The box is already full, so think outside of it - Anonymous You know the saying "Think outside the box"? This is the same except that I am telling you to think outside your current domain. Whenever someone tries to come and teach me pro-activeness with competition or asks me to come with the next strategy to lead the market, it always is very superficial at best. I get angry at my industry, I love it, yet am overwhelmed at times. But it is not my industries fault that I give much of my life and time! I think back at every industry or domain that I have been in - telecommunications, cosumer electronics, electronic payments, multimedia, automotive infotainment - I have always found annoying things. You too share the same feeling? It doesn't mean that we are haters of the domain, it just means that we have some unique way of transcending things that we do not like about our industries. I have becoming a slave to mechanical routine and have become totally uninspired lately.It is a direct result of consuming too much of contents from my own working domain. Instead of feeding on my creativity from my inspired ideas, I have been chasing other people's ideas and market strategies. Why should we not let consumption win over creativity? Consumption leads to comfort zone which leads to stagnation. That is why it is mostly imperative that we try to be creative, inspired and get back on top of the competition. So how do you get yourself ahead?
0 Comments
What is the Antidote to remove the poison in your head called Self-Doubt? 5 practical tips29/10/2018 अज्ञश्चाश्रद्दधानश्च संशयात्मा विनश्यति | ajñaśh chāśhraddadhānaśh cha sanśhayātmā vinaśhyati nāyaṁ loko ’sti na paro na sukhaṁ sanśhayātmanaḥ (Chapter 4, Sloka-40) Meaning: But persons who possess neither faith nor knowledge, and who are of a doubting nature, suffer a downfall. For the skeptical souls, there is no happiness either in this world or the next. At some point in time everyone goes through a phase of self-doubt. You start to think of everything with a pinch of doubt. You normally start with Am I successful? And it then slowly spreads to Is the money which I am having enough for my future? Then it slowly spreads to your abilities - Do I need to acquire new skills? Am I better off than others in my team? What makes me confident of saying this is that I have firsthand experiences - I have spent more than 40% of my adult life thinking purely about these questions only. Just after graduating college I joined a corporate company and pretty soon jumped to another thinking that was success, even though it wasn't what I truly wanted. I held onto dead-end jobs, toxic relationships, and draining friendships because I thought that if I left them, I’d be a quitter. I doubted myself to the point that I was making my decisions based on what others wanted of me, not what I wanted for myself. I was constantly struggling with confidence and always second-guessing myself. I never knew exactly what I wanted, what race am I running and why am I doing this? What I learnt from this experience is that if I do not nip this negative thought process of self -doubt in the bud right away it leads to total misery. Also it becomes very difficult to come out of this mindset. In the process of coming out of this loop, I discovered (or uncovered to be correct) few practical and easy methods to overcome self-doubt and build internal confidence. I wish to help you by sharing them to you : Everyone would have heard about the Bermuda triangle, a place where ships and aeroplanes disappears without a trace. Most popular culture attributes this to various paranormal activities but those documents and data are not scientifically reliable. There is a similar workplace equivalent, a triangle where team work, good will and productivity vanishes without explanation. How many work hours on average do you and your team spends in this drama triangle? So what is that triangle? A triangle was developed as a social model years ago by Stephen Karpman, a student of Dr. Eric Berne, the father of Transactional Analysis. It maps out a type of dysfunctional interaction that is common in the workplace and in our homes as well. The word “dysfunctional” is not that bad one – it only means “not working well”. Many expert leaders notice when their relationship is working and when it is not going well … as a result, they learn to stay out of the drama triangle. Dr. Stephen Karpman first described the drama triangle in the 1960’s. All three of the roles--Victim, Rescuer, and Persecutor—are very fluid and can morph easily into one another. We all have a favourite (usually the role we assumed most often in childhood), but most of us are pretty good at all three of them, depending on the situation. Dr. Karpman used this triangle to define three points that arise predictably in any dysfunctional real-life drama: the Persecutor, the Victim, and the Rescuer. Notice that all three of these are roles we can choose to play, or choose to step back from, at any time. Examples of the drama triangle
So for instance, let’s assume that one of your team members promised you an update about an important project by Tuesday afternoon. It’s Wednesday morning. You don’t have the report yet. Here are three ways you could choose to respond:
My personal favourite is the Rescuer, although I also did a very credible Victim from time to time. While being a rescuer I always felt virtuous, strong, and necessary when other people asked for help. Being a rescuer always means that you take care of others that you do not find time for your needs. This is when you slip into the Victim’s role. I’d feel sorry for myself, since no one seemed to appreciate how hard I was working to take care of them. Which made me feel angry and resentful, and before I knew it I’d find myself picking a fight with my wife or fuming at some unwitting team member. (Yep, there’s the Persecutor.) One Thing That Stands in the Way of your Happiness: How to easily identify your long term life goals27/3/2018 I don't focus on what I'm up against. I focus on my goals and I try to ignore the rest. The above quote is by tennis star Venus Williams There’s no denying of the fact that our lives are a mirror image of the decisions that we take. Sure there may be a rare exception—such as a major health challenge— but in the big circle of life, we are where we are today solely based on the decisions we made yesterday.
This brings us to the fact that the key then to our happiness depends on the decisions we make – like decision on where we stay, which job we go for, how to interact with your neighbours, where and to whom we spend our money on and how to make more money quicker and easier. I think you get the point. If you got then you are wondering why am I still writing this blog post beyond this point? We have all missed the most important question which needs to be asked – What do you want to do with your life? How are you going to go about this? All the questions which were listed above are the necessary ones for the day to day living but if we were to concentrate only on the day to day life, at the end of the journey I don’t think you will would have achieved your success or happiness and only be left with tiredness and fatigue. Where are you going? What do you want your life to look like five years from now? Ten years from now? Twenty years from now? Are you going drift with the tides or are you going to determine where you want to go, strap on a 200 HP motor, and start moving in that direction? Like most of you (I am making a gross assumption here) till recently even I was drifting like the feather in the opening scene of the movie Forrest Gump. It was really nice – moving with the wind, sailing as per the wind’s request. It was until I met this new team member of mine who asked me within a week of interaction with me “Sir, you are so talented and have great ideas and work methods. Yet you are only at this level. Why are you not attempting to go higher?” It was then I realised that I was waiting for the winds to pick up and push me higher and that assumption is totally wrong. The wind will never push me higher – the kites which are flying high are all those which are going against the wind. Now you get my point – why it is so important to identify your long term goals in life and think of how you are going to get there? In order to find my goals I answered 10 somewhat difficult questions to get there which I am listing it below for you. Regardless of where you are in life, you will benefit from answering these questions. Perhaps they will confirm that you are on the right track. Or, they may open your mind to opportunities you haven’t previously considered. They may also reveal the missing link in your quest to find happiness and fulfillment in your life. I’m ready with the questions, are you ready to find the answers? The Millennials are next in line to run this crazy, messed-up world. Millennials, in my dictionary, are those born between the years 1995 and 2005, so this generation includes all those born after globalisation in India. There is, however, a serious problem with this generation that needs to be addressed, and that is their intense lack of dedication in anything. This problem stems from many factors of their different upbringings. Before I setup the context, I would like to spend some time on what dedication means to me. While searching the internet for some research material I accidentally fell upon this data - Ezra Pound's The Cantos is a 120-section poem which explores the author's controversial opinions on government, economics, war, fascism, and a whole lot of other seemingly non-poetic topics. Pound also famously spent 57 years on this collection, which was still unfinished at the time of his death. Leave the unfinished part but look at this man’s dedication to work on his goal for more than half a century. Mindboggling it is – I can’t even think of how he got himself to motivate for this long. Most of us would have given up within 5 weeks (MAX) from start of this poem collection of his. Another example (this time with a positive end) is “Gone with the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell. It reportedly took journalist Margaret Mitchell 10 years to write and publish her staggering Civil War-era tome novel. I can only imagine her level of dedication. To start a project that would take almost a decade to complete seems almost incomprehensible to me with no surety that the outcome will become famous or successful or both. So is dedication necessary for all of us? Well to answer it plainly it is the only ingredient that you require for a guaranteed success. So what are some of the reasons why the generation of today are having less inclination for dedication towards work, play, life, family etc.? There seems to be clearly some kind of common trend across the globe. The possible causes may be [Spoiler Alert – A bit lengthy read but worth every word] |
AuthorVasudevan is a Leadership Mentor and an Executive coach. I run an online website geared towards helping creative entrepreneurs and future managers to build their dreams. Archives
June 2023
Categories
All
|