Your core belief decides what you are

“Do you know that we have different opinions about the same situation?”

“Because we have our own perspective?”

“True, but perspective is one thing, another is the lenses we wear.”

“Take an example of the current situation in Maharashtra, where the former commissioner of police has made allegations against the state Home Minister who asked to collect ransom of 100 crores by every month to one of the pawns who was a controversial Assistant Police Commissioner, accused of murder and putting the gelatin laden car in front of the house of business tycoon. Now few people are criticizing the home minister on this, others are trying to defend him.”

“Yes, maybe these are just allegations and there is no proof of such dealings.”

“You are right, but then all have their own perceptions about the situation.”  

“Exactly, and how the perceptions are made?”

“Based on the experiences.”

“And how are the experiences created?”

“May be based on the feelings.”

“Exactly, now how feelings are influenced?”

“Based on how we react, respond to the experience.”

“Perfect, and what is the basis of our reactions and responses?

“Our core belief.”

“How does it work?”

“Core beliefs are a person’s most dominant ideas about themselves, others, and the world.”

“You are right. Do you know how they act?”

“These beliefs act like a lens through which every situation and life experience is seen. Because of this, people with different core beliefs might be in the same situation, but think, feel, and behave very differently.”

“So, when your belief is not right, what do you do?”

“Even if a core belief is inaccurate or wrong, it still shapes how a person sees the world. Harmful core beliefs lead to negative thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, whereas rational core beliefs lead to balanced reactions.”

“Absolutely.”

“So, in this case people who are defending the Home Minister have the core belief that this is the conspiracy against a specific caste or party. In other case, the one of the Ministers was the accused of abatement of suicide and the religious leaders and his community was defending him citing the same reason.”

“Gosh, this is ridiculous. What are those examples about self, can you make it more relevant to the personal experience?”

“Yes, you asked the relevant question, you are smart.”

“Is it your core belief?” He laughed loudly.

“Of course, that’s why you are my mentee.” I smiled. “Take an example of two people with different core beliefs receiving a bad grade on a test. Person A’s thought, “I failed, I don’t know what the issue is.” And he gets depressed. The impact on his behaviour is, he does nothing.”

“And Person B?”

“Person B thinks that he did poorly because he did not prepare for the test. He feels disappointed and he plans to prepare before the next test.”

“Explain in detail”

“So, Poor marks in the grade is the situation, this Situation has triggered the thought based on their dominant belief like ‘oh I failed, what can I do (Person A) and Oh I did poorly because I was not prepared. (Person B). The feeling was depressed ( Person A) and disappointed (Person B) which resulted behavioural action like ‘what can I do- no change’ (Person A) and I will be prepared for next test- change (Person B)”

“Understood. So, to summarise, our core beliefs, positive or negative, decide our feelings and consequent thought process which results into our behaviours, right or wrong.”

“That’s correct. You summarise it very well.”   

“What precautions should we take while dealing with people who have negative core beliefs?”

“Let’s understand few facts about core or dominant beliefs, these are following,

• People are not born with core beliefs—they are learned.

• Core beliefs usually develop in childhood, or during stressful or traumatic periods in adulthood.  

• Information that contradicts core beliefs is often ignored.

• Negative core beliefs are not necessarily true, even if they feel true.  

• Core beliefs tend to be rigid and long-standing. However, they can be changed.

“This is useful, so people supporting the rapist and corrupt politicians have the problem with their core beliefs.”  

“I won’t answer that, you have to find yourself.” I laughed.

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Motivational speakers don’t change your life.

"Motivational speeches are like drugs. We listen and get intoxicated in the atmosphere and illusion created for a few hours." 

Long back, one of the friends took me to the event citing that there is a great motivational speaker who is going to change our life. When I asked him how exactly he will do that? He told me that it is good to listen to the speaker. Of course, there was a ticket.

Those days were very hard, struggle was immense. What I wanted was good advice to do something different in life. So, I decided to join. The event was organised in a big hotel. When we entered the hall, the atmosphere was energetic and everybody was excited to listen to the speaker. Few people were roaming around and cheering the audience. They were asking to clap, to cheer. Yes, it was exciting. After half an hour, the anchor announced that the speaker was entering on the stage. He requested to stand up and clap for the speaker. It was a mesmerizing atmosphere there.

Speaker arrived on the stage. He shouted, “Hey guys, do you want to make the change in your life?

Audience responded, “Yesssssssssss”

Speaker started the speech. It was like one act play, moving and running from one corner of the stage to another corner. He was jumping and hollering while telling a few known stories. In between asking the response from the audience. Speech was full of inspirational stories, citations, Hindi Shayari, jokes and a lot of words like, extra mile, discipline, focus, conviction and so on.  No doubt, it was a great speech.

Eventually, when we came out of the session, we were happy and everybody was speaking about the speaker, his style, his stories. After 2-3 days, my friend and I totally forgot his speech. For us, it was another entertaining event. I had attended a few more sessions of few more motivational speakers and it was not different from what I attended the earlier one.

There are 4 types of motivational speakers,

• Speakers who have achieved something in their life and they become motivational speakers, like Arunima Sinha or similar.
• Some CEOs, CXOs or great business leaders who are invited regularly on different forums after their retirement.  
• Professionals who practiced hard to become speaker and became motivational speakers
• Professionals who were in sales of some insurance, FMCG or some multi-level marketing (MLM) company.  

I like listening to the first 2 categories. They are authentic, genuine and they have their own experience to share.

However, we should understand that motivational speakers don’t change our life. It is upto us what message we take from them. If you follow everything they speak, you may get in trouble. Most of the time, they don’t motivate people to change the behaviour. Otherwise the world would have been different. We have a lot of speakers, spiritual leaders, mentors who deliver messages and still people have their own issues. It is pertinent to note that you have to fight your battles and face your own struggles. What others say may not be relevant to you. Inspirational speeches did not equal motivation to create real change for the audience hearing.  It did not mean that three days after the event, when people were back in the office, that it had any impact on their behaviour one little bit. 

Motivational speeches are like drugs. We listen and get intoxicated in the atmosphere and illusion created for a few hours. After that we are back to the normal and forget everything. 

I am not against listening to motivational speakers; however, it is important to believe in your own competencies and ability to undertake tasks and achieve your goals. This is also called “Self-Efficacy”. Hearing one of these speakers does not build self-efficacy and belief that you can achieve something more – it may in fact do the opposite. Same is applicable to LinkedIn stories.   

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

He is like me syndrome ….Liking Bias….

Mirroring is the common behaviour during meetings, public

forums etc. In this pic, two leaders seating here are mirroring

Mr. Obama.     

Recently, I was just spending my time at Shopping Mall in Shanghai.  People have lot of spending power. There is a craze of all Apple products which are very costly even in China. However now a days it is a status symbol to have the i-phone and i-pad, whatsoever cost may be. I was just doing the window shopping and observing the people behaviour  including of salespeople.  What is the consumer behaviour?

One of the interesting behaviour , I observed, is “mirroring”. Salesperson was trying to copy the gestures, language, and facial expression of his client. If the buyer speaks very slow and quietly, scratching his head,  salesperson also copies the same behaviour of the buyer. This behaviour makes him likeable in the eyes of the buyer and the deal is more likely. What advertisements do? They project the same behaviour of consumer to attract them.  This is a “Liking Bias”.

Attitude and human behaviour….

Lots of have been discussed on the attitude. People give examples of different attitude and tag others either with positive attitude or negative attitude. However have we realized how attitude is formed in the person? As a HR professional, I always first think about the attitude and assess the person based on the same. I may go wrong if I really don’t understand how the person in discussion formulates his attitude. We must have seen many examples where the person is fired for his attitude, however he is much successful in another organization. We may be wrong in assessing the person if we don’t understand what attitude really means and how it is formulated in the personality of the person.

Bigg Boss 7, Study of Transactional Analysis of participants….

There is one controversial reality show aired on colour every day.  The show is hosted by Salman Khan, who is also known for his controversy for fighting, road rage and Chinkara hunting. You must be aware of this show, Bigg Boss season 7. His show is utter nonsense. 10-13 celebrities and who are unsuccessful in their profession or career or celebrities who are  struggling to build the career are put together under the 24 hours camera surveillance for 3-4 months. Finally who survives there till the end is the winner of the show.  This show is full of controversies, violence, anger,  love & hate relationships, politics etc. Participants can go extreme for the winning. They called this show as a game. So called Big Boss controls the behavior for getting the high TRP and off course more advertisement revenue. Viewers are asked to send the sms to save their favorite participants. There must be some PR agencies who are working for these celebrities to get the support from viewers by posting comments on Facebook page, sending sms and writing on different platforms.     

Producers of this show or the host or so called Big Boss propagate that the behavior of the participants in the show is natural and not scripted (which I really doubt). But if this show is not scripted, then it is interesting to study the behavior of all participants. It is also interesting to study the human behavior, their background and their response under specific circumstances. All the circumstances and situations triggered artificially so that viewers are engaged in the show. You can easily interpret the personality of participants if you see their response. If we believe that this show is natural and the participants’ response is natural to the situation, then you can understand the traits of the people. Don’t you think that these personalities are also among and around us? Let’s take examples of different participants and try to find the traits of these participants and then relate them to the people in your organization, society, friend circle…You also will see the clear link between their family background, their upbringing and their behavior.

Gauhar Khan: Gauhar Khan is always busy in politics. When it comes to the others, it is fair, but when it comes to her, it is injustice according to her. She is fake, manipulative and emotional blackmailer. In whole show, she manipulated other participants, including her lover who is kick out from the show. Just observe her conversation, she discusses about the people and not the events. She manipulated Andy, Sangam, Pratushya, Kamaya, Kushal. You should be very careful of such types of people around you. They use people for their own agenda. Good face with full of negativity…Her ego status is “Critical Parent Ego” and her interaction style is “I am OK, you are NOT OK.”

Tanishaa: Her background is humble, she is from reputed family. She carries her family values. It is also reflected in her behavior. She may be diplomatic but does not play dirty politics. She is very positive, with good leadership qualities. Assertive in communication and good human being. She makes mistakes, but reflects on the same. Very natural and composed personality. Her ego state is “Adult Ego” and she also switches her ego state to “free child ego” state and her interaction style is “I am OK,  you are OK  which is the best style of interaction.

Armaan: Son of the successful film director, started as a child actor. He is pampered child but unsuccessful in his career. Armaan seems to be frustrated, good human being, but his anger makes him unpopular. He is unpredictable. Armaan should understand his anger will lead his life in mess. His ego state is “Rebellious Child ego” and he also switches his ego state to “Parent ego” state. His interaction style is, “I am OK,  you are NOT OK”.  Armaan should seriously consider for anger management counseling.

Andy: Andy is entertainer, he is open and transparent. He has his own views and expresses  as and when required. He is natural in behavior. His ego state is “free child”, he also switches is style to “Adult ego” state. His interaction style is also like Tanishaa, “I am OK, you are OK.”

Sangram: Sangram is good human being. He must have experienced lot of struggle in his life.  He is also humble and very straight forward. His dominant ego state is “adopted child” and hence sometimes he is not confident what he says. He goes back foot, he is not political even not a diplomatic person. He tries to switch his ego state to “Adult ego” which is good. His interaction style is “I am not OK,  you are OK . Sangram should come out from his adopted child ego state.

Kamaya: Kamaya is silent and assertive. She is good human being. She has her own opinions but lot of baggage in her mind. Her ego state is “Critical Parent” and her interaction style is “I am OK,  you are not OK ” Kamaya has a good potential to grow and she sometimes switches her ego states to “Adult ego” state unlike Gauhar Khan.

Among other participants,  Pratushya does not have her own opinion. She is childish and immature. Even Elli is also really good and gentle woman. She is natural and her ego state is Child ego and sitching to Adult ego as per the situation. Elli is really a good girl.

Newcomers, Candy and Sophiya are good in nature. They are matured and their ego state is also Child ego which is natural human being and they switch their ego states to Adult ego state depending upon the situation. This is good for the normal person.  Their interaction style, I am OK, you are OK.”

If Bigg Boss is the reality show which is not scripted, then this is a good lab for studying human behavior. If you are hiring manager and based on the lab, you are supposed to hire to whom you will hire in your team?

Mind your behaviour

I had a notorious union office bearer in my one earlier company. The union was affiliated with powerful political party in Maharashtra. If you have a union, you have to involve in every small matters. The union office bearers will be in your office to discuss the size of wada given in the canteen. Anyway, I think now a days our young generation in HR is missing this beautiful and funny interaction with union.

The said notorious union office bearer was also active in local politics and had been corporator of Municipal Corporation. He used to take petty issues with management and always fight on the same. Off course, his behavior was rude with everybody. In each sentence he has XXXXX. (You understand what I mean).

Once he felt sick and was admitted in Hospital. Due to some reasons his heath got complicated and was admitted in ICU. All employees started to visit him.

Doctors could treat him and almost he survived. After 2 months, he resumed duties. He met me and I was surprised to know that he had totally changed.

“Sir, I have decided to change my language and do the work which will add value to me, organization and society”, he spoke.

“Come on, you are a union leader, ex-corporator, you are doing something for other”, I laughed and spoke sarcastically.

“You are making a fun, but sir, my illness taught me a lot”

“Thanks to god, you are back, but tell me what you have learnt?”

“I was almost gone, but today, I am back because of the wishes of all people like you. My behaviour with everybody was so rude, that everybody was trying to avoid me, but still they visited me”, He started “My wife asked me after I came at home, “See, you are back now, see the joy on the face of children and your friends, what don’t you change your behaviour? Don’t you try to speak in good and sober language?” he laughed and told me” Sir, first time in life my wife scolded me, and I decided to change”

Listening to this, I was very happy, thinking that he made my job easier while dealing with union office bearers. We enjoyed a good relationship. He left the union activities for giving the opportunities to others. Once he visited to my home with her daughter and requested me to guide her on career. This may be an unique example where the union office bearer trusted someone.