Protective factors in life

Challenges and struggles are an integral part of human life. There are very few people who easily get what they wish for, however the majority of people have to stretch themselves and have to come out of their comfort zone. To live life and make it happy is an internal state of mind. There are millions of people who wake up early in the morning, go to their job, (now during a pandemic, log in on the computer while working from home), listen to their managers, get the job done. The reasons behind going to the job are different. Some People want to live a happy life by achieving more, some want to give the education to their kids, and some run for loans. Everybody chases their dreams. During this process, people get success and failure. People live with a big burden on their shoulders. Stress, work pressure bring disappointments and frustrations. Everybody becomes part of the rat race; they may not like to be the rat in the rat race, but they are unable to find another option. We are not rats; we are human beings. Unfortunately, very few people in the society have the right ecosystem to support them. The problem is that both success, and failures bring stress. The overall scenario is impacting mental health. Organizations are investing in their people to support them in their life, however is it enough?    

Image from internet

Finally, it is you, who has to take actions for your good life. How to do this? The best way is to find out those protective factors in our life. Protective factors are your defense system, in case your mental health is affected because of struggles and challenges in your personal and professional life. It helps you to bounce back in setbacks and to be resilient. We need to develop those protective factors in our life. Unfortunately, in the rat race, we forget to take those protective factors along with us. In fact, we totally ignore those factors. 

Those protective factors can be classified as under:

Social factors: Generally speaking, this is society around us. All of society may not be useful for you. Sometimes people don’t recognize your success because of their jealousy.  Jealous people don’t want to see you better than them. And hence it is very important to identify those relationships which would support you in case of setbacks and challenges. It includes relationships, family members, friends, teachers, coach, and mentors. However sometimes this also may not work. Hence many protective factors are out of the control. Your protective factor only works when there is the respect and unconditional intentions of the next person. Find out those close family members and friends to whom you can speak about your problem without any fear. Their ability to understand you will determine how effective they are. This also depends upon the level of support you are looking for. Parents, spouse, and children are natural protective factors and then comes your family and friends.

Coping skills: It is said that you are the first person to help you. This is your ability to manage uncomfortable emotions in a healthy way. Resilient is one of the skills which helps you to manage setbacks. Emotional Intelligence is the key part of coping skills. Ask the questions yourself, are you aware of your own emotions & feelings? Do you recognize the impact of the same on your behaviour?

Health: Physical health is very important. Proper exercise, healthy diet and enough physical activities including simple walk or cycling keep you fit. More you fit, the more your ability to manage stress, failure, and struggles. The benefits of physical activities are amazing. That’s why our ancestors told us, “Health is wealth.”

Purpose: It is the reason for being. If you have a strong purpose, your power increases, you become passionate and then struggles become tiny. This is a great protective factor in our life. Finding the meaning in life will help you fulfill the purpose and goals in life. We can’t live life as it comes. There should be the reasons you get up in the morning. If you have a purpose, it can guide life decisions, influence behaviour, shape goals, offer a sense of direction, and create meaning in life. The overall process makes you strong.

Thinking: Albert Einstein quoted, “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking”. You become what you think. Healthy thinking is one of the protective factors in your life. We all are the victims of cognitive distortions. Every event in our life triggers irrational thoughts in our mind. Those thoughts influence our behaviour. Everybody experiences those thoughts but if it is more extreme then, it is harmful for us. Identify those irrational thoughts. Think how you can use your strengths and weaknesses rationally in life. Thinking clearly by understanding different biases, irrational thoughts will make a stronger self.

There is another protective factor like hobbies. Hobbies give you energy. Pursue your hobby and make life easier.

Check the level of those protective factors currently you have and make your plan to make it stronger. Remember the stronger your protective factors, stronger you are. Protective factors are your immune system which helps you to keep you healthy mentally. 

(Opinions are purely personal & does not represent my organizations, current or past) 

Author's book are available on Amazon, Flipkart, Pothi and BookGanga. Income from books is used for social cause. 

In the world of cowards, courage is precious

Demonstrating courage is not that easy. In the hierarchical society, you can’t ask questions. On the pretext of respect, you can’t challenge seniors, elders, teachers, and parents. If you do that, you are tagged rebellious. Managers don’t like challenges. Politicians and bureaucrats don’t like challenging questions. This is a sad reality of life. Courage and curiosity is killed during school days itself. That’s why the majority of the section don’t take a stand. They are always on the fence because being courageous and curious brings additional personal stress. In the society which follows majority decisions, the person who is courageous has to pay the huge cost of being courageous and curious. Great scientists and philosophers had to sacrifice for the benefits of society. From Galileo to Socrates, almost everyone had to pay the price for being curious and courageous. 

However, once people understand the intentions and benefits of being curious and curious, they follow you. I was curious but was not courageous because of the culture in which we grow. I realized that being courageous has more benefits than not being courageous. It is possible that you may be penalized for being courageous, but if you get the right ecosystem, i.e.  mature managers, understanding peers, great teachers, guiding parents and elders, you grow fast if you are curious and courageous. Courageous doesn't mean you are arrogant, but you speak your mind, take strong decisions, and finally take accountability of your life and decisions you take. Courage is a life skill. 

Kathleen K. Reardon writes in HBR (Jan 2007), “In business, courageous action is really a special kind of calculated risk taking. People who become good leaders have a greater than average willingness to make bold moves, but they strengthen their chances of success—and avoid career suicide—through careful deliberation and preparation.”

Of course, courage is not a heroic or brave act to show extraordinary capabilities or confronting the negativity with the egoistic reactions. It refers to the ability and willingness to confront fear, uncertainty, intimidation, or difficulty in life by having in-depth knowledge of one’s belief, liberation, and insight. Courage means asking logical reasons for doing something, assessing the beliefs, behaviours, practices, customs etc and challenging for a right cause. Courage is also speaking up and it is expected that respondents should respect the opinion and views of other people. 

I always encourage and ask my team to be courageous while performing their duties. 

Recently, my son, Atharva, who is in 12th, was given an assignment of English subject during mid-term. There were few topics, on which students had to write their opinion. This was an internal assignment. In view of the pandemic, we all know that their final exams are cancelled, and assessment is done on internal marks. Atharva choose one topic, “Student’s Life” 

He writes,

“Student’s life is considered as a person’s golden part of life. This phase forms the foundation and basis of a person's career and entire life. If a student has the ability and dedication, he or she will be able to become successful in the long-term career and life. This phase plays a major role in developing one’s thought process, ideology, and morality. 

Student’s life is not only about studies and examinations, but it is about acquiring real Knowledge. During this stage, a person is supposed to acquire knowledge to become more aware of the outer as well as inner worlds.

We all remember our school days because those days were the best and they gave us the best memories. We all remember all those happy days. But a student’s life is full of hardship and struggles. In India, education is now an industry. Each educational institution claims to be the best. I mean, take a look at my school; they claim to be the topmost school in the city, but they can’t even respond to emails or co-operate with students. Students’ lives have changed drastically over the last year thanks to the global pandemic. We were able to concentrate more on our studies but there was no human interaction, and the situation was a bit depressing. 

So, back to the student's life, a student's life is the best part of one’s life but being a student is being helpless. It is easy to be disappointed, but life is about preparing for disappointments.

In short, the life of a student is about discipline and hardship; hard woe punctuated by moments of fun and ecstasy.”       

Before submitting this, he showed this to me. We were aware that the comments about the school would not be taken positively, and it exactly happened. It was a hard and courageous decision during such a crucial period where the students’ marks are determined on internal assessment given by the school.  Speaking the mind about the student’s life, specifically comments on the school were taken otherwise by the teacher. The internal marks are compromised by speaking the truth.

But he is happy, I am happy. I am sure, allowing him to speak up his mind will help him in his future career. I am proud.     

If you want to make a difference in your life, always be curious and courageous. Don’t shy away from speaking up and asking questions. 

(Opinions are purely personal & does not represent my organizations, current or past) 

Author's book are available on Amazon, Flipkart, Pothi and BookGanga 

Me time, we time, our time

My son was just sitting idle doing nothing. He was totally in himself, in trance, just ignoring what’s happening around.

“Is anything wrong Sona?” my wife asked him the question. He is a grown-up child now, in his 12th class. Being in 12th he also may have a lot of stress which we understand. I also got attentive and asked him, “What’s happened, all well na?”

He just smiled and said, “Nothing wrong mom, just wanted to have “me time”. I am bored with all online classes, weekly tests and all this stuff.”

I put down my phone. Wife sat with him and our conversation started. We discussed his fears, his role model, his friends, books, art, except study. We shared our stories. He shared his feelings. Believe me that conversation was a heart to heart dialogue among us. We still continue doing this regularly. This gives energy to us.

This is the power of just speaking and conversing. I remember, I was in school, I had limited resources and ample time, no gazettes, no television and a lot of books in the library. I used to spend (or invest?) a lot of time with my patents, my teachers and friends. Sometimes it was just asking questions, getting scolded, reading children magazines and most of the time just sitting idle outside the home and watching everything, people, sky etc, sometimes just dreaming and sometimes just doing nothing.     

Free internet, social media, serials, web series, different shows and news channels are spoiling the society. Imagine the time spent by people on such platforms. After college, I always wanted to be updated about the events happening in the world. The intention was to improve the general knowledge. It was fine when there was limited broadcast news, however when the multiple news channels were introduced, it was too much. It was fun watching those shows initially, but then I realised that it was a total waste of time. We don’t gain much from watching those channels. For the last 4 years, I totally stopped watching news channels. I watch it just when I think I should know something and that’s also for getting updates. Anyways, all journalists are biased nowadays and they run their own narrative. They are like spokespersons for the political parties, so why to worry what they say. By doing this, I have not lost anything.

Today, the explosion of information is huge. We really need to filter that information. Our jobs are becoming demanding, so work times are stressful. Screen time is impacting our lives and we started believing that if we are not in the race, we will be behind. But the good thing is the world is full of abundance, there is no scarcity. The question is how you find it. There is abundant time available, you have to find it. There are abundant opportunities if you find it. Fortunately, the generation, which my son belongs to, believes in this.

Today, I am happy that we, in the family, have stopped watching weird news channels, senseless serials and reality shows. We control what we want to watch for just entertainment and education. Social media also should be used only for the advantage. We should not get carried away with the newsfeed, likes, and comments.   

Good organizations don’t focus on work life balance, but they focus on work life integration by giving flexibility to their employees. This includes flexi time, work from home, enough freedom to do the job. In such an arrangement, you get time to spend with your family and also yourself. Fortunately, my organization gives that flexibility to me and this also helps me to have some time for me and family. 

So, I have ‘me time’, ‘we time’ and that’s our time to enjoy the meaningful & enriched life.    

Whenever, you feel that you don’t have enough time for your family, yourself, your hobbies, just pause and reflect. There is abundant time you will find. 

In summary

• Believe in abundance.
• Stop watching news channels, senseless serials and TV shows.
• Limit your time on social media, control your newsfeed.,
• Think about ‘work life integration’ instead of ‘work life balance’ by being flexible.  
• Engage in Conversation, Communication with Curiosity.  

Please read the print replica of my latest book written for leaders on amazon kindle, Vitality in Human Resource: Adding human dimensions in HR processes

(Opinions are purely personal & does not represent my organization)     

What is your Dharma?

The Purpose

The purpose of human existence is always debated. When we are frustrated, in dilemma, in struggles, we tend to think more about the purpose and meaning in life.   

In Hindu philosophy, the purpose of human being is nicely explained. Purpose of life is to achieve four aims in life. Those are Dharma (moral values), Kama (pleasure, love), Artha (prosperity) and Moksha (liberation). Hindu believe in leading a righteous life and achieve liberation finally. Every human being has their personal Dharma.  However, it also believes in pleasure and prosperity. These are different stages of life. Few find the purpose in early stages and work on spiritual liberation. It is always expected that humans should make morally right decisions in order to achieve good karma. Karma explains the impact on the personal life of different deeds human beings do. Sometimes it has positive and sometimes negative consequences on life. It believes that every action has the reaction; You get back what you do with others. So, the purpose in different stages may differ but the final purpose is to be happy. Once your full potential is achieved, your life is fulfilled, and you are happy. 

Greek philosopher Aristotle also believed and taught that human beings were driven by purpose, autonomy, and the natural desire to seek out and understand the truth. A person’s ideals manifest when they are pursuing and then attaining a life of purpose, ultimately the end state of human well-being. This end state is sometimes referred to as eudaemonia, the Greek word for human flourishing. 

As per the priority we work and satisfy our different needs. Maslow in his theory explained different human needs and finally explained “self-actualization” which is higher human need. Everybody needs to ask, “What is my Dharma & purpose in life?”

Lot of research explains that human need is to find purpose and if the purpose is found, life is easy and enriched. The team of Harvard School of Public Health researchers finds that if you feel, you have a higher sense of purpose in life, defined as having meaning, a sense of direction and goals — you are more likely to remain healthy and physically strong as you grow older. (Eric S. Kim). Similar researches are conducted by different researchers globally and findings are similar. If you have the purpose, you are more successful, you are happy and fulfilled and live long. 

In human history, every generation had their own struggles, but they adapted to the situation very well. They found the purpose. Today we can live an easy life because of great inventions by scientists, we have witnessed great artists and leaders. All those made the difference in the world by finding their purpose. They have done this for human beings, but they also lived their own accomplished life. However, sometimes human beings are too emotionally connected with certain materialistic things and relations where the person ignores the purpose. In such conditions, internal conflicts are inevitable which finally impact the peace of mind.  

Finding the meaning in life will help you fulfill the purpose and goals in life. We can’t live the life as it comes. There should be the reasons you get up in the morning. If you have a purpose, it can guide life decisions, influence behaviour, shape goals, offer a sense of direction, and create meaning in life. 

So? What is your Dharma - The purpose?  

Please read the print replica of my latest book written for leaders on amazon kindle, Vitality in Human Resource: Adding human dimensions in HR processes

(Opinions are purely personal & does not represent my organization)

Imperfectly perfect

"The absence of flaw in beauty is itself a flaw": Havelock Ellis

Few years back I changed the place of Television. Cable which was taken from the DTH disc was now adjusted to the new place. In this process, at the previous place a small hole of previous cable was visible. Every time, that small hole used to get my attention. I decided to plug it with white cement. It worked well, but the colour of the wall was different. The small white patch on the light green wall was prominently visible to all. It was not the perfect wall and I always used to get distracted by that small white patch. The reason for the distraction was that it was not looking good and the wall was not perfect.  Only one option was to repaint the whole wall so that it looks good. But repainting the wall itself is a tedious process & it has some cost. Finally, I kept aside the decision of painting that wall. It was not wise to spend money on that small one- inch patch.

In our life, we have a lot of such small patches, flaws which look different, sometimes disturbs the symmetry and beauty of the area. We don’t see the other part which is good, looks nice and most of the time beautiful. Absence is a part of life; you will always find fault if you look for it. There will be a lot of undesirable things in the world. There will be good and bad. There will be a lot of flaws which will not look good but still we need to learn to live with that.

I think most of the problems in our life are not because we don’t have them. We are worried because of not having something in life. It is not about the thing itself but the feeling of missing that desired thing. Everybody is looking for that perfect picture. Expecting regularity is also okay. But all those are fine as far as they go, but there seems to be something in human nature that rejects the rigidity of perfect order.

Just reflect about the situation before Covid19. We wanted freedom of working from home, being at home, no travel at offices, and wanted to spend time with families. We were desiring that moment. Corona virus pandemic gave that opportunity. But now after spending 3 months ate homes, now everybody wants to go back to the offices and want to socialise with people. We need to understand that when there is beauty, there will also be pain.

We chase for perfection. Perfect relationship, perfect love, perfect house, kid listening to you and making their career as per your expectations and perfect life where we desire everything. We never get that perfection. We are not made for that. Happiness is not chasing perfection, but happiness is enjoying the uniqueness of that moment. When you recognize that uniqueness in relationship, love and things around you, you will start enjoying those things.   

  

It doesn’t mean that we ignore the quality of things. We should work towards making things better.  Self -realization of personal excellence helps us to make this world better. Not only because the world needs our service, but also because we do.    

"We need to understand that life is not perfect. There is no perfect picture. But it should not stop you to make that picture better. Somebody will still find that picture imperfect."    

How you go at home from office? Cool, it’s simple….

Travelling back to the home form office is always another struggle. Sometimes I feel that most of the problems are created by human. To make the life easy, they manufactured vehicles so that we can commute easily from one place to another place. However as usual, he never planned to face consequences. The fuel prices and congested roads are the consequences. To take care of these consequences, human made industries so that people earn more money spending on such things. This is a cycle and we lost our sleep. Pollution, noise and stress are the part of our life.

The question is how to make this journey meaningful. You can’t hire the driver so that you rest at rear seat and read some good books, or just take a nap. If you hire a driver, still he will make you feel that you have made the mistake and at last you have to drive on your own. I made this experiment and then came to the conclusion that by hiring driver you make your life more complicated. Finding good driver is impossible.  

There are certain ways to make this daily journey meaningful. You can listen music, audio books or Vedic chants. Meaningless radio jockeys from FMs are also there to make your driving enjoyable. But then you get bored listening same songs and foolish commentary of radio jockeys.

After doing this all, I came to conclusion that you yourself have to take the charge of your life. Off course, I never speak on mobile while driving and even don’t use the hands free. I have seen people who plug hands free to the ear and don’t miss a single call even while driving. I always surprise why people keep themselves so busy even while driving. Great two –wheeler riders sometimes put their and others life in danger by doing this.

For driving, only driving skills are not necessary, if you want to make your life simple and stress-free, you also need to be great saint on roads. I tried this lot and I have accepted that in any condition, I need one hour to go home for 20 KM distance and I am not in hurry. I enjoy my ride back to home. When I stop on a red signal, sometimes person behind me bangs his horn without any effect on me.

I give the way to the pedestrian on zebra crossing. Once when I stopped, the group of small children waived hands towards me. Their smiling face made my evening. Near Hotel Sarja (Aundh, Pune) crossing, there is always a mess. During pick hours traffic wardens enjoy their paan and ghutka at corner paan stall. And you know, people are always in hurry crossing the road, banging the horns. They are more aggressive on road. Few days back, on the same crossing, I put my hand outside the window asking another person to stop so that I could cross the road. Surprisingly he stopped and as another people saw him stopped, they also stopped.  It was my duty to thank him. I did by it by saluting him. Next day the same car was coming, I thought the person yesterday stopped, let me stop today. And he waived his hands thanking me. Now we both know each other at least by face and help each other to cross the road without pushing our accelerators. Someday I do, next day he does.

Off course, the traffic problem is still there, but whenever coincidence happens and he is on the road on same day, we both make our life simple, juts by respecting each other. This is working.

Why always be aggressive when not required. Apply the mind and let’s be human…

Self Instructions

Instruct your mind positively...

“Keshava, what are you doing? Please check first and then enter into the system…” one of the accounts officer in my organization was speaking with himself (or computer?) while making some entries in the system. I was behind him. I asked, “What is this Keshav? To whom you are speaking with.” He laughed. His colleague seating next to him told me that it is his regular practices. Sometimes they get confused by his self –talking.

Our mind is powerful and believes on what we do, what we say. Self-instruction is a very powerful but simple tool to make your life happy.

Normally self-instruction is used in education systems considering the students’ ability of one to cognitively plan, organize, direct, reinforce, and evaluate one’s own independent learning without a teacher's prompting. In our day to day job, we need to work without the support of seniors or peers and not necessary they have the time to teach you everything what’s happening in the organization.

However Self instructions here I mean to say is to instruct positively to the mind. Our mind is powerful in bring the positivity in our life.

If you are driving towards the office and you see the traffic on the road is moving fast. You have two options, either to curse the situation or keep the mind cool and wait. You have meeting and you need to go at office on time. How to keep the mind cool? Here just instruct your mind by speaking with yourself. “Oh, the road is jam, but what I can do now? Send the message to boss first and keep your mind cool dear. It is not your fault XXX (you name). The road is with full of idiots.” and laugh. Make the situation funny. You will see the difference. It is the choice of yours’ and you need to choose positive option.    

How to do that?

1.      Identify the situation: Situation can be anything. From you day to day issues to professional ideas. E.g. traffic is jam; you need to prepare the report for the boss; or you have to give the presentation to the critical customer.   

2.      See the positive side: Check the positive side of the situation. Traffic is jam but traffic police is already there. Or can I come out and do something? Or Oh I am ready for the presentation and boss is with me in case of any problem.

3.      Instruct your mind: This is a self-instruction phase. Make the positive statement and alternate plan in case of failure. Instruct yourself what actually you need to do and tell yourself everything good about the situation. Just start the conversation with yourself with positive affirmations. Have a good talk. You are instructing your inner, (subconscious) mind.

4.      Enjoy the event: Life has its own destiny. It will not work always as per your expectation. One think in your hand is to enjoy every moment in life. See around and enjoy the faces of people. Relate them to some analogy, animal or birds. Comment on such situation and people involved there. Make a next plan. Tell your mind what is your next plan and how are you going to implement that.

Life and time are the two best teachers. Life teaches us to make good use of time and time teaches us the value of life.

Find out some time...

It's all about Life Management…

People always ask me about my different activities. I write blog and articles. Colleges and institutes call me as a speaker. Sometimes I spend my time with NGOs and also involved in CSR activities. This all is done after office hours. In professional life there are lot many tasks which are beyond my JD and still I perform with passion.

 “How you get the time to write all this?” One of the friends asked me.

“I don’t get the time, I find out the time.” I answered.

We all run with the time. Sometimes we also don’t know what we are doing. People have great excuse of time always. People really work hard but getting some time is dream for all. This is all about the attitude towards our life.

Here I remember the statement of famous person, “Assign responsibilities who have lot of work, people who just say that they do not have time for doing something, will not do the job best.” Fact is you will not get the time anyways, but the reality is if you find the time for something, you will definitely get the time.

This is all about the attitude towards life. If you have positive attitude about the time, time will be there to support you. The question is how you go the extra mile. Sometimes we do not challenge ourselves. I am involved in budgeting exercise. Making budget and then aligning with the finance is real challenge. We have different styles. In past I use to spend almost 10 days in making the budget. Today I complete the budge within 2 days without errors. In past I was doing hard work and now I do the smart work, the result is more time for more value added activities. I recognize that my time is very important to the company. I need to spend my time on relevant value added tasks. However I even can’t delegate the budget exercise to team members as it involves lot of confidentiality and integrity. So what I did, I made a programmed excel file, where I just need to put the relevant percentage for increment as per the cost center and whole calculations are done automatically.

I have seen, people actually spending time on the tasks which can be handled with effective technical knowledge. Actually, you need to be innovative. Every morning when I go in the office, I ask one question to myself, how can I improve, innovate and change today.

How many times, we go extra mile and push ourselves? When I decided that I have to find out time for some other activities, I push myself. Coaching you team for taking more responsibilities and delegating some activities will definitely help. For getting some personal time, I started to cut my sleep by ½ hour by every morning.  

There is everything available on Time Management, but we will not get the time by just reading such references. We actually need to go extra mile and push our attitude..

Hence first find out some time to get the time. After all Life is not about finding yourself, Life is about creating yourself.  

Beware of “Life Skill Coaches”

After completion of graduation, during summers, I decided to do the job. The company was well reputed in health care and my job was in marketing. The owner of the company was in the process to sell the company and the discussions were in progress. However he was self declared trainer, facilitator, motivator etc etc. On the day of joining, we all were asked to seat in classroom and Mr. Owner was supposed to take our class. And he took the class for one week on “Life Skills”. The workshop was good, but Mr. Owner was difficult trainer. The workshop was with lot of sharing of personal stories and at the end of the story he was challenging us on our though process. It was good but was at very philosophical level. The workshop was from 9 to 9, without bio-breaks and sometimes he was abusive and we were totally lost. Only 10 people out of 35 could complete the course. Rest left in between. I was among 10; however I left the job after 2 months to study further. After that I never met that trainer, but later understood that he sold the company and received beautiful amount.  He divorced his wife and remarried with girlfriend. I surprise with his “life skills.”

There is famous psychologist who counsels on psychological health. This includes family relations, parenting skills etc etc. The person who is much involved in psychological health in families could not improve his relations with his family. His wife ran away with his assistant. He is still taking the care of psychological health of society.

I had one report in my earlier company. He was doing well initially. He decided to attend the workshop on “Life Skills” conducted by one so called “Life Skills Coach”. He attended this workshop on his own thinking to develop himself. It was three months extensive programme on Sundays. I thought, oh good, I will get totally transformed person.  Yes, I got totally transformed person which I had not expected. There was something wrong with either Life Skills Coach or this fellow. He could not give the proper results. Sometimes he was aggressive, sometimes very mild. He would accept the excuses given by cross functional members. I saw him totally confused. He was actually practicing, empathy, assertiveness, humbleness, but with wrong juncture. Later on I understood that he started to face the issues with his family. Perhaps he was latterly started to act word to word.

I am strong believer of coaching. Life skills coaches are also good with specific circumstances. However person is developed on his strength. If you build on strength and take step by step action, you would get the results. Weaknesses and development areas also need to focus, but if you don’t have anything to build on that I have doubt on the results. Development areas should be definitely taken care off, but first building on strength will give you more results.

Where does “life skills of coaches” go when they can’t handle their family members? And what is the use of that “Life Skill Coach” who can not transfer the knowledge or life skills properly?

(Opinions expressed here are about specific coaches or with their styles. These are not generalized opinions.)

Speed, overtake and risk

It takes me 1/2 hour for going at the office. The road is always busy. Lot of vehicles on the road make the journey little bit slow. There are certain people who do not follow the discipline of the road and then creates bedlam on the road. Mondays become sometimes anxious due to this reason. There are telcons planned and I have to reach in the office at sharp 9.00 pm. Lot of mails and calls waiting on the laptops make the day demanding.  

There is a line of 4-wheelers running at the speed of 30-40 and I want it to run at the speed of at least 50-60. Long queue of vehicles and everybody is in the line.  I have two options, either to follow the next vehicle and follow the pace or just overtake and try to reach next to next to next vehicle. I choose second one. There are two possibilities if I opt for second option- I reach in front of all and be on time in the office or I am responsible for creating one more chaos on the road and take the blame from others for that.  I chose to be calculative. I see that pace is slow and all the vehicles are following the same pace. I don’t want to one of them but I should be careful. I increase the speed and overtake all and reach next to all. I got it.  Sometimes I have to make speace for me indicating another vehicle that I am planning in your line in front of you, be carful.

And one day, I enticed to compare the metaphor with our life. We have dreams and Goals in our life and definitely we want to achieve the same. Life is the journey and we want to reach at the destination. Sometimes we take speed and sometimes we just follow the line of vehicles.

Here are some of my takeaways from this:

1)      Don’t follow always: Sometimes, following somebody is beneficial, but not always. You need to decide your own action to achieve your goals. If you try to only follow, then there are near miss opportunities of success. Perhaps if you overtake them just by increasing your speed, you may get the key to success.                    

2)      Take calculative risks: I calculate the risk and as I told you I choose second option to increase the speed and overtake other vehicle. There are people who play the safe game and then blame their destiny. You yourself can decide your fate, destiny.  Playing safe is again sometimes beneficial and not always. You know that if you increase your speed, overtake others, or choose another way, further way can be risky. There are lots of risks in the life. Overcoming the fear and taking calculative risk creates the way for the success.

3)      Have the urgency: I always tell my team to imagine that if they don’t do the task on time, they would loose the job and the job what they are doing is the only job available in the market. Creating the need of urgency makes your job easy. Steve Jobs rightly asked to imagine that tomorrow you are going to die. When I commute to office, I have the urgency to go in the office, but this is not the urgency, I have lot many things to do and I have in mind that I have to finish all just today.

4)      Be alert and aware about the situation and check others movement: I increase the speed of my car on the road, but I also check the situation and movements of others. I know I can be careful but others may create the problem for me. There are others guys on the road, who must be thinking the same what I am thinking and this may lead to the major accident. To avoid this I am alert to understand the situation and try to make the safe space for me by taking the control on speed.

Life is like the same. Once you like this you will enjoy the way of making it more adventurous.

You can make your life more interesting

1.   Life pays for what we actually do and not for what we actually know.

2.   Most of the human being perform and do only to the extent of 5 to 10% of the actual potential. Tap the untapped.

3.   Generally a boy of <15 years age would say “Yes I think I can do that” whereas grown ups > 15 years say “I could not because…”

4.   Success is not what you possess in comparison to what your neighbor has but a comparison to your own self as what you would have had and achieved to your potential.

5.   Our thoughts control our life and destiny.

6.   You are solely responsible to what you are today.

7.   Achievers do what they want and not what others want.

8.   What you were in the past need not be a mirror of what you are going to be in the future

9.   Three important things in one’s life is:

a. How much time you spend with your family.

b. How much time you spend in exercise

c. What and when you eat today to look better tomorrow.

10. Practice not necessarily makes everything perfect but perfect practice makes everything perfect.

11. It is interesting to say every day in the morning in the event of challenges that “Wow. How nice…I have a new problem to solve” – Be in good spirit.

12. Any body can succeed in life when we succeed in withstanding :

a. Criticism

b. Rejection

c. Failure

d. Excuses

e. Feeling of No time, No money and No Talent

f. Challenge mediocrity and status quo

g. Above and beyond

13. All of us are like golden Buddha wrapped in clay. If we shed down the bad covers we are too good within.

14. You need to give your best and full to get the best in life.

15. Can you imagine of a man who was born @1910 and died @1935 and Buried @1985 ? !!! –  Better live a meaningful and successful life than live like nobody /useless.

16. Repeat this hundred times every day “I would not give up until I succeed.

17. You need to flush away your past:

A. Errors

B. Failures

C. Mistakes

D. Humiliations

18. External motivation is not permanent it should come from within. Read good books atleast 30 minutes a day. Listen to good cassettes.

19. When you expect and want the best - You Get IT. Have a strong desire

20. Mind works on two principles

a. Selection principle

b. Rejection principle
Hence be careful when you select things to go into your brain

21. Do not allow anybody to handle your self image / self respect

22. Do not ever say that I can not buy it is too expensive. Say that how can I prepare myself to buy that

23. Behavior = Drive X Habits

24. Whatever the human mind can dream, conceive and believe - It can achieve

25. Five Keys for personal success

a. Dream big dreams

b. Develop talent and competence

c. Take 100% responsibility

d. Love what you are doing

e. Single minded concentration until you achieve it

26. Do not share grow-up goals but share give up goals eg: Smoking as a give-up goal

27. CANEI should always be welcomed - Continuous and never ending improvement

28. Life equation is : Self esteem = Success / pretension

29. Everyone has three personalities

a. What we think about ourselves

b. What others think about ourselves

c. What actually we are

30. All great men who succeeded in their life are all nothing but the net output of persistent hard work with a single mind towards the goal.

31. All attempts may not result in total success but no attempts would definitely result in failures!

32. One idea, one thought and one dream can change your life.
33. There are two types of persons, one who has "X" years of experience - one year repeated for X years and second who has one year new experience for X years. Be is second category.

SO DREAM BIG AND ALL THE BEST

(Adopted from various sources)