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AuthorCEO Coach |
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December 2023
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What is Integrity? The word integrity evolved from the Latin adjective integer, meaning whole or complete. Integrity is the state of being whole and complete, to be in perfect condition. It is an inner experience of being whole, complete and perfect; with nowhere to go and nothing to prove; with nothing to change or fix to experience wholeness, completeness and perfection in who you are. Only from this state of Being, can creativity, innovation, performance, productivity and effectiveness arise. How can a business survive without all of these? The access to an experience of being whole and complete is to value and honour oneself. Valuing and honouring myself means to value and honour what I say to myself and to others. Integrity, therefore, is honouring myself by honouring my word to myself and to others. What is my word? There are 5 words that define me: 1. When I say, I promise X: This is my word at the bottom of the ‘promise’ / ‘word’ hierarchy. 2. What I say: I say, I will come. I didn’t say, I promise I’ll come. Even then, it is my word, my promise to go wherever I said I will go. 3. My intentions and dreams: Our intentions and dreams are our promises to ourselves to transform our wants and burning desires into reality. 4. My commitments: Our commitments are our promises too. The values that we are committed to, the relationships that we are committed to, personal growth that we are committed to, whatever it is we are committed to is then also our promise, our word to ourself and to others. 5. Expectations that people have of me: People in our life have expectations of us. Those become our promises too unless we have a straight conversation with others and let them know that you are aware of the expectation but are choosing to release yourself from it. Unless a conversation like this has happened, we are bound by others’ expectations of us. They expect from us, they hold that as our word to them. The truth is we are aware of the expectations but may not have the courage to have an obviously difficult conversation and choose to push this under the carpet instead of rock the boat. The impact of pushing under the carpet is that we anyway won’t do what is expected of us because we don’t want to and yet the other continues to expect of us feeling hurt at our not honouring the expectation. This throws the relationship in negative spiral to a certain death of the relationship in the near future. You may still be staying together, and yet the relationship is dead emotionally, mentally and spiritually. How can we honour our word to ourself and others? Honouring my word is to keep my word; doing what I said I will do, at the time I said I will do, the way I said I will do. If I missed to keep my word, then Integrity would be to restore my word to regain my experience of being whole, complete and perfect. Restoring your word means to acknowledge your broken word and the impact of breaking your word to whoever the promise was made (either to self or to another), take responsibility of the impact and make a new promise. Though, why really bother? I came 2 minutes late to a meeting; or made a customer delivery 5 minutes late; or I said to a colleague “I will be with you in 5 minutes” and didn’t even see my watch to know when the 5 minutes started; or I plan to wake up at 7:00 am daily and hit the snooze button every time to snuggle in for another 2 minutes. Surely all these things are insignificant. Unfortunately, not. Why are such seemingly insignificant things so important? It is because our dreams and our intentions are our promises to ourselves, our word to ourselves. If we don’t value 100% of our own word moment by moment, the four bodies of our Being (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual) assume that our word is of no value to us, we are not really committed to creating what we say and will not throw their full weight behind our dreams and intentions. With no inner power (physical, mental, emotional and spiritual support from our own self) to fulfil on our intentions and dreams, we struggle through life wanting so much but not experiencing fulfilment at being able to create all that we want to. Unfulfilled dreams and intentions rot us from inside, killing us softly with their unsung song. If you want inner personal power to create a magnificent Life, if you want to fulfil all your intentions and realize all your impossible unimaginable dreams that scare you because they seem so big, then value and honour every Word that you are at the source of. Keeping your word means doing what you said, doing it the way you meant it, at the time you said it. Lot of factors play to not make this possible always. Instead of just brushing something you missed under the carpet, Integrity would be to honour your word by restoring your broken word to restore your power to create. Restoring one’s word is a 5-step process: 1. Acknowledge your broken word. A word is broken when either you didn’t do , or didn’t do it the way you meant to do it, or didn’t do it by the time you said you would. You acknowledge your broken word to yourself if you had made a promise to yourself or you acknowledge your broken word to whoever you had made an explicit or an implicit promise to. For example - I had promised to finish this report by 5-Feb and I missed to submit it. I acknowledge my broken word. 2. The 2nd step is to share the impact of the broken word on yourself and on others. To continue with the same example - I had promised to finish this report by 5-Feb and I missed to submit it. I acknowledge my broken word.The impact on me is that I am feeling guilty and have been avoiding you. The impact on you is that you felt let down and got delayed in honouring your commitments. The impact is also that you lost trust on me. 3. The 3rd step is to take responsibility for the impact: Here’s how you do it - I had promised to finish this report by 5-Feb and I missed to submit it. I acknowledge my broken word.The impact on me is that I am feeling guilty and have been avoiding you. The impact on you is that you felt let down and got delayed in honouring your commitments. The impact is also that you lost trust on me. I take responsibility of this impact. 4. The 4th step is to make a new promise: Continuing with the same example - My new promise is to finish the report by today end of day. 5. The 5th step is to share your structure of success that will support you to fulfil on your new promise: In the above example - My structure of success would be to re-prioritize and re-schedule everything else on my calendar today so that I can fully focus on the report. To re-cap, Integrity is honouring and valuing yourself. Valuing and honouring yourself requires you to honour your word because you are the words you say to yourself and the words you say to others. Therefore, Integrity is honouring your word which is to keep your word - doing what you said you will do, at the time you said you will do it, the way you said you will do it. If you missed to keep your word, then Integrity requires you to restore your word to be in honour of your word. Integrity can either be 0% or 100%. Let me prove it mathematically. We are born with 100% integrity, with an experience of being whole, complete and perfect. Then something happens and we break our word and push it under the carpet. Our Integrity falls below 100%. Our integrity now, for example, is at 90%. Something happens and we are faced with the choice to honour our word or not. Our probability of honouring our word is only 90% of 90% which is 81%. Next time we are faced with a choice to honour our word or not to honour our word, our probability of making the choice to honour is now only 81% of 81% which is 66%. The next time, our integrity will reduce to 61% of 61% which is 37%, next time it will be 14%, then it will be 2%, finally it will fall to 0%. Therefore, keep track of promises you make, carefully observe what you say, take committed actions to fulfil your intentions and realise your dreams, honour your commitments and review the expectations people in your life have from you to ensure Integrity. Build the courage to have the difficult conversations to free yourself from the promise implicit in others’ expectations from you or have the strength to become bigger than who you are in this moment and honour others’ expectations from you. Remember Integrity is a Gear 4 value. Without the workouts on the other Gears to cycle up from Gear 0 to Gear 1 to Gear 2 to Gear 3, you will not have enough strength to be Integrity. Refer to the below 2 articles to understand this journey to come home to yourself. 1. How to use Gratitude as a Leadership Tool for Business Growth? 2. How Reverence for all of Life Supports you to Lead your Business from Good to Great? May you have the wisdom to be self-aware, courage to face your blind-spots and commitment to go beyond to connect with your Highest Self. In your personal journey from good to great, you will find the wisdom, the courage and the commitment to lead your business from good to great. Love, Jyoti. Inspiration: The Curriculum of Living from Landmark Worldwide
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Have you ever noticed that a senior leader is usually kinder and more respectful than people down below in the corporate ladder? I had a billing issue with our internet service provider. The call-centre representative was rude and point-blank refused to consider my request saying it is just not possible. I told her in that case I would request for disconnection. She told me - “Sure. I will connect you to our Disconnection Department.” That is inspite of the fact that I have been with this service provider for 14 years now. After a few minutes of waiting, she connected me to her supervisor. The tone and language of the supervisor is remarkably different - gentle and soft instead of brusque and loud. She has me soothed in no time, accepted my request in the first breath of the call and re-engaged me as a customer. After 14 years, going somewhere else was anyway a pain. I was only too happy to continue now that all my requests were accepted. This is my experience everywhere. Higher in the leadership hierarchy I go, there’s greater ease in communication, lesser stress, greater listening, lesser rush and a sense of respect flowing in both directions. Here’s a trick question: What comes first - reverence or growth in the organization? Always reverence. You can train yourself to be respectful but that’ll only take you so far. If you are aiming for the top seat and aiming to sit there for a long time, you would necessarily need to train yourself to be Reverence for yourself, all Beings in your space and for Life itself. This is because Respect is at the level of behaviour while Reverence is at the level of the Being. When some attribute is at the level of behaviour, it’s not deep enough and you may shift your behaviour based on where or with whom you are. Reverence means Deep Respect. It has trickled to the core of who you are - not only behaviourally / physically / verbally but also intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. If you reflect, you will find that Leadership Growth is nothing but evolution of the Leader on his / her journey to be the greatest version of themselves. As they walk on the inside to be the greatest version of themselves, they inspire followership and mass movement towards the future they want to create. That is when magic happens in organizations, when employees stop working for money and work for the joy of building cathedrals. Only then a business stops struggling to be good and heaves upto the zone of greatness. How does one melt into Reverence? It is a step by step process involving all the 4 bodies of your Being - physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual. I love the analogy of a car to describe Leadership Evolution. You shift from neutral to Gear 1 to Gear 2 to Gear 3 to Gear 4 to Gear 5. Reverence comes in Gear 3 of Leadership Evolution. Gear 2 is when you soak yourself in Gratitude. Without Gratitude, Reverence is not available. Gear 1 is when you take responsibility for all that happens in your life - the good, the bad, the ugly - without making yourself or others wrong. Gear 1 is when you can see what you believe as a view from a point and recognise that it is just as valid as other views from all other points. Then you find yourself without a reason to argue, debate or feel righteous. You are at peace, knowing you have simply chosen a belief because you have chosen it and that doesn't make you more right than others. Gear 1 is when there is nothing to complain about because you know you are responsible for all that happens in your space. Though you neither make yourself wrong, nor others nor the situation. Gear 1 is to be able to see yourself as the source of your upsets and not people or circumstances. Gear 1 is the ability to make the choice to be happy, irrespective of what others do or don’t do, irrespective of what Life throws up at you. Only after this shift is Gratitude available to you as the most powerful creative force for you to create everything that you want to create in this Lifetime. Yes, you can create whatever you want in this Lifetime. Just that you have to keep becoming bigger than yourself, other people and Life itself; moment by moment. Welcome to your Hero’s journey. Love, Jyoti. Fads worry me because people pick them up more for their current flavour rather than the in-depth understanding to implement them to move their lives irrevocably to the next level. But the real problem is not so much that. The real problem is that the fads don’t shift us from the inside because their implementation is on the surface, only engaging the intellectual body. As a result, a very powerful habit that has the potential to uplift our life comes and goes; leaving us a little cynical about its value, lost to us forever. Gratitude also seems to have become a fad. I do hope it doesn’t remain one; so that the power of this leadership habit can be experienced in its full-blown intensity as the source of business growth. Gratitude is the most powerful creative force in the world. I have known it to heal cancer in the body, heal relationships, create health and fitness, financial freedom, business growth. What is Gratitude? It is being in the state of deep thankfulness. The most important word in the last sentence is BEING, as in the Human Being. The Being of the human being actually has four bodies - physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual. Therefore, to really bring on the power of gratitude in your life, you have to be engaged at all the four levels, all the four bodies of your Being experiencing deep thankfulness. I recently observed from a distance the concept of Gratitude being implemented in an organization. I applaud the organization for this massive new thinking initiative for their employees. Though, unfortunately, only the intellectual mind seemed to have got engaged as I could see from the use of timers for regular gratitude moments and mastermind style group updates. I wonder if the BEING shifted for the people participating in this initiative. Did they feel different? Did they create different outcomes in their lives, personally and professionally? Did they experience being suffused by Divine Love and Intelligence. Till it is not this deep, Gratitude doesn’t work. It is not about thinking Gratitude, it is about feeling Gratitude viscerally beyond the level of the mind. Though, intellectually understanding Gratitude is the beginning of the journey. My one-time teacher, Brandon Bays, used Gratitude to shift her body at a cellular level to heal and melt her basket-ball size tumour in her stomach that had her look like a fully-pregnant woman. She calls that process “The Journey”. I did a one-year program with her to understand and learn to deliver it to my clients. I have had my clients clear up emotional blocks from childhood to finally access Gratitude viscerally to heal themselves, heal their relationships and grow their businesses. Gratitude is like a Gear 2 process. Without moving from neutral to Gear 1, shifting habits across all the 4 bodies of the Being, one cannot step into the zone of Gratitude. Let's call that Gear 2. Then, Zone of Genius would be Gear 3. Here’s a true story for you to understand the steps to accessing Gratitude. If you chant the magic mantra “I love you. I am sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.”, nothing much may shift because the mantra actually captures the 4-step inner transformational journey that is required for the kind of magic that Dr Hew Len was able to create through what he called ‘Ho’oponopono’ and that Brandon Bays was able to create through ‘The Journey’ process. It is the same 4-step shift that a prayer or a spiritual practice can induce if it is intense and from the depths of one’s heart. I heard of a Sikh lady who healed her breast cancer by simply chanting ‘Wahe Guru’ with childlike trust and fate. It is the same 4-step inner process. Here are the 4-steps: 1. The 1st step is to unconditionally love and accept one’s own self, however one is and however one is not; relating to oneself as whole, complete and perfect. (I love you) 2. The 2nd step is to take responsibility for all that happens in one’s space - the good, the bad, the ugly. (I am sorry) 3. The 3rd step is to forgive oneself for causing the mess in one’s own life. (Please forgive me) I call the above 3 steps part of Gear 1 leadership transformation. 4. Now, one is ready for experiencing Gratitude viscerally in the body and emotionally. (Thank you) This is what I call as Gear 2 of the leadership transformation journey. And, wait there are 3 more Gears to step up to. Though, as of now, we will content ourselves with understanding Gear 3, which is the 5th step below. 5. Therefore, the 5th step is falling into childlike trust and faith in the Universe, which is really experiencing Gratitude spiritually. Without experiencing Gratitude emotionally, this step-up is not available. The important thing to remember is that all the 5 steps are available as an outcome of dropping our limiting physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual habits and taking on Growth Habits. Habits are like building blocks of who we are and what we can create. To shift what you can create in your life, you have to shift who you are. And, to shift who you are, you have to shift what your habits are across all the 4 bodies of your Being. Wishing you the joy of this deeply fulfilling journey of growing yourself and your business. Love, Jyoti. If you are in the business of services, this is one book you want your sales team to read. The book is about what sabotages client loyalty and how to get past that to have not only your clients asking to do more business with you but also sending more clients from their network to your doorstep. But, before you gift the book to your sales team with the expectation of seeing increase in your top and bottom line, you would need to read it first because what is in the book cannot be implemented unless you as their leader believe in and live these principles. The author, Patrick M Lencioni, is Founder and President of The Table Group, a successful management consulting firm specialising in executive team development and organisational health. His business principles are now course material at the University of Saint Mary. CNN Money listed him in 2008 as one of "10 new gurus you should know”. He is "one of the most in-demand business speakers.” His work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Bloomberg BusinessWeek and USA Today. Read below few excerpts from the book to get an overview of the magic formula and experience deeply fulfilling, joyous success even as you smile all the way to your bank by implementing the ideas from the book. 1. Without the willingness to be vulnerable, we will not build deep and lasting relationships in life. That’s because there’s no better way to earn a person’s trust than by putting ourselves in a position of unprotected weakness and demonstrating that we believe they will support us. 2. For those who provide service to clients, vulnerability is particularly powerful. Those who get comfortable being vulnerable - or as I call it, naked - are rewarded with levels of client loyalty and intimacy that other service providers can only dream of. 3. …even though clients require us to be competent enough to meet their needs, it is ultimately our honesty, humility, and selflessness that will endear us to them and allow them to trust and depend on us. 4. … we need to make sure that they’d be the right kind of client. … We’ve learned over years that having a bad client is worse than having none. … it prevents you from finding other good clients. And you’re unlikely to get a good reference. In fact, they are likely to tell everyone they know how you weren’t able to help them, because they certainly aren’t going to admit it was their fault. … it just makes you feel bad about coming to work. It destroys the culture. 5. “Do you ever worry that you are going to do too much during your sales call, and that the client will take it and use it and not hire you?” … “I don’t worry about it. Very few people are going to do something like that. If they need help, they need help. Even if what I show them makes perfect sense, they usually know they need help implementing it and getting the rest of their team on board. … even if they do that, then they’d probably be a pretty lousy client anyway. So it would be better to find that out up front.” 6. … fairly long list of principles … but not much structure around their approach. 7. … one of the most intense, interesting and effective behavioural therapy exercises I had ever witnessed. All in a little more than an hour. Starting with the CEO, they went around the room and told him what they thought his most valuable attribute was for the team, and then they went around and told him the one thing they thought he should work on. The answers were pretty consistent; he took them well, and promised to do his best to address the biggest area of weakness, … Then they went around the table and did the same for everyone else … 8. Almost all of the time and energy … was being directed toward consulting to (servicing) paying clients. Those clients in turn became the sales engine for the firm, and even when we did an occasional cold call, it was the references from clients that shortened the sales cycle considerably. I’m not even sure I’d call it a sales cycle at all. 9.” … They spend almost none of their time selling. … most of their business comes from referrals and warm leads. And in the rare event that they do a cold call, they spend very little time doing research or writing up proposals or wordsmithing presentations.” What do they do then? … “… when they meet up with a client, they spend their time asking questions and doing primary research right there. It’s like they skip the entire sales process. And, they are remarkably successful. … instead of trying to outsmart the companies they are selling to, they just go there and start consulting.” 10. … they are far less professional than we are. They are also less sophisticated, less rigourous and less systematic. But they are so much more effective. … every client … raves about these people. They do most of the marketing for them, and without being asked. More than half their clients come from unsolicited referrals. 11. Why did the client pick them instead of us? The client tells them why - “It just felt like you guys were going to tell us how to run our business, and you were trying to convince us that you knew more than us, I guess. And you were telling us all the things that you would do for us if we hired you. They didn’t do that. … They didn’t come up with any answers. But they asked questions. And, they had suggestions, but they admitted that some or all of these suggestions might not be right. And, some of them weren’t, but some were, and more than anything, it felt like they were more interested in helping us figure our problems than they were in closing the deal.” What has it been like working with them since then? “The same as it was that day. It’s like all they are interested in doing is helping us solve our problems. I’ve already told half a dozen other CEOs about them. I couldn’t be happier.” 12. The power of what they do can be explained in one word: vulnerability. 13. The three fears that sabotage client loyalty i. The 1st Fear: Fear of losing the business It’s not that they go out of their way to tick off their clients. It’s just that they are so focussed on saying and doing whatever is in the best interests of those clients that they stop worrying about the repercussions. They make themselves completely vulnerable, or naked, and don’t try to protect themselves. … they’ll usually look at a company’s website and get a general sense of what business the client is in. But they do most of their research when they meet the client, by asking questions. And they certainly don’t come up with a slideshow or a marketing packet. a. Consult, don’t sell. Give away the business. The other part of this, giving away the business, is about never worrying about the fees. Don’t bring them up during the sales call unless they ask. Don’t apologise for what you charge when they do ask. And if there’s ever a dispute about fees, side with the client and charge the lesser amount. … That’s what nakedness and vulnerability are all about. If a client wants to take advantage of you, let them. I’ve seen their consultants go to a client and suggest that they pay a lower retainer because they weren’t using their services enough.’ … It’s all about standing there naked in front of the client. It’s about building trust. And in the end, that means the client trusts them and takes care of them. b. Tell the kind truth I know a consultant who told his client that he needed to move his son out of a leadership position because he was incompetent. Another guy I know recently told a CEO that he doesn’t hold his staff accountable. And, last week I had to tell a guy that I thought he talked too much during meetings. But remember the ‘kind’ part. We give them that sort of feedback with a level of empathy and concern that you would normally reserve for a friend. No matter how uncomfortable the conversation might be in the moment, eventually the clients are so glad that someone cares enough about them to be honest, they probably can’t imagine not having you around. c. Enter the danger In consulting, entering the danger comes into play in those moments when you are in a meeting and someone says something that is either strange or politically sensitive, and you know that the level of anxiety and discomfort in the room is high. What you are tempted to do is just be quiet and let the moment pass, but what great consultants do is walk right into the middle of the situation and call it out. Whenever I see someone enter the danger …, clients inevitably come up to you individually and thank you. They say things like “I am so glad you made us talk about that’, and ‘I’ve been wanting to do what you did today for three years, but I felt it would have been a career-limiting move.” ii. The 2nd Fear: Fear of being embarrassed One fear that most consultants struggle with is the fear of being embarrassed or looking stupid in front of their clients. a. Ask dumb questions Whether it’s an industry term or an acronym or a concept that everyone else in the room seems to understand, they just never pretend to know more than they do. … I think their clients appreciate that about them. b. Make dumb suggestions <Don’t hesitate to make suggestions, even if they turn out to be dumb.> c. Celebrate your mistakes If a suggestion turns out to be dumb, you admit it was a bad idea as soon as you realize it. You laugh at yourself. You take their ribbing. And most important, you don’t stop making suggestions. Most of your ideas won’t be horrible. Even the ones that aren’t so good won’t hurt you as long as you are humble enough to acknowledge that you are not an expert. And if you have built trust with the client, they don’t think about it for a second. … The idea is that your clients are looking for good suggestions, and they don’t mind sifting through some not-so-good ones as long as they are offered with good intentions and with no ego attached. iii. The 3rd Fear: Fear of feeling inferior One of the last things consultants want is for their clients to look down on them or, even worse, look right through them. There is something about wanting them to see you as being important that goes with the job. The fear of being embarrassed or looking stupid is about taking an intellectual risk. It’s about the pride of not wanting to be wrong. The fear of feeling inferior is more about humility as a person, not needing to be the centre of attention. Even taking on a role of true subservience to a client. … some of the principles that go down with this … a. Take a bullet for the client b. Make everything about the client c. Honour the client’s work - This is about genuinely displaying enthusiasm and respect for what the client does. d. Do the dirty work There is something so powerful about a person who in one moment can be confident enough to confront a client about a sensitive personal issue, and then in the next moment humble themselves and take a position of servitude. It’s the paradoxical nature of it all that makes it work. Here are few excerpts from the book where the author explains what he means by The Naked Service Model and what to do specifically to shed the three fears that destroy client loyalty. At the outset, let me tell you that it won't be as simple as reading the book to get breakthrough business performance. What the implementation of the ideas in the book really requires is the transformation of what it means to be you, what it means to be a leader in your organization, what it means to be a business in the world. Its only on this journey of leadership transformation beginning with you will you get access to your inner creative power and outer enthusiastic followership to lead your organisation to cut over from good to great. What this journey requires is for us to build high levels of self-awareness about our own evolutionary fears - I am not good enough, I am not important, I am all alone. After being present to one of these or a combination of these fears, the journey requires us to march forth like peaceful warriors to transmute these evolutionary fears to step into the highest version of ourselves. Click here to read the 5-Stage Leadership Development Process I use with my clients to support them to become naked service providers; unleashing their performance, productivity, creativity and innovation. They create not only breakthrough business results but also breakthroughs in other areas of their life - health and fitness, relationships, kids, finances, purpose, spirituality, emotional intelligence. I find it incredibly beautiful to observe how building a great business only happens in parallel to going within to be the greatest version of who we are. Wishing you the joy of the journey. Love, Jyoti. 3 years back, I picked up golf. 2 years back, I was still struggling with golf so continued learning golf. Last year, I committed to Karate. This year, I am giving myself up to piano and western classical music. Today, I had my first class in the same music school as my kids. My class was earlier than my teenage daughter’s so I was already practising when she strode in. She marches upto me, looking as much amused as bemused; not really knowing how to react as she sees me struggling with the piano keys and promptly announces matter-of-factly: “Here, you are not my mother.” Before it registers, she has already vanished into her singing class. I had the music notes to worry about than to think about what she said. See, she doesn’t see adults learning around her except her funny mom who picks up a new thing to learn every year. Couple of parents watched me enjoying the struggle of learning and said you are an inspiration. I know the idea of learning inspires them but they are unlikely to be inspired enough to commit themselves and their time to something that they will have to battle with because that is what learning is. Battling your grey cells with new information to process. This battling, this struggle is the exercise what our brain needs the most to stay young, healthy and fit right till we breath our last. That’s what the researchers at the Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital have found. I spoke to my best friend to share the excitement of the new thing I am learning this year. She shares how she struggles to get her kids to their badminton class. She acknowledged it is possibly because she herself is too lazy to do anything herself. I know it is not as much as laziness as the ennui of existence that catches up with you. I admire the parents who bring their kids to the golf course for their classes because I cannot find enough commitment in me to just sit somewhere while the kids experience the joy of learning. I leave for the golf course at the time I said I would because I love practising and playing. I have never had to push the kids to attend their class because I would rather that they do something out of love, rather than because I am pushing them to do. Their love for golf has only grown as I left them to figure out that for themselves. Though, I have learnt this the hard way. Few months back, my daughter told me how I had killed her love for Art by buying her books on famous artists and history of World Art. I listened to her in numb silence because I finally understood why she didn’t want to do anything with Art anymore after being such a prodigious and a passionate artist. My over-providing for her and giving her more than she asked for or was ready for is what killed her love for Art. I had also inadvertently killed her love for piano and maths earlier on. I am learning to give her space to discover herself and find her inner commitment. Being left to her own devices to figure out things, she came back to piano after 4 years. Having burnt myself, I realised how only love and inner inspiration can drive learning. External motivation, grades, rewards, incentives and punishments only kills the inherent genius in kids and in people. That is why having grown up with external motivation, grades, incentives, rewards and punishments; by the time we have grown up, we are left up with zero inner inspiration, passion and joy of learning. That is why, we age. Dying is inevitable, aging is not. We age by choice by not keeping alive love, passion and inspiration in us. I read someplace sadness is not the opposite of happiness, boredom is. Boredom sets in when we are not learning, growing and evolving; when we are not challenged to grow beyond who we are at this moment. Joy is in increasing our fitness across the 4 bodies of our Being - physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual - by taking on learning something to mastery. What are you doing this year to grow? Which hobby will you re-invest yourself in? Which creative art or sport will you commit yourself to mastery? Which mountain will you scale or new land will you discover? Your age, your health, time, money - nothing is a barrier. The real barrier is inside your head. All the thoughts that are racing in your head telling you why you cannot pick-up something new to learn are the barriers you are choosing. You can change the clothes you are wearing, so can you change your thoughts to support you to travel in the direction you want to explore. You are not your clothes, you have clothes. You are not your thoughts and emotions, you have thoughts and emotions. Just as you choose your clothes, you choose your thoughts. And, the thoughts you choose determine your lifestyle; determines the quantum of happiness, peace and fulfilment in your life. You are bigger than your thoughts, bigger than your emotions, bigger than your circumstances. Stand up to walk towards the Life of your choice. God did not send us to Earth with a destiny already written out. We are made in the likeness of God - as a creator, a creator of our Life. (S)he sent us here with an empty whiteboard to write our destiny. We can also rub everything to draw something new. You don’t believe it. That is why you won’t create it. Suspend your disbelief, resignation, cynicism for a moment and step into your dreams lying hidden inside you, with childlike trust and faith. Now, let's have a conversation. Love, Jyoti. References: What does it take to be a Super-Ager? I read this book a few years ago. It has been the inspiration behind reducing my 72 hours work week to 25 hours work week. I am still working to get to the 4 hours work week. For that, I am aware that I need so much greater work on myself. As of now, the journey is ongoing. Not only have my hours of work reduced, my productivity, effectiveness and earnings per hour have increased dramatically on implementing the learnings from the book. I shifted from a 288 hours program per year per client to 66 hours program per year per client with 1650 percentage increase in revenue, while making a much much bigger impact to my clients. Thus, my clients have not only saved time but also created far greater output from the lesser number of hours spent in a program with me. I have used the time saved to visit my parents weekly to be more engaged in their lives; to be more present to my kids not only physically, but also emotionally, intellectually and spiritually; read more masters in my field; spend more time in training and developing myself; learn golf from the country's best coach and play golf weekly with family; focus on building my fitness levels through yoga, karate, cross-fitness training and learnings on nutrition drawn from Ayurveda, Naturopathy and research from the West that I feel younger at 45 than I did at 25. A week back, I committed to learning western classical music on piano. My business model has shifted from serving high volume, low value clients making a difference to their lives to serving low volume, premium value clients making a massive difference to them, increasing their impact in the world through their businesses and the communities that they are a part of. All this and much more, thanks to Timothy Ferriss and to conscientiously applying the principles in his book - The 4-hour Work Week. Here's the summary for you to inspire you to read his book fully and to apply his principles to start your own journey to create your best life ever. Write to me at jyoti@jyotigulati.com to share which idea from the book you implemented and the difference it made in your life. Wishing you a deeply fulfilling successful career, loving harmonious relationships at work and at home, happy responsible kids with their genius joyfully expressed, lots of nourishing nurturing me-time and a huge positive impact in the world. Learn to create time from Tim Ferriss to have it all. Love, Jyoti. The reason most people end up not fulfilling their intentions, realising their dreams, achieving their goals is because they fail to recognise the difference between Outcome and Process / Input Goals. Outcome Goals define what destination you want to reach and by its very name are not in our control. We cannot guarantee that the outcomes we want will get created. Inspite of that, the first step to create a fulfilling life is to define the outcome goals. Happiness is really the experience of growth. If you review your outcome goals, you will realize the achievement of these necessarily means you have to grow as a human being. That is why impossible, unimaginable goals that fill your heart with joy, cause your eyes to shine like bright stars, which make you want to sing and dance are the best goals because of the massive growth you would have to undertake to realize these goals - growth across all the 4 bodies of your Being (physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual), growth in leadership depth, growth in business excellence and growth in craft mastery. The mistake most people make is to get attached to the outcome goals because the outcome goals are merely indicators of how much growth we are committing ourselves to and to define the inputs required to achieve these goals. The inputs required to achieve the Outcome Goals are called the Process or Input Goals. These are our daily actions that we need to take to make our desired outcomes a reality. Intention is for the future and attention to be firmly fixed in the present moment to fulfil on any intention. Once the Outcome Goals are defined, give them up to the Universe because the future is not in our hands and bring your focus totally to the present moment to work on your Input / Process Goals. A powerful way to create the future is to define your Top 5 Outcome Goals for the year across the 5 areas of your wheel of Life (deeply fulfilling successful career, loving harmonious relationships, happy responsible kids with their genius joyfully expressed, nurturing nourishing me-time, making a difference) as a new year dawns and identify Top 10 Process Goals to take action on daily to ensure the achievement of the Outcome Goals. Write them on a 1-pager along with your Personal Inner Commitment, Strengths and Values. Read this 1-Pager daily 3 times - as soon as you wake up, after meditation and just before sleeping. This is a powerful way to remind yourself of what is your commitment to create (Top 5 Outcomes) in that year, strengths that power you to create, who you are committed to be irrespective of circumstances or other people or outcomes (values), your life’s purpose (personal inner commitment) and Top 10 Process Goals (what you need to do to achieve the outcomes you are committed to create in a specific year). As you review and reflect on your 1-pager at the end of the year, one of the 3 things would happen: a. a foundation gets laid for the Outcome Goal to be achieved, b. an Outcome gets created but different from what you had intended though this Outcome serves your growth more powerfully that your original Outcome, c. the Outcome got achieved. What is the most powerful creative force in the world without which you would not be able to achieve your goals, fulfil your intentions, realise your dreams? Gratitude. Not thinking gratitude but feeling gratitude in your heart and in your body. That is when it is truly authentic and powerful. If there is a drop of water in a glass and I am grateful for it, the glass will fill up with water. If my glass is three quarters full and I am discontented, experience scarcity, lack because of the emptiness in the glass, yearn for the glass to fill up, complain verbally or non-verbally about what is not there, continuously focus on what is not available to me, the glass will soon become empty. It is interesting how what you focus on grows and what you don’t focus on slowly disappears. I encourage you to experiment with this idea in your life to arrive at the truth of it. Feeling gratitude is actually turning your focus into the positive aspects in other people and in your environment, in your circumstances. When you focus on the positive aspects, they expand. You cannot feel gratitude and not feel joy, love and peace. This year, make a commitment to deepen your experience of gratitude for what is there and what is not there. Commit to experiencing the perfection in the Universe. In an interview, Amitabh Bachchan, Indian movie actor growing in his superstardom even at 76, said that he is grateful when his intention gets fulfilled and he is even more grateful when his intention doesn’t get fulfilled because then the Universe’ intention is getting fulfilled. There is huge power in childlike trust and faith in the Universe, which centres you emotionally, mentally and spiritually freeing you to focus deeply in the present moment to take powerful effective action to create the reality of your choice instead of getting caught up and wasting time participating in the emotional drama of life. Be grateful if your Outcome got created. Be grateful if your specific Outcome didn’t get created and some other Outcome got created because this is what serves your growth at this moment most powerfully, if you would only open yourself to recognise that. Be grateful if a foundation got laid for the Outcome Goal to be achieved because the foundation, which may seem like a baby step at this moment is the most important step for the achievement of this Outcome goal. Without the foundation step, this tiny little first step, the Outcome Goal will not get achieved ever. Review your Outcome and Process Goals at the end of the year. Based on your learnings during the year, you may want to shift your Outcome Goals and change your Process Goals to create your Outcomes with even more velocity. Enjoy your journey of creation. Have fun along the journey. Love, Jyoti. 1. Fitness like that of a professional athlete is a necessary input for top performance in business and in all other areas of life.
2. What you eat is what you become. Eat super healthy like a super star. Indian food can be fully whole grain, plant based, oil-free and yet delicious. 3. Age-related weakening of eye-sight can be reversed through yoga and healthy diet. I no longer need reading glasses for reading. 4. It is never too late to build strength and stamina. I used to feel exhausted after playing 9 holes and would lay the blame on being 45. Now, even after playing 18 holes at the golf course, I still have energy to do a rigorous workout. 5. Dreams have power. They can bring purpose, focus and committed action even in a 13-year old bogged down by the lure of internet, the trap of peer pressure and the temptation of living an easy life. 6. You grow old the day you stop learning new things. I am looking for a music teacher for my 73 old parents. 7. Your clients are not paying you for the number of hours you spend with them but the output you help them create. My new program run over 66 hours creates far more impact and value for my clients than my earlier program run over 288 hours. This shift is a direct outcome of investing massively in my personal growth and development. 8. Meditation spurs creativity and productivity besides reducing the number of hours to sleep to feel refreshed and rejuvenated. 9. Spending time on making a massive difference to your current clients is the biggest marketing initiative you can run. 10. Time invested in mastering your craft is more effective over the long term than spending time in networking and social media to grow your business because it helps you to create a high-value pull business instead of setting-up a push business in which you spend your time chasing customers instead of making a dent in the Universe. 11. 20% of what you do creates 80% of your outcomes. Figuring out your 20% and putting your ultra-focus there is the secret of creating abundance of time to do all that you want to do but never found time for. 12. Doing all that you always wanted to do but never found the time for unlocks your hidden reservoir of massive energy. 13. Shifting who you are as a human being is the single most powerful way of shifting what outcomes your business creates. 14. Having a coach to be on a journey of discovering one’s blind spots ongoingly gets one to take powerful effective action to create breakthrough outcomes in life, professionally and personally. 15. Learning a sport like a pro teaches more about personal leadership and personal excellence than all the classroom sessions you will ever attend. 16. It is in giving that we receive. Giving 10% of your income to charity and social welfare grows your business in unexpected ways. 17. Owning your own culture, heritage and language gives your children deeper roots, stability and self-esteem to joyfully express their inherent genius. 18. Love, respect and relating to everyone as equals wins all battles. 19. Listening deeply is the single most important leadership skill which is missing. Learn to listen deeply by learning the art of conversation using the power of silence, questions and commitment to coach people to discover their inner light. 20. You can’t win by being a Fighter, fighting with circumstances and people in your life at work and at home. The only way to win is by being a Peaceful Warrior fighting your battles within, which is the source of all that is not working in the world outside. 21. Daily reviewing your personal inner commitment, strengths, values, Top 5 Annual Outcome Goals and Top 10 Annual Process (/Input) Goals releases energy to take daily action to make your annual outcome goals a reality by the end of the year. Create your 1-pager for 2019, if you haven’t as yet. 22. Multiple intentions across different areas of your life can be fulfilled with a single action. Write your intentions across all the areas of your wheel of life - deeply fulfilling successful career, happy responsible kids with their genius joyfully expressed, nurturing and nourishing me-time, making a difference - to identify actions that will fulfil multiple intentions. That’s being effective, productive, creative and innovative. 23. Read more than you think you can. Read every free minute you have to stand on the shoulders of masters to see further than anyone else has ever seen in your industry, your domain, your craft to innovate and contribute powerfully to your customer and employee communities. Business growth is a logical outcome of this. 24. Cut down on technology and rev-up on self-awareness. 25. Saying a prayer before eating increases the taste and nutrition of the food that you eat. Use the prayer before a meal to reset and recharge yourself emotionally, mentally and spiritually. 26. Be love, gratitude and reverence. Be childlike trust and faith. Be in the present moment by keeping your attention on your breath as it comes out and as it goes in. Be fun. Love, Jyoti. My job is to mess up with my clients’ thinking, not tell them what to do. My clients are experts and top leaders in their fields, they probably know much more in their industry than anyone else. They already have everything figured out. Advising them and telling them what to do will not give them a breakthrough in their creativity, productivity, performance and innovativeness. What gives them ideas they hadn’t thought of before, emotions they hadn’t felt before, actions they hadn’t considered before that takes them to the next level that they didn’t even think was possible or available is getting challenged in the way they think, how they think and what they think. Which is what I call messing up with their minds, totally turning their thinking around upside down, inside out. This is what gives them a new way of thinking, a new way of feeling, a new way of being which raises the bar in every area of their life - career, relationships, kids, nurturing and nourishing themselves, making a difference in the various communities that they are a part of and most importantly, creating an abundance of time within the same 24 hours for things that they are deeply passionate and committed about. I got a call from a client today for an urgent advice. I told him I don’t do that. Though, I would be happy to coach him if that’s what he wanted. The coaching call didn’t go in the direction he expected. I told him that’s the problem seeking someone's advice. We have already made up our mind and all we want is someone’s agreement on that. Since we are on a coaching call, I will not give you what you want but what you need to see, hear and feel; and you would resist that though that’s what would support you the most in creating a breakthrough for yourself. My clients have enough yes men and women in their lives and I am about tough love. I love and care so much for my clients that I don’t really care that they love me back. In fact, if my clients don’t hate me for sometime during their engagement with me, I know I need to serve them more powerfully. The same is with my kids. If I don’t hear I hate you often enough, it’s a signal for me to parent them more powerfully instead of easing myself into winning a popularity contest with them. They understand the value of that just as my clients do. So much so, that my 12-year old has taken me on as her coach to fulfil on her greatest dream. This is the toughest assignment that I have taken up so far because when you coach someone, you step into a relationship of equals and you take on being coachable yourself. I no longer can use the line when she asks the question ‘Why do I have to do that?’ - Because I am your mom. I also have a constant watchdog observing whether I am living my personal inner commitment and my values, which is totally tough though serves me very powerfully to grow. So, in a way, she is running the toughest coach training program for me. Parenting, leading and coaching are intertwined. Each of the roles have to play the other two roles equally effectively and powerfully to do justice to their specific role. Parenting is about parenting (unconditional love and acceptance) and leading (doing 10X what you tell your kids to do) and coaching (supporting your kids to realise their greatest dreams in deepest communion with their highest self, supporting them to be happy and fulfilled with their genius joyfully expressed). Coaching is about parenting (unconditional love and acceptance) and leading (doing 10X what you tell your clients to do) and coaching (supporting your clients to realise their greatest dreams in deepest communion with their highest self, supporting them to be happy and fulfilled with their genius joyfully expressed). Leading is about parenting (unconditional love and acceptance) and leading (doing 10X what you tell your team to do) and coaching (supporting your team to realise their greatest dreams in deepest communion with their highest self, supporting them to be happy and fulfilled with their genius joyfully expressed). Wishing you the joy of being a deeply fulfilled leader, parent and a coach creating breakthrough outcomes in all areas of your life. Love, Jyoti. Values are our commitment to ourself, a promise to our own self as to who we are committed to be; irrespective of the chaos inside or outside, irrespective of how people are or aren’t, irrespective of what people do or don’t, irrespective of what people say or don’t. Defining our personal values defines for our own self as to who we really are. It gives us a place to stand in firmly, instead of swaying to every strong wind that may push us in one direction or the other. Instead of reacting to how people or circumstances are, we can learn to respond from who we have committed to be. This makes us far more productive, effective, in control of our lives, in control of the outcomes in our life, creative, innovative, happy, joyful and at peace. If your inner values drive you, I call you a Peaceful Warrior fighting your battles within in recognition of the fact that the problems outside are mere reflection of what’s inside. If you take out your sword every morning to fight the challenges that the day lays out for you, I call you a Fighter. It is an exhausting lifestyle, constantly fighting to get what one wants. Fighters fight the Victims or other Fighters because Peaceful Warriors are on a different path. If you constantly hear yourself complaining, you know you just slipped into the Victim mode. Who would you rather be - Peaceful Warrior, Fighter, Victim? What you choose determines the destination your organization is headed towards - industry innovator and leader, one of the many or struggling to remain out of the red. So, what are your Values? They would be inner resources that inspire you. Here are examples of what they could look like - love, gratitude, reverence, integrity, mastery, joy, gentleness, abundance, kindness, generosity, compassion, fun, freedom, fulfilment, creativity, leader, service, contribution, commitment, dedication, loyal, innovation, humility, respect, understanding, appreciation, positive, cheerful, enthusiasm, energy et al. You could choose from this list or come up with your own. Once you are clear about your own values, it is about living them moment by moment by having your thoughts, beliefs, words, actions in alignment with your core values. If your core value is kindness, observe your every thought, word and action to assess if you are truly being that. Only if you live your values will you be able to inspire your family at home and your people at work to live those values. No amount of talking or plastering the walls with lot of words has an impact as much as you living those values. It is important that your core values are aligned with the organization you are leading for your people to learn to live the organisational values. Your biggest and the first job as a chief executive is to reset values, vision and mission for your organization which are in alignment with your personal values, vision and mission that inspires you. A mismatch here will reduce your power to lead your organization forward from good to great. Values define who you are, your vision is the future you want to create and your mission is what you will do to create that future. Organisational values defines what the organization believes, stands for and values more than profits. The organisation’s vision is where is the company going and why it exists. The organisation’s mission is what it is upto to lead itself to where it wants to go and fulfil on its reason for existence. Before an organisation’s values, vision and mission can be defined, the CEO and the senior leadership team needs to come together to discuss their personal values, vision and mission to reset the organisation’s values, vision and mission that is deeply connected with their own. Without this visceral connection, your company’s values, vision and mission would be empty words on the walls instead of being the source of inspiration for the whole workforce to come together to transform the industry and lead from the front, making a massive difference to your customer community. Market leadership, profitability and scalability will be an effortless by-product of this process. If you want to pump in new blood into your business and are committed to learn, evolve and massively grow, write to me at jyoti@jyotigulati.com for a session to reset your organisation’s values, vision and mission. Wishing you a joyous journey to contribute to your customer and employee communities as you grow not only your business but the social eco-system along with it. Love, Jyoti. |
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