Guilt is good...

I mean that. I feel it too. And it sounds like a mighty attractive title to boot!

Guilt is good. It is healthy. It is not all negative. And it is definitely not pointless. I discovered this as late as when I was in the middle of writing my first book, Corporate Nirvana. I wrote effortlessly about the secret to turning guilt into our biggest positive force. And I was a bit surprised where all the information poured onto the pages from.

Over the years of my voracious, hungry reading of books and resultant thinking, I have come to understand some tricks of my mind. But then, books don’t teach us the secrets of our mind – thinking does.

I don’t mind saying that guilt is the starting point of all that is good. It is an impartial critic whom we detest for telling the truth, but depend on for showing the way.

Till recent years ago, I spent hours and nights brooding on my decisions or lack thereof, beating myself up for hasty words and imperfect actions. Then something began to change. I began grudging the time spent in regurgitating the past. I started questioning the wisdom of finding my faults and absolving others of theirs. I am glad I felt guilty...about my guilt..!!

And this is my enlightening discovery. Guilt is the only way to begin feeling happy again. Without it, we would never discover the follies of our devilish mind. Have you discovered that unbridled confidence breeds corruption. Or that uninterrupted happiness hampers improvement. Though we are wired to be happy – regrets are meant to feel unhappy and uncomfortable. These interruptions are good. They jump start our life. We value happiness when we are unhappy, just like we crave peace when we are perturbed. Or how else would we know what we want? To me this makes complete sense.

But there’s a trick here – and a smart one at that. Guilt is like quicksand. Try too hard, and we go under faster. Let go, and we have a chance.

Here’s how guilt turns into the biggest positive force of our life. Next time you have deep, bitter regrets.....allow yourself some forgiveness and a generous distance from the past. If guilt is the protagonist of our past, hope is the determined leader of the future. Once we take this step, we begin to understand how we can set things right – or that we can’t set them right anymore – so we must let go. Like quicksand, life responds better when we aren’t thrashing about in despair.

My personal experiences have taught me the utility of feeling guilty, and that without it, we might never feel the powerful surge of motivation to set things right, or make the best of what we have today. But for guilt, we might never realize that time spent in regrets doesn’t make things right - but time invested in asking meaningful questions of our guilt, makes all the difference.

Guilt is good. So next time you find yourself there, feel at peace. Guilt has a purpose - of propelling us to progress, searching for answers, fostering forgiveness, and doggedly pursuing our best self.
  

Just in case you get curious about Corporate Nirvana http://www.flipkart.com/books/9380227856

What leadership means to me....

More than a decade ago, as a struggling research assistant still, I sat in a massive library packed with countless management books. Overwhelmed, I wondered what to pick first. As I stared up at the towering book racks, a smallish book on leadership caught my eye. I guess, my subconscious chose better than if I had consciously tried to pick an impressive tome.

That book was ‘On Becoming a Leader’ by Warren Bennis. As is the wont of youth, and accompanying exuberance, I had decided after five pages that Bennis would be my favourite leadership author henceforth.

Since then, I’ve noticed an interesting fact.  Full-blooded adulthood, and the cynicism and scepticism that come with it, systematically wipe out most youthful fancies. But if Bennis has stood the test of time, and I still go looking for leadership inspiration in his books, then maybe, I was right sitting in that hot library so long ago. And the man really knows what he is talking about.

After that first, heady brush with leadership learning, I went on to read many articles, interviews, quotes, and books by him and others on leadership. Without prompting, persuasion, or peer pressure – I had decided in a resolute corner of my young mind that leadership was my life’s calling.

I can safely say that Bennis’s deceptively simple, gracefully convincing, and unusually engaging take on leadership has had a profound effect on my adult life - both personally and professionally. I think I am a better person as a result. He emphatically sealed for me facts of leadership that I had heard only in whispers till then.

I guess he is partly to be blamed if people consider me honest beyond practicality, a believer beyond reason, a visionary beyond repair, and a soul-searcher beyond salvage. I can live with that.

Thanks to my mentor (even if only through books) I have begun to understand the secrets of my own mind. I can tap at will, and within moments, into my vision and imagination. In some of my darkest hours, I have found the right path to lead myself into the realm of possibilities. And everything became clearer after that. Leadership is the end-result, as Warren Bennis says, and not the beginning.

I have recently come to realize something else of profound importance to me personally. Leading an organization or team is a lesser priority for me, and I feel no embarrassment in saying so. Leading myself, on the other hand, is something I hope not to falter at. Leadership is not something I only practice, it is something I am. It is not about my position, it is about my mind. And as years go by, I crave for authenticity, not authority.

I am convinced beyond doubt that I am not a born leader. Though, I believe with greater conviction that I have led myself in to becoming one.

PS: Just in case, you get curious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Bennis

Why we settle for a mediocre life...

Why do we settle for a mediocre life? Is it a dearth of knowledge, skills, access, opportunities, encouragement.....or is it something else? Something more obscure, less concrete, elusive and intangible? Something, that lurks nervously underneath the surface of our overt confidence.

This question has stumped me more than once. I have often observed an intriguing specimen of human behavior in this regard. I now feel nearly confident that it’s not our failure that poses a problem; it is our success that proves the unsuspected enemy. The moment we rise above mediocrity and begin finding our way to excellence, we attract critics that spring almost out of nowhere. 

Being our best and becoming more than what others expected us to become seems to startle people. So much so, that we begin suspecting our own motives. And wonder in the calm of solitude if we might have committed an error in judgment? A blunder in being seriously good?

Have you observed this interesting play of human nature? If you have, let me say, that this still doesn’t make our critics malicious people – just makes them human!

When we shine brightly, we unwittingly light up others’ life. In the glare of our glory, their complacency and inaction become painfully visible. Unfulfilled desires and wasted talents suddenly find a voice. And they struggle to respond, like a deer caught in the headlights. The ones who rise above mediocrity force others to face a disturbing reality – of being mediocre when they could have been much more. That hurts.

I remember more than one experience in my life when I rose above my imaginary limitations and became one of those whom I admired. Honestly, I surprised myself, and it was a heady, happy feeling. And my critics rose as well, almost in tandem, as if I had betrayed them and done great disservice to myself. At least that’s how it felt deep down.

It stung me. And I felt betrayed right back. Shouldn’t they have been happy? Ecstatic even? Now this is logic. But then, we aren’t half as logical as we believe ourselves to be. (It’s just one of those things you and I delude us about.) Tough but true. In the spur of the moment, on emotionally charged issues – we decide irrationally; and it’s not always a pleasant stand we take.

So, here is what I am beginning to understand about myself...and others. No matter how many critics and detractors our success and excellence gather, it is a grave error to change our track to accommodate their hurt and indignation. Because their sentiment is misplaced, because they have misconstrued our purpose, because they are unprepared for their own success, and because if we change our course – they might never find theirs.

To sum up in a fluid, graceful bundle of prose, I am reminded of this brilliant quote by Marianne Williamson.....

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

If we are really curious about my initial question, then maybe, we need to look deep underneath. Someplace that only responds to us, and something that guide books generally don’t tell us about.

PS: Just in case you get curious about M Williamson: http://www.marianne.com/contact.htm

In the pursuit of happiness....

My three and a half year old niece, who was fretting about going to play school, was asked this question. Do you want to be educated or uneducated? Without a moment’s hesitation she looked us squarely in the eye and said – “I want to be happy!”

I learned that day.

We are all born experts at being happy. And yet there are shelf-full of books in every book store telling us about 10-steps, 7-ways, and 21-great ideas about ‘how to be happy’. It doesn’t add up. If we already knew to be happy, and God programed us so, then what the hell happened since then and now? Pun intended.

Here’s my take on it after observing myself falling into the (un)happiness trap more than once since I was a drooling toddler who always laughed and smiled.

As we enter adulthood, we learn that being happy means we have the responsibility to keep ourselves happy. As a consequence – we are held responsible if that state morphed into unhappiness for some reason. This is too much to ask in a day and age when switching channels can ‘do the needful.’ When we can’t find that right channel to put us in a good mood, at least we can blame the rotten programming of channels we pay good money to watch.

On a more sensible note: Being happy is on our hands. We make ourselves happy. And however unkind people might be to us, they seriously don’t have enough power over us to MAKE us unhappy. Unless, of course, we have granted them the power, in which case, we are puppets in their hands – much like the remote we click to toggle between channels. The feeling of controlling others is a heady one. Being controlled seems to have its own addicts. If those that control us are having a good time, let me upset the cart by saying we also derive some twisted pleasure in being driven by them. An unpleasant medicine to gulp, but bitterly true.

Another interesting fact about being happy that I’ve discovered. Big things don’t make us more happy and small things don’t make us less happy – in proportion. We are not talking physics and matter here. This is about the mysteries of the mind that we don’t yet measure in micro ounces. And thank God for that. I can safely say that looking for more happiness in more money, a bigger home, a pricier car, or a fancier job is just a trap. And here is how it works. If we can’t be happy with what we have we generally end up being unhappy with what we get. I think this is nature’s brilliant way to put the brakes on our wild-goose chase for more happiness.

How tough is it to find happiness, anyway? Very, I think. We aren’t supposed to ‘find’ it, we need to create it. And that’s where I think our confusion becomes messy and painful. It is not a thing that we can find. Happiness is about beliefs and related feelings that we create.

And if we understand that, then we can do two things to create happiness which I find very useful.

For starts, we can stop comparing our life with others to figure out what they have which we don’t. It is a big mistake and causes so much unhappiness. The only way to achieve all the good stuff in our life is to compare ourselves with ourselves. Now that is healthy and effective both.

Secondly, we need to accept that happiness is a paradox. When we find it right next to us, it stays. When we go looking for it, it becomes elusive. Rather sadistic, but that’s the nature of happiness.

I genuinely hope that in our pursuit of happiness, we become happy people. In my personal experience, happy people have a happy life.

You got mail....

I remember a time in our home when we didn’t own a phone line. Neither did we have television in our country. Not to mention, mobiles and internet were like that funny stuff that only happened in Isaac Asimov’s brilliant books. Those were nice days, frankly.

Then television came to India. This was the early 80s. We didn’t realize that we were sitting ducks for an invasion more unbelievable than anything we had read even in Star Trek books.

Yet there was an innocence and child-like feel to early television. No one spoke things they ought not to be saying on national TV, or through any other mode of communication, for that matter, women were more like what God meant us to be, regressive TV soaps hadn’t assaulted our senses, and young people didn't mouth profanities and do scandalous stuff in out-of-control-shudder-inducing reality shows.

But before that could happen, we welcomed with open arms more infernal gadgets with much greater insidious powers than television could ever muster. The internet and mobile revolution were already seeping into undiscovered territories of our uncluttered minds.

Today, I can’t lift my finger without clicking something. The fun part is I’ve caught myself clicking buttons when I didn’t need to be clicking them. It’s a habit. Sad and mad.

So, here’s my resolve for the next three weeks – I will reduce my interface with technology and try and get back to manual modes of doing things as much as possible. I am not swinging to the other extreme and packing my bags for the cave ages, just reducing the unnecessary static.

Honestly, there is still a lot we can do without clicking buttons. I want to try out this experiment. I shall report back if there are any significant withdrawal symptoms. I am not ruling out uncontrollable twitching fingers and deep depression, coupled with the feeling of falling into an abyss of desperate disconnectedness. Or maybe...not.

Till the recent past, we walked over and met people when we missed them. Now we SMS them. And yet I have decided to be brave and do some hard work. Like my parents used to. Is that why they still have well-wishers from forty-five years ago who don’t mind crossing continents just to meet each other – face-to-face. They are also the ones who still write letters and send cards.

With such bolstering thoughts, let me venture nervously into the real world again. Please do respond if you get a rescue call from me to get me my virtual fix. Maybe, I got mail! 

PS: Just in case you get curious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov

Life won’t wait for you to retire – enjoy it now!

I recently watched in a theatre, Farhan Akhtar’s, ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobaara’ – which means – you won’t get another life, this is it. I loved the movie and laughed through most of it. There were some touching moments, too. In response to the heroine asking when the hero will enjoy his wealth, he says, “I have a plan, as soon as I turn 40, I’ll retire, then I will enjoy my money.” To which she says, “How do you know you will live that long?” And he’s speechless. I loved that line.

Isn’t it amusing that we don’t forget to go to work every day, but we forget to live every day? It is startling for me to find friends increasingly ambitioning to retire in their 40s and.....then enjoying life. Until then, they are happy to slog for more, frantically run around to tame their schedules, sacrifice long vacations to be at presentations, and compromise their health to cram more in a day.

As if, what we are losing in the bargain will wait to be salvaged after forty years.

It just doesn’t make sense to me. Does it to you? To wait for a perfect time to enjoy the labour of your hard work and money? And here’s my personal fear. I might be gone already by the time I am in my forties or not fit enough to travel or enjoy life. What makes us so confident of good health and being alive when we live in a world as unpredictable and dangerous as ours? Think about it – is it logical to count on the uncertainty of life and our fickle fate? I am not sure if we are preparing for a great post forty party or inviting painful regrets that might linger till our last breath.

So, try another way if you can. Wake up and make the most of that day. Do what really appeals to you. Do what makes you smile and feel you lived a great day. Work can’t be so disparate from what we enjoy that it turns into a necessary evil. We work to live, not the other way round.

Not tough, really. Just that it doesn’t cross our minds on a daily basis. As they say, out of sight out of mind. That which we don’t see is forgotten quickly. So make living your life a graphic part of your thinking. Think in pictures of a great life, so you can remember the images every day. And life has a better chance to live today than after fifteen years.

I love this quote, ‘Life is what happens to us while we are busy planning other things.’ Says it all.

PS: Do let me know your thoughts on this. What do you think of post forty retirement plans? What’s your plan?

The advantages of being restless...

“Why can’t you sit still? You are so clumsy.” I heard this from an irate physics teacher of mine in grade eight. I could have said, well, for one you aren’t a great physics teacher, and second, I am the restless sort. Plus, I thought you were trained to figure that out about kids!

Now this kind of repartee comes to my mind only decades later and thankfully, not in the moment.

Since school, I’ve begun to see a pattern in how others respond to me. I’ve heard that I am changeable. And put too much faith in the potency of change. Trust people first, and then distrust them if proven wrong. I put myself out there too much and risk exposing my true feelings. Stretch hope beyond reason. I dream too much and too big. I believe my good intentions will be understood. That my ambitions are unrealistic most of the times. And that I get too passionate about things – if there is such a mistake. Guilty as charged.

Am all of this and more. I am a restless soul. Not in the sense of being perturbed in my mind or changing my seat every ten minutes. Not that kind of restlessness. That is unrest. The good kind of restlessness is more to do with being dissatisfied with the status quo. It is about being wholeheartedly involved with life and asking every single day - what next! Restless people can’t be observers if a life-changing opportunity springs forth or a dazzling possibility just struck their fertile minds.

I think there is rare beauty to the quality of restlessness. Nature wired us for it. Sadly, very often we choose to suppress it, so life can be more ‘stable’ and ‘predictable’. In the bargain, we slow down to a reluctant amble, much like stooped old people in a park. We learn to be more matured and less excitable. Only kids have the license to be excited. Maybe, that’s why they are so ingenious at success or getting others involved in their goals.

Being restless is a worthy goal. It has the potential and power to set us apart from the disturbing trend of apathy and mediocrity. Digging deep for our real feelings and authentic responses can be painful. What would happen if we accepted that pain and decided against the commonplace. The pain then turns pleasurable. And restlessness becomes an ally as we conspire to get the most out of life.

Be restless. Love to change. Get ambitious to do your best. Dream more, so you can worry less. Restlessness is the cure, not the ailment.

The secret to being successful

It's confounding, confusing, and complicated to succeed. If we watch too much reality TV, that is.

Success is not just exciting and enriching - it is surprisingly within reach and logical. In fact, you might be hard-pressed to fail if you realized the secrets of it. In my experience with failing miserably and succeeding spectacularly by turns, I have reached some enlightening secrets to success. Here goes.

Some years ago, after falling into the rut of my work, and doing things that even I found uninspiring, it dawned on me. I had been focusing on the wrong things. My job could never make me successful. Nor could the best organization or boss in the world. I had to make me successful.

‘Job description’ sounds like a boring thing. It is boring. Think about this. Succeeding on goals decided for us by others is self-defeating and contradictory. And what’s on paper, generally fails the reality test. Real success is driven from the inside. Here's the first success fact. We need to align our strengths and talents to our broader role at work.  Once you’ve done that mapping, coming up with creative and brand new ways to expand your usefulness within the role is much faster and easier. Just think up of something no one around you is doing or might even be capable of, but that is the need of the customers and the organization. Everyone will sit up and listen. Trust me.

The other fact about success. Let’s quit blaming our job, organization, and boss. These can contribute to our failure, but are generally not responsible for our success. Success is internal and inside-out. Those on the outside can’t make you succeed even if they wanted to. They can inspire, but only you can crack the final piece. You absolutely need to know what you want to succeed with, when, how, and to what extent – these are fundamental to success. Awareness leads to grand success.

The next fact about success is this. Don’t sign up for someone else’s idea of what will make you successful. It is never wise to repose too much faith in others to rise above our limitations. If we are lucky, we find that one great person to support us. But even that wise person does not know the secrets of our soul. Our inner voice speaks only to us - by design. Superbly successful people listen to everyone’s content, but listen to themselves with absolute intent.

And the last fact about success. Success requires intelligence, but not the kind that is measured by IQ tests. It needs a twist! No matter how experienced, talented, intelligent, or educated you might be – above all - you need to be original. Honestly, succeeding is not hard. There is very little to mess up unless we are unaware of our unique strengths, and that which we do with an individual flair. No one can duplicate that. And that kind of uniqueness brings heaps of success. Remember the law of scarcity - what people can't do or have is what they value and want.

I strongly believe that the road to success is quite clear and easy to spot. You only get lost when your path is leading to goals not suited to you.

Flowers at night and selling more

These aren't two separate blog topics. I do mean that you can sell more if you learned from flower vendors, and bought from them at night, especially. Let me add, I strictly speak of India here.

Yesterday evening, I sent off someone to get some roses and gerberas from one of the make-shift florists near my place. I got the flowers, alright. But the vendor, taking advantage of the darkness, sent back flowers cleverly disguised to look fresh, but on the verge of sudden death within hours!

It was a trusting soul I sent off on my errand. Who assumed, as most of us unsuspecting customers do, that they will get goods in proportion to the vendor's promises and the money paid hence. Wrong assumption to make, I guess.

This country seems to be in such a tearing hurry to make a quick buck that dishonesty and deceit have turned into 'business strategies'. And I am not just talking about flower vendors here. I find this growing trend in education and medical care as well. Dangerous areas to be implementing the above 'business strategy'.

I ended up angry, wronged, and frustrated about being cheated so blatantly. I have a good mind to go back to the flower guy (with the dead flowers) and tell him that he's not cheated me, he's done a great dis-service to his business. Not only will I not buy from him in the future, I will make sure I discourage my friends, neighbors, and anyone who cares to listen that you won't give value for their hard earned money. And moreover, if you cheat me when it's dark, I won't trust you in broad daylight either. Trust, as it happens, is not a question of time of day. I want to tell him he's lost more than one customer.

Then I wonder if it will make any difference to him. He's small fry in the larger scheme of things. He's just selling flowers....at worst, they will wilt. The rest of us sell products/services that can do more damage than rotten flowers can.

Once we begin using the dubious business strategies afflicting most businesses here, celebrity endorsements and glossy ads saying otherwise don't stand a chance. Will we understand anytime soon that not giving value in return for money is the worst kind of marketing mistake we can commit? For the sake of our economy, I hope we do.

Five ways to be an extraordinary person

The best way I can define extraordinary is this.They are people who get it right. Not just do they succeed in their purpose, but enjoy the fruits of it. They seem to live a good life without getting hassled. They are poised and prepared for success. And their success is meaningful.

We all know that one person we think is living an extraordinary life. But that is someone else. How about you and me? Can you become that extraordinary person?

Here are my five ways to become an extraordinary person. I do my share of all of this everyday. You could start today - literally.

1. BELIEVE: Self-doubt and extraordinary never go together. If you have any doubt that you can't become extraordinary, your journey got tough right away. I recommend that we have more belief in our abilities and talents than sounds reasonable, even to us. What might be the results if you believed in yourselves more than anyone else around does or can? Extraordinary people have a huge amount of belief that they are capable of achieving great success.

2. BE PASSIONATE: Have you noticed that those you look up to seem to enjoy everything they do? Here is the secret. They do what they love to do...consciously and consistently. They really LIVE their life! The best way to be passionate about your work and life is to do what you enjoy doing. Doing things for money alone never works. Extraordinary people attract money by loving what they do.

3. FORGIVE: Seriously. Ordinary people waste precious time and energy holding grudges and remembering past hurts. And settling their scores. Walking with baggage slows us down. Extraordinary people understand the importance of feeling energetic and positive everyday. Let the past go, so it can let you go. Make room for your future success.

4. CHOOSE WELL: Just because we get a tempting offer for work, for a partner, for money, or for an opportunity does not mean it is the right thing for us. Choose well. Choose carefully. Extraordinary people take up meaningful projects that resonate with their best strengths and deepest desires. That is how they craft a life of their choice. Choices make up our life. So choose smartly.

5. FINISH: Generally, we are great beginners and poor finishers. Many opportunities that can make our life extraordinary languish in the background as we forget to close the loop on them. Or just get distracted by the pressures of life. Finish what you begin. Get into the discipline of completion. There's less competition there. Extraordinary people know that what gets finished is what gets results.

As with all meaningful things in life, becoming extraordinary is not an overnight task. It takes some time and discipline. Conscious commitment though can turn our life around. What is extraordinary is what gets noticed in our busy world today. Feel free to begin today!