truth that beholds sanity for you! Let me explain, at some or the other point all of us have signed up for that awesome looking monetary incentive plan! If you sell “x”, you get “y”+1,2,3 so on and so forth, but what that actually translates in reality is almost always no where close to what your mind was tempted with to begin with for you to sign up! Call it the smartness of the others who ensured you fall for that trap or your own acquired level of incompetence for being able to see something hidden in plain sight- either-ways one of that would have done the trick! The same goes for the awesome offers on buying properties, schemes that are supposed to save your taxes and so on and so forth- from a chocolate to the coffin you end up buying for yourself, everything eventually is discounted and offered at a price tagged to some different factor! So why is that money is so tempting and seducing, why do people continue to fall into the trap pursuing it (no one is questioning whether they should or not), especially by discounting the realities and the truth which almost always sets up trim levels!

If you observe carefully and patiently enough the whole drama around the modern day concept of “government controlled money” and policies that go on with it are simply a tool to benefit one segment of a society over the other from time to time, well nothing yet to be prejudiced about this, perhaps a 100 years ago this thought was perhaps the only way, to ensure people who can empower others should be provided more resources over others so that through their iconic ways they can create new pathways for a new future! It surely worked and worked well, that is what the story of success through the industrial age has been, however that did not answer one question then and even now for that matter and that question is, “What happens when you have multiple potent icons who have formidable and lofty dreams and aspirations and all seem to be true, rational and perhaps intersect each other, what do you do then? Add to that a layer of equally dis-enchanted people who want to keep shifting allegiance from one dream to anther at a drop of a hat, what do you think the outcome will be? Well that outcome is what all of us get to see across societies around the world! The societies of today are a compelling narrative of handshakes and bruised association among the polity and business class which endlessly alter the ongoing narratives of their societies and compel people living in those spaces either to pursue utopian dreams or become too shy to even bite their realities!

Much of the modern day challenge with money is not about its availability but rather the timing and the method of its availability. This is what makes the pursuit of money never ending- irrespective whether you have enough of it or less of it! Unlike the modes of commodity exchange before the advent of the modern day concept of money, barter and medieval coin systems which were often made of precious metals and their alloys made it possible for a fair chance for people to rise and progress as long as they had individual ingenuity or ideas and action. You may argue, that this aspect still exists, it sure does, but unlike the earlier times when an individual had control to slow down or pace up, today; you and I don’t have that choice left to ourselves, those aspects are almost always controlled by the external factors that are so wrapped around us in varying disguises of government bodies, agencies and regulatory offices, what they end up doing is altering the course of our journey either by urging us to accelerate or slow down- when we ourselves may be thinking otherwise! This is where the whole modern day chaos commences- whether you employ a 100 people or you are one of the 100 people employed, everything that is wrapped around you is a maze of empowering and dis-empowering disguises and narratives, all that you need to do is, end up being in the wrong time at the wrong place and years of your hard work and ingenuity will evaporate right in front of you!

We live in times of complex narratives, where everyone is trying to gain an access to more and more of “government controlled currencies” the world over and their supplies are needless to say controlled and driven to help a few, not help a few and help everyone from time to time and place to place, for some strange reason you happen to be in the wrong timezone, rest assured you will be written off beyond repair and if your arrival coincides with the sweet spot at a right time, you will race ahead to your own surprise- never to realize what the hell happened and how you managed to do what you did! The question is never about whether money is good or bad, how much is enough or not- for all of these are different truths for different people, a billionaire may still cry for the next billion even as a struggling life may be more then grateful for the first 1000 dollars!

The real problem with the money collective in todays’ era is the superimposed script which is run by governments and a close circle of companies who want to drive a narrative- a compelling one which tends to alter the social behaviour, norms and ways of life to embrace what products and solutions they propose to usher in as part of that new social conformation bias story! Think about it, perhaps 30 years ago showing up at your friends or cousins house was “surprising”, the new age of communication arrived and defined that space to be rude and soon we have a whole new world seeking and waiting for permissions through communication channels to meet our friends and family and now this seems courteous! If you thought it is only this space, think again, whether it is the food that you eat, the fabric that you wear, the travel you undertake, all spaces around you always are nothing but a intrusive dialogue by select capitalists directing you to live and lead a life which suits and serves their purposes of business and more importantly helps your government know that the extent of oddity within the social structures is limited and manageable!

The whole modern day concept around money is to make you feel miserable- whether you have it or not- when you have it- by making you think and feel you deserve more- and when you don’t have enough- make you feel and think that you are entitled for more! Either-ways it’s a never ending trap, with no end line and no meaningful conclusion! It is on these sensitive spaces that governments of the day latch upon and drive societies to the pockets of managed chaos to keep the struggle on- a struggle with no end in sight and no meaning within! This is how millions the world over end up spending their entire lives pursuing what is simply utopian, not necessarily because they were incompetent, but perhaps they landed up in a place and time, where that is all what was going to be! You see, you may land up on a gold mine of an opportunity, but if that areas is already marked to be blown up by dynamites- the first thing you want to do is move out and watch from a safe distance and then revalidate your thinking based on what remains after the mayhem of the destruction!

I leave you with these thoughts for now, before I go, I urge you to rethink and calibrate your association with money- whether you have a lot, or are struggling to reach those magical numbers, take a pause and do think, is it really worth all of what you are going to undergo to achieve what you aspire- for money is simply a tool to achieve something else and even if money can buy you a thousand things, there are a few things that it will never be able to buy for you, among them is your peace of mind and your ability to cheat death! All of us have an opening balance of limited seconds, the moment we arrive, perhaps that is the most precious of all the things that you and I behold and it is this invaluable commodity of Time, which alone has the power to tame money and create an iconic life with or without it! Think around this and pursue a life that is enriched in the real essence of the word and not by the show “controlled money” which is almost always as fickle as its’ masters!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then stay wise, stay safe and yes, pursue an enriched life in the real essence of it! Money may be important, but it is not the only thing, it never was!

The future of jobs.

Gone are the days when there was relevance to the question, “Where do you see yourself in “x” years, simply because in that time frame, the question itself will most probably end up being pointless! As the world embraces a more potent mix of automation and human intelligence (and latent dumbness), we are racing ahead to throw out a big majority of “jobs” which seem to be so cherished and meaningful in the context of today! Join me here as we decipher what really is unfolding and what is that you and I can do about ensuring that we develop meaningful relevance to our existence by associating with something that is timeless and ever relevant! So here we go!

The history of human progress in the last 300 odd years has been a complete circle of sorts! Starting with the promotion and encouragement of individual genius, greatness and spark of being a master- to moving ahead and encouraging social cohesion through promotion of similarity of thought and action (the great dawn of the MBA era- where rules were given to follow and break alike!) to an age that we have been witnessing through the last two decades- a confluence of ingenuity, cohesive effort through focussed asymmetric collective thinking! Going ahead what we are about to witness will be an age where if there is any one thing that will be held up with high regard and requirement- it will be your UQ – your Uniqueness Quotient! In the decades to follow through this century and beyond, before the reset to collective and cohesive collaboration again begins, there will be an oasis of calm that will reward humanity and humans who display a higher UQ!

There is no doubt that automation is here to stay and perhaps even out do humans when it comes to the space of managing the routine and in certain areas even the creative engagement with or without human assistance, but what will empower and enable people to ride this automation wave to build their fortunes will be their intrinsic opportunity to develop ingenious solutions and services by ensuring that the human element supersedes and rides over the whole stack of automation. So how do we go about it and what is that you and I can do to survive and excel at what is destined to come our way? Read on!

It all starts by tapping within and staying connected to your intrinsic competencies. For this to happen what is important is, being abe to develop an impeccable ability to behold awareness- about self and everything and everyone around you- minute to minute! It is only when you are engaged and connected from this pivot of unflinching endurance that you can measure what matters and see what is perhaps cloaked– both so vital as far as deciphering and decoding the future is concerned!

As the world races ahead to embrace automation, it will only become more and more vital to have intellect and innate wisdom to lead the way to ensure that the automation that humanity is signing up for is safe and sane! The world is replete with examples where automation has ended up throwing up unwanted and unnecessary glitches and aberrations which have then further gone to add more problems rather then provide solutions to the ones’ on hand! The way to decode this compelling paradox is to understand why did we agree to embrace automation to begin with!

Through the advancement in science and technology and the appetite for consumerism, the world moved ahead and began to experience the first wave of automation wherein goods could be mass produced through an engaging blend of human and machine dexterity, as time progressed more and more of mundane and routine, repetitive functions began to get handed down to the automated spaces under the garb of allowing enough free time for humans to further excel at their creative pursuits and come up with further and higher innovations and inventions- whether that worked or not is a different story to agree and disagree- but what that certainly ended up doing is that in no time humanity ended u being enslaved to the curse of automation! Today we have ended up in a zone wherein automation not only projects the overview or identifies the problem or suggests alternatives, but rather does all of this and even more importantly executes further instructions to alter and manage further scenarios of dynamic nature that geos on to impact production and supply chains not only at one location but across multiple locations all over the globe! This is the space where human intellect is being tested and challenged to stay relevant and deliver meaningful options overriding the mind boggling crunch game that powerful computers and nimble machines are able to do all by themselves!

It is only the application of intrinsic and directed intelligence and wit that can ensure that automation stays relevant and in command of human wisdom- that alone ensures that we have defined family of jobs and vocations in the future too which are able to walk side by side of prevailing automation. The singular fact however will be that all jobs of the future that have a human engagement will thrive and stand on the foundation of the UQ of an individual- whether organizations would want to further promote and propagate a collective UQ to deal with a compelling large problem at hand- is a different matter, but as long as Individuals are able to apply themselves to the tasks at hand on the pivot of their UQ, they will remain relevant and valuable, irrespective of the extent of the automation blended around what they do!

In a sense, the future of jobs is more to do with services and solutions that Individuals can offer- because of who they are and what they are- both as Individuals and as a part of some collective group or team and how well this is realized and deployed is what will go to define how and where automation will be check-mated and where it will go on to advance! There is no reason to fear or shun automation, as long as it is meaningful and relevant and in the real sense is able to liberate human intellect to pursue something higher and compelling, but when automation threatens to mimic and over ride human engagement and value based assessment of situations and processes, be assured it will fail and falter and the consequences of that melt down is something perhaps societies are not yet ready to pay up for!

What I see coming our way in the future is the excellence of automation and human intelligence going hand in hand aligned to their own respective core value ethos and needs! Professions and Vocations that elevate the human spirit, soul and the provide directed guidance, innovative thinking and accelerate deployment of wit and human ingenuity will thrive and progress. Jobs that empower people and create an impact and ring in continuing hope and promise for humanity will linger on and perhaps even get better with time! Likewise automation that helps take away the mundane, repetitive, low engagement and high risk job functions will get more advanced and better at getting things done with every new generation of research and firmware upgrades! For everything else that humanity chooses to do, it will almost always be the case of fleeting dynamism between varying degree of automation and human control! Sure enough a lot of it will get standardised with time and through trial and error!

Like the cycles of the bygone era, we are moving ahead to experience the finesse of human wit, intelligence and wisdom in the coming few decades and for the remainder of this century, even as automation races ahead to liberate and empower us, it is only the discerning human mind that will be able to behold any meaningful essence to achieve a dynamic balance between human efforts and automation!

I leave you with these thoughts for now, urging you to tweak your mind and set it up in an automated mode to empower you so that you may deploy your UQ and devise your own personal niche to embrace automation through the wisdom, wit and intelligence of your mind!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then stay safe, stay wise and take that journey to tap into your UQ to embrace the automated future coming your way!

When numbers don’t add up!

As we come close to end of January, many nations around the world and organizations are busy diving deep into the number game! For some or the other reasons these numbers communicate and convey what their masters want them to say and no matter what you think, they never really add up! Join me for a short walk through this space and decode why the world embraces this number and data driven craze and what is that you and I must guard against and be wise enough to see beyond what the numbers portray!

To begin with let me share some statements with you, I got a 100% increase on reader engagement, I have a strike rate of 99% to finish articles and I write them; now let me add two additional information, first I have only 10 readers and I write only one article per year! Now what happens to your understanding and appreciation about me- am I effective or ineffective? Struggling or Great? Well, this is what the reality and truth of the world of numbers and data sets is, all the time, everywhere people are almost always presented with what will empower decisions to be driven in a particular way to conform to some needed outcome and as long as that happens, governments stay, CEOs can relax on their chairs and societies can keep doing what they do, but when the numbers and facts begin to stand out on the basis of what they are without any shadows around them, reality ushers in and people begin to get a taste of an oncoming reset and realignment of priorities! But why does this happen? Why do people get discreet and secretive with numbers and data? Why is it almost always shared on a need to know basis and never- rarely- in a comprehensive and holistic way? Well read on!

Part of the answer to the trickery involved in sharing numbers and data resides in the core values, strife, struggle of the bygone and the promise of the future and what path has been embraced to achieve the same! Say, you are a nation sure enough you may never want to- you will not and should never have to- share intricate details pertaining to your armed forces and preparedness as a nation- thats perfectly sane and when it comes to elements and sensitive data points like these, nations, societies, organizations guard them with all that they have! But when the guarding and distorting commences for all that is available in public domain, it sets the tone for competing analysis, conflicting inferences and a more confused decision making- courtesy- the conflicting data points and numbers which seem to have a mind of their own!

This happens all the time, sales targets are revised upwards with no or limited rationale, under the garb of operational efficiency and optimization, resources and people are driven to work and perform right upto their breaking point! Business have one number for the government ( to ensure their tax optimization is achieved) and one for the workers and yet another one for the investors! It is this space of conflicting objectives done simultaneously that creates a mirage of information which seems true all the time- depending upon who you are and what you are searching in that number maze! The reality, sure enough resides hidden away somewhere around and within that universe of staged appearances and narratives and this is what becomes the foundation for entities to either rise high (when their compelling cause is wise and just and sink deep when they are on a trajectory of self-destruction, already passed the stage of repair! So what’s the sane way to deal with this space and is there anything that you and I can do around this?

Well, the only real and meaningful way to deal with the number and data maze that keeps coming your way endlessly is by being pragmatic and being able to apply what is coming your way to the contexts that mean to you, even as you appreciate the contexts in which they were recorded! You see, like my first example a 100% increase in readership will have meaning and efficacy only when the numbers that go on to reflect that percentage are sizable and meaningful in the ocean of readership data! Sure enough nations, companies and agencies have their pressing compulsions to do what they do with the numbers that the have access to, but the ability to gauge and see what is not been shared, is where your intelligence and prudence comes to play and the more better you get at that bit, the higher are your chances to excel and surge ahead!

When governments, experts and organizations play with numbers to avoid chaos in the society, that is understandable, but when these data points are selectively played out and represented in a manner to benefit a few sometimes and yet few others all the time, things start to get undone and this is where mistrust and gross disregard for any sort of metric begins to manifest! Once this stage is arrived at, even the most well managed aspects of a society can come crashing down. What’s more worrying is the fact that when the big corporate world steps in to create compelling narratives on the bed rock of staged data sets by the governments, it takes the whole society on a joy ride to no real destination and this is what manifests as companies go bust and as markets crash every now and then!

Even as all this is unfolding, it is always worthwhile to remember that, there may or may note be a compelling need to cheat to trick per say, but when an intent to trick is set, things really begin to get awkward and chaotic, eventually the only way that they are controlled is by allowing them to run their race, fizzle out and diminish! No data set or number story has ever been complete or whole and there are good reasons for that to be that way, there are reasons too for stories to go the other way; what really matters is your ability to decipher this fluid nature of numbers and data points and appreciate that no matter how well you control or manage what you do, given the interconnected world that we all are a part of, there is very little real and meaningful control that you can exercise to be sure that numbers will always stand by you or your aspirations!

No matter what you do, and how much power you wield the numbers and data sets that wrap up around you, are the only ones’ that you get to play with and as long as you are alert, prudent and wise with regards to dealing with them, you will be covered! The moment you stretch or flex beyond what is manageable, things will begin to unravel and all the data and numbers that the world need not see, will end up getting spread to create even more challenges even for your tomorrow, than the ones’ you probably face in your now! Every segment of a society will have a contextually valid reason to assert and vouch for the data that drives their narrative and no matter what anyone else says or not, nothing will ever be accepted or paid heed to! The only way to work with numbers and data to ensure they at least seem to be agreeing upon something, is by creating pathways and mid-ways for converging divergent observations and summarize narratives withing permissible and meaningful margins of variance!

Individuals and businesses that are successful and resilient often are so because they have also been able to decode this crucial number game alongside building up and exceling at their competence in what they choose to do! Numbers and data, by themselves are never inaccurate, it is how they are actioned upon and inferred upon that either goes on to make them more potent or a piece of crap!

I leave you with these thoughts here, urging you to practise the pause as and when you immerse into the numbers and the data that comes your way, so that you are able to not only see what is shown but also what is hidden within and not visible at first sight!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one soon! Until then stay safe and yes, keep crunching those numbers and data set, but ensure that all what you do stays, relevant, meaningful and directed in the contexts that come wrapped along with them!

As protests become entertainment…

As I go in to write this piece the world is in a fluid state, across nations we have segments of the social fabric expressing anguish, disagreement, discord and negation of what has been sent their way! Irrespective of who you are, what you believe or stand for and whichever side you want to take, there is always a limit to what unfolds and as that threshold is crossed the very essence of the reason is lost and every struggle, strife or expression for a cause, ends up being nothing more then pure entertainment! Join me here as we take a trip down this route to understand why and how compelling expressions of humanity end up as entertainment! So here we go!

Through the progress of humanity or should I say as human societies evolved, every step and every chapter has been sprinkled with a generous amount of compelling narrative, thought or an ideological pursuit , either non-aligned, conflicting or competing with the main narrative of the prevailing social construct of the time, this is the essence of the genesis of protests, strife and struggle of humans within the societies that they give unto themselves, it sounds paradoxical and strange, but that is true and is what goes on to make who we are, as we are and wherever we are! The whole concept of protest, non conformity and taking a route to either compete or embrace conflict is all about creating an etched document in the space of time to record a simple fact that- not all were fine with what was unfolding and they did do what they could, the way they did! All seems fine until this space, but then if protests are all about competing o conflicting ideologies or thoughts, why do they get disregarded and brushed away as aberrations and end up being a source of entertainment rather being something meaningful and purpose driven? Read on!

As humanity advanced, alongside it, the way history was documented altered and as more multipronged societies came to exist, the confluence of influences coming into societies soon began to move away from a traditionally rooted way of documenting structured for- against views to multiple, competing and conflicting narratives. Needless to say, the truth has always been and will always continue to be embedded somewhere within and around this ambiguous cloud of human narratives! Based on what the majority of a given social construct happens to be in a context of time, that particular thought, idea will be taken up as being the high moral stand and the gold standard for all that gets done and undone! As times flows by, soon enough the public memory fades, hardships are accepted and dealt with and opulence is celebrated in a never ending party as societies simply shift their view away form what has transpired to what is unfolding and probably will in the times ahead! When protests and compelling narratives are seen through this space of human development and progress, is when you begin to realize that, these incidents are not mere aberrations or something to do with the “now” of a society but rather are a part of a long term attribute displayed and held within the very soul of the society! But then why and how did protests loose their potency?

Like with everything else, as and when there is an excess of something, that technique soon tends to loose its potency either because the execution and deployment begins to get sloppy or the way of tackling them gets better and better- owing to the previous incidents! Either-ways a once proven formula soon ends up being reduced to virtual nothingness and with that the social disposition towards the very essence and concept of a protest begins to fade away and as that happens- the society reaches a state where- what is served becomes the new standard , with no or little room to debate of what else could have been possible- simply because there is no other way around and no people available to show the pathway to that route! There is really no need to jump to a conclusion that, this may not be good for a society or be bad, that all depends on multiple other aspects- which is a totally different matter together! As far as protests loosing their credibility and potency is concerned the reasons are almost always, what I already discussed above and the next important aspect being the contextual relevance of what is being fought for! Unless there is a holistic consensus for an approach and view with a formidable echo, even the best attempts and well laid protests will eventually fade away and tire out as governments begin to play the protesting leaders against themselves and thereby end up creating other more competing and compelling narratives, ending up everyone confused wondering what the whole noise was really about! So how do we ensure that protests don’t loose their potency and remain relevant?

The only real and meaningful way to ensure that protests, strife and expression of competing or conflicting narratives stays relevant is by ensuring that the effort is backed up by a solid contextual understanding of what the matter is and more importantly is deployed and executed only when it really matters and when something can be done about what is being debated! Many a protests and strife take up high moral and utopian stand points which are neither practical nor rational and very often they end up evaporated in their own fog of confusion and day dreaming! Protests need to be timed, executed and deployed in a space where, there is a good enough probability for the counter narrative to be accepted, imbibed and adopted over a current prevailing approach and it is only when this fertile spaces is available that any protests will be able to move towards realizing its objectives and stay aligned to what it has set out to achieve!

Protests that don’t resonate with the thought and expression of the majority will fail and falter and even a whisper that echoes the concern of the many will rumble on to become a deafening roar- this is what the truth of history has been – this is what the rise and fall of empires across civilizations has always been all about- and that continues to be the case with rise and fall of nations across the world in the modern context of our times and lives! As societies get fragmented and torn within and around on different parameters of opportunism, opulence and quality of life- at any given time- some or the other segment will feel the compelling need to raise its expression and make itself felt, heard and healed, but if this is done with an unfocused and ambiguous mind- even the most well planned protest/ strife will end up being only a spectacle which comes up once in a while for one or the other reason and soon enough will end up loosing all its credibility and potency-thereby going to prove all that they were against- to be true- by just one move of retreat and failure!

In our current modern age, when we have so much to consume and ponder about, every meaningless act that arrives in the space of strife or protest, end up becoming the most entertaining space for the whole society- people on either side are kept engaged and glue to the topic, even as the nation, businesses and the people who make the difference and shape the future move on and stay aligned to their true purpose and objectives! Protests become entertaining acts, not because their content, orientation, competing narrative is wrong or misleading (which at times could be the case too!), but also because when the counter attack and new narratives come in to play- already a lot of energy has been lost in creating the chatter and as the space of negotiations and discussions begin to arrive- the twist of modern day media management drives in the final nail in the coffin of a protest to rob it away from it’s very soul- of trust, credibility and unity of purpose! This is how even the most potent and meaningful protests are failed and more often than not when that does happen, it leaves societies even more disillusioned and confused then ever before with the person-to-person trust issues hitting an all time low, like never before!

I leave you with these thoughts for now, just remember, you may be on any side, of an ideological competition or conflict, but only when you are able to decipher the nuances of the ability of the protests being managed or stalled is clear, will you ever know whether you chose the right side or not! Else you too will feel only entertained like the vast majority does and nothing comprehensively new, worth learning will ever get added to your repository of wisdom and intellectual finesse!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then stay wise, speak up and stay safe, and yes, always remember, too much of anything will always act as the fatal foundation to conspire your failure! No one built a one storey house with a 100 feet foundation! Think it over!

The real miracle.

If you have been wondering what the world has ended up becoming and if you have been wondering if miracles do exist and how does one embrace them; join me here we we take a quick trip down this space and decipher the real essence of miracles and what is that we can do, to harness them and have them within and around us! So here we go!

Each one of us wake up every morning seeking, hoping or praying for a miracle, whether the definition of that miracle is wining that odd lottery, that lucky hand at poker or just being able to survive a day at a crazy workplace or perhaps even plain simple staying alive- whatever that means to you, the fact remains that human lives are an expression of this mad obsession to seek and hold the miracle that one pursues!

Humanity has always been a story of hope and within that space resides the compelling belief for a miracle to break free and manifest to address some pressing challenges, whether they are for an individual or for a collective society. But what are thee miracles really? Why are they so rare and infrequent? Why do they seem to favour a few and disregard the many? Why do they manifest when they do and why do they stay elusive at some other times? Well if you too have been plagued by these questions and others as well, read on as we take a step to understand these “miracles” more aptly!

Based on what it means to you or a society, the miracle could be a factor of either of the two fundamental blocks- they can either be intrinsic or extrinsic and each one of these will almost always have a rational and scientific explanation- which more often than not is either hidden in plain sight or for some reasons (best known to the people who do so)- is just overlooked! Whether it is about that sudden spell of rain (or should I say rain when you were not expecting it – for your lack of knowledge of the weather around you!) or that winning of lottery or game of chance (as you came closer and higher in the probability space) everything that the human mind has attributed to being a “miracle” almost always has been a story of manifestation of efforts whose count has been lost! This is the space where so much of labour has gone in and for so long that when the seed begins to finally emerge from the shadows as a tree laden with fruits- very often in the daily hustle of life we have lost track of that seed and all the fruits coming our way seem to be simply magical and a miracle- the real essence here is that the seed may not have been planted by you- but by someone else- either intentionally or unwittingly- you just end up being there to enjoy the fruits of labour (perhaps connected or not to you!)

When it comes to the bounties of nature and the miracles that happen as we engage with nature- they follow the rule of nature! We expect pleasant weather- where none is possible and end up creating a template around what to expect and not- this even as we know that the whole of modern science of appreciating and deciphering nature has evolved only in the last 300 years and the planet has been here longer than that and as humans we too have evolved through the eons! So when storms dissipate, we are thankful, when we sense that earthquake – we are on the edge and as we get to tame the waves, note the rain and decipher the snow around us- we begin to read the cryptic messages of nature and in no time- miracles seem to dwindle away as regular occurrences and it is then left to only a handful rarest of the rare weather manifestations which are left to qualify for being a miracle and more often then not these are a direct impact of a localized geographical phenomenon which binds the elements of nature in a strange manner!

Miracles are nothing more or nothing less, but the last remaining frontiers of time and space for which the rational thought and explanation is yet to arrive! However when it comes to the intrinsic space, the real miracle has been very accurately identified and deciphered- that space of the miracle is really who you are! The real miracle is you! Each one of us are a living example and an unfailing citation of being a miracle- by simply being who we are and what we are- whether that helps us to pursue what we strive for is a different story- but the fact remains that each one of us is a miracle unto ourselves and that is the real essence of humanity! This is what makes the world what it is- a diverse, complex and yet unifying mix of pursuits and passion which help us propel human societies a step ahead from where they were earlier! Then why is it that there is so much strife and struggle?

Well, the strife and struggle emerges as we begin to pursue and seek what is not meant for us – not because we can’t or we shouldn’t, simply because that is not what is meant for us to seek! Ships look grand in the harbour and aeroplanes look beautiful by the hangars, but that is not where they are meant to be! This is what is applicable to us as well, we may be good perhaps, too good being what we are, doing what we do, but the million dollar question is, whether that is what we are supposed to be doing? If you have ever wondered, why nothing miraculous has ever come your way, perhaps the answer resides in this space, your pursuits are in the wrong direction and perhaps for the wrong intent! Miracles will emerge only once you align yourself, your life and pursuits to do what you are meant to do and for you or me to understand and decipher that code- could be a day’s job or at times a lifelong pursuit that comes calling only when we have perhaps few extra months or hours to spare! This is the essence of relation that humanity has with miracles and perhaps that is what makes them seemingly so rare and elusive- as a large chunk of humanity keeps pursuing what is not meant for them, they simply keep moving farther and farther away from realizing their true potential to touch and experience the miracle that they are entitled to and this is what makes miracles seem so unrealistic and elusive!

The miracles are as real as your efforts, intent and pursuits are in the right direction and if there is any real meaningful miracle- that is about being able to find that right direction, at the right time and in a right way- for unless this happens- everything that is about to manifest- gets either vibrant and enduring or tends to get complicated and ambiguous- however in either of those scenarios- there will be a strong prevailing case for the onset of the miracle with a different timeline as far as the enduring value that it will bring along with it!

Miracles are only as real as your ability to decipher and behold them, timing is of essential value and alongside that unless the miracle doesn’t serve the greater good- rest assured it will lie buried or at it’s very best manifest as some half-done job by a great master!

Do take some time off and do ponder around the miracle that has come your way- if nothing has ever come your way- chances are- you- yourself perhaps are the miracle manifesting in the lives of the people around you- simply by doing what you do!

Ciao for now, will be back soon, until then stay safe and stay wise- yes miracles are real- as real as your ability to dream, behold and manifest them!

Vaccinated Minds and a Vaccinated Future.

If there was one defining statement that 2020 made about humanity, then it had to be the pandemic- not the pandemic itself but very importantly how humanity responded to it and eventually ended up making the solutions to deal with it even more complicated and hard! Sure enough, no one is arguing whether the pandemic was real or not and there is no reason to take away or doubt the selfless service provided by a few to save the many, but one fact can never be overlooked and that is – collectively, as human societies the world over we had our windows to course correct and stall the nightmare- which we missed – at times owing to irrational thoughts and at times owing to brazen oversight- whatever that was- all of these incidents have now pushed humanity is a tight corner- where we are now making the next blunder of trying to live a vaccinated future through the dis-empowered thoughts originating from vaccinated minds! Join me here as we take a look around this space and try to decipher why, perhaps the pandemic was the least of all the problems and how dealing with it, has ended up complicating our today and the future, and is there anything that we can really do about it- today for a better and meaningful tomorrow. So here we go!

Even as the pandemic began to make it’s presence felt, even those initial weeks (what now in hindsight seem to be the most critical) were squandered by a misplaced bravado- coming from the decision makers for nations and societies across the world- the best part- the world was waiting for decisions from people who were never ever qualified to make a sane, scientific and a rational assessment of what was unfolding- so no surprise when the decisions came- they were late, all over the place and completely irrational! You see, the virus does not really make any sense between a night curfew or a day curfew or a lockdown or whatever you call- the only thing that it is bothered about is infecting a host and moving on to the next one- if it gets lucky enough to find one! So if even the most basic thought around propagating physical distance at all places (this is important- all the places) would have been implemented in a scientific way- things would have been much better, then what they eventually unfolded to be!

The problem, was the whole concept of requiring to promote physical distance went on to become a BIG TECH agenda and a corporate agendas to make good of what could perhaps never been corrected the world over- the new ushering in of the Work From Home (pandemic) – saving corporate dollars at the expense of health and domestic peace of employees! As all of this unwanted drama began to fast take over the real issue, the virus got to do what it was always good to do, so whether you wore a mask or not, if you were stupid enough to get into a close encounter with strangers for no reasons- you were all set to pay the price! Needless to say the conversion of requirement of “physical distancing” to “social distancing” has ushered in a new extent of human to human communication break down (which anyways was fast deteriorating and average) and rest assured the costs of this new illness is yet to be factored in- no matter which part of the world you live in!

You see, science and many of the wise things and people around, really don’t care- what your individual tastes, political preferences or ideological hallucinations are, all organisms and the earth in general follow the laws of science and wherever they are flouted, some shit is bound to hit the roof – somewhere or everywhere! Sure enough, I am not suggesting, humanity did not do anything, but the whole point is all of that would have not been required in the first place, had people given science a chance over unwanted bravado and hasty decisions which simply went on to complicate a problem, leaving humanity wondering- which of the prevailing ones’ are better over the other! If you ask me, the pandemic , was a screaming example highlighting why the world needs meaningful leaders and meaningful leadership! Leadership Pandemic by virtue of Leadership Incompetence is more fatal and dangerous then the virus we found in the year bygone! So now, the million dollar question, fair enough, we screwed up, so next is what? Well, read on!

Well, the clear and present danger going forward is not about the last pandemic or even about, what if that happens again, more importantly it is about, how fundamentally humanity has been altered and how that will unfold! You see, viruses are still predictable once you study them, humans, no matter how much you study them , almost always have the ability and potency to spring up a surprise! This is the real unfolding turbulence and what makes it so fluid, is the fact that humanity (with regards to the people who call the shots) will do so by applying their vaccinate minds- a vaccinated approach to thinking!

The challenge around this development, is that, as a case of once bitten twice shy, even the most routine decision making and calibrated risk (which is so vital and has been a hallmark of humanities progress) is severely compromised and embracing inaction over action tends to become the new normal! You will begin to see decisions unfold which aim to fix what the apparent problem seems to be rather than fixing the real root of the issues cropping up! This is similar to building a bridge with no roads at either ends! The reason why this will develop is that, when you begin to limit human thinking to confines of comfortable and predictable templated outcomes- you end up creating a status quo for humanity and the playground for creative and scientific experimentation begins to shrink! Vaccinated thinking may be very good, perhaps excellent to provide a sterile, isolated social construct to alter a narrative and drive the society in a pre meditated direction, the real issue will start once people reach the destination and realize there is nothing worthwhile to cherish about and the whole journey was a wild trek with no real essence of discovery – internal or external!

The real issue of living a vaccinate future empowered through vaccinated minds is not only about limiting or constricting human expression and discovery, it is also about creating new rules, regulations and norms- written and unwritten that suit a few, drive the agenda of a few and the majority are left with no choice but to comply simply because every small breath of expressive freedom that humans will want to portray will come at a cost- either directly or indirectly and that will go on unless some next big humanist approach sets in to correct the balance! You may ask, but why should this happen, why would people and societies allow this? Well, simply because the nightmare that was created and allowed to manifest was too much too handle for many constituents of the societies world over- so like the small school kid in you, when you mess up with your home assignment and your teacher begins to set a new way of working for you to put you ion a course correction- you listen to all this is said- this is very much like that- and even as that is done- the teacher is completely indemnified and discounted from any element of doubt or incompetence- from the context of “how well was the teacher able to teach to begin with ti reprimand the student!”

Having said this, let me tell you there is still hope, no we will not end up being biometric zombies anytime sooner, but unless societies don’t begin to stand up to stupidity, dumbness and everything that defies science and common-sense, things will keep getting worse and worse! The only way to deal around with the space of vaccinated minds and ensuring our future doesn’t end up being sterile and clinically disconnected or disengaged- is by overpowering meaningless narrative by sensible and meaningful- human centric approaches and anchor on a singular pivot- that all human social progress and development has only been a story of people coming together and collaborating or working together with inspired, meaningful and sane leaders and leadership! You see, you may have a great leader, but if the leader has gone nuts and is aiming to jump down a high cliff, it’s upto you to either stop that leader or at least stop your jump!

The human story, always has and will ever remain to be of creative expression- through individuals, collectively through societies by choosing different mediums of arts and sciences- this is the fundamental bed rock on which human civilizations have thrived, survived and made meaningful progress. As long as you and I know this, assimilate this and act empowered by this thought, we will be able to deal with the dumb vaccinated minds, their un-serving thoughts and disempowering actions and will be able to change and alter the human narrative once again to stories of human empowerment- individual and collective! All that is needed is human centric leader and their humanistic leadership with a generous serving of rationality and common-sense!

I leave you with these thoughts for now, urging you to keep believing in the wisdom of science, rationality and common sense and no matter who says what, no human greatness was ever achieved by limiting human thoughts or expression and the proponents and followers of the vaccinated thinking- will stall sooner than later!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then stay safe, stay wise and yes give common-sense a chance, always!

Are you lost in your wonderland?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ciao, take care!

Thinking-Default, Design or Unique.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stay safe, stay wise and yes Think!

Empowered by Alignment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What you search is what you find!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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