Keep Investing in yourself

A bird asked a BEE, “After continuous hard work, you develop the honey, but a man steals the honey… Do you not feel sorry about that? Then the Bee replied,“Never... because a man can only steal my honey, NOT the art of making honey...”

In professional life, sometime you may face a situation someone takes credit for your work, and your recognition may get delayed.It is just got delayed, not denial.Those are temporary setbacks and your skill, innate talent is unique. No one can take away from it. You will get recognized for what you deserve and what you possess.

Those skill, talent, knowledge are acquired only by investing your time/energy in sharpening yourself through observation, reading, venturing into new things, exploring new opportunities and so on. Invest yourself and upgrade yourself. That will be with you always. Keep investing in your skill and talent development.That will be the permanent asset and high return on investment! 

How do you label yourself?

To achieve success in personal and professional life, what you think and feel about you is more important than what others perceive you. Sometimes, we label ourselves in a certain way that makes much difference in achieving success.

For example, if you think yourself as a leader for your team, your behavior and actions would be in line with leadership mindset. If you feel and label yourself as an introvert, most of the time, you would get more energy in solitude state only. The point is what you believe yourself repeatedly, and label yourself would manifest externally.

We use to hear the some of the following phrases from executives and CEO’s  as they label themselves. Eventually, the label would form their personality.

I am not a  team player, but individually good contributor
I am not good at finance management
I am technical person and not good at business management 
I am not competent person to handle cross-functional teams
I am poor in time management

However, we have seen from our experience; some people have changed their self-restricted labeling to positive labeling with little awareness and practice

The point is just to be aware of some of the labels you are giving yourself and check whether it is useful or not.If not, work on it and reshape your personality!

Focus on one change at a time

One of the lingering question most of us have in mind is “how to manage my time or how to improve my personal productivity?

To find the solution, we may get into googling for finding tips on time management techniques and even in getting into Apps downloading. Even though those help in initial stages, but managing those itself become time-consuming! The real change starts from WITHIN.

From your lifestyle, just figure out which one thing is the biggest time killer or obstacles to your productivity or find out what is one thing would save your time if it were removed from your daily practices. It could be Facebook, WhatsApp, desk management, repeated browsing of mail check etc.

Find it and work only on this improvement idea consistently rather than taking too much at a time and not completing anything at the end.

Start with one change and work on it. Your productivity will improve! Time management is not about managing time, it is managing our mind and priorities!

Future is not same as past

Both personal and professional life, we tend to look at the past, its experience and based on it, try to drive the current and future strategies. In this process, we tend to believe and give overweight on the experience and success or failure factors.
If the past is quite successful, we tend to give overweight on the experience and rely on the same strategy and tactics to drive the business 
If the past is quite a failure, we tend to give overweight on the experience and give up trying new ideas.

However, future is not same as past as most of the parameters are changed like assumptions, environment, people, timing and of course you also evolved. What worked out past earlier may not be necessarily relevant now.

For example, what strategies you used to build an organization of size 10  crores may not be workable for building an organization of size 20 crores.Mainly the business environment, customers, people are changed.
Likewise, what worked out for you at a managerial position may not workable when you are at a senior leadership level.

Similarly, what not worked out earlier, may work now for the same reason.

The point is that experience or legacy alone will not drive your future.Too much dependence on the past or legacy may not work forever.You need to continually drive new initiatives or effort to be successful in personal and professional life as everything is changing!

Who packs your parachute?

Charles Plumb was a USA navy jet pilot. On his seventy-sixth combat missions, he was shot down and parachuted into enemy territory. He was captured, spent six years in prison and he survived.Now he became a motivational speaker on managing adversity in life.

In most of his seminars, he used to ask his audience “who packs your parachute?  Meaning that who helps you through your life?

His realization was that the person who packed his parachutes held his lives from falling from the jet and he remembered that unknown person with gratitude.His message is in everyone‘s life, some unknown people are helping selflessly either physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually. Are we recognizing those unknown people and expressing our gratitude? 

This is a powerful metaphor for us to acknowledge the people who come across in our lives and help us in a different way.

If they are known people like your parents, teachers, siblings, spouse, children, colleagues, business partners, clients, then be grateful to them for your actions! 

If they are unknown, at least recognize and express your feeling of gratitude. That feeling, vibration makes a difference to you and to the unknown.

Let us understand and challenge

There was a spiritual teacher who used to conduct a Satsang (group meeting) every evening with his disciples in his ashram.In the same premises, there was a cat who lived and made noises during Satsang times and the teacher ordered the team that during Satsang times cat can be tied up. This “tying up the cat “event became a practice in the ashram.

Some years later, the teacher died, but new teacher came, but cat continued to be tied up.Eventually, the cat also died, but the team brought another cat and tied.

The year later learned followers of the spiritual teacher wrote scholarly essays, the thesis about the religious significance of tying up a cat for Satsang and its effectiveness!!

We can relate this story in our personal and professional life as we continue to do something either without understanding the science behind it or never question the status quo as if everything is fixed as customary practices!

Relook at your habits, business practices as it may uncover some of the Satsang tied up cats!! 

When your inherent strength turns out weakness?

Inherently, each one of us gifted with positive qualities or strength to manage the personal or professional challenges.For example, the strength could be honesty, focusing on result, straightforwardness, decisiveness, confidence, etc .Those strengths will be boon for you during normal circumstances only. During a stressful time, when you use the same strength in overdose, it would become negative. During those time your inherent strength + some more positive strength to be used with consciousness.

Let me explain further 

For example, you may have strength “Confidence of getting things done from your colleagues.” During crisis time or when things are not going well as you expect, your tendency will be using your inherent strength. Further, you apply the “ confidence ”in overdose, it turns out as“arrogance," and the situation would become worst.

Highly effective people are aware of this paradox, and they always use further good qualities during crisis time and make the situation better. As in above example, along with confidence they use additional qualities such as being reflective + humility, then the result would be better.

To put it simply, during illness, when 100  mg antibiotics are not effective, we tend to go for 250 mg, ended up with more complication since the actual system needs  100 mg antibiotics + some other vitamin to overcome the illness, not just overdosage of same antibiotics.

The point is just to be aware of your inherent strength and use it appropriately. When you overuse the same strength during setbacks, it turnout weakness. Alternatively, in conjunction n with your inherent strength, apply other positive qualities as well.

Being busy is not being effective

       

Most of us have the tendency of “being busy always” either in professional or managing a business. Being busy in chasing money, success after success or even managing the challenges with the same approach.In this process, over a period of time, either we become addicted to the same methodology without evaluating its effectiveness or become so rigid in thinking process leads to ignoring other aspects of the relationship, quality of execution, next level growth, etc.

       Most of the highly effective people have one common pattern in their daily management process. That is they take a timeout from their regular work for reflection.Frequently, they use to take time for themselves and evaluate what is going on in their life, what is important, what needs to be changed, etc. This will give them clarity on the behavior to be dropped or adopted, the strategy to be modified or tuned, etc. for improving the quality of life and even manage the challenges in a different approach.

       Take time out frequently from being busy and get clarity on what is right and good for you and your surroundings. Finally what counts is your impact and quality of life!!

Why consistency is important in workplace ?

In most of the organizations, we can hear one common phrase “we have implemented it, but not continued and this will not work here”
Why do people come to conclusion as “no initiative will work in their workplace?". The reason is lack of consistency in implementation. 

In today’s internet world, there is not much ignorance of knowledge and know-how; it is only lack of consistency in implementation.

How this inconsistency will affect individual & Team?

When you implement some initiatives, not consistently follow it and eventually drop it, you are giving a subconscious message to yourself and team that you are not sensitive to results or incapable of execution. This inconsistency will impact the confidence of the leader at an individual level and encourage mediocre performance at the team level. The next time when you think of new initiative, old memory reinforces you about failure or low confidence pulls you down from taking action. The root cause for all consequence is inconsistency in implementation.

 So, in personal and professional level, if you take any initiative, be sure that you are consistent in your implementation even though you are relatively slow in taking a decision. Ultimately your consistent actions push up your confidence and your consistent actions inspire others to follow. This is one of the traits of leadership, i.e. consistency in thinking; talking and doing.You are meant to be a leader for others!!!!

Who is with you , past or future reminder?

We are always surrounded by two types of people and they influence the progress in personal and professional life. They are either past oriented or future oriented.

They display certain characterizes with us during any interactions 

Past-oriented:

They are more oriented towards past.Whenever  we  propose or suggest something, they immediately respond as follows 

"I had already tried this.it won’t work or I had done those days itself, nothing new".

Either way, like legacy or past wound memories, affect our progress on the proposal.

Future-oriented:

They are more oriented towards future, possibilities, and opportunities and always look for new. They are too optimistic or positive about new possibilities, but they may be encouraging you to progress.

In one of the interview, Google CEO Mr.Sundar Pitchai was asked about his selection as CEO and the reason for it. He replied with guessing that one of the reasons could be his practice of thinking and be interacting with his management team about the future possibilities of Google products and services. That may be one of the reasons he was chosen for this role.

The point is that legacy or past worries may not help today as the environment is keeping on change. The world is looking for futurist and who can think of new possibilities and opportunities.

Just be aware of your style of the thinking process and whom you are surrounded most of the time, past or future reminders?

Peace in the midst of the challenges

There was a king offered a prize to the artists who would paint the best picture to represent “PEACE”. Many artists tried and only two artists came for the final round.The king looked at both artists’ picture.

One picture was of a calm lake surrounded by peaceful mountains with green trees. Overhead there was a blue sky with white clouds.The picture looked cool and everyone felt this picture would win the prize.

The other picture also had mountains, but with rough surface and plain. The overhead was the sky with dark clouds, from which rain fell and lightning was also shown. This did not represent peaceful at all. But when the king looked closely, he saw behind the waterfall, a tiny bush growing in a crack in the rock. In the bush, a  bird had built the nest.The bird was sitting in perfect peace in midst of the lightning and raining.

The king chose the second picture and surprised all. He explained that peace does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise and trouble. Real peace means to be in the midst of all those troubles and still be calm in the heart. 

Moral of the story is that how we maintain our coolness and peace at heart amidst all the troubles and challenges in life.Some times we are disturbed due to external factors.Real maturity is being calm despite external challenges and this is what we need to learn.

Words mould your personality

There is no doubt that quality of thinking determines our quality of life. Equally the WORDS we use daily or frequently in personal & professional life determines our personality and quality of life. The type of words we use frequently either makes or hurts.

If we observe highly effective people, we may notice that they are very careful in choosing the words while speaking/writing  and they use mostly energizing words as much as possible. By that way, they are influencing others positively.

Some of the words frequently used by them

Thanks / Please / Help / challenge /well/ gifted/ blessing / appreciate/ excellence/ excellent/healthy/ wealthy / effort / goodwill / good / nice/ faith full / extraordinary/ grace/ possibilities / Responsibility / vision / inspiring / winning spirit  / happy/ opportunities, challenges /growth/ Success /grateful / learning

Those words are not cliché. They represent the person’s attitude towards life.
Just be aware of your words as they silently making an impact in your inner world which manifest as your personality externally.

Some people, they are gifted with right usage of words due to their upbringing and environment. But others, the good news is that it can be learned and inculcated with effort.

Pl SHARE to me some of the ENERGISING WORDS you come across as you use or from others!!!

Empathy –explained easily

Most of the communication and interpersonal relationship issues in the organization or in family arise when we are not understanding others from their perspective, from their thinking and feeling. This result in arguments, blaming, abusing and finally results in straining the quality of the relationship.

Everyone has their own stories and hardships. If we understand others, their thinking, their feeling, then our way of looking at them would be different as everyone is undergoing different emotions at any point in time and to deal with them, empathy is required.

I came across a below video which explains the empathy in a beautiful way and I understand that this is being used for educating medical professionals to treat others in an empathetic way …
Pl watch it when you have time …thanks to Cleveland clinics on education series

https://goo.gl/YqsP2H

Why are we reluctant to appreciate others?

One of the common complaints or phrases, I use to hear in an unorganized or small organization from employees is “I am not getting appreciation from my colleagues or manager”. In fact, it is not heard in a family environment, but it would be the hidden cause of all the domestic arguments and fights.It is particularly from spouse!

Why we are reluctant to appreciate others when they do even small good work?

The psychological reasons for this reluctance to appreciate others could be
Fear of losing control 
More of self-centered and thinking as if no time for anything else
Taking granted others as they are part of us 
Poor self-esteem or low confidence
Not being in awareness or always busy in something 

This needs self-introspection within us.

One of the studies said that the person needs to be in a positive frame of mind. If one is not in a positive state, he/she cannot able to appreciate others. Hence, appreciation is not for only motivating others, it is a measure of our wellness of mental strength. 

Relook your habit of appreciation of others and frequency, especially the people in your family and the people are working for you. It reflects your mental health. 

How to work with non likeminded people?

We enjoy what we do only when the colleagues, partners, teammates are in almost same wavelength, that is a similar thought process, acceptance, understandings about the intentions etc .However in reality, we may work with the people who may not be similar thought level. Practically you may not have an immediate solution to move away from them, the only option left out is to cope with them.

How to deal with those people?

Accept their qualities as such. The moment you accept them, you mentally prepare yourself to work with them

As you think more about them, you are developing negativity about others and reinforce your non-acceptance.

Think & distant yourself  beyond them as  life provides a lot of opportunities to enjoy and  then you  realize how small they are in your life

Least, you relate with nature.Nothing lasts forever like cyclic of day and night.Everything will change 

The point is you can not change all the things as you like, but you need to adapt to reality as ultimately you need to do a lot in a short span and your peace of mind is important!

No effort or experience is waste

In personal and business environments, sometimes we may feel upset when our work is not recognized as it supposed to be or when the effort does not produce right results. If you observe some highly effective people, they continue to be persistent in their efforts and moved on. It is more perspective on how they look at the at the efforts and result.

You may be aware of the incident that happened to Thomas Alva Edison as he had done thousands of experiments to find an alternative for lead in storage batteries, but could not succeed.. When one of his associate friends asked about his  guilt  about his effort vs. result, Thomas replied, “ I have got a lot of results from effort’s.Now i  know several thousand things that won’t work.This learning experience will help me to find the right alternative”. Rest of the history we know. 

Key learning’s from highly effective people's perspective

1. Result is not in our hand, but effort
2. Each effort is not a waste, it gives experience to us
3. Life is all about experience 
4. One experience leads to another experience, by the way, we mature 
5. Eventually, your effort  & experience produces results.

The point is how we look at each experience, effort, moments in life and move on! 

Is it ok?

As you may be aware of Oprah Winfrey, a famous American lady and known for a talk show. She conducted “The Oprah Winfrey Show"  for 25 years, by interviewing the celebrities and successful people in all fields. It is one of the long runs, the highest rated television program in the history. In one of the interviews, she said that in almost all the episodes, after the shooting, all the celebrities used to ask one question to her. That commonly asked question is “Is it ok?”

In my opinion, this question from celebrities and highly successful people convey the fundamental human traits. Irrespective of  background, level of achievement, status, every human being is craving for two things 

1.Continuous desire for improvement 
2.Looking for confirmation from others either feedback or pat on the back 

I feel this is something we need to realize to improve our relationships and help others to grow.

How can we apply this in our personal and professional life?

In all the dealings with others, we shall give appreciation to others to endorse their positive actions, or we can give feedback to help others to improve.This is what expected in all relationships implicitly!

Why is patience required for development ?

      

One of the most challenging tasks for self at a personal level or leaders in a business environment is to reach next level growth by changing self or inspiring others to change. The strange nature of the change management process is that it requires continuous effort on nurturing and the result may not be visible immediately. Without knowing the change management process and with impatience mentality, most of us, either give up the effort or getting into inferiority feeling or spoiling the relationship or environment.

        As you might have aware of a bamboo tree, it is different from other trees as it does not grow in the usual fashion. While most of the trees start growing steadily from the beginning, this Chinese bamboo tree does not even break the ground for the first four years. Then on the fifth year, this tree starts to grow at an amazing growth rate. It is said that within four to five weeks time, it even grows to 90 feet height. Actually, during the first four years, growth is not visible externally, but the tree has internally grown and made the roots strong. This nature reveals a lesson on our growth efforts on self-development or on other people development.

        Whatever efforts we put on self-development or people development, it works internally and needs time to be visible externally. Here the key point is your patience to go through the process makes you realize the result, especially on self development or people development.
       

Giving is noble

A young man traveled to Himalaya as pilgrim trip.He found a stone on the riverbed and he picked it as he knew the value of it. After returning home, he was showing the stones to his relatives and friends.One of the relatives also aware of the value of the stone and requested the young man to give it to him. 
Without any second thought, the young man gave the stone to the relative.

Some days later, the relative came back to the young man and returned back the stone. Surprised with the fact that he liked the stone very much, the young man asked him, “I know you are fond of stone, that is the reason, I have given it you. Why are you returning back now?”

The old man replied, “I know the materialistic value of this stone, but more than that there is something precious WITHIN you that enables you to give this stone to me. I wanted to possess that. That is more valuable than anything else!!

Moral:

It is not how big we are in terms of materialistic, it matters how generous we are in giving to others, either it could be knowledge, money, time etc. That attitude makes a difference between ordinary and extraordinary!

Moving from managing to coaching

One of the lesson or habit we need to learn when we grow either in personal or professional life is listening to others and allowing others to take a decision on their own.

Since we have grown up in an environment where obeying to senior’s instruction as perceived as discipline, the same mentality we are bringing in when we become an adult. We expect ourselves to give a bunch of advice to others and expect them to own. 

The real maturity of growth lies in when we move from managing to coaching. Everyone has to go through the path from managing to coaching.
For example, as a parent, we need to manage child as long as they are in childhood by giving advice on do’s and don’ts, getting into nitty gritty of all activities and decisions. That is fine as they are in childhood.When  they become an adult, the best way to manage them is to give the perspectives of pro’s and con’s of any decision and let them own the decision and consequence.

Similarly, when you are managing the people at a functional level, it is ok by giving advice and owning the result. When you move up the ladder into senior level, it is expected to make the people own the decision and your role is just to guide with possible approaches and their likely consequences.

When we continue to manage, stress crops in a relationship, ownership missing on the results from others. Just be aware of your level and role as manager or coach.