How do you show you care for your loved ones?

There are different ways people show that they care:

1. A husband tells his wife he loves her.
2. A wife buys a gift for her husband
3. A daughter buys a gift for her mother
4. A son sends a card to his father stating that he is missing him

We often use occasions as props to show that we love and care. Perhaps it is a sign of our times. We get so busy oiling and running the machinery of our lives that we forget to express our love to our loved ones. Our conversations revolve around the mundane-grocery, electricity bills, houshold chores---

I think we need to do both-express our love and care daily and also use special occasions to punctuate the routine by a planned expression of showing our love to our loved ones.

Today, I got fantastic gifts from my wife. She had carefully planned this and put in a lot of effort. I am deeply touched.

I also learnt a very important lesson. We need to seek opportunities to celebrate our love with our loved ones. Along with day to day expression of our love, we also need to invest our time and effort just to show that we care and we love.

This can be done several ways:

1. Plan a party for the person
2. Buy her a gift
3. Take her to a movie
4. Buy him a watch
5. Send her flowers

The list can go on. The point I am driving at is that the more time, effort and planning we put in to delighting our loved ones the more fulfilling all our lives will be.

We need not wait for an occasion to do this. We can pick up a random date and decide to delight our loved ones just for the sake of doing so.

I think we can classify people in different categories:

1. People who forget to express their love day in day out and use occasions as props to express their love
2. People who their express their love day in day out but don't take occasions seriously and miss an opportunity to express their love in a more grand, gala way
3. People who forget to express their love day in day out and don't take occasions seriously either.
4. People who express their love day in day out and also take occasions seriously and turn them into delightful experiences.

My wife belongs to the 4th category. I am learning to get into the 4th category. She is also good at selecting a random date and planning something delightful, either for me or for our daughter.

What about you? To which category do you belong to?

Another question you need to ask yourself is how much time, effort and planning do you invest in delighting your loved ones.

A chain is as strong as its weakest link. What are your weakest links?

I have missed out on doing things that are fun and very beneficial, just because I believe I am not good at it.
Here is a list:

1. I am not good at painting
2. I am not good at striking the first conversation
3. I am not good at sports
4. I am not good at trekking
5. I am not good at networking

I use these statements as excuses for not attempting to start activities around these areas.

It is important to examine these lists. Perhaps, these lists have been handed over to us by others-teachers, friends, peers, bosses---or they have been created none other than ourselves.

Here is an approach to make your weakest link your strongest, if not the strongest, make it as strong as you want it to be.

• Identify an area
• Substitute the statement-example, "I am taking steps right now to make myself good at painting", instead of "I am not good at painting."
• Set a timeline of 6 months with slots of 21 days (It takes 21 days to form a habit)
• Plan to do poorly, initially. It is ok to make mistakes and you have the right and the permission (from yourself) to do so
• Have fun
• Celebrate the effort you put in, not the results.
• Monitor every 21 days of your progress

I am planning to use these steps. What about you? Do you have a similar list?

Try this approach out and do feel free to come to this post and share your experience.

How do you appear to others? What is your "default face"?

This morning, I watched the news on TV and saw a comentator. He was worried or appeared worried. I continued observing people and there appearence while I was at the bank transfering some of the shares I sold and during the hour long commute to the office (Traffic was horrible today).

Each face reflected a different emotion; Some were happy;Some were angry;Some were bored;---

I was feeling quite happy myself, inside and I hope it reflected on my face. All these reflections brought me to this fundamental question:

How do I appear to others? What is my "default face"? Am I approachable?

If our "default face" is anything other than pleasent and approachable it is time to take a look and change it.

How does your "default face" look?

Are you caught in the motivation trap?

Since New Year, I have been challenging this motivation belief in me.

Let me explain the belief:

" I believe that I need to be motivated to do any task. Motivation should come first and then my action."

This is such a limiting belief. I picked this belief from many of the self-help books I have read, from management theories regarding motivation, from my bosses, teachers--- I can keep listing the source of this belief, it is a long one.

This belief was responsible for the internal dialogue in me that prevented me taking important actions when it was required.

Some examples:

I don't feel like exercising

Preparing and submitting the expense statement is so boring

I don't feel like resolving the conflict I had with my colleague

I don't feel like organizing my house

I have started substituting my internal dialogue, by being aware of it and changing it.

Hence, "I don't feel like exercising." was substituted with "Let me begin exercising to feel motivated about it."

It worked remarkably. I exercised everyday since the New Year Resolution and have lost 6 KGs (13.22 pounds).

Here are few more examples of substitution:

Let me begin to prepare and submit the expense statement to drive away boredom and get interested in the activity

Let me begin the first step to resolve the conflict to feel motivated about solving it.

Let me begin organizing the house to get into the feel of the activity and get motivated.

An action has its impact on our perception about it. Though it may not be possible to feel high about every action, we can, however, definitly generate enough feeling, interest and excitement to carry it through.

Try it out! Challenge this limiting belief of motivation! You will get a lot of things done.

The key is to identify the first few steps and begin the task. Your interest and feeling will suddenly appear and follow you through.

Do write your comments after you have tried it out.

Do you use your watch to its fullest potential?

I love watches. I have a good collection of them. I keep changing them every now and then. Recently a thought came to me, as I looked at my complicated watch. Am I using my watch to its fullest potential? I found a strange thing. I am just wearing it as an accessory and I rarely look at my watch even to check the time. My digital diary tells me the time. My laptop tells me the time.

Here are my thoughts on how we can use a watch to its fullest potential:

1. Tell the time (most obvious one)
2. Plan to reach an airport on time. Let me illustrate-If your flight is at 3:00 PM; Need to be at the airport one hour before at 2:00 PM; One hour commute to the airport, so leave at 1:00 PM; One hour for lunch, so start lunch at 12:00 PM ---
3. If your watch has a stop watch, you can estimate the amount of time a repeating task takes; Try to cut down the time for the same task by providing yourself just 30 minutes instead of one hour it usualy takes.
4. If your watch has a countdown feature, you can set a time limit, of say 30 minutes, for a task and try to finish it within the set time limit
5. If your watch has an hourly chime, you can anchor the chime as a reminder for you to get up from your desk and walk to the other end of your office block. This can prevent arthritis in future.
6. You can use an alarm to remind you of any errand you have set;You can shut down the Outlook email that will distract you and check it after 2 hours, by setting an alarm
7. You can use it as a jewelery.

I am sure everyone knows the various uses one can put a watch to. However, most of us take this wonderful gadget for granted.

We wear complicated watches that can tell us the temperature, the direction, the altitude and do many other things, except perhaps cook us a breakfast, in addition to telling us the time in our time zone and perhaps different time zones. How many of us use these features?

Moreover how many of us use the watch for its primary purpose-To help us to be punctual and be more effective?

What about you? How do you use your watch?

Do you seek opportunities to build trust?

Recently one of our colleagues was put on the chopping block. There were a lots of complaints about him from different leaders. There was a discussion about him whether he should be allowed to continue or be asked to quit.

Finally a decision was taken by all of us to give him a second chance. All this happened without his presence. When he called me for some official business, I decided to tell him and warn him that such a discussion had taken place. He was shocked and surprised. He told me that none of the leaders, all of them whom he thought were his good friends, had warned him and appraised him about this incident.

He thanked me profusely and our relationship totally changed. The trust levels went up very high. I was surprised by this incident as I was never close to him and he had never considered me as his friend.

What this incident taught me was that being fare and showing genuine care and concern has a profound impact on relationships. It can turn an ordinary acquaintance to a friend.

While it is not possible to have everyone as our friends, we always have to seek opportunities to show we care. Who knows that person may turn into a good friend of ours?

When was the last time you recognized an opportunity to build trust?

Definitions for using the necklace-treasure chest model* to become highly productive.

Definitions of terms used in the previous two posts:

Simple task:

1. A task that can be done in 5 minutes
2. A task that has not more than two sub tasks

Complex task:

1. A task that will last more than 5 minutes to a 8 hours
2. A task that has multiple steps
3. A task that has action items that need to be done by others

High Benefit

1. Tasks that will take you to your goals
2. Tasks that will help others
3. Tasks that will enhance relationships
4. Tasks that are fun to do

Low Benefit

1. Tasks that does not contribute to reaching your goals
2. Addictive harmful tasks
3. Tasks that are fun to do

*© Muralidharan Jayaram

Discover what pulls you to do useless activities?

Please read the previous post before you read this one - Are you filling your treasure chest with plastic trinkets?---.

Your choice of whether you will do the plastic, zircon, emerald or diamond activities will depend on whether the actiivites are "urgent" or "not urgent".

"Urgent" plastic and zircon activities are distractions that will pull you to focus on them and do them.

"Urgent" emerald and diamond activities usually gets done.

It is the "not urgent" emerald and diamond activities that have a major chance to get neglected.

Keeping this model in our mind will help us to understand why we behave the way we do.

The questions to ask yourself are from two angles;

Is the urgency forcing you to choose the plastic and zircon activities?

Is the lack of urgency causing you to neglect the emerald and diamond activities?

These are very important questions for everyone of us to ponder over.

Are you filling your treasure chest with plastic trinkets? Fill your coffers with 'gems of activities" daily.

At the end of today, every one of us would have done a string of activities. These activities can be broadly classified into the following:

1. Plastic


2. Emerald


3. Zircon


4. Diamond

Please see the figure. It is self explanatory.

At the end of the day, do you have a diamond or a emerald necklace or a zircon necklace or worst, a plastic one.

Be careful of the necklaces you craft everyday, lest the treasure casket of your life be filled with plastic and zircon.

Stay tuned for a future post, where I will define these terms.

So, what necklace are you making right now?

It is a very important question for you to ponder.

What an accident can teach you?

I had an accident, last Monday. The cars in the fast track suddenly stopped and our chauffeur had to jam the brakes. He saved our car from crashing into the car in the front; However, a taxi skidded and hit our car from the behind.

These are the sequence of events that happened after that:

1. I got out of my car and checked the damage done to my car
2. I checked the damage of the taxi that had hit us
3. The taxi driver got out and checked his taxi
4. I took his license number and noted the number of his car
5. We exchanged words while other cars were cursing us for blocking the traffic
6. We had the option of going to the police station, but I chose not to
7. We parted and went our ways

Later on, I checked whether I had any pain in my back; It was just a mild one. As I was thinking about the impact of the accident on myself and my purse, I suddenly realized that I had completely forgotten to ask the driver of the taxi nor my own driver whether they had any injury or hurt.

Both the drivers had got out of the car and stood there arguing. Neither the taxi driver nor my driver had asked me whether I had any hurt or injury, all us were fully focused on our respective cars.

I was ashamed of myself. It is in these situations that our real values come to play. My car was, probably, in a higher position in the value hierarchy than a real living person; Of course, the taxi driver and my own driver had no injuries and if they had one then I would have reacted differently and offered them help.

Nevertheless, the point I am driving at is that all of us and the passersby had no basic courtesy to check whether any party was injured.

Why did all of us, including the passersby, react like this, despite Mumbai being one of the most helpful cities in the world? Is this a sign of our times?

Well, I need to do a soul searching regarding this, for I always thought I had great concern for people.

How about you? How would you react?

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Is the genie in you awake?

There is a genie in you. There is a genie in everyone. Alas! for most of us our genie is fast asleep.

Here are my thoughts on the genie

The Genie*

I saw the child standing there,
With a wary look and a scare,
He saw everyone, here and there,
in the games they played, without a care,

He stood alone and walked alone,
Dropping his tears on many a stone,
What his fears are, did know, no one,
He got no cheers from anyone,

Look my child, you need no one,
Only one friend you need, more than anyone,
That is you my child, you can have the fun,
You can get the success wild, and get the race won,

There is a genie in you, you need to wake,
Wake that genie and it's all a piece of cake,
The genie will help you to move and shake,
embark you on the journey, for you have the world to take,

He moved with courage and was bold,
A lot of things he touched turned to gold,
He had a success, forever to hold,
for what ever he made, got wildly sold,

Now I saw him stand there,
With a smile and not a thing to care,
For the genie was in him, he was always aware,
He also had friends around him, everywhere,

There is that lonely child, don't fail to notice,
She is full of fears and you need to pay your fees,
Awaken the genie in her and put her to ease,
That is the way, your genie, to keep and please.

*© Muralidharan Jayaram

Will generations down the line thank you?

Your actions are determined by your values. Every family hands down its values from one generation to another. In that sense, the values handed over to you, by your parents/guardians or whoever raised you, will have a say whether you succeed or fail. Your upbringing and your family has had tremendous influence on you so far, whether you like it or not.

Good families handover wholesome values that will go a long way in helping its family members to succeed in life.

No matter how good a family you belong to, you will have, definitely, missing strands of values as no family is perfect. Moreover, along with the wholesome values you would have also got the disfunctional ones.

Over and above this, you would have changed your values, mostly unconsciously, living your life so far and hopefully you have changed the dysfunctional values.

Rarely do people examine the values they have inherited. It is a very important activity.

Examine your values and begin to cultivate the wholesome values that are missing. You need to do this not only for yourself but also for your children and rest of the generations to come.

Generations down the line, they will thank you for it.

What are things you need to do that will make you outstanding?

What do you need to do periodically that will make you outstanding?

Here they are:

1. Identifying and challenging assumptions


2. Constant search to do something no one else has done in your field


3. Being alert to changes in your context and situation


4. Being alert to opportunities around you


5. Seeking opportunities in every event and situation


6. Trying to do something new and enjoying it; Learning to enjoy failure if you encounter one
   
7. Creating opportunities for yourself

I am monitoring, periodically, whether I do all these things.

What about you?

Your first subordination analysis

In order to take control of your subordination process (see the previous posts), you need to know the activities you want to subordinate. It will be a good idea to look at your activities landscape systematically. This is a very simple exercise and shouldn't take a lot of time.

Here is what you need to do:

1. Be aware of every activity you do through out the day-make a mental note of the time you spent on it(a rough estimate would do).


2. Mentally scan through the activities at the end of the day and choose one or two activities you feel you can subordinate. The choice is entirely up to you. Search for frequent, fun activities (trivia) such as gossipping over the telephone, reading novels, reading the news paper, watching the TV etc. These activities should be the trivial ones we spend time on and cutting them will not in any way harm us or collapse our world.


3. Make sure that you are not selecting any important, high yielding activity.


4. Map this activity in a similar template shown in the picture


5. Negotiate with yourself the amount of time you will cut. Example-I have cut two hours of my daily TV viewing time.


6. Do this for a typical week of yours.


7. Look at your week and decide which activity you could subordinate.

Calculate the amount of time you will free up if you subordinate the chosen activities.

You can now decide to do those activities, you want to do, which you thought you never had time for!

Try this simple but very powerful tool. It may change your life for ever.

Do write back, through your comments here, of using this tool.

What are the laws of subordination?

It is important to keep in mind the laws of subordination (See the previous post) while changing the landscape of your activities.

First law of subordination:

Activities that are the most fun to do will be the most resistant to subordination

Example-Balancing your check book vs watching a baseball game on TV.

Second law of subordination:

The act of planning activities and conscious subordination work together, in synergy, to produce results

Example-Planning to do your assignment instead of watching Disney channel

Third law of subordination

The balance of indulgence in an activity and the subordination of it needs to be maintained for successful subordination.

Example-You cannot keep missing your Disney channel for ever. You are going to rebel, sooner or later

Fourth law of subordination

Successful subordination releases the time you need for important activities you thought you had no time for

Example-You get time to do your hobby instead of surfing the Internet blindly

Fifth law of subordination

Rotational subordination will ensure your fun activities get a chance to give you fun

Example-you don't get stuck just playing cards, you also paint, go for movies, play your piano --- while you get your important things done too

Keep these laws in mind while planning your activities for the day; Breaking these laws of subordination leads to procrastination and failure.

Stay tuned for further posts on how to successfully subordinate and live a fun filled, productive life.

Do you make the "principle of subordination" work for you?

What is the principle of subordination?

Every activity happens at the expense of another. One activity, thus, subordinates another in a finite continuum of time.

Let's say you come back home from work every day at 8:00 PM and watch TV from 8:30 PM to 10:00 PM, every day. One day, you suddenly realize the dire need for exercising; so you come back home and go for a walk, along with your spouse, for an hour and get back home at 9:30 PM. You have, automatically, subordinated the activity of watching TV.

Your ability to continue exercising will depend on the tug of war between these two activities. Let's assume that you succeed in sticking to exercising, instead of watching TV, will that mean that you will reduce or totally stop watching TV. I don't think so.

Your TV watching may subordinate your activity of sleeping and may erode into your sleep time. Does that mean you will sleep less? May be or may not be, as you may sleep late and subordination is carried forward till it finds a nice, high priority area on to which it can settle down, finally.

The problem is, for most of us, this happens automatically and unconsciously. This is dangerous because you may subordinate important activities like sleep, family time, work ---

The more you are in control of the process of subordination, the more fulfilled your life will be.

How do you subordinate effectively? Well! that is for another post.

Meanwhile, you can begin to examine and identify important high priority activities that are getting subordinated by relatively low yielding activities.

Stay tuned in, for more, in the future posts.

Are your values being slowly eaten?

When was the last time you checked the shift in your values? Day in day out you are bombarded by advertisements, movies, soap operas, colleagues, bosses, friends, strangers and this constant assault can erode your values. Hopefully your parents/guardians/teachers have set in you default values for success such as:

• Honesty


• Integrity


• Hard work


• Smart work


• Concern for others


• Speed


• Punctuality


• Walking the talk


• Respect for others


• Commitment to friendship and friends

The list can go on. These are default values and hopefully you have, consciously, examined these and chosen them, again for yourself.

Environment has tremendous impact on you, whether you realize it or not;It can quietly eat in to your values and turn you into a new leaf with a new color.

Are you turning into a new leaf?

Same thing can happen to your child. A single exposure to a conniving relative or stranger can quietly change your child's values.

Vigilence is the only answer to this immense problem.

Examine your values again, today. It is a high priority action item, as your success or failure depends on maintaining wholesome values you have gained or been gifted with.

Also check your child's value shifts. Build trust with your child and be alert for changes.

When was the last time you went for a picnic?

We often wait for that time of the year, when we can go on a vacation. While our eyes are fixed on that far away time, we allow many opportunities, to have pure fun in the "here" and "now", to slip away.

Last Saturday, we went for a picnic, to a spot, just 100 KM, away from Mumbai.

Here is my experience:

Just to "be"*

I stood in the open air,

with the wind blowing in my hair,

I stared at the distant peaks,

while the warm sun rays, kissed my cheeks,

I was in the "here" and "now",

while I watched the lazy cow,

I saw my family, on the tree,

letting go their "child" totally free,

I had no planned goals to chase,

but just stand there and gaze,

I had no lit screens to stare,

but just, be there and be "aware",

I felt, it's so rare to be so free ,

and I was so free just to "be".


The experience was very rejuvenating.

When was the last time you set yourself free, just to "be".

*© Muralidharan Jayaram

Are you a camel? How much will you tolerate before you protest and act?

Many of us behave like camels. We wait for the last straw beyond which we cannot tolerate anymore. The big and important question we need to ask ourselves is, "How much tolerance is optimum tolerance?"

Different situations call for different levels of tolerance. Let's take some examples to drive home the point.

1. Colleague/Friend/children drinking and driving; Zero Tolerance


2. Employee cheating on an expense statement; Zero Tolerance


3. Your child lying to you; Zero tolerance


4. Employee under performing because she has a learning curve; A mutually agreed level of performance and a stipulated time elapse before your tolerance will go to zero.


5. An employee under performing because of an attitudinal problem; Mutually agreed performance level and clarification of your zero tolerance level.

There are many areas in our life we need to examine and think through to set our tolerance levels. While it is not realistic to have zero tolerance in all areas of our life, we, however, should be clear, in our minds, about our tolerance threshold.

Some sample areas to think through:

1. Disorganized house


2. Unplanned work


3. Our weight


4. The amount of sleep we get


5. The time lapse between our vacations


6. The amount we spend beyond our limits


7. The amount of time lapse before we prepare for an exam


8. The amount of time lapse before we submit our reports


9. The amount of project delay before we put our foot down


10. The number of customers lost before we re-look at our strategy

It is important to set standards of performance and determine our tolerance levels. It is my experience that the higher the standards we set for ourselves and others and lesser the tolerance levels we attribute to them, the more the chances we have that we perform at these high standards levels.

If you don't set standards and if you have not predetermined your tolerance level, you will, sooner or later, break your back because very soon, if not immediately, the last straw will be placed on your back.

I don't think you can go too far with a broken back.

Setting standards and tolerance levels for yourself and others will be one of the most fruitful activities you ever could undertake.

Now tell me how much will you tolerate the time lapse before you set standards and tolerance levels for various areas in your life?

How do you pack your day with experiences?

Our memories are made up of our day to day experiences in life. Some of these experiences come to us, on their own and some we create on our own, based on our choices; We can choose to stare at an excel sheet through out the day and come back home and further choose to stare at it, by working late night, to cite an extreme example.

What are the various option we have, in addition to our work at the office or at school or at home?

Here are a few of them:

1. Listen to music
2. Watch a movie
3. Draw
4. Write a story
5. Spend time with our family
6. Walk our dog
7. Exercise
8. Indulge in our hobby
9. Prepare a budget
10. Organize our house
11. Read a book

We need to pack in a variety of activities into our days and we need to do this consciously; For most of us, our day gets packed, by chance and not by our choice.

The best way to begin, is by listing all activities that we enjoy and all the activities that are useful for us. Once we have such a list, lets call it the "experience list" for want of another name, we can then plan an entire week filled with varied activities that give us fun and are useful to us.

Without such a plan we will tend to do the same activities again and again while we could have done something else that would have given us immense satisfaction or joy.

As of me, I am putting this idea to work on a priority basis.

What about you? Try it out!

You may have, at the most, an experience of a Lifetime or an experience of a "Life week", at the least.

Do you have the universal prerequisites in you that qualify you to be befriended?

What are the universal prerequisites we need to possess that would predetermine our success in winning true friends?

I can list a few of them here:

1. Trustworthiness
2. Honesty
3. Integrity
4. Caring
5. Kindness
6. Loyalty
7. Helpful
8. Good listener
9. Humility

We can keep adding to this list. These universal prerequisites operate in all the cultures. You need to have these prerequisites before you can be successful in winning and keeping friends for life.

Now compare this list with an another list:

1. Having common interests; I love photography so do you.
2. Wearing similar trendy clothes and fashionable dress; We like and wear fashionable and trendy clothes.
3. Having a status; My family is famous so is yours.
4. Being wealthy; I am rich so are you.
5. Being beautiful; I am beautiful so are you.
6. Having a common background; I am a geologist so are you.
7. Having a common educational background; I am a MBA so are you.
8. Belonging to the same hierarchy level; I am a CEO so are you.
9. Having a common language; I speak Hindi so do you.

It is my experience that people give more importance to the second list rather than the first one. We quickly classify people using the second list and give our verdict: He is not fit to be our friend;She is fit to be our friend.

Invariably, friendship based on the second list will cause us trouble and give us heartbreaks. It will also prevent us from having true friends because we brush aside people based on a superficial scan.

Be careful of the criteria you use for friendship. Just because you cannot find a common ground immediately with a person does not mean that person cannot be your friend. You can always find a common ground together, later.

This is true in friendship, as well as in marriage. What is required is to get the basic DNA in us right.

Our DNA strands need to be composed of the first list.

What about you? What kind of DNA strand do you possess?

The MAGIC 21 --- How are you doing with respect to your new year resolutions?

Today I am doing a concurrent critique*:

How am I doing with respect to my new year resolutions?

I am doing fine with respect to all my new year resolutions. It is a great feeling. I have crossed the first barrier to make these new year resolutions a habit because it is already, the magic, 21 days. It takes 21 days to to form a habit.

This is also a time to be more careful and not allow any complacency to set in.

What are my learnings so far?

1. Constant monitoring has led to this success
2. Results I got because of the resolution such as weight loss got me really motivated
3. Very big support of family to help me to keep the resolutions on track
4. Some of the resolutions are joint resolutions, hence it is important to have shared family resolutions along with your own resolutions

What about you? You too have reached the magic 21 today. How are you faring?

* Concurrent critique is a technique I learnt in "Grid - The Power to Change" workshop conducted by Grid International.

For more details on critique and Grid - visit their website: http://www.gridinternational.com/

How do you focus?

I have this tendencey to focus on a single task or area to the exclusion of others. There are advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

1. Task gets done quickly
2. Task gets done with a mark of excellence
3. I get lots of ideas because of my single minded focus
4. Once it is complete, I get a sense of satisfaction of completeness

Disadvantages:

1. Other tasks get neglected
2. Important tasks get delayed
3. Danger of missing out on urgent and important activities

The following disadvantages get magnified if it is a focus area rather than a single task and I get fascinated by it.

I have read all kinds of time management books and suggestions. None of them are complete in themselves;I think none of them will ever be.

The choices in front of every one of us are the following:

1. Single, exclusive, unplanned focus
2. Single, inclusive unplanned focus, (here you are alert to other tasks too)
3. Single, exclusive, planned focus
4. Single, inclusive, planned focus;leads to balance
5. Multiple, inclusive, unplanned focus-(here you are on a random multitasking mode)
6. Multiple, exclusive, planned focus-(here you are on a multitasking mode)

There must be a balance in focus in all areas of life. The focus must be planned, but not planned so much that we miss out on the opportunities that come to us at random or are unaware of the dangers that spring up suddenly.

How about you? How do you focus?

This is an important area for you to examine.

How do you fight complacency?

Every one of us gets complacent in one area of life or the other. Complacency can lead to failure and crisis.

Complacency is a function of seriousness and awareness.

Low seriousness and low awareness is the cause of many problems- I am not serious about my fitness and I am unaware of my weight, as I don't monitor it. I am also careless about the food I eat and I am unaware of the consequences of eating such food. I am in the Zone of the Complacent

Low seriousness and High awareness: As things deteriorate and I get overweight, I am aware of my condition, but I am still not serious about it. I let things happen to me and the result is, I am well on my way to obesity. I am in the Zone of the Paralyzed.

High seriousness and Low awareness: As people begin to make fun of me and I begin to feel the after effects of obesity, I decide to get serious and now want to reduce my weight. At this stage my awareness suddenly dips to a new low, as I do not know which exercise to choose from and how to exercise.

In the event, I choose to exercise after consulting a doctor, say going for a brisk walk, I may still fail to monitor my weight as weeks go by. I live in a Zone of Illusion, thinking that I am taking appropriate steps to reduce my weight, but actually I am not getting any results.

High seriousness and High awareness. I am now aware that I took exercise for granted and it is not yielding any results. I decide to continue exercising and begin to monitor my weight. I also begin to do some form of dieting. This brings me results! I am in the Zone of Results.

I am happy now but if I am not careful, I can go back to the complacency zone; I can feel content by my small progress and regain my weight back or as I continue to exercise, I suddenly realize that I am stagnating as no further weight reduction is happening. Now I need to get to the next level of seriousness and awareness, as I have to explore and learn new exercises and get more in depth knowledge of my diet options. The journey continues...

Once I reach my ideal weight, I need to get my seriousness and awareness to a whole new dimension in order to succeed to maintain that weight. I need to seriously consider changing my lifestyle for good.

The Complacency-Results Matrix* is a powerful matrix that can be applied to many areas of life.

Try it out and enjoy the great feeling of being in the results zone consistently.

*© Muralidharan jayaram

Is the world full of average people?

Last evening I went for a walk, as a part of my routine, to get some exercise. As I walked, I saw a group of people watching TV in an apartment. They were all glued to their TV set. This triggered a thought in me of how many people waste their time, in front of their television, watching meaningless programs.

As I thought more and more, my reflection bought me to a fundamental question: Is the world filled with average people?; I don't know, may be it is, but what I do know is what makes people average. Let me list for you some of the characteristics that could make you and I an average person:

"Average" portrait

You are average,
If you work only for your wage,

You are average,
If you don't get out of your cage,

You are average,
If you can't read beyond a page,

You are average,
If you pollute your mind with garbage,

You are average,
If you always fear the stage,

You are average,
If you can't control your rage,

You are average,
If you don't strive to be a sage,

You are average,
If you don't give life its due weight age,

You are average,
If you choose just to wait and age.*

I am sure we can add a lot more to the list. Being average is a choice many people make. Some people live their entire lives with that choice, a few others break out of the pack to reach the heights beyond their dreams.

It is important to be aware of this choice to be average, by examining our lives thoroughly. For most of us, the choice was made unconsciously. Examining this choice and changing it is an important internal work we need to do.

If we don't do this important internal work and change our choice, we will miss out on our opportunity to contribute meaningfully to this world we are living in.



*© Muralidharan Jayaram

Do you turn a prince into a frog?

We were shopping in a mall and I saw a couple, so lovingly, buying clothes for their children. The mall was filled with kids of different ages-infants to teenagers. Seeing all of them, I began to wonder what is in store for them, when they grow up.

I remember the time, when I left home at the age of 19 and went to another town for a job. In the first week itself, a customer behaved very rudely to me. I remember going back to my room, missing my home and parents and suddenly realizing how safe and filled with love my home was, in stark contrast with the crude and rude world outside.

All responsible parents raises their children with lots of love and care. Children are treated as princes and princesses and pampered with a balance of discipline. The result is they grow up with a lot of self-esteem and are ready to face the world.

However, there are parents who are irresponsible and raise their children as frogs, ill treating them. These children grow up with poor self-esteem and are poorly equipped to face the world.

When I meet people, I search for the prince or the frog hidden in them. Nowadays, I am more and more aware that the person in front of me is a result of the loving efforts of his parents. I am careful in my interactions with him because I don't want to turn this prince into a frog, by deriding him and lowering his self-esteem.

Similarly, I don't want to turn a frog into a tadpole, rather I would like to turn him into a prince, hopefully.

What about you? Do you turn princes into frogs often?

Think about it while you are interacting with the next person you meet after reading this post.

Look Ma no hands!

I was watching a kid go round and round on his cycle. Slowly, as he gained confidence, he screamed with joy, “Mummy, Mummy- Look!", for he had taken his hands off the handle of the cycle; He and the machine had become one. I am sure that this boy, like most of us, will continue to exhibit this behavior of trying to impress others for the rest of his life.

Right from childhood, we want to impress and gain approval of others who matter to us. As years go by, people get substituted or added while we pursue to meet our need for approval.

As you look back, you may be surprised, as I did, to observe that the list of people who you want to impress has changed over a period of time. Moreover, many of them are not there with you anymore, either they have moved away or you have.

However, there is one person who has always been with you and will always be with you; That person is no other than you. As I thought in these lines, I suddenly realized, how little effort I take, day in day out, to try to impress myself.

I decided to do the following:

Bring excellence in everything I do that will impress me first before anyone else is impressed

Dress in a manner that I look into the mirror and say Wow! before anyone else says WOW!

Put in every effort to contribute to others and say thank you before anyone else says thank you

What about you? When was the last time you did something in such a manner that you yourself were impressed, before anyone else was?

The more genuinely you try to impress yourself and succeed in wholesome areas of your life, the easier it will be for you to get others to say WOW! Even if they don’t appreciate what you have done, you still have the one person who will be at your side always that is you.

In this complex, high stress, multitasking world of today, you need first yourself by your side, more than anyone else; And impressing, gaining approval and confidence of this important person will be the primary determining factor for your success in all areas of your life.

How are you utilizing the resources you already possess?

How are you utilizing the resources you have? Have you explored them thouroughly?

I have a lot of gadgets which I am not utilizing to their fullest potential. My Palm Treo, I use it more as a phone and to store data, rather than as a full fledged digital assistant.

My Nikon D 80 SLR camera has many features I don't even understand, leave alone use. I have a TV and I find myself watching it at random, rather than exploring and watching meaningful programs. I have an Adobe photoshop software which I have still not used, not even once.

Recently, I asked my colleague to practice his presentation in front of his camcorder. He said, "Wow! that's a great idea and I wonder why it never occured to me" and I thought to myself that there are others too in the same "club" I am in and that made me feel slightly better.

If we really look around, we have a lot of resources which we can put to use, but we never do.

I have decided to examine each gadget, software, and any other resource I have and really ponder, as to, how I can utilize it to its fullest potential.

It is one thing to possess a resource, but totally another thing to utilize them to its fullest potential. Recently my daugther searched in her college library for hours for a Corporate Strategy book which we already had at home.

The decision to explore a resource, we possess fully and to utilize it to its fullest potential, in our defined context, can make a world of difference to our quality of life.

What about you? How well are you utilizing your resources?

How do you handle conflict?

Conflicts are inevitable in our daily lives. How many of us realize that our quality of life depends on the way we handle conflicts. There are many ways people handle conflict;

The common mistakes I observe, day in day out, are:

1. Do nothing-allow conflicts to pile up one above the other
2. Wait for the "last straw on the camel's back" and explode
3. Withdraw completely and give the silent treatment to the other person
4. Be unreasonable and unwilling to listen to the other's view point
5. Play the blame game
6. Crush and suppress the other person because you are taller or stronger or elder or you have some kind of authority on him/her
7. Say mean and hurtful things which you actually don't mean
8. Bottle up your hurt for hours, days, weeks, months, years or the entire lifetime
9. Not make the first move to resolve the conflict and wait for the other person to take the initiative
10. Show your anger on someone else
11. Try to solve the conflict in the heat of the moment, instead of waiting for more saner times
12. Labeling each other in a hurtful manner

It is important to handle conflict and resolve it at the earliest. Ability to bring the conflict out in the open, listen to each other deeply, with respect, acknowledge the mistakes on both sides, apologize and be willing to forget and forgive is crucial to having a good quality of life.

In case you are making any of the mistakes mentioned above, it is time to stop them now.

Invariably, your willingness to make the first move to reach out and resolve the conflict will be your first step towards resolving it.

Do you have someone with whom you have had a major conflict? Make that first move, be patient and invest in the process of conflict resolution, and try your best to resolve it.

You may be surprised by the results because in many cases the conflict may get resolved much quicker than you think.

Buy this book by Tim Ursiny and you will be able to handle conflict bravely. Here is the link to the book!

The Coward's Guide to Conflict: Empowering Solutions for Those Who Would Rather Run Than Fight

Do you send people to the "School of Hard Knocks"?

When a person consistently commits errors or exhibits attitudinal tantrums, or is disloyal to you and betrays you, what do you do with him/her?

It is very important to know your options and also to know how and when to use the various options. It is also important to understand which options are dysfunctional and should be avoided totally.

Let's examine the various options you have:

1. Plot to teach him/her a lesson
2. Pick up a fight
3. Critique
4. Send him/her to the "School of Hard Knocks"

Plotting against the person and finding ways and means to fix him/her, in such a manner that he/she will be shocked into learning a lesson, is a very dysfunctional approach. The pitfalls in this approach is that your plan may misfire or the lesson they will pick up will be the wrong one and, over and above all this, it could damage relationship permanently.

In this approach, you are playing games and this can trigger the other person responding in a similar fashion.

Picking up a fight, again is dysfunctional, as it may not achieve what you want and may worsen the situation.

The choice between the options critique (the best option) and the "School of hard knocks" depends on the situation, context and the amount of trust between you and the person involved.

You can use critique, if trust levels are high or after you build trust levels high enough;Here you will openly discuss about the dysfunctional behaviour and its impact on you and others and will negotiate an appropriate action plan with the person to help him/her avoid such a behaviour in the future; This is a problem solving approach.

What if, after all your interventions, the person still continues to err or he/she doesn't care enough to make an effort to change or he/she has character flaws and is duplicitous and opportunistic?

In such a situation you need to take steps to protect yourself/your colleagues/co workers/team members/ family/organization or anyone the person's behaviour may impact negatively; You can let go (for the time being?) and send him/her to the "School of Hard Knocks"

School of Hard Knocks is the most painful school in the world; This is where "students" are punished;This is where "students" go to suffer and learn, through experiences they have brought onto themselves, by the consequences of their behaviour. Experience is the best teacher and hopefully, they will learn.

While they are in the School of Hard knocks, you may choose to ease their pain, because you are compassionate, by being there for them or chose to completely ignore them.

The choice is, always, yours!

Do you critique or do you judge? Do you label people?

My wife and I decided to completely stop judging others for a period of one month, to start with. We also decided that we will monitor each other and make a funny, warning sound like "ehgnaaaaa!" when we spot each other judging anyone.

It is one thing to critique others so that they learn and totally another thing to judge others. Critique focuses on the behaviour and its impact which we need to identify and give feedback to the individual who originated that behaviour, provided the trust levels between that person and us are high.

Judging, however, is a totally different matter altogether. To judge a person, either silently or in private, or with that person himself/herself openly, is to label him/her permanently.

Labels are destructive. How often have I seen people label each other in a manner that many a times these labels last a lifetime and cause tremendous damage.

When was the last time you labeled a person? It is time now to take stock. What about your labels?

Reverse Networking

As I was sitting in my car today, I suddenly remembered an old boss of mine. Where is he now? What is he doing right now? How is he? I suddenly realized, I had no clue.

My mind went further down the timeline, in the past, and many images of people came to me. Amongst them were significant people who have had tremendous influence on me.

My kindergarten teacher, who taught me to tie my shoe laces, my chemistry teacher, who aroused my interest in behavioural science, my english teacher, whose classes, I used to cherish, another boss of mine, who had mentored and coached me, my dad's friend, who had taught me the importance of reading, all these people in small and big ways have made me the person who I am today. The list of people who influenced me can go on and on.

How many of them am I in touch with now? In the whole list of people, only four of them. Even the ones I am in touch with, the credit will go to my wife and not to me. She is the one, in our family, who always keeps in touch with people, a quality, I greatly admire in her.

It is sad that in my busy, single minded focus to achieve my goals and climb the ladder, I totally forgot, the very people who had played major roles, through their influence, to make me the person who I am today. A lot of my success, I have achieved today, I owe it to them. Alas! I don't even know where they are to say a thank you.

In this age of warped speed, with people pursuing their career/personal goals and networking with a purpose to further their own interests, I would strongly recommend reverse networking. I would recommend, tracking down every person who has had a positive influence on you, just to say thank you and show them that you care.

I don't know how many of those people I will be able to contact now, but I do know that even if I am able to contact a few of them and thank them, the experience and the benefit to me and to them will be priceless.

Henceforth, I have decided to note down and keep in touch with people who will influence me and network with them, purely from a point of view of showing them I care.

What about you? How many of the people who have influenced you are you in touch? How many of them did you say thank you? Think about it.

Try it! It may further change your life.

How are you faring with respect to your new year resolutions?

I am just doing a periodic critique here. I find myself fully in control, with respect to all of my new year resolutions. I wonder, why I didn't do these, very beneficial, things earlier.

I think the reasons for success are as follows:

• High degree of commitment


• High degree of self-discipline


• Intense desire to reach specific goals related to the resolutions


• Subordinating other activities, such as watching TV, to the new year resolutions


• Family support and encouragement

Am I committed because these are a new year resolutions? Can we manufacture commitment during other times of the year?

The key, above all, is to be ruthless with yourself till these resolutions become habits and take on a life of its own.

You cannot let go the plane till you cruise to an appropriate altitude. Once you reach the optimal altitude, you can, then, go on an auto pilot mode.

What is your experience so far?

Setting high standards

How much sub-standard performance will you tolerate before you make a protest? You will protest only if you have a standard in the first place. Tolerating poor/mediocre performance at work could be a clue that you do the same in other areas of life.

There are many areas in life where we need to set high standards, but we rarely do so.

We allow poor performance to continue till we cannot tolerate it anymore. We allow our house to get messy till we cannot tolerate it anymore. We allow a person to misbehave till we cannot stand it anymore. We allow ourselves to get stuck in a job that no more interests us till we cannot continue anymore.

Very few people think through the standards in different areas of life and set them for themselves. This is dangerous. Without preset standards, you will go through life, accepting trash, as it comes along.

It is time now, to draw the lines and set the standards in different areas of your life.

The quicker you do this, the better it is for you, your family, your co-workers and everyone else you may come across.

Common Mistakes

In every endeavour we do, there is ample scope for us to commit mistakes. Just because we have been doing a specific activity for years doesn't mean we have mastered it.

This is the observation, I made, when I witnessed the "mock presentation" of my colleague.

He committed the same blunders I have seen time and again in many presentation I have witnessed, over a period of years. What is more disconcerting, is that my colleague is not new to making presentations.

Why does this happen?

Every activity can be performed the right/effective way or the wrong/ineffective way. This is true for making presentations, surgical operations, raising children, gardening, exercising---.

Identifying and learning the correct way of doing something and being aware of the common mistakes, that are usually commited during such an activity, will help us to be effective and successful.

Scan through the various activities you do. How many of them have gone into an auto pilot mode with built in mistakes you are not even aware of.

My colleague had made that presentation after 3 hours of practice. However, his practice did not help him at all, as he had paid scant attention to what constitutes an effective presentation and what are the major pitfalls he must avoid while making a presentation.

If you perfect imperfection the end result is still imperfection.

You end up perfectly imperfect!

Laugh time schedule in your calendar

Last night we watched a funny movie. We laughed and laughed till there were tears in our eyes and our stomachs began to ache. OH! it felt so good. It is after a long time, I have laughed so much.

It is important to periodically have these kinds of laughs.

Planning to see fun movies, watching cartoons, and reading comics must become an integral part of our lives. We have to build these activities into our busy schedules, otherwise months/years may go by, and we would still have not laughed, the way we need to laugh, to stay healthy.

Have you scheduled a "laugh time" in your calendar? Try it out. It may prove to be one of the most productive activities you have ever scheduled

Outdoors

I recently made a surprising discovery. I am spending most of the time indoors, with very little or no activities outdoors. This is so, despite the weather being good most of the year. Analyzing a little further, made me realize the reasons for this imbalance:

1. Home-car-office-car-home- week in, week out, with no attempt to go outdoors, even after I get back home.


2. Too much time in front of the laptop, and TV .


3. Going to malls on weekends or movies, which are, again indoors.

How easily we fall into routines, without even realizing it.

I think spending outdoors will bring in a breath of fresh air and all of us definitely need that "breath of fresh air."

What about you? When was the last time you spent outdoors?

On the flip side, those who spend too much time outdoors, should ask themselves, when was the last time they spent indoors.

Ratatouille-What a movie!-Messages

I saw this great movie on the New Year's day. I think this is one of the best movies of Disney-Pixar. It is all about a lowly rat called Remy, who happens to have a great talent for cooking. In fact, he discovers this, when, he accidental watches one of the great chef's of France, talking on the TV about his book - Anyone can cook.

Remy is truly inspired---. He and his human friend set out on a journey of adventure in one of the finest hotels in Paris.The animation and the cartoon is so good, that you can even correlate the location in Paris depicted in the movie to the actual location of this great city.

However, what is more important is the theme and the moral of the story.

I found the following messages:

1. Go after your talents, even if you have to break your societal/familial norms.
2. Great talent will get noticed immediately
3. "Anyone can cook" can be changes to Anyone can paint/draw/sing/invent/lead/be rich/succeed/--- the list can go on an on.
4. The difference between good (cooking) and great (cooking) is the courage to try new ingredients in established recipes.
5. You can pull it off only if you are honest and have integrity.
6. Every critic, even the meanest one, has a child in him/her and appealing to the child is the key to win his accolade in addition to your excellence in the product or service.
7. Genius and talent can spring from any strata of the society.

It takes courage to go after a career, that, is aligned to your talent. This is a path taken by few. Your decision about this will determine whether you will have a mediocre life or attain star status.

What have you become?

Recently my wife and I listened to some old Hindi songs (Movie). These were the songs, I grew up with. It was a very nostalgic experience. We felt good.

It is good to look back, especially, in this time of the year. Listening to old songs brought me old memories. What was my state-of-mind those days as compared to my state-of-mind now? How have I changed? What good values or attitudes I held did I lose over a period of time?

Another good way is to look at your old photographs. How did you look then? How do you look now?

What have you become? Do you like it?

What areas must you introspect on the last day of the year?

Today is the last day of 2007. This is the best time to look at the year that is ending. However, this has to be done in a systematic manner.

What areas will you focus upon?

Physical

• What health enhancing activities did you do this year?
• What health deteriorating activities/habits did you acquire this year?

Mental

• What new knowledge did you acquire this year?
• What books did you read this year?
• How many books did you read completely this year?

Social

• How many new friends did you make this year?
• How many friends did you lose touch this year?
• How many friends do you have today?-current count
• How much time did you spend with them?
• How did you give back/contribute to the society?

Family

• How much time did you spend with your spouse this year?
• How much time did you spend with your children this year?
• How stronger is the bonding in you family this year?

Work/Business

• What new skills did you learn today?
• How many new contacts did you add to your network this year?
• How well did you perform this year?

Finance

• How is your bank balance?
• How is your debt?
• How much have you increased your earning to?
• What alternative sources of income did you add?

Spiritual

• How close are you to your spiritual goals?
• How much time did you spend in prayer, meditation, etc.
• How much time did you spend in helping others

Looking back, what would you have done better?

Looking back, what would you have avoided?

What action steps do I need to take and in which areas do I need to take them?

Being Arrogant and/or Judgemental

How do you look at people? Do you look at them with contempt or with a neutral outlook or with admiration? I have seen arrogance/contempt written all over their face, in many people, I have met.

"Contempt ---Neutral---Admiration" scale is a very useful scale.

Another scale that is very useful, is the one, that checks how judgemental you are.

"Arrogant---Neutral---Judgemental"

Some people are arrogant and some people are judgemental. However, if you are arrogant and judgemental, then you will be walking alone, all the way, through out life.

We need to be aware, how we affect others.