Embrace the sharks

    

 Many years ago, Japanese fishers had a business challenge with the fishes they were delivering to their customers. After capturing the fish in the sea and by the time they reach the land shore, the fish died and lost their taste. The fishermen tried different processes to keep the fishes fresh till entering the land, but could not succeed. Finally, they came with the idea to put the captured fishes in a small tank along with a small shark.

     During the travel from deep sea to land, shark used to eat a few fishes. The rest of the fishes who fought with the shark to save the life looked fresh, energetic once they reach the land shore. What made the fishes energetic and fresh? The challenges those faced through shark made them fresh and dynamic.

     In our life also, either in business or personal life, we need more challenges like going beyond comfort, trying something new which we have not done earlier, surpassing our own limitations etc.The challenges make us more engaged and active.If we get challenges only from the survival perspective, life would be miserable. If the challenges are bringing more out of us, then it would be positive pressure.

The problems and challenges are meant to bring a new personality of you. Let us embrace the real challenges or shark in our life

What one trait differentiates achievers and non achievers?

                                                   

When Bill Gates and Warren Buffets were asked individually to write one trait that made them success in business, they responded with one answer, that is FOCUS.

In our profession, either working as employee or business owner, we are fairly knowledgeable about our work, we are skilled enough to plan and execute, but why do we find struggle to achieve our targets? It is mainly in the mindset towards our attention or FOCUS.

The process of being more focused:

1. Decide what we want and what is important for professional success
2. Priorities the action regarding DAILY, WEEKLY, MONTHLY, QUARTERLY, ANNUALLY 
3. Execute what may come 

In fact, nowadays there are more distracters like WhatsApp, Facebook, mails, and calls from anyone, but in my opinion, they are all manageable if we are clear on what we want to focus. Since there is no clarity on what is our priority and we succumb to external distracters. 

Personally, I know one of my entrepreneur's friend with many successful ventures, has a habit of checking mails only once in a day, that too in specific time period.This habit increases his personal productivity and enables to focus on what the priority.The point is all distractions are external, the question must be are we clear on our priority and what we want..That differentiate achievers and nonachievers 

Why should we celebrate even small success?

    

One way of motivating ourselves is to celebrate even the small success on our own way .when we celebrate the success, the happiness feeling associated with celebration reinforces positive motivation, in turn, pushes us to achieve more.This is the psychological effect of celebration.

    At a personal level, the definition of success could be anything.For example, if you set the goal of reducing weight by 3 kg and even if achieve 1 kg reduction, that is the success and needs to be celebrated.Celebrate it on your way. It could be anything, even expressing your happiness to your dear ones. This happiness feeling will give you the motivation to reduce further weight.

    Similarly, in organizational setup, even small achievement of success towards big target must be celebrated with the team in the form communication, appreciation, gifting, etc.This will bring more positiveness inside the organization, and eventually, that becomes the culture of winning mindset.

   The point is irrespective of the size of the success; you need to celebrate and feel happy about your achievement that will give internal motivation to move up further. Your state of mind and happiness is important to achieve anything and celebration is one way of keeping you in a positive state.

Hence, strive for success and celebrate and achieve more success!!!

Why some people grows fast ?

     As you might have observed that some people are progressing fast in their career path and some people are not progressing enough despite their potential.Even though there may be many external factors contribute to the growth, the choice of mindset and personal qualities exhibited by the individual contributes significantly. The individual either possesses  a growth mindset or survival mindset and accordingly  demonstrates the behavior in a professional environment.

Let us understand the two categories of people  and qualities

Growth Mindset  and qualities:

•    They  always  eager to learn something new  
•    They accept the challenges and  do the mental risk calculation 
•    Always look for the opportunity  to contribute during interaction, crisis moment and do their best 
•    They do not bother much about  their defined target set by  others and go beyond 
•    Their  thinking and solution approach is  always one step ahead of current titles  

Survival  Mindset and qualities:

•    They do what is given or asked to do 
•    When opportunities were given, they have always found the reason why can not be done
•    Being in the same environment, they are always complaining  others
•    They always depend on  someone or forum to take a decision 
•    They refer to the rules and processes frequently
   
Being in survival mindset is not a big issue if it is a conscious choice of the individual.However,  the awareness of the above mindset will help you to change yourself into a growth mindset and enhance the career growth.

What to do when others hurt you?

You might have come across a situation someone had hurt you by their words or action  either by family members or by your colleagues or business partners .As a chain reaction, you would be thinking of the person or event for a longer duration say days, weeks ,even for years !!.Internally you would be feeling of resentment or bitterness about the person or event.

How this feeling of resentment affects you?

It affects your physical health and also your mental strength, in turn affects your quality of your work.

How to handle this feeling of resentment?

Only by way of forgiving. We had learnt the different definition of forgiveness from our education, ancestors, spiritual masters and some of us  think that forgiving mindset is beyond human capacity. Actually, forgiveness is not about forgetting the event or person which is practically difficult, but it is the ability to look at the person or event in a different perspective 

What are the different perspectives?

oThe other person hurt us with his words or action; because the person comes from different background and experience.He behaves with others too. Hence it is not your issue. This will calm you down to some extent
oHow do you behave in such a situation? This will help you to understand others
oLook at event’s or person‘s behavior with reference to a time frame, say after a year or 5 years from now. You may feel not to worth to worry too much.
o Life is too short and it is not worth to trade your peace of mind with that incident and move forward.

The above perspective will give strength to forgive the person or event. Ultimately your quality of life is important and how you choose the response makes a difference!!!!

Mind your intention while giving feedback

One of the routine activities we are doing every day either at home or in a professional environment is to give feedback to others for their behavior or performance.Have you wondered how many times the “pointing out “ or feedback ends up with disagreement, argument, resentment or silence vengeance from others?

One of the reasons could be the tone we use in our feedback conversation. The quality of tone comes from our intentions.If our intention is to find fault with others and if we use the feedback as an opportunity, our tone will be more of commanding, sound .dictating and harsh.This results only in reaction from others and leads to poor consequence only.Alternatively, if our intention is to correct or help the other person to improve his or her behavior or action next time, then our tone obviously would be with more empathy, kindness and gentle.

Your tone results into the consequence of either arguments or accepting your views in a positive perspective.Hence mind your intentions, which will take care of your tone which will, in turn, take care of the quality of relationship with others.

“What should I do when I cannot get?”

A young businessman was struggling to make his life, and he could not find the right path to overcome his troubles. One day he met a Buddhist saint and approached him for an answer. He asked Saint, “I am trying so many things in life, but I am not getting what I want. So my question is what should I do when I cannot find what I am looking for?”

The saint listened patiently and asked the young man to come and meet him the next day morning. The Youngman disappointed, but still, he wanted the answer and hence visited the saint next day. The saint took him to the open field which was littered with small and big rocks. The saint said, “If you want the answer to your question you have to fulfill a task by today evening. There are a hundred rocks, and I have hidden ten gold coins under some rocks. Your task is to find the gold coin and return to me by evening”.

The young man got irritated with this tasks, and yet he wanted the answer from the saint, he labored all the day to remove all rocks to find the gold coin, by the end of the day, he could find ten coins. He returned to the Saint and offered the coins for the exchange of answer.

The saint looked at the young man and said “you might have got the answer from the task. When you are looking for something (coin) that you could not found under all rocks, you did not give up. You believed my words and kept on searching under all rocks and finally got it. Life is also like that. When you are destined for something by God, have faith, keep on doing your work, one day you will get what you suppose to get “.

The moral is never to give up your work; one day you will get rewarded.Have faith in him.

Do we need tough time to appreciate value ?

           Most of the time, we use to approach the aspects of life as granted. The reason could be we get  everything easily and we do not see much value in it. While everything goes right, our tendency to assume that it happens due to our brilliance or effort and hesitate to appreciate the giftedness which we have got through this life.

        To balance this mindset only, nature always plays with balance and equanimity principle. To appreciate the value of life and its blessings, challenges or difficulties are given

For example, 

When we get sick, we appreciate the value of fitness and respect the physical body
When we lose materialistically, we appreciate the value of hard earned money
When we are alone, we appreciate the value of relationships 
When we are undergoing the tough times, we appreciate the value of mental strength and self-development
We appreciate the value of light when we are in darkness

         It does not mean just to appreciate the value of life, one need to undergo all the troubles in life. With a little bit of awareness, gratitude and balanced approach, we can appreciate everything that happens in our life.

Autobiography of a yogi

Autobiography of a Yogi is a journey of about a boy in search of God, the saints he meets in his life and his experience with them and path of self-realization, etc.

This book will give some perspective about the spiritual process of self-realization, ideas about some of the yogis’ lived in India and their contribution for spiritual awakening to the world.It is nothing to do with religions and rituals.

Since this classic book is available in all Indian languages and flow is simple and easy to read, recommend to read this book for enhancing the perspectives about life and spiritual process.

You can cultivate a positive culture

In one of my known organization, the CEO starts his monthly review meeting by first reviewing the employee engagement aspects like safety issues, employee participation levels, recognition, etc. then only he reviews other business deliverables. Over a period, this practice becomes the culture of the organization. The people under him also are giving first preference to employee engagement aspects, and now the organization stood great as employee preferred organization. 

Similarly, in another organization, the head always keen at delivery performance irrespective of any factors and his entire team also oriented to the practice. Now the culture of the organization is to deliver target irrespective of profitability, quality level or process adherence, etc.

Even in the home, if parents watch TV while eating, then the children also follow the same, then, over a period, it will become a culture of that family.

The point is we are not discussing the behavior is right or not. The person at influencing level cultivates the culture either good or bad, not the other way around as followers cultivate the culture. If you are at influencing state and if you do consistently same way, that will become practice and culture of your place.

Irrespective of your designation, you are the leader in your work or home. Influence positive and right things consistently, that will become a practice and culture in your workplace or home.