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7 – Leadership Lessons from herding sheep
The shepherd protects the flock, so must be courageous. There are many threats all of which the shepherd must be aware of and know what to do about them. A shepherd must be prepared to put himself in danger to save his flock because sheep can’t defend themselves, let alone defending the shepherd. Since not…
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Teenagers are your parent’s revenge
Teenagers are your parent’s revenge on you. This is what they wished on you for what you did to them when you were a teenager. So, bear your own teenagers with a smile. Teenage is an affliction, like dotage. It can be borne with grace or without. But it must be borne. Let me tell…
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For he was a man
I learnt, very practically, that the best way to make progress was to develop a relationship based on sincerity as that would be the only thing that you could count on, especially in hard times. I remember how Nick Adams used to put it. He’d say, “A relationship is like a bank account. You only…
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Nawab Saab
From Nawab Nazir Yar Jung, I learnt the importance of commitment to quality. He never once used the word, but he never accepted anything but the best. Be it in breeding dogs or in their training, or in training horses. Attention to detail and insisting on the best. He was an expert in Judo and…
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Customer Service? Who is she?
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…
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Lessons from the rain forest
Lying in the hammock waiting for sleep to come, I would listen to the sounds of the forest and try to identify each one. The Amazonian rainforest is a rather silent place in the night, unlike Indian forests. The animals are less vocal and the forest itself muffles sound thanks to its density – you…
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Master or Victim – time to choose wisely
People sometimes look at the misery that surrounds us and ask, ‘Why doesn’t God do something about all the sick and dying and starving people?’ The answer is, ‘God did something already. He created you and gave you the means to feed at least one hungry person, pay for the education of one child, pay…
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We are living beings, not binary code
The big challenge we have today is to teach our children these lessons and help them to connect to the earth, to its inhabitants and to each other. We are living beings, not binary code. The earth is not at our mercy but waits and watches to see what we do. Then it will do…
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Parenting can’t be outsourced
The biggest challenge of parenting is to accept that we are facing a world that is very different from the one we grew up in. This is true irrespective of which country you live in with the additional complexity of a rapid destruction of walls between cultures. The truth is that your solutions don’t work…