No right in writing

" This is a Zz plant" , my wife said it to me when I pointed towards a quite interesting looking plant she was carrying while she had come back from her "one fine blue moon" morning walk . Her plant was placed in a beautiful looking tub which the nursery man designed for her.

Never heard about this plant before and after seeing her enthusiasm decided to check and know about the plant and found something very deep searching points.

Well, Zz plant is originated from Africa and the original name is Zamioculcas zamiifolia .

I never knew that Zz plant is one of the most popular indoor plants and sold in huge numbers in the world. The website which I visited explains very well why the plant is so popular. It says " Zz plant can tolerate neglect , even with no care it remains green & healthy and never tries to outgrow from the pot assigned to it" i.e a complete adjusting plant.

Well , then these are the ways to be a popular figure in your family , society , profession , group and circle . Applies for you and me , right? Or we are also expecting same thing from our family , friends , peers , juniors or may be partner to consider them acceptable .

Just give yourself a chance to search within that how many people are making you Zz plant and in return you have made how many Zz plants in your life?

Who doesn't want to be popular ?? Right ??

to know more about Zz plant : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zamioculcas

“ We are good , we never did any wrong intentionally , we never caused harm to anybody then why are we suffering . Why are we suffering when we are good?” ... One of the very prominent questions asked in the epic of all epics , Mahabharata by Draupadi to the Savior of dharma , King Yudhistir during their stay in the forest after losing the game of pasha to Duryodhan. 

Well this is the same question we all continuously ask ourselves , isn’t it?

“ what is the reward of being good?”

 “ What is the result of being good?”  

“ If I am good what will I get?”

....and when may be all the media , all the stories , all the events of new genre

are showing don’t be good only , get your dues also, this stands as a very natural question. 

I am not here to take any moral ground to answer or solve this confusing question rather I take the shortest and simplest route and pass the baton to the King of Righteousness , Yudhisthir . 

Yudhisthir answered ,“ Draupadi , the bravest and wisest woman on the earth , being good deserves no result because being good is the result of good deeds . May be of yours , may be of your parents , may be of your predecessors”   

Does it answer your question too? 

Remember the choice is always with us....

PS : Restarting something is difficult. 😊

Last few days I was listening folklores of Bengal specially Lalan Fakir. Really enriching songs with full of life learning.

One of those songs is " tomar ghore basat kore koy jona ?" i.e how many people live in your room? And the room is nothing but me and my inner soul according to baul principle .

How many "I"s live inside me?

Lalan fakir answered it in that song with a metaphor . " Ekjone chhobi anke anmone , ekjone bose bose rong makhe , sei chhobikhan noshto kore ekjona" i.e one of persons live in that metaphorical room paints picture , another paints herself and the last one destroys ...

So the number is three .

Somehow I couldn't take the thought out of me that why three and while repeating the thought the famous three ego state model came to my mind. In case you don't know this three ego state model it is " Parent - adult - child" ego states which primarily three conditions of our mind.

Let's try to understand it with that song ..

The first person who is painting with focus and she forgets everything while painting to make it beautiful is quite matured behavior which believes whatever I do I should do it well and reach to perfection . So can we call it an Adult behavior ?

Let's try out with the second one who has her paint brush , colour everything and instead of painting on paper she paints herself . Just as if a child is running here and their with no mind boundaries . A child in us.

And now the last one who believes either painting is a wastage or if painting is not perfect it's a waste. She can destroy anything which is not according to her benchmark . A straightforward instruction that my command is only ok and not your mind. Don't you think most of us had grown up in that way under supervision of some parental figure . The parent ego.

Believe me here lies the conscious approach to understand which is your natural dominant state and which one you want to nurture .

So which one you want to nurture ??

Decided ?? How to do this ??

Well may be we will discuss it some other day .

To know more about this :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_analysis

To know more about Lalan Fakir :

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lalon

In my entire training career I have never undergone a communication session which doesn’t have a focused “ Listening Skill” module .. Trainers assess listening skill with different psychometric assessments, sometimes by allowing candidates to listen each other or some recorded voice. Then most of the sessions have some great listening tips sharing with demonstration to inculcate the habit of listening.

As I wrote many a time that my favorite book is “ Mahabharata” which consists of probably the most read and heard collection of verses called “ Srimadvagabatha Gita “ which is considered as the “ Bhagaban ubach” means directly told by God , Lord Sri Krishna.

And who is the listener? Yes , Arjuna . This is the simplest answer.

Besides Arjuna there were two more listeners of these holy verses while spoken. One direct listener Sanjay the charioteer and companion of the blind Kuru King Dhritharashtra whose sons were the main opponent of Arjuna and his brothers.  Sanjay was blessed to see, listen and narrate the Kurukshetra war to Dhritharastra. So the indirect listener was King Dhritharastra himself listened the entire Gita via Sanjay.  

Arjuna the main listener of the verse actively listened to those as all of the verses were told to address his doubts . He listened, countered, asked and clarified doubts to reach to the desired conclusion which helped him to get into his future course of action with full body and mind.

The second direct listener Sanjay was only a media to narrate the war descriptions to his king and these value adding verses came to him as by-product. His job and intention were never to get any learning from those teachings. He just listened  and passed it on to his master.

Last listener blind Dhristharastra listened the entire conversation from Sanjay disinterestedly as his main focus was to know the result of the war and his sons’ victory . Can be assumed that he was absolutely disturbed and wished that the dialogue between Sri Krishna and Arjuna to come to an end as early as possible. Can be assumed that he was thinking of the future and cursing the verses for making it delayed .

So with your all knowledge of these listeners and experience of attending different sessions what type of listener are you ?

All the three? Yes , may be depending on situation.

Which situation makes you a listener like Arjuna?

Yes , when something is said about your benefit or to answer your query or to clarify your doubt.

Then think and answer what is the use of all listening skill training  sessions , modules because finally we will be listening to that which is useful or focused to us .

Rather should not we practice how to reach to that mental frame where we will consider challenges of our trainees, customers , colleagues , family members , friends problems as our problem may be then only we will be a listener like Arjuna during teaching of Sri Krishna .

It all starts within, isn’t it ?

“Do you have any booster kind of thing which will help me to get the flowers fast”. Heard this question during my flower nursery visit with my wife, who during lockdown period has developed the passion of gardening. One lady with her husband at her side was asking this question to the owner of the nursery. I saw an anxiousness in her face and eyes were full of expectation to see the flowers in her own terrace garden may be.

Well, this is common for everything. Isn’t it?  We fix a success benchmark for our action and push ourselves to get that benchmark as if flower is the only success for the plant, century is the only success for a batsman, goal is the only success for a football match or may be creating lineage for self. And we want all of them right now even with booster to give.

Can’t blam or criticize. That’s choice of life .

So after listening to the lady’s question ,one life story told by one of the nicest speaker I had met came to my mind . She during one of our group meeting narrated the experience. They have one flower tree ( I forget the name , it’s not Indian) at their home . The tree was healthy and somehow it was not producing flower that season while all other neighbourhood trees were full of flower. One day during her drive to her daughter’s school she told her daughter that their tree was not producing flower that season. Immediately her little daughter replied , “ Don’t worry , flowers will come at their own time and those will be beautiful”.

Well, what’s your choice then?

1.      Time is limited, get your flower asap.

2.      Keep watering and wait for flower to come and expect it will be beautiful.

3.      Be happy with the healthy leaves ...

Choice is yours.

PS:  gardening is a good hobby ..

Many of you must be knowing about how elephants are trained to support humans in their job or obey orders. 

if you don’t you must go through internet and see the cruel methods of training by which baby elephant’s moral is crushed by keeping it in a small cage or tied with iron chain. As the method is very cruel this method is even called as Elephant crushing . The weak baby elephant inspite of so many attempts fail to break the chain and end up hurting itself . Finally it stops trying and when it grows up even if it is tied with a very feeble rope, which can be easily crushed by the big one , the elephant never tries to make itself free.

Why it does so ? Well it is because actually its strength becomes its weakest link. Besides physical power elephants strength is its memory . Elephant have a very long-lasting and strong memory. This big animal has brain of 5 kg , larger than any other land animal. So it can remember almost everything happened with it during lifetime. Thus it remembers all the injuries , failed attempts , punishments for gate crushing and wastage of energies of childhood and that creates a permanent sense of failure in it that the chain can never be broken. Actually its strong memory kills its opportunity to try itself to be free .

What to do you think what is your strongest quality ?

Is it power of imagination?

Is it power of logical interpretation ?

Is it power of making yourself a matured and balanced individual ?

or 

is it adjusting to different situation?

Just think once does any of these strengths actually causing your long term failure?

*** meanwhile if you want to raise your voice against cruelty on elephants sign your petition here : https://www.change.org/p/help-us-save-the-asian-elephants-by-liking-and-sharing-this-post-savetheasianelephants

We always try to give the best of life & comfort to our child and wish them to reach to excellence in whatever they do. Isn't it ? May be some of them reach to that level and what after that ? Do their excellence become unquestionably strong or beyond any claim ?

For last few days I was in mood of revisiting Mahabharata in hotstar . It was telecasted long back and it's my second visit to this series . And the person whose excellence is established in this epic is the best Archer Arjuna. According to his guru he was the best disciple , the best fighter , the best warrior and moreover the hero of the epic.

Let's talk about the best of the best war fought in any epic , Kurukshetra and where Arjuna was expected to create landmark of "shaurya" and he did. So what are his three most landmark success in this great war of dhaarma?

First , he defeated the biggest warrior of generations , Bheesma .

Second , inspite of the great defensive efforts of all Kauravas he fulfilled his promise of killing king Jayadratha.

Third , the great warrior killed his most prominent challenger and his step brother , Karna .

Now just analyse, does any of his these three victories can be called ultimate proof of his strength and the tag of best of all times ?

Bheesma himself told Arjuna how to kill him and the job is done with the help of Shikhandi , the reborn Amba to fulfil her promise to kill Bheesma .

Jayadratha was killed with the help of trick used by Sri Krishna to make the king unguarded .

Kaarna's death scene is known by everyone.

So why it was like this? Why Arjuna after being the strongest warrior didn't get a unquestionable victory and showcase of skill in this great war ??

Well I don't know . No one, I have read, says anything on this. I feel the reason is in his childhood when his guru to fulfil his own promise to make Arjuna the best Archer of the world did probable unjust with Ekalavya by asking for his thumb as Gurudakshina. So the opportunity to prove his excellence against competition was not allowed in his childhood. May be that's the reason any of his success in the best platform is not beyond question .

Think and decide that with this thought how you like to teach your child to be excellent in future .Whether it'll be giving him/her by giving a comfortable run or by pushing into strong competition.

" Swayam Vichar Kijiye " 😊

What you do when you meet an angry person , a dissatisfied customer , a complaining one who considers you to be one of the reasons of his problem?

We explain them. Right? Guard ourselves. Tell them that I am not the responsible one. And sometimes out of defensive mode we confront. Do they work?

May be may be not . And when it works you must be feeling good them that we have freed yourself from the allegation. Have we checked whether really that person believes it or not that we have done enough for him/her and consider me not anymore responsible?

Probably not and if not, why can’t we use a simple word before start explaining ourselves. Let’s use that simple word “Sorry” or if we want to tell more “ I am really sorry” .

Are you visualising a situation where you could have said sorry and ended things better ? No?

So what is stopping us to be sorry for a person who is suffering inside and if it can make him calm? Think and you will find actually nothing. It’s only because while receiving his displeasure my focus is on me and not on him.

So in some behavioural this is called second person technique or in simple term wearing opposite person’s shoe and feel how he is feeling. Try it , saying “ sorry” won’t be a problem .

How do we take decisions when they have implications or effects on us or our near and dear ones?

We look towards their benefits in future or try to offer them a secured future. Isn’t it? For taking those decisions sometimes we are appreciated by others and sometimes criticised for doing nepotism. But the model remains same. We are focused to our near and loved ones.

Let’s talk about two decisions from our own epic Mahabharat. One is of Rani Satyabati . She wanted to secure her son and grandson’s right on the throne of Hastinapur as a condition of marrying the old king Shantanu, father of Bhisma, the great oath taker. She got it somehow but what happened after that? Neither her sons nor grandsons could ably rule the country, some born in unnatural ways and some with deformities. Finally, the great war of Kurukshetra happened and almost entire lineage got destroyed. So, can you see the decision of Satyabati to secure her lineage actually destroyed her family and clan. So, she took it wrong and was criticized in every step in that epic and even after by all the analysts. Even she repented finally.

Hopefully you also believe that she was wrong. Then think about it that who was right?

So here comes the second decision which is of the greatest warrior of the epic Devabrat Bhisma. After knowing Satyabati’s conditions he took the oath of not becoming king and not even marrying to create his own lineage. What was his objective? To make his father happy and satisfied? With that oath only he became the idol of the epic. Now also if anyone takes a strong oath or promise, it is referred as Bhismapratigya and Bhisma is considered as the most dutiful son. He is even hero to you. Isn’t it?

Now think for which we are criticizing Rani Satyabati isn’t that same applies to Bhisma too? He had also taken the decision to make only his father happy and to fulfil his own duty to make him satisfied by doing duty. Finally, this too because whatever mishaps happened with the Kuru clan. Would he not take the oath, his father might have lived unhappy but the entire clan would have saved from the future danger? Did Bhima repent for taking the oath? Well even the greatest epic is silent on that.

So, what is the best way take decision for your near and dear ones? To make them satisfied in present (Bhisma Model) or secured in future ( Satyabati model) ? To gaining greatness by leaving own rights or by getting happiness by securing own right?

Or there is another way of following the path which will positively effect the larger base and not only yourself and your ones?

You can only analyse.

All of the success stories are so motivating and engaging. Sometimes those are stories of “ rags to riches” and sometimes those are of great vision and striving for something new & great.

While reading those have you intended to do those great things ? new things ? doing innovations ? initiating something great ? You thought , right ? I have also done the same. Probably everyone does.

So, should we jump to follow all those greatest innovation stories or prior to that just check our type?

Well , let’s check what are the types of people who succeed according to “ 3 I “ principles .

First , Initiator . Initiators are those who starts something, envisions great things, dreamer, front runners. All those stories of great Greek Mythologies are of initiators. They challenge the status quo and succeed and be considered as heroes.

Second , Innovator : Those who innovates something new , meaningful , improves the existing situation , structures it, makes it more efficient. They succeeds like making things effective in productivity or cost . To give it a mythological name you can consider them as writers of commandments on leading an effective life.

So, these two are successful, heroes and one should strive to be in these two categories. Isn’t it ?

But the catch is if anyone looks towards the highest probabilities of success (according to him) the maximum chance is in the third category.

Imitator: who primarily imitates the initiator or innovator. Maybe they are the latecomers but they know the reasons of failures and success. They have to just follow the right path with keeping focus right ( remember the less than 4 minute 1 mile run story?) and surely gets the chance of winning . In this regard one of my colleagues who was immensely successful in our first training batch used to say that he believes in CTRL+C and CTRL+V i.e copy all the good work of others and paste it to create his own strategy …

So being any imitator is not bad , what say ? even sometimes they step in as innovator or initiator with copy+paste = new strategy .

Few months back I joined a facebook group through invitation of one of my friends. It’s a private and restricted group and overall, I liked the overall engagement of members. There were lot of help posts were there both using own name and anonymous and other members are trying to give suggestions with open mind and good intention. Other than that members are free to share their creative side also.

I started visiting the group every day and slowly got to know some 4-5 members personally. One of them was a boy. Don’t know how he started liking my communication and shared some of his life challenges. From then he almost everyday started communicating with me and saying that I think that I am like his elder brother and can give him some suggestion or solution of his problems. Believe me his life was messed up in personal , marital , professional and financial fronts. I listened to all his story as much as possible and advised him that he should meet some experts of that field as I am not a professional to suggest on this and offered him to support to help him in this journey .

He insisted me to give him some resolution on how to deal situation and give him solution . To start it I asked him to create goal boxes and write what are his short, medium and long term goals in the areas of finance , profession , relationship . He was very excited and we mutually agreed that he would give me this information in 4 days. He didn’t turn up on 4th day and after 7 days he sent an sms saying he will require 2-3 more days to plan. It’s almost 4 months from them and till today I have not received any of his goal boxes. No no, that doesn’t mean that we have lost contact. now also we speak may be once in a week and he never speak about his problems any more.

Well , a good learning for me that it’s always good to check whether the person in ready , willing and prepared to take the pain of walking before working for a destination . I am sure many of the times I have also over enthusiastically asked for solutions or suggestions from people whom I find competent and then backed out after getting the hint of the process and involvement required.

So isn’t it good to check the readiness before jumping into giving solution? What say ?

A common way of listening a story is to seek for a conclusion and most of our fairy tales end with: … and they lived happily ever after” . We are satisfied or can be said as relieved when it starts and ends in that story only which can give us as an opportunity to judge whether it is good or bad ending, whether the character in hero or villain, protagonist or antagonist, exploited or exploiter, favoured or sufferer, have or have not’s.

Do you really believe this judgement can be done in one story which may conclude in 20 to 500 pages? Let’s consider the largest of all stories, the biggest epic “Mahabharata”. It’s consists pf 1 lac sloka and more than 2 lac verses. So everything should start and finish in this. After reading this entire book you can conclude and tag who is favoured and who is exploited. Right?

So what you think of the great warrior Karna in Mahabharata. Thrown away by his mother, adopted by a mere charioteer, refused to get admission to the best possible teacher at that time , never got proper respect even after being a king , had to leave all his shield and armours before final war and died helplessly even without getting chance to fight against his arch rival who is actually his younger brother.

Exploited. Right? Yes, very much in this epic which is the answer of all questions. Even the great lord Krishna exploited him to support Arjuna at every step.

If you have already formed a conclusion let me tell you another story from another great Epic ,

“ Ramayana” where Sri Ramchandra , one of the avatar pf Vishnu during a fight of mighty monkey brothers supported Sugriva by killing his elder brother Bali from behind when he was unarmed. Is is matching with the Karna’s killing?

In Ramayana that Bali was actually son of Lord Indra and his brother Sugriva was son of Lord Surya . Sri Ram, the avatar of Vishnu , supported the son of Surya there . Let’s come to the context of Mahabharata , Karna was son of Lord Surya and Arjuna of Lord Indra . Here Bhagavan Krishna supported Indra’s son. So balancing, isn’t it ?

Even epic needs a pre-read then who are you or me to just conclude and judge based on a mere incident?

Well , that’s the base of Indian philosophy , “ Sanatana” which means something which is present always , which has no beginning and end , which can’t be concluded on one incident . It invites you to know more , understand more and judge less .

So keep walking .

At initial days of my training assignments I used to be very excited for the role (till now I am whenever plan for any session) and always in search of with which techniques, words, phrases or methodologies I can make my participants glued and happy in the session. With the trial and error method I had found out some phrases, examples and stories which candidates liked. Slowly those had become my favourites and I started using it in almost all the sessions, public communications and business meetings.

Finding some similarities with you? Trainers, Business leaders, public speakers or may be teachers?

It happens that we fall in the trap of using our favourite technique over and over again irrespective of assessing whether that example, story or technique is actually friendly to the targeted pool or not. This is kind of trainer centric way of developing manpower where trainer, leaders and teachers become over influenced by their favourites and start believing that this works for their team, participants or students.

What do you think it should be overcome? As a trainer it’s important to come ourt of your favourite comfort area and make it “learner centric” and NOT “trainer centric”?

Well in this regard in 1984 David A Klob came with his impressive “Experiential Learning theory” which stated emphasize on learner’s learning pattern and not on trainer’s training pattern. Klob’s model focus on understanding how does a learner learn through experience. According to him there are some primary learning model: Do, Feel, Think and Watch. For everyone it can be one major and another minor pattern driven. So, it’s important for teacher or trainer or leader to understand his/her own primary model and not to be over influenced by that while helping others to learn. Otherwise it can be a only “Makes me happy approach “(can talk about it later).

Difficult? Yes , it is .. understanding others and working for them is always difficult. That’s the difference between good and great.

So where to start first? Leave your favourites now?

To know more about Klob’s Experiential learning theory :

https://www.simplypsychology.org/learning-kolb.html

Don’t you think while scrolling social media now a days that people are becoming very judgemental, extreme opinion oriented or they have created a very binary, exclusive attitude (written about it sometimes back)? Last few months I have also found myself forming opinion relatively faster.

I think basically most of us had grown up in that times when there was limited source of information and main sources were primarily newspapers, magazines and television news. May be our brains became used to that number of information and opinion formation. And now is the era of information and we are overwhelmed with information where every possible source in social media, 24X7 portals and too many WhatsApp messages. Am not an expert but tend to believe my brain is probably facing challenge to cope up with so many information and that’s why it starts believing many things which may not be necessarily true.

In between read one post of one of my mentors Saurav Chakraborty which hinted about how artificial intelligence is used to form , develop , nurture and change opinion. Tried it on me after reading that and started searching news on how “Community A is doing bad to other communities” . You will not believe after 2-3 days all the sources of social media , portals and internet automated search started giving me those news bites even without asking . Although I know deep inside that the search was experimental and biased still surprisingly found one part of me started forming opinion by believing all that flooded information.

Difficult time it was , almost falling into my own trap . Then don’t know how I shifted me to search news about how “Community A is doing good for other communities” and within 3 days the automated information sources moved back to normal and balanced. Happy for taking the corrective step then.

So may be my learning was in case I am searching news or information about some extreme issues which may lead me to a judgement and opinion, after that search gets over I’ll definitely search to news or information absolutely opposite to that. May be that’s the way of making myself out of the bubble of judgementalism.

Difficult , very difficult … what say ?

I don't know who but someone told me that for any learning the retention time is up to 72 hours. Never searched to authenticate it .

But for many professionals , trainers , salespersons the question which is very pertinent is , " how can I create a long lasting impression or how my customers / participants will always be attracted to me?"

Let me tell you very frankly that I don't know the answer and I am also seeker of the same question. Few days back i was reading an article written by Devdutt Pattanayak on different stages of heaven ( swarga) . In that article he explained Vaikunth , Bhagavan Vishnu's place. In Vaikunth everybody is happy with Vishnu .

Why ?

Are they same ? Their expectations are same ? They want Vishnu in the same way ?

Definitely not and Bhagavan Vishnu knows it . So he appears to different person differently and maintains himself real for everyone . So everyone starts believing that He is doing it for himself only.. this sense of customization makes them glued and happy .

Any idea how to implement it in our life so that our customers both internal and external stay with us?

Even after 72 hours 😉😉

Can you think and brainstorm which two emotions if mixed can cause tremendous power and thus should be avoided .

Well the greatest of all epics , Mahabharata told it as a metaphor . At the time of Mahabharata the most powerful cruel king was Jarasandha. He was the epicenter of all unholy things. But as he was so strong and powerful no one could able to kill her and even his body was supposed to tear up in two pieces they will attract each other and rejoin . With every attempt of killing Jarasandha used to become stronger .

The great bahubali pandav Bheem challenged him for wrestling and even after defeating him Bheem could not kill the cruel king. Then Sree Krishna advised Bheem to tear Jarasandha up and throw two parts of the body in two opposite directions so that they can never meet . Sree Krishna said in case these two parts come together then that will cause the worst possible situation for universe .

Do you like to know what are the names of that two parts ?? Yes ??

Name of the two parts were " Irsha" and " Pratihingsa" . Irsha means envy and pratihingsa means revenge .

Now consider your body is the universe and try envying someone adding taking revenge in mind. Think before you do that because once you do you would need the power of Bheem and wisdom of Sree Krishna to get rid of the new force 🙏🙏.

Either am working or sometimes starring at my laptop , scrolling or typing on my mobile and now the new inclusion is this watch.

Am sure many of you are experiencing the same. Always engaged with something or others. Additionally self commitments are there about writing something everyday , learning something structured everyday , call or socialize with friends or relatives . Ohhh!! Absolutely forget to mention completing web series episods and cat fights on several topics on social media.

Last three days I failed my self commitment to write something and it definitely made me feel guilty . Today after boarding office bus I started thinking what to write and suddenly someone said inside , " Hey , when you are going to leave your mind and brain sometime for them ?"

Well it's a strange question can we experience something as " experiencing nothingness" ? Can we just be somewhere with no objective ? Nothing to observe minutely , nothing to learn and with no intention to collect resource & information to give feedback , write , tell or utilize .

What say mates ?