Tag: simple thoughts

Don’t stress(for nothing!).

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

This is not a pep talk article, about trying to give you ten tips to wish away your stress, rather this is about trying to simplify what stress really is, rather than what is ts thought to be and possibly explore what can we do about it, if we can really do something about it! So join me here and let’s simplify the formless shadow of stress!

Have you ever had the privilege of being part of a group of kids discussing their challenges? yes kids- those 3-4-5-6 year old who discuss amongst themselves and figure their way around either by themselves or with help from their buddies! Have you ever seen them talk to each other using words like “stress”? Consider this, you have this bunch of kids who are given a new jig-saw puzzle to fix, with no context and no background- what happens- well kids being kids- they will try for sometime, eventually as it makes no sense and if there’s no reward for what they are doing, they will simply put those jig-saw blocks to some other creative use and that’s where that will end! None of those kids are going to bed sulking and thinking about what that was, why it could not be done and so on and so forth! But these very kids, as they start to grow, they come under the influence of directed thinking (you see directed thinking is not about helping them think- it is about making kids thinking in a particular way that suits the broader social fabric of a society) and this is where the problems begin to manifest!

Humanity has always been lead and rewarded by curiosity and that innate value gets wiped off as modern day societies start to enforce directed thinking principles which conform to social biases and standards and don’t allow any kind of eccentric attributes, sure enough the ones’ that pose a threat to the social fabric should be curbed and managed, but with that approach we also end up loosing all hope of developing geniuses around us!– If you ever thought that great geniuses of any field were not eccentric- well it’s time you picked up and read one of those biographies to know the facts! The essence there was that their curiosity and eccentricity to a specific pursuit was always upheld and encouraged and that what led to innovation and discovery, which has gone a long way to share who we are today- as Individuals and collectively as societies the world over!

Once kids are programmed to think the way society wants, these kids loose all resilience that childhood would have naturally given to them. As they grow up they keep getting pushed from one scenarios of “what you must do and not” to the next and that shit also continues even as they begin to work and keep moving up the corporate world as they keep getting successful! You may be wondering how come they keep getting successful if they lack curiosity and ingenuity- well you see 95% of corporate world is all about directed work- the Big Boss shares the big plan and we have an army of all other smaller bosses and laborers working on that- while each one of them thinking that it is their thought!- If there was ever a personification of a hypnotized work force- that is the era that we are living in! This is why , when you see how things get played around, they rise and fall every time “The Big Boss” gets it right or screws up! So where is the stress coming in all of this?

Well the invisible stress is always there, as the born intelligent kids get to high schools and colleges, where they are again and again battered down to stop being creative and think the way they are ought to and furthermore as they land “The job” of their dreams they are further indoctrinated through the fabled ” corporate induction” which is nothing more than a kinder way of saying, “This is what we do, This is the way we do it, Either take it or leave it”! So, when does this stress begin to show up? Well it shows up every now and then when life throws questions in your face, where you don’t have templated responses- like the times when you are asked to go ahead with your first surgery , or that first assault if you are a cop, or that first fire rescue, the first time you asked someone out for date! See, stress starts to build and this stress is not building because you aren’t able or you are incompetent, but this stress builds up because for the first time you are in direct conflict between the way you have been hammered down to think and how you naturally think and feel about the reality that is staring right down back to you! In that moment of truth- you are evaluating your choices of being safe, alive and making it back in one piece with a result that works in your favour or in the favour of greater good! Since this is something that no business school or practise teaches- stress creeps in and this is how it starts to play havoc with you, each time from your first time! Whenever you come to the cross road where you don’t have a templated solution- you will start to feel that stress race up to you- not because you are dumb or can’t handle a situation developing in front- but the years of “programmed thinking” has been made your default thinking style to seek answers from around and not within and unless you don’t switch back your default to within- like you always did when you were a kid- stress is going to get the better of you- it doesn’t matter whether you make a few hundred dollars or a few millions dollars, unless you don’t begin to think and feel from within and learn to junk away programmed and directed thinking escaping stress is going to remain a very tough thing to do! So how doe we go about it?

Stress is not the absence of competence, rather it is the presence of it and importantly the inability to be able to deploy it- in the contextual settings that an individual finds themselves in! Each one of us are magicians in or own way- we are gifted at something to ensure that a task assigned to us, gets done the natural way which comes to us easily- unfortunately that is not how the real world works- from the call centre to the White House press briefing everything is scripted- some for the right reason and few others for the most stupid reasons! Consider this, how simple it would be to empower people to greet and speak to customers who call in the natural way which allows people to spread their personality and warmth as they speak- rather make them narrate the script written- the way it has been- even as the callers and the narrator have no clue what that is and than you have the timer to mark you off that call, simply because you were too slow or fast- I mean who really works that way! It is instances like this and many more- that go on to add stress to the people at all ends of that kind of a scripted approach- which does nothing more than taking away form our true strengths and puts us in a territory where we are completely disadvantaged and we are supposed to switch our thinking to a lower level of “do this and than that and do it this way” kind of a lever!

Given, this is a blog, will share a few final words before we wrap this piece up, stress is not about your competence, abilities and who you are, stress is nothing more or less than your inability to cope with the ways of directed thinking- the more creative you are as person- the chances are that you will always tend to experience higher levels of stress no matter what vocation you choose to pursue! Some areas of work do have in built stress associated with the kind of work- but people are trained about that- again not through directed thinking but rather by providing clarity and support to do away with that space- I am sure you don’t want to be in an ER where the Doctor is sweating more than you and wondering what to do next! The unwanted stress that gets added up to you, only robs you away of whatever creativity, ingenuity and intrinsic genius that you have and tries to align you to be normal as defined by the compulsions of your work place or society!

The only way and the real way to deal with stress, as I see it, is to be connected within and lead yourself as you always did when you were a kid- through curiosity, persistence and intellect- as long as you continue to do this, you will be able to sieve through everything around you with amazing clarity and immediately know when its time to act, which way and when it’s time to exit a place- simply because it threatens to steal the gifts within you and try to make your extraordinary story an ordinary one!

Well, think about it and trust me, don’t get stressed for nothing! You see when you have a situation, the realities are only two- Either you can do something about it or you can’t- this irrespective of whether they impact you or not. So when you can make a change- Lead yourself and get that done by being who you are- there is no social template for that! and when you can’t do anything, use all your gifts to ensure that you are able to stand the storm and emerge on the other side with as little as collateral damage as possible! Stress really makes no sense and has no place- junk directed thinking, social biases, read through the agendas and keep yourself intact and stress free!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one! Until then relax and be yourself! Always!

Conflict of Values.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

The title is what we were, are and will ever and always be! Three words but humanity is encapsulated into this frame, try it the way you want to! Join me for a short piece as we try to explore and understand what is this conflict of values all about and why does it play a vital role that it does!

Ever since we are able to make sense and through our formative years, we are always told about values, beliefs and way of life which is supposed to be “the way” and perhaps in a few extreme cases , “the only way” to live and go about our lives! Well so far so good, as long as you see this concept in isolation, one person’s truth remains to be with that person in the confines that the person is going about their lives! The fun really starts as people begin to cross your path and if you are blessed even with an average working brain- you are all set for the proverbial, “conflict of values” and this is where people are formed and destroyed, rise up or are buried into the oblivion, because when it comes to the conflict of values, it is never about whose value is better over the other, rather it is about how well is an individual’s value able to stand the test of time and competing values to keep your persona steady and on the chosen path that you have set out to tread upon! Let me explain this space for you!

You see, as individuals, we are indoctrinated with the values that are handed over to us from our family or the immediate impacting surroundings that may be surrounding us, as we make progress and begin to meet others, we become more and more familiar with what the other person’s values are, we do, what I call is a “value trade off”- remember the school days- something like those play dates, sharing of cup cakes kind of thing- ya, real cute bits like that- we basically start to gravitate to values which make our life easy- easy to manage, progress and maneuver and that’s how it is with each one of us- trust me there is nothing wrong and right about this bit. By now, you may want to ask, if we are all a mixture of traded values in terms of personality- why do we then end up being so different from each other- so much of individuality? Well, the answer is that depends on how you apply the values to what you do as you go about your life! You see values are like the proverbial double edged sword- it can cut the veggies for you and it can cut you as food for someone else! So our individualistic discerning mind, applied to the values that we hold in a context that we god about living our lives, is what we are- as a sum total of all of these variables! Each time either the value, the mind or the contextual settings are altered – you will no longer tend to remain who you are and you will experience a personality shift and that is how we come to the next bit of Value types!

If you ask me, knowing that I really like to keep things simple, I see Values only of two types- Negotiable and Non-Negotiable. Primarily negotiable values are those where you are ready to cross that line of social behaviour or approach to ensure something gets done- without inviting collateral damage or harm and whatever that is is manageable. Non-Negotiable Values are basically your personification- you in Action- and these are something that you are not ready under any amount of pressure to give up – even if that were to cause danger to your very existence! Consider this, say you imbibe the value of liberty and security of your nation- would you be ready to die, if asked to? Well, if that’s your non-negotiable value- you would certainly go all the way to be remembered as a fallen hero than rather live like a hopeless and coward member of an enslaved society. Consider another example, you believe that you will not pay bribes if found violating traffic signals and just as you had it, you are racing for that all important meeting and now, you have a choice, either follow the rule, leave your vehicle, miss that million dollar deal meeting, perhaps loose your job and walk your way home, or slide in that dollar, apologize a hundred times (be honest about that!) and get to that meeting and as you end your day, thank the Lord for being kind, you cracked the deal, made your money, still have your job and have your vehicle! You perhaps still feel guilty about paying that bribe- but than you see the entire context around it and settle down promising yourself never to anything like that ever again! So what do you think you would have done- something similar right? Well, sure enough- see as humans we are hardwired to ensure that we survive and in the modern day context our survival is no longer the wild animals and mad race to tame the world- it is about ensuring that we are able to sustain and progress the lifestyle that we have chosen or aspire to have and for doing that we utilize our value system as an internal gyroscope. Every time our values are challenged or end up in a conflict with another person’s (as it will normally be that way- unless you are that crazy scientist or that gifted surgeon- working away individually) we have life changing events and manifestations coming to the fore and these either form us or break us either-ways redefining who we are!

A lot of politics, conflicts and corporate bitching that goes on in this world , is nothing but the cloaked presence of these conflicting values! You see you have a manager that you report into who believes to that Tea is better than Coffee and hence all Tea drinkers are better than Coffee and you just mentioned to him the other day – how much you love your Coffee and how you are ready to even kill someone for that! (well this is just an example!). So, what you have now done is opened up a Pandora’s box to compete and pit values against each other and this is where the funnier part begins to get dangerous! Offices are replete with examples how, conflicts ensues from reasons ranging from email drafting, to picking up the phone in three rings , to wearing the ID in a particular manner and so on and so forth- these are all nothing more but manifestation of Value Conflicts- where the one who can impose their values on to other s always seems to be getting the upper hand! Well there is nothing wrong and right about this, as I said earlier, many organisations have this whole space around storming, norming an forming to being in congruence and alignment among people of a team. That works well only and only if there is enough space allowed for individual non-negotiable values to co-exist alongside non-negotiable values of the team or the organisation as the case may be! Let me explain!

Consider you run a design studio and have a bunch of design geeks with you, as crazy as they would be- not to forget each strong and rooted in their own individual design philosophy- so now if this organisation has to make any progress even for an inch ahead- it has always to remember to value the intrinsic value systems that these strong individuals hold and always work to ensure that these individual values align , co-exist and are applied to meet the organisational value systems that it may have etched itself with as far as design sensibilities and approach to design goes! As long as this is done and every individual gets that freedom around , there will be magic coming through their work, on the contrary if that individual value st system is stiffed and people are made to work to corporate templates and design manuals- in not time- whether you work for a burger company or an automobile company everything will begin to look the same! So should conflict of values be avoided? Certainly not!

In fact conflict of values is something that should be embraced and encouraged (but not intentionally planted or created for the heck of it). As we grow, not all values that we hold remain dear to us with the same intensity! You may have negotiable ones’ becoming non-negotiable, few may fade away, new ones’ would come in, that is what is reflected the way we mature and grow and how much of maturity, sanity and wisdom we bring to life is nothing but the aggregation of the values that we hold within us in that movement of time! We are constantly forming, day in, day out at times consciously and yet at other times unconsciously, we are receiving and giving away our feelers to the universe and everyone around us that’s how we begin to like whom we hate, dislike whom we adored and so on and so forth, that dynamism is the essence of human progress and growth! As long as you are able to create competition among values that individuals bring with them in a manner that helps these values compete and align to a greater cause and eventually either become something else which benefits all, everything is fine and helpful! However when these very values embark upon dangerous ego rides and get hitched on the wrong shoulders, disasters happen and that is when you have organisations folding up, nations going to war and society getting ripped apart! So what’s the final word? Here you go!

All of us, You, and I included are nothing but an act of our values within- how we present ourselves to the world personifies what we have within and who we are, sure enough not everyone will be able to see as we want them to look at us and that is a different challenge of perception (will talk about that some other time!). More importantly we are constantly changing as far as peripheral values are concerned- core perhaps will not change (unless you have really survived something nasty!) and that dynamism of values is vital to keep your presence as vibrant as it should be so that relevance and acceptance go hand in hand wherever you choose to project yourself! When your values get into conflict, You will always be the winner irrespective if your values stay, get altered or you acquire news ones’ for the older ones’ you had , as long as your mind is aligned to utilize those values for the causes that serve the greater good! You see copper sulfate is a great insecticide but if you forget to wash your fruits coated with it, you will end up having home runs to the washroom for a day at least!

Values are absolute, no two values are ever equal, because no two people holding them are ever the same! Once you have known this secret, you have aligned your life for the greater good, with a soul that yearns to embrace the conflict of values to form and forge you ever more, one moment unto the next so that you continue to be who you are, adding up what serves you and doing away with all that threatens to harm you or weigh you down!

I will leave you here with these thoughts, urging you to get in touch with the values that you hold within- which are negotiable, which aren’t, how do they make you- who you are in the now that you exist and how you plan to embrace the conflict of values as your venture out to meet new people, friends sand colleagues to make the world a shade better than what it was yesterday!

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

Leadership matters’.

~ PA ~ 1 Comment

No there is no mistake in the title, the topic is about matters related to or about leadership. Sure enough this is a blog, so staying within the limitations of the same, join me as we explore the fundamental facets about matters of leadership. No matter which way you look at it, there are always three basic requirements that, anything to do with leadership has to qualify, first there has to be the audience- these can be either the followers or the leaders in the making, next there has to be a contextual setting- a social space available withing the settings of a given society to allow leadership to breathe and live and finally we need to have the leader, you may be wondering, shouldn’t the sequence be the other way around- like, Leaders first then the society and than the audience- well it never is that way and that’s where many people go wrong in understanding what the essence of true leadership is all about, by the time we finish this piece, possibly I would have made my point clear! So let’s explore!

The Audience- The audience is a critical segment to leadership. Eventually leaders arise from the audience (most of the times) unless they are handpicked and forced upon the masses to accept! Whether the audience has the ability to develop followership or has the latent ability to cultivate and create more leaders in the times ahead- depends on who the current leader is and if the current leader has come from the very same audience, then how interlinked and impactful is the association between the leader and the audience. The settings could be anything, it could be a political outfit, a group working towards a cause or it could also be your typical office settings- end of the day- this dynamic equilibrium and the relationship between the audience and the current leader goes a long way to shape the collective future of all those who are a part of this connect.

The Contextual settings- the social fabric. This perhaps is the most important part among the the three elements that go on to make the whole ecosystem driven by leadership to work. Society in general and the contextual settings is nothing more or less than the aggregated truths of individuals in the society (not the average) , it is the truth that holds it‘s ground for every member and when multiple people have multiple truths- you end up getting a net truth that holds good across the board- you may want to ask why not call it average- because average implies that it’s the sum total factored against the number, but this is not the sum total of contextual truths, these are the contextual truths and the only thing that can be perhaps aggregated in the sense of aggregation is the vector of the direction in which these collective truths wish to move! Forward or regress and that choice is empowered by the address who often arises form the same contractual setting and when the leaders is placed from outside into a preexisting dynamic ecosystem, the leader has almost always very limited time to understand and apply what truth and prudence the leader has been able to comprehend and as long as this comprehension aligns with the society, the leader is accepted and accommodated, if the views seem to be foreign, in not time the leader will be ejected! Such is the power of the aggregate truths of a society and the collective truths that a society sees. These aspects go on to impact the aspirational value and direction that the society looks to take ahead and this is where the next bit- The Leadership and its attributes come into play!

Leaders and Leadership- They are the final, though not as important as the other pieces to the trinity of leadership, let me explain. Say you have a person gifted and checked on all personal, intellectual attributes of leadership and seems to the greatest personification of communication finesse, oratory, ideation and vibrance. Well all of that will go to waste if there is no audience and there is no contextual settings in the parlance of a social motive around those attributes! You see, leadership doesn’t and simply can’t operate in vacuum! Leaders and Leadership need and thrive of developing that vital connect with their audiences in the contextual settings that prevail, so that either the leader or the members of the audience are able to influence, impact and create some new value propositions to their present existence so that a path to collective progress and direction opens up! This is where the real essence of leadership lies- about creating, sustaining and developing vital connect with the audience and leveraging that to the aspired progress of the society.

Sure enough, how the audience responds to a leader is a very dynamic process and that equilibrium decides the pace at which the society advances or regresses. When leaders create more followers than more leaders, the society is always taking two steps forward and one step backward- simply because the whole pivot if that societies tomorrow hinges on a single person and should there be some not so welcome development with that individual, the whole social fabric comes falling apart like a pack of cards! Knowing this fundamental fact (alongside the other technical ones) you will find large organisations and corporations and people who matter ], always have a succession plan by them- that plan is precisely meant to uphold societies should there be a glitch in the leadership delivery and as that manifests you have the next able people stepping in and ensuring that the continuity, direction and momentum of the social progress is maintained even against strong odds! This magic also happens beyond the corporate walls and when that manifests, you are really witnessing leadership that is in action to create more leaders and add value, progress and clarity of direction and purpose as a given on an ongoing basis!

You may want to ask, if this is what it is, than why does it get complicated? Well, this is what the principle is and sure enough this is what the broader aspect of leadership is, but what I have not got in here is the range and depth of human emotions and thought process- these parameters are very potent and have the power and ability to fail even the greatest leaders once the followers or the social ethos begins to feel something else even as their thinking may be aligned! You see, when leaders fail to connect through their hearts and allow only the minds to connect- they set themselves up ultimately for their own downfall. The society then has to ask only one question- are they going down with that leader or rather would they dump that leader and connect and engage with another one- who possibly has the ability to keep the heart first and allow the mind to follow later! This is also the folklore of the corporate world of leadership disasters! Organisations often end up hiring leader to drive and deliver on a task (the mind part) without noticing how that is going to impact the personal connect for a team or among teams (the heart part), the result, either objectives are met and people leave or objectives aren’t met and people leave- what stays common is people will leave if the leader does not share the heart before the minds are sought! So what’s the great plan to ensure leadership thrives, the audience thrives and the contextual settings are also kept safe?

Deceptively simple and effective,Leaders arrive as the time comes. Leaders do not seek permissions, neither do they take approvals, when they see what is unfolding they will act and when they do act, one important thing that they ensure is that they act by remaining transparent and share one strong message- all goes well credit is yours’ and if we hit the wall- It’s me! As leaders emerge with this mindset to take charge and create narratives that help and provide more to the social settings around them- they influence, inspire and soon enough start to lead in the essence of the word “to lead” and as they do, based on what is that they lead (a nation, a social group or an office team) they either create followers or leaders). As long as leaders do all of this by being connected with the audiences through their hearts and minds- communication, language, clarity everything gets aligned and the social fabric gets stronger and more robust and leading too becomes simple and effective, something very similar to leading an attack platoon- there is clarity of objective, communication and purpose.

What is that you should choose to be? A Leader or an Audience? Well actually both, no matter who you are, where you are and what you do or don’t, at any given time in your life you are wearing the hat of a leader for some aspect of your life and for other aspects you are the audience (even as you may want to lead!). A a parent, you are the first leader that your kids have and no matter how badly you want to lead your nation (given the circus you witness everyday), the chances are you may be perhaps nothing more than a disconnected and un-engaged audience- with some feeble engagement only if you are still courageous enough to make your voice heard- knowing nothing will change!

This is all folks, for now on leadership matters’. The truth is each one of us is leader, the depth, width and span of that reflects how much of acceptance and accommodation we have earned as individuals within the people that move around and how much of ear we have to the ground to know what really matters and amplify that so that our audiences are able to look upto us and create more leaders than followers, because the true essence of leadership is creating more leaders! Always!

I leave you here for now, take some time to reflect on what kind of a leader you have been, what kind of an audience you have been and perhaps its also time to know if the contextual settings are still what they weer or whether its time to change all or few of these variables to ensure your journey as an empowered individuals is racing ahead in the directions that you have always aspired for!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another thought initiator! Until than lead- if not anything or anyone- start by leading yourself!

Collective Intelligence.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

The way that you have been familiar about collective intelligence is perhaps through the ways that it presents itself, like a group think, empowered groups, think tanks, special advisory task forces and so on and so forth. Join me here as we explore why collective intelligence works and at time doesn’t and what is that we can do to harness its seemingly unlimited power of the aggregated human minds!

To understand about why and how collective intelligence works, we must understand what is the whole story about intelligence to begin with! Well, I am no psychologist, but if you ask me what Intelligence means to me, well simply put- it is about bringing together, your experience, academic credentials, skills, competencies all of that to a moment and applying it to overcome a challenge that you are staring at! Sure enough you also require to add in other external aspects like knowledge, information and your own ability to stay wise to the context that you may be living about. So what limits our individual intelligence?

The whole issue with intelligence is that, it is dependent on multiple intrinsic aspects and the most important being- the Quality- the quality of the past experiences, quality of the value system followed and everything that goes on to construct the individuality of the person, needless to say if this quality is average- what is an ordinary problem ends up being an extraordinary challenge for an individual, while the same becomes a cake walk for someone else and that’s how we have end up having intelligent people acting dumb- because they are limited by the boundaries of their own intelligence. Can this be overcome? certainly, it cane be and hold your thoughts as we will visit this part towards the end of this article.

When it comes to collective intelligence, it is about applying the intelligence of a group of people to address something that they are working on or have been asked to sort out! The essence of collective intelligence is that, collective intelligence is only as effective as the quality of individual intelligence of the people in that group! In a way collective intelligence is the net intelligence of the members in a group (not the average intelligence) because when you have very intelligent people or very average/ dumb people coming in to apply collective efforts- it almost always ends up into even more ambiguity! You see the super intelligent group- will spend a lot of time shooting down great ideas (you know how this bit works!) and the average or below average group will go after every idea or thought (hoping something will work!) to hit one crisis after the other! Hence it’s no wonder that at one end of the spectrum you have some amazing minds working as a group and deploying solutions through pure innovation and ingenuity- space exploration, futuristic technologies are all part of this group and on the other end you have those never ending mundane groups which go on to address the routine problems of the corporate world and those meetings just seems to go on and on and strangely enough the problems too tend to keep coming back and back each time disguised as something else! So what is getting played out?

As I said earlier, people get limited by their intelligence and whether you are working on something individually or collectively, this remains! So as long as the horizon of your intelligence is far and wide, you will get into a tight spot, not because that you are reflecting incompetence, but simply because you are trying to venture into something that your intelligence is not equipped to deal with! Intelligence led failures are not because of incompetence, but mostly are owing to not been equipped to deal with what is manifesting- our pandemic is the case in point! No matter how advanced our science has been, irrespective of hundred and hundreds of the best minds collaborating to seek solutions to the menace, even to this day, as I write, we come across new findings and new insights about the virus and what seemed a scientific solution three weeks back, now seems to be all but vain! So how can we overcome this fragility of our intelligence, is there a way? Sure you can and this is how you go about it!

It is about doing, what great thinkers, seers and philosophers have always done- Internalize and Reflect. The human brain happens to be is a one of the most potent bio machines- and when it finds no challenge – it goes into a mode- what I call- “Leave me alone” or “Do whatever” and when people start functioning and going about their lives using this mode of the brain- the result is recurrence of same problems in different ways- as the vital, radical course correction is missing which is so much needed to arrive at a different outcome! Similar or same actions will almost and always give the same result as long as the context are the same, only when the thinking alters, will the outcome!

So, the only way, if you ask me to overcome the challenges of limited intelligence, is by expanding your horizon of intelligence and whether you want to do that for problems that you work upon individually or as part of a group. The way to expand your intelligence is by constantly spilling the cup of your mind, emptying it regularly and replenishing it with what’s relevant and recent! We live in an era where we are bombarded by information and not knowledge, unless you align your mind to acquire knowledge that is recent and updated and that serves your area of life and work- your intelligence will always continue to be more hollow than you really know!

Minds that are constantly emptied and replenished are the ones’ that lead and provide fresh perspective to age old problems or are often better equipped to provide solutions to new challenges! Although it looks deceptively simple, the task of throwing away something that you know (when it doesn’t serve you) and making space for something new (for which you have to take efforts) is perhaps the most difficult to do! It’s only when you have gained the ability to direct and manage your mind well, that you will be able to (with practise) see new perspectives and possibly identify the blocks to your thinking mind. When you do this is as an individual and when individuals in a group are able to do this, as a routine and make it natural to have a fresh and vibrant mind on an ongoing basis, a mind that is filled to the brim with what serves and and all that doesn’t make n impact is junked that the quality of collective thinking improves and you can than see groups coming up with path breaking ideas and moments!

Collective Intelligence progresses and fosters only as long as the minds of the individuals that form the group apply themselves to the conscious effort of keeping themselves relevant, updated and in-synced with what serves them and do away with thievery that doesn’t help.

For an organisation, society or a nation to progress, it is but imperative that vibrant thinking by empowered minds remains at the forefront at all times and for that to happen the quality of Intelligence needs to be enhanced with every passing moment by replenishing what helps and weeding out what doesn’t hold up to the present beliefs and the oncoming future!

I will leave you here with these thoughts for now, urging you to reflect on how you are ensuring that your Intelligence is vibrant and what are the groups that you represent and when was the last time, were you able to come up with a vibrant idea that was path breaking empowered by your expanded and updated Intelligence!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another article! Until than stay progressively intelligent! Stay safe!

Three steps to sanity!

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Given the kind of crazy times that we are all living by, whether be it our work, homes or the social nonsense played out on the news channels every day, there could be no no better time, to get our hands on the master key to sanity and try to move away from what doesn’t serve us and stay aligned to what helps us become the better version of ourselves with each passing moment! Join me here as we try to understand why sanity is, almost always just three steps away form you, no matter what the situation!

A lot of what, unfolds around us is simply unimportant and whatever little around is important, most of the time doesn’t pass the test of the context! So you wake up in the morning, go on to grab your cup and switch on the television just to realise how dumb society has got and how glorified nonsense can be played out on millions of screens, just because someone is ready to pay for that kind of shit! Although, one may argue, so what’s the big deal, you can always go ahead and switch the idiot box off, but given the way our brains play the fool with us, this option is deceptively tough to implement! Social compulsions, confirmation biases and that aspect of self-imposed non-productive small talk forces people to switch on the idiot box- like a drug addict high on their favorite drug- these enslaved people go on to consume the garbage played out on the screens, because that is what grabs social entertainment value- kind of talk needed to get going in those social encounters when you are keen to impress! Sure enough this also speaks about the kind of social circle you are a part of, but to be very honest when we have the very battle of existence going about- no matter where you are and how high or low you are in the socioeconomic fabric, there will be this damaged aspect of society which you will always have to come to face- what remains in your control- the amount of exposure you want to have and that will go on to determine- the extent of progress or regress you encounter! The truth about societies is that, each one of them are playing out what the master demand and who these masters are- whether many or few- goes to create the script, direction and length of what gets played out and how much nonsense will be allowed or checked! You may be wondering if this is what it is, and this is how societies eventually are, is there anything that you can do? anything at all to gain some relative control to dodge this minefield of under-serving scenarios which add little value to you and on the contrary end up sapping away every ounce of what you have and who you are- to try and end up making you one of the many- rather allowing you to be one of a kind – an unique jewel embedded in the crown of a flourishing society! What is that can be done?

Well, there are three basic and simple steps, if you choose to walk upon, irrespective of what the temptation, you will almost always be able to hold on to yourself and stay clear of the corrosive influences that seem to always come your way!

Awareness- Creating an awesome amount of awareness about yourself to begin with and of what’s around you alongside an innate ability to observe- not see- is what will help you to sieve what matters from the clutter that’s coming your way! Awareness works only when you are assertive about who you are, you know what you seek and you are firmly in control of what you think and feel- this certainly like everything good and nice will come at a price- not every person will like you and neither will you be comfortable being around everyone that comes your way- what is important here is unlike the ignorant earlier self- once your awareness levels are fine tuned- you will have a strong reasoning and belief system to stand by you for all the decision that you take- whether to engage with a person or not, whether you want to take up that assignment or not, almost everything that you do or plan to do-will come from your alignment to your core beliefs, values and awareness that you go on to build and sustain on an ongoing basis!

Lens of Context- Once you have reached a decent understanding about who you are and what drives you fine and what drives you crazy-not to forget the who’s- the next step is about applying the Lens of Context! As you increase your awareness you will realise, that not everything that you see around, serve you now, later or anytime and a lot of it, really a lot of it- is always something about which you can do nothing- not now- not tomorrow- the only thing that you can do is- if that aspect begins to be an existential crisis for your personal self- is leave the place and get out of the way- unless your life is aligned to the the very cause of fighting this out! Say, you live in nation wherein you don’t agree with the political narrative- your ignorant self- will get into the bitching mode- which is what the majority of less aware people would do- does that serve you or the society- absolutely not- what do you gain? A few more beers, few more smokes, occasional heart burn, arguments, raised blood pressure and everything that doesn’t seem to help you! So how would a person who displays awareness behave- well simple- see what the facts are and make sense of what it really is and what it is been shown to be- next- analyse what is that you can do or not do- and by doing or not doing how will the unfolding events impact you? So once you begin to deploy your awareness and frame it to the lens of your context- you will know exactly how much attention each aspect that comes your way deserves and you get a choice to act- and how you act- is the final step which ensures you stay sane! read on!

Act with Calibrated Ownership- “Calibrated Ownership” is one word here, as long as you you deploy your awareness, through your lens of context and act with calibrated ownership- you will begin to rapidly evolve- disconnecting away all that is clutter and adding up and building upon all that empowers you to provide and share what your awareness brings forth! Calibrated ownership is different by the sense that you need to have ownership in the right proportion to the context and the level of awareness you may have developed around it! Consider you come to know that there is a need of an animal sanctuary around your place- that is awareness- you may have the place and fund for that- thats the part of understanding the context-calibration comes when you know how much of what you are doing is enough- that is when to stop- at what animal types and how many!

Only when individuals learn to know you they are- It is this collection of aware individuals that goes on to create an aware society/ nation and that helps everyone to focus on what serves the community and also helps them act with necessary prudence- collaboratively, with a purpose that creates and adds value!

If you ask me, the best way to know the health of any society is to study who the recent philosophers have been in the last two hundreds years and if there are any living legends around who have the ability to show the way but stop short of directing what to see!

Awareness, context and ability to act with calibrated ownership will ensure that you spend your valuable seconds on what creates value for the next one and will count your breath to give life to some great cause that serves you, the society around in a way that remains as your signature when you are long gone by- do it well and you end up being an icon- you decide not to enact and do anything- you will fade away in the crowd of humanity. Nothing is right neither is anything wrong- its your life and its your choice and its the choices that at the end of it make us who we are and will always be!

I leave your here with these thoughts, urging you to start working on your awareness, your contextual settings and that managed ownership drive!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another article, stay wise and stay connected!

Mindset of a Coach.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

The word “coach” has touched us at some or the point in our lives. Whether it was a sport that you wanted to take up or learn to play some music or wanted to prepare for some tough competitive exam- very often we have been advised to get in touch with “abc” to be coached by them because they are the best! Join me here, as we try to unravel what is that makes coaches unique and so awesome and what is it about their approach to situations that sets them apart which enables them to empower their clients in no time and turn around a situation to their advantage!

Before we move ahead, let me clarify that coaching is not mentoring, you see mentoring is almost always a work setting and aligned to specific tasks or goals to be achieved pertaining to a goal that the work team or the individual needs to reach to either ensure their survival or their team’s existence or for their progress as the case may be! Coaching is about empowering the individuals, not because the coach knows everything and knows all, but because the coach knows that only you have the power to bring about a real change within you and the only thing that the coach does is, tells you how to unlock that untapped potential that resides within you and each one of us! This is the essence of real and meaningful coaching- bringing about extraordinary results from ordinary people by empowering them to take courageous actions and thinking so that they know where to look next and what to see as they surge ahead in life! So how do coaches arrive at this space and can anyone of us practice this too?

Coaches too are forged by time, knowledge, experiences, observations and the social construct around them, something very similar to what you and I are, the only thing differently that coaches (someone like me) do is, scan the ecosystem around frequently, rapidly and connect unconnected data points, observations and indicators to weave a meaningful imagery of what is really unfolding for the client! Unlike the mentor- mentee association, coaching or the approach of the coach doesn’t get designed to solve a problem with a full stop, it certainly starts with a pressing issue but as that issue is been resolves what really unfolds is a subtle empowering change within the client- which enables the client themselves to rectify what needs to be, so that they are back on track to what they aspire for! The coach is not the expert to solve the client’s problem, the expert is always the client and the solution too comes from the client, the coach only helps the client to find the solution for the pressing problem by altering the approach to the problem and if required bring about certain fundamental attitudinal changes in behaviour and approach to life in general so that, not only is this problem solved, but also there is enough firmness and resolve intrinsically developed to address and prevail over any such incident should it arise again!

If you want to build that formidable mindset of a coach, you too can, you will possibly first need to throw away your ego- literally vaporize it, if you can! Next you will have to come to terms to the eternal reality that no matter how much you know, you will almost always perhaps know nothing each time a new problem crops up or an old problem comes up in a new setting! Furthermore you will have to realise that you are not a sounding board, but rather a sink- which takes away all that does not serve the client and help unclutter your client’s mind so that once the cup of his mind is half empty- that can be filled with thoughts and ideas that can empower them and help them see clearly and move ahead! As deceptively as all this seems, its a tall order, to throw away the very fundamental of human attributes that all of us have, stay aligned to the centre-line and with every word that is shared with the client to know that what has been said , will serve the purpose of the client and is been done without any prejudice or any personal intent of the coach mixed up with it!

Do you remember, your school or college days and possibly you were coached for some sport? Let’s say you were coached for football, what were you then told- how to move every metre on the ground or just where the goal is and what position you are playing at? Chances are you would have been coached the second way- that is what empowerment is- you are made accountable and so that you can relish your success and embrace your failures in equal measure and this is what true coaches do- they help their client reflect inwards to once again shake hands with selves and their abilities and competencies and that’s about it- once they have re-connected within and are more clear about their goal post- the job of the coach is done! Sure enough if there are some tricky patches and some strategic challenges to overcome the coach is always there, but coaching is never about asking people to do something the way the coach would have done it or getting it done in a particular manner! It is always about how the client wants it to be done and the way that is empowering for the client and serves the greater good for all of those who are involved in it! Because the heart of the matter is that the Coach is not the expert of the Client’s Life- The Client is! The coach just has the expertise to help them de-clutter and use the search light effectively and help them focus where they must and help them stay aligned at all times!

The mind of a coach is ever fluid and is receptive to new situations, challenges and every coach knows that every challenge is unique even as the problem may be similar because the people who are dealing with it are unique and it is their uniqueness which directs them to take steps differently which either ends up simplifying things for them or ends up complicating the problem even further more for them! This is where the coach steps in and save the day for the client! The coaching mindset is also about having phenomenal levels of compassion, empathy and endless energy to have focused and directed listening to really connect and not only listen to what is been said but also to capture the unspoken words through non-verbal cues and statements which are presented with cryptic yes & no both intertwined within each other!

More importantly the coach always presents solutions which are specific, unique and tailor made to fit specific challenges by helping the client to breakdown, prioritize (kind of make a hit list) in accordance of urgency and importance so that they remain on the chosen path of progress! This step and process is repeated for every separate factor that a client may want help with and want it sorted!

The mindset of a coach is all about service orientation, enabling empowerment and creating value by aligning the client to their aspirations as long as they make genuine sense and serve the greater good for everyone involved! Sure enough, there are a lot of technical skills, tools and models that coaches use as they go about working with their clients, but the fundamental thing that every coach has, is the mindset of a coach- which is empowering, liberating and serving the client at all times and never even for a second suggesting anything, but waiting patiently to hear the softest whispers of the client and read the unspoken words to really understand what the trues aspirations are and then helping them achieve it!

I wrap it up here, given the limitation of a blog, guess these fundamental thought starters should be much helpful for now! Think hard, think deep and think long about whether you need a coach or you can be a good coach with the mindset that you have and if you seek that liberation and empowerment for yourself or wish to provide it to someone!

Ciao for now, stay safe and stay wise!

Avoid the pandemic of errors.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

As the world begins to open up once again, we will be served front row seats to the ingenuity and dumbness of humanity is equal measure! The only worrisome part being that dumbness looks funny as long as it does not hit you hard and where it hurts the most! Join me here as we take a look at what is this pandemic of errors all about and can we do something about it and yes, what is it that we can do?

Irrespective of where you are in the world the chances are that you would by now completed around 150+ days either working from the dis-comfort of your home or you would have been waging a war with the limited resources available at your work place (you included) and to all of this add a top layer of diminishing intelligence on an hourly basis!– Well we have just got setting up ourselves for untold misery- and whether this misery translates into 2$ getting debited form your bank or a few millions wiped off– really depends on bad is your karmic debt! So what is really unfolding here? Why would suddenly a functional and orchestrated society falter and run into a myriad of errors and operations take a beating? Well read on!

As trainers, managers, practitioners of human resource management, behaviorist we have all heard about the theories about habits been formed and destroyed over a period of 21 days (some agree and few disagree), the placebo effect and so on and so forth. The whole Covid19 onset and the unwitting response mechanism has virtually ended up playing havoc with our brains (leave the mind out for now!) causing physiological alteration leading to health issues which extrapolate into behavioral problems with time and few of them could manifest like loosing the span of attention, hyper anxiety and so on and so forth! Not to forget these broad generic indications are further amplifies or subdued based on intrinsic traits of individuals and when you end up having a bunch of wrong individuals with a developing problem- it within no time will blow up into a society wide degeneration and read to all that one doesn’t want to see unfold in any neighborhood! Yes, those dark alleys from where normally we never wish to pass by- talk about crimes pertaining to physical harm, scams and allied manifestations which are nothing but an indication that the society has got consumed by the problem and rather then finding the path ahead or a solution, resigns itself to ways that serve the Now rather than the Tomorrow! Let me explain!

The chances are that by now, you too would have felt the change coming into your patterns of approaching people and issues that come your way. You would have perhaps noticed that you don’t speak that much now, your choice of words has reduced, perhaps your answers are more crisp, more in one liners and possibly also as single words, chances are that we you do speak- you seem like you are never going to stop! By now you would have also started to think about whatever happened to those two hour long meetings, why and how are the meetings for the same cause been wrapped in under 30 minutes! If these evolving patterns within your work areas were not enough just reflect on the experience that you are getting as you walk into restaurants, stores, dial into call centre agents, across the board you will see a common pattern emerging- the pattern of falling and failing quality of conversations, commitments and engagement! This seems fine as long as it deals with these vocations that I mentioned, but think about like in the case of the banks, aviation, armed services, political class, bureaucracy- these are the sections of societies for any nation that alter and direct policy and if these sectors begin to witness rampant failure and collapse of systems – people and process- you can imagine the outcomes! Already the world has seen multiple incidents of industrial fire accidents– like in India, in Beirut, the recent Oil spill near Mauritius– Somewhere this failing engagement of people is certainly a contributory factor in these and many other such incidents and that’s why it becomes very crucial to correct and stem this issue right now! So how do we go about this before this behavioral trait assumes some chronic proportions and suddenly we start to live in a society where erring becomes the new normal (like living with the Virus has become one!)? Read on!

When societies are hit hard by, what I call this a Sledge-Hammer event or episode- say like a building collapse, a terror attack or a war- the initial reaction of the society as a whole is to freeze and individuals within the society race to secure what they can as they can based on who and where they are in the social scheme of things! Next, as the initial shock is absorbed, people start to emerge and check what can be salvaged and what can be re-started and operated and what can’t be-In case of the pandemic of this virus- this empowerment unfortunately went into the hands of the governments- and needless to say- based on their acquired level of incompetence- many of them ended up complicating an already fragile situation and the whole world ended up being plunged into an economic melt down from a health crisis and the best part- none of them were solved! It is against this backdrop that as people begin to gain their connections back through work with other people- they are greerted by surprise- albeit an unwanted one- the same people who seemed to be compassionate and warm are now suddenly cold and blunt (if not rude) as yet! Speaking about compassion well that’s on thin ice right now, across the world!

So as people begin to re-connect with an already compromised social setting coupled with rapidly diminishing competence (as in many cases the way of working would have altered and the new way may not be suiting everyone equally!), as a society we are yet again setting up for another disaster on the making! Poor listening, poorer cognition and analytical ability and a colored contextual setting will only create more forced errors than anything else and that will translate into losses of unimaginable magnitude putting at times even nations at risk, not to forget people and their lives! Solution to stop this?

Well, start at the start go back to the basics! As it is a human problem, trust the specialists who deal or have been at the helm of dealing with human behavior. These folks and the HR specialists are the ones’ who can make a difference between an organisation thriving or diving as things begin to heat up! For their intervention and sensing of the state of mind of their employees alone will ensure that their organisation is as error free as humanly possible and when this approach is replicated across the board, a society is safeguarded and trust is put back into the whole space (earlier then one would have thought)! If there was ever a time when HR was vital and critical for organisations, it is now! Perhaps there has been no better time across the globe for people to seek People specialist to safeguard individual sanity and protect business interest which cumulatively run into billions of dollars the world over and that is what keeps the world moving, apart form astronomical factors! So how does one go about it?

Start at an individual level, perform an HR audit of yourself- seek what has improved and what has lost its shine- see what you need to get it back and then stay around that focus area and keep walking ahead. When teams come into picture, it is vital to know what each member of the team has been through- the personal cost- and how that may alter re-engagement patterns within the team knowing the construct of the team and the individual temperaments in the team, solutions like re-shuffling of teams, re-jig, breaking down, disbanding, or creating anew- all and any of these strategies could be deployed to ensure that personal hues don’t end up coloring a team intent and goal which in these times of hard to come business is that last thing that any organisation will need! Finally once the Individuals are aligned and the team is, its all about refining the top of the pyramid- the people- the process- the goals and the paraphernalia associated with that space. This whole exercise then goes a long way to eject errors- both people and process related, stem them across levels and ensure that as the re-engagement continues to build within the organisation and externally- the trust element is reached at earlier levels quickly and then the pandemic discussions really are left restricted only to that up of tea and all other engagements and conversations get aligned to business challenges and solutions therein!

Although this “pandemic of errors” statement looks comical and innocent, don’t be fooled by the grave risk that it brings along to each one of us and societies across the world- irrespective how progressed we are! It just takes the grave error of misjudgment of one person to bring an airliner down or one piece of miscommunication to start a brisk war between nations or just one misunderstanding to turn tables of a political tide and thats how errors can end up doing some serious damage! These forced errors, sure enough arise from different challenges that individuals face- and there are certain ways and means to address those and people have been doing that all the time- so I will not get into the details of those aspects here, the only flag that I wanted to raise through this piece was that, All is not well in the Human Fairyland and all of us need to be looking over the shoulder of the next person around us – not because you don’t trust that person- but simply because that person is probably too self-consumed and fatigued to even know what’s unfolding and his intentional or unintentional act will end up having consequences for you- at times they may end up being more damaging for you than the person who sets it off! You may call this a prophecy or call it an anxious rant, but the truth is that the current hard stop that the world got sold into, will cause more damage over the next 18 months, unless we are genuinely looking over each other!

I leave your here, for now, take some time to reflect and sieve through the errors that you think are lurking around and within you and get into the proactive pest control mode now to have a peaceful time ahead!

Ciao for now! Stay wise and stay connected! Guys subscribe here and to my page on FB so that you don’t miss any article!

The religion of GOD.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Before you jump to any conclusion, no this is not about taking a stand on any religious ideas or faith systems, this is not about creating an opinion or directing the reader to move in a planned manner to any inference. This article is about reflecting what we see around us, possibly make some sense of what we see, or rather should I say, perceive what a religion is and If it is indeed what it is then, what is or what could be the religion of GOD? Join me here as we take this sneak peek into an area that touches our lives, irrespective of what faith system or belief system we choose to follow or not!

Religion-Faith- Belief system- Value system- you could come up with a hundred more similar words and all of them would eventually come to one final reality that religion has been, is and will always remain to be a defined pathway to reach, seek, sense and surrender to the supreme power- the universal energy- the almighty- again known by different names as defined by the religious pathways, but all coming to the final reality and recognition that there is nothing above or beyond that supreme manifestation. This is the essence of all the religions of the world and all the pathways that humanity has ever been aligned to for retaining our sanity and virtuosity! So the question why does GOD need so many multiple pathways and systems of eventually there is singularity of the supreme manifestation? As someone said, GOD never created any religion, it is Humanity that has created the pathways that we know today as religions, faiths and belief systems and this is at the very root of everything! Then why does everything that is divine and serene at times gets lost into the muddy waters and frightening darkness that human societies end up presenting themselves with every now or then! So where did all this possibly begin?

Sure enough, I am not making any tall claims to be an expert on Theology or the world of spirituality, this is a blog and keeping it that way, a thought starter so that you people- get your grey cells working to seek the truth that makes peace with you- any which way as humans we aren’t going to be around forever, so the truths that you and I hold with us so dearly, at the most will live for another 100 years (that too if you are lucky and have done that much of quality work for the society that you move around in! Else – you know the rows and rows of unnamed graves and tombstones which are perhaps never even visited- forget about people imbibing their value systems and belief systems!

As we race back into human history we come across the richness and vastness of establishment of religious systems, belief systems and values where there is a mention of reverence to a singular super power- a supreme manifestation which is formless and omnipresent- which has the power to provide divine grace and unleash unthinkable fury with equal ease, provide or take away what has been given in a moment- so on and so forth- access any holy book that faithfuls follows across any religion that you choose, these singularities of ideas are all the same. People often lead others into arguing to create contradicting narratives; and more then ever before, the times that we live in are ripe with this kind of social behaviour- which is not only unnecessary but out rightly stupid and dumb! To know what is the religion of GOD , we must know what GOD is, isn’t it? So here we go!

As a student of science and being realistically rational, every belief system, value system that I ever came across, had to pass questions like, the test of science, does it serve the greater good, does it makes sense, is that reproducible, can it be tamed, so on and so forth! What I share with you here are my personal reflections and experiences in this area and as I said earlier, each one of us has a different truth, bound by the contextual settings that we are confined to, all may be right, all may be wrong, few may be right, few may be wrong, eventually it all boils down to the belief of the individual for that is what leads that individual to their final resting place!

If you want to understand and want to know GOD, the only accepted way is following what is written down in the holy texts of various belief systems. Surely a right thing to do, because they have been pretty much written at a time when human societies were forming and gaining critical mass and as they expanded rapidly and shared the richness, it became more than necessary that alongside the allegiance to the rulers, there had to be a central binding force and that force was realized through these valuable texts which personified the divine engagement and that till day is a cornerstone of human society! As long as this power was harnessed for the greater good and to serve fellow humans it always rewarded by enriching the society and to this day the same is visible- where societies are anchored to the true belief systems of the faith that they choose- you will see a reflection of that among the members of the society- their approach, attitude and behavior unto others! This is where the real strength of GOD really is! But what about GOD?

Well the thought of GOD across the belief systems almost always speaks about super human abilities and an omnipresent stance. One needs to understand that these texts which recorded, documented and created the rule book for various path ways were- eventually written by some human being and then that is where we have the writer’s error that can creep in (error as in not a mistake- but error as in the inability to comprehend the vastness and the power in the absolute context of it!). Let me explain, say you are a nerd and I ask you to write an essay about the world’s fastest super computer- sure enough you will throw your knowledge into it and have a paper with intricate details about that fabulous machine, now if I were to ask an Arts student or a language student to do the same, sure enough they will research and they too will come up with the same article, but their approach and treatment will be different and this is where GOD becomes more mystical, magical, and universal! So if the recording gets tweaked a bit, needless to say that tweaking can get amplified by the people who listen, reproduce and present and so the classical communicative gaps play their role and then we have amplification at crazy proportions- not every thing is fiction, but neither everything then is a fact too! So finally human societies arrive at this middle ground agreed upon by all the pathways or belief systems- where you agree to things and principles to a particular point of mass consensus and beyond that it becomes voluntary and then there is that tiny little space where you are never allowed to enter- by questioning or challenging – for that will invoke the wrath of the those who would want to keep what is the way it is as that serves humanity in a more meaningful manner!

Irrespective which system you choose, the singularity of power, formlessness and omnipresence with a veto on everything and everyone that your cognitive mind can connects with, is all but the domain of the supreme manifestation defined as GOD- so if you see GOD being universal and being the way as described by the different pathways- by itself is above and beyond any religious bondage! The religious pathways or approaches have largely been a result of the ups and downs that societies have seen as they evolved through the last 10,000 years! Now, if you ask, if GOD doesn’t have a religion as a supreme universal formless force- why do humans follow and why do they lead to friction at times?

Here again, you need to understand that the social settings are critical and as long as societies are steady, you will always find examples of multiple faiths co-existing and thriving with none intruding into the others space! The need to compete or intrude arises when the interpretation of the pathways get altered & a few select individuals (for whatever their motive would be) go ahead and distort the established facts with modern day fiction, giving a complete twist to the whole definition of that particular religion or pathway and thereby as one does it so does the other and in no time, there is literally no GOD left in what humans begin to follow- because what they really end up following are not those holy ancient texts of divine grace and bliss, but rather altered, twisted and moderated modern day interpretations by so called “gurus” who rant off what they feel like to achieve what they personally have set out to achieve at the cost of the gullible masses who actually look upto them with complete faith in their hearts!

It is when societies deviate from the true essence of what the universality of GOD is and what the real manifestations of the supreme and omnipresent can be, is when problems begin- then the whole show of spiritual and religious upmanship begins!– One pathway suddenly becomes the star (or rather is made the star) for some time, then the other, then the next and that cycle goes on, seemingly forever! But the fact remains that unless you really connect as an individual to the GOD that is – the Universal Energy, Supreme manifestation the way you ought to- by walking on the original pathways or religious teachings of compassion, love, sharing , collaboration, discipline, equality and brotherhood, everything else is but a conveniently altered version of the original hence, we may have thousands and thousands of places of worship across the religious pathways that we choose to follow; but then the worshiped may never be really residing in there! This happens because humanity as come to the point where it has forgotten the most fundamental truth that GOD resides not at a place or point- rather being omnipresent resides in every speck that you can think of and have ever thought of! This is not what I say, this is what all the great religions and pathways of the world say and this is the singularity of the essence of GOD!

GOD, doesn’t need, neither ever had nor will ever have a religion or a pathway, for the simple reason GOD is the destination and not the pathway! The universal omnipresent force is beyond and above all human possibilities and that’s why the authentic texts, and religious books, irrespective of the faith system you choose all begin with a salute and bowing down to the magnificence of GOD! So why did humans create multiple pathways and why do they cut across?

As I said earlier, societies, their sociological construct, belief system largely reflected how the ancient rulers shaped the unit and that’s how it is to this day, with a few changes here and there! It serves a few who rule the many and that is almost with every other vocation that humans do and this is how it has been since the dawn of the civilization and the rise and fall of every civilization has been a factor of this dissonance and allied reasons! The pathways even as different as they could be, the fact is they never competed nor did they ever cut each others path, they evolved to different societies at different times and served different purposes and aligned those societies to serve the greater good and made them human unlike ever before! It has largely been the curse of modern history when so-called politicians and rulers, and people who could use their influence to alter the narrative did so and that has been the unwarranted price that societies have ended up paying almost across the globe!

So you, see neither GOD was ever a point of debate, neither were the pathways, the religions or the belief systems, it has been the directed, sabotaging and unwarranted human creation which created a smokescreen- a fog of illusion- which has left modern societies divisive and more chaotic then ever, it doesn’t help GOD neither does it help the few who are aligned to HIM, but it serves the ones’ who want to be intoxicated in the arrogant belief that they are powerful enough to create chaos and rule and direct societies to the direction that they want- the truth is that nothing could be more fictitious then this hallucination which ultimately leads to societies rising up against these megalomaniac few and a new order is re-established when the time for the same arrives!

My final few words before I wrap this blog, If you ask me, I think GOD has no religion and I also think no religion or faith is a problem, all of them did co-exist and do and will always do! The challenges for modern day societies is to stall the societal sabotage that happens around us lead by the few who want to do anything that they want to just to ensure that they do not loose control on the many and these few are the real danger to humanity!

But rest assured, I will ask GOD his religion when that meeting happens, not sure though if I will be able to relay that message back, not sure if laptops work there!

I will leave you here for now, urging you to think and reflect! No matter what your belief system, no matter what your religion is, as long as you are anchored to the truth (that is the real truth) of singularity of a supreme energy and the thought of severing everyone around so that the greater good is always realized- you are fine and you will find GOD around in everything and everyone and most importantly within you! Remember GOD is more important than religion, just as the destination is always more important than the route taken!

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

Risks of personality worship.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Societies have their own life-cycles, and every society learns what its life- cycle is, usually the hard way! Through modern history, we have seen the demise of the erstwhile kingdoms- whether that was because of experiments in different types of governance models like democracy, communism, dictatorship, autocracy or the hybrid models which picked elements of different governance models (while becoming none); normally societies ended up accelerating their social collapse, but in a few cases retained their character, intrinsic value to survive, reforge and rise again and this space where societies collapse and rise again is the space of personality worships- because the whole social drama that unfolds- no matter where you live, it is almost always about personality or the competing personalities that are offered the platform to lead and provide direction to the masses! Join me here as we try to understand why personality worship could be or rather is a risk that every society must weigh well before limiting it’s exposure to the same!

As Individuals, we like it when we get ready solutions for the problems that we are facing, irrespective of the fact whether these are chronic or one off cases. Very often the people who have the ability to wield this power are the ones’ who provide us with solutions and make our lives easy (at least that is what it looks like to begin with!). This is where the game starts and this is the grand stage of personality worship! Whether it is the politician that you like or despise, that boos you adore or that team mate you can count upon- or anyone for that matter whom you count on- you are knowingly or unknowingly getting into the trap of personality worship, and while this looks innocent and divine, it could end up being quite the opposite and many nations around the world have lived to tell those horrible stories of personality worship gone too wrong! So how does this all start…well here we go!

As we go about our daily chores, we often want to leave a few vital decisions to someone above us! If you are working with an organisation, you are looking forward to your boss- he is looking forward to his until you reach the CEO through the chain of command and the CEO too looks up to the board to whom he is answerable who basically have the stakeholders- which includes you too! So you see, even in a corporate set up as we work, at the levels of competence that we have been entrusted with, every now and then we will leave out that odd blank to be filled up by our bosses, not because we can’t do it, but rather that’s a fail safe mechanism to ensure everyone doesn’t end up doing everything causing chaos that can ruin the organisation or ends up creating more competition from within! It also ensures progressive development of competence and thereby assures survival and growth for all those involved in the creative process. Likewise when it comes to the larger social fabric, it is the domain of the politicians, the bureaucrats and the whole official machinery of a state/ nation that goes in to make our societies progressive and safe. When we start allowing personality worship to creep into this space, we end up creating unprecedented situations and eventually have no one else, but ourselves to blame at the end! You see, if you ask clowns to lead then… you are part of the circus and no longer an audience! So why is this so damaging how can we change this or rather balance this?

Since time in memorial, right from the times of the Kings and Queens, personality worship has been the order of the day! Certainly it made sense because all power was concentrated there and with no other way around, it made sense! So based on the personality worships Kingdoms progressed and regressed, each time the worship was offered to a right person- the Kingdom flourished and at other times if the worship was offered to a nut case who had become a King by possibly killing his own people- well the Kingdoms regressed and failed on their own weight! Sure enough, there are no more kingdoms to be managed, but if you carefully observe the whole ecosystem around you, it is nothing but the aggregation of kingdoms (leaders) in almost every field that you choose – whether it be business, politics, security, work areas, the arena of sport, medicine, scientists, each of these sectors- what I call as little kingdoms- all have their own “worship” models and as these are worshiped the societies arrive at worshiping a taller and unifying personality who is worshiped even by those who are worshiped below him! So where’s the problem you may ask? All looks fine right? People having role models and those role models having theirs and then all these role models choose a grand role model? So all should be great and in-sync right? Well, sadly it doesn’t work that way and that is what sets up this space of “personality worship” for failure! Read on!

The word here is “personality” and “worship” and knowing humans the way they are these personalities are something else as they start to plot their individual paths to progress and by the time they arrive at that position where they are being worshiped they have already transformed into something else which none of the people worshiping below are aware of at any level! So this is like you meet your college friend 20 years down the line and expect him to be the same person who kept asking you for your notes or drink! Well that never is the case, is it ever? With time, people change and personalities transform, in fact they are continually forming and evolving each day, moment to moment! Sure enough the intrinsic value systems seldom undergo a rapid or intense transformation, so a principle of non-violence will almost always stay unless a radical event has come visiting an individual, but beyond that all and everything will change! This is where the problem of personality worship begins and manifests into a complex problem based on how deep the worship model has entrenched, the quality and severity of its impact! Let me explain!

Consider, you lead a nation, you have the power, influence and needless to say you have your followers and the model for your personality worship is intact and working- now if something were to happen to you- you will see the whole model coming crashing down- even if there’s a replacement and someone else takes the place to fill in the void left by you- as the whole model is based on personality specific element- specific to you-the moment the personality is gone, the whole model collapses and unless the next person is available to step in with an equal or perhaps even a more powerful personality worship model which is already working, the nation risks to be throw into anarchy and chaos! Because as stakes increase, complexities do and with that the desire to get the intended results irrespective of the cost! If you are thinking, this must be happening only in politics and what has that to do with office and individual lives, well think again! Do you remember the last time a whole unit was thrown out or resigned or left to join the competition or start something of their own? Well yes, isn’t it- so this is how it manifests at the corporate level and of course not that everyone has to leave and go, even as they stay within the organisations that “personality worship model” tends to impose push and pull effect on an ongoing basis- which manifests in different ways- way of working, corporate bitching all of that gets influenced and directed by the nature and quality of ongoing tussle between the competing personalities and their worshipers in the confines of the corporate world!

This personality worship also plays its role in our homes, too- whose the favorite uncle?, which grandparent, Mum or Dad- whose your favorite so on and so forth! Sure enough the contextual settings of this space are more rewarding, positive and safe then another discussed and actually provide a foundation for individuals to pivot and keep the hustle on in the other realms! Now if you have psychopaths in your personal space- well dude, then you really need some help! So how do we stop this personality workshop from consuming us, becoming a threat or wiping us off and what can we do about it?

Well the only deceptively simple and perhaps the only way to stop and stall any and all kind of personality worship is about celebrating the action more than the actor, it is more about empowering actions and the process rather then the people! The moment you do this, you do great service for one and all, you take off that unwanted load to be at all times awaiting for a consent, approval and secondly you create a powerful stance to send out a signal that what is being evaluated is the work, the task and the impact and not necessarily how it has been done by whom? No, I am not saying disregard the process, I am saying discount the personal touch- like if you are applying jam to the bread, you have only two surfaces and you can do it as many times as you want- but the end result will be jam speared on two sides of a bread piece- there can’t be any other outcome so the empowerment is about applying the jam and not who applied the jam! Think about it! The more your empower processes over people you ensure that you can stall and arrest unwanted personality worship and the nuisance that it brings along with it at the right time!

Of course, great leaders and pioneers in every field and every space must be celebrated and worshiped but that has to be done aligned to the work and the actions that they took when it mattered the most and not just worship because you have been asked to do so! You may get a tiger cub and treat it like a cat, but as it grows, it will only treat you as a tiger should!

I will leave you here, think if you have been worshiped or you worship and eitehrways what is that whole worship about, is it about that person’s work, actions, courage, innovation, resilience, some virtue or is it just that plain vanilla fan following of the college days- so that the cherry on your cake looks a little bit more red!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then keep thinking and worship what matters and not who matters!

Deciphering Ambition.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

All around us,we are surrounded and at times drowned in the overwhelming presence of people and their stories of success; stories where ambitions have born fruit, but what is it, that makes these people touch their horizon even as, for every one person who is able to live their ambition there are hundreds or even thousands who never live their ambition in their entire life times! Join me here, as we explore and unravel this seemingly eternal facet of human society and try to make sense of that slight difference between who make it and who don’t!

To begin with the whole drama around ambition begins right form our childhood! The whole fodder for ambition starts to be fed to us right from childhood- fairy tales, bed times stories- some of them are actually deceptive enough to seed in the concept of being ambitious and of the need of having to do something so that you are famous and people know you- these are perhaps the first seeds that are sown that try to tell you that if you are not someone who is reached out to by members of the society and if you are not seen as someone slightly at a higher notch than the masses around- you are lackadaisical and virtually have no hope for the future!

From here as the journey continues we are constantly bombarded by examples galore of scientists, innovators, social reformers, fearless people who led wars, people who brought about revolution in areas of science and technology, some to benefit humanity and few to benefit the capitalist leads of the societies- so you see every moment that you have lived and have been able to breathe- you have been constantly either told to calibrate yourself against some “ambitious people” who have achieved what they set out for, or you end up setting yourself up for this crazy game- with no one ever asking you to do that! This is like just deciding to start walking on your hands because no one else does it! So what’s the point is being ambitious or having an ambition not good? Well I never said that, the point that we miss and which hurts the most eventually to every person who has been ambitious irrespective whether they achieved or not what they have set out for is the fact that all the contextual settings are more important than the ambition itself and that is the essence why for every one successful and ambitious person you see around- there are hundreds or thousands hidden away and lost forever within the confines and dark alleys of society! So what’s the path to be taken- how do we know?, if we are ambitious enough to achieve what we set out for but don’t end up pushing ourselves into difficult corners and odd spaces? Read on!

Anatomically all humans, are more or less equal and capable- with those other variations that you get by virtue of the races that we have! The brain that all of us have- is also the pretty much the same- clinically and otherwise- it has a great design of operational simplicity- you put magic in- you get magic out- you put garbage in- you get garbage out! This is where everything start to take shape! Eminent authors have written books around this space- you see as we grow, our every curious mind is programmed naturally to strive for what makes our life easy and that answer about what is an easy life- means different things to different people depending on who you are, where you are and what is the social framework within which you are! This is the fundamental area from where irrespective how competent your brain is and how wise your ways are, unless all these contributing factors do not come together and align to your aspirations- read ambitions- nothing ever bears fruit! Let me explain!

Consider this, you are born in a business family and you already have inherited a fortune of a few million dollars, now there are two ways of looking at it, be grateful join a religious service and share all that you can and have and enjoy the time on the planet or start to understand that natural burning fire within you- which each day- keeps whispering yo you that few millions do not count- you need to aim for the billions! The motive for this could be intrinsic, through intellect and acquired education or it also could be by the sheer pressure to compete and win- irrespective of anything- well either ways it serves the purpose to have the individual to be put on a trajectory of achieving their aspiration- read ambition! There could be again multiple contributing factors around this story, family, social demography, type of business opportunities, competence, so on and so forth and every variable that is altered in the equation will make that journey to achieve the first billion that much easier or challenging depending on the fact whether that works for you or against you! So this sounds pretty straight and simple, that’s how it should be, isn’t it, so where’s the paradox?

Well the paradox lies in the space which goes un-noticed for that you will have to make an effort to reach out to different pockets of societies to see for yourself real people who had the similar idea or perhaps even a better one but could not empower themselves for that idea to come to life, simply because they did not have the spring board of the few millions that were needed to begin with! This is the paradox of ambition and perhaps people who really want to reach out to their aspirations and be known as ambitions- should read these living lessons within their immediate societies for this is the real paradox of ambition! So what’s the whole point?

The point is simple, ambitions, ability to achieve them and lives ones’ aspirations are not merely a factor of an individual, it never is, rather it is almost and always a cumulative impact of multiple contributing factors that align with your idea at the right time, only because you were at the right place! The best teacher for ambition is not your run down MBA class, it’s the master class of failures and un-lived dreams which are strewn across societies that you can feel and read each passing day which help you to be grateful for what you have and empower you to work and strive towards actions which ensure that the gratefulness never ceases and you continue to progress on the chosen path by learning and unlearning on an ongoing basis!

To realise your ambition, one has to and needs to do away with the archaic thought that being ambitious is about being intelligent, wise , proactive and bringing about your unique value to the table- sure it is all of these things but importantly it is also about knowing what didn’t make the cut and why, it is also about knowing what you have around you (people and resources) that will ensure that your ambitions live to see the light of the day and not whimper away at the first problem! being ambitious, is not a one off life style or an attitudinal disposition! As we go about navigating our intensely creative ad dynamic lives, needless to say only people who wear ambition as a fashion statement survive- because that is what is relevant and what is relevant will ensure you stay relevant and that is what being ambitious is perhaps all about- about being relevant in the Now and in the coming tomorrow by planing and applying strategic thought ahead for that, moment to moment! So as a rule junk that idea of ambition being a static and one off thing to be thought about or applied and embrace this way of wearing it up your sleeve each day to see how that makes a difference for you and how a different you responds to create an ever more enterprising future for yourself and for others around unlocking your ambitions the way it is meant to be!

In the modern context, ambitions are all about creative expression which serve a larger cause and for that to occur there has to concurrence of collaborative efforts of people and resources! Needless to say individual intrinsic attributes go a long way to determine the depth and length of those ambitions- how far they will impact and how long they will, but unless as an individual you don’t arrive at the tight place, even though the time is right nothing may ever manifest! That is the true essence of ambition, being ambitious and being able to live your ambition- collaboration, persistence, perseverance, timing and being rooted at all times!

I will leave you with these thoughts here, urging you to take your time and explore your ambitions and see what is the ammunition you have alongside you, to ensure that you are able to breathe life into them!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another article, until then stay wise, and keep moving!

Masked smiles & Altered lives.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

As ironical it may see, but we live in the age that we have no other choice but to wear that smile of ours, albeit masked, but we need to wear it anyways! The challenge- to be sure to smile at the right time by knowing the smiles behind the other masks! As organisations and societies emerge from the shadows of the pandemic, what is going to be very important is the re-connect that we bring about, person to person, how that re-connect happens will go a long way to decode how societies emerge- whether they are more cohesive then ever before- with an overdose of empathy or whether they deteriorate further and the society continues to be masked not only to keep the virus away, but also to keep humans away form each other! Join me here as we explore what’s unfolding and what is that we can and cannot, do about it!

All of us know this very archaic statement about “humans being social animals”- I guess this age old statement has all the words in the right order! The last one is perhaps the most crucial one that we keep on ignoring, that as humans we too are “animals”. Needless to say when the social fabric of societies undergoes unintended or at times crafted stretch beyond an allowable limit; we see the animal manifest within the societies that we move about. This animal element then could be the individual, the community as a whole or the leadership that directs and builds a pathway to that effect! How this helps or harms the construct of the evolving society is really another story, what I really want to discuss is what perhaps is evolving behind the masks and why that space is so very critical to manage and measure the altered lives that we will encounter as we move ahead!

Even as a layman, if you think about how we tend to connect and communicate, perhaps even before the spoken words- it’s often the smile that either welcomes us, keeps us at a distance or ensures we don’t waste our time in the place that we have found ourselves in! That is the power of the smile- a crooked thing which apparently sets everything straight! Now with that formidable (and in some cases even infectious) smile staying hidden behind the veil of the mask- it’s going to be anyone’s guess what the encounters of the future are going to end up like! In all probability people will resign themselves to the virtual smiles through the digital connect of video calls, rather than the earlier in-person warmth! Sure enough, the smile is but a component of human interaction and not the complete interaction so why bother if that’s masked? Well if you want to learn more, do get in touch with an expert for Non-Verbal Communication or someone who excels at Body Language and they will be better equipped to tell you the art and science of what happens when people cloak themselves up and we are unable to read the vital cues- sure, no one will possibly get killed- but given the diminishing intelligence that people have- you never know!

Go back to your normal working day, perhaps some time last year, before all this nonsense of the pandemic crept up- what do you see, rush hour hustle to reach your office or business headquarters, that pooled cab, those conversations, those jokes, that stiff upper lip- which was possibly cracked opened by another smile from a perfect stranger on the subway, that laughter and those moments of stress through the meetings- which were well read and relaxed by a ill times joke- all these and many such instances were only possible because all the cues were given away by the presence or absence of a smile! Certainly wearing a mask, in the given context is vital to ensure you still remain in the present and don’t figure as a number in some morbid list, but with the masks on, and the decoding becoming tougher by the day, as people get more and more tough business situations to deal with- what’s going to manifest is primarily more and more curtailed, truncated conversations- limited engagements- which are just to the point of meeting business objectives and that’s about it! This will leave out the human completely and knowingly or unknowingly each one of us will become a part of this- cyborg kind of setting wherein our conversations increasingly become limited, referring to spread sheet column numbers, diagrams, percentages, etc. etc. and no one seems to be bothered about what’s happening within the person with whom they are engaging- good or bad- intentional or unintentional- well contexts can be many and reasons too could be valid or invalid- but what is certain is that, these engagements will end up stamping out the smile and remain focused on the masks rather then the smile behind will leave and this will eventually leave an unalterable mark on the development and engagement of human collaboration in the times ahead! For some sectors it may help, yet for other it may harm progressively stalling the spirit of collaboration, trust, interdependence which are vital for a few things, no matter how much automated we are or aspire ton be! So how do we go about this? Can this be stopped? How do we cope with this?

To begin with the earlier we realise, as Individuals, Societies,Communities that the whole essence of being a human is about being together and for each other- is when this menace can be altered and we can rescue humanity from being turned into a primitive level of cyborgs wherein all of us just end up being extensions of our digital presence by work, position or influence! For this to happen, we need to see what seems to be cloaked away in plain sight! We have been told about wearing the mask- sure enough do it- but no one asked you not to smile- no one asked you to become curt- no one asked you to loose that warmth in your voice- so re-create that- so what if its all coming from the filter of the mask- so be it- put that extra pep in the effort and ensure that your personality and it’s vibrancy is able to come out shining through the physical mask and that physical mask doesn’t end up becoming a psychological mask that subdues your brain, your power to assert, communicate and express yourself- don’t ever allow that to happen because no one is asking you to do that and no one will ever nor can anyone ever! This clarity of knowing that physicality of the mask to cover and protect you has and cannot have any bearing on your ability to express and assert yourself is of fundamental importance! The human brain is a little funny, the moment you create imagery and demonstrative influences around it- the mind games begin and then the whole response or reactive mechanism is nothing but how strong you rationalization, scientific approach and common-sense is! The moment you unwittingly add even the smallest element of emotion to this unfolding drama, all hell will break loose and you will end up not only masking your face, but also your mind and your ability to think!, playing straight into the hands of those who are possibly directing your society right now!

So, to keep it simple, remember your faces is masked not you! The more you succumb to the emotional melodrama through the forced down narratives chances are that you will end up thinking or rather begin to direct your ability to think in the direction which serves the interest of everyone else but yourself and you will just go on to prove the points like a few of the social influencers are trying to right now- like you know, “work form home” is awesome, “sabbatical is a great time” and so on and so forth! Remember, we are in midst of not only a pandemic, but a global reset and all the unfolding narratives that you see near and far- are all competing for only one thing- no not the cure for the pandemic- but for deciding the direction of the altered society as it emerges out of this pandemic! Think about it- do you really think that it would have taken a pandemic for global MNCs to spare a few dollars on home furniture and ask employees to work from home? Wouldn’t it have saved them millions of dollars by not having to pay rents or build those awesome buildings with great infrastructure to begin with (which they sold so often & so brashly as they attracted youngsters at campuses and in the competing firms to come and work from them)? Think! So what’s the plan? Read on!

Being a blog, I wouldn’t want to get into the intricate details about what the social directors aim to do and why, whether thats right or wrong, that’s not the point! The whole point is to tell you all just one thing, guard your face but unleash your smile! Even if you are masked, when you smile, the mask will give away that vital cue and that is the essence of being human and being connected with each other- to look after each others’ back and collaborate as we navigate the uncertain times! If you ask me, this time that we are witnessing is the modern equivalent of the ice age, unless we stay connected, communicative and wise, our individual weaknesses will end up empowering the greed of a few to stall our creative abilities and take away the very freedom that we cherish so much to be who we are by exercising the choices that we have- in the society that we live about!

Altered behaviors, will sure enough be there and we may alter our behaviors as we go along, nothing to complain about that bit, but what is essential and fundamental is that any and all altered behaviour must be a result of our human connect and the empathy that we hold within and not because of some social dictate that has been pushed down our throats! Take a moment and read again, if you need to, but this is the most fundamental difference and this alone will decide if societies will progress or regress they come out of this pandemic! Our choices and ability to choose have to remain intact as they weer before, as I keep saying our face is masked not our mind- as long as you remember this one thin- rest assured all your actions will be aligned to the right path of individual progress and when many of us do this, society will move ins a directions which serves the greater good to many rather then ending up serving a few and short changing ourselves in the bargain!

So, if you ask me, what are my final words here, keep that warmth glowing behind that mask- your face may be covered but nor are your eyes and neither is your mind- let that smile flow as it normally does, let the eyes express and the voice radiate the warmth and genuineness that you have for your fellow humans! Unless we make a resolve to stay connected even as we adorn the masks, re-connecting anytime in the future will be too little too late- because by then we risk ending up becoming a complete digital extension of that video meeting room ID number and everything human about us will be at a grave risk!

I leave you here, with these thoughts, urging you to wear your smile (albeit behind your mask) and always remember: That human connect is vital and no matter who says what, don’t let anyone mask your thinking and your mind- for there resides the power to change your today and your tomorrow!

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

When miracles happen.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Sure enough, this is not a fairy-tale essay, irrespective how much I would want that to be, the fact is that even as we go around the lives that we have chosen to have, we have miracles happening around us all the time, what is needed of is, just that moment- one small moment to pause, acknowledged and be grateful for the miracle that you witnessed and then keep moving! Join me here, as I take you through the miracles that we can find around in the times that we live in and why we should all be grateful and practise the pause as we witness them unfold!

Unlike the fairy tales that we read as toddlers or youngsters, we now know that life is very different and all of that seems to be a glorified piece of unworthy literary shit, well for some that may be their truth, but for a larger majority the truth of the miracles of life can come in a hundred colors and way to manifest itself and when it does- that changes the whole evaluation of people’s life and the way the tread on their life paths from the next moment on!

Simply put, just as no two lives are ever the same and each life lives the contextual truth that they perceive themselves and the world around to be, miracles too take in the form that is aligned to an individuals approach, belief or rather should I say, disbelief that they hold within themselves- about them, the people around and the world in general! It is from this fundamental setting that everything starts to emerge and many a time a miracle of today, becomes a routine of tomorrow and down the years that routine is but a normal standard that plays a role in not an individuals life- but ends up being the way of life for the society in general and this is perhaps the life cycle of miracle- a miracle about the miracle itself! So what is a miracle then?

What a miracle is, perhaps more than me, that smart little kid on the block will tell you, and the reason why kids are able to articulate well about magic, miracles, fairies and their fantasy world is because of their power of articulation and belief that they hold within and as these toddlers grow up and as their beliefs alter and fantasies change- every time that they hit the zone of their dreams or aspirations- the word they continue to use is- “It’s been a miracle indeed I did it!” If you ask me, I am sure psychologists and Psychiatrist are trained professionals so they will have their models and narratives around the concept- but as an observer of humanity for me- majority of us would end up defining a miracle as an instance when the deepest and the most vibrant of your aspirations or desires came true- whether that’s about having a large burger with free fires or owning that business jet or wining that election- it’s about that desire- that unflinching desire that has never changed or altered and has weathered every storm that your life has been through to wait for the right moment to come forth and express itself- that is the moment when miracle happens and that my friend is the story of how a miracle comes to life to alter the life that beholds it deep within! So can miracles be created- kind of made to order?

The answer is a yes and a no! Yes, if the story about the miracle that you are contemplating about has to do with that defining aspiration that you have and No if it’s about that never ending superficial greed disguised as goal, desire or perhaps even as aspiration! So how do we go about it? Well when you are pursuing your soul’s greatest aspiration you will be in state of bliss- sounds like a paradox, sure it is- but you will have a sense of calm and bliss for, your journey will be rhythmic, long and staggered around with amazing ports of call en route that enrich your journey as much as the destination of your aspiration, so that once you reach your destination- that realization of your aspirations explodes as a miracle- a great achievement, at times, stellar and rarely also puts you on a world stage for you perhaps end up achieving what no human has ever before and the strength of a miracle of that kind comes from the quality, depth and belief that one has in the aspirations that one has held on to despite and in spite of everything and anything!

When aspirations aren’t deep enough or strong enough, needless to say their realization too manifests like a routine blob on a radar screen like the many other achievements around and the ability and power to make ones’ achievement assumes miraculous proportions only comes from within through unleashing and aligning the power of your soul to that one aspiration you have within which has the power to serve many and create an impact that lasts longer than perhaps you would! That is the hallmark of a great idea/thought/aspiration and once that is steadied, it’s manifestation is the miracle that the world gets to see and depending on the quality and potency of the miracle societies rejoice or the world unites!

I will leave you here with these thoughts, yes this was a deliberate short blog, reflect, seek your one defining aspiration and allow that to manifest as a miracle that society remembers and rejoices along with you!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one! Until then create the magic and touch the souls!

Simplifying Success.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Practise the Pause.

~ PA ~ 7 Comments

We are all but prisoners of our own doings and undoings! The times that we live in, even after the abrupt brakes that the global pandemic has applied to our routines, a majority of us still want to rush right back to the “earlier times” and in all that hurry, the world seems to be cutting corners with everything that’s related to bring about that erstwhile sense of normalcy! Whether it’s about the new vaccines that are been developed, the medicines been given or the new so called adapted way of the working that corporates are hinging upon- these and many more such developments all around us display the one common thread- The Inertia to Practise the Pause, which will end up setting us up for even more complications tomorrow for uncomplicated scenarios of today! Join me here as we try to make sense about the value of this simple approach and why it matters now more than ever before!

As humans, we are slaves of curiosity! This has been the holy grail for all the development and all the accidents that humanity has ever witnessed! As individuals and societies we have been hard-wired to observe, reflect and simplify everything around us so that it creates an ease of existence for us- whether it’s automation, development across various sciences that make our suffering lesser and create more value to our lives or whether it’s about the plethora of gadgets and technologies that impact us every second-all of these, in fact most of these are a reflection of human genius and restlessness with regards to making life easier, though not simpler anymore! and this is that fleeting moment where the “pause” lives which often gets trampled upon and ignored on an ongoing basis- the result- is the world that we have around us!

Over the last 200 odd years the rush of humanity to create value and ease of life driven societies, has brought in some amazing breakthroughs which few times have put us in direct conflict either with nature or amongst ourselves as societies and nations! This further deepens the crisis as this international competition only ends up creating more imbalances and thereby does away with any possibility of practising the pause – to have an organised and planned approach to life! The result; we end up having nations racing against each other on all the wrong parameters! Do you ever recall being in your school and being rewarded for walking into the classroom with the longest knife? No, I hope so, then why do you think nations pat themselves for every nuke that they ever built? Well nations are eventually nothing but an assembly of people who at some point in time were school children, isn’t it? So what’s gone wrong, why have our priorities changed so drastically, that we simply ignore and are ready to seek ease of life at any costs- even if that cost, risks annihilation? What is it? Well the reason is the missing “pause” not convinced? Well fine, let me explain!

What has changed within the framework of global societies and communities in the last 50 odd years has been the pace at which people want to reach their definition of opulence and success! We live in times when, getting two meals a day is a sign of opulence in some remote corner of the world and in the same moment at yet another place, it could be the ability to net in a wonderful diamond for a few millions dollars! So you see, as divergence within human societies, and nations widens the definition and story about being successful and well off changes and this is one of the core reasons why the holy “pause” is trampled upon and ignored by the millionaire and also by the seeker of the meal! Unlike medieval societies there simply isn’t enough cohesion of gratitude to care and share left anymore, for another belief (which may or may not be entirely true) tells humanity that resources are limited and not indefinite hence those who have access will get an access to them and those who have that access alone will race ahead! This aspect too, plays that vital role- another reason- as to why we ignore the “pause” and why we can’t stop this ever widening societal divide across nations and even within nations!

This ever widening and ever growing divergence among societies has ended up creating individuals who are continually pushed to believe that “pause” and “time to reflect” are only meant for the philosophers or saints who are disconnected and disengaged with the world and its realities and trust me nothing could be more dumb than this! In fact, it’s often the people who practise the pause and who invest their time for reflective thinking are the ones’ who come up with those clutter breaking simple yet powerful interventions for societies – through policies, governance or business or just be by being who they are- wise and empowering individuals! So what is it like “practising the pause” and how does it really create a difference?

The pause is all about initiating a delay to the action that you have agreed to take and this delay is all about running through all the ramifications of the actions that you have taken, are taking and will be taking until that moment when you are into the pause! Sounds cryptic and challenging, well yes its is a bit challenging but once you develop a way to naturalise it- it will become your identity and align itself to the way you begin to think naturally in everything that you do! Whether it’s the next time you want to honk your car or want to shoot that missile to an enemy target! The pause helps you get clarity and absolute reassurance that what you have been deciding to do, what actions you have taken and what you propose to take are the best ones that “You” can apply given the contextual settings that you are operating within! remember this, the pause is perhaps the most powerful yet the most underrated tool that one has which can provide some amazing clarity and sense when it comes to dealing with ambiguous and conflicting scenarios and very often you will find, people who are in those kind of high pressure chairs often deploy the delay once they have practised the pause and these moments often become the turning points in world history! Do read up some war stories from WWII and you will possibly know what I am referring to!

You will often find people who practice the pause are the ones’ who can influence- whether they influence five or five million is another story- but that is the relevant part- the ability to influence outcomes which will be lapped up by society and nations in some cases as the elixir of tomorrow and as a promise from the leader! The pause becomes very important once individuals begin to ascend in their ability to influence people! The higher one rises, the greater the need to practise the pause and more often is it required! As people rise higher, complexities and their frequencies increase and thereby it becomes more like an ATC dashboard wherein alternative scenarios are put on pause and released in a choreographed manner to ensure that there are no disasters made and everything that is in the moment is directed safely to the pathway that it must be!

The pause helps uncomplicate situations and scenarios by deploying the allowable delays so that outcomes can be weighed and the one with the least negative impact or the maximum leverage can be voted in for! There are situations when decisions of the pause too, need to be wrapped in in a few seconds- like if you are a fighter pilot in a dog fight with an enemy plane and than there are those scenarios wherein the pause can be extended for months or years before a wider understanding and consensus is developed to avoid any backlash and unwanted unrest- yes you guessed it right- this is the realm of the political and bureaucratic class! So, in a way even the pause works only when it is timed right and deployed right- the pause and the delay, but what is more important what comes after the pause- If the pause has been used for direct thinking in the manner which serves the greater good, the results post the pause will be reflective of the same and if the pause has been just a freeze fright and incapacitation to take a decision or even think straight that will also end up showing up through some great disasters and accidents wherein the major contribution would be the incompetence of the human mind to act eitehrways more than anything else! It is the pause which has saved the day for many pilots to land safely when the magnificent planes have failed partly or completely and it is the same pause when not utilised effectively that has caused catastrophes or air disasters like never before! The pause too, hence is a ambivalent weapon- use it to your advantage for ensuring your well being and of those that anchor upon you or you can be as reckless as you wish to be, stifle away the pause and and unleash chaos for yourself and those around you!

Like everything else, the pause is only as good as the individual deploying it and that richness of the individual is eventually the construct of the society that the person comes from! What we feed into the society around us comes back to us eventually in one way or the other! When society pauses to reflect, introspect and deploy action, it creates a whole generation of people who are anchored to core elements, values and rest assured are naturally inclined to act with deliberation and caution to impact in a positive manner through the pause! On other occasions, when societies have not got that kind of space to operate, the results can be mixed or at some other times even more damaging and detrimental!

I will leave you here, or should I say, “I will take a pause now”, grab your coffee and allow your pause to work wonders for you and those who rely on you! Who knows the next pause that you embrace may be the hug of life that alters and changes the direction for your future in a way that inspires many!

Ciao for now and I will be back soon with another article! Until than stay safe, wise and yes, pause and deploy!

Success through disruption.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Scholars and historians may not always agree on all the things that have been ever said or recorded, but the one thing that all of them will always agree upon is the singularity of the fact that- All great success and progress of humanity has been through or amidst disruption and more importantly, the greater the disruption that humanity has been hit by, even more greater has been the resurgence and the pursuit for success to ensure that humanity lives to its name of being the most adaptable and intelligent of all species on the planet! Ironically enough- it is often the dumbness and stupidity of the same species that lands humanity in tight corners to begin with! Join me here as we explore how and why success through disruption seems to be so refreshing and exciting even though it may at times charge a premium as as as far as the price and cost at which such a success eventually manifests!

I you see through the last 300 years of world history, it has been sprinkled with long periods of calm with ensuing periods of unrest, war and chaos in between- Importantly at any given time, there always has been one region or area of the world which has been in a flux of unrest (for whatever reason) and strangely enough this small pocket of unrest always has gone to dictate what the whole world should focus upon and thereby all efforts of humanity would be automatically aligned to resolve that space or pocket of oddity and with that would come in the rush to seek success by any means or ways just to get that pocket of the planet into the – normal way as seen and perceived by the majority! Needless to say, as soon as the leaders of the world would resolve one pocket of unrest or uncertainty there would be another few developing and this never ending cycle goes on like a perpetual machine along with it- creating and destroying lives, livelihoods and economies- all of this ever happened with a singular plan to have perpetual success for a select few at all times even as the rest are left ever struggling through their chaos and turbulence to seek his ever elusive success of calm and peace which seems ever away from their view point- at times for reasons of their own making and yet at other times because of situations are simply beyond their control and are in fact designs of someone else!

Through this fog of chaos, if you carefully observe, success has embraced those societies and nations which have held their ground for the core values that they stand for and have not relented even an inch in what they ever believed and what they thought was the greater good for their people! What works for societies sure does work for individuals and that is why when individuals (who are the basic element of the society) bring in resilience and that desire to be successful, magic happens and times of disruption provide the perfect contrasting backdrop which ensures that even ordinary success (during other times or times of peace) ends up becoming stellar performance worthy of awards and accolades! This very element of being able to get attention and getting noticed is what makes success earned through disruption and that’s why disruption is a blessing- as long as you are anchored to what you seek! So how is success through disruption different than other times? Read on!

In the normal course of times, when everything is settled and things are all fair weather, many people want to try many things and thereby- irrespective of the individual cases of merit- that never ending competition to even seek attention- fails many efforts and at times even the best of the best! You see, attention seeking techniques can be manipulated without checking or validating the real merit that a particular story warrants- don’t believe- watch any news channel you will know what I mean! Next, this clutter of attention seeking behavior then further dampens the genuine interest that actually propagates and drives success!This vital step ends up creating false starts- where wrong projects or stories get highlighted and races ahead only to succumb on account of their own intrinsic failure of having no depth or merit! When the seas are calm you have many ships out there heading for the harbours and it is these crowded harbours that create bursts of attempts for success- in any which way- that goes to undermine individual talent, intellect and impact that any of those ideas can ever have in the real sense on the society or a nation!

On the other hand, when the weather is adverse, you have very few mariners out there and rest assured they are the best of the best, for they have learnt the art and science to tame the storms, at times through prudence and persistence and at other times, through costly lessons of having borne the brunt and re-build themselves all over again to take upon the storms and tame them all over again! It is these pioneers who believe in what their thoughts are , ideas are even in face of seemingly adverse contextual settings, that hold the key to create impact on societies and nations in big way- for the simple reason that- they are ready to venture out when there is not much of crowd! Hence the very few who do venture out get all the attention and support (if needed) to deal with the challenge at hand and get a ready audience who is eager to hear what their ideas about the new definition of success is!Not to be surprised then, it is these very ideas and these very ideators who then wear the hat of the pioneer to direct societies and nations in a direction that suits and defines their success!

Ironically enough, since there is much less competition even among pioneers during times of distress, that even the most average idea and thought ends up being a heroic one and this extent of paucity of alternatives either builds a strong and intelligent society or creates an even deeper sink hole purely depending on the merit of the idea and the definition of success that it brings along with it!

So in a way, if you see, times of disruption are perhaps the best times that one can eagerly await for when it comes to put forth a clutter breaking idea or thought and weaving a new narrative for success- something that makes the oder and earlier narratives obsolete and makes the new one aspirational, desirable and likeable! So what are the kind of ideas and who are these ideators and how do they possibly manage it? Well here you go!

To begin with, more often than not these ideators are someone like you and I,the normal people that you come across through the routine of your life! These are really those ordinary people who have an extraordinary ability to see something of value even as majority of us tend to frown and keep complaining about- how the normal has changed! These people have the intrinsic ability to see the new normal and embrace it long before we understand it and even as majority of us are struggling to adapt! Next and more importantly, these people are great readers of their contextual settings and know the gaps very well and carve out ideas that fit those gaps- whether these are product related or service oriented in such an amazing way that- it all looks simply natural and something that society was possibly ever waiting for! I am sure, if you look around you will find a number of such ideation cases which have been very recent but seemed so very natural the moment they got activated! Finally, since there is a genuine dearth of courageous innovators who have the ability to mix, simple, powerful solutions and communicate them through their charisma- success- real success is far infrequent than one would have thought! Even among the pioneers who come in shining armour during desperate times, only a few survive the turn of a decade and hardly any a generation later- unless and until their ideas have been foundational and potent enough to withstand the onslaught of time and ever evolving human intelligence!

Well, if I have to kind of wrap the things up for this article, here is the crux, embrace disruption and be thankful for it, for you may never know which part of your easy life that you live was a consequence of an earlier period of rapid stress and disruption- which was heeded to by some amazing pioneers and their ideas luckily for you and me, tuck long enough to make our lives that notch easier and bearable to live! Disrupted times are times when there are very few people on the stage of the world and that ensures that each one of them gets their chance to fame and glory-who succeeds and who doesn’t largely depends on how great, simple and powerful the thought is, how well that resonates with the contextual settings of the time and how effectively the whole package is communicated to the society to make it desirable, likeable and successful!

I will leave you here with these thoughts; hopefully we are yet somewhere still in the flux of our current times; perhaps few moments over your favourite drink and who knows! magic happens and you may be the the one who comes up with the next simple, powerful and compelling idea that writes in a new narrative for the society to embrace!

Ciao for now, I will be back soon with another article! Until then stay wise, stay safe and embrace your contextual disruption!

The power of “Quiet”!

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The only thing that matters…

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Well, as you get ready for your weekend during these times, what better way can there be, to urge you to spend you weekend in knowing and discovering that, there are really only a very few things that will matter or that ever matter and it’s always wise and sane to know them and stay anchored along them! Join me here to know what this is all about and why these are really the only things that matter!

Our lives are always filled up completely to the the brim! Irrespective whether that filled cup makes sense to us or not, that’s what we get to handle each day of our lives, that filled cup is at times you work, at times its your family and some other times its your network/ friends/colleagues or all those areas that you tend to stay invested! Well there can be nothing right or wrong about that, each one of us is free to choose what matters and how much priority one gives to which area of ones’ life! The real trick though, is being able to understand and appreciate the depth and quality of the things that you consider to be a priority for yourself and re-check if thats really what you want the cup of your life to be filled up with completely all the time!

Well you may be working for yourself or for someone else, many a times, this space contributes the major part as far as keeping our cup filled up goes, the question here, is what are you really doing? Are you really sure that you want, your work area to dominate and take up so much of volume in the cup that you hold? Is it really worth it? Look around you what are you coming across (not necessarily now, things have been the same way for a long time, only now they are becoming more and more evident!), pay cuts, job losses, realignments, new loyalties, shut downs, all this even as you had your cup filled up and put in your efforts at an individual level and did what was right throughout- no questions asked, yet when the time arrives, you are the first one to face the shock? Why do you think this develops? If this is an area that is so important for your cup? How can it become redundant so sharply and quickly? What have you missed? Hold on your thoughts here and read on as you will be able to decipher the same we we move ahead!

Let’s explore the other aspect which goes on to complete your cup, your network, in few cases this part often takes up more space than the work part, yet few other times, there is a heady cocktail between this space and the work space- at times because of the nature of the work, some other times as an occupational hazard- which if not managed can evaporate both the elements of the work and network form your cup rapidly even before you realise! But wait, how does this network really help you, I mean if say there’s no work, does this come to your rescue- as in not helping you get back the work that has gone missing- but as in being there for you! How many of your networks can stand by you like a mountain- not helping you with the money or the next break- but by just being there? Well if you haven’t got any of these type of mountainous network elements standing by you, then sadly enough, you have just added additional baggage to your cup which occupies space- adds to your wright and actually does nothing to enhance the favour of your cup! So that’s so much about your network element within the cup and yes, you can sure enough weigh and read through other elements like friends and acquaintances through the same lens,the people who say they are there and then disappear as if they never existed! Now let’s move to the final elements of your cup!

The family area which takes up again the decent volume of your cup! Well, now depending on the originality of the contents and how they play out with regards to the flavors and intensity, either you will get a cup with an additional dose of vanilla or have a cocktail of tastes- leaving your mind tipsy and brains fried all the time! Well, since it’s about the part of the family, you too are equally responsible to what you end up getting in the context of tastes that come back to you! If you have been able to provide the right conditions, temperature and ambiance, the flavors will always resonate that and if you haven’t; well might as well prepare for what you have done- whether intentionally or unintentionally! Needless to say this element overrides all other elements in your cup and has the potential to unleash havoc or create great balance depending on its own intrinsic character! But did you notice, even as your cup is so filled up and has all elements that you ever can ask for or think about- you know what’s missing here? Its You!

You may argue, that all other elements in the cup are but an extension of who you are, certainly they are, but they are your extensions- you- perceived by the others and not the real you! This is where people struggle the most and tend to get waylaid easily as they rush through their busy lives holding to their cup of life- not realizing that what they hold and are managing is what the world exactly wants them to be- not necessarily who they really are or want to be! This fundamentally folly is what makes many of the lives around us a struggle- simply because we are living lives- not of what we should be because of who we really are but rather because of who we are perceived to be, by others whom we have ended up collecting around us either by intention or by accident! So is there any way around this or further to this, can anything be done and if yes, whats it?

The only way to go around this and the only wise way, is to ensure that “you” end up filling as much as volume you can in the cup that you hold and let this volume be filled up with “who you really are” and no matter what comes your way- ensure that you don’t loose that element- because once you have anchored yourself to who you are- You will then automatically gravitate and end up attracting other elements of family and network circles based on who you really are and not end up becoming “who others want you to be” (which is possible only when you end up adding others to your cup before you could add yourself)!

You see, once you have developed a refined sense of understanding who you are, what ticks you and what ticks you off, you will be in a better position to connect to spaces, people, things and pursuits in line with what is helping and growing you- intrinsically rather than monetarily. Monetary growth no doubt, is important, but when done and pursued in divergence of all your founding elements of your life- family, network, work and yourself often will end up draining you in the long run and over time instead of making you stronger will end up making you weak and susceptible to the ravages of time and other powerful competition that you face which possibly are growing on virtue of their own internal core alignment!

What really matters is how well you have been able to craft the idea of who you are and how well do you want to execute that idea into the world with allies who are around you as network circles and families because of who you are! Once you have achieved this zen like space, trust me nothing at all will bother you- neither the ups and downs of your business neither the layoffs or the firing of the jobs that you are engaged with, because once you have connected within and know you worth well enough- these out worldly aberrations will not be ever strong enough to slow you down or knock you over!The only thing that matters is, how well you are connected with yourself and that one singular reality is what will help and empower the right things, people and contexts gravitate towards you!

I will leave you here, urging you to grab that cup and reflect on one simple point- How well are you connected within and how much of “you” is present in the cup of life that you hold so dearly close to you at all times!

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

The hour-glass (effect) comes next.

~ PA ~ 2 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The “expert”syndrome.

~ PA ~ 1 Comment

Frankly speaking, I never thought life would be so exciting! We live in times when facts are stranger than fiction! Even the best fiction writers would not have been able to imagine the way we see intelligence and dumbness been played out every now and then! Join me, as we explore a funny, innocent looking and possibly the most damaging trait that lurks amongst all of us, nope, not the virus, this story is about the “expert” syndrome. We have a look into how this possibly originated, how it has evolved (or kind of devolved); so here we go!

As much as I wish to avoid, but I helplessly gravitate towards the topic of the “pandemic” ( not that I am obsessed by it), right now perhaps there is no other topic around the world that unites humanity the way the pandemic has! Either you are suffering more or suffering less, but the fact is you have earned yourself a ticket to this global show! Importantly this is a live study about how “experts” just ended up screwing the fate of millions of people the world over- by punching the right buttons at the wrong time and how the birth of overnight “experts” has possibly added to the chaos, creating more drama rather then providing solutions!

To begin with the pandemic is not a health issue, to begin with! Yes, sure enough a virus has crossed over from an animal to humans and this has in fact more to do with understanding the Virus, its behaviour, its potency, its vulnerabilities and ways to block, inhibit and restrict it form creating dis-ease or illness that can lead to fatality!Now just look who all are responsible in formulating strategies around the pandemic, no it’s not the virologists, neither are the immunologist , it is the doctors (who are supposed to pull those log tubes and ensure you live your life, even as they try to treat you with whatever they “think” works because “someone” told them so!). Sure enough, doctors will alone be able to save your life and keep you on this side of the world, no one is discrediting them, but the problem is that unless the “real experts” don’t give real solutions, all that doctors are left to do is struggle by trying out options and facing the never ending wrath of the patient’s families even as they are hanging on to their own dear lives with each passing moment! Other times, if it’s not doctors then depending on which country you reside in, it could be the head of the major religion that is followed in a country, or leaders in clinical research, bio-statisticians- yes, those gifted people who crunch numbers, extrapolate graphs and show the grim scenarios- straight out of a Hollywood movie- so that everyone is happy with any number less than that- this is the same shit like what you used to when you explained your maths scores to your parents- The conversation goes something like this-“Hey Dad, you see I got a C, and you should be grateful its not a F, something like that”! When all of these fail; you always have those invincible politicians becoming overnight Virologists and Health experts- who come on television and ask you to do everything and anything- from clapping, to banging your utensils to asking you for helping those who are more affected then yourself- so basically you burn down your house to provide warmth to the community! Hold your thoughts, with this pandemic here and let us visit another set of “experts”!

Alongside this pandemic, the world is also witnessing an increasing period of military tension and aggression whether it is encroachment of Indian land by China, the fragile nerves around the middle-east, the uneasy clam around the South China sea, The newly defined US- China Cold War ( I think a better term could “American Chop Suey” War!) Importantly, the war theaters of the world for some strange reason seem to be immune to the virus- making me wonder does the virus really exist! (well, don’t bother- it does!). Now with regards to this military flare up, if you are lucky to be in India or the USA, just switch on your Idiot- Box (yes the good old television) and flip to any of the news channels- you will be left dumb founded at the variety and diversity of suggestions/solutions and action plans thrown every few minutes, guess by whom? Yes, “the experts”! These experts have the answers, solutions, action points for all problems that the world is witnessing in real time and in few cases there are also animated VFX enabled decks which can play out scenarios with complete end-to-end detail and remember this- For every challenge that the world is facing- by evening all TV News channels the world over- have managed to get the experts (even before the nation or the government can lay their hands on their grey matter!). These experts then spell out strategies, action plans and hidden motives about the subject with great accuracy and convincing tenacity (putting even Nostradamus and other modern day fortune tellers to shame) the entire topic is laid open- all thread bare- often you are left wondering to which side do they belong- or are they the aliens from Mars who want to see humanity fight and finish off each other! Thankfully, the only commonality with these “experts” is that, no one is listening to them- no not even their audience! So what’s really happening- what is this phenomenon all about- why do we end up wasting prime satellite broadcast time what is this all about? Read on!

Since time in memorial, as civilizations have advanced, there has been the urge to dominate society with knowledge, information or power, the days we live today are no different, the only slight change perhaps, has been that we are also plagued by the space of mis-information, pseudo- knowledge and “self-proclaimed experts” more than ever before! The real problem accelerates because , even as the “real experts” are busy chipping away the challenge one step at a time- away form public glare- you have this abundance of “so-called experts” who seize the moment and occupy the void space of the real experts and convert the it into a glorified entertainment zone with no real sense or substance! Now, you may want to argue, why is that even allowed in the first place? Well, sadly that is how social engineering works to further what is called as “building narratives” and “getting social acceptance on opinions that are being sold” (irrespective whether they make sense or not)!

Consider the case of the pandemic, experts all along have debated, discussed and emphasized on cutting off people to people contact- well nations did it- what happened- did the situation improve? Well no if you are talking about absolute numbers, but yes, if you want to consider delaying a problem as a solution! If you are still wondering why this would have happened, well the answer is simple- remember I mentioned about “Immunologist” well yes, who were the centre piece to provide a solution- were all but ignored and not paid heed to as the world should have- you want to ask why? Well, you see creating economic adjustments and narratives and the promise of a new drug in the market makes vibrant economic sense and irrespective whether how accurate it is or not- the fact remains it serves the purpose of the few who drive and direct the societies the world over and once this is supplemented by the entertainment over media- you have a water tight case and everyone now believes that lock-downs are good! Wait until they realise that the cure has been worst than the disease and that by itself will be another story of social chaos!

Likewise, do you really think, armies across the world would decipher their strategy, potency and abilities over news channels and TV shows, well certainly not, than why the circus- this is called as opinion building- I mean you want citizens of a nation to support a decision of your’s to go to war- how would you get it done? Well, yes the classic way- ignite the patriotic lamp, create an enemy- communicate the over exaggerated threat and inform that this is the only way and you are the only one who can do it! That’s it! The nation is ready to go to war! Now, if you are wondering why would anyone do this, well, it plays well to the audience in the one countries who have just rudely awakened to their patriotic nerve and secondly helps to create a new order by bringing in distraction, chaos and uncertainty, not for one, but many countries around the world! In the connected times that we live in today, if USA catches cold, India will sneeze and the converse is also equally true!

So even as multitudes of ” so called experts” burn the midnight oil, fry our brains and occupy TV shows at prime times and keep throwing off solutions by the minute, the real experts are busy doing what really matters and the way it should be done- with focus and direction to create solutions to the problems at hand! You see these “overnight experts” have advise for everyone; whether it is the President of the USA or the Director General of WHO; they always have a suggestion for everyone, but for themselves! We should be thanking our stars, that The White House or The UN is as yet not taking these stunts seriously, if that happens, it will be the last sign of overall annihilation of intelligence form the face of the earth!

The only reason why this “expert” syndrome exists is because we are now kind of attuned to some “breaking news”, “some development”, “some news”, which may be good or bad, to make us feel our lives contextually better or worse each time that we switch on the TV and we are always left saying, “Great it was not me” and then moving on as if noting happened to the next circus! You see the real geniuses of the world don’t have time for TV shows and ranting off strategy on prime time! They are serious about what they do and they know what is at stake, likewise real politicians, statesman and business houses, they never waste time ranting off their next moves, secrets as a prime time event! Often,the ones’ who hardly have a figment of understanding of what’s really unfolding end up occupying the void places left by the real experts and since public memory is short, they are always forgotten and at times they themselves forget what is that they had said about a problem and often end up contradicting themselves as time flows!

The easiest way to note and steer clear of the “expert syndrome” is by knowing who is speaking about what! If the people who are speaking are not the ones’ who are solving the problem at hand, then no matter what, you can be rest assured they are just occupying the void and creating an entertainment quotient! Think about it! Had they really been experts and there is a criss at hand, where would they really have been? In a TV studio or at the place – Ground Zero- where the solution have to be found and implemented?!

Before I begin to sound like another “expert”, I will leave you here, urging you to reflect and check for yourself, how many “experts” you really know and if you too are an “expert” which one are you- the real one or the pseudo one!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another article, until then stay wise, stay safe and enjoy your expertise at what you really do!

Make a choice: People or Process.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Organisations often have something to guide them by, at times these are called as values, belief systems, way of working, agreed way of working, “the way we do it here”, you can take any of these approaches, but all of these will eventually end up taking you down one of the two only possible routes- either you are managing, striving for or struggling for a people centric organisation or a process centric organisation. This short read, we take a look at what this all means, and how it impacts us and what we can do about it, before we decide to join that dream job coming your way!So let’s roll!

Sure enough both these approaches have their own advantages and strengths, let’s not bother about weaknesses, because where strengths are, diametrically opposite end of it, you will find the weakness! If you are wondering even for a moment why does this matter- identifying whether a particular organisation is people centric or process centric, well hold your thoughts for now! By the time we finish this piece, I am sure you will be scampering to find some solace and once you know well, that you are aligned to, developing or contributing to one of these types, you will further appreciate why you are either a great fit or a misfit based on who “you” are and the type of organisation you have landed yourself in!

Fundamentally speaking, humans are always good at one of the two things- this, even as we have both the attributes- either we are good on the being creative and ingenious or we are great at doing repetitive and predictable tasks with great accuracy. Sure enough, we can do both and we end up doing both of these and everything that comes between these two extreme ends with varying degree of comfort, the fact however being that we all are naturally inclined to one thing over the other and when we find a workplace that reinforces our natural alignment to its work methodology- we excel at the function that we do and the contextual settings help us accelerate and excel as long as we continue to put in the required efforts!

If you take a short trip back into history and search for people who made a mark for themselves, name-fame -fortune, you will see a common thread, majority of them were mavericks- they ended up doing/creating things like no one had ever before, or their approach to run or govern a society was unlike anything ever before and their ability to think creatively, different;y, what is normally termed as “out-of-the-box” ended up creating our world the way it is today. Certainly this does not imply that those who continued to do routine functions are worthless, in fact they too are worth their weight in gold as they continually better the way they do things and create new benchmarks of doing the same thing over and over again with more finesse and sharpness! So what does this tell us? Well in a very simplistic manner it tells us that the ability to be innovative/creative, being able to set new ways and rules is one set that we have within us and the ability to better, develop something that’s already there by being at it-also called as perseverance- ensures that we create more value to something that already exists either by process or offering services-by doing what is meant to be done in a more refined and quality centric manner!

Typically organisations, which thrive on research , product development, innovation and new -age breakthroughs, creative pursuits lay heavy emphasis on the people that they have on board and that’s but an obvious choice! When you have people who are radically unique by way of their ability to think, collaborate, confront, debate and further a common idea- that’s the space where magic happens! Each individual will bring a new approach around a conventional problem at hand and that’s what will create pathways to developing/creating something unlike ever done before!- Certainly this approach is out rightly expensive and this route is normally deployed only when the odds are very high- typically when the solutions innovated/service provided have life-changing abilities or are able to influence people en-mass across regions and continents! Consider the world’s leading space exploration company- which has been at the forefront of space science ever since its inception- yes you got it NASA- what do you think they are hiring people for – following processes or for creating them afresh and leading humanity into a new frontier when it comes to space? Like NASA there are many more examples among different sectors wherein organisation have disrupted the way we go about our life through their products/services and this was possible because of the teams that they have had- the kind of people that they had onboard! This is how people centric organisations stand out and deliver! Needless to say this becomes possible only when the right people are onboard in the right contextual setting! This is how People centric organisations thrive and excel!

The other approach which has been equally successful and stood the test of time as well, is the approach wherein the Process is of vital importance. No this is different from red tapism and bureaucratic delays, this is more about following an established chain of command and staying within a span of control so that the whole unit works like a well oiled machinery and at any given time, even at a moment’s notice, the whole unit can align itself to increasing delivery pressures or adapt itself to meet the necessities of time! Sounds familiar, think you know a few of them, well yes you do, the defence forces, law enforcement agencies, medics, paramedics, you will find these instances even across various functions normally aligned to production of various goods and services, in the case of the manufacturing or world of services, you will come across the vital indicators like, well laid out clear structures, methodologies, process steps and communication channels which enable people to work individually or as teams to deliver what needs to be delivered under different conditions with no compromise on the quality of the finished product or service! This is where magic is created by being good at what is being done and doing what is being done in a better way each time it’s done!

Now you may be wondering, so why do organisations struggle all the time with n endless talent deficit! Why do we have organisations complaining about the quality of talent? The answer is deceptively simple! Organisations face challenges with talent when end up having onboard the wrong people for the right job! The problem is not of the people- the problem lies with the expectations placed on the people- who are basically not who you are really looking out for! Consider, you are a manufacturing firm and want to hire some kick ass engineers to supervise the forging unit- well things will work out for you as long as you are hiring an engineer with an orientation to follow rules, process and someone who believes in creating incremental changes by being in the system over a period of time, now instead of this if you end up hiring an eccentric innovator- he will start by stripping down every process and every work flow that you have ever built over the years with a single objective of simplifying and doing the things the way he would like to because that’s what his core intrinsic approach and belief system is- to create and construct something new!

None of them are right or wrong, neither the individuals nor the organisations, it is all about being wise and sane enough to know what you are hiring for- knowing what is that your organisation stands for and being able to decipher well , who are the people – that will be able to align themselves to the aspects of the business! Once you have the right type of people aligned to the right needs of the business, you have created enough space for both of them to grow and excel! If you are a process centric organisation hire people who are aligned to the way of the process centric environs, if you are an organisation that thrives on innovation and individual greatness, build an empire which celebrates individuality and also rewards collaboration, that’s how you will be able to excel in that space!

The choice, of whether to develop a people centric organisation or a process centric one should always resonate with the core requirements of the business and importantly this is something that should be loud and clear- visible through way of working and communication, so that even people who wish to embark on the journey with you are able to appreciate if they have boarded the right flight and look forward to the journey with equal enthusiasm as much as they have for the destination that lies ahead! More often than not you will come across organisations which are part process centric and part people cntric- when you are around that kind of a hybrid space- what really matters is having the right people at the right places for doing the right things!

I will leave you here for now, to reflect and think, what are you, a process person, or a creative wizard, what is the organisation that you are working for- people cntric or process centric, and what type of organisation will you like to build, if you ever want to build one! Keep thinking for now!

Ciao for now, I will come back soon with another article soon! Until then, knowing yourself create value in what you, by doing it the way you do it!