AuthorCEO Coach |
Archives
December 2023
|
Categories
All
|
AuthorCEO Coach |
Archives
December 2023
|
Categories
All
|
There's an outrage whenever an injustice shows its head in the public domain. Media - print, television, social - add fuel to the fire and suddenly everywhere we have indignation, anger, upset, sadness, righteousness in all of us. Experiments have proven that when the body has negative emotions, then the brain shuts down. That means, we have no access to innovation, creativity and out-of-the-box thinking to solve something which is obviously a problem, at the time we need it the most. Let me define what a solution is - It is a construct which a. increases love, compassion and reverence in the environment b. starts the work to solve the issue at the source, not at the surface c. makes people more connected with each other Look at a social problem as a business problem and suddenly, we have access. When we have a business problem that reduces productivity, performance and effectiveness; what do we do. We put on our creative, thinking hats and do process innovation. Do we wait for the CEO to do the process innovation? Maybe that is where the problem is that we keep waiting for the government or someone else to solve the problem instead of experiencing any power within to solve the condition we spend hours complaining about or completely ignoring. If you are in a developing country, running away to a developed nation is not the solution as the problems of your mother country still remain in your consciousness. You heal the problems in your consciousness only by being a part of the solution. If you are in a developed country, putting your head in the sand as the proverbial ostrich doesn't serve you either because what ails your country ails you too, even though it may not seem to at the surface. Making ourselves unconscious of what limitations and negativity surrounds us, unconsciously limits us and drains our power to live at the highest level of who we are meant to be. Complaining about what is not working around us only increases what does not work within us; and can only lead to disharmony and lack of joyous fulfilment. I came across this poem that hit hard: ______________________________________________________________________________ My Dying Conscience by Rashmi Trivedi Sometimes in the dark of the night I visit my conscience To see if it is still breathing For its dying a slow death Every day. When I pay for a meal in a fancy place An amount which is perhaps the monthly income Of the guard who holds the door open And quickly I shrug away that thought It dies a little. When I buy vegetables from the vendor And his son "chhotu" smilingly weighs the potatoes Chhotu, a small child, who should be studying at school I look the other way It dies a little. When I am decked up in a designer dress A dress that cost a bomb And I see a woman at the crossing In tatters, trying unsuccessfully to save her dignity And I immediately roll up my window It dies a little. When I buy expensive gifts for my children On return, I see half clad children With empty stomach and hungry eyes Selling toys at red light I try to salve my conscience by buying some, yet It dies a little. When my sick maid sends her daughter to work Making her bunk school I know I should tell her to go back But I look at the loaded sink and dirty dishes And I tell myself that is just for a couple of days It dies a little. When I hear about a rape or a murder of a child, I feel sad, yet a little thankful that it's not my child I can not look at myself in the mirror It dies a little. When people fight over caste, creed and religion I feel hurt and helpless I tell myself that my country is going to the dogs I blame the corrupt politicians Absolving myself of all responsibilities It dies a little. When my city is choked Breathing is dangerous in the smog ridden metropolis I take my car to work daily Not taking the metro, not trying car pool One car won't make a difference, I think It dies a little. So when in the dark of the night I visit my conscience And find it still breathing I am surprised For, with my own hands Daily, bit by bit, I kill it, I bury it. ______________________________________________________________________________ Ignoring the problems around us kills us slowly from the inside. Complaining about the problems reduce our power to fulfil our intentions and realise our dreams. And, yet there's another way, the way of a Peaceful Warrior. Here's what you and I can do: 1. Shift our Energy State: Based on Dr Hawkins’ research of 29 years as published in The Power of Intention by Dr Wayne Dyer - a. One individual who lives and vibrates to the energy of optimism and a willingness to be non-judgmental of others will counter-balance the negativity of 90,000 individuals who calibrate at the lower weakening levels. b. One individual who lives and vibrates to the energy of pure love and reverence for all of life will counter-balance the negativity of 750,000 individuals who calibrate at the lower weakening levels. A negative energy state shuts down our creativity and innovativeness. In such a state, we cannot create powerful, effective solutions. Counter-intuitively, what helps in a limiting situation that upsets us is not to get upset and instead create tranquility, equanimity, love and reverence within. Yes, I hear you when you say easier said than done. It is easier said than done because this requires a massive shift in our consciousness by dropping limiting habits across the 4 bodies (physical, emotional, mental, spiritual) of our Being and adopting growth habits. I call this Leadership Depth. This is how you become a great leader, at work and at home. Funny thing is we all know what are the limiting habits that we allow to reside in us and what are the growth habits that will speed us forward to the fulfilment of our purpose of life. Though, we are not inspired to take action. Let the knowledge, that when we shift on the inside, the world outside will shift, give us the inspiration. The world outside begins with our children. What limiting habits we are not able to drop, our children will inherit in terms of lethargy of the body, limiting thoughts and emotions and the consequent diseases. Why would we want to pass that on to our children? The wealth that we are speeding to create for them will not stop the diseases, limiting thoughts and emotions from being transmitted to them. If we really love our children, let us leave a legacy of world class habits by inculcating them in ourselves that will transform the environment around us. Our kids will benefit not only by inheriting world class habits but also by a much more joyous environment around them. Here are some growth habits we can consider adopting: a. Stopping to give way to the pedestrians, accepting that the roads belong to them and not to the cars that are zooming past. I learnt this habit from Dubai, where to my happy surprise, a car stopped for me to cross the street though there was no traffic signal and it was the only car. The driver needn't have stopped for me but it did and warmed my heart as the driver smilingly waved at me to cross. b. Smile genuinely at everyone, even at strangers. It was scary, at first, because of the instinctual fear at the core of who we are. Though, this habit fills my heart like nothing else to see the face of another human being transform dramatically and light up with a beautiful giving and receiving of authentic human connection. I especially love wishing, looking into the eyes and smiling at those who are habituated to being ignored - waiters at the restaurants, guards at our condominiums and malls, helpers at cinema halls and airports, housekeeping staff. Having been a coach and a student of what creates greatness in a human being, my observation is that there is such a strong wall of resentment and fear between men and women in the world. Though, if you scratch the surface, all you will really find is fear of not being loved, not being worthy and a deep yearning to make a difference. c. Give away 10% of your salary or 1% of your income to charity. Even in the lean years of my business, I followed this principle. It left me with such a peaceful sense of abundance that I hardly felt the scarcity or lack. Yes, there are tons of more habits to make yourself beautiful and feel centred. Study the people who inspire you, people who contributed massively through their work and their lives and you will unearth a treasure trove of growth habits that will make your heart sing and feet dance all the way to what is the highest in you. 2. Find the Source Within For every ill outside, I find it effective to find the source within by looking in the mirror and working on that. Nobody follows traffic rules in the country. I ensure I wait at every red signal even if there is no traffic and it's pretty late in the night. I wear my seat belt. I don't use my mobile while driving. My children are watching me, even if nobody else is. I am watching myself even if kids are not in the car. There is so much poverty all around. I support my 12 hours home support staff to find a job as I need someone for 24 hours. I use my day off to help her get a bank account even though she will not be working with me anymore. There is so much pollution around. I get the children to walk back home instead of picking them up in the car. 3. Action on a Daily Basis I was unconscious before. I worked on myself to become conscious of the fact that I am responsible for all that happens in my space. I continue the work on myself to take one tiny action at a time. It may not cause a revolution in the world but I know it makes a difference. It makes a difference to me. I come home to myself with every tiny action that I take. It feels good, I feel rested and embraced in the love and joy that is all around me. Wishing you the joy of pulling the thick dark curtain down between you and your light. Love, Jyoti. Acknowledgements: Rashmi Trivedi, author from India and Chief Manager with Indian Oil Corporation. Thank you for beautifully capturing our collective conscience through your poem, Rashmi. More power to you to keep making a difference. Hat Tip to: Akash Gandhi who shared the poem with us in our college whatsapp group. Thank you, Akash for providing inspiration for this article.
1 Comment
There are two boys - Ram and Shyam. Ram loves studying and learning, enjoys the understanding he experiences of the world around him, has a sense of wonderment and joyous curiosity about all that he is learning, an awe for new things he discovers through the process of studying all the different subjects at school, each subject a window into a whole new world. Studying and learning is the end in itself for him. His total attention is in the moment; his whole Being fills up with intent, focus, joy and passion while he is studying. Shyam loves studying and learning, he wants to come first so that he can get into the best college, get the best job for the best salary to take care of his aging parents and his kids when they are born, so that he can live the lifestyle he is used to living and even better it, so that he can give a break to his elder sister, who is supporting the household, to discover her passions. Who do you think is living with greater joy and grace? Who do you think will create greater success and wealth? Who do you think will make a bigger difference to his family, communities, country and the world? Who do you think will be more happy, at greater peace with himself and the world, and more deeply fulfilled. And, why? Shyam may get into a better college, get a better job, have more money in the short-term; though he will end up with an empty heart, if he finds time from his busy life to look into his eyes in the mirror. I know it because I lived with Shyam consciousness up until 2010, tons of money in the bank, designation to show-off to the world, shiny cars, large beautiful condominium and a job that had begun to have no meaning along with everything else; though I began working with so much passion and enthusiasm. I studied to come first to get appreciation and approval of my dad, became a Vice-President with speed to bask in my father's pride and external applause from my family, friends & colleagues. I speeded for 36 years like this doing something to get something else; and then, I could not live with Shyam consciousness anymore, could not bear the heavy thud of my hollow heart, could not understand though I had everything I wanted including my dream job; and yet why it didn't fulfil. I stepped out of the corporate world in search of myself; did massive amount of inner work to figure my purpose, my meaning, my raison d'être and ended up as a coach to journey with people to come home to themselves. I thought I did everything that I wanted. Now, I realise I did everything I wanted by clamping down and fighting the inner demon, the shameful secret fear in the basement of my psyche that kept telling me - I am not enough, I am not worthy, that something outside of me will make me enough, that something outside of me will make me worthy. I did everything that I wanted not from freedom; but from guilt, from the spirit of a Fighter, from the sense of rebelliousness, fighting the world outside instead of the demons inside. I drove on the roads of Delhi at night, dropped my corporate job, built my first business, over-functioned in my relationship with my spouse, emotionally cocooned myself in my relationship with my kids with an air of bravado, a pretence of being bigger and having more courage than what I really felt inside. What got me to where I am is because I kept walking the path of inner growth, seeking out books, coaches and programs for personal growth and development while I re-built my life, personally and professionally. Somewhere along the journey, the wall finally broke connecting me to the Peaceful Warrior within, turning inside to fight my fears instead of fighting their reflections in the world outside. Today I study even more massively than before, though no longer for any awards or recognition. I have studied and learnt more in the last 8 years and with so much more joy and passion than in the 36 years before; though the 36 years includes 12 years of school education, 4 years for an engineering degree, 2 years for an MBA and years of on-the-job studying & learning. The study that I do now is not even visible to others. It is for my own personal journey towards mastering my craft of coaching. I feel centred with Ram consciousness, experiencing the pure joy and deep fulfilment of learning, growing and evolving for the sake of the pure joy and deep fulfilment of learning, growing and evolving. Doing something for itself and not for anything else. Learning for the joy of learning, not because of the certificate you will get or a promotion that may follow. Working for the joy of working, not because you will get a salary or higher income for it. Connecting with another for the joy of a conversation and fulfilment of having made a difference, not because a sale may end up happening or another agenda may get fulfilled. Why? Because when you do something for the sake of getting something else, you don't really enjoy what you are doing. The impact of not enjoying what we do is that it reduces our creativity, innovativeness, productivity, performance and effectiveness. You may create a good outcome, though not a great one. You may create a good business, though not a great business. You may create a good life, though not a great life. Unfortunately, our rewards and incentive culture teaches us to do something for something else very early on in life. Drawing from hundreds of studies, Alfie Kohn demonstrates that people actually do inferior work when they are enticed with money, grades, or other incentives. Programs that use rewards to change people’s behavior are similarly ineffective over the long run. Promising goodies to children for good behavior can never produce anything more than temporary obedience. In fact, the more we use artificial inducements to motivate people, the more they lose interest in what we’re bribing them to do. Rewards turn play into work, and work into drudgery. That is why it is important to not let financial independence or wealth creation be the end goal for your business. It will soon turn what you are passionate about into drudgery. Run your business for the joy of craft mastery (learning to be the master of your craft for the sake of learning to be the master of your craft), business excellence (to be of service to your customer community for the sake of making a difference to them and contributing to their lives) and leadership depth (to rise from evolutionary fear to transcendent love) instead of for wealth creation. In shifting this focus, you will create not only more impact but more wealth than you could have ever imagined. Wishing you the joy of the journey to come home to yourself. Love, Jyoti. References: Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn Are you in perfect health and at the greatest level of fitness? Why does it really matter? Why is good not good enough? Why work so hard to create the highest levels of fitness? One is sauntering along Life, why give up the easy life to take on the additional pressure of one more burdensome responsibility - to create perfect health? Valid questions. Let's journey together for the next few minutes to together inquire into all of these questions and many more that pop up as we move forward. Questions are like that, they have a tendency to simply pop up like jack-in-the-box. The power of questions is that they make us stop and step out of the speeding train of Life to reflect on what is our own truth. There's another word for that, it's called smelling the roses. Growth happens in those moments; such growth that we may change the direction of the train, even change the train itself. That change is deeply joyous and fulfilling because there's a visceral experience of coming closer to home. The first thing to understand is that we have not one but four bodies that we are born with - physical body, emotional body, mental / intellectual body and spiritual body. Our physical body is the only house that we truly have this lifetime which is home for our other 3 bodies. The 4 bodies together form the Being of the Human Being. The Being is the vehicle for the fulfilment of our highest purpose of being born on this planet. We absolutely have the choice to live a zombie-like existence and unconsciously spend all our breaths lost in the melodrama of life before the physical body disintegrates and a fresh new adventure starts. Yet, we can make another choice - to live consciously, with full awareness moment by moment, living purposefully, walking definitely with joyous certainty that this is the path, this is the journey. To have the ability to make this choice, we need all our 4 bodies to be in perfect health and well-being and at the highest levels of refreshing, rejuvenating, energising, exhilarating fitness. Let's look at how we can assess the health of each of these 4 bodies. Answer the questions below by rating yourself from 0 to 10 on a scale of 10, where 0 means totally unhealthy and 10 means perfect health, well-being and the highest level of fitness. 1. Physical Body: How healthy am I? How much joyous energy I have, to do all that I want to do? 2. Mental Body: How well can I focus? How well can I learn across a spectrum of subjects to integrate that understanding to what I already know to create a bigger impact through the work I do? How much clarity I have to know what my 20% is which will give me 80% of the outcomes I am committed to create so that I have an abundance of time to do all that I want to do? How centred am I? To what degree can I feel the soothing Stillness within me? How well can I hear my authentic inner voice in the tranquil Silence inside me? How well do I respond to everyone and everything with equanimity? 3. Emotional Body: How happy am I? How connected am I in vulnerable authenticity to my own self and to all beings around me? How much courage I have to acknowledge, to myself and to others, each emotion that arises within me? How much wisdom I have to know that the source of each emotion that arises within me is me; that the others and the circumstances are merely triggers to open up the box inside me which hold all these emotions? How much understanding I have to know that the only way to let the emotions leave me is by allowing their full expression by giving myself the permission to fully feel them instead of pushing them under the carpet and putting up a show of bravado for the world? 4. Spiritual Body: Why am I doing all that I am doing? What is my purpose? Are my actions and responses sourced in fear; or are they sourced in compassionate love for myself and for others? Am I compassionate love, kindness and reverence; moment by moment? Do all beings experience my compassionate love, kindness and reverence for them? How well can I see, that what all is happening in the world is only a reflection of who I am being inside of me? If you are less than 10 on any of the above questions, you have your task laid out for you. You would be less than 10 in any body because you are being held hostage to limiting habits in that body. You will be 10 in each body if you have with commitment, dedication, discipline, passion, will-power and with a powerful structure of success dropped your Limiting Habits and replaced them with Growth Habits. Lets dive deeper. We, as humans, are nothing but a sum total of our habits. They are our automatic ways of responding to what's happening in the environment. From The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, "Habits, scientists say, emerge because the brain is constantly looking for ways to save effort. Left to its own devices, the brain will try to make almost any routine into a habit, because habits allow our minds to ramp down more often." So, over a period of time, all we become is a mass of habits which create similar outcomes. If we are looking at creating different outcomes in our life, professionally and personally; like higher productivity, efficiency and performance and greater innovation and creativity; we have to step back to become aware of our default habits and work towards replacing them with new habits that support us to fulfil our highest intentions and realise our greatest dreams. There are not only default limiting individual habits but also organisational habits (of a particular organization) and social habits (of a particular society). These need to be studied deliberately, consciously to bring them and their impact in full awareness. Only then, can we take action to re-create and assimilate growth habits to lead ourselves, our business and our society / country from good to great. What does all this mean in context to the 4 bodies? How do we turn up the health and fitness knob to 10 for each body? 1. Physical Body - If tiredness, exhaustion, loss of energy, discomfort, physical pain or dis-ease shows up (it usually does in that order); it is time to thank the Universe for the wake-up call. There are 2 ways of growth - through pain and loss, or through insights. Pain and loss is always a signal for personal growth that we have been turning a blind eye to. At this point, we can push the pain and loss under the carpet and bring out our swords to fight the world. Not a great idea though. There's another way - that of the Peaceful Warrior - who looks for the gift in the loss and pain. Note that the physical body is only a house for the other 3 bodies and if anything shows up on the physical body, it is because one of the three bodies it is housing is bleeding. So, to be in perfect health, well-being and at the highest level of fitness in the physical body, we need our other 3 bodies to be in perfect health, well-being and at the highest level of fitness. Here's how to bring the physical body to a 10 on 10: a. Learn the science of how food impacts your body through the ancient Indian science of Ayurved. I am struck by this question raised by a westerner - Why is the impact on our health of what we eat is not studied by modern medical science? As per Ayurveda, humans have 3 body types and the food that is best suited for you is determined by the type of body you have. Use the food you eat and how you eat it support you towards health and well-being. Is it at all exciting to be making the rounds of the inhospitable hospitals, smelling of despair and death? How about creating such fitness levels that going there is not a part of our schedule? Art of Living offers a 3-day Health through Ayurveda program. It just turns one's understanding of food and eating on its head. I loved the program. It would also be effective to study Naturopathy as well to bring in the learnings into our daily life. Infact, massive research has been done in the West as well to understand the relationship between food and health. Unfortunately, all the research outcomes have been shoved under the carpet because of the staggering economic impact on the food, pharmaceutical and healthcare industries if we start understanding and eating food that naturally maintains our health and well-being till our very last breath. Here are two books which make these research outcomes available to all of us. Click the links to read the summary and if that inspires you, read the books and implement the learnings in your life to elevate your health and vitality: i. The China Study by T. Colin Campbell ii. How Not to Die (prematurely) by Dr Michael Greger b. Yoga - This is an ancient science of asana (specific postures) and pranayam (breathing exercises). This is the only exercise regimen that I know that integrates work at all the 4 bodies - mind, body, emotions, spirit. We will discuss Martial Arts in a little while too. I have been practising Yoga for nearly 20 years though consistency of practise has only come about now. All that I can tell you is that it is such a beautiful experience to feel the stiffness of the body melt away as you move from asan to asan. The secret of the consistency in my practise is my Yoga Coach, who comes like a clockwork and leads me forward from easier to tougher asanas to support flexibility and agility of the physical body. As the physical body becomes more flexible and agile, the mental and emotional body becomes more flexible and agile. I have become wiser to no longer offer excuses of having slept late, sickness, tiredness as reasons for not doing my practise because I have come to realise that Yoga actually supports to ease away tiredness, sickness and lack of sleep. I do Yoga 6 times a week for an hour. Without it, it feels like I haven't brushed my teeth. I am contemplating yanking it up to daily which means for that one day (when my coach takes his weekly off), I would need raised energy levels and commitment to do it on my own. That's the next level of growth though I recognise my asanas wouldn't have progressed towards perfection (and the work continues) if it wasn't for my teacher showing me how I needed to improve. On my own, I wouldn't have figured. c. Martial Arts - While Yoga grows you through the slowness of the practise, martial arts grow you through speed. And, you need both kinds of growth. I recently started Karate along with my kids. We love jumping around, kicking and punching together. Thanks to Yoga, I have more flexibility than my kids at 44 which is supporting me in Karate. Where I lack is the enormous stamina that Karate needs and builds you up for. My Karate coach's super coach is a 73 years old Black Belt Dan 10 (the highest level). That gives me hope and inspiration :-) The increase in my strength and stamina that I experienced as an outcome of learning Karate is helping me enormously on the golf course. d. Sports - There are two ways of playing sports. The first is for fun and the second is playing for excellence. When you make the latter your intention, the first also gets covered. My recommendation is to make the 2nd your intention and involve your family in the whole process. In fact, what would create velocity and magic in your journey towards perfect health, well-being and highest levels of fitness is if you make your family and your organization partners in your adventure. When you make excellence the intention of the sports that you choose to take on, all the four bodies benefit and grow as an outcome. You not only then have to make physical fitness as your articulated intention but also have to bring in focus, attention, love, passion, purpose into the game. The game becomes the practise ground for leadership growth because when you learn to become a container for focus, attention, love, passion, purpose on the playground; that container stays with you and shows up in all areas of your life giving you outcomes you would have only dreamed of before. Leadership Depth is really an outcome of all your 4 bodies being in perfect health, well-being and at the greatest level of fitness. The Universe uses loss and pain to wake us up towards greater Leadership Depth; if we don't make the choice to wake ourselves to live with moment-by-moment awareness to grow consciously across all the 4 bodies our Being. e. Get yourself a family doctor who is preferably from AYUSH (Ayurved, Yog & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Homeopathy): A family doctor has a relationship with your family, a commitment for your family's well-being & health and time to fully hear & understand you; unlike most doctors in spanking new hospitals who come in your life for a transaction and move out again. Don't get me wrong. I have deep respect for Modern Medical Science and its stupendous diagnostic power. Our family doctor (who is a homeopath) leverages the diagnostic reports to fine-tune his medication. A big challenge with modern medicine is that they come with huge side-effects, unlike its authentic AYUSH counter-parts. Though, have the wisdom to reach out to your allopathic doctor when the need arises. The idea is to integrate all the knowledge available for our health. My vision is that fundamentals of AYUSH are taught in medical colleges in the MBBS undergraduate program with each of the five ayush healing methodologies available as post-graduate programs alongside surgery, radiology, pathology etc. and hospitals become integrated centres for wellness to support people to stay healthy rather than step in only to cure once sickness has already taken root. If Indian Tobacco Company can become ITC and progressively reduce its dependency on cigarettes for its growth by successfully diversifying into food, fashion, hotels etc; the day is not far off when hospitals also awaken to the need to be integrated centres for health and healing. 2. Mental / Intellectual Body - Here's how you create health and fitness in your mental body: a. Read atleast one book a month, if not one book a week which I would recommend to anyone committed to massive growth. For maximum benefit, read books that you don't normally read, that are tough for you. Ensure you are reading across a wide cross-section of books related to personal mastery (leadership depth), business excellence, craft mastery, biographies of people who inspire you, fiction, literature. b. Work with a coach who will send you on regular inquiries through socratic discussions and mess up with your mind by getting right inside your thinking. That would support you to become hugely aware about your own human design, your blind spots and massive insights that will accelerate you forward by simply slowing you down. I love my conversations with my coach, Clarence Thomson. I love my Aha, Hmmm, That's funny, Gosh, OMG moments. I love that I get the space to really be authentically myself and can show up with all of me, without my armours and masks. I love that relaxing sigh of having totally emptied out. c. Get present to your limiting thought patterns and consciously work towards letting those thoughts to drop away. Your coach will work with you on this. My favourite books for growing the mental intellectual body are - i. Loving What Is (Four Questions that can Change Your Life) by Byron Katie ii. You can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay - a great book on limiting thought patterns and their impact on the physical body. iii. The Four Agreements (A Toltec Wisdom Book) by Don Miguel Ruiz A great system for uncovering your blind spots and defining your growth strategy is Enneagram. Here's an article for the details on this - Breaking Free from the Box d. Exercising, sports, yog, martial arts are all great ways to keep the lethargy away from the mind. e. Have your mastermind group to constantly challenge you to be bigger than who you are. Remember you are an average of 5 people you hang around the most. Judiciously decide on your mastermind group. 3. Emotional Body - The only work that I know of, that works exclusively for the health and well-being of the emotional body, is by Brandon Bays. She healed her basket-ball sized tumour naturally by accessing the hidden emotions at the source of it and releasing them by giving herself the permission to fully experience them instead of denying her emotions. Her guruji is from Lucknow, India from Ramana Maharishi's lineage. I did a one-year program called the Journey Practitioner with her and her team; through which she teaches the process that supported her to heal her tumour naturally. It was only towards the end of the year that I finally accessed my emotional body pushed so deep under the carpet by years of being a Vice-President, Director etc. It was interesting that I heard her say Namaste more times in 10 days than I had heard in the entire year before inspite of living in India. I, oftentimes, wonder at the loss that we have allowed ourselves in India to experience at not really claiming our vast, deep, rich heritage to humanity as our own and living from there. Here's her book to guide you further on this - The Journey by Brandon Bays. She brings her work to India in partnership with Dr Rangana Rupavi Choudhuri, who herself is based out of London. I integrate this process in my own work as a coach. It is always beautiful to see, feel, hear, experience, support people to access their pain of being a human being and letting it drop off to authentically connect with themselves. For more scientific understanding of the relationship of emotions and thoughts to physical health, read Molecules of Emotions (The Science behind Mind-Body Medicine) by Candace B. Pert. A book that finally pushed me to break the wall between me and myself is Real by Catherine and Duane O'Kane. Here's a quick overview of the book for you to inspire you to read the book for yourself - Real (The Power of Authentic Connection) 4. Spiritual Body - After exploring many meditation techniques, I finally came home to Vipassana. Vipassana, which means to see things as they really are, is one of India's most ancient techniques of meditation. It was re-discovered by Gautam Buddha more than 2500 years ago and was taught by him as a way to connect with your highest self. Vipassana is a way of self-transformation through self-observation. It focuses on the deep interconnection between mind and body. It is this observation-based, self-exploratory journey to the common root of mind and body that dissolves limiting emotions and thoughts, resulting in a balanced mind full of love and compassion. The technique was brought back to India from Myanmar by Shri S N Goenka, a wealthy businessman of Indian origin. He learned the technique to heal himself of physical ailments that modern medical science even from the western world could not give him relief from. It is taught in a 10-day Silence Retreat in monasteries, where you live like a monk for the duration of the program. What led me to it was zero hype about any Guru. When I landed at the rustic Rohtak monastery for my program, I was brimming over with curiosity about the Guruji who is teaching this meditation. There were no idols or pictures decorated with garland of flowers to satiate my curiosity. Only at the end of the first day, I found out about Shri Goenka though he didn't call himself a Guruji but merely a teacher of the technique. He has passed over. The program is run in numerous locations in India and around the world by assistant teachers through his video recordings. I was blown away by his simplicity, intellectual depth and deep understanding of Life; that totally connected with my own understanding so far. I love the total focus on self-transformation through self-observation without using any chant, image, mantra as a crutch. As recommended, I meditate twice a day for an hour each and I intend going back once a year for the 10-day program for re-immersion. The practise, more consistent now than a year ago, has had amazing results for me. The chattering monkey mind has slowed down, I experience greater equanimity than before, my anger has come down dramatically, and I have had breakthrough ideas during meditation that have resulted in huge business and personal growth I could not have created without those ideas. I also experience greater focus, the clarity to choose the 20% for 80% results, and a visceral experience of love and compassion for all beings. Though, what I have to share is that these results came in because of my work on the other 3 bodies that had me ready for Vipassana and give me the strength to plough through meditation everyday. I am certain even 2 years ago, I wasn't ready for Vipassana. In Conclusion If you are not in perfect health, well-being and at the highest levels of fitness; now you know what you need to do to reach there. I find that integrating work on all the 4 bodies as above helps me to support my clients grow professionally and personally, lead their businesses from good to great while having it all - deeply fulfilling career, loving harmonious relationships at work and at home, happy responsible kids with their genius joyfully expressed, nourishing nurturing me-time and making a difference in the world. Inviting you to start the journey to come home to yourself to live your purpose and experience joyous, equanimous fulfilment. With a deep Namaste (which means from the Light in me to the Light in you). Love, Jyoti. Further Recommended Reading: 1. How to Lead your Organization to Success 2. What has Spirituality got to do with Business 3. From High Performance to Super Performance 4. How to Build a Successful Business - An interview with a Gear 5 Leader 5. How to Lead your Organization from Good to Great An ex-client reached out for support in deciding between settling abroad or staying in the country. A client wanted to decide between a corporate job or starting out on her own. Another wanted to figure out between taking a break from work to explore his passions or continuing to work. We are inundated with choices throughout our lives and on a daily basis. It seems the choice we make determines what kind of life we'll have. That puts in an inordinately high amount of pressure on making the right choice that has us so confused that we are stuck in analysis paralysis and find ourselves with no energy to take the actions because all the energy has been spent figuring out what choice to make. Then we have no outcomes, there is no progress, no sense of fulfilment because there were no actions. In fact, even what seems like minor choices; like which book to read, choosing screen over reading, choosing to smoke over sitting in the anxiety and discomfort of not choosing etc; have significantly high impact on the direction our lives take. How do we choose wisely, how do we make choices that support us towards growth which, if we slow down and reflect, is the only doorway to sustainable happiness? Put this assertion to test right now. When did you last feel a sense of happiness? I am not talking about a general sense of 'life is good' but an authentic visceral experience of joyous happiness. In which body (physical / intellectual / emotional / spiritual) of your Being had you experienced growth that you can link that experience to? Taking the reflection a level deeper, we will realise that ultimately all that we are doing moment to moment is making a choice - choosing a specific thought, a specific emotion, a specific action over other thoughts, emotions and actions. Progress would be when we are able to choose consciously over choosing unconsciously. Most times, we are making choices giving ourselves very logical reasons for making the choice though the choice is actually an emotional one with our hidden fears and intentions as the driver. Progress would be to be aware of the emotional reasons and the hidden fears & intentions that are driving us to make the decisions that we are making. When there is self-awareness and the inner power to choose consciously, then we will find ourselves making choices that are wise because they are effective, make more time available to us to do things that really matter and support our growth towards our highest version of ourselves. Here is the structure that you can use to reach such a state and consciously make powerful choices: 1. Figure out your purpose of life, your personal inner commitment and your highest values as the place to start from. This is your Pole Star. Once you can clearly see your Pole Star, you will begin to make choices that are effective and have the wisdom to lead you forward in the direction that serves you and those you are responsible for the most. 2. Discover your hidden fears, and unconscious self-sabotaging beliefs & intentions. It is our human design to have them. Having the self-awareness to recognise what they are and the courage to acknowledge them to yourself and to others gives you the power to create your greatest life. 3. Once you discover what you fear, what you resist, what you know would serve you and yet you don't want to do that; do exactly what you fear, what you resist, what you know would serve you and yet you don't want to do that. This conscious battling with your inner demons removes the curtain between you and your inner wisdom, your intuition, your inner guide. As the inner demons lose power, you will have a visceral experience in your body as to which choice to make. You will pick up a book and you will know whether it is the right book to read. You will review a growth program and you will be able to feel it in your body if it will serve you. You will have an inner knowing whether staying in the country is what would support you or leaving the country. You will know whether it is the right moment to drop your job and start your own business. The funny thing is that most times you will find yourself making choices that seem counter-intuitive and will have people in your life question you. There will be such deep clarity and knowingness that doubt will find no place to rest in your body. 4. Your inner demons are really default limiting physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual habits. Be bigger than who you are right now to cultivate world-class growth habits across the four bodies (physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual) of your Being. Without that your inner demons will win the battle every time. 5. As you make any choice, be in the inquiry of its wisdom by asking yourself the following questions: i. How does this choice feel in my body? Do I feel a surge of energy or a sinking feeling in my stomach? ii. What is my emotion when I am considering making this choice? Does it fill me up with joy or with the emptiness of excitement? Learn to distinguish between authentic joyous happiness and excitement, which is nothing but fear in disguise. iii. Do I have clarity and focus while I am considering making this choice? Is my mind still or is it racing in 1000 different directions? iv. Is my choice sourced in love or is it sourced in fear? Will it serve my family, my organisation, my customer community, my country or will it just serve me? v. How will this choice support me to fulfil on my purpose of life? vi. How is my choice an expression of my personal inner commitment? vii. How will my choice support me to live my highest values? viii. What are my articulated intentions? Does this choice support or come in the way of my articulated intentions? ix. What will be the impact of making this choice? Will I end up breaking any word to myself or others if make this choice? x. Does this choice support my growth towards personal mastery or will it impede it? Somewhere during this inquiry, you will get an inner knowing of the perfect choice for you. Once you know the perfect choice, take immediate action to implement the choice for maximum benefit. If things don't turn out the way you envisioned and more often than not, it will be the case; guard yourself against regret and self-criticism because that comes in the way of actually benefiting from the choice you made. Sometimes, the pain associated with having made the specific choice is the gift that you need the most to move forward. Accept it with grace, learn from it and use the learnings to create an even greater life. Love, Jyoti. My kids are in Grade 7 and Grade 4. My younger one just started with his exams. Their half-yearly exams are underway at the moment. The subject that they both run away from and struggle the most with is Hindi. Considering my husband is from Himachal and I am from Punjab, Hindi becomes my kids' primary mother tongue followed by Punjabi and Himachali / Pahari. As I began to reflect on how my kids were struggling with their primary mother language and began wondering how could I support them, it struck me I didn't know how to read and write in Punjabi and that my fellow Punjabis will probably laugh at my spoken language. I further recognised that I had lost touch with Hindi myself. So began my journey to re-discover my heritage so that my children can grow taller because they have stronger roots. Without owning our roots, we are unlikely to reach our maximum growth because nourishment only reaches through the roots. I told my kids that I will speak to them in Hindi at home. Yesterday was the first evening and there was a laughter riot as I searched for Hindi alternatives for common words. I lost so many ice-creams to them that in the end they stopped counting how many English words were creeping into my Hindi monologue. I am not the kind to give up easily. I intend to google my way up to Hindi mastery. If I decide something, I never waste much time to implement the idea with maximum energy. Sending love to Jeff Bezos because thanks to Amazon, I have Premchand, Rabindranath Tagore, Satyajit Ray and Harivansh Rai Bachchan on the way home. Bedtime stories for my kids in perfect hindi most beautifully sculpted by the masters of the language. I am super excited about my new project. To confess, more than the kids who have already extracted a promise from me to behave and talk normally in front of their friends :-) My mind is racing ahead and another project is already taking shape - to learn Punjabi and connect my kids to 50% of their heritage. I trust I will have inspired my spouse enough to immerse in his Himachali heritage and gift that to the kids. I wished my home support staff 'Suprabhat' instead of Good Morning when she came in the morning today. She promptly responded back with her usual Good Morning along with a cheeky smile; used to my strange ways by now. I guess it will take a while for me to create a culture at home for her to not feel inferior because she doesn't know English. Up until now, I was thinking about how to get her to learn English because she is a keen learner and understands the value of English in India. I am grateful for the wisdom to understand that without the deep connection with our own roots, we cannot truly grow. There are multiple benefits of being multilingual. Here are a few to inspire you: 1. According to research conducted by Julia Morales of Spain’s Granada University, children who learn a second language are able to recall memories better than monolinguals, or speakers of just one language. 2. Being multilingual leads to improved listening skills. 3. A study from 2010 shows that bilinguals have stronger control over their attention and are more capable of limiting distractions. 4. Recent research found that individuals who speak two or more languages, regardless of their education level, gender or occupation, experience the onset of Alzheimer’s, on average, 4 1/2 years later than monolingual subjects did. 5. Language learners also show greater cognitive flexibility (Hakuta 1986) and are better at figural creativity (Landry 1973). 6. Another research found that bilingual children are more creative in their problem solving than their monolingual peers. 7. Bilingual students consistently score higher on standardized tests in comparison with their monolingual peers, especially in the areas of math, reading and vocabulary. 8. Studies show that bilingual children show superior performance on non-linguistic tasks. 9. The results of the recent study showed that bilingualism is highly correlated with the breadth of vocabulary knowledge and reading skill. In other words, bilingual participants have a larger size of vocabulary knowledge and they enjoy better word reading skill. We are in a unique place being born in India because most of us have atleast 3 languages that we can call our own - Hindi, our mother tongue or state language and of course, English if you went to school. And, if your spouse is from another state, you have 4 language to play with and learn, grow and evolve. Lets not deny the huge advantage that this places us and our kids in. We are tremendously lucky and let us now claim that enormous good fortune as our own. I will keep you posted on our journey with Rabindranath Tagore, Satyajit Ray, Munshi Premchand, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, Amrita Pritam, Krishna Sobti and many more masters that we discover along the way. Would love to hear about your journey as you undertake to reconnect with your roots along with your family. Wishing you and your family the joy of coming home to yourself. Love, Jyoti. References: Amazing Benefits of Language Learning Why are you born in the country you are born in? Why are you born in the community you are born in? Why are you born to the religion that you are born to? Why are you born in the family you are born in? Why did you get married to the person you got married to? Why do you have the kids that you have? Why did you grow up in the specific schools and colleges that you went to? Why do you have the specific friends that you have? Why do you have the specific teachers, mentors, coaches that you have? Did you choose them or did they choose you? How is any of this related to what is your life about? And, ultimately, what is your life about? What is the purpose, meaning of waking up, going about the day, sleeping; and day in, day out repeating that ad infinitum? Why? Hmmm. I don't know about you; though here are my answers that make sense to me and gives me the energy to move from moment to moment with joy and gratitude. You can make them your answers if they connect with you. 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. We are born in the community that we are born to because we are meant to heal the shared history so that the community connects even more deeply with its roots and with each other to make a much bigger contribution to the country it is a part of and the world as an outcome of that. We are born to the religion we are born to because we are meant to go beyond our customs, rituals, traditions, mythology that separates us and connect to the real essence of our religion - spirituality - which connects all of humanity through the language of love. We are born in the family we are born in because we are meant to break the limiting patterns of loss and pain that are passed on from generation to generation; and connect to our authentic selves. In our connecting to our authentic selves, we will connect with vulnerability, deep love and unconditional acceptance with our spouse, kids, parents, siblings and all our family members to lead all of us to freedom, peace and fulfilment. Quoting from a book I read recently - "We are not separate because of the wars. Wars are because we are separate." This separateness, disconnection begins at home. We are married to the person we are married to because in the pain of that relationship lies our individual growth to our highest self; only if we don't numb or ignore that pain, only if we allow ourselves to feel the pain that there is. This most intimate of relationships is a beautiful lab in which we see in the other the mirror which reflects back to us what is missing in us. The error we make is by deluding ourselves that the missing is in the other, all the while all that the other does is to play the role of our mirror. The other cannot complete us. Two half circles cannot experience completion and connection. Only in each being complete and whole, will the relationship be complete and whole. That is why divorces don't make sense because we are not really running away from the other. We are really running away from our own selves. Unfortunately, there is no way to run except inside our own selves to dig out and own our own pain to be free. We have the kids that we have to serve them by being on our journey to our highest self because that is their only access to being on their journey to their highest self. We went to the specific schools and the colleges we went to because we are meant to give back to those institutions. My 72 years old father goes back to his village school once a year to offer scholarships to bright, deserving, poor students so that they don't have to earn money like him, while still at school. We have the friends we have so that we become their accountability partners, holding them accountable to realise their greatest dreams and not let Life make them forget what makes their hearts sing and feet dance. We have the specific teachers, mentors, coaches we have so that we can get connected to our purpose and remind them of theirs. What are your answers? Actually, the power is not so much in finding the right answers but reaching the right questions. So, let me begin by asking, what are your questions? Love, Jyoti. I am stumped today because I seem to have run out of ideas on what to write to make a difference. That gives me something to deep dive into. What to do when you have run out of ideas :-) The first step is to take a break - a power snooze break, or a music break, or a reading break or a fruit / juice break. I took a 5-minute power snooze break followed by an apple break. In fact, we work best in cycles of 90 minutes with a 10 minute break in-between. It's called the Ultradian Rhythm. Pioneering researcher, Nathan Kleitman, discovered that our bodies operate in 90 minutes rhythm not only during the night but also during the day when we move from higher alertness to lower alertness. In his renowned 1993 study of young violinists, performance researcher Anders Ericsson found that the best ones all practiced the same way: in the morning, in three increments of no more than 90 minutes each, with a break between each one. Ericcson discovered the same pattern among other musicians, athletes, chess players and writers. Experiment with scheduling your day in slots of 90 minutes interspersed with 10 minutes of break. The moments of most focus are immediately before the break and after the break. By creating a number of smaller breaks into your schedule instead of one big break, you are actually increasing the duration of intense focus and concentration. See, even though I coach my clients on the ultradian rhythm, how easy it is not follow what you teach? I remembered this principle only when I was struggling with the writers' block and realised that I was at my desk non-stop for the last 6 hours till I remembered to take a break. The second step is to not stay distracted but come back after 10 minutes to the original place where you are stuck. One would have a tendency to wander away to tick off some other easier item on the task list. If it is important to have a breakthrough in the spot where you are stuck, it would be productive to come right back to where you left off and you will find an access to move forward. Just like I did. The third step is to use the power of writing to engage the full horsepower of the intellect, if you are working alone and the power of questions if you are working in a group. Instead of wrestling with things in your head, it is hugely effective to pour it all out on a paper. I have some of the most elegant solutions through the process of submitting the mind to the discipline of the written word, allowing the words to freely flow out and not let the mind come in the way. With groups, I use what I call Socratic Discussions where the power of questions is used to lead the group forward for inquiry, discovery and insights. Only 2 rules, either you have a question or you are answering a question someone in the group asked. Owe my 2 years of training with Worldwide Institute of Action Learning for my love of questions and the ability to use them to engage in effective conversations for creative solutions. Well, I got off from where I was stuck. You can too, everytime. Love, Jyoti. Real (The Power of Authentic Connection) by Catherine and Duane O'Kane has the potential to transform what it means to be a human being by giving us a structure to come home to ourselves forever. If the CEOs learn to authentically connect with themselves and with people in their organizations; unimaginable productivity, performance, creativity, innovation and profitability will be unleashed. It is the CEO on an inner journey of personal transformation who will have the courage to lead his / her business on a journey from good to great. If business excellence be the house, leadership depth is the foundation on which the house is built. Running a business is an opportunity to be on the path of personal mastery. As the leader at the helm learns, grows and evolves; so does the business because the organization invariably mirrors the strengths and weaknesses of the CEO. This book has had a profound impact on the way I run my businesses, how I coach, my relationship with my parents, sisters, spouse, kids, clients and myself. It has been a tipping point on my journey to myself. All the work that I had done on myself up until prior (and I have done some massive inner work on myself) had me intellectually understand and be aware of how the 'suspicion of self' was playing out in my life. It is only on reading the book and doing the self-application that the jigsaw pieces fell in place with clarity that I hadn't seen before. I am standing taller than I have ever stood in my life. Much gratitude to Catherine and Duane for your vulnerability, authenticity and courage to share your work and your life with the world through a book. You both made a difference to my life. I recommend that the book be read from start to end to do the work to come home to yourself. Here are a few excerpts from the book: 1. Human beings are happier, healthier and live longer when we have strong relationships. We are at our best when we are living a connected life, surrounded by people we love and care about. 2. The lack of authentic connection permeates the very fabric of how we organize ourselves in the modern world. It explains and contributes more to our personal malaise, work issues, high divorce rates, mental illness, and physical sickness than any other factor. 3. We aren't avoiding each other because of the problems. We have problems because we are avoiding each other. We aren't separate because of the wars. We have wars because we are separate. 4. Connection gives meaning and purpose to our lives. We all want to belong, to love, and be loved. 5. Just as fitness is a by-product of exercise, happiness is a by-product of loving, relational action. 6. There is nothing to fear, because we belong and are good enough as we are. 7. The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large scale revolution until there's personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first. - Jim Morrison 8. We prefer to see the problem as something outside ourselves, therefore the solution must be outside ourselves as well. Therein lies the dilemma. If the problem and the solution are outside of self, then we are doomed to be victims of the effects of external causes ultimately beyond our control. If the problem and the solution are within, then we can change. 9. How you connect is the strongest determinant of how you feel, and how you connect exerts a powerful influence on all those around you. 10. We cannot not communicate. Connection is active all the time, with every thought, every word, every action. Not communicating is communicating. We are communicating all the time and are connected all the time. There are no neutral moments or situations. Every time we actively communicate, there are two levels to that communication: there is the content or literal message, but underlying that is a relationship message that is conveyed mostly non-verbally, through body language, facial expression and tone of voice. In terms of the impact of a communication on the receiver, the content of the message is worth about 20% of the communication, while the relationship level is responsible for 80%. The relationship message always overrides the content: you cannot lie at a relationship level. What you are really feeling always comes through, and when what you say with your words doesn't match the relationship message, people will respond to the relationship message. … We are impacting others all the time with what we believe about self, other and the world… … Thoughts and beliefs such as these are not neutral, dormant, sitting by themselves on an island inside my head. They are active as hell - or heaven. These are the thoughts and beliefs that I brought … before I met you. They are eager to prove themselves. 11. The difficulties we experience in life, which are ultimately relationship difficulties, are because of what we hold in the basement of our psyches. If our psyche is metaphorically a house, the basement is the place where we hide our fears and vulnerabilities. We all have fears in the basement about not being good enough, being inadequate, unlovable, and so on, but we rarely reveal these fears. Instead, we hide, pretend and defend, and that is ultimately what gets us into trouble. 12. …it is impossible to get out of childhood without developing a basement to some degree. This isn’t because of bad parenting, it is simply because of how we develop as human beings: we do not have the ability to understand nuances and context until adulthood. If we accept this, then we can proceed with the task of adulthood, reclaiming self from the basement in an integrated fashion, so what we know to be true matches what we feel to be true. That is what we can do to prevent the horrific stories from replaying in the next generation. 13. What is really happening as we wander obliviously through our daily lives is that something or someone triggers our underlying Suspicion of Self (that we are unlovable, not good enough and so on) and we don our armour to protect ourselves, attacking the thing that triggered our old, historic fear. We mistake the person knocking on the door to the basement for the one who put us there. However, that isn’t how it feels; it feels as if him or her or this or that is causing our upset rather than simply triggering it. … We fear that if we let that aspect of self be revealed, we will be rejected. To prevent that outcome, we consciously or unconsciously do what it takes to push people away. 14. How we hide, pretend, defend, and offend in all our relationships is key to what we end up experiencing. 15. … busyness (has) a hidden agenda: it allows (us) to focus on “what to do” and avoid what (we) are feeling. 16. … we set up people around us to become the very thing we are trying to get away from in our past. Because of what we are hanging on to in our basement, we are wired for fear and defence. We are hyper alert for evidence that what happened back then is happening again. In essence, we see what we are looking for. It is as if those fear-based beliefs are written on the lenses of our glasses, and as we look through them we latch on to what agrees and screen out what doesn’t. … We are looking out through the lenses of our suspicion of self (that we are unlovable, not good enough etc.). We are hot-wired from the basement to react with our strategies and defences. How we respond then invites the very thing we are trying to avoid. 17. We are not so much perceiving reality as projecting our own version of it, seeking to prove our own fear-based beliefs. Our defences create the very thing we are defending against. Our SOSs (suspicions of self) were made up in relationship with another person and must be corrected in connection with another person. We cannot heal alone. … 18. The waves we create with what we upload into our connecting relationship lines or system do not just go out. They return to us a perception of the world in front of us in such a way that it reinforces whatever we already believe about self, other and the world. 19. Have you ever achieved some goal you set for yourself and then wondered “Is this all there is?” Because we hold these suspicions of self, we end up resisting the very thing we want the most, even when it lands right on our doorstep. We do not allow the good things we have in our lives to enter because we don’t feel worthy of them. … In order to address what is in the basement, we must stop the harmful (strategic - masks & armours - and defensive) behaviours we engage in. When we do that, what is hiding in our basement will make itself apparent. Opening up requires opening the door to the basement, where this hurting aspect of our authentic self resides. We are frightened of being vulnerable because we are convinced that what we made up about ourselves is true. It is not! … When we are brave enough to risk being seen, fully and deeply seen, then the good stuff can go to where we need it the most. 20. Throughout the history of your family, people have experienced losses and hardship and have developed ways to cope with these losses. … the family develops a strategy for survival on the foundation of loss, which (out of the best of intentions) is then transmitted to the next generation. … The difficulty in this is that when you are set up to make up for someone else’s loss in the family system, you will carry a weight of expectation, of dreams unfulfilled, that isn’t actually yours to carry. You will be subtly or overtly directed away from things that might be more authentic for you and directed towards things others want for you or expect of you. Not only might this contribute to your own loss (because you sacrifice doing what you want), but you might not even know what you want because you have become more attuned to what is expected. … When a family teaches a strategy that is founded on loss, it also transmits the anxiety, fear and unprocessed grief around the loss. The person receiving the directive might know nothing about what happened but still feel the anxiety. 21. We actually have two related fears about allowing someone close to our basements. One is the obvious: we don’t want anyone to see who we fear we are because if they do, we fear we will be abandoned, rejected, punished, or found lacking in some way (just like when …). We also fear allowing someone power, allowing someone to be important. In our attempts to avoid letting someone have power, we withhold our love. We refuse to give because we don’t want what we give to make us vulnerable. This is a really important thing to realize: we are not only trying to hide, we also actively hold back from contributing positive feelings and giving ourselves fully to our relationships. We are just as frightened of the good as we are of the bad. If it gets too good, we fear losing it, and we would rather just have it be mediocre or even bad, believing that if we don’t let it be too good we won’t feel the pain of loss. The fear of loss comes from our personal experience around what happened when someone was important, and from the legacy of loss in our family. The above excerpts are from the first few chapters. Read the book to understand and escape the tyranny of the trap of living life from the default limiting self into freedom, authenticity, wholeness and joyous connection.
When that happens, you will find the courage not only to lead your business from good to great; but also to have loving harmonious relationships at work and at home, happy responsible kids, lots of nourishing nurturing me-time, while making a difference and increasing your impact in the world. Love, Jyoti. Why motivation is not good for your health or your business? Because it doesn't last and it may even leave a negative impact. You may experience high energy for some time, but then you will fall back to your default original state. Stop seeking motivation and trying to motivate others. Seek to get inspired and inspire others instead. Inspiration is the energy which comes from within in response to someone who has connected to their depths to do something that was impossible for them before by going beyond their fears, resistance and inertia. To inspire someone, you want to be authentic and vulnerable, and take 10X action of what you are inviting others to take. To inspire others, you take action not to seek others' approval, appreciation, applause but for your own inner god. Motivation makes a lot of noise. Inspiration is silent. Motivation gives a push while Inspiration results in joyous effortless action. Read about the greatest human beings on Earth to be inspired or talk to people who bring warmth in your heart and stars in yours eyes to be inspired. Live your greatest dreams to inspire. Neil deGrasse Tyson, the acclaimed astrophysicist and cosmologist, beautifully brings about the negative impact of motivation in his review of the movie 'Whiplash' during an interview - "I just saw Whiplash. It was interesting. Here’s why I take issue with it. It’s one jazz musician and one overbearing coach, so I get that, but I come from a world where true success is completely driven from within the individual and not from someone outside of them. While the case portrayed there is some fraction of cases that are out there, at the end of the day, Einstein became Einstein not because someone said, “Keep studying, keep studying!” and someone didn’t say, “Isaac Newton, go invent calculus!” He invented it on his own. So in my world, there is no success without people being self-driven, and to believe that you only achieve greatness because someone pushed you there? I don’t see that. The story was nonetheless intriguing, but I feel it may be the minority of cases who have succeeded in a singular way in life. If someone treats you that way, you may become really good at something but you won’t become the greatest at it, and you’ll resent them and you might even turn away from the subject entirely." Steve Jobs used the power of dreams and questions to inspire. Here's an excerpt from an article from Entrepreneur magazine - " A retail executive who was once tasked with revitalizing the Disney Store called Steve Jobs, Disney’s largest shareholder, to ask for advice. Jobs said, “Dream bigger.” Those two words contained a wealth of wisdom and inspired Disney to think radically different. The Disney Store would no longer provide a place just for customers to buy products. The store would be a physical manifestation of the Disney experience. ..... Jobs was a master of dreaming big and he encouraged others to do the same. Sometimes the inspiration came in the form of a question that forced people to re-examine their lives and their businesses. The story of how Jobs challenged then-Pepsi president John Sculley to do some real soul-searching is now well-known. “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?” Jobs asked. Sculley once said the question landed “like a punch to the gut.” (Sculley was vice-president and president of Pepsi, until he became chief executive officer of Apple) ..... Jobs did not ask his team to build a retail store so Apple could sell more products and increase its market share. Instead Jobs asked, “How can we reinvent the store?” The question forced his team to think outside of the entire category. Instead of copying other electronics stores, the team visited The Ritz-Carlton hotel for inspiration. What they learned became the foundation for the store. Walk into an Apple Store and you’ll be greeted at the entrance, like at a hotel. You won’t find a cashier at the Apple Store, but there is a concierge. You’ll even notice a "bar" at the back of the store, but instead of dispensing alcohol, “geniuses” dispense advice. These innovations were the direct result of Jobs asking the people around him to dream bigger." I am inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote that inspires Jeff Bezos. This is what Jeff tweeted about it - Love this quote. It’s been on my fridge for years, and I see it every time I open the door. "To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded." I seek out thought leaders, master coaches, industry leaders who inspire me because they connect me to the highest in me by connecting to the highest in themselves. Good leaders lead. Good parents parent. Good coaches coach. Great leaders, parents, coaches simply inspire. Love, Jyoti. References: 1. Hat Tip to Master Coach Rich Litvin for getting me to become aware of Tyson's interview through one of his many inspirational posts. 2. Tyson's Interview 3. Article in Entrepreneur Magazine on Steve Jobs 4. CNBC Article on Jeff Bezos My 12 year old daughter wanted me to take a session for her class at school. I was surprised because her instructions to me at home are pretty clear - Don’t coach me. I know why that is so because I keep breaking the fundamental principle of the Coach’s Hippocratic Oath with her - Don’t coach without permission, which means coach only if someone has paid you the money to coach them. Though sometimes, inspite of paying the money, clients are still uncoachable. Then, of course, it is more effective to end the coaching relationship and return the money because it is painful to see people refusing to remove the blindfold preventing them from seeing how they are at the source of all that is working and not working in their lives. Of course, all of us are at the source of all that there is in our lives. But, if that’s not the premise on which the coaching relationship begins and the client refuses to even consider that as a possible source, not much transformation will happen. We may keep bandaging to stop the blood from flowing but it doesn’t work for me if I am not coaching to heal the root cause to permanently stop the bleeding. That reduces the number of people I end up working with because there are very few who are willing to step out of their comfort zone to do the deep inner work to bring about total transformation to live their greatest life. Most of us are happy with what there is and an incremental change from there. I respect that too because each one of us are on our own journey and we make choices based on what feels most authentic at any moment. I confess, I digressed. Coming back to my daughter’s request, I, of course, agreed and ended up experiencing profound learning from a group of 12 year olds. I ran the session as I would for my clients. They had huge amount of pre-work to get them into the space of inquiry about themselves and their lives. They shared anonymously with me their deepest fears, secret dreams and questions they were scared to ask anyone else. My heart broke to read through their pre-work. Their pain was no different than what I experience from the 40+ that I usually coach. Just that the experience of the pain was far more intense as the young people hadn’t yet learnt to numb their pain to live the drama of adulthood. With the 12 year olds, the pre-work was sufficient for them to feel connected with what was really going on inside them. For 40+, it takes months and sometimes years of coaching for them to come to this level of vulnerable self-awareness. It is when that pain in the basement of our psyche is pushed deep inside and we lock it away even from our own selves that we begin to live an inauthentic existence. It is this disconnection that causes all the relationship pain that we go through all of our adult lives, impacting us adversely both professionally and personally; coming in the way of our creativity, innovation, performance and productivity that we end up living good lives instead of great lives. Nothing wrong with a good life. I respect the choice made to live a good life, just that not living the greatest life (professionally and personally) leaves us with an empty feeling in our hearts that has us feeling not good enough, not loveable, not worthy. And, yet, we can live life another way. I believe that is the purpose of our life - to remove the thick dark curtain inside and let our light shine through to make our world brighter than it was before. It is then we feel deeply connected with who we are and feel an authentic fulfilling connection with people around us; experiencing elation, joy, authenticity, harmony, tranquil stillness within with nowhere to go and nothing to prove, no yearning for anything, nothing to chase, love, reverence, abundance, prosperity and everything else on the growth spectrum. In this shift on the inside, we step into being a leader. We may have had a designation and a role before but its only with this massive shift in our consciousness that we understand what it means to be a leader and become one. Based on their first pre-work, I sent them some articles that I had written for my customer community of CEOs and Business Owners. I sent a message to them to search for their answers, like detectives, from what they were reading and send me another set of responses. Through their responses, I experienced their joy of discovering their answers on their own, connecting to their inner wisdom; and even more questions came tumbling out. I realised, their connection to their inner wisdom is so much stronger than ours and we, in the name of parenting and education, slowly and steadily keep breaking their connection to themselves so that they can grow up as adults. So, a week later from when my adventure began with them, I finally find myself facing 28 twelve year olds, curious as to what this new teacher will get them to do now. I started with giving them a choice to be in the session because they wanted to, not because they had to or because someone had told them. The murmurings stopped and I got their committed listening. Interestingly, not one left the room. In giving that choice, they let their walls fall and allowed me in to their hearts. We began with them closing their eyes and focussing their attention on their breath coming in and going out; to get aware of what thoughts, feelings, sensations were coursing through their body and getting present to their intention from the session. As they opened their eyes and re-connected with the world outside, each one shared their intention with the group in the form of a single question. I invited them to consider that fulfilling their intention was their responsibility and that I was with them merely to give them whatever they took away from me. They accepted my proposal and agreed to pull their learnings from me rather than me pushing it on them. Once the agreements of the game were in place, the socratic discussion began. Of course, I had few distinctions that I wanted them to experience viscerally so that the notes were etched on their souls rather than on a piece of paper. I let them pull it from me. It was the most energising, engaging, refreshing conversation of my life. We ended our 2 hours together with each one of them declaring their personal inner commitment of what they wanted to be the best in the world. I figured I must have done something good as my daughter brushed past me after she came back home from school, murmured 'amazing session' and quickly rushed out of the room before I could blink. I have grown enough in the last 12 years of being a parent to gracefully receive that as my gold medal :-) Even more fulfilling was when later she told me that she discovered why she wasn't playing well in the last golf game we played together. She had nearly quit and hung on till the end of the game only because of her father; inspite of her headache, body ache, tiredness. My admiration for him as a dad grew multiple folds that day. My intention of our education system is for education to connect young people to their biggest dreams and to give them a structure to grow intellectually, emotionally, physically and emotionally to realise their greatest dreams in deepest communion with their highest self. When that happens, we will have world class scientists, players, leaders, artists graduating from our schools making a huge difference to the world, instead of scared beings fearful of what the future holds for them. Imagine the joyous growth and liberating transformation available in the world instead of stress, disconnection, emotional and physical violence; as they step out of their schools with compassionate love in their hearts and quiet inner confidence of being masters of their craft, leaders of their communities. May teachers learn to be coaches and leaders so that they not only teach the young people concepts but coach and lead them to remove the thick curtain inside to live in the expression of their innate greatness and inherent genius; which is the destiny of each human being. Unfortunately, we live our destiny only if we choose to; it is not available to us by default. Wishing each of us makes the choice to walk the path to come home to ourselves. Love, Jyoti. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
December 2023
Categories
All
|
Home |
ENTREPRENEURSHIP |
LEADERSHIP |
Personal EXCELLENCE |
ARTICLES |