Wednesday 28 October 2015

Building Momentum

“Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”-Thomas Edison

              Many times, we have good ideas or intentions to do something to improve our profession to business, but we fail to convert those ideas into reality. When we see others to implement similar ideas, we use to regret or feel guilty. One of the reasons for not converting ideas into reality is a lack of building momentum the moment idea is conceived.

Building momentum is one way of giving a shape to  idea to the next stage.

For example,

If you have an idea or intention to visit a foreign country, you can build momentum immediately by getting  as much as information about the place, cost of travel, culture, weather  etc.. This action  may propel you to next step and so on..

If you have idea to diversify your business into a new product portfolio, you can build momentum by getting information about the competition, market size, investment etc..This step may propel you to next step and so on..

If you have the intention to bring new initiative in your organization, you can build momentum by immediately seeking suggestion or help from those people who did it already.

Simply, if you have an idea or intention, communicate to your dear ones and commit.That way you build the momentum and that momentum may take you to next level action.

All the achievements are made by execution only. Hence action is important to convert any intention to reality. Hence, building and keeping momentum is a first step and necessary  for any achievement!!!

Monday 19 October 2015

Acceptance Mindset


“The first step toward change is awareness.the second step is acceptance.”—Nathaniel Branden

          One of the qualities of highly matured people is “Acceptance Mindset”. Acceptance mindset means first accepting anything as such  without resistance. That can be accepting the people as such, accepting the situation as such, accepting the self as such etc .Once accept as such , then they will  do the response or do the corrective mechanism to improve.

      For example, when you accept some of your bad habits or rude behavior as such, you may think of an improvement. When you do not admit, always tend to fault others for your habits or behaviors.

       When  you accept the other’s behavior as such in your professional environment, then you think of modifying your response to each person, else you always get into firefighting, arguing or blaming others.

       When you accept that your business is not going well, you will think changing strategy to improve, else , you cite the reason as government’s failure, Economy, your own employees etc.


      The point is to accept anything first, that is reality. Once you accept, your mind will work on improvements or alternative. Once you resist to accept, you are going against the nature  and it gives back to you in terms of losing temperament, spoiling  health and  quality of  relationship etc...Hence, accept first and cultivate the habit of acceptance and act !

Monday 12 October 2015

Being grateful does not lead to complacency


              Recently, in the management seminar, I was speaking about being grateful for what we  got in life. After the session, one participant asked me if we are grateful and  content  with what we have, does it not lead to complacent  and stop our growth further? I realized  that I should  have explained  elaborately more about  gratitude, being content and complacency as it requires clarity  for most of us.

My perspective on this is as follows:

               Contentment means being grateful for what you got or achieved. For example, with so many years of  hard work and dedication, you might have attained  your dream senior leadership position in your organization. You can be grateful for the achievement and remember all the people with gratitude. That is grateful and contentment.

               But it will or should not stop you to think next level promotion. Obviously the next level growth demands  further more hard work, skill set  and if you are not ready to invest yourself in skill development and hard work, then you become complacent. To put it simply, when possibilities are there for higher level growth and if you are not willing to invest yourself, that is complacent.


             To summarize, being grateful  and content  will give you peace of mind and that  peace of  mind will enable you for next level growth provided you are ready to pay the price for that. If you are not ready, you become complacent, not due to grateful. Hence grateful does not lead to complacency!

Monday 5 October 2015

Start Now

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”-Arthur Ashe

        Everyone wants to lead a life with achievements in a profession or business, maintaining cordial relationship with others, healthy body and mindset. But in reality, not all will have the right environment  and opportunity right from childhood to channelize their energy towards achieving the above. Only a few gifted people have the blessings from childhood, For others, it may take life long process. During the process, some people give up, eventually contented, or even complain about age, circumstances, and others.

        If you look at one of the most divine creations, “Butterfly” which everyone likes for its colorful wings and shape. In its life cycle, it evolves as butterfly only at the fourth stage by passing over the egg, caterpillar, chrysalis stages. However, it completes its lifecycle with the transformation from ugly caterpillar to beautiful butterfly. What matters is a transformation in a lifetime, no matter at what timeline it happens in life.

Hence,

If you have not managed your business so far, start now to transform now…
If you have not managed your relationship well with others, start now to renew it…
If you have not managed your finances properly, start now to reorganize
If you have not managed your health, start now to rejuvenate or look into it.


        Every day is a possibility of positive change in life.No point in regretting about the past and complaining the environments or others.Start now for new beginnings!

Tuesday 29 September 2015

Positive state before doing

                 One day Buddha was travelling from one town to another town along with his followers. On the way, they took a rest and the Buddha asked one of his followers to get some water from the nearby lake.A disciple walked up to the lake and he noticed that some people were washing clothes in the lake water and also a bullock cart crossing through the lake.As a result, water became muddy and the disciple thought this muddy water cannot be given to Buddha to drink. He came back to Buddha and told that the water was muddy and not suitable for drinking.

                 After a while, Buddha again asked the same disciple to go back to the lake and get some water. The disciple also went to the lake and found that mud was settled down and the water was clean enough to drink.So he collected some water in a pot and brought it to Buddha.


                 Buddha looked at the water and looked up at the disciple and said “what did you do to make the water clean to drink? You just allowed it as such to settle down the mud. Similarly, when your mind is in a disturbed state, you cannot make use of it effectively for decision making or doing anything useful. Give a little time to settle it down, your mind becomes in a positive state and you can produce results “

Thursday 24 September 2015

Possibilities


“The Future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious.”- John Sculley

         Sometimes we are skeptical about the future and think that the status quo will continue as such either business growth or financial status or even professional growth  or quality of life.During such time, “Possibilities thinking” may be useful to get confidence or overcoming the skeptic mindset.

        For example, observe any successful people from business, sports, media, politics, etc., You may realize that their background were ordinary or much worse than yours. How they became successful is that they believed themselves. Before believing themselves, they think the possibilities of becoming successful or achieving something great. They believed in the possibilities of changing their destiny better than they were. They believed in the possibilities of tomorrow, which would be  better than today.

        Similarly, look at the developments in all the fields like connectivity of the world through internet, mobile communication, affordability of transportation modes, education, healthcare inventions, etc which was not imaginable a few   decades ago. Today it has become reality as  someone was thinking about the possibilities changing from better to best.

         In a nutshell, what was not possible yesterday becomes reality today and it is the result of possibilities thinking of humanity. Hence, think about new possibilities in your life either business turnaround, personal transformation or improving the quality of life, it will become reality with right actions!  

Monday 14 September 2015

The power of faith and surrendering

“Faith is permitting ourselves to be seized by the things we do not see.” – Martin Luther

      
          Even though we possess the knowledge, experience and capability in our profession, sometimes our confidence will be shaken. During such a time, if we are not able to maintain “mental cool,” outcome will be disastrous. One of the ways to calm our mind would be faith in divine power and surrendering.

           For instance, recently I was called for speaking in a forum. Even though the topic was very close to my heart and preparation was good, somehow the new forum, environment and the senior experts sitting on the dais made me inferior, eventually I was losing my confidence. I knew in a few minutes, I need to deliver my speech and no way I can escape the situation and in the back of my mind, I was losing all the confidence and  the contents of the speech. At that moment, it was very difficult to boost the confidence with our intellectual learnings and techniques.

            The only option I had was to surrender to divine power. I was telling myself “I have not tried this speaking opportunity as it comes to me as divine wish. If it gets to me as divine’s wish, how come divine make me  to fail in this? Even if I fail, that is the divine’s wish to gain experience out of this.Surely things will turn out favors in any way.” Within a few minutes, I was called  and surprised my speech came out more powerful and content made positive impacts as I received a positive response from the people.

           The point  I am asserting here is that be faith in yourself, if not, be faith on divine and surrender ,that will make you calm and  life will be good whatever happens!