Power of Choice

In my pursuit of happiness, I am enamored by “Choice” – choices that we have to make in our lives. Many of us struggle to make a choice and many of us regret the choices that we have made - life turning into struggles and regrets. Infact, many a time, making a choice is so difficult, we give that power away to others, asking them to decide for us.

Why? Why is making a choice in life so difficult? Infact, humans are the only species that have the ability to make a choice. No other species have that ability. Yet, this gift of making a choice is turning into a burden for many of us. That’s because we are caught in the fear of outcomes - worrying about what the right outcome is, and once we decide upon the right outcome, worrying whether we will realize that outcome. Once we achieve the outcome, we lament if there was a different choice that we could have made which would have resulted in a different/better outcome. Why do we live with this constant struggle?

Before we proceed, let me share with you couple of stories.

Story of Viktor Frankl:

Viktor Emil Frankl is an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist. Frankl was born in 1905 in Vienna into a Jewish family of civil servants. He studied medicine at the university of Vienna and later specialized in neurology and psychiatry. During the Second World War, Germany occupied Austria and in 1942, Frankl, his wife and parents were deported to Nazi Ghetto and subsequently into a concentration camp where he had to work as a slave laborer in highly inhumane conditions. While in the concentration camp, Frankl made a pact with himself – they could take away his freedom, subject him to highly extreme conditions and he may even face death but he would never allow them to take away freedom of his mind. They may not give him a choice of external factors but he HAS a CHOICE of his state of mind. That choice cannot be taken away by anyone.

He ensured that he always maintained a calm state of mind and motivated himself to be happy in those extremely harsh conditions. His happiness spread across the camp and he became an inspiration not only to other inmates but also to the guards. Viktor was liberated after the Second World War in 1945. He lost his wife and parents in the concentration camp.

After his release, he wrote a book – “Man’s search for meaning” that was a huge success. He mentions in the book that even in the most absurd, painful and dehumanized situation, life has potential meaning. We as humans should exercise this choice to understand and celebrate life.

Viktor celebrated his life until he passed away in 1997 (at the age of 92 years).

Story of Nelson Mandela:

Mandela’s story is more popular and hence I’ll not go into the details. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (fondly called as Madiba), born in 1918, was a South-African anti-apartheid revolutionary, politician, activist, lawyer and philanthropist who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999.

During the apartheid regime, he was imprisoned for 27 long years. Most of this prison time, he spent on Robben Island, in a damp concrete cell measuring 8 feet by 7 feet, with a straw mat on which to sleep. He was locked in solitary confinement on several occasions. During this imprisonment, he lost his mother, his son and was denied to even attend their funerals. He was forced to work in lime quarry under harsh conditions. Mandela, like Viktor Frankl, understood that while the apartheid regime could control his external freedom, he has the CHOICE of his state of mind. Like Frankl, Mandela was an inspiration to many of the inmates.

Post his release from the prison and election to the President of South Africa; many of the white people in the country were scared of the retaliation by the blacks. However, Mandela setup a Truth and Reconciliation committee and worked very hard to bring the white and black communities together. When he was asked if he carried any grudge against the whites for robbing away many years of his youthful life, he responded with an overwhelming No. He said his life is in his control, driven by his state of mind not based on the size of the room he lived in.

Both stories of Viktor Frankl and Nelson Mandela show us extraordinary choice that they made of mental freedom/state of mind even in extreme harsh conditions.

I do understand that life is not easy and making choices, sometimes, is very hard. We see an increasing trend of people who are depressed, commit suicides, as they are not happy with their lives (or rather the choices that they made, have not worked out the way they expected). Newspapers/Internet are abuzz with how there is an increasing level of unhappiness in people, despite an exponential increase in quality of life. Many of us are unhappy for wide variety of reasons. Our state of mind is not necessarily calm.

If there is anything we can learn from the stories of Viktor Frankl and Nelson Mandela, it is that we do have a larger choice that we can make about our life. We can make a choice that we will embrace and celebrate the life the way it is (as against the way we wish it to be). It’s a choice that we can make about ourselves, for ourselves. I am sure if we do that, life has a way of working itself out well. I think it’s the reason why the gift of choice has been given to us.

Now, are we ready to make this CHOICE?

Second Anniversary

Today marks second anniversary of blog writing. When I initiated writing blogs on Jan 1^st 2012, it was just another activity that I started. However, I never expected the impact this blog writing would have on my life.

When I look back at last two years, my blog has made a significant impact on me both at personal and professional level. I started with the initial focus of Leadership Development and Coaching, but over the years, it evolved more into self-exploration and a keen interest in the mindset of human beings. More importantly, my recent interest on why people are not able to be happy and how we could discover and spread happiness around has taken my life in much different direction than I earlier envisaged. As a person, I am more calm and happier today.

This focus on happiness has also led me to read and understand spiritual scriptures thus gaining a significant insight on Life and Leadership from eastern religious scriptures. This complements my learning of western management and hence has given me an alternate lens to look at situations in personal and professional life.

Where does this take me in the future? I do not know and I am not worried. Over last three years, my life has moved in directions that I never imagined before and presented to me new opportunities/learning. I am sure, over next 3 years; I’ll end up as a better human being and professionally, would be working on areas that may be distinctly different from my past experience. We will see how it all plays out.

I do want to THANK YOU for all your support. Your comments, interactions, insights have helped me tremendously. You, taking time out to read my blog(s), encouraged me a lot to write and more importantly, move on to different topics that propelled my own learning. THANK YOU VERY MUCH for your continued support.

Keep watching this space, as I am sure the topics I choose to write in 2014 could be very different than last two years.

THANK YOU!!

Art of Being Happy

Before we begin, let us look at the definition of Happiness. Happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being characterized by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. The key words being ‘mental or emotional state’ – meaning that Happiness is a state of mind. Research has proven that while most people seek happiness, % of people who are truly happy is in dismal minority. Why? What makes it so difficult for people to be happy?

Let us examine the world that we are living in (in the interest of space, limiting to just 2 key points):

·       We live in a world of negativity. We start our mornings with Newspaper headlines that sensationalize what has gone wrong yesterday; TV is filled with things that are wrong with the society and system; debates and discussions are about what’s not well with the country, society, people; even in organizational discussions, focus is more on weaknesses than on strengths. We are surrounded by negativity all the time.

·       When we ask people ‘What would make you happy’, the answer is always tied to a goal/objective. If I achieve so and so, I’ll be happy. Once we achieve the goal, we have another goal that need to be achieved, to be happy. Happiness is always in the future state.

What we do not understand is that the very purpose of our existence is to seek happiness. Human system is designed to be happy. Humans are equipped with two powerful tools to be happy – Forgetfulness and Neo-frontal cortex of the brain. Forgetfulness is to overcome the misery in our lives. When we are faced with loss or misery, forgetfulness enables us to overcome it and revert back to normal state. On another hand, Humans are only species that are equipped with neo-frontal cortex. We are the only species gifted with the ability to visualize a future, to experience/live a situation through our mind. No other species can do it. They all can live only in the present. This is a great gift for Humans to see a better future, and rekindle hope. However, we use forgetfulness to forget most things that are good in our life and remember the negative things; and similarly we use neo-frontal cortex to visualize fear, thinking about the future – fear of failure, fear of rejection; that leads to inaction or tension. Humans deal with higher challenges/obstacles (& worries) in their mind than what they face in reality.

So, what can we do to be happier? Here are few ways to structure our life to be happier.

·       Pleasure – All of us seek pleasures but we seek what we do not have instead of enjoying what we already have. Most of us tie pleasures to money. Yes. Money does give pleasures but beyond a certain level, more money does not matter. If we all rewind to the happiest days in our lives, most of us go back to our college days. We definitely did not have enough money in our pockets during those days yet we all were very happy. Pleasure is more about savoring what we already have. We can derive significant pleasure in simple activities that we engage in – drinking coffee, engaging in a conversation with spouse/friend; watching sun rise, seeing a child smile, smiling to a colleague. But it is important to be in the moment. Live in the moment and savor it. Also, it is important to note that while pleasure gives happiness, it is not sustainable. It remains with us for a short period of time.

·       Engagement – It is important to structure our life to be more engaging. Living in the flow is all about engaging in activities that challenge us, that capture our utmost attention where we lose sense of time and environment around us. We all would have involved in activities in the past where we lost track of time. We feel very happy when we are engaged in such activities. These activities involve our core strengths. As we discussed in earlier blogs, when we engage our core strengths, we feel great sense of engagement, enjoyment and hence tend to be very successful. First, focus on identifying your core strengths. It is ironical that we focus a great deal of time and energy on our weaknesses than our strengths (and infact, more people are oblivious of their strengths). Spend time to gain a good understanding of your strengths and then slowly structure your life to move towards those activities/roles that leverage your strength. This would increase the level of engagement and you’ll wake up looking forward to the day. You will be happier.

·       Purpose – Research has proven that being of service to others gives more happiness that is sustainable than focusing on ourselves. Most people misinterpret this to be charity. More than charity, it is about how we can be of service to others and make a difference to the lives of the people – this would link to the purpose of our life. This is not about leaving your job and joining an NGO (if that thought excites you, you probably should) but it is more about how you can leverage your core strengths to service/help other people. This could be helping your colleague who is struggling; mentoring a junior in office; helping your neighbor come up with a brilliant presentation for his office work or any other work that excites you. These should be activities that leverage your strengths (and therefore obviously excite you) and that you help others around you without any expectation of return. Such activities give more meaning to your life and hence lead to sustained level of happiness.

·       Relationships – We derive more happiness when we are with others than being all alone. This is not through digital media but being in person with a group that we relate with. Hence, do spend quality time with family, friends, and parents. A short call to your friend with whom you have not spoken in months will make you feel better. Sitting down with parents and having a conversation about your childhood will make everyone feel better. These do not take time but such moments calm our mind and contribute to increasing our level of happiness.

While what I stated above is not rocket science, it does take disciplined approach to achieve them. It requires us to be more optimistic about our life and develop a positive mindset. We all live in the same world yet some people find this a beautiful planet while many others crib about the deficiencies in our lives. Reality that we see is through the lens that we have in our mind and through which we see the world. If we are able to change the lens in the mind, we would see a better world. To orient our mind to be more positive and recognize/acknowledge what we have (instead of what we do not have), I suggest that we do the following (for next 21 days – to make it a habit):

·       Journal – Maintain a journal where you record everyday one positive thing that happened in your life in the last 24 hours. Initially, we may not be able to find too many moments but do not give up until you write atleast one thing that you are thankful for, that happened in the last 24 hours

·       Gratitude – Everyday, identify atleast 3 people that you would like to send out a thank you note (or even better that you can thank them in person) for what they have done for you. Believe me; it would spread a great deal of positivity both in you and in the recipient.

·       Meditation – Now, this sounds cliché but in today’s digital world, we are constantly distracted. Meditation does help us to regain focus and enables us to live in/savor the moment. For those of us who tried meditation and gave up, engage in an activity outside of work (painting, writing, reading, singing etc.) that you are passionate about and where you could lose sense of time. It helps to us to be more focused and be in the moment.

We can do lot of other things but if we do the above 3 activities, we gain more positivity in our life and that leads us to be in a happy state. Being engaged in meaningful activities (purpose) derives and sustains happiness. Pleasure is like icing on the cake that will amplify happiness. Happiness is not about what we do not have. Instead it is about leveraging (strengths) and engaging (pleasures) of what we already have. Then, why do we seek happiness elsewhere when we already have it?

Transient Man

Before I dive into the topic, let me narrate three short stories for you.

1.     Peter is an executive who has done extremely well in his organization. He is known as sincere, hardworking and one who delivers results. Peter sees his friends getting better jobs with better pay and decided to look for opportunities in the market. He spent considerable time in building his resume and posted it on job portals. He also started sending it out to consultants so that they can have his resume in their database to match with an opening. However, he sees that many of his friends who started job efforts much later than him landing better jobs but he is unable to do so. Why? What is wrong with Peter?

2.    Raj is depressed. He and his daughter Neha constantly fight at home. He wants his daughter to study well and be successful but Neha complains that Raj does not trust her. Whenever, he comes back from office, he sees Neha in her room, with music on, book open and chatting with her friends on phone (using Whatsapp, Facebook). When he confronts her, Neha reacts that she is studying hard and that she is discussing school work with her friends. How can she be focused and studying while listening to music and chatting with her friends? How could he explain to her that focusing is all about reading the book in front of you? Chatting and Music are all distractions. Why is Neha unable to understand this simple concept? What can Raj do??

3.     Zia is a successful executive who is listed in top 20 Leaders in India. She had a successful run building a product enterprise. She is on multiple boards and her experience is well regarded. However, she is distressed today. Her company bet big on a product that would capture a significant market share. They studied all their competitors, spent a huge amount of time in understanding customer needs, got best consultants while designing the product, produced television commercials that would excite the audience. They invested lot of money and are about to launch in few weeks. Zia got to know this morning that a new player is launching a product that re-defines the market space and eliminates the need for her product. This new player is not from their industry and was not even on their radar for potential competitors. Zia is distressed. Where did she go wrong? What can she do?

What is common amongst all the stories above? What challenges are Peter, Raj and Zia dealing with? Peter has to recognize that the job market is not the same as when he entered the industry. Today, recruitment happens more online than offline. More jobs are available and recruited on social media like LinkedIn, Facebook than through job portals. Raj has to recognize that the new generation way of learning is very different from his generation. Gen Y engages more through digital media than face to face. Zia has to recognize that the World is changing at a dramatic pace and the competitors are no more just your peers in the industry.

Let me give you couple of examples of how the World could potentially change tomorrow.

·       Tesla Motors (the company that is recently in news for producing an Electric car ‘Model S’ that is comparable or better than conventional cars) has floated an idea of Hyperloop (a superfast tubular transport system) that could cut down transit time from San Francisco to LA to 30 minutes. There is even a proposal to get you from New York to Los Angeles in 45 minutes. These are not just ideas but an actual design exists in public space. Imagine if this becomes a reality in 5-10 years, what would happen to the Transportation industry (Airlines, Trains etc)? If you were the CEO of an Airline today, what would be your plan?

·       Let me take another example that is not in the distant future but is happening today. With the advent of broadband speeds, entertainment is being re-defined. A whole lot of digital media is available to people, at very low costs, on their own phones/gadgets. Imagine how this is re-defining the entertainment industry. Today, a launch on YouTube is more critical than a trailer release in a theatre. There is advent of short films that both entertain the audience while giving opportunities to potential actors/directors who had to run around studios in the past. A movie could be produced with crowdsourcing, released and could compete with a big star at the box office. If you were in the Entertainment industry, what would you do? Where would you focus?

We are operating in a World that is changing at an exponential pace. These are not just small changes but the environment around us is getting constantly re-defined. Our earlier generations did not have to deal with such level of change and our next generation would come into the new World. We are the transient generation that needs to deal and adapt to this change. How can we do it? How can we be successful?

We need to start by recognizing and acknowledging the change around us. We then have to accept the hard truth – Our experience is no longer relevant. We are no longer relevant unless we reinvent ourselves. There is nothing to differentiate us from the newly passed out college grad (infact, we start on a negative as we need to significantly unlearn). So, how can we be successful in this transient world? By applying the following principles:

1.    Open mind – simple to say but difficult to practice given the baggage of our past success and experience. Extremely important to have an open mind to new ideas/thoughts coming in from anywhere

2.    Learn – Willingness to constantly learn. This World is no more the same and never going to remain the same. We need to constantly learn from all sources. More importantly, from younger generations who see the world very different from us.

3.    Speed – World is operating at a different pace today. Things cannot take multiple planning sessions to be decided. We need to start taking decisions faster, willing to experiment, fail & learn, take risks and be comfortable with fast pace. More importantly, we will be tested on our ability to make decisions in ambiguity.

4.     Embrace – We need to embrace change. Embrace new ways of doing things;

5.    Self-Aware – Last but not the least is recognizing that change is not easy. Hence, it is important to be self-aware. Awareness of our own emotions/feelings. As Leaders, we need to lead our teams through this change. Unless we are self-aware, we cannot have an awareness of our team’s emotional state and that is critical to success.

Like all things, being in a Transient generation could be a blessing or a curse. For people who cannot change, it’s a curse. But for someone who is willing to embrace the change, it is an era of opportunities. How do you see it?

Work Life Balance: Balancing Life

Work-Life balance is a major topic in today’s business world. Every organization is focused on addressing the issue and there is tons of literature on this topic. There is lot of time spent thinking about solutions to improve work-life balance. Are we successful? Do we really understand what work-life balance is?

I have fundamental issue with the word ‘work-life’ balance. This tends to indicate that work is not part of life.

·         How could we define a place, where we spend majority of adult, active life as NOT LIFE?

·         ‘Work-Life balance’ tends to indicate a mindset that we need to minimize work as much as possible so that we can have life

·         This is in contrarian to the Organization goals to maximize output from their employees to improve overall profitability (nothing wrong by the way. That’s why organizations exist – to maximize profitability)

·         Hence, this denotes continuous conflict between Organization and its employees. Not a great state to be in.

·         Most employees tend to look for alternatives, jump from company to company, in search of ideal work-life balance but they fail to achieve it.

The above denotes that we can never achieve work-life balance as the interests of the Organization and its employees are in conflict. But is it true? Can we not achieve work-life balance? In my mind, we are looking at the problem in the wrong way. Problem is not about achieving work-life balance but in achieving right balance in life. Work is part of life and hence if we achieve balance in our life, our goal will be achieved.

But, how do we achieve balance in life? The only way to balance life is if all our needs are met. Every Human being have needs that could be categorized as follows: Intellectual needs, Emotional needs, Physical needs and Spiritual needs. If we balance our life against these needs, we can achieve the desired balance in life.

·         Everyone has different levels of needs. It is possible that a person has higher intellectual needs while another could have higher spiritual needs. Also, it is important to note that these needs tend to vary over a period of time. For example, as a young person, you may not have much of spiritual needs but by middle age, you may see this need emerging.

·        Our needs could be met at different places. Typical thought process is that intellectual needs are met at office, while emotional needs are met at home. This may not always be right. It is possible for office to cater to emotional needs if you have close friends or social circle in office while intellectual needs could be met at home while pursuing a hobby/activity. A case in point – we do tend to see that sometimes people leave a company to go to another company when their close friends move. This is predominantly to sustain their emotional needs.

·        It is also important to understand that we cannot achieve the desired balance of the needs every day. At the same time, if it takes more than a year to achieve balance, it’s a shame. How many times did we hear the adage – ‘we spend our health to achieve money and then we spend money to regain our health’? Hence, it is important to define a timeframe within which we would like our needs to be balanced. It could be weekly, bi-weekly or monthly – whatever appeals to you.

Having said the above, I’d ask you to follow the below process:

1.      I’d like you to think through what your intellectual, emotional, physical and spiritual needs are. Having identified those needs, allocate points out of a maximum of 10 points, for each of the needs. The total points across all the needs should be 10. If you think you have higher intellectual needs than emotional needs, please allocate more points to intellectual needs. It is ok to allocate zero points to a need. For example, if you decide that you do not have any spiritual needs at this point in time, please allocate zero to that need.

2.      Figure out where these needs are being met. For example, we have different segments in our life – Office/Work, Home/Family, Parents, Friends, Hobbies/Activities, College/Education (if you are pursuing), Colleagues, etc. Determine what needs are being met by each segment of your life and to what extent. You could use the table listed below (illustrative) to capture this data:

	Intellectual needs <x1/10 points>	Emotional needs <x2/10 points>	Physical needs <x3/10 points>	Spiritual needs <x4/10 points>
Office/work
Home/Family
Parents
Friends
Hobbies/Activities
Education
Colleagues
Charity/Social work
… (Any other aspect)

3.      Do validate and see if your needs being met are in line with the priority that you have assigned to them. Also, are they being in the right proportion and in the right places? If not, there is opportunity to balance them. For example, if your intellectual needs are high and they are not being met at work place, you should see if they could be met through hobbies or through friend circle that you have. If not, it is important to address it – either by changing the workplace (if the organization is not providing those opportunities to you) or by changing the career (if there are no way you can meet your intellectual needs in your line of work).

4.      Create an action plan (based on the above) to bring changes in your life and segments that would help you to balance your life much better, by meeting the priority of your needs

5.      Review the action plan and see the average timeline in which your needs are met. Is the timeline congruent with your demand? If not, go back to step 4 and re-do the action plan so that the timeline could be closer to what you desire.

If we can move away from ‘work-life balance’ to focus on balancing our overall life, we will be happier in our lives and more content with the outcomes.

Given the above, how do we deal with the work component of our life? We need to think beyond money from work. If workplace is catering to your multiple needs like Intellectual, Emotional, Physical etc., then feel free to spend more time at work – as it will fulfill both your needs and monetary aspects. However, if the workplace does not fulfill any of your needs, you need to seriously examine how much time you want to spend at workplace or more importantly, should there be a need for a change either in workplace or your career.

What do you think? Could we address the work-life imbalance by balancing our life? Is it practical? Would you do it?