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 I interviewed Dr Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries, Professor of Leadership Development and Organizational Change at INSEAD, many years ago when I was still testing the RYD Hypothesis that it's only in the integration of Leadership Depth, Business Excellence and Craft Mastery that great leaders and great businesses would be birthed and nurtured. He is a thought leader in the space of Leadership Development who relies heavily on Psychology for developing business leaders and CEOs. He chose to be a psychoanalyst and integrate that into his work. I believe therapy and healing (which is about clearing the past) is directionless without coaching and coaching (which is about creating a bright new future in alignment with our impossible, unimaginable, crazy dreams and making a massive impact) is ineffective without therapy and healing. That is why, we have integrated psychotherapy for our coachees' ongoing inner work to go to dark places within that they don't want to go to and even to dark places within that they didn't even know existed to live in the expression of their undeniable greatness, their Inner Light and realize their highest potential. That is why Centre for Coaching Excellence, an RYD channel of impact for training and developing RYD Coaches, has psychotherapy as part of its Leadership Depth curriculum. In Gear 0, high performing leaders are either: 1) Rescuer Leaders creating dependent, ineffective team members 2) Avoider Leaders creating stressed-out, ineffective team members 3) Critical Fighter Leaders creating under-confident, ineffective team members 4) Victim Leaders creating directionless, ineffective team members Since a leader, a coach and a parent have the same 3 roles to play in order to support their people, coachees and kids to joyously realise their highest potential - nurturer, leader, coach; you can replace leaders with parents or coaches and team members with kids or coachees; the above 4 statements would be equally valid. Here's an interesting article on Rescuer Leaders by Dr Kets de Vries in HBR - The Dangers of Codependent Mentoring Are you a Gear 0 High Performing Leader; or a Peaceful Warrior Super Performing Leader on your Hero's journey from Gear 1 to Gear 5? Raising our consciousness is an endless journey but it is possible to raise one's consciousness all the way to at least Gear 3 before we step into conversations with our team members or kids, irrespective of which gear we may currently be at. That is what Conscious Leadership and Conscious Parenting is all about. Here are few Distinctions with respect to Communicating Powerfully in the World of Others (Gear 3 Leadership Muscle). A Distinction is a distinct point on the Ball of Perspective that give us Power to Create our Reality in alignment with our impossible, unimaginable, crazy dreams. 1. In Gear 1, we relate to our own self as extraordinary. In Gear 2, we relate to other people in our Space as extraordinary. It's only in Gear 3, other people begin to relate to us as extraordinary. All of us want to be in Gear 3 but to get there, one has to go through the fire of Gear 1 and Gear 2. Interestingly, by the time we reach Gear 3, other people admiring us doesn't even matter anymore because we have become an empty space for other people to discover themselves; a channel of impact for people to draw from the Universe through us what would most serve them. 2. Ego is nothing but a human being's self-defense mechanism to protect oneself from the pain of one's own Hole in the Soul: i. I am not good enough. ii. I am not important. iii. I am all alone. No one loves me. Let this understanding support us to be loving kindness to all people in all our conversations because we know the pain of the Hole in our Soul. 3. The 3 growth levers equally exercised supports us in our good to great journey to realize our highest potential - Leadership Depth, Business Excellence and Craft Mastery. As a leader, our job is to support our people to realize their highest potential. By being clear which growth lever is not fully strengthened for our people, we can help them understand the barrier in their growth and help them build their structure of success to maximise their growth and therefore, their happiness and fulfilment. 4. If people are not on their good (Gear 0) to great (Gear 5) journey, they would be operating from Gear 0, from the hole in their soul. Our highest contribution to them would be to raise our consciousness to Gear 4 (Delivering on Our Word leadership muscle) which helps them to step up to Gear 1 (I am extraordinary and I love myself) in our space, helps them to experience their own greatness in our space; supporting them to learn, grow and contribute much more effectively. Gear 4 is the domain of Integrity. Gear 4 is also the domain in which when I say - I believe in you, you will viscerally feel my belief in you. That creates the space for you to step up to Gear 1 in my space. But, if I have broken words in our relationship, it will come in the way for me to step up to Gear 4 in our relationship. So, restoring my broken word to you supports me to step up to Gear 4 in our relationship, which is when I can look straight into your eyes and say - I believe in you; and you will experience my belief in you and relate to your own self as extraordinary. 5. Happiness and Fulfilment is an experience of growth. If we are not growing, we are dying. The highest growth available to us is in realizing our highest potential. We define and, therefore, limit our highest potential by our dream. More impossible, unimaginable, crazy our dream; more growth we have gifted ourselves this lifetime; provided we play the game to realize our dreams. Help people discover their impossible, unimaginable, crazy dream that scares them a bit because if their dream doesn't scare them, then their dream is not big enough. Support them to build a structure of success for realizing their dreams and help them to identify the first tiny step to take from their structure of success. This is a foundation for communicating powerfully in the world of others. My dream is that RYD Circle of Love nurtures 60 Indian businesses to be Fortune Global 100, 300 Indian businesses to be Fortune Global 500 and 1000 Indian Businesses to be Forbes Global 2000 enabling India to be the world's most developed, beautiful, greenest nation; with her citizens happiest, healthiest and the most prosperous in the world. What is your impossible, unimaginable, crazy dream that scares you a bit and yet brings stars to your eyes, joy to your heart, dance to your feet, a song on your lips, peace in your mind, energy to your life and lights up your soul? Dream Big. Create Big. Impact Big 💜 Loving you, j.
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 Clarity is scary because then we can no longer blame Confusion for not taking actions that require courage to take. Confusion is our zone of safety because once there is Clarity, we would have to give up the comfort of being busy being busy as we can no longer hide behind Confusion. That is why we avoid reflecting, meditating, learning new ideas and anything else that will slow us down because then Clarity in all its Simplicity will emerge. Better be stressed out fire-fighting than having to face the fact that we don't really have the courage to take the 20% actions that would give us 80% outcomes that we are seeking. Safer and easier to keep running around doing the 80% that would only give us 20% outcomes. That is why developing ourselves as an 80 / 20 Thinker is so tough because the truth is we don't really want to look straight in the eyes of the 20% actions that we necessarily need to take. Better get lost in tactics of today than build the strategy for re-inventing the future. So much safer that way. And, so comforting to know we are working extremely hard. Clarity moves us forward to Joyous Inspiration and Effective Action. But, Joyous Inspiration is scary. Boredom is safer giving us the right to not take difficult, effective actions. Being centred and grounded is scary. Being stressed is way safer because Stress fights Clarity tooth and nail to keep it away. The fact is die we have to. Better die fast building a new future than die slowly surviving. The caterpillar has to die for the butterfly to emerge. What if the caterpillar was scared of dying? Then, it would lose the opportunity to transform into a beautiful butterfly, flying high in the sky of its limitless possibilities. Embrace your undeniable greatness to break free from the cocoon of your fears to let your inner Light shine to make our world a brighter, better, happier place. As you do that, feeling brighter, better, happier will become the place to come from; not a place to endlessly crave for and chase in the world outside. Certainty and Confusion are two sides of the same coin. Beware of both. Certainty will not allow you to see your own assumptions and will block you from travelling to other points on the Ball of Perspective to learn from others what you seek to create - massive impact and, therefore, wealth through building a great business; loving, harmonious, positive, uplifting relationships; happy, healthy, responsible kids with their genius joyously expressed; highest level of health, fitness and joyous well-being, Certainty is often a cover-up for Confusion. I am Right (corollary of that is: You are Wrong) is a usual way to protect ourselves from Confusion and the subsequent Overwhelm. Confusion will not allow you to learn, explore and experiment for you to arrive at the Clarity of 20% Actions that will give you 80% Outcomes that you are seeking. Choose Being Curious over Certainty as that will open you up to learn what you need to learn to step into Crystal Clear Clarity on the 20% Powerful Effective Precise Actions that will give you 80% Outcomes. The Light of Curiosity (Gear 3 Thrival Consciousness) will dissolve the the darkness of Certainty, Confusion and Overwhelm (Gear 0 Survival Consciousness). Keep being curious to learn, re-invent yourself and contribute, which will support you to joyously lead yourself and your business from good to great, realize your dreams and have it all with ease and grace; experiencing beauty, balance and harmony within and all around; while having lots of fun and adventure along the way. Loving you, j.  Reuters documented at least 600 previously unreported workplace injuries at Musk’s rocket company: crushed limbs, amputations, electrocutions, head and eye wounds and one death. SpaceX employees say they’re paying the price for the billionaire’s push to colonize space at breakneck speed. (Reference: Reuters Investigates SpaceX Safety) A great leader (Gear 5 / Level 5) contributes, makes a difference and benefits communities that he / she is impacting directly (employees, customers) and indirectly (society). A mediocre leader (another name for good / Level 4 / Gear 0) causes harm to their people and the world. If our own people are being harmed, our customers can never be served nor the world. But the worst harm that a mediocre leader sadly causes is to their own self. It is the Law of the Universe. We are lucky that in India, this law runs in our blood because of centuries of learning about it. We call it Karma. What you give to others, comes back to you probably many times over. Even a tiny harm done to another - for example, shouting at someone. At the very instance of the shouting, there's anger and upset flowing in our own body which is harming our own self. Heaven and Hell is not beyond this Lifetime. Karma has us experience Heaven and Hell in that very instant in our body. A random act of kindness fills the body with so much joyous fulfilment and that is the experience of Heaven. Hurting someone is an outcome of bitterness / anger / resentment in the body which is the experience of Hell in that instant. A great Leader has the luxury of Having it All. Have It All is not available to a mediocre Leader because success is built at the cost of everything else and success is used to fill the Hole in the Soul. Unfortunately, no amount of success can fill the hole in the Soul because nothing on the outside can fill the hole as only we have access to our Soul. The worst misery in the world is to build vast amounts of success and wealth, and realising that one is still feeling lonely, inadequate, unimportant even as one is standing on top of that huge mountain of success and wealth. Who am I to judge Elon Musk when the whole world is raving about him? Though, I do send him love and blessings to find joy of Having It All. Keep learning, elevating your consciousness and growing to joyously lead yourself and your business from good to great, realize your dreams and have it all with ease and grace; experiencing beauty, balance and harmony within and all around; while having lots of fun and adventure along the way. Loving you, j.  Having It All is a measure of Leadership Depth and is a journey till we reach Gear 5 Consciousness, raising ourselves one Gear at a time from Gear 0 to Gear 5. Having It All is winning the gold medal in the Olympics of Life. It's in Gear 5, happiness becomes a place to come from instead of as a reaction to our ever-changing circumstances. Having It All is having i. Deeply fulfilling, successful, profitable business supporting us to live our purpose of life; gifting us with impact, contribution and financial freedom AND ii. Loving, harmonious, positive, uplifting relationships at work and at home AND iii. Happy, healthy, responsible kids with their genius joyfully expressed AND iv. Nourishing, nurturing ourselves to the highest level of health, fitness and joyous well-being - physical, emotional, mental, spiritual AND v. Making a massive difference through the work we do Not, one at the cost of the other. Breakdowns will happen along the way because that is the design of Life. Our consciousness will strengthen and rise if we use every breakdown as an opportunity to learn, make a bigger difference as an outcome of the learning and break through the barrier that caused the breakdown. The specific breakdown will point us in the direction of what we are meant to learn to break through. If business results are not coming, it's time to step back and reflect to learn what can create business results in alignment with our intentions. And, then apply the learnings to transform the area. If health is failing, it's time to step back and reflect to learn what can create better health in alignment with our intentions. And, then apply the learnings to transform the area. If relationships are failing, it's time to step back and reflect to learn what can create more loving, harmonious relationships in alignment with our intentions. And, then apply the learnings to transform the area. If kids are failing to live from our family values, it's time to step back and reflect to learn what do we need to do to create a space for happy, healthy, responsible kids with their genius joyfully expressed in alignment with our intentions. And, then apply the learnings to transform the area. If work feels meaningless and directionless, it's time to step back and reflect to learn what is our Purpose and build our business in alignment with that to increase our impact. A Helpless Victim in the face of a Breakdown will break down. A Dictatorial Fighter will use brute force to fight the Breakdown at the cost of his relationships, kids, health and well-being. In the beginning, it will feel like as if the Fighter is winning the battle against the Breakdown. But, ultimately the Fighter will break down after the Fight because no one is left to fight. An Over-functioning Super Hero Martyr will use all her hours to do all the work that everyone else is supposed to do. In the beginning, there will be a satisfaction of being busy being busy. But, ultimately the Over-functioning Super Hero Martyr will break down with mental, emotional and spiritual exhaustion. Usually, we keep cycling between these 3 roles which are an expression of our Hole in the Soul, small mind. These roles do not allow us to live our Purpose; or to re-architect our business, our relationships, our health because of the fear of the unknown. Stressful Present is better than the Unknown, however Better it may be. It takes Courage to break free from this Vicious Cycle and create a New Future. And, without that Courage, all we have is a heart that has forgotten to sing, a mind which knows not where to find peace, lips that have forgotten to smile, feet that drag instead of dance to the music of life. Let's all break free from the Vicious Cycle of the Hole in the Soul to continue our journey as Peaceful Warriors with Confidence, Courage and Commitment to together create a Brave New World for ourselves and our kids 💜 Loving you, j.  Key Insights from the article:
https://hbr.org/2015/11/how-company-culture-shapes-employee-motivation 1. Total Motivation of employees (a measure of stronger workplace culture) increases customer satisfaction, revenues and profitability. 2. Play, Purpose and Potential increase Total Motivation of employees. i. Play: When you are motivated by the work itself. You work because you enjoy it. Play is our learning instinct, and it’s tied to curiosity, experimentation, and exploring challenging problems. ii. Purpose: When you work because you value the impact you are creating through your work. iii. Potential: When the work you do enhances your potential. 3. Holding a Weekly Meeting with your team increases Total Motivation of employees when you include the below 3 questions directed at encouraging Play, Purpose and Potential: a. Play (working for the joy of working): What did I learn this week? b. Purpose (making a difference): What impact did I have this week? c. Potential (becoming the greatest version of myself): What do I want to learn next week? 4. Emotional pressure, economic pressure and inertia reduce employee motivation. i. Emotional pressure: Using fear, peer pressure and shame to get work done, working because of fear of negative impact of not getting the work done. When you do something to avoid disappointing yourself or others, you’re acting on emotional pressure. ii. Economic pressure: When an external force makes you work. You work to gain a reward (money) or avoid a punishment. iii. Inertia: When you ask someone why they are doing their work, and they say, “I don’t know; I’m doing it because I did it yesterday and the day before,” that signals inertia. You are doing all the tasks but you just can’t explain why. 5. A high-performing culture maximises the play, purpose, and potential felt by its people; and minimises the emotional pressure, economic pressure, and inertia. This is known as creating total motivation (ToMo). 6. A century of research has proven what many intuitively know: why you work determines how well you work. 7. Six Questions that help measure the Total Motivation of Employees on a scale between 1 (strongly disagree) and 7 (strongly agree): i. I continue to work at my current job because I believe the work has an important purpose. ii. I continue to work at my current job because this type of work will help me reach my personal goals. iii. There is no good reason why I continue to work at my current job. iv. I continue to work at my current job because the work itself is fun to do. v. I continue to work at my current job because without this job I would be worried I couldn't reach my financial objectives. vi. I continue to work at my current job because if I didn't, I would disappoint myself or people I care about. (https://app.vegafactor.com/take_the_survey) 8. What processes in an organisation affect culture? i. Role design ii. Organisation's Purpose and Core Values iii. Performance Systems where employees are stack-ranked or rated against each other will increase emotional and economic pressure, reducing total motivation and thus performance Leadership Depth would make you care about your people and have the courage to make changes in the organisational culture with the intention to contribute to your people than with the intention to make more money. With what intention you drive culture transformation in your organisation will determine how successful you would be in making it happen. Craft Mastery would bring the joy of learning in your organisation, one of the key contributors in increasing Total Motivation - yours and your people. Business Excellence through Rockefeller Habits would ensure you implement best-in-class proven processes that would support to maximise the Total Motivation of your employees. Keep playing the Great Game of Business using the 3 Growth Levers (Leadership Depth, Craft Mastery, Business Excellence) to joyously lead yourself and your business from good to great, realize your dreams and have it all with ease and grace; while having lots of fun along the way 💜 Love and Light, j.  Our Destiny
I believe it is India’s destiny to become the world's most developed and prosperous nation in our lifetime, with her citizens happiest and healthiest in the world. It is India’s destiny to contribute massively to humanity, making a huge difference to our fellow human beings around the world, through the wisdom of our ancient heritage, creativity and innovation of our people, and authentic leadership in business and society. I believe you and I can make this dream a reality by becoming the greatest version of ourselves, personally and professionally, by leading ourselves and our work from good to great; and realising our greatest dreams in deepest communion with our highest selves. We are born in our country because we are meant to carry forward our country's legacy to the world and serve our country to make an even bigger difference to humanity. True joy lies in creating a Brave New World in our own country rather than celebrating and feeling proud of achievements of our fellow citizens who left their roots behind to adopt another country. Our degree of happiness is a function of how deeply we are connected to our roots, how much contribution we have made to the communities that we come from. We are tribal at heart and our tribes define us. It is only in coming home to our own village that we can find our way back to who we are as human beings. No tribe is better than the other, just that my tribe gives me a sense of belonging that no other tribe can; just as it is for you. I can only have deep respect for all tribes if I can reconnect to the deep respect within me for my own tribe. I can contribute to other tribes powerfully when I have contributed to my own first. “If I were to attribute any single reason to such success as I have achieved, I would say that success would not have been possible without a sustained belief that what I did or attempted to do would serve the needs and interests of our country and our people and that I was a trustee of such interests.” - JRD Tata. Under his leadership, the assets of his business assets grew from Rs 62 crore in 1939 to more than Rs 10,000 crore in 1990. He is a founder of many landmark Indian businesses - Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Motors, Titan Industries, Tata Salt, Voltas and Air India - contributing significantly to the economic prosperity of our country. In 2020-21, the turnover of the Tata Companies is Rs 7.7 lakh crore. No longer Politics or Religion It's no longer politics or religion that will lead us forward towards our destiny. The responsibility is now on the shoulders of Business Leaders. It's through strengthening authentic leadership in our country that India will move rapidly forward as the world's most developed nation. That requires CEOs, Business Owners, Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders to travel 3 journeys simultaneously to climb to the summit of their Mount Everest, personally and professionally; and lead their people along with them: 1. Leadership Depth: The inner journey of personal transformation from Evolutionary Fear to Transcendent Love for an integrated wheel of life to have it all and for greater impact in the world through living our Purpose of Life: i. Deeply fulfilling, successful career supporting us to live our purpose of life; gifting us with impact, contribution and financial freedom ii. Loving, harmonious, positive, uplifting relationships at work and at home iii. Happy, healthy, responsible kids with their genius joyfully expressed iv. Nourishing, nurturing ourselves to the highest level of health, fitness and well-being (physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually) v. Making a massive difference through the work we do 2. Business Excellence: The outer journey of professional success by contributing to the communities that we serve through the work we do and leading our organisations / business functions from good to great. Leading our business from good to great, creating a legacy by making a massive difference to our employees, customer communities, business partners, investors and all other stakeholders. 3. Craft Mastery: Becoming a key person of influence in our industry through continual learning, unlearning, re-learning to become the master of our craft. Becoming a Thought Leader, being at the source of Transformation of our industry, a key person of influence globally, contributing to our industry and all of humanity inside of that, by being a Master of our Craft, the World’s best. The Journey to a New Model of Leadership in Business Here's how to travel these 3 journeys to create a huge impact in the world that will have us transform what it means to be India, what it means to be a Business, what it means to be a Leader and as an outcome of that, what it means to be a Human Being. The journey of transforming our organization from good to great begins with us transforming from good to great. Fortunately or unfortunately, the organization mirrors the leader at the helm of the organization. Fortunately because that means the power is in our hands to make this happen. Unfortunately, because it is easier to work on the outside than on the inside. For the organization to shift gears from good to great, there are actually 3 journeys that the CEO / business leader will have to undertake simultaneously: 1. Business Excellence 2. Leadership Depth 3. Craft Mastery Even before we begin to explore each in greater detail, let us define what is good and what is great to assess whether it is even worthwhile to be on this journey. A good organization makes profit but struggles to do so, is in the red ocean of bloody waters with competition nibbling at its toes, primary motive is financial survival, does not have any significant impact in the world, employees work half-heartedly and only for their salary. Employee engagement is a huge focus because disengagement is so rampant. Employees don't feel connected with their own selves or with each other or with their leaders. Its stressful to be working and everyone is waiting to hang-up their corporate boots some day to follow their heart, to come alive. There are offsites to discuss mission, strategy, future etc. and everyone uses these as a way to get a breather from the boring routine and nobody remembers anything once they are back at work. Nobody understands what love is or what's that got to do with work. Leadership is bottom-line and top-line focussed. Another word for good is mediocrity and the organization is only leading itself to a certain death sometime in the future. A great organization is purpose-driven; significantly and positively impacts human consciousness and evolution; passion, commitment, accountability, self-inspiration & purpose drive the employees who joyously work with their heart, mind & soul; is in the blue ocean, is a market leader running a monopoly with its nearest competitor miles away; is in an effortless self-sustaining cycle of creativity, innovation and profitability. No employee engagement programs are needed because employees are deeply engaged and connected with their work, with each other and with their leaders. Employees live their purpose of life through their work; leave the day at work feeling rejuvenated and refreshed. There's focus on value-based leadership with leaders creating a space of compassionate love through nurturing, coaching and leading authentically by themselves doing 10 times what they tell their people to do. This results in breakthrough performance, productivity and profitability. Well, isn't leading your organization from good to great then a worthy goal? If it is, then let's deep dive into what it takes to make that happen. There are three journeys that the CEO, the leader at the helm of the organization would need to undertake simultaneously: 1. Business Excellence This is a journey over 5 mountains: Mountain 1: Inquiring into his / her own Purpose, the CEO / Business Leader identifies a real experiential link between his / her purpose of life and what the organization is up to in the world. Without this, there will be mediocrity and death which is the only outcome available to a good organization. For the organization to be on the path of greatness; the CEO / Business Leader has to be on the path of greatness working with a mission to transform the world, committed to make a huge difference, driven to leave footprints in the sand of time. Mountain 2: Discovering your organization's Blue Ocean and a Compelling Value Proposition that has prospects chase you to become your customers instead of your business having to chase the customers. Till the time you don't have anything to offer that has customers chase you, you are playing a losing game. Mountain 3: Iterating to create a robust Repeatable, Scalable and Profitable Business Model, giving your business a solid foundation of long-term value-creation for your customers and for your organization. Here's how you test whether you are ready to cross this mountain - a. Profitability - Is the cost of customer creation and product / service development & delivery substantially less than what she is willing to pay for? b. Repeatability - Can you repeat the entire value creation cycle (from customer creation to post-sales service) following the same steps, with the same inputs and the same outputs, every time; delighting the customer the same extraordinary way each time? c. Scalability - Can the entire process run without you? Mountain 4: Scaling-up your business through Business Development, Operational Excellence and Extraordinary Service. a. Business Development: Your sales team is more committed to the well-being of the community that your organization serves (your customers) than to the commission that they will earn. b. Operational Excellence: Bottoms-up continuous process automation and innovation to reduce costs, reduce time to do any specific activity and increase quality. c. Extraordinary Service: Delighting customers with such amazing service, at levels that the customers have no right to expect. Mountain 5: Creating a Self-Sustaining Business. The fifth stage is when the organization no longer needs you and can function effectively without you, as you have not only created an organization with strong, robust fundamentals but also have created succeeding leaders to take the organization to its next level of evolution with even greater velocity. You are now free to contribute to the entire industry, leading the industry itself to transform through your thought leadership, impacting a lot more organizations simultaneously as you sit on multiple Boards of Directors and bring about social change, contributing to the evolution of the human race bringing people and countries together through who you have become as a human being as an outcome of leading your organization from good to great. 2. Leadership Depth You cannot lead your organization from good to great without deepening who you are as a human being, without being on your own journey of transformation and evolution from good to great. This is a journey over 5 Gears by dropping Limiting Habits and inculcating Growth Habits to create the highest level of fitness and well-being across all the 4 bodies (Physical, Emotional, Intellectual / Mental, Spiritual) of your Being. Each Gear is about elevating one’s consciousness by developing a specific leadership muscle, working at the level of physical, emotional, mental and spiritual habits. Gear 1: Discovering your destiny, your purpose this life-time. Strengthening Agility of Mind™ leadership muscle to experience unconditional love, gratitude and reverence for who you are as a human being. There is deep stillness within, with nowhere to go and nothing to prove. Gear 2: Making a difference through your work, playing your big game with peace in your heart and mind. Strengthening Being of Service™ leadership muscle to see the light in everyone and have the leadership depth to give your unconditional love, gratitude and reverence to each one in your space, irrespective of however they are and however they are not. Experiencing oneness with the Universe. Gear 3: Experiencing joy of effortless existence as the world around you experiences you as extraordinary. You receive unconditional love, gratitude and reverence from everyone as you strengthen your Communicating in the World of Others™ leadership muscle. Gear 4: Experiencing deep fulfilment as others in your space experience themselves as extraordinary and experience unconditional love, gratitude and reverence for themselves. The Authentic Leader in you is born as you get access to significant Power to Create™ by strengthening your Delivery on Your Word™ leadership muscle. Gear 5: People in your space experience each other as extraordinary and give their unconditional love, gratitude and reverence to each other. Your presence causes a shift in the space around you as you inspire a culture of trust, partnership and compassionate love; with each one supporting the other to be successful. The Master in you is born, as you strengthen your Excellence™ leadership muscle to have your Power to Create™ in full bloom. You become The Master Creator. You intend; it gets created effortlessly and almost instantaneously. 3. Craft Mastery For the organization to cut-over to greatness, there is no other option but to be the world's best in whatever the organization is upto. And, for that to happen, the employees need to be playing the game to be the world's best in whatever they are doing as part of the organized work. For the employees to be on the learning path to be masters of their domain, their craft; you absolutely guessed it - the CEO has to be playing the game to be the master of the domain the organization is in. This is also a journey over five stages. 1. Amateur: This is the stage of Passive Learning, when you learn on your own through reading works of masters in the field, training yourself through material available in the public domain. 2. Professional: This is the stage of Active Learning, when you implement whatever you are learning to make a difference to your chosen target community. 3. Expert: You become an Expert by learning through Apprenticeship, when you learn directly from an existing Master of your Craft. 4. Mentor: You become a mentor when you coach others to become Experts in your domain. 5. Master: You finally become a Master when you coach Experts to become Mentors in your domain. This is when you go inside your craft and become it. The best way to travel on this path is to synchronize each of the five stages of Business Excellence, Leadership Depth and Craft Mastery. A Journey Worthwhile to fulfil on our Destiny Yes, it is a long haul forward. Why should you make your life difficult to be on this path? Because this path supports you to have it all - deeply fulfilling successful career, joyful relationships, happy responsible kids and lots of nourishing me-time, while making a huge difference in the world through the work that you do. The old model of leadership only gives you a successful career but at the cost of everything else. In this new model of leadership, you have it all. I believe this new model of leadership will help us contribute massively to humanity, making a huge difference to our fellow beings around the world, through the wisdom of our ancient heritage, creativity and innovation of our people, and authentic leadership in business and society; leading us towards fulfilling on our destiny to be a world leader; being at the source of joy, harmony, peace, loving kindness and prosperity for all beings on our planet.  If you want to exponentially enhance the performance, productivity, creativity and effectiveness of your team, then inspire your people to bring their heart and soul to work along with their mind and body. Let me tell you a story that tells you what that means. A traveller meets 3 workers cutting stone by the roadside, where a lot of construction seemed to be underway. He asked the first one - What are you doing? The first stone-cutter looked tired and exhausted. He had a small pile of stones that he had cut so far. He said he was cutting stone. He asked the second stone-cutter the same question. He didn't look as fatigued. The pile of stones that he had cut was twice as much as that of the first stone-cutter. He said he was building a wall. The third stone-cutter looked happy and fulfilled; and was cutting the stone with a mesmerizing rhythm, flow and focus; almost like an artist. His pile of stones was ten times as big as that of the second stone-cutter. He said he was building a cathedral. Low performers cut stones and come to work to earn money; high performers build walls and do a good job so that they can get the next promotion, get higher than average salary increase and get an even better paying job with a higher designation than their current role; while super performers build cathedrals and work for a cause much bigger than who they are. They have the highest output, performance & productivity; and greatest energy, joy & fulfilment from their work. How does one create such a space where we transform our people to super performers who are building cathedrals instead of building walls or cutting stones. Here's the process: 1. You cannot create a powerful space to transform your people to super performers without deepening who you are as a human being, without being on your own journey of transformation and evolution from good to great. This is a journey over 5 Gears by dropping Limiting Habits and inculcating Growth Habits to create the highest level of fitness and well-being across all the 4 bodies (Physical, Emotional, Intellectual / Mental, Spiritual) of your Being. Each Gear is about elevating one’s consciousness by developing a specific leadership muscle, working at the level of physical, emotional, mental and spiritual habits. Gear 1: Discovering your destiny, your purpose this life-time. Strengthening Agility of Mind™ leadership muscle to experience unconditional love, gratitude and reverence for who you are as a human being. There is deep stillness within, with nowhere to go and nothing to prove. Gear 2: Making a difference through your work, playing your big game with peace in your heart and mind. Strengthening Being of Service™ leadership muscle to see the light in everyone and have the leadership depth to give your unconditional love, gratitude and reverence to each one in your space, irrespective of however they are and however they are not. Experiencing oneness with the Universe. Gear 3: Experiencing joy of effortless existence as the world around you experiences you as extraordinary. You receive unconditional love, gratitude and reverence from everyone as you strengthen your Communicating in the World of Others™ leadership muscle. Gear 4: Experiencing deep fulfilment as others in your space experience themselves as extraordinary and experience unconditional love, gratitude and reverence for themselves. The Authentic Leader in you is born as you get access to significant Power to Create™ by strengthening your Delivery on Your Word™ leadership muscle. Gear 5: People in your space experience each other as extraordinary and give their unconditional love, gratitude and reverence to each other. Your presence causes a shift in the space around you as you inspire a culture of trust, partnership and compassionate love; with each one supporting the other to be successful. The Master in you is born, as you strengthen your Excellence™ leadership muscle to have your Power to Create™ in full bloom. You become The Master Creator. You intend; it gets created effortlessly and almost instantaneously. 2. Check in with yourself - Who are you Being? Are you Being someone who is cutting stones, building walls or building a cathedral. First step is for you to discover your Purpose of Life, your cathedral, your WHY of why you are working that is so powerful that heart and soul connects with you. Without you having a Purpose that inspires you, you cannot help your people discover theirs. Create the space of vulnerability and authenticity by role modelling that. It is in that space, purpose has meaning. Outside of that space, we are resigned and cynical. 3. The next step is to have powerful one-on-one conversations with your team members from Gear 4 consciousness that touches, moves and inspires them by leading them with questions, coming from the space of Unconditional Love and Belief, supporting them to connect with their greatest dreams. A Leader has 3 roles to play - i. Leader - Do 10 times of what you tell your people to do. ii. Nurturer - Relate to your people as your own family. Be compassionate love for your people and have unconditional belief in their highest potential. iii. Coach - Support your people to realise their greatest dreams in deepest communion with their highest self. Check in with yourself if you are playing all the 3 roles for your team members with integrity and authenticity. You know that you are on the right path if you are playing these roles because you want to play these roles, not because you are seeking something else in return. 4. Connect to the Light in the team member you are coaching / mentoring by creating - I BELIEVE in you - by saying it. 'I believe in you' are the four most powerful words in the world that gives power to the person to whom you say it to realise their impossible, unimaginable dreams. What you are really saying is that I believe in the Light in you. I believe in the potential in you, I believe you will make a difference in this world through your work and through your life. I believe in your dreams. You become Unconditional Belief by making a CHOICE to be Unconditional Belief. 5. The next step is to let them know you are the wind beneath their wings by saying - I am here to support you to realise your dreams and be the greatest version of you. You become Unconditional Love by making a CHOICE to be Unconditional Love. 6. Once that deep, authentic human-to-human connection is established with the team member you are in a conversation with, here are some questions to play with - i. What do you really want? ii. What is your impossible, unimaginable dream that is so big that scares you a bit? iii. If there were no constraints, what would you be doing? 7. Have childlike trust and faith in the Universe, in the Process of LIfe and let the conversation flow. Support them to discover their purpose this Lifetime. Invite them to be in the self-inquiry of what is their Quest this Lifetime, what do they most want for themselves; and inside of that coach them to discover their Purpose this LIfetime. Remember, Newton's third law - Every action has equal and opposite reaction. Fulfilling on your Quest is the reaction from the Universe, something that you want to receive. Therefore, you have to start the cycle by giving to the Universe, to the people in the world exactly what you want to receive back. Giving to others what you want most for yourself is your Purpose this Lifetime. 8. Lead the conversation forward to support them to discover their Vision and Mission. 9. Vision is the future you want to create through your life and your work. Our real opportunity to live our purpose of life is through our work and how we live our life. If you are an entrepreneur, your purpose this lifetime will be the Vision of your organization. If you are a CEO, your and your leadership team's integrated purpose will be the Vision of your organization. If your purpose is not reflected in the Vision of your Business, the vision statement will essentially be empty lines plastered on walls with no meaning, connection or inspiration. If you are a corporate professional, find your purpose and find the connection between your purpose and the vision of your organization. Without that connection, you are likely to remain busy being busy without meaning or inspiration, waiting to retire to start living. It is possible to live your purpose through the role that you play, however tiny it may seem to you. Why is meaningfulness, authentic connection and inspiration important? It is because that is the doorway to productivity, performance, creativity and innovation; leading to profitability and market leadership. 10. Mission is what will you do now for which community to create the future you want to create, the Vision you want to realize. You don't have to leave your job to become an entrepreneur to live your purpose. A powerful efficient and fulfilling way to work in an organization is to consider yourself an entrepreneur with a captive client (the company that you work for). The work you do is the service that your client is consuming and paying for. 11. Once each one of your team members have clarity and deep connection with their purpose, vision and mission this lifetime, it is time to bring your whole team together to integrate everyone's vision and mission to arrive at a common vision and mission for the organization, which is your and your team's cathedral, that deeply heart and soul connects with each one in the team, holds the team together and inspires each one of the team to step up to be a super performer. Now, you are ready to play. Enjoy your journey as you lead your business from good to great. Love, Jyoti.  Is your business down and out because of the pandemic? Are you waiting for the pandemic to end to grow or start your business? I believe that there is no better time to start a new business or grow your existing business than now, even as Covid is raging around the world with a vengeance. I say so because a business is a construct for making a difference and you can make a much bigger difference when the situation is more challenging. Bigger the challenge, greater the opportunity to contribute and therefore, greater the velocity with which you can grow your business. In the last few months, my business has grown exponentially, and the members of Centre for Entrepreneurial Excellence™ have either built a strong foundation for scaling their business or have experienced commendable business growth. Here's how to do it: 1. You now have time to step outside your business and look at it as a whole, instead of getting lost in the business. When you are a part of the painting, you have no clue how to make it better because you have no clue how it looks like as a whole. When you step out of the frame and turn around to look at the whole picture, you will begin to notice the colours that are missing and the lines that would be better erased. You will get creative ideas on how to make it into a beautiful work of art. That's what a business is - a beautiful work of art. And, as a business owner, you are the artist. You can view your business, you work of art as a whole through a simple one-page representation called the Business Model Canvas. Here's a blank Template for you to fill in for your business by answering the questions in each of the 9 boxes of the template. 
I once had a business owner, who had been in the business for over 15 years, reach out to me. His complaint was that - Even after 15 years, I am struggling. I am still doing Operations, still chasing customers, whatever I earn gets spent and not much gets left behind. I work so much and yet, I am making no progress. He was stuck in what I call the Plateau of Mediocrity. I dug below the surface and wasn't surprised to find that he had no articulated Business Model, even after being in business for more than 15 years. I had an opportunity to study another business, which started their venture with a clear Business Model which they tested to validate with real customers and ended up breaking more than 10 business models in their 1st year alone. At the end of their first year, they finally discovered a Business Model that they had tested for profitability, repeatability and scalability; and laughed all the way to the bank from Year 2 onwards. So, the first thing to do to grow your Business in the time of Corona is to step outside your Business and look at it as a whole, using the Business Model Canvas, to identify areas to innovate to create greater value and make a much bigger difference to your customer community from the ecosystem of your Business. Here's an article in Harvard Business Review from Steve Blank, the father of the Lean Startup Methodology, to understand more about the process of using Business Models, start-up assumptions, how to build experiments to validate the Business Model assumptions to discover your way to a deeply fulfilling, profitable, sustainable, successful Business: Why the Lean Start-up Changes Everything? Better would be to read his book written along with co-author, Bob Durf - The Startup Owner's Manual. 2. The second thing to do is to connect with your customers even more deeply and understand what are their challenges, what would contribute to them in this time, how has the pandemic impacted them and their business, listening from a place of 'Being of Service' to identify how you can innovate your Business Model to serve them even more powerfully, in ways you probably hadn't even considered before. The business of one of the entrepreneurs I was coaching is to bring together suppliers and consumers of a particular service for networking in a physical meeting space. The idea really worked well till Covid happened and she could no longer offer the service the way it was designed before. She was feeling apologetic about suggesting to her customers about getting them together online and looking at offering the online model at a discount till we had a business model review. Here are the highlights of our review: i. Her customers still have the need and are irritated at not being able to work at the velocity with which they could work before Covid and Lockdown. ii. Covid and Lockdown has given them exposure to and familiarity with the online channel. iii. The key benefit they received from her Business Model was an opportunity to make a new set of connections from their industry in a single place. iv. They were spending hours on the road from all over Delhi NCR to come for the meeting. v. One on one meetings were a critical component of the value being delivered in the earlier physical model. As an outcome of our review, she innovated her Business Model to launch a premium higher-priced version of her service through Zoom using Breakout Rooms in Zoom to enable one-on-one meetings. Before our review, she had hibernated her business in quiet frustration at the pandemic. After the review, she was grateful for the growth opportunity that the pandemic offered her. 3. Use the situation to breakfree from the 'Activity Trap' that most entrepreneurs get caught in. It is this 'busy being busy' that kills our creativity and productivity; and leads us on the path to Mediocrity. Use the current Corona times and the forced 'lock-in' to free yourself from the tyranny of 'busyness' and use the freed up time to learn, grow and evolve to be the world's best in your domain; be a master of your craft and become a key person of influence in industry globally. I not only completed a Certificate Program in Psychodrama and Expressive Arts Therapy; but also started a 2 years Post Graduate Diploma in Psychodrama (a type of therapy work done in groups) with Tata Institute of Social Sciences. I am a CEO Coach; and work with CEOs, aspiring CEOs, Business Owners, Start-up Founders and High Performers to support them to lead their business from good to great. How can such a theme of learning support my customer community for me to invest so much of my time training on a topic that seems so irrelevant at the first glance? You see my work is about coaching people to step into their zone of genius and that requires an inside-out approach. That means I have to work with my clients not only on their Business Excellence and Craft Mastery journeys on the outside but also on their Leadership Depth journey on the inside, which would include supporting them to be healthy and fit - physically, mentally, emotionally. psychologically and spiritually. Only then, would they get the courage and clarity to lead their business from good to great. 4. Strengthen your Leadership Depth to build momentum to lead your business from good to great. Without a strong foundation of Leadership Depth, Business Excellence is a house of cards that will fall down eventually. How do you measure Leadership Depth? You measure it by rating yourself on a scale of 0 to 10 in the 5 areas of your Wheel of Life. Your Leadership Depth is the lowest score you got across these 5 areas: i. Deeply fulfilling, successful, profitable business / profession supporting you to live your purpose of life; gifting you with impact, contribution and financial freedom ii. Loving, harmonious relationships at work and at home iii. Happy, healthy, responsible kids with their genius joyfully expressed iv. Nourishing, nurturing yourself to the highest level of fitness and well-being (physically, emotionally, psychologically, mentally, spiritually) v. Making a massive difference through the work you do Wishing you the joy of the journey to learn to lead from inside out; which is when you get the courage, clarity and support (at work and at home) to lead your business from good to great. My daughter says that Mother Nature has grounded us for not listening to her. I am constantly awed by her wisdom. Let us use this time to reflect on where we are on our leadership journey and learn to lead from inside out. 5. As I work, meet and interact with entrepreneurs, I get present to why there's a Harvard statistic on 75% startups failing in their first year and Fortune statistic on 90% businesses failing in the first five years of their existence. The founders are passionate about their domain, they are experts and are technically very strong though where they miss is to learn the art and science of entrepreneurship. They miss that the 3 aspects of their personality needs to be in balance for the business to grow - The Entrepreneur, The Manager, The Technician - in the words of Michael Gerber of The EMyth fame. Now that Mother Nature has grounded us for not listening to her and being naughty, let us use this time to learn, understand and apply the science of Entrepreneurship. Just because you are a great technology expert, photographer, consultant, baker etc. does not mean you are a great entrepreneur or a great manager. You have to learn the entrepreneurial and managerial domains, as well, to be able to nurture and scale your business. Make a list of all that you now know you can do to lead your business from good to great, even in the time of Corona, and experience the joy of implementing wonderful ideas and watching your business grow. Love and gratitude for who you are as a human being; and reverence for your commitment to make a massive difference through your work, Jyoti.  What is the single-most important reason why entrepreneurial ventures die? What is the single-most important reason why dreams never get realized? What is the single-most important reason why most of us never live our destiny to make a dent in the Universe? What is the single-most important reason why we never achieve what we most desire, professionally and personally? Interestingly, the answer to all these questions is the same - Self-doubt. If there was only one enemy that I could shoot down for all my clients, it would be self-doubt. It is a great equalizer. It doesn't matter how successful, how wealthy, how accomplished someone is or isn't, self-doubt has sneaked its way and hid itself very cunningly beneath layers in the mind. It is the legacy of our evolutionary process of survival and is a vestigial emotion found in all human beings; except those who have consciously worked on themselves to go beyond the clutches of this demon by inculcating daily growth habits. If we stop practising those growth habits, the demon raises its ugly head all over again by getting its nourishment from our default limiting habits. Let's explore the relationship between self-doubt and business success. Building a successful business is about iteratively discovering a profitable, repeatable, scalable business model much before your passion and resources run out. That means having the inner strength to keep listening to a 100 NOs before that one YES. If you feed your self-doubt, you will give-up after the first few NOs. I echo what Richard Fenton and Andrea Waltz say in their book, 'Go for No' - 'Yes is the destination. No is how you get there.' Learnings about your business model really happen in the failures you have. Without the failures, you have no chance of learning and moving forward to discovering your profitable, repeatable and scalable business model. The whole process from a start-up to a Unicorn is an iterative process, with falling down, learning from the fall, integrating the learnings to decide the next action, moving forward, falling down again, and repeating this cycle again and again till you find profitability on Mountain 2 of Building a Great Business; continuing the iteration to climb to the peak of Mountain 3 to discover the formula for Repeatability and Scalability; learning by continuing to fail and discovering the way forward to Scale on Mountain 4; and finally learning how to Corporatize on Mountain 5, again through failing. So, there's no getting away from failure, rejection, NOs if you are upto building a great business that is an expression of your purpose this lifetime. If self-doubt is one of your best friends that won't leave you, then the journey to building a great business cannot be completed because you will give up along the way, lose your motivation, your inspiration, passion, commitment, energy, enthusiasm, self-belief, confidence to keep getting up every time you fall. Let's understand Self-Doubt for what it really is to get an access to find freedom from it. Self-doubt is really the emotional expression of what I call the 'small mind'. Our 'small mind' is our default limiting experience of ourselves, of others and of life itself. If we don't make a conscious effort, our 'small mind' runs the show in our life, creating limiting circumstances and limiting / no results in our lives. Our brain, by default, is hard-wired with negativity. And, our generic purpose in this lifetime is to learn, grow and evolve to our highest potential by rewiring our brain to be positive and growth-oriented to shift to what I call the 'Big Mind' by working at the level of growth habits across all the 4 bodies of our Being - physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. The 'small mind' is a reaction to the 3 fundamental fears that we humans have: i. I am not good enough ii. I am all alone. No one loves me. iii. I am not important. Self-awareness is about being aware of our default core fears and the limiting thought pattern that is a reaction to those fears. Without this self-awareness, we will unconsciously continue to be a prisoner of our own fears and limiting thought patterns; and continue to bang our head against the wall of circumstances without being able to fulfil our intentions or realise our dreams to grow to our highest potential. My core fears are a combination of 'I am not good enough' and 'I am all alone. No one loves me.'. My small mind is - 'I don't deserve the best. I am not worthy. No one loves, appreciates and respects me. Life is a struggle.', which is a reaction to my core fears. My default limiting personality is a reaction to my small mind - 'I work incredibly hard in my life but without rewarding outcomes in relation to the enormous hard work I put in. I don't experience love, appreciation and respect. Infact, I keep experiencing the opposite of that and the result is I am unable to unconditionally love, appreciate and respect; which keeps the vicious cycle going. I keep working hard playing to get the best but the best continues to be beyond my reach, without my realising how I am at the source of all this melodrama or Maya as we say in our culture.' How does one get out of this vicious cycle? There are many ways though I have chosen to integrate the many ways after studying, interviewing or getting coached from the master entrepreneurs, the super successful leaders, the masters of their craft, the giants of their field. Not surprisingly, they all share similar growth habits that they inculcate in their daily lives to protect themselves from the ferocious grip of the 'small mind'. The first step is to be aware of your core fears, your small mind. The second step is to make a commitment to live from your Big Mind and feed that. Our Big Mind is our creation, that we will create consciously; while our small mind is our default limiting way of Being which will continue to run our lives till we choose to consciously feed our Big Mind to win over our small mind by stopping to feed the small mind. Here's my Big Mind, it's my commitment to myself, my promise to myself how I choose to relate to myself, others and to life - 'I am love, gratitude and reverence. I am success and prosperity. I love, respect and appreciate myself and all beings. Therefore, I experience people's love, respect and appreciation for me. Life is fun and easy.' When I feel people walking all over me, I feel the grip of my small mind and then I remind myself of what my Big Mind is and I know how to respond. When I feel unappreciated, unloved and disrespected, I feel the clutch of the small mind and then I remind myself of what my Big Mind is and I know how to respond. When life throws challenges that throw me on the ground, my small mind wants to push me deeper into the deep ditch of dreariness and then I remind myself of what my Big Mind is and I use my creativity to use the trying circumstances and people who have betrayed and cheated me as opportunities of tremendous growth. If my business hasn't extinguished as yet, it is because I chose to be Big Mind though to chose small mind was tantalizingly easier at numerous occasions. Each time, my business seems to be near its death-bed, my Big Mind helps me to keep the small mind and it's best friend, self-doubt, at bay and brings back my childlike trust and faith in myself, in my impossible unimaginable dreams, in my mission to make a dent in the Universe, in the Universe to help me transform the impossible into possible, the unimaginable into the imaginable. So, the next important question is how to stop feeding our small mind and start feeding our Big Mind to nourish and nurture it to become strong and healthy. It is through the practise of growth habits. The below habits are your 1st stage habits. I call them Gear 1 Starter RYD (Realize Your Dreams) Habits. By practising these habits, you will awaken the Big Mind in yourself; and de-fang and weaken the small mind. When that happens, self-doubt no longer befriends you and walks out on you, leaving you free and in the joyous experience of - I am me and that's enough. No longer anything to prove, no longer caught in the anxiety of what will others say, nothing to hide, nowhere to go to prove a point, nothing to be embarrassed about. Just a blessed feeling of having arrived on the inside to make a difference through your work on the outside. You will observe success and wealth coming your way as by-products of your having arrived on the inside and having found authentic happiness not linked to any cause. Inside of this transformation, the journey to build a great business truly begins. The members of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Excellence™, Centre for Transformational Leadership™, Mums At Work™, Centre for Personal Excellence™ and Centre for Coaching Excellence™ can click on the link below to access the online curriculum for the detailed note on these habits. Gear 1 Starter RYD Habits 1. The Dream 2. Mirror Work 3. Acknowledgements 4. Gratitudes 5. Meditation 6. Read Your Book 7. Daily Inspiration 8. Buddy Call 9. Physical Exercise 10. Restoring your Word 11. Intention Creation and Scheduling 12. Keep a Journal These habits are designed to strengthen you in the first leadership muscle - Agility of Mind™. Wishing you the joy of living your purpose this lifetime through the work you do, the business you run and having the fulfilment of not dying with your Light intact inside of you. Love, Jyoti.  Do you remember how you felt when you last carried out a random act of kindness? And, how you felt when somebody did something kind for you? Did you not feel gentle waves of uplifting warmth, joyous energy and soothing restfulness wash all over your body? At the beginning of our journey, when I ask a client - How are you feeling?; the usual response is - I think good. That tells me how disconnected he is from his emotional body because you cannot think feelings, you can only feel them in your physical body. If you are in touch with your emotions, you will know exactly in which part of the body is the emotion arising, and how exactly is it arising. It may be a tightening of the stomach or heaviness in the shoulders or stiffness in the neck or discomfort in the upper back or stinging in the eyes or a catch in the throat or various other expressions of feelings in the physical body. As you exercise your emotional body to make it fit, you get reconnected with your authentic self, your Source. At that point, you may feel an expansiveness as vast as the sky above, as deep as the ocean below, spaciousness all around, a sweet homecoming; as the feeling spreads from inside to outside to everywhere. And, your productivity, performance, creativity and innovativeness rises to be at the peak. One of the the simplest ways to reconnect with your authentic self is to do a random act of kindness and then keep doing them daily like a must-do just as you brush your teeth daily. The idea is to make it an automatic habit. Though in the beginning, it will feel ritualistic and forced, to mandatorily do an act of kindness to tick it off from your list but after a point, it will begin to feel genuine and something you cannot do without. This act is one of the ways you exercise your emotional body. Just as you have to force yourself to exercise your physical body daily in the beginning but after the lowest point of wanting to give up, you experience an energy that has you wanting to exercise your physical body daily that you can no longer stop. It is interesting that the energy graph of inculcating any growth habit is similar to the shape of a hockey stick. Your mental, emotional and physical energy continue to drop till the lowest point but if you continue beyond that point using your spiritual energy of higher purpose and deep connection with your own self; your mental, emotional and physical energy suddenly turn around exponentially to support you to stick to the habit forever. Based on experiments conducted by University College London, we now have proof that it takes 66 days to hold on to a habit daily for it to become automatic. So, play the Kindness Habit game daily for 66 days even as your energy dips to reap the benefit of a healthy and fit emotional body. Of course, there are many other exercises to keep your emotional body fit. Let’s take those up in subsequent articles for discussion. Coming back to Kindness, how do you define it? It is an act coming from a place of compassionate love and empathy for the good of others with no expectation of a reward in return. If the act is done for appreciation, acknowledgement or some other intrinsic or extrinsic reward, the act serves you no purpose and you stay disconnected from your authentic self. The next logical question is why do we even care that the emotional body is fit and healthy. It is because the Being of the Human Being that we are is like a car with 4 wheels on a journey to reach its destination of fulfilment of its purpose of having been born. The 4 wheels are our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual bodies. If any of these bodies is weak, then the car is unable to drive forward with velocity towards its purpose and we feel a lack, a longing, an incompletion, something missing, a void in our hearts and souls that no material wealth or a loved one can complete or fill. Interestingly, if we work on our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual bodies to become intimately connected with our authentic self, we will find ourselves becoming loving, compassionate and empathetic. The reverse is also true, if we work on practising feeling love, compassion and empathy viscerally not just playing around the idea in our head; we will automatically find ourselves becoming intimately connected with our authentic self. That is the true purpose of our life - to find and reconnect with our authentic self, our inner Wisdom, our inner Light and live in the expression of our undeniable greatness. Not to undertake this journey leads us to an experience of pain from which we find no recourse till the time Pain has forced us to choose the path to our Highest Self. At that point, Pain has served its purpose and we no longer find ourselves in the grip of it. Each experience, painful or not, is a nudge from the Universe to drop our masks of being a Victim or a Fighter and step forward as Peaceful Warriors that we truly are, to fight the battles inside rather than their reflections outside to allow our inner Light to shine through to make our world brighter than we found it. That is why Kindness matters in Business. Because it gives us access to our authentic self and an opportunity to step into the Light of our inner Wisdom for us to operate at the highest levels of productivity, performance, creativity and innovation. That has definite economic outcome higher than available without highest levels of productivity, performance, creativity and innovation in people engaged in making the business work. There is a direct correlation between Kindness embodied in the culture of a Business and Profitability generated by the Business. Interestingly, you cannot tell or mandate people to be kind. Leaving you with a question - How do you create a culture of kindness at work and at home? Your fellow traveller in this Journey towards Purpose, Abundance and Contribution through the work we do, communities that we are a part of and families we are blessed to belong to, Jyoti. |
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