Tag: social

The essence of Calm: Before, through & after a storm

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

At a time when I write this, we have a hurricane creating widespread damage along the South East coast of USA, this after having ripped through the nation of Cuba. Somewhere else in the world, there are massive protests and agitations owing to mishaps, political oversights, societal assertion of heir rights, at times with an overwhelming note that says, “enough is enough”! If you thought this was enough for a day on the planet Earth! Well, try to dig a bit deeper and you will find many unfolding events- seemingly isolated at the start- but as you begin to see the emerging pattern all these seemingly isolated incidents soon enough begin to throw up an interconnected and intertwined pattern that weaves the fate and future of the planet and humanity at large! Join me here as we try to decipher a way around the seemingly fluid conditions that arrive to greet us every morning- whether that’s the co-worker who has decided to move out, the business that wants to shut down or grow fast or a nation that wants to re-write it’s perception- the singular answer that humanity seeks is “How do we stay calm- anchored” with all or any of these playing out around us! So here we go!

To begin with, the reality is, storms are ever present and everywhere- at times visible, at times hidden in lain sight, at times expressed and yet at some other times subtly parked away- only to be sensed by those attuned with the contexts around! Whether it’a massive natural calamity that’s heading your way, a society (of which you are a part of) or perhaps a witness to the unfolding’s around, the only real way to grasp and act or decide not to, will all be achieved and remain effective only as long as you have a quick thinking, flexible, fluid and calm mind at work- a mind that knows too well, that no time is ever right for an emotive response- no matter what the situation is- what really makes sense and matters is a rational and collected calm mind which can open up locked challenges with or without a key- but for sure will always ensure that you as an individual will embrace the least damage in whatever you choose to engage with!

The Calm mind before the storm: A calm mind is able to foresee and anticipate the storm as it begins to gather pace- you may want to argue- why can’t it stop it- that’s where a lot of pre-emptive follies take place- when emotive anxiety overtakes rational and wise observations, many a times we need to act in a rush to solve a problem (which we think is arriving), we actually end up creating more grave and more intense problems which are far more real and damaging and pale in comparison to what would have actually come your way! You see, a calm mind is not about inaction or inertial resistance- it’s more about being able to stay collected, observant and pragmatically thinking to estimate two relevant parameters- how much of what is being gauged- is real and what is the probability of that reality coming to life! It’s only when a correct assessment of a perceived problem is done through this lens, that you will be able to hold a steady hand as you ride through choppy waters of a fierce storm! Like every chef knows too well, great food becomes possible only when ingredients are well picked and uncertainties are dealt with through the process of cooking- all of these requiring a focussed and calm mind!

The Calm through the storm: Whether or not you were able to prep your mind, before storm that came your way, you still have a decent amount of hope on your side if you are able to improvise and stay calm as the storm dawns upon you! Whether it is that tough deadline at work, those spreadsheets and presentations taking a toll, or it’s that number crunching that’s driving you insane or that eternal worry about a perspective client- will they or won’t they sign the dotted line! All of these and many other instances can actually arrive with little or no warning, throwing your minds straight into the proverbial boiling water! When this happens, and it will some or the other time- through your long and illustrious life- you will be gladly surprised that at times, doing nothing at all can be a wonderful thing to do! A calm mind has the potency and power to discern with laser sharp focus and no matter how cluttered the subject on hand- or how ambiguous things may seem to be- as longa s you have a calm and focussed mind- you will be able to firstly decide whether you need to act or not and if you need to, you will be able to calibrate the intensity, force and direction of your action- ensuring you are acting in the right way and the right direction to realize the right results! There’s never anything achieved by burning down your house to kill a rat! Right force- to the right space at the right time, is what translates into great results- don’t believe- talk to the paramedic or the fire fighter in your neighbourhood- they are the finest artists who have mastery on this art of staying calm through a crisis- always and each time!

The Calm after the storm: Now that the worst has passed by (for the moment), a clam mind helps assess the damage/benefit more accurately. Getting emotive, hyper reactive will end up damaging all and any benefit or lessons learnt through the journey, a calm mind will help you assess, articulate and formulate with finesse what works and what doesn’t, so that the next time you face a challenge you have a storm- you know what you should certainly not do! Sure enough not all storms are the same, neither in intensity, nor in their form, but the fact is, as long as you have learnt to harness the power of your mind by staying calm, chances are you will ensure that your damages are lessened with every passing storm, making you more prompt, wise and strong with each passing milestone of your life! Ins’t this the simple and foundational story and fact of our lives- no matter who we are, what we do and the different definition of success that we pursue- as long as we have a great ability of refined discernment- you will almost always be able to wriggle out of complex situations with as minimal damage as possible- the essence also lies in the fact, that to begin with try and avoid getting into those odd spaces (the area where the storms take birth!). This works well when it comes to deal with linear storms, that are unidirectional, but when individuals are confronted with multidimensional storms that have the potency to take down and impact one more more aspects of life definitions, that is when the real test of being “calm” is realized and if you ever happen to get into this space and walk out- perhaps even bruised and battered- but not bitter- trust me you will be completely newer version of yourself – as they say version upgrade2.0 or 3.0 whatever you may think fits well!

I leave you here with these thoughts for now, take some time to connect with that calm within and see the difference it makes for you- to choose your battles, check the storms and then ride ahead with more control and more resilience to emerge on the other side better, even though you may be a bit battered!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then the key word- “Calm”- realize, practise and cultivate it!

Obedient slaves and Bad masters.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

The first time I cam across this concept was when I underwent a Health and Security training with a high profile organization around two decades back! The trainer was sure enough referring to various technical nuances of providing security detail to VVIPS that we may have to engage with, but as part of the training when he came to the vital part of dealing with “Fire” is when this statement (which I later understood is of foundational value!) came to the forefront! Since that day, it has remained stuck and continues to remain so for a simple reason that it is so fundamental and pivotal that everything around us and everyone around us knowingly or unknowingly is operating through these very attributes! Join me here as we explore this further and understand what is that we can do to make this space more meaningful and to begin with, why does it have to be so? So here we go!

Nature is perhaps the greatest and the eternal teacher. If you have been observant enough and ever had the opportunity to tame the elements of nature (if not all, perhaps a few) you will know what I am referring to! We all have known about the large massive dams that stand a testimony of humanity’s stamp of authority on wild and free flowing rivers, but every now and then when nature comes up with a trick up its’ sleeve, even the most seemingly formidable dams end up being just mere objects as they witness the massive amounts of water which they must allow to flow through and perhaps even flood downstream, simply to ensure that the dam doesn’t fail completely and collapse!

As with water, so with fire, wind and the earth itself- for when the elements on which we stand decide to take matters their way- humanity has almost always ended up paying the price for being reckless and disrespectful- remember the word “climate change” good! This is perhaps what is the simplest explanation for the whole construct of it! As humanity plays dangerously with the elements- what is manageable in no time becomes unmanageable and begins to create problems directly or indirectly of monstrous proportions! This is when the “bad” part of being a master begins to come alive and irrespective where in the world you live, sure enough you have got a taste of it in some or the other form! If you are wondering if this is all about nature and its ways, what does it have to do with us? Well, the truth is, no matter how much we would like to have nature out of our way, it seldom leaves us, and the way we behave with ourselves and people around us, is nothing but a reflection of nature itself!

Through ages, as humanity has learnt and emerged from the shadows of nature, it has learnt one skill and that is of being obedient when it is unsure/ vulnerable and being monstrous when its reeking with confidence/ certainty (more often then not, riding high on overconfidence and some times, arrogance!). This hardwired aspect of the human brain and way of connecting with fellow humans often manifests through the modern day dram that we see unfolding in homes, offices and across the social spaces! This is the reason why you see, overworked corporate slavery (because the vulnerability of being jobless is often too big a mountain to climb for the majority!), next to get around it, the usual tools and aides of sly and non-conforming approaches and behaviours, that is how the seed of corruption gets placed- because a way is found to get around and once you do it for one aspect, certainly you can and you will deploy that art for the next thing that seems to be an insurmountable wall! In case you happen to be the Master in the equation, you will be more aware of the sly ways of your corporate slaves (for Every Master some time has been a Salve!) and that ends up being the bedrock for you to deploy your monstrous approach to get work done!

Sure enough, I am not suggesting this is how everyone is, or everyone operates this way, but if you take a pause and reflect upon the behaviours that you have always seen around you and perhaps even your behaviour- you will always see that people are always oscillating between these two vivid extremes of being a dependable slave to being a ruthless master! The reality of our lives resides in between and as Individuals stack up societies tend to get a broader character of being either more obedient or rebellious both indicative a higher shade of one or the other manifestation!

The times that we are entrapped in, are reflective of this eternally conflict of “Wanting to control” and “Wanting to be controlled” as long as people are naturally aligned to what suits their innate and intrinsic nature, things are fine, but the moment you switch them into the wrong quadrant or they tend to outgrow their quadrant, chaos ensues and as that proportion increases, whether that be in our homes, offices or in the society in general! The compelling question here is, why do obedient slaves or why does obedience transform into brashness and harshness as one rises or work their way to become Masters at some or the other time?

Well part of an answer to that question resides in the space which is related to the nature of enslavement, quality and tenure! As long as that experience of being enslaved is within the flex and stretch of a thinking human mind and is rewarded and corrected within those meaningful limits, as people outgrow their learning and enslavement to become masters, they will retain their attributes and value systems to become meaningful and engaged masters, but when the enslavement space is riddled with conflict zones and confrontational narratives, as they grow and rise, they serve back the their distasteful experience in a more amplified manner and the story goes on! This is how individuals get entangled in never ending comparisons, jealousy, tactical slyness to derail the other, corporate bitching and back stabbing and societal unrest and mistrust, all of these are nothing else but a manifestation of enslavement gone wrong and obedience turned into anguish and aggression! So what’s next?

Well, the real essence is in the fact to accept these compelling realities of our lives and surrender to what comes your way and also ensure that all that is created by virtue of what you do remains meaningful! Perhaps the only way to sieve through this paradox within and around us is to remain rooted deeply within to the values and belief’s that are empowering and liberating! As we go about our lives, there will be times when we have to stay enslaved- perhaps not to anyone but perhaps to an idea, a thought, a belief and even as we do so, ensure we retain the character and flavour of who we are and don’t end up carrying the excesses of our entrapment through our journey of empowerment and liberation! The most dangerous way to emerge is ending up being a leader who is entrapped and enslaved within- in their beliefs, thoughts, fears and anxieties!

It is only when a moving fine, dynamic balance is reached as we go about living our lives between being a wishful slave and a leader by choice, will it empower us as Individuals who can then further go on to influence others sans the negativity of being a bad master and ensure that the enslavement or followership that emerges is not tied to something regressive but rather to some liberating thought which empowers even those who are enslaved to the cause of rising ahead and moving further!

I leave you with these thoughts for now, urging you to take some time to reflect the enslavement that you seek and the leader that you want to be when your time comes so that you stay an obedient slave to your liberated mind but never a bad master while driving your ambitions!

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

Defining your essence!

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

As deceptively simple it may seem, but this seemingly unimportant task of knowing and connecting within and knowing what your essence is perhaps the most valuable “one thing” that anyone could ever do! For this is the bedrock from where you can align your pursuits, ambitions and virtually anything and everything that is around you and once aligned, engage in a meaningful manner that ushers in empowerment for yourself and everything and everyone around you! Join me here, we take a look into this space and understand why our lives are much more than we think it is and why you are never what your business card says or your last name signifies! So here we go!

We often end up living our lives and perhaps even defining who we are, only based on a singular fact- “what is that we do”, “what our business card say about us” or at times, “defining ourselves in the context of the societal opulence that has come our way”. The fact remains that even as these aspects may have their own merit, their whole context is relative and calibrated to things and people around! You see, working as what you do, does not anyway help to understand how you teat your family , friends, your pets or let alone anyone else, even yourself! You may have more opulence compared to then remainder of the other 80%, but that neither guarantees that you have the taste to enjoy it or the class to display it! The greatest fallacy of our times is that people often end up living a life- based on what they have got “sold into ” understanding what their life is!

You see, if the case had to be that each one of us was to be defined by the mere space around calibrated success and failure and the materialistic enjoyment that comes our way- we would have been a different personality construct altogether by birth! But that is not how it is, Isn’t it? Irrespective of what we work we do, how we are known and perhaps not known (normally referred to as misunderstood) there is yet another layer to our own self and that layer is about getting connected to who you are and what is that your soul’s urge! Perhaps sounds too preachy, spiritual or even condescending, but that is the very important and subtle aspect of our lives and believe it or not, every one of us, stands on this foundation of what our innermost desires and essence is all about- whether you like it or not- you will always gravitate towards that- perhaps it may help you or at times it may not- but all our life stories are a collection of moments when we we are aligned to this space and when we had deviated away from our won essence! Nothing more, nothing less! So how do we stay connected to our essence and how can we encash that space to put this foundation to good use? Read on!

The real magic to work along the pivot of your essence is by first being able to define it- and define it well! Your essence has to be something that you behold uniquely as your own- could be as unique as your innovative thinking or your fertile research oriented mind or could be the innate ability to see uncommon realities i the everyday common things around! One easy way of knowing your essence is that while you are engaged with an activity or a thought- it comes in natural, makes you feel empowered even as it seems comfortable, irrespective of the fact how complicated or easy it may seem to the others viewing that space! You know you are in your elements (your essence) when you act with confidence, direction and purpose on issues with even the most limited insights or details and come out enriched with a new dimension for the whole topic- something that ushers in a new pathway for the existing challenges or opens up a new challenge for humanity to tests their competency against- simply through your power of innovative thinking- which perhaps is then your essence!

Sure enough, you may want to ask, but if that is true for one, it will be for everyone so how does it work? Well, say your essence is around culinary skills, sure enough there would be many with similar skills, perhaps even for the same segment of cuisine, but if you are really connected by the pivot of your essence in what you do, you will be able to add a twist to all that you do,like no one else, even as others continue to do the same- what we then have is a world around us of empowered individuals working and deploying their expression of life through their essence that they have connected with! paradoxically enough, this is also the reason that limits people from connecting with their true essence and more often than not majority of us are happy with that job, that business or simply by doing what we have got into doing and even happy to repeat the same thing year after year- with nothing really changing for us or for the others in a meaningful or empowering way!

When you continue moving through your life disconnected with your essence, sure enough you will live well, thrive and perhaps even surge ahead earning and enjoying all that you desire- but all of that will always keep you very malnourished and deprived at your soul level- and well if you think – that’s alright- that too is fair- because the world that we get to experience and see around is a factor of majority of humankind working themselves for the heck of it- not being connected to their essence- hence mediocre solutions are ok and “just enough” principles take precedence over “what is right” or “the right way to do it”! There is no right way to experience life and share that with others or even with yourself- else all of us would have been born with a manual or handbook to live our lives- driven down to the last detail! It is a deliberate choice that one must make to pivot around their essence even as social compulsions and echoes of insecurity tend to tempt and push us away from what we should be to who we end up becoming! So what next?

Well, the meaningful way and perhaps the only way as I see it, is to stay connected with your essence- the very essence of who you are, what drives you and what is that you want to contribute further to- that has to be something to do with the urge of your soul- it is something purely intrinsic and essentially which define who and what you are and will be- irrespective of the socially accepted and prevailing definitions of success and failures! Your essence does not have to be certified by anyone else but yourself and your essence does not have to be about limiting yourself to be working with “XYZ firm” or “ABC designation” or making $$$ of money, it is beyond and above all of this, sure enough, I am not suggesting the other aspects are irrelevant- but to connect them to be your essence and wanting those things around you to be your definition- is a fatal fallacy- simply because business will rise and fall, jobs will come and go and so will your fortune- but the only thing that will ever remain is what your essence is- unless you realize this bit and learn to pivot on the foundation of your essence you will almost always find yourselves as crossroads- every time any one external variable that you use to define you is taken away from you!

It may be possible that your essence may not serve a materialistic goal that you have given to yourself- nothing wrong with it- but if you are able to reach that goal tapping through the pivot of your essence- which by it’s very nature- defines your value construct- all the journeys in life that you undertake to achieve some or the other goals- you will find them to be more easy and welcoming and the struggle quotient will greatly be reduced! Each one of us, are on this planet- not to only learn- unlearn- relearn-pay the bills- travel and die- for as long as you limit yourself to these aspects of the routine- you will end up creating a life as common as the next stranger you walk past by! It is only when you begin to script the story of your life through the power of who you are and what your soul’s urge is to express that is when real magic will happen- that urge could be a creative expression through arts, science, technology or could be as simple as being a humanist- who strives to empower others around- you may have a philosophical or a cut throat business like approach- doesn’t matter- as long as you pivot your journey of life on the real essence of who you are and what your soul’s urge is- rest assured you will behold peace within and share warmth around even as you lead an empowering presence for yourself and others around you! This is the essence of leading a meaningful life and by being rooted to who you really are and deciphering that secret!

I leave you with these thoughts here, take that break, grab a coffee and do reflect and try to fathom, what your essence really is and what is that you are doing now- which further or stalls the same! Magic and miracles are rare because they only manifest through the urge from within and for that you need to be anchored pretty well intrinsically!

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

Vaccinated Minds and a Vaccinated Future.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The “Comparison pandemic”.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ 1 Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Being Mindful is also about being Creative.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Welcome 2021 the 2020 way!

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Surviving the “New Year syndrome”

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

Each year, come 31st December or 1st January, humanity seems to just want to drown into all kind of utopian commitments to the world, society and unto themselves, the result, well we have more stories of resolution failures and a more screwed up year than the previous one! Join me here, to understand what this “New Year Syndrome” is all about and what is that you and I can do to survive it and ensure that we cling on to sanity and rational pathways irrespective ho strong the temptation is to believe and try to follow meaningless promises of the utopian kind! So here we go!

The New Year is among the many reasons to celebrate for actually no real reason and perhaps one of the most compelling ones’! This is the time when uploading that picture, being on that trip, being at that venue and all those kind of crazy things tend to over ride any remaining sense of rationality and people go to no end to ensure that they have their annual post cards ready- even as they know well withing- all of this is just unwanted spectacle played out to the social audience sheer out of social conformation bias, compulsion and just to ensure that they are not seen and isolated as “the odd” ones’ and to feel that false sense of comfort being part of a larger social construct who all “believe in celebrating” something that has no real essence or relevance!

Well, no is denying or suggesting a sadist way of saying that there should be no celebrations- but the point here is what is that is being celebrated? I mean every nation on the planet, sure enough has their own “new years” aligned to religious and belief systems that they follow, a nation like India has over a dozen new years’ that are celebrated through the sections of the diverse society. Not to forget your own personal new year- yes- your “birth day”, actually if you ask me- that should be the most important one- simply because that is something against which you can benchmark you won personal growth- your rise and fall and there can be no dispute around that absolute space- because you know when you were born and even if the nation doesn’t join to celebrate and even if your family hates you, at least you have yourself to celebrate what you achieve or promise to and trust me doing even this much can add great and continuing value to your life then the countless birthdays and new years you would have ended up celebrating by now, for no real rhyme or reason! So what is it really about the “New Year Syndrome”?

Well “The New Year Syndrome” as the name suggests develops and emerges mid of December every year and lingers on until mid-Jan or in some rare case until end of Jan every year (that is the time till reality presents itself back and all utopian pledges and wishes bite the dust and people are brought back to their senses!). Why does this happen and recur every year with such accuracy and predictability if this such a wasteful and pointless experience? Well, the fact is that it is within these crashing utopian dreams and hallucinations that thread of the next big thing are woven and often then not these threads are picked up by watchers, bystanders and observers of humanity as they go about dabbling in the “New Year Circus” of humanity and once the party is over- these bystanders get a first seat insight into the emerging though process, behavioral patterns and can then move for the kill knowing which way and what direction humanity is probably going to move ahead!

You see, the social conformation bias , that eternal human urge for the sense of belonging, go a long way into getting the sea of humanity celebrate meaninglessly on the date every year- with nothing really ever changing in a meaningful or potent way either for them or the society that they move about in! Knowing well that there is nothing more that we can do about this space and accepting that this dumb way of celebrating nothing will go on as long as humanity exists and as long as people agree to this calendar date as being the one to adhere to , this mega-scale celebration of stupidity will go on with people celebrating and gong back to doing exactly the same dumb, un-serving ways and means to cling on to their lives what they have given to themselves without any direction or purpose to even wanting to make to that bit incrementally better! Well at least that is what the story will be, whether you agree to not and that is a fact- whether you like it that way or not! So what is the way to deal with this space and can this be avoided?

Well, if you really think you want to avoid the “New Year Syndrome” it will take a one-two punch approach, the first punch ironically enough will be about participating in the social dumbness- yes hitting the party floor- so that you get a first hand ticket to observe and record the levels of progress and regress that society around you has made and the second punch is about knowing what you need to do next to ensure that your next year part arena and list or people around you is a shade better than what you would have experienced! Sure no one is asking you to help everyone around you, in fact the whole idea is that you help yourself enough all through the next year so that you know exactly what you want to avoid the year next and that alone can help you create that essential operational manual for 2021 so that you hit the floor running doing everything that matters so that you end up with the party that you aspire for and not that you get stuck with!

Sure enough, there is no golden pill or “the way” to surviving the “New Year Syndrome” which gives you a high for the day and leaves you battered for the whole year that follows. But what you can do about it to survive is, simple and quick, as long as you are able to tag a purpose, meaning and direction to the celebration that you want to dive into, trust me you will be just fine as you emerge out of it and importantly probably you will be more focussed, rejuvenated and re-dedicated to the purpose and direction that you have set for yourself- perhaps it is a task, goal or a business objective- whatever that may be- rest assured you will excel and hit that goal only because you knew well about that bit even as you went into celebrating the new year and unlike the majority around you- you stay unique by this singular definition and this is what puts you in a small set of people who know why they are enjoying, what they will do post this break and when they will come back to enjoy further and what is that they will have on their mind then!

The essence of surviving the “New Year Syndrome” wherein you risk to end up creating similar experiences, face similar problems and encounter similar pathways in a never ending loop is all about being able to shift the control of the narratives that come towards you; to you rather than allowing that power to reside with those who serve you those narratives! Like someone has said it before, Life is more about how you choose to react to what Life throws at you rather than what and how you think and feel it should be! You see, Life has it’s won weird ways and whether we like it or not that is how it is going to always be! As long as you are able to understand this space and ensure that you will stay aligned and rooted to your purpose, goal with a directed intent, rest assured you will survive the “New Year Syndrome” well enough and will be able to connect with and create new meaningful pathways for the times ahead and escape the trap of ending up doing the same thing again and again (expecting a different outcome) and then calling that a life well lived! I mean seriously, sure enough a chef who cooks the same dish will end up doing the same thing again and again- but even while the chef does that, a different experience is created in the context- simply because the customer is almost always different! This is what is yet another important aspect to always remember and take note of! It is not about whether your approach to life has repetition or not, it is not about whether you are always doing new tasks and there is more vibrancy in what you do or not, it is more about how do you create and further value in what you choose to do, whether that is the only thing you choose to do in 2021 or whether it is the only thing that you want to do each day through 2021!

Each one of us is unique and it is the unfailing ability to harness that intrinsic uniqueness within which will empower each one of us to pursue and achieve what we seek and this is the way to ensure that we are away and over the “New Year Syndrome” because once we take this route; we are able to keep walking on a path that is aligned to our core belief systems and aspirations which are as meaningful as our aspirations are and as long as these are not utopian or some hallucinations, you will never find yourself in a loop and will never be bothered or preyed upon by the fatalistic and fabled, “New Year Syndrome”!

I leave you with these thoughts for now, even as you are gearing up to embrace 2021, the best possible way you can, just remember, make that bear hug memorable, inspiring and meaningful for yourself and others around you so that you don’t end up becoming another casualty of the “New Year Syndrome”!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then stay wise and take a path that propels you ahead!

2021: Calling Leaders!

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The 2020 Masterclass.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Social Divergence: A story of our times.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stand Singularly, Fall Collectively!

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

Well, if you are surprised by the title, so am I! Unlike the age old adage of Together we are stronger and by ourselves we are a lot weaker, this is not to contradict that bit by any way! Sure enough, strong societies and nations are always and will always be built on the concept of a unifying cohesion within the elements of the society, but if you are not into public service or politics and if you are one of those who have landed on the planet just to make enough sense of where you are and where you are heading to and where you actually head to, this piece is for you! Join me here as we try to understand, what makes a diametrically opposite idea work for us as Individuals and is this why our societies are almost always a conflicting picture of who we Individually are? So here we go!

Since times of folklore and ever since books have got written, humanity everywhere around the world has been directed into thinking around value of “Together is Better”, “All is Stronger than U and ME” so on and so forth! Well there is nothing right and wrong around it, for the simple reason that these statements and narratives are more contextual, take them out of context and quote them for something else, they loose their potency completely and instantly becoming meaningless all the way! Let me explain, say if you had a million dollars of amassed wealth and simply because “Together is Stronger”, will you be glad to just share that wealth and distribute simply because everyone should have access and there must be a socialist approach to share all the riches and all the problems equally? I am sure you will not ever want that to happen, not because you are a miser or you have some kind of insensitivity, simply because you would want to extend charity as ling as it remains so- you see, charity gone overboard increases dependency and instead of people looking at it as a gift, people begin to look at it as some kind of a right- wherein others slog day in and day out to earn and make some money only to give away- for ensuring they seem human enough within the social lens!

Now if you consider that a society is going to be hit by a natural incident or is threatened by an act of war- what do you think will happen- well, as expected every member will race ahead to help one another simply because they know unless that is done- their future- the short term and long term both are gone and they are heading to a existential crisis- because in times like these- the money of the rich is as equally useless as the poverty of the poor- it is only when elements of the society come ahead and offer what they can- whether that be excess wealth or offer of in-person service all of that eventually tides the situation and ensures that when the challenge is done and dusted the society has something to go back to commence re-building! This is where “Together” wins over “Being alone”, This is the space of existential challenges and inflection points in a society which ask the question, “You may have what you have- is it worth it- given the society that you are in- should “a” or “b” incident happen!”

This is what this piece is all about, given the times that we are in, what matters is the ability to realize and realize well enough that individuality matters over collective group think! Sure enough, you may not be successful all the time, but as long as you are aware about this simple fact, you will be just as fine! You may want to yet argue, but how can this be, when a group signifies strength, sure it does but only as long as the “purpose” of the group and the “objective” that it seeks is clear and etched for the members of the group to know and follow! When you observe your engagements around the social arena that you float around, what do you see? What is that you witness?

Possibly you work in a place where you aren’t even sure how the rewards work and you always hope and pray you get those 10 $ more than your peers for the same work, or perhaps if you are trying to sell your services or products in the market place, you will leave no stone unturned to get that big order, come what may- simply because your business is what make you who you are and these are the fundamental aspects that define your existence or end up throwing you into an existential crisis, should you not be careful enough and think about sharing your riches with everyone around for no real and meaningful reason- these riches could be wealth or the potency of your mind! How many times have you felt let down when your idea or thought was improvised and someone else got the credit, how did you feel when you got few dollars less despite and inspite of having recorded the very best of what you could have done- simply because the other person was “someone to someone”! Well it is precisely in scenarios like these which manifest so rapidly around us in todays’ world that standing up for who you are and what you believe in” becomes so compelling and that will help you, as long as you don’t end up wanting everyone else around you become like you!

This is not about taking a moral high ground and calling anyone to be self-serving or selfish, it is rather about realizing that you alone are responsible for what you achieve- whether that’s a million dollars or a hundred millions dollars, all of that will pivot only and only around your individualistic and original approach and as long as you believe and continue to tread that path, you will do just fine as long as the idea is sane enough; the moment you involve others- who have no potential to think- as you do- or comprehend – as you can (simply because the idea and the thought is yours’), you will actually end up complicating things for yourself as you begin to get weird inputs that really make no sense but you then end up into an obligation to listen to others, simply because you have invited them to the party- not defining well enough, what is and how much is their role there! So, what’s the plan?

Plain and simple, know very well what are the things where you want to be and require to be all by yourself- because not that your are selfish, self-serving or unkind or inhuman, but because others will simply not be able to embrace what you think and feel to the last details as you do and that will go on to ruin all that you would have planned as soon as you begin to pay heed to inputs from people who don’t know what you are aiming for to begin with! You see, you never learnt to swim from a coach who never was a swimmer! More importantly, as you walk through the path of your life, there will be moments when you will require to be a part of a larger group simply to propagate what you are and what you offer, or to amplify what has been achieved or just to be sure that in times of great crisis your existential crisis are managed and that you live the day to be sure that you will emerge on the other side of a storm, perhaps a little bruised, but you will be alive and that’s what is more important when times become what they do and will from time to time!

I leave you with these thoughts here, for you to reflect and think around what were the times of your life when you hit the targets being by yourself, how you ended up complicating when you got others’ around into that and what were those times when being with the larger group saved you enough to live and fight for another day, another dream!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another piece, until then stay wise and stay safe- by yourself and in the group that you choose!

The Bucket Effect.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

I sure know it’s a Monday morning, but what stops us from sparing a few minutes to drive some sanity through the insane lives that we get served on a platter! Whether it is the dumbness that you are fighting off, or brilliance of a mind that keeps you on your toes, each one us at all the time is dealing with some mental energy to the best we can and at times this space is easy and at other times this is what bogs you and me down! Join me here, as we get to decipher what really saps us and what really excites us and what is that we can do (if there’s anything we can!) to ensure we spend more time around staying excited (of course in meaningful ways!) rather than being sulking and wondering at what will hit us next! So here we go!

Choose any society, any nation, you will find the same gradation of humanity- the rich, the poor, the intelligent, the dumb, the right aligned, the left aligned, the non-aligned and sure enough, the “I don’t know who I am and what I am doing” types! What this basically signifies is that, since the times that humanity has been developing on constantly evolving, if there has been any one thing that has always been there until this day is the “Inequality of contexts”, you see no matter how much those government’s or the corporate HR teams keep shouting about “Equal opportunity” the fact is that ends as long as you have the physical resemblance of being a human! So unless you want to be loading sacks or doing some job that calls for mechanical or physical abilities, that whole crap around “Equal Opportunity” means really nothing, simply because each one of us have “Unequal Minds” and for the sake of argument, even if we were to assume of two people having the identical minds the deployment and execution of what is held within the mind will always differ! So that’s as far as fairness of humanity goes in any direction- basically no where! But why should this intrinsic societal disparity emerge?

You see, as human societies evolved- the fruits of labor were not shared through a AI driven model, they were done in as primitive and as human ways as possible, the mightier (either through the mind or through power) always have retained the most and this continues till this day, if you thought it doesn’t happen in your corporate world or the governance model that your nation follows- you will be off target by miles! Even the performance management systems and reward mechanisms through organizations are almost always skewed in favour of the owners/ majority stake holders (right or wrong, doesn’t matter), likewise with governance- you will always find leader’s personal incompetence rewarded by the office that they agree to hold! A case of rising to their levels of incompetence! So where does all this lead us to? Well that is the space of what I call as “The Bucket Effect”- where societies and the people living within end up getting calibrated to the levels of agreed incompetence! If you are wondering if this is good or bad and how this impacts us, well read on!

If you imagine our world to be one large bucket and we have within that different buckets resembling the different social groups that we have as nations and then further smaller buckets based on whatever social stratification that is followed within there. Now you and I are among one of the many drops of water or honey or whatever you want to call that liquid and this is from where contextually you and I do what we do- whether it is inheriting the way of life, belief’s, the pursuits that we end up with, whether they be of self expression, creative, work, vocation whatever that all is – is within the bucket that you and I are in to begin with! It is only as you begin to outgrow your bucket that then you begin to nudge others around within that bucket through your value- creative or nuisance and soon enough you are seeking routes and ways to jump into other buckets (read societies/ nations) where you think, you will be more welcomed and will possibly have a better way to creative self expression that you want to manifest!

This is the long and short of all human strife and struggle, the need and urge to be known, to pursue fame, opulence and indulgence- some of us are able to achieve that space within the buckets that we are in and a majority of humanity lives and dies in the same bucket, praying on the death bed- that if there’s a next life perhaps we arrive in more aligned and meaningful bucket (which seems to be from your point of observation) and the show just goes on! Few of us end up overgrowing our buckets to an extent that we can control and dictate the rules of the bucket- read- business tycoons and the political class and then we have those odd few who are lucky enough to jump across to another bucket- read societies/ nations through migrations/ asylum and actually end up realizing the dreams and aspiration simply because that bucket was more aligned to what the individuals urge of self expression has been! This is the essence of the bucket effect and the story of entire humanity as simplified as it can be! So what next?

Well, if you have understood, the story so far, the singular point is that, “don’t sweat and struggle for what is not”! Once you know your bucket well, and you know where you reside in that bucket, it will be clear for you to know whether you really have the potential to grow within the bucket, control the bucket, outgrow the bucket or change the bucket and once you have known intrinsically, what is the potential that you hold within, you will be able to progress just fine by calibrating the right amounts of efforts for that to happen, because any more will not make any difference and any less, you will be alone responsible for being where you are!

A lot of struggle and wasteful effort is only because people don’t calibrate who they are to what they aspire to be! No one is questioning the human ingenuity, but unless aspirations and desires are calibrated you and I end up standing on the shores hoping for the waves to cease! Calibrated pursuits whether they be for work ambitions or creative expression, as long as they fall in line with an individual’s ability, the bucket that one is in, sure enough people will be able to reach their aspirations, touch the skies and etch themselves in human history! If you observe, a lot of stories of success within buckets and those of across buckets are almost always of self- expression and creative excellence- whether it is the field of arts, science or technology, unless the foundational spark of uniqueness is there, the story of human growth- collective and individual will stall and stagnate! Buckets- societies and nations which fail to nourish these human pursuits more often than not regress and those who nurture them always progress!

I leave you with these thoughts here, urging you to take some time off and reflect to figure out which bucket are you in and where you are and what is that you can possibly achieve within that bucket or by being in some other one; human life is too limited to have wasteful pursuits that don’t add up to anything either for yourself or for the society that you are in! Sure enough, you may not have got to choose your first bucket, but you can make a choice either to make the best within it or change your bucket as and when you can!

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

Why perceptions win over truth.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

The human mind is only as potent as you want it to be, decide to turn it off and like a obedient appliance, it will shut down! Join me here for this weekend article on deciphering why perceptions almost always have a strangle hold over reality- read truth- truths about us, about the people, the society, the universe around us! So here we go!

To begin with, one must understand the challenges of dealing with truth, one part of that is, truth is always contextual and the second part is that truth is always difficult. I am not going to write in further depth and give a class on the “philosophy of truth” but in simple layman’s terms, as I have always been saying, “Each person’s truth is true”. Chaos and ambiguity commences when the others around either refuse to see the truth alongside of the context of the person who owns it or they observe the part which suits them and race ahead to draw inferences around that small limited understand- mis-understanding! Perceptions on the other hand are fun to engage with, like some stimulating, hallucinatory medicine, they engage and play with the human mind to create imagery, narratives and motives (for subsequent disastrous actions). If you are wondering why it is easy to shake hands with perceptions- well it taxes the brain much much less and as I have been saying- the human brain only cares if you are going to be dead- all that does not kill you is fine for your brain and that is the truth about the human mind!

The fact remains though that truth is easy to engage with and deal with only and only if people are able to do so holistically while connecting with the beholder of the truth and the contexts around it in the same moment of time! This is what judiciary is all about! Analyzing and observing comprehensive contexts of facts and data that arrive in front of them- read -evidence. This is what takes time and even at a people to people level engagement- whether they are members of your family, friends, co-workers, the feared politicians, bureaucrats,who ever you can think about- each one of them can be engaged with and dealt with only when you begin to invest enough time and mind to understand the origins of the truth that they hold on to- and as you begin to do that- you will be surprised to know that many of the truth’s that people hang on dearly to are more often than not – reinforced powerful narratives based on perceptions constructed over time- days, weeks, months, years and in case of political arenas and running or ruining of nations and societies- these are developed and curated over generations and through decades!

The eternal battle between “truth” and “perceptions” (often held on to as the truth) has been another hallmark of human societies- only societies and nations that have been able to successfully and selectively engage with few truths and many perceptions have made progress! Societies which have over-indulged into wanting to decipher the “absolute truth” have always suffered on an ongoing basis, simply because the only real absolute truth in the world is “death”! Everything else around is contextual and set to a specific audience and social scenario! But why this whole obsession around with “truth” and what allows perception to emerge and race ahead!

Well, what I think would have been the case is that as human societies began to evolve, there would have been a need to share innovation and knowledge and hence the compelling need to be “truthful” because anything short would almost always mean someone not making it back from the wild! You see back then if you were a soldier on guard or a hunter in the woods or a farmer in the fields, the only way to improve your skills and competence would be “wise words” from the “masters” who are the modern day equivalent of quality research journals- albeit which stand the scrutiny of being peer reviewed. Hence this is one of the many other genesis of applying the “Gold standard” to the virtue of beholding “truth” – to share it for the greater good! But as times and centuries changed, over simplification of truth started to back fire- and societies soon began to have a cohort of people who were second to none and from there emerges the birth of the war of narratives and development of perception- to tell the world why “A’s truth (which may again be a perception) is better than B’s). To this day, if you carefully observe the world is stuck with this same crap! Whether it’s your relatives, friends, offices, societies, governments, groups, whatever you choose to observe- you will find that people are more often than not dealing with the long overgrown shadows of perception rather than dealing with what the truth really is and this mindless, endless loop goes on to consume the human mind which after a point simple maxes out and basically is telling you, “whatever, you deal with this shit, I am fine as long as you don’t get killed”! Importantly our modern societies have ended up incentivising the pursuit of perceptions over truths and that has further helped perceptions race ahead of the truth!

You see, truth is plain vanilla- it is almost always a binary- either something is or isn’t , there is nothing more to add to create drama and intensity- you see like you believe in God or you don’t, you don’t sometimes believe in God based on your convenience! So your truth is that you are either a believer or an atheist and that’s about it- but this becomes boring- so how do I make this exciting and more entertaining- well I say you are too simple to be true, your are too uncomplicated to be real, I say, your approach to your faith is cause driven and with these small sparks of ignition, when I begin to create and weave stories the real essence of who you are gets left far behind and what the building narrative begins to do is, it very much starts to portray your perception from the eyes of the people who essentially want you to be known “as what and how they perceive or rather want you to be perceived as” What makes this so potent- well, it is effortless as easy as that meaningless gossip and as easy as intentionally throwing a few odd pebbles to create the ripples and let the “perception aggregators” do the rest! If you wondered why politicians give a damn to the media, well this is the reason- for they know a tad too well how to deal with perceptions and under the belt blows when their contextual truths (if they have any) are served on a platter as perceptions for the masses ort lap it up! So what’s the way ahead? Can and do societies win the war of perceptions and allow truth to have it’s place?

The answer is YES and a NO; Yes societies can change the narrative but for that it calls for a much orchestrated effort which is directly in proportion to the ability of the collective minds to be able to discern and see “what is” and “what is being told it is”! For this to happen you need social frame work which incentives people who are able to present the “what is” narratives and allow people to make up their own views and inferences- simply because each one sees “what is” from the context of “who they are and where they stand ” in the social scheme of things, needless to say also what we need to factor in the ability of their minds to deal with the whole space of the taxing discerning exercise which is o vital to sieve away “the what is” from “what it is said to be”.

The NO emerges from the very YES of this space! Simply because bulk of human kind is so caught up with the effort to simply survive is that, they hardly ever are in the time and space which allows them to be so methodical and clinical to understand and decipher between the real and the apparent and for the few from the society who have that option more often than not it is the case of “who will throw stones at other glass castles, when have their own”! This is why functional societies tend to lap up perceptions more readily than realities as they serve as a pivot to get even. This is the reason why societies stay replete with struggle and strife for one or the other reason around the world, all the time, because that’s what keeps the perceptions ticking and as long as they keep floating, the truth is boxed-in, in a tight corner unable to come ahead, unless and until there is some large scale systemic dysfunction which collapses the society and a new order begins to emerge. If the new order banks on the selective elements of truth, there is much respite, change and stability, however if the new order too begins to go the old ways, it’s just a matter of time before societies end into the dysfunctional stage one more time and this cycle goes one with truth remaining pushed in a corner with no one wanting to care about it! So what’s the meaningful way ahead?

Functional and operational societies tread a balanced path between truth and perceptions and you can apply this thought to individuals as well! As long as there is a fine balance between devoting the just time and space to appreciate the contextual truths on things that matter and soaking in perceptions (to know the truth- not the served perception), things will be just fine and you can very well mark yourself and your society as “safe”. The moment this changes, for whatever reason it may be- things will begin to change (good or bad) depends on who you get caught up as in that space! Depending on which side the leaning is more- either you will end up with people and societies which are vanilla, plain, with “people for rules” kind of environment (when you choose more of truth) or you end up in a fast paced, narrative driven and loud society (when you give in to perceptions far more than the reality) and you often find that here you have “rules for people”. There is nothing right and wrong between what societies or individuals choose to be- whatever the choice may be- the movement of the society or the individual will always be striving for hat lost balance and as the effort inches towards that balance progress is achieved and as it moves away you witness regression- societal and individual!

I leave you with these thoughts for now, allowing you to pursue your sense of balance, because what your contextual truth is, is yours’ and there is noting that changes that- not even powerful narratives emerging from driven perceptions! Be comfortable in your truth, for that alone will allow you to counter the narratives of perceptions that come at you!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another piece, until than stay safe, stay wise and observe “what is” not “what seems to be”!

Be In the “Now”.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ 1 Comment

You have had books written, best sellers written, seminars, team games, outbound programs, workshops and what not around this concept, yet so much of humanity continues to struggle to stay “in the now”! Join me here as we take a fleeting look around this subject and try to decipher if this is really a meaningful approach and if it is so, why and when does it work and when does it fail! So here we go!

To begin with, we must understand and try to decipher from where do the references to the whole concept of “Be in the Now” some in to play! Well there are two broad areas, one is that this concept is not as modern as it seems and there are references to the value and attribute of “being in the now” across different forms of faith, religious writings and belief systems in one or the other way across societies all the time, in fact all the great progress that societies have made have been when “they have been in their now” and whenever they have lost focus and raced far too ahead or regressed far too back, societies have faced problems! But I will leave this ancient civilizational aspect here for now, simply because all modern day approach to this concept banks of this old wisdom albeit with a twist to suit the modern times and societies that exist and needless to say adding a touch of further improvisation or confusion based on who is communicating this message! But what is the real content and message of this space?

As humanity evolved, societies realized through their way of living, what worked and what did not- there have been wise philosopher’s through the ages who went on to endlessly observe and record of how human behavior impacts the surroundings and when does work become meaningful and meaningless, when does it create value and when it doesn’t, when does thinking change into day dreaming and when does ambitions become mindless hallucination! As the wise people kept getting better and better through their observations around humanity and human enterprise, as kingdoms and empire got built and destroyed,as societies became opulent and bereft of opulence, one thing that stood out singularly was the fact that- all intelligence, wisdom, thinking and enterprise will be wasted unless and until it is executed- even if the result is failure- for from there alone will it be possible to improvise further again and again until success- that is- the desired result can manifest and see the light of the day! For this to happen, it was important to not only bank of knowledge (which basically is all but the past) and be able to apply that to the current context of people and resources for a thought to fructify into something meaningful (read intelligence). This is indeed the simple and real essence of being “In the Now”, the ability to apply Intelligence on the acquired knowledge to solve a challenge that provides a solution to alter something that is there in the “NOW”!

So, you see, “Being in the Now” is more about being connected with the realities and truths around, needless to say each one’s is going to be different and meaningful and the inability to decipher that bit leads to perceptions and more often than not we take those snap decisions/ judgements in all that we do paying heed to these perceptions- which are not always what the truth is and this is where the divergence commences and people begin to struggle to remain in the “now”! Human societies the world over whenever have portrayed creative excellence through art or science- always were slow and not as fast paced as we have them today and if you look carefully the quality of creative excellence (which is supposed to be the epitome of human expressions) has all but deteriorated inversely proportional to the acquired pace that a society or individual has got hooked up to! More faster you go, the less you are able to think right and that is why, so many “experts” wanting you to attend their workshops/ seminars and basically tell you to “slow down” , unless that is not done, neither can you meaningfully connect your acquired knowledge to the available intelligence that you have and nor will you be able to pursue anything meaningful with any contextual clarity! So what next?

Well, simple, don’t waste your money attending “Be in the Now” workshops and seminars unless you know what you are getting into! You will emerge just as you went in! Unless an individual or societies make a directed effort to attain a specific goal and unless they deploy their intelligence while engaging it with the available knowledge- staying in the now- will become fruitless and the mind will have no other option but aimlessly either wander into the bygone’s or get consumed into some futuristic hallucinatory thought process!

For “Be in the Now” to work effectively and on an ongoing basis, it calls for much discipline and effort until it becomes your natural orientation. It is only when you begin to get ample clarity of what serves you and what does not, does magic begin to happen! It is an exercise in de-cluttering your life like nothing else, doing away with meaningless and un-serving family, friends, talks, thoughts, aspirations, desires each and every of them, some are easier said than done, but this is critical, unless you free your mind from the accumulated garbage of life around you, it will almost always function at sub optimal levels, leaving you always struggling between your past- present and future and hence your wanting to be “In the now” will always seem to be elusive and stressful!

The “now” can be empowering only if it is deployed and worked upon in the way that takes you closer to your meaningful aspirations! Once you have decently de-cluttered your life, your mind will have more band width to deal with what is around you- your ability to observe and inference in the “present” will acquire a completely new level of potency and that is how you will begin to know that you have arrived “in your now”. You will start to see meaningful patterns- that nourish you and at the same time you will be able to identify patterns that seem helpful but are actually robbing you off vital time and energy for no real reason! As you continue to work and move ahead with this kind of awareness and ability to sieve through fleeting moments with a sharp focus- you will be able to stay more and more in the moments that you behold and deploy the best you can at all that you do- whether it is your office desk job, the novel that you are writing, the painting that you are at or perhaps just the travel you are embarking upon or even may be that meaningful dialogue at business or that time with qualified friends and family each of these elements will begin to create more value and in return you will be to create more lasting value!

I leave you here with these thoughts for now, so that as you race ahead for your much awaited weekend, perhaps you will be able to think about “how you want to be in the Now” and for what and in case you are the lucky one who already has been practising and thinks is “in the now” , well make it more potent, is all that I can say! Human lives are nothing more than fleeting moments- what we are able to create through them goes on to signify many different things at many different times in different contexts- there is nothing right or wrong about how you choose to live- what is wrong- is not correcting when you know you can and you should- especially when you have options around you that can amplify your creative excellence further, and one such potent approach is being meaningfully and intentionally, “IN THE NOW”!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another piece, until then stay wise and stay plugged into your today!

The anatomy of a crisis.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why wise people make dumb choices.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

Whether it is about the individual decision that you took pertaining to some space of your life or whether it is the collective decision of an “empowered” group at work or in the society to vote for that project or that politician- each of these decisions sooner or later come under intense scrutiny and often leave us wondering “why the hell did that even happen!” “What the f**k was anyone thinking”! Life is replete with instances like these and many more, but before you rush to think that this is about bad choices or bad decision making- well the whole focus is not on what choice was exercised but on the vital component, “the people” who manifested the choices the way they choose actions to help that happen! Join me here as we take a quick look to understand what really unfolds in this space and why wise people end up making screwed up choices either for themselves or for everyone around! So here we go!

The real problem with our new age is that the line between “being wise” and “seeming to be wise” is blurred and still worse is intertwined! You see, for some reason, we believe in belief’s which are absolutely stupid to begin with and it is belief’s like these which contribute to creating chaos around the real wise and the apparent wise! Given the paucity of time that each of us have at hand and the flood of distractions and inherent lack of focus (don’t forget we are humans, not a jaguar or a puma to excel at focus) often end up up compelling people to click that button or say that “YES” or “NO” without applying any methodical thought or rationalized thinking! The result, well yes, actions and decisions which are then either corrected, repealed or altered in the times ahead at a huge cost of wasted human hours, lives and needless to say money! Sounds familiar? Well, yes this is how governments work- they work on what I call as “Allowable risk of dumbness over inaction” . In this space, when enough information is not available or is available and tends to be beyond comprehension of the holder of that data- the simple choice often made by people on the chair is- what is the loss for doing nothing and what is the loss for doing something with what I know- based on which option is more favorable the button is pushed through and this is why much of humanity and societies around the world end up seeing the same road being dug up a thousand time and redone that many time, all the while solving nothing!

If you thought, that this was limited to only the world of governments, well think again! The hyped world of corporate czars is no different! Gone are the days when leaders within the corporate corridors had time, wisdom and the ability to exercise a choice when it came to take action on a decision made- stakes for failure were high then and rewards for success too were great. What we witness now is, the same hurry to send that mail, say “YES” to a client and then struggle all through to provide what as agreed to! Whether it is the struggle of getting the right people to work (because even gate-keepers begin to make choices based on what the budget is, rather what is required) or getting the right product or service launched, or the right market understood well, choose any facet of the corporate world, here too you will witness a situation where day in and day out leaders in a hurry are more and more choosing between what is on the table and choosing in the now- never realizing how that will dent their tomorrow- for they know very well, tomorrow they are not here to sort out that mess! So now the million dollar question, why do we do this to begin with and what is that we can do and not to manage this?

One unmistakable cause that leads to this inducement of dumbness is the “Rush” factor, wanting to complete and do everything with an intent to “finish it off”, “off my table” rather than wanting to complete it in the essence of “it has been done the right way” or “it has been done to the best of my ability in the context it was presented”! Alongside this we have a world replete with examples where incompetence has been a measure to calibrate or trim leadership and as this happens, needles to say there is considerable chaos and ambiguity in proportion to the acquired level of incompetence. So, when you see wise people end up doing dumb things, it is almost always a factor of either of these two factors or a combination of them.

When it comes to managing, if not being able to completely avoid this issue, one approach that always works is to have checks and balances and ensure that there are always more than one entity to take a major call! Sure enough, this sets up the space whether it be political or corporate for the fallacy of groupthink, but if we end up having “groupthink” going wrong, then you can be pretty sure that the matter really is deep rooted and emerges from the society itself! In those scenarios then, corrective measures are more about community re-wiring and re-building. Group Think and Collective Decision making is perhaps the only way to stall the “rush” and “do away with” approach than over taxed, dis-engaged people may often deploy either owing to compulsions either personal or systemic! You may want to argue, that always group think is not possible, whatever would happen to individual genius and so on and so forth, well the answer to that resides in the question itself, genius never take the “rush” or “do away with” approach to begin with and secondly as far as secrecy parameters of business related collective decision making are concerned, these can be smartly managed by timing and sharing elements of content on a need-to-know basis, which can be then analyzed holistically to arrive are a more well-informed decision- which rides on a foundation of inputs form a group- which the group may or may not be aware of!

So, in a way when wise people do end up doing dumb things/decisions it’s almost always a story of the compelling contexts around them and when those get amplified by their intrinsic dispositions that alteration goes on to create more skewed approaches/attitudes that limit the application of “ability to rationalize and think” resulting in poor or ill-informed decisions which in one or the other way come back to bite!

The human mind is very potent at determining patterns of action/ inaction and those instances of half-thinking which do not get one killed and assimilate them as allowable patterns of thinking, which further goes on to compound problems! This is why many a times, when you find people doing dumb things, you will almost always find them soaked into it and enjoying it like nothing else!

I leave your with these for now, urging you to reflect on the time when you unwittingly contributed to or became a part of this un-serving space of dumb decision making and what did you do to emerge out- for that is your master-key to steer clear from any such future episodes and always remember , great things take time and group think when done right can help more than the harm it can cause when implemented with flaws!

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

Distributed Leadership through People.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

The last few years have seen the rise and rise of something that I like to call as “Distributed Leadership”, other names to this space are “people movement”, “leaderless agitations”, “apolitical unrest” and so on and so forth! Depending on which part of the world you reside in and how allowing the government of the day is, you will come across the example of Distributed Leadership in varying degrees of intensity, aggression and intent. Join me here as we take a quick look into what this is all about, and how we can tap the energy of this attribute to work for us and when can it falter and how do we keep it under check? So here we go!

The past few years, in fact quite a few of them, the world has been a witness to unrest, agitation and rift among various sections of societies and more often than not the collective voice of people has been directed towards the people who govern (or should I say mis-govern), what has largely changed is, unlike earlier times, when these were lead and systematically planned by one political outfit or ideology to topple the other, this time around many of these agitations and unrest episodes have been the strong, uncensored, relentless and direct simply because these were the voices of people who were not engaging with a stronger opposition as individual members of a society, but rather as a collective team of individual leaders- this is the dawn of “Distributed Leadership”.

If you are wondering why would this happen, when societies most of the times have ideologies to voice out societal concerns and raise issues with those who govern; well it is precisely when these fail and when people have lost all faith and trust in them that they are not left with any other option but to take the things into their own hands and formulate and come up with virtually “leaderless collective” which goes on to play a pivotal role in the emerging fabric of a new reorganized social fabric!

When people begin to loose faith among the elected/ nominated leaders and their leadership, they are left with no other choice but to take things into their own hands- call it coercive empowerment if you like, but when this potent force is used well, timely and for a just cause, even the most seemingly unrelenting governing bodies seem to get ready to come to the table for discussions and finding a mid-way- this in social space is known as public face saving! Well we have witnessed this, union movement, union talks with governing bodies of large organization, in the more recent times, the ability of professional bodies and trade organizations to negotiate and arrive at solutions which are more workable all of these are nothing but an impact of the leaderless movements and stimulus which begin everything that finally reaches on a potent table to find the way ahead! The question here is, why would elected or nominated leaders not do what they have been elected/selected to do and perform? Why would they want things in society to reach these levels?

Leaders are human too and they will fail for sure, the question is never about, “If they will fail; it is always about “When will they fail” and life being what it is, sooner or later even the best of leaders that you may have will be presented with a challenge which simply ends up being beyond their capacity to resolve- either there is limitation through Incompetence- Intrinsic or by virtue of the wrong people who have been allowed to rally around the Leader. Whether you consider a small organization having 100 people or large corporate houses or even perhaps the running of a nation- the failure of leadership is only possible when leadership Incompetence begins to precipitate and once that happens it is only a matter of time that as alternatives within the working frame collapse one after the other- society gets more and more restless and eventually you have these mass protests and voices on the street communicating what matters the most- as long as they are heeded and understood, there is still time to salvage the leader and the leadership, but for some real insane reason if leaders get advised to embark on the confrontational route- well total collapse of the leader and the leadership is eminent – sooner or later- because instances like those are never forgotten neither forgiven from the public memory once they are etched!

Another great blessing in disguise emerging from the space of people movement is the promise of a whole new breed of leaders, who are driven by set of values, principles and believe in the cause that they stand up for and are ready to brave what comes their way- sending out important signals to the community that they now have alternatives, which are importantly connected with how the society feels- which by itself is so vital to bring about any meaningful change or transformation that governing bodies may want to embark upon- whether they are community services of the government’s of the day or large organisation with considerable community foot-print in a given area.

If you think that people movement is always about those protests on the roads- well think again- it happens all the time- that blog you follow, that writer who inspires, that Ministry which motivates you, the fellow worker who makes you want to join the team, the stories you want to let your kids and the future generations know, factors like these and many other go on to ensure that when the times get tough, people will rise, slowly but surely and in whatever limited way they can- If they can’t be on the street they will through their thoughts or actions, no matter how small they seem to be- collaborate, communicate and engage to keep the momentum going on, like the ashed out cinders in a fireplace- always warm enough to provide that spark and rekindle a new fire- that is what the essence of distributed leadership through people really is!

Nominated or Elected Leaders are comprehensively powerless until and unless they have this loyal base which goes on to work all the time promoting and striving to live up to the promise of what has been communicated from the very top! Say the leader of a nation appeals to their citizens to make that nation great again! Well unless citizens don’t add to the equation and do what each one of them can do in their own small or big way- the dream will always end up being a dream and if you really begin to experience change and an impact- then you surely know that there is this huge army of nameless leaders who are slowly but effectively contributing to the cause and ensuring that dream gets to see the light of the day!

If you are wondering can this space of People led Leadership movement be kept under check, well the answer is YES and NO, Yes, if it seems to threaten the fundamental fabric of a society or nation or tends to bring about great danger to humanity, the the nominated and elected class will clamp down- hard and fast and NO if the incompetence levels have been so terrible that they are actually putting the society and nation at risk to a point from where recovery seems impossible! As with a nation, likewise with other facets, as long as the threats are low to moderate and not a severe threat people movements will come and go- with limited impacts, but when the the threats seems to be severe, they sustain, linger, and tend to keep coming back for one or the other reason on an ongoing basis and to make matters complicated- the more effort that is made to clamp them down- the more resurgent they seem to become! There is never an absolute right and wrong when it comes to humanity and the truth always lingers somewhere between the extreme options that a society is always presented with!

I will leave you with these thoughts here, urging you to witness the next people movement/protest/agitation/ rift through the lens of leadership incompetence and social rewiring- for that is what it really always is and will be! Sometimes it happens dramatically on the streets and other times it is happenings in quiet corridors of power and the shop floors of factories when people assume Individual Leadership- no title- no designation- Leadership by Action to support and further the cause that they have aligned themselves to! This is the real secret about how human societies make progress even through the most challenging and daunting times and every time we miss to see this, rest assured we miss out on vital cues to decipher and decode what’s unfolding in the future- both the short term and the long term of it!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then stay wise, stay safe and be the Leader that you can be and always remembers Leaders don’t need labels- they earn them as they do what they set out to do!

The Gate-Keeper.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

The humble gate-keeper’s are the root cause for all the progress and problems that we see all the time as they manifest and play out around us! Whether its is about writing the story of political success or disasters or it is about organisations doing well at one point and then going down the drain in a few years, among the many other contributing factors, the silent passive role of the gate-keeper is almost always one of the reasons for all that manifests- it is the space when “too much” or “too little” from the gate-keepers goes on to create and manifest realities that no one want’s to embrace! Join me here as we undertake this journey to understand what really happens when gate-keepers misfire and what is that we can do to plug that bit so that we don’t end up fighting battles which are best avoided!

Unlike popular belief, gate-keepers are everywhere and every level, whether you want to start with your home, the community you live in, the work place that you go to or the business engagements that you are part of or if you are lucky enough to witness the building up and falling down of political fortunes of politicians and nations, each and every space around these aspects of our life are driven by gate-keepers- their effectiveness and balanced thinking is what propels societies collectively further and ahead and when they get mentally fatigued or confused, well, yes the social segment impacted begins to seem like a part of a zombie apocalypse movie! So what do these people really do, or should I say what is that they are really to do and why and how that helps to begin with?

Well, the easiest example of gate-keepers that you and I would have come across would be those fabled folks from the “HR” departments or from those “secretarial” areas where we spend much of our corporate life either hiring/firing people, dealing with them and their real and apparent skills (those mentioned on the papers) and trying to make that sale (once we are able to get appointments!) respectively! But it is is spaces like these of the corporate world oblivious to the C”X”O’s team and the so called “A” Teams or “Strategic Thinkers” a lot of talent gets wasted and a lot of incompetence gets added even as the higher ups continue to keep writing theories and attend conferences and networking events speaking about how they and their organization is ready for the future! We all have come across the normal painful and dumb practise of the “HR” wanting to know how long an individual will last, if selected and so on and so forth, not realizing that they are in fact hiring because a person who has left the organization was the one they had selected because that person was going to hang around for a long time! Then you have other instances when “empowered groups” are asked to validate new ideas (even as they suffer from some severe intellectual incomprehensibility) and many great ideas are either then killed before they come alive, or the people with great ideas leave and start on their own or worse still this educated evaluation body ends up selecting the worst idea (which is in line with their limited understanding and intelligence) thereby setting up the organization for its own slow and systematic demise.

The problems with the gate-keepers begins as soon as you end up having the wrong people to keep the gates! You see, over critical, over anxious people are really never too dependable when it’s crunch time, for they will screw up for sure and the magnitude of their stupidity can cause damages worth millions- which at times are even not realized unless that new competition comes up and that’s when the people say, “Oh that person used to be working here, next to me!”. Organizations end up paying the price for having the wrong gate-keepers and at times this folly can be fatal to the enterprise’s existence! But then why would anyone in their right mind end up deputing the wrong or an intellectually stagnated gate-keeper?

Well the, answer to this question we must realize that intelligence as a currency is worthless if it is not updated and fine tuned to what the contextual reality is in the moment and needs to be validated and certified on an ongoing basis, this is what makes intelligence so fragile and both- useful and useless at the same time! Don’t believe it ask your friend who had to deal with a salesperson for an hour on a Monday morning, simply because the secretary got outwitted to end up giving that appointment! As far as inability to comprehend the “next big idea” well the whole world is full of examples of how erstwhile colleagues ended up being business competition, simply because someone did not pay heed and attention when it mattered the most! In all probability because someone said, investing that time on an idea- whose time had not arrived- was not worthwhile- all this as “they thought”!

If you thought, corporate gate-keeping was damaging enough (when not practiced the right way), imagine or should I say don’t imagine the kind of mess it can lead societies and nations into when governments of the day end up having intellectually starved officials/ bureaucrats as gate-keepers and policy collaborators for them! This is what empowers corruption, slyness, chaos and ambiguity and whether you are a developed nation or an emerging one or a small nation- doesn’t matter- each nation and society on this planet has this rare breed of failing and faltering governmental gate-keepers in equal measure to the level of political incompetence and societal indifference that is played out! The only aspect (where it differs from the corporate world) about governmental or political gate-keeping going wrong is not about another nation picking up an idea- but ending up providing other nations with multiple opportunities on account of one mistake at gate-keeping related to one subject matter! So if you run a nation, now you know why a lot of politicians end up ruining the nation rather then running it! When multiple gate-keepers fail one after the other even if the political outfit or the government of the day has the best intentions to provide great governance can come to a nought and fail miserably!

By now if you are thanking your stars and thinking that gate-keeping and problems arising from improper or reckless gate-keeping are limited to the corporate world and the political universe, well think again- with like everything else that is human- believe it or not- this gate-keeping begins at home- like charity does and the innocent looking approaches of “not this”, “do this and not that”, go on to often calibrate potential of individuals and end of the day, before you realsie you have already ended up walking on a path which is nothing what you would have really wanted to – had you got a choice- which is what great gate-keeping always does provide!

Great gate-keeping and great Gate-Keepers are often iconic simply because the value that they are able to create by what they effectively do is astronomical- whether it is the ability to get the right candidate to lead a community or a society, or the ability to spot a fine talent who can be then molded into a visionary corporate leader or that finesse to know the next solutions and services that society eagerly awaits- each and every space around factors like these and beyond is often dotted around with some fine gate-keepers who are constantly sieving and evaluating the “next best story” over the horizon. It is their ability to tap into the idea whose time has come at the time that one should- is what makes them truly iconic and a blessing for humanity the world over! So what sets these iconic gate-keepers apart from the mediocre ones’?

Intent and Interest- Iconic gate-keepers are like those curiosity driven babies who want to constantly explore, evaluate and understand what the surroundings are communicating- through people and through objects and through patterns that come and go! This ability of wanting to know more alongside a laser sharp focus on what is that they are hunting for- whether it is talent, Corporate leaders, a Political successor, a great takeover, whatever that is on their agenda- is what makes them so potent and successful- sure enough being human and the fact that they deal with humans- they too will fail at times – but what matters is that their success rate and success magnitude far outweigh their losses and hence what stand out almost always are the stories of the wars that they have won and not about the battles that they have lost!

I leave you here with these thoughts for now, allowing you to practise and reflect upon your own individual style of gate-keeping and do ponder about the times of your life when gate-keeping helped you and when it backfired and how all of that has helped you become who you have become until now! The story of gate-keepers and gate-keeping is a story of humankind’s endless pursuit to reach their aspirations and doing it in the most effective and efficient manner!

Ciao for now, will be back son with another one! Until then be the gate-keeper you want to meet when you knock on the gates- that you desire to be opened for you!

Embracing Incompetence.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ 1 Comment

I would have with ease chosen the word competence over incompetence, but this one is all about Incompetence and if 2020 was nightmare owing to a pandemic, the next one 2021- will be another pandemic, a pandemic of failing leaders and faltering competence! Join me here as we take a quick look around this bit and try to understand the what is likely to unfold and what is that we can do or not do about it. So here we go!

No matter where you stay and what you do, chances are that either you have been at the receiving end of the societal incompetence issues or you have unwittingly contributed to manifest and accelerate them- only to come back to bite you! Whether it is the problems that you are facing with the meaningless barrage of rules through the pandemic- some of them being absolutely stupid and dumb! or it is about the new found and ever increasing challenges of engaging with more and more dumb people reporting into you and you reporting into- all of this is nothing more but the curtain raiser to the new age of human incompetence that all of us are going to end up embracing in the times ahead! For a few of us that will be a choice to deal with,but for the majority of human kind this is going to be an inescapable nightmare to deal with day in and day out and well, I have not yet added that incompetence creeping into your inner circle of family and friends for as and when that manifests- you will really have no place to hide or run! The only blessing being at least you have a choice to decide on your inner circle and if you end up making the insane choices- it will only go on to speak more about you rather then the people that you have ended up adding to your life!

The plain and simple fact remains that human incompetence is neither rare nor uncommon, in fact it is perhaps the singular trait that binds humanity like none other! Surprised? Well don’t have to be! Each one of us is always working at our levels of acquired incompetence, sure enough none of that is static and levels of incompetence will keep altering based on the dumbness and intelligence that people garner along the way! So how does it all begins and where does this all start? Well read on!

Incompetence is a societal phenomenon- for the simple reason that incompetence doesn’t work or show up in isolation! It is only when there are some agreed and given metrics to which things don’t measure up, is that the whole concept begins to get noticed!Societies too on their part don’t necessarily promote incompetence, but the established norms and agreed way of life and work contribute to a great extent in ensuring that there is a systemic replacement of intelligence with dumbness over a period of time and this is what really acts as a fuel to the fodder of incompetence and believe it or not all of this begins in our homes and schools!

Incompetence is systematically drilled down through schooling and parenting and later on through the so-called work culture to ensure that every valid bit of sanity and intelligence is done away with and people learn to settle for mediocre experiences in all that they get to do! This is why, people settle for the whole “ok” and “will work” or “will do for now” maxim even as they end up paying for a service which is supposed to be “best in class” each and every time! remember the last time you picked up your favorite handset and as it crashed when you rushed to the service centre what that experience was like? Well, chances are you would have received a far different learning about humanity and the whole concept of “smart marketing” would have left you wonder-struck!

You see, the incompetence that you get to witness play out all around you is not a factor of the dumbness of the individual or the collective group think (which again resides on the individual dumbness of people in the group), but rather is a factor of the success rate to which the minds of these people have been numbed to such a point that for everything in the world- they have to and need to only reach out for their favorite web browser and whatever garbage that throws up is the divine gospel of their life! But why does this happen, aren’t people with working minds suppose to be suave and wise? Well, certainly they are supposed to be, but when these very minds are systematically hacked and programmed to think and relate in a templated pattern of recurring and recycled thought patterns, they are never able to see anything original and every attempt to present these blinded minds with meaningful context goes for a toss, simply because these blinded minds are simply unable to latch onto anything original and they are automatically driven towards templated patterns and programmed thoughts. This goes on and on, and over a period of time our very potent minds, ends up just being an execution device rather than being a thinking powerhouse with a substantial loss of the ability to discern ,debate and think the way they should!

As societies strive to create more and more artificial intelligence, the natural intelligence is all but going to be surely wasted and that wasting intelligence often manifests and plays out as incompetence. Competent Leaders often struggle as they get incompetent team members to work along with and often competent workers get walked over when they have incompetent bosses to deal with, and if you are among those lucky yet unfortunate mid-level souls and should be sandwiched between two layers of incompetence above and below- well your life soon enough starts to look like a lunatic asylum from the Hollywood movies and that nightmare is strong enough to shake up even the most resolute and determined people around! Incompetence, as I said earlier need not necessarily mean the absence of intelligence or wit, it simply means the presence of overwhelming inertia to take that effort to do away with the cobwebs of the mind, stand up and question what is being presented and seek alternative pathways! The human mind- being the ardent follower of conservation of energy- relishes on the idea of rest- as long as it does not threaten your existence in the world and that innate hardwired animal brain- has a front row seat to the dumbness and stupidity of your life! This is one reason, why once you grow incrementally wiser, and as you look back at your poor life- you at some point will really stop and wonder- “wtf”, “how could I really do that”, “did I really do that” and so on and so forth!

Incompetence, if you ask me is a lifestyle disease- a dis-ease emerging out of the compelling need of not wanting to use one’s brain and rely on what an online search throws up or what the neighbor’s cat whispers! It is within these alleys that humanity is ending up doing great dis-service to it’s potential- both the individual and collective potential and as the equilibrium of the society keeps moving further and further into the space of being incompetent from being sporadically incompetent to consistently incompetent- societies begin to witness the exodus of the few remaining wise people around- for they realise there’s no medicine to this illness and the only remedy resides in the ability to safeguard their remaining intelligence and wit and apply it in societies and contexts where that would be welcome and rewarded the way to should be!

Societies the world over are progressive or regressive in proportion to their incompetence! As long as societies are able to check the growth and pace of incompetence by staying valid and competent, things are fine and these societies are needless to say innovative and leaders, if and when the equilibrium is altered and incompetence takes a grip, societies begin to experience regression and before that a puzzling stall as far as its directions and aspiration is concerned! So what’s the way forward?

The plain truth remains that the story of human incompetence is a social problem and it is something that we have allowed (willingly/ unwillingly) to grow and manifest both individually or collectively in different areas and spheres of our lives and needless to say this very incompetence then comes back to bite back at us through accidents, mishaps, errors, mistakes and what you have and then there are these two words to describe that space, “human error”. Incompetence is not a factor of someone being un-intelligent or dumb, rather it is a telling sign of intelligence not being used or rather being abused – using what you must for reasons other then what you must use for! You see, technically you can make a potato pickle, but we don’t do that!

To conclude for now, the only thing that we need to always remember is that Incompetence is not the absence of intelligence or with but rather the non-application of it for reasons that could be intrinsic or external. The way to defeat this, is to compel people to think and force thinking to arrive at alternative routes, innovative solutions and only when this approach becomes a new pattern, is that people will be able to stall the onward march of incompetence and ensure that solutions and approaches delivered and applied are always a product of applied intelligence and wit and not artificial intelligence driven by the inertia of incompetence! Sure enough, the times ahead will be more and more cluttered with examples and manifestations of incompetence all around, the only reassuring fact that will prevail within that space will be the beacons of intellect and wisdom shining in between those dim lit areas of humanity where incompetence seems to rule the minds!

I leave you here with these thoughts, urging you to think for a moment, what is that is driving you- is it your inertial incompetence or is it your directed intellect and wit!

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