Being comfortable or achieving objectives

My son is five years old and unlike other boys of his age, he prefers to stay indoors then to play outdoors. So I decided to take him to the park in the evenings and play football. Thus giving both of us an opportunity to do some physical activity and have some father son time

As we started playing, I observed that he is kicking ball from his toe and not from the side of his foot. I explained him that correct way is to hit the ball from the side of the foot and not toe as he might hurt his fingers.

He tried a few times but soon got discouraged and started kicking ball again from his toe. His reasoning was, "Papa, its very difficult. I tried it and see the ball doesn't go far. It was better the way I was doing it earlier and I'm much comfortable with it.

Thankfully he hasn't hurt his toe so far while I'm still working with him to help understand why it is important to kick ball from the side and not toe.

But wait... It's not just story about me and my son learning to kick the ball. It's story about us as adults as well... As an adult don't we behave in same way as my 5 year old?

We are accustomed of doing things in certain way and we believe it is the only way of achieving results. And why shouldn't we believe it that way? Isn't it something we have seen others do or we have acquired it naturally?

All was true, until we meet someone who has results we hoped for and dreaming about.  We pursue her to reveal the secrets and she kindly agrees to work with us. She observes us in action and points out flaws in our technique and suggest changes and then all of a sudden we go into our shell and make same lame excuses... I've tried it, it's difficult, I'm not comfortable, on and on...

So what is it all about?

It's about willing to let go off my old ways of thinking or doing things. It is about allowing coach or mentor in my life and accepting new ways of doing things to accomplish the same objective albeit much faster

Question is, am I humble enough to accept someone as my coach, mentor and allow them to shape my thinking?

Captain of My Soul

Watching a movie on TV is my favorite activity on a lazy weekend but seldom is the urge so strong which forced me to write something about the overwhelming thought I received during the movie. Today was one such lazy Saturday afternoon when I ended up watching Harrison Ford’s K19: the Widowmaker. It’s a story about USSR’s first nuclear ballistic submarine, which suffered a malfunction in its nuclear reactor on its maiden voyage in the North Atlantic in 1961. The submarine's crew, led by the unyielding Captain Alexi Vostrikov, races against time to prevent a Chernobyl-like nuclear disaster which threatens not only the lives of his crew, but has the potential to ignite a world war between the super powers.

However it’s not this IMDB description of the plot which captures my attention but the faith crewmen put in their captain during catastrophe. It’s the respect Captain commands from its crew & burden Captain carries to steer ship & its men to safety.

What’s so special about it? Isn’t this what Captain suppose to do? It happens in every field… Sports, Politics, Science everywhere responsibility rests with the Captain. He is entrusted with the well being of its team & gets accolades or rebuking for job done. Someone is either given the charge or rises to the occasion and do the needful & become our HERO or gets REPLACED.

Right! But who will come to steer ship of my Life? Will it be my boss, my parents, my spouse, my friends or someone else? Who will take charge of my life and lead me to financial, emotional & spiritual freedom? WHO WILL BE MY HERO?

The answer is not hard to find but yes hard to accept. I AM GIVEN THE CHARGE BY GOD TO BE CAPTAIN OF MY SOUL. However still I find myself waiting for someone to come & rescue me. I am hoping my boss will give me nice increment & I will be financially free. I am hoping my spouse & parents will understand me better & will lead me to emotional freedom. I am so caught up in running the rat race that I don’t have time to think about spiritual well-being.

Lazy Saturday afternoon, on eve of New Year I heard a voice deep down inside me… CAPTAIN wake up & take charge of your Life & BE FREE.

Happy New Year 2010

Smell the Flowers

Spread over more than 200 acres, IIT Kharagpur is the biggest campus amongst IIT’s. Being born and brought up in Delhi and resided for about a year in Mumbai, coming to Kharagpur for my MBA program of two year is a welcome change for me. With no metropolitan cacophony, the simplicity of Kharagpur enchants any soul longing for tranquillity.

Students are not allowed any motor vehicle in the campus which helps in maintaining pollution free environment. Bicycles are the preferred mode of transportation and even Prof’s like to commute through cycles. The range of flora in campus impresses even to a casual observer like me. Trees are big and some are believed to be more than 100 years old.

February marks the peak of spring season in India. Weather is just perfect, neither too hot nor too cold. Today, February 6th all these thoughts all of sudden struck to me like a fire bolt. Coming back from college to my dormitory room like any other day, extra ordinary thing happened. My friend pointed towards beautiful flowers in perfectly manicured lawns and asked, “Aren’t they beautiful”? Now, I use this passage to college from my dormitory at least four times a day and still never cared to observe such a beautiful sight. Flowers arranged in interesting patterns in many colours, make me wonder, are these products of human imagination or god’s creativity is at play?

I immediately posed a dumb question to my friend, “Dude! Did these flowers grow so big in one day or they were here for quite some time”. He chose not to answer and make fool of me. I then pondered why I wasn’t able to appreciate them as certainly flowers didn’t grow overnight.

Many a times in Life we are so focussed on our goals that we forget to enjoy the path. Yes, there is a joy in reaching the goal but growth happens on the road to destination. The pain, the agony, the ecstasy all are part of the Journey, Goal is merely a reflection of the struggle. It’s the Process which makes us who we are.

SMELL THE FLOWERS.

The Power of Spoken Words

Thanks to the six months internship in our MBA curriculum we end up doing effectively two semesters in the final semester. Along with the usual subjects in final semester we have to submit our dissertation report and give presentations of our project work in the fourth semester. Also our faculty expects us to write a paper of ‘Harvard Standard’ on our internship for publication purpose amidst recession when many people are yet to be recruited.

My final presentation to the panel of external examiner and selected list of faculty was scheduled on 24th January 2009 in the first slot. We already had given one presentation to panel comprising of our faculty members only in December first week. The purpose was to improve and be well prepared before the D-Day.

I being eternally lazy didn’t worked on the cosmetic changes suggested by the experts and started working on final report which also needs to be submitted by second week of January. Now I had this beautiful relationship with my faculty guide whom I never bothered to disturb before the deadline and who also never cared to call me. However, taking clues from my batch mates I decided to meet him a day before the presentation to just to seek his approval. He suggested many radical changes which I felt will change the whole flow of my presentation.

Now I knew well in advance that my faculty guide was not in the panel which will be reviewing me, despite it, I made almost all the changes suggested by him. My friends asked why bother when he will not be in the panel and you can show whatever you want to. I replied, “I don’t know but I have this creepy feeling that he might end up in tomorrow’s panel and will screw me.”

I repeated this sentence many a time to different audience and sometime to even myself because I was worried about him being there. His presence is a cause of concern for me because he has his own opinions about my project work and knew even those things about my project which even I wasn’t aware off.

24th January, Morning: I was supposed to reach 9:00 A.M (according to presentation co-ordinator) but reported there at 9:15 A.M (as per timeline mentioned in the official communication). I got royally reprimanded for trying to justify my case and after apologies & many requests was allowed to appear for the presentation. I loaded my presentation on the computer and started waiting along with other batch mates for panel to arrive. Guess what, first person to arrive was our honorary panellist was my faculty guide. Soon every one also joined in and presentation process started. Everyone was assigned fifteen minutes for presentation and five minutes for Q&A. First guy winded his presentation in 25 minutes and I was slotted next. I soon realised everyone had opinion about Xerox, company I interned with and my presentation lasted for 55 minutes. Of course the most curious one happened to be my own project guide who was full of interesting questions and remarks. Many legendary questions were asked and notable points observed during the presentation like:

1) Prof 1: Are you making all these things up here or you really know the answer? This question was asked when I was bombarded with queries from all corner of the room & was coming up with answers instantly.

2) Prof 2: Can you please explain it to layman what this division of Xerox actually does without going into any jargon. This question was asked after 50 minutes of presentation inclusive of 35 minutes of Q&A.

I felt so much relived after it was over and when I pondered over what happened during the process, I felt like power of spoken words worked (though unconciously)against me.

This phenomenon of power of spoken words, I heard from Skip Ross in his exemplary work called, ‘Dynamic Living Seminar’. It states, Choose your words carefully for what you say might become a reality. Haven’t we all noticed that many a time things turn out to be exactly the way we spoke? I repeated oft times about my fear that my faculty guide will appear in the presentation and he actually did. He was the replacement of some other Prof who fell ill at the eleventh hour. This is one of the many incidences when the phenomenon of power of spoken words worked either to my advantage or disadvantage.

Skip Ross suggests a simple remedy as more often than not we ended up being on the wrong side of phenomenon. After every sentence you utter, ask yourself, “Is this REALLY what I WANT, If No, then why say it?”

The Art of Confidence: Mr. Defeat and Mr. Triumph

While preparing for the final campus interviews, many a times my friends inquired about my reason for not being overly worried about placements. Certainly, I haven’t done any secret deal with any company contacted in the capacity of placement committee member and got offer offline and neither I am extra ordinarily smart or intelligent. I have been an average student throughout my academic career and been a little active in extracurricular activities like any other batch-mate.

In spite of this I was among few lucky ones to get placed early in the placement season with good offer. So what’s the reason? One is, of course, I got Lucky, and it’s been truly a God’s Grace. I am grateful to almighty for being so kind to me. However there were other things too apart from being plain lucky.

Eliminating hygiene factors, I think it’s me being aware of certain natural laws which are always at play either for us or against us. I haven’t invented these laws; I just got aware about them through association with successful people all round the world. My only credit is application of these laws to my advantage.

First one is my experience with Mr. Triumph and Mr. Defeat. I learnt about them through David Schwartz, author of bestseller, ‘Magic of Thinking Big’. Whenever we attempt to do something new our conscious mind send signals to our subconscious mind. Our subconscious mind works exactly like a Computer and operate on GIGO (garbage in garbage out) philosophy. Mr Triumph and Mr Defeat are like tireless mine workers assisting our subconscious mind in digging the information requested by our conscious mind. We can manipulate if that’s the right word to use, our conscious mind to send signal which will elicit response from our subconscious mind which will boost our confidence.

So while preparing for interviews, I always thought about past incidences when I came out with flying colours. Triumph immediately went to work and recalled all the incidences when I have fared well and gave me all the reasons of why I can and will be successful this time. Does that means, I never had bad days or bad interviews. Of course I did, but with this exercise I believe I am able to cope better. I never let Mr. Defeat work for me. I was like a conniving boss who only wants to give work to Mr Triumph and let Mr Defeat sit idle.

Tea @ Tikka

Today is January, 9th 2009. We are just ten days into our final semester and it already feels like eternity. Loads of assignment, pre-study for classes and to top it all, dissertation report. Today was the deadline for submitting the dissertation report and almost all of us just managed to submit the report in nick of time, though some brave soul ranging from valid to shady excuses are still left, whose report are yet to be submitted.

However, these are not the topics of discussion at our B-School, nor are Satyam Fraud and Aamir’s new flick. Headline grabber is clearly RECESSION and its aftermath, our FINAL PLACEMENTS.

We three friends after our relatively free day on Friday, decided to hang out at our favourite place, Tikka for a snacks after class. Maintaining confidentiality about names let me call three of us as Mr X, Y and yours truly as Z. Over a cup of ‘Super Tea’ we the ‘thought leaders’ discussed topics of national and international importance such as ‘Why China is faring better than India’, ‘Will our political system improve of its own’, ‘Quality of Education in India’.

With perfect articulation and very little data to support our theory, typical to any B-School Grad, we attributed fault with all except us. Politicians, we love to hate them, were obviously our convenient scapegoat for everything wrong happening in our country. Our ideas, on one hand seem to support communism and dictatorship, to improve condition of our country, and on the other hand we were worried about our cushy jobs in private sector enterprises representing capitalism at its best.

As our voices grew louder and we agree on not to agree on anything and about to wind up with last chuski of our Super Tea, some brain wave flashed and prompted me to ask … “Friends, forget about everything else. Let’s think about what have we done to make our college a better place?” What has been our contribution to our alma mater, where we have spent almost two years of our life?

Instantly Mr X replied, man what can we do without any position of responsibility? Mr Y seconded his opinion, and cited incidences when in the past they tried to do something worthwhile and met with an indifferent attitude both from the faculty and the batch. Gauging their mood, I decided not to get further into argument and to let it go.

This discussion, however forced me to think loud in my dormitory room. We, who represent the cream of the cream of India, if cannot rise above our own petty interest & laziness and lack creativity and willingness to help our college, then how can we blame our politicians and leaders for being insensitive.