GET UP AND GET GOING -17

A GRATITUDE TO LORD THE ALMIGHTY ON THE PUBLICATION OF MY BOOK “MADDENING CORRIDORS OF INTRIGUES “IN U.S.
AND EVENTUALLY I RECEIVED HIS BENEVOLENCE
Life is good. It has been good all along. And while I had been saying to myself that it has been my own doing; in so doing I have been slighting over the person responsible for providing this goodness of life to me. That person who I knew as the force that pervades all over the universe has been the one who holds every man’s hand and directs it towards either the good or the evil doings of life. I have been lucky enough to find only the good doings. Touch wood,He never ever forced me to get into the bad points. That is so because I trusted Him always. Even while undergoing trials and tribulations set forth by Him for me. I have lived into the best of times. For I always knew that He is taking care of my interests over my shoulders. He has always held my hands. He has been graceful and I pay my gratitude to Him today when He has once again like the indulgent father handing over a piece of chocolate to the demanding child , has handed over to me the fame of getting published as an international author .
People who have had an excellent life, an enviable assortment of goodies in their life time often forget that there exists a force that had been benevolent enough to dole it out to them every thing that they ever aspired for. While they all enjoy this excellence they should also see if they have been able to accumulate those things that God wanted them to collect along with the goodies of lifetime…. At this juncture of happiness and over brimming sense of achievement, I want to take stock of the things that He wanted me to accept as the value additions to my humble self. I realize that I lack into many aspects. That kind of tells me that though I am earning a name and fame but I lack in terms of gaining a self respect in my own eyes.
I feel that I need to go little more humble in my attitude to build up my own self-respect. I should never say things that I can never take back from others, in order to ensure that along with my self respect each person that comes across me also retains his dignity. I wish I can make every one feel good about themselves, the same way that I am now feeling about myself.

I also want to ensure that I do not act as self righteous always but provide an equal opportunity to others too to express themselves. I must present to them a complete picture of my humility. I must not act as ever out of my bloated ego, I pray to Him to help me in keeping check on my oversized sense of importance.
I pray to Him to provide me with the patience, because I am left with very little. I have always felt that things must materialize instantly. I forget that He knows the right timings and the opportunity will come as and when he desires it. I must continue doing my own things, and at the same time trusting Him to deliver the way I wanted every thing to happen.
I would seek from Him the loads and loads of — compassion. I need it at so many times and places in my life and when I do not show one where it is much needed, I feel ashamed of myself. And that again hits at my self respect. .

I know why it has taken me so long to get rewarded. He has been busy taking care of the others’ similar needs or who were possibly in more urgent and dire need than me. So I would request Him to bestow on to me the sense of understanding the needs of others. They must be taken care of first. I know that my time will come when others have been provided for.
The cups of joy are in HIS hands and these cups do not ever get empty, they just keep on distributing.

Get up and get going – 16

DROPPING THE BAGGAGE OF THE PAST …..

I’ve always come across successful people telling me stories from their past, the stories that generally speak of their hard times,  stories that come from their  battered soul of past baggage of hard times that they had to face . They also speak endearingly of the people who have been helpful to them and deploringly of the people who had made their bad times all the tougher times for them.  I’d like to sit by such successful people listen to their stories of their struggle to reach the success ladder sans their habit of pitying their own past.  The stories – delivered by such people want to make others see the image of their hard times and the perseverance they had to put in to succeed. They want to make others cry with them and may be laugh too. They want to take the listeners   through their journey emotionally, physically and many a times stirringly with the use of the words that evoke pity and sympathy for the storyteller. I’d like to listen to their tales of bravery of facing the adversity with fortitude. I had like to stir up my soul by such great tales of achievement and transform myself. I would definitely however not want my life to present to me the handicaps that they had to face.  I had always wanted to be able to achieve what the great writers, the great scientists, the brave warriors and the successful people had achieved. But I do not want to imagine how the great writers must have felt dejected and powerless when their scripts and manuscripts had been rejected by the publishers many a times before finally accepting for publication.

I sometimes feel the sordid tales of the earlier failures, spoken after one had achieved success bring down the very celebration of the achievement. The greats must offload the past baggage of all kinds and speak of the enjoyment of the success alone to present a very positive picture of the achievers of the world. It’s something I’d like to develop for myself too.

It has although been said that our sweetest songs are those that tell of the saddest thoughts.  But it appears to me that the tragedy writers of erst years wanted to make use of their past baggage of their own lives in wringing the sympathy of the readers. They wanted to create the emotional highs and lows, and sketched the stories of human powerlessness and failure. It could have also become a golden goose for them helping them earn the lucre in return. But I bet the story of success of the bravery and of the achievement will always get more listeners and the soiled tales of hard times, of dejections, of rejections, of penury, of heartbreaks and of letdown will obviously put people away.

I think we all have to put away the burdens of the past failures, unload the heaviness from our chest and live life to enjoy the success that we have had so far.  Let us look at the good things of the life which we have earned after we taste the success.

“But it’s hard to drop the past”,   people will normally talk about.  “We are very emotional persons. How can we forgo the truth of our lives? How will my children know what struggle I went through?  I don’t like to give a false idea to my children that every thing in life is hunky dory “, are some of the response that have come from highly successful  people whenever I have asked them to let forgo of their past baggage and live in present.

Everybody has many facets to their past. Some of these experiences could be good, some could be bad.    And my life had been no different. But I confess that I often feel shy and reserved talking about my past rejections and failures.  Obviously, I feel exposed and naked to the glare of the listener. To me  it appears that  even if he is   my friend, my close associate,  why should he know  that there has been  another aspect of my life that I find it difficult to present in the current scenario  .

It’s however different when I’m discussing about my achievements. I’m in total control of that situational discussion. I don’t think about anything. I know that I want to speak only the positives. I want to shine out there and I love every minute of adolescent behavior that I put up about my success.    I’m actually relaxed then. I feel nice. Every moment has to be savored here. The exhilaration has to be in place for you to feel good of the achievement.

I don’t know why we should always think of the negatives of the past to enjoy the positive of the present. Let us drop the baggage of the past into – the sea of the unknown.  Let us put it back into someone’ else’s garage thinking it must have happened to some other person who was a weak fellow.

Sometimes when you’ were  treated unfairly it  must have made  you stronger and more determined, the reason for your current success lies therein and let that strength and determination become the visible factor in your personality now that you take pleasure in  the glory of accomplishment.

May be your past was a dreadful time; you finally overcame the difficulties you had become stronger. You now realize what it means to have a spirit that can not be crippled by adversity. You are the one who are controlling your life now in a more positive fashion. You are never going to let what happened in the past happen again. That is why I want you to admire your own strength and not the weakness of the past.

I believe achievers should become an example of positives to the admirers, to their audiences. Let others imagine from your current status what a person can do if he only tries.  You owe it to your self to throw away the baggage of the past tragedy and present a picture of strength and bravery to everyone around. You must be fair to your spirit of triumph.

To me, nothing is more important than feeling the delight of success and making people happy. Your current story of achievement will give them a release from their problems and worries. It will help them to lighten their load.  Why should you want them to say,”Poor guy how hard he suffered in his life “?  I had rather prefer words like, “is it not marvelous that he had a great time. That’s what life is all about. What a wonderful life”.

Get up and Get going -15

The process of putting our heads together

I am reminded of an incident that took place about four years ago in my work place. My company had added another product line and as is natural for any new introduction this range of products too had been facing tough time in the market place. The organization had been in the process of building up a fresh and young team to launch the product in the western part of the country under my leadership.

In an ideal world, we’d all have full control of our professional territories and be able to meet the sales target assigned to all of us. But that was not to be, neither the world is ideal nor was the product so perfect that it could get accepted at the first instance. We all had to endure all kinds of ups and downs in the motivational make up of    our team members at the work place. Every thing had been enduring far less than ideal arrangements at work.

Though every one will say that we were   experiencing “new challenges” at our work place but these challenges were also eating into the psyche of many of my field force as in spite of the team’s best efforts and wider market coverage the product was just not getting accepted in the market place.  On the other hand some officials from the top management group, in their anxiety to show better results to the managing director exerted tremendous pressure on each member. It is but a human tendency to promise more than what can actually be delivered and the same mistake had been dome by some of the seniors here too. The result was that the market forces had tried to revolt to the pressures being built up and this led to frustrations at all levels. When we lack the power to control the forces, what do we do– our morale can take a nosedive. Some of my boys had put in their resignation papers expressing their inability to continue with this kind of pressure tactics.

We may even assume that those boys could not face the challenges to cope with the exigencies of the job, might have found their easy way out. But I will say here that it is up to the management to inculcate and develop a secure feeling of being in control of things at the work place for all its members. The retention as also the participation of our team members largely depends a lot on how satisfied we make them feel at work. And also on whether we’re operating in an “atmosphere of mutual discussions and putting our heads together to equip and prepare each member of the team to the challenges of the task assigned. If your team members feel they are consulted and supported by their boss, they know they are cared about and appreciated .they will make efforts to face all kinds of oppositions, find out the ways to overcome the challenges and will make all efforts to help the organization and the entire team   grow professionally.

The pressure tactics eventually led to some of the top heads also losing their positions and the organization brought in another vice president with the assumption he could now exercise enough pressures on the sales team and deliver.   But I must admit that my request to the new incumbent to come down to our place and discuss the expectations and possibilities with each member did make some sense to him. He rose to the occasion. He did immediately come to our place to discuss with the team members their current situation in the market place in their respective territories and as to how could we make inroads further in spite of handicaps of product not being up to the mark and other deficiencies.  The boys needless to say were thrilled to know that we wanted to sort out their difficulty levels and invest time and effort to put our heads to find solution to the common problem. They had noticed the importance of our giving them the patient hearing. That resulted into their accepting the    ”ownership” of difficult targets and programs. Things started improving thereafter

Our people tend to feel happier at work when they know they can speak their difficulty levels and get consultancy and advice from other team members when the team puts its head together. Thence from it had been made a corporate habit that we will all in our sphere of work though will work independently but will always discus with each other our difficulty levels in a specific meeting named “ putting our heads together”. This way the entire team  had become a support system for each other. We should, in our life always try to find such support teams with whom we can put our   heads together and help each other to get up  along with  and get going when faced with difficulties and challenges.

GET UP AND GET GOING –14

Perfecting the great future:

A great deal of uncertainty exists in the future of the men and women who are not sure of their own faith in themselves and the faith in the Almighty that takes care of the world at large. We all know that He is benevolent. He is very kind hearted and always a giver yet we do not know how to ask Him to lead us to our destination. In our busy schedule finalizing education streams, finishing schools thereafter and then going for job hunting and money making we have always kept the rock of faith away from us. That rock of faith is the God, the Christ, the Allah, the Ram and the Waheguru who allot the positions and pelf to the mortals of this world. He is the forecaster for all of us and somewhere in His balancing of the balance sheets of all our lives, He, had made provisions for all the good things for all human beings otherwise how is it possible that some of us who had an unflinching faith in Him always got the best of that we  had ever dreamed .

Asking from the Almighty is an activity that needs to be done in good faith and humility. Let us all believe that His stores are abundant, there is no dearth of whatever we are asking Him to give it to us. We can improve our lives by getting into the mindset of the growth mode. Let our minds imagine that He is there in front of us, like an indulgent father listening to our demands, we must be very focused on our requests. How can He ignore the growth that we ask for? Is it not every father’s duty to see his children flourish? It is only children who need to be clear and precise. They should not need to look at many more variables to ask for. The almighty will take care of the one we are intense about, the other smaller ones will automatically follow,” .He offers it all to us. He says, “You decide your destination and then leave the rest to me, I will steer you through provided you move ahead on the path with full faith in yourself first and then an unflinching trust in me”.

He says,  “I do not test you ever. The roads  of the human life on this  earth have been paved with the  zigzag pathways ,straight runways,  blind curves, the pebbles and the traffic blocks by man himself , so let man first gain the confidence of clearing all these blockades by his own strengths and then he must come to me. I will guide him through like I guide all my rivers, streams, and the seas. I will lead him through the mountains and the hills like I take the gentle   wind through all the walls of the universe. He says let man have faith in my darkness and also the light that I have created. I have always given him the bright day after the deep darkness of the night. I have never let him down. I have always stood by him. It is only his fickle mind that moves his faith away from my powers.  I want him to come back to me with complete trust. Let him know that I am there to take care of my sons and daughters”.

Praying in all humility should become an activity for all of us which will help us in recasting, our confidence in HIS benevolence. We must know that HE can turn every impossible to a possible for us. We must create a strong bond between us and the CREATOR by making him aware of our confidence in Him.

He has to cope with billions of such demands on him .But He has all his eyes and ears toward his children only. But He is busy creating different versions of the future that the mankind asks for from him. So we will have to be a little patient with our demands. All our demands will be met. It is only some of us must have made contacts with Him prior to others of us. He does not accord any other priority but the priority of time. He knows when it is due for us and then He will give it to each one of us the wealth that we have asked for.  Our demands on him change every second, every hour and every week. Can you imagine any company, any manufacturer meeting the demands of their customers who keep changing their forecasts yet God does it. He keeps track of all our indents. We must however be patient and allow him the necessary time to deliver. He will surely deliver. No one ever has gone empty handed from his stockyard, his stocks are abundant. However keep your bags ready when he delivers for all you know it must be you next in the line. He keeps distributing in sickness and in health, in dark and in light. He does not ask for a holiday. He does not ask for a lunch break. He does not ask for rest off. He is constant, he is continuous, he is everlasting, and it is only we who find it difficult to keep pace with Him. Either we are in too much of a hurry or we simply abandon. Both of the extremes do not go well with his scheme of things. He who sits on top of this universe knows his clock best. He knows when it is our turn and then the clock chimes for us bestowing all his glorious goodness of abundance on us. He is just waiting for us to regain our lost faith in his benevolence and our own capabilities and then get up and get going towards a perfect future.

GET up and get going -13

Inertia – the route to killing self

I am tempted to quote verbatim the comments made by one of my blog readers

“Plans are nice to read, but difficult to get done. World is not so smooth place to live-in; external factors are always there to crumble your internal wishes! Particularly in this materialistic world, financial hurdles don’t allow common people (like me) to achieve our dreams. One may say, we have no guts to achieve what we dream. But at the end of the day, when I think of spending sometime in blogging or reading an interesting book a sense of job insecurity creeps into my mind spoiling all other interest” .

Death of human physical being is certain. It has its fixed time, place and the manner. It can come through accident, disease, destruction and even destiny. But many a times we tend to invite an untimely blow of sudden death to our souls and inner selves. That happens when we stop growing instead we start the downward spiral of mental de- growth.  We lose not only interest in every thing around us but we also end up distancing ourselves from our desired for and intended goals in our life. This may happen because we have lost interest in surroundings around us or it may happen since we are tempted to opt for the security of our cushy jobs and the perks attached to it. But the worst situation comes when we do no take any initiative because of the fear of the unknown. A look at the reasons for inactivity and its systems will help here to understand our very own personalities and the   gimmicks we indulge into to accept the death of intellect for future growth.

Our inertia causes downward growth when we:

• Leave decisions of our life to others
• Always complain about the lack of time
• Always complain about lack of resources
• Always complain about lack of opportunities
• Get irritated for non achievements
• Can not find any topic of interest to discuss with friends/ family
• Simply talk of doing great things
• Sleep either more or less than necessary
• Avoid career discussions

The way to self realization is replete with many challenges and rewards. Challenges to understand and synergize our strengths and weakness to either thwart the threats and or also to en-cash and en-value the opportunities. This can come only when we make all efforts to take out some time for our own self development.

I am reminded of the famous words of Dov Frohman when he says “every leader should routinely keep a substantial portion of his or her time—I would say as much as 50 percent—unscheduled. … Only when you have substantial ’slop’ in your schedule—unscheduled time—will you have the space to reflect on what you are doing, learn from experience, and recover from your inevitable mistakes. Leaders without such free time end up tackling issues only when there is an immediate or visible problem”.

We get stuck up in the rut of ordinary routine when we refuse to take out time for ourselves. We must take out time to reflect and think as to which way we can improve our lives, our mental ability, our leadership qualities, our positive yet differentiating strengths to keep us ahead from the others in the race to self realization. Every day at the end of the day we must reflect as to what happened during the course of the day. We must examine in the process whether the experience has been a positive gain or a negative abrasion. Such critical analysis of experiencing will make us imbibe the positive within us for future enjoyments and the negatives will either be left behind or accumulated for   future corrections.

Only a very conscious effort made to learn from our experiences and mistakes can open the path  to the progress and make us effective leaders. Let us begin this today itself  by asking ourselves very basic and simple questions:

• What was my today intended for?
• Did I do what I had planned?
• Did I achieve what was I trying to achieve?
• What had contributed to this achievement?
• What could I not achieve and why?
• Is the non achievement any way affecting my life’s long term plans?
• In what way is my non achievement affecting others?
• What can be the long term / short term affects (positive or negative) for me and others?
• Can I do the same thing differently next time?
• Can I do any thing to improve upon whatever I did today?
• Can I make my family, colleagues, co-workers, friends, partners in this route to improvement?

Our introspective reflections will bring forth the positive thoughts amongst others too, whose opinions do count for us and who can be instrumentals/ motivators in helping us get up and get going in a more constructive approach for future accomplishment.

Third book ” Communication for Retail Professionals”

Mr. Kapoor’s third book  ” Communication for Retail  Professionals “, published by Tata  McGraw-Hill .http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0070146837/information_center_view0/

Get up and get going -9

The secret of success lives within us . It is not outside  us . It is not even with some management guru, motivational speaker or soft skill expert. All the enthusiasm, the inspiration and the stimulation has to be inbuilt and power driven from within to get ahead in life.  I remember the saying that the horse can simply be led to the water; it is the horses’ thirst that will make him drink water (sorry for the pun and changing the famous quote little bit). Similarly humans have to have an unquenchable craving to do well in whatever sphere we are into, in whatever circumstances we find ourselves into, this hunger to act upon and improve must always keep all of us on the edges all the time.

I am reminded of a small debate that took place almost three decades ago in a meeting with one of my not very literate clients.  But it had left an indelible mark on my consciousness. During my job with one of the automotive parts manufacturing companies I used to call upon the transporters for promoting my company’s products. One of the  highly successful transporters, a burly north Indian  gentleman   (who could hardly  read or write his own name) whom  I had gone to meet during my market visit , casually asked me if I knew ‘ what made a vehicle run on the road”.

My first natural quick answer to this kind of query was of course the same that you have thought of. I said enthusiastically, “why fuel of course. I mean diesel or petrol as the case may be”.

“No”, he mockingly replied.

“Then it is the driver that drives the vehicle”, I blurted out again in a hurry.

“You are only partially correct, but still you have not answered my question, while it is true that you need a driver to drive the vehicle it is not the driver who makes the vehicle run on the road”.

“Well if you want me to count the parts of the automobile that are all involved in the transmission then possibly I will have to include the engine and the tyres too.  Of course how foolish I have been that I never thought of tyres. Even when I work for a tyre company. The vehicle definitely runs on tyres. See if you have a flat tyre you cannot run, so obviously you must be referring to tyres only. That is why I am here to discuss one of our new introductions”, I was very happy that the gentleman would possibly be impressed with my intelligence and the good mood that he had displayed  could fetch me some business in return.

“I think we could go on counting all parts of a  vehicle ,still you will not be able to point out the answer that I had been expecting from you. While all the other parts and systems of the vehicle hold equal importance; it is the speck of the small spark that is generated with the turn of an ignition key that makes the vehicle move. When this spark is not created in any system nothing moves. You have to have the small little fire within your heart also to move the convoy of your life smoothly. Just as vehicle’s movement comes to a standstill if there is no spark within the engine, the same way human life too becomes meaningless if a man does not have some kind of spark in his heart, be it to run his  business or to work in a job”.

‘How clearly you have explained to me in simple words, what my literate mind could not even guess. I do agree with you that it is the spark within that makes everything move. The life itself draws its force from the round of pious fire we look at every morning from the east of the skies. We should all have the same fire within us. The speck of fire so caused will keep us constantly energetic powerful and potent, always eager to   put in pour best and keep the cycles of life moving in whatever situation we may be in”.

“In fact tougher the situation brighter should be the spark within us  so that the rough weathers can be beaten with our own internal energy”, said the trucker to me.

The words spoken by the simple trucker  were so powerful that even after the long  gap  of  so many years , these expressions  beckon me to look for some spark within, get up and get going again towards  my  dream and  the  destination.

Get up and Get going -7

A few of my friends while reacting to my suggestions expressed by me in my   different writings   that one should explore the possibility of finding avocation into new yet somehow a profession which could be related to our hobby or likings, have voiced their reservations on taking to a profession that is different from the one they had been working into for so many years.  I agree with them that we may find the same difficult if not impossible on account of recession/ lack of opportunities available in the existing field as well as the new area that we may propose to enter into. However many a times we give up the effort before even giving it a genuine try.  The general response from all of us for any fresh career move into the untried, unexplored and unchartered waters will be:

1. It is totally new.

2. I do not want to risk it.

3. I do not have the skills for it.

3. I have gone too old for this kind of skills up gradation.

4. Look at my age, do you expect me to take up learning again..

5. What will people say?

Yes we all agree that it is difficult to adapt to the change after having lived with a particular life style and thinking process. But it is not impossible. A man’s analytical and logical part of the thinking process has an inbuilt faculty that is always eager to learn the new and unexplored; provided we are able to challenge and awaken that faculty in each one of us and make use of the same at the appropriate time. We have always had some inherent ability and some of the skillfulness that we possess have been learnt by us out of our experiences in life, be it on the job, during the course of our study, on account of the training or at the time of the rearing of the family, man has always been learning all through his life.

The power of learning does not diminish when we grow up in number of years; on the contrary experiences earned with the passing of the age help us learn things faster. Or do we end up losing our interest in our mental development and intellectual growth because we find enough reasons to justify the kind of life that we have got used to. We do not want to create any kind of flutter or disturbance or dissonance in the easy life style that we have conveniently selected for ourselves. This reminds me of the story of a baby eagle and a poultry farmer, which I would love to share with all in my next write up.

Get up and get going -8

The farmer on one of his morning walks had come across a small baby eagle.  The baby was   hungry, unfed and uncared for lying in a ditch on the road side. The farmer took pity on the small frail bird and brought him home to be reared   along with the other hens and roosters he had been keeping in his poultry farm. He instructed one of the servants looking after the farm to take good care of the new entrant.     “You must feed it the same food that you give to other hens and fowls so that it does not feel and think differently from the other birds in the coop”, the farmer had told the care taker.  As the time passed by the young baby eagle   started growing in age and physic on account of the easy availability of undemandingly obtained food at the pen. Soon the baby eagle virtually started believing that it was also the bird of the same breed that others belonged to in the enclosure of hens and roosters.

It so happened that one of the village elders, who had heard about an eagle being reared along with the chicks, had tried to caution the poultry farmer,   “son you are unnecessary keeping the baby eagle trapped with other birds. You must let it fly back as it belongs to the sky. It is one of those birds that can fly across the mountains. In its flight it can make the mountains feel dwarfed in its presence. It is a bird that can go up to the Sun and look into its eyes to talk to talk to the ball of fire. Please release this eagle forthwith and let it fly”, the village elder told him.

“But Sir, we do not have any eagle in our midst. I have all the chickens in my farm and their task is to lay eggs. Even the one bird you are referring to is also a hen and soon it will start laying eggs for me”.

“If you do not believe me you can talk to the bird yourself. Even the bird will tell you that it is no eagle”, the poultry farmer told the village elder very arrogantly.

The village elder finding the farmer non responsive and arrogant tried talking to the baby eagle. “Come on you dear little birdie. You should know that you are an eagle, which can fly high into the skies. You can cross all boundaries and look down upon the earth from the heights of your reach. Please leave the pen meant for hens and chickens and fly back to the heights of the blue skies”. But to farmers’ delight and to the surprise of the village elder, the baby eagle did not come out of the coop. It looked lazily at the village elder and told him, “How can I fly. I am but only a chicken, and chickens do not fly. My task is to lay eggs when I am ready to do so’‘, it looked disdainfully at the old man who had been disturbing  him from his daily slumber and went back to the enclosure built for warmth and  comfort. The poultry farmer too laughed mockingly at the village elder, “see sir I had told you we do not have any eagle here’.

“Perhaps someday I may have to show the actual heights to this bird to remind and awaken the powers of flying in him”, the village elder muttered to himself as he walked away from the poultry farm.

A few months had elapsed when the same village elder happened to visit the farmer’s house on some mission again. He noticed that the baby eagle had now grown into a full grown fowl of its kind yet it did not recognize its own powers of flying.  It pained to see a life worth while being wasted away like this. He avowed to himself to get the bird freed from the captivity. “I see son you still have the eagle living with the hens and roosters. It has grown fully now. You should let it go. It can take its own care. Let him go and fly back to the skies’, he pleaded to the farmer.

Perhaps you are not realizing sir that the bird is not aware of its own breed now. The bird thinks that it is only a chicken and it has lost all powers of flying. Even if I release him now it will die of hunger, or it will end up a morsel to the dogs. So let him stay back here only , happy with other hens and chickens of my farm house’, the farmer looked with a deep sense of pride at the eagle as if he was enjoying the fact that he made the bird change its mind and physic both.

“Please, you will allow me to take this bird to the roof top. I will try to just make him familiar of the height. It is possible that the altitude of the roof top may make him regain his lost touch with flying prowess “, the elder pleaded to the farmer.

The farmer who by now had been convinced of his own magical powers to turn an eagle into a chicken told the elder, “you may take him to any heights sir; this bird is no more an eagle’.  And look how correct he had been proved. The heights of the roof tops failed to impress upon the eagle that it was a bird meant to fly high in the skies.

The village elder still had not given up his hopes on this. He made another request to the farmer, “I think the elevation of the roof was a little too less to convince the bird of its flying powers. A mountain summit could awaken the soaring faculty in him and I could cajole him to reach the pinnacles”.

You may take him to the peak of the Everest. It is obvious this bird had been converted by me into a domesticated poultry bird. Perhaps someday it will lay some eggs just like other birds of the cage”, the farmer said.

The village elder took the eagle to the highest point of the small hillock situated outside the village. He made the bird look upon the snow clad mount visible at a distance, the    Sun shining through its glory thousands of miles away, and the blue azure skies above.  “Come on son take the first step. Just spread your wings. Take the first flight. Go get into the skies and fly very very high. You must make these mountain tops feel small with your dexterity to reach the heights. Go and look into the eyes of the sun and look down upon the bliss of ignorance and unawareness. Be aware of your own strengths and make the best use of the faculty of flying given to you by lord the almighty’.

To the utter astonishment of the poultry farmer the eagle spread its wings. It thought “there is no harm in giving it a try, if the old man is insisting so much. Who knows I may be able to?”

The bird who was being encouraged by the elder now took the first flight, “come on son I know you can do it. Just fly a little bit. The rest will come automatically to you”, the village elder carried on motivating and bucking up the eagle. The eagle that had gone much above into the skies   called out from there, “is this what you call flying. I will soon be back after looking into eyes of the Sun.  Maybe I will also look at other stars and meteors before I return”. The eagle fluttered its wings merrily and flew into the blue skies away from the captivity of ignorance and also away from the lack of belief into its own special faculty. While each one of us can draw our own meaning from this story, a fact common to us all will apply that many a times we underestimate our own strengths and powers, but once we begin trusting in ourselves , skies too will leave way for us to forge ahead towards our mission and destination definitely predetermined by us and us alone. .

For those of us who believe that we have grown too old or that we have lost the youthful dynamism because of age, my suggestion is we should ask the Sun how ancient it is. In spite of its having been in the skies for billions of years it still shines bright every morning. We must try to borrow this from the stars above and remain young in our thinking.

Get up and get going -10

We have had very encouraging comments on the post of the last week and I must thank each one of you for helping me take the discussions further.

But some of our friends have posed very valid questions too.  Their question reads “it’s true that the spark is needed but some times the ignition just fails to work. One knows it’s needed but one doesn’t know how to ignite the inner fire and this is the situation faced by so many. Self motivation is rare to find; so many extraneous forces make it impossible”

I had asked the transporter friend the same thing, many years ago and will quote his response verbatim for every ones benefit and deduction. Here is what he had said, “even the vehicle does not know that it has been built with so much of inherent strength. Left on its own it will never ever start; forget covering the milestones in its life time. Its power needs to be revved   up with a positive catalystic interaction with the external forces. While it is true that the engine and ignition system of the vehicle are the internal parts of the vehicle you need the external powerful fuel to add power to the innate muscle”.

Human Life is run on similar doctrine. We have all been empowered with the self-righteous soul and the smart thinking power that can make the massive great seas, sky touching mountains and the vast desserts looked dwarfed in our presence. But all this will happen when this great soul of ours is empowered with a strong and steely willpower. While some may make the positive use of the willpower and achieve the glorious heights, some of us succumb to the weaker momentary negatives and give up to the unhelpful forces of our lives.

The positive impact can come into our life by any mean and at any stage of our life. It can be a solemn oath to prove to your self that you can do any thing. It could also be sometimes to show it back to the people who matter the most in our life or it could even be due to the pessimistic abrasions that you would have had in life due to heartbreaking or shocking experiences. By deciding that we have to demonstrate it in any which way, we have taken the first step of empowering our self. It could though still be a long journey to the wish fulfillment.

But mere empowering of the self may not be enough to win the race to the objective. We need to give power along with to all those mechanism and people too who would become influential and supportive in our reaching the future goals in our life. This is like what my transporter friend had advised, “The spark so generated by the turning of the ignition key creates potential power in the fuel that activates the engine and all its pistons start functioning. The automotive force generated in the engine passes on the activity to the main bearing attached to the shaft driving the wheels and the vehicle picks up speed depending on whether it is a front wheel drive or a rear wheel drive “.

In the similar fashion we need to pass on the energy of empowerment to all our week and strong links in our life to make sure all these contribute to the greater cause of our life which is that of attaining our magnificent heights.   Mahatma Gandhi would not have been a mahatma had the people he met in life, not been empowered by him with the thoughts and preaching of Satya- Agraha and non violence.  Lord Jesus Christ became a leader of men and women because he had empowered all of his followers and faithful by spreading the empowerment of love and the power of forgiving amongst mankind.

We need to understand a simple mathematical equation that, all zeroes written behind the figure of numerical one do not have any numerical values whereas if we start writing these zeroes after   we have written the power of one they all become powerful as the figure of one has now passed on all its powers to the zeroes appearing in front of it”. (Mathematicians pl. excuses me for this layman’s definition). The task is to make all the zeroes of our life make contributors to our getting up and get going .

get up and get going -11

GET UP AND GET GOING –11

“Kapoor, I’ve got wonderful news to share with you. Puri had been fired early this morning. He had been called to the managing director’s chambers at 9.00 in the morning and handed over the pink slip.   I have just been given this good news from my boss about Puri, whose second in command spoke to my boss   instantly after Puri had   come out of the top office”, shouted Chawla on the phone lines . He sounded very jubilant on the telephone lines. .

Puri  was our super sales manager who had been hired  a year ago  to steer the company safely out of the de-growth vortex that had set in into the system  due to poor handling of the team by the earlier manager( who currently has been acting as number two to Puri) ). He’d possibly played this match to put down the new incumbent and regain his lost glory. That he had tried this was the most well known fact all over the company but no one expected it to happen so soon.   It was also known to the managing director that the entire team of the company was tied for most of the time in war games of one up- man ship. Even though the company had missed the last two quarters’ targets, he somehow believed that either of the fighting group will have the talent to pull the company up and show some improvement.

The team also believed that they had a far better capability and the talent pool than any other organization in the trade yet…..somewhere they had failed to click.

Such a situation is common to most of the organizations with people getting scared of losing their jobs and losing their sense of balance and team spirit.

How bad can that further become? I wonder. Certainly not life threatening, but definitely many careers will be put on the scaffolds given the current scenario of mistrust prevailing amongst the top positions of the not so enlightened business organizations. .

In our pervious write up we had spoken about the distribution of power created by the lightening of the spark. We had spoken about the empowerment of all those that we come in contact with to become catalysts in our realization of the great dreams .We, when looking at such situations however get convinced that it is very difficult for all of us to share the illusory powers that we get to wield due to our being in particular chair or position.

The process of spreading    empowerment amongst other fellow beings is not an easy task. The world plagued by the uncertainties of recessionary trends and the scare of losing jobs and   earnings for the day, is facing tremendous competition between the peers, the boss and the subordinate, the organization and its executives handling it.  We have in all manners   left behind the spirit of hand holding. The race is on to outdo each other in pleasing every boss that happens to be one or two levels above and then pull down the same B—– through the   back biting, letting down in tasks allotted and with the hope to, catch the next promotion ladder. Office politics has become a dirty arena of ensuring that it is the neighbor perched on the adjoining table, or sitting in the next cabin that must go first. We also tend to believe that his going most probably could save our physical self even though my soul may go to hell.

The process of empowering others involves sensitivity. It involves being more social, more acceptable and more yielding in our approach to each other .However in the race to ensure self gratification, who thinks of a neighbor, a subordinate or a team member.

Individuals have been trained to look for support and dependence right from childhood when they are taught to walk by clutching on to the finger offered as an aid .As grown ups too we obviously welcome such extended fingers and it is seldom that we will bite the finger that helps us stand up on our two feet. It is this gratitude that earns us the social acceptability and in turn extends the spark of empowerment to the dependent.

A selfless share of power with the attitude of making others share their grievances and grief, and fears and apprehensions can earn many a smiles back to us for our own happiness. We can imagine the positivity that spreads around when there is a smile observed on every face sitting in the room, we occupy to dispense our daily tasks.

Physically every man after a certain age can take care of his own needs, but it is cerebrally that he needs external interaction and stimulant to grow. Let us make it our task to give everyone who we come across the same stimulant. This process has our own selfish interest involved into it. Do we also not need the same stimulant from some other source? If so why not get the same back from our own people by developing good healthy human relationships, understanding levels and a sense of camaraderie.In the next write up we will focus on as to what is it that can make us not only good leaders but  also good companions and human beings to help each one of us get up and get going.

Get up -get going 12

You can not impress people by saying “I will do this”. You do this and let them be stunned. Life lived in postponement is no life. It becomes like a cheque of billions of dollars in pocket that can not be en-cashed. The best method of getting the best out of your life is to create. You must dream, desire and create. Let the fantasy become the reality by dreaming, visualizing and attaining. The dreams have always been the harbinger of development of the society. Some one dreamed of flying and we have an aircraft, someone else dreamt of an automobile and we have cars of all kind. Some one else dreamt scaling the Mount Everest and we have the human potential being utilized to it’s fullest.
We must let the dreams become blue prints of our life. The dreams will lead us to our real and desired places in life provided we take care of our dreams and bring them up the way we rear our children and make them better citizens of this wonderful world. Let us decide our route to our desired destination today by adopting the following tough steps for each one of our souls
1. A tougher introspection will help;
• Ask yourself where am I currently
• What do I want to accomplish in near future- distant future
• Do I enjoy what I am doing
• How do I make it enjoyable if I do not
2. Begin today with a solid dream list:
• Write as many dreams as possible
• Let your fancy take the front seat
• Forget about your limitations which are only earthly
• Imagine you have all the power to realize the dream list
3. Search for partners in your dreams realization:
• Let you family become a partner
• Let your coworkers become a partner
• Let your boss/junior become a partner for your dreams
• Share as many dreams as possible
• You never know who might be carrying the torch for you to guide you to the other end of the tunnel
4. Select four major goals for the current year
• Personal goal
• Work/ professional goal
• Relationship objective
• Financial objective
Let us understand if any of your dreams match that objective or lead to that objective- then stay focused.
5. Develop an action plan for each goal so identified by you
• Establish a schedule for each goal
• Anticipate trade offs
• Prioritize trade offs
• Strategize milestones
• Share with important people partners
• Start walking, enjoying breathers on the way
6. Let each goal be the contributor to your life’s growth plan
• What do I want to achieve in my life
• Do these goals meet my value orientation
• What is my own value perception
• What is my value destination
• Will these goals take me there
• How do I get to reach there
7. Taking charge of self

• Each day contains 24 hours only
• Design life growth plan to fit into 24 hours
• Have a healthy mix of fun and work in these 24 hours
• Prioritize fun and work
• Learn to say no to frivolities
• Punctualise yourself to save on time
• Develop a time plan for the day
• Choose and act as the plan directs
• Five practice strategies will help
 Write a diary and carry it along
 Write down new demand coming up
 Accord priority for any thing new coming up
 Set a new deadline for its completion
 Plan the day daily to accommodate deviation

We all need to reach our dream destination and a little planning in life can take us closer to  fulfillment of our desires. let us all get up and get going …..