Where are the leaders

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Mentoring is a contact sport

1 Comment / Where are the leaders / By / December 29, 2019

The best thing in life is to start your career under a hard taskmaster. Anyone can teach you what to do. But hard taskmasters teach you standards. That is the biggest favor that anyone can do for you. Mentoring is perhaps the single most powerful evidence of love that one can wish for. The mentor is sharing his hard-earned life experience to teach you lessons that will help you all your life. And you get to learn those lessons relatively free of cost. I say ‘relatively’ because there is always a token cost to pay, but that goes with the territory and adds value because you can appreciate that you got something worthwhile.

Attitude

1 Comment / Where are the leaders / By / November 1, 2019

Attitude change can’t be enforced – it must be inspired. Attitude is at the root of everything. Attitude decides whether we will succeed or fail. Whether when in difficulty, even that which seems to be life threatening, if we will survive or perish. Attitude decides if when hit by life (or by someone) we stay down or get up. And how many times we get up. And what the result of getting up every time we fall, will be. Attitude, not wealth, dictates happiness. If you don’t believe me, watch slum children leaping into pools of rainwater after the first rains. Do they look happy? Then go and watch your children, who will most likely be complaining about the rain. And ask yourself, “Who has more wealth?” I know that is a dumb question, but then to decide to remain dumb is an attitude issue. To decide to remain blind, even though we have eyes is an attitude issue. To witness a crime in progress and to decide to take a video to post on Instagram, instead of taking action to prevent the crime or to help the victim, is a matter of attitude.

O! Teacher stop teaching

1 Comment / Where are the leaders / By / October 20, 2019

The biggest problem with teachers is that they teach. That is the root cause of all ignorance. That is why I titled this essay, ‘O! Teacher, stop teaching.’ Start discovering, learning, enjoying. Start appreciating that the child is the best thing that happened to you and every single day try to become the best thing that happens to him or her. Teaching is about asking questions – and teaching them to ask questions. The teacher who gives answers has failed. So never do that. Teaching is about keeping the excitement of learning alive all lifelong.

Learning how to learn

4 Comments / Where are the leaders / By / September 23, 2019

Alvin Toffler, the author of ‘Future Shock’ said something very interesting. He said, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” I want to begin with this quote as I consider it perhaps the most important for us to reflect on. I would disagree with only one thing in this quote; I wouldn’t say, ‘The illiterate of the 21st century’; I would say, ‘The illiterate of any time are those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.’ Curiosity, Conceptualization, Humility and Perseverance. These are the four key ingredients for the most important skill that we need to have and keep intact and practice all our lives; the ability to learn continuously.

Three Fundamental Laws

1 Comment / Where are the leaders / By / October 22, 2019

Doing something well, once can be an accident. A fortunate one but still an accident. To do it well over and over is the meaning of quality. Expertise is repeatability. That happens with thoughtful practice. Not just practice. But thoughtful practice. Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes permanent. Thoughtful practice makes perfect. Think about what you are doing. Ask yourself why you are doing it. Ask if there is a better way to do it. Don’t change the goal. That is the Core. Unchangeable. Everything else is changeable and can and should be changed in order to achieve the goal. Nothing must come in the way of achieving the goal. Not tradition, not habit, not convenience, not expense, or trouble, or backbreaking effort. Everything that is necessary to do to achieve the goal must be done. That will happen only if you question why you are doing what you are doing and do it thoughtfully. Not mechanically as a matter of habit. But consciously, thoughtfully and deliberately. Not once, but over and over again.

When success is the problem

Leave a Comment / Where are the leaders / By / September 18, 2019

As Jiddu Krishnamurthi said, ‘ It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.’ Problem definition is always easy. Solving it takes a lot of time, pain and investment. And that is usually another story. But somewhere there is a spark, alive and waiting for the chance to flame into a conflagration that has the power to light up the world.

FIKR

Leave a Comment / Where are the leaders / By / September 17, 2019

Sometimes people ask me for the secret of success. We live in a world of fantasy where people want magic formulae for everything. Let me tell you the good news. It is not a secret, but it is a magic formula. Focus + Investment + Consistency. Works every time. I have given it the acronym, …

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Success is the biggest danger

Leave a Comment / Where are the leaders / By / September 17, 2019

Being passionate about what you do is absolutely essential for anyone who wants to be the best in their work. For me, this has never been a matter of choice but something that I have always held as inevitable. If I do something, then it must be the best that I can possibly do. Nothing less. If I am in a profession or job where I can’t really find it in myself to be passionate about it, then I need to change the job. Happiness is not doing less. It is to do the most that we can do. To maximize contribution. And that can only come through loving what you do. I am deliberately using a term which is not often used in a work context, love. That is why work produces stress. People who don’t love their work are stressed. People who love their work automatically get a sense of meaning from it and believe it is worthwhile. The more they do, the happier they are. They get stressed not with work, but with not having enough of it.

See with ‘THEIR’ eyes

8 Comments / Podcast, Where are the leaders / By / August 25, 2019

Try an experiment. Walk down a street that you usually walk down. Notice how it looks and try to remember the details. When you get to the end of the street or if it is a long street, then when you have walked a few hundred meters, turn around and look up the street you just walked down. How does it look? Does it look like it had been a few minutes ago when you walked down it? Or does it look different? This is a good way to understand how perspective is a factor of position. What you see depends on where you look at it from. The same principle holds in life.

Customer Service? Who is she?

5 Comments / Podcast, Where are the leaders / By / August 18, 2019

Great customer service is about concern. It is about being genuinely concerned for the customer. It is about pride in your own operation and your own identity; wanting to be the best. It is about wanting to add value to people’s lives; about seeing value in serving. It is about being a shrewd businessperson; recognizing who pays you and ensuring that he/she is not just happy to do so but simply delighted that you are there to serve them. Great customer service is the only guarantee for survival and growth and the only insurance and hedge against bad times.

Customers don’t remember what you did. They remember how you made them feel. That is the key.

So, stand before your mirror and tell yourself, ‘I want to make a difference in someone’s life today.’