Leadership Coach, Musician, Educator
Are you losing yourself trying to please others?
Stay true to who you are.
““You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there’s still going to be somebody who hates peaches.” – Dita Von Teese
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What do you need the most right now?
Time?
Money?
Knowledge?
Whichever one you need, use the other two to get it.
(Adapted from “The Four Hour Workweek” by Tim Ferriss)
As a leader, here are a few basic things you can do in this time of crisis.
1) Send an email or a message reassuring employees that you are there for them. Please do this immediately if you haven’t sent one already. Do not underestimate the power of this.
2) If you are not planning to do job or pay cuts, convey that explicitly. It will be very reassuring.
3) Allow employees to work from home. Do not compel them to come to office, unless the nature of their work demands it.
4) Reduce the number and duration of calls/meetings to what is absolutely essential.
5) Do not penalize employees for Covid leaves taken for themselves or for their family members.
6) If possible, offer financial assistance in the form of salary advance.
Please feel free to add to this list in the comments.
Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
This is a very difficult time for many of us. One of the companies I consult with has a majority of their employees in Delhi and is taking a hard hit. As I was going through past research, I came across this HBR article “Helping your team heal” by grief expert David Kessler. Here is a short summary that may be helpful to many:
Every individual may need help with his or her grief. The support needed is different and depends on which of the following groups they belong to.
1) The worried well are healthy but concerned. About loss of normalcy. About all the news coming in. About what the future holds. Work may help distract them from their worries.
2) The affected have either been sick themselves or experienced trauma first hand. Accommodation and validation will help them. Some may need counseling.
3) The bereaved have lost a loved one. They need time and space to be able to eventually move towards acceptance.
Please keep the above in mind as you help yourself and your employees deal with this painful time.
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Want to save money? Invest.
Out of shape? Exercise.
Tired? Take rest.
Don’t know something? Learn.
Knowing what to do is simple.
Getting out of the comfort zone and doing it is hard.
Go do it.
Zoom fatigue is real. There is even a word for it now – Oysgezoomt.
Avoid back-to-back meetings. Allow yourself short breaks between two Zoom calls.
What’s your viewpoint in any situation?
1. Looking at your own needs
2. Empathizing with the needs of others
3. Detached and looking at it from a larger/wider context
Which of these viewpoints do you find yourself the most in?
“These celebrities are so successful. Success evades people like me” said a participant in a recent training program.
I asked her who were these celebrities she was referring to. She said people like Amitabh Bachchan, J.K. Rowling and Thomas Alva Edison.
So I googled and found this:
Amitabh Bachchan’s job application was rejected by the All India Radio because of his voice.
J.K. Rowling’s book Harry Potter was rejected by 12 publishers before one accepted it finally.
Thomas Alva Edison created 10,000 prototypes before getting the light bulb right. And he said “I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”!
Photo by Ian Stauffer on Unsplash
Once upon a time, a chicken farmer found an eagle’s egg. He placed it with his chickens. The egg hatched. The young eagle grew up with the chickens and did what the chickens did. The chickens could fly for a short distance. So the eagle learnt to fly a short distance too. He thought that was all he could do. So that was all he was able to do.
One day the eagle saw a bird flying in the sky gliding majestically with its wings. “Who is that?” he asked. The chickens replied “That’s the eagle, the king of the birds. Eagles belong to the sky. Chickens belong to the earth”.
The eagle believed he was a chicken and continued to live like one.
Did you grow up with chickens? Are you surrounded by chickens? Are you truly a chicken? Do you have a limited understanding of your potential?
Wake up! Be what you are meant to be. Don’t live like a chicken if you are an eagle.
Photo by Rachel McDermott on Unsplash
“Someday, when I get time, I am going to … “
1. Complete this sentence for yourself with things that you want to do
2. Imagine that someday is today. What can you start doing about those things today?
Photo by Wil Stewart on Unsplash
“Do not let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace” – Dalai Lama
This one quote has helped me a lot in the last one year.
One area I have been working on is coming from a place of inner peace whenever I interact with my child. What my child does is sometimes not in tune with my beliefs or the way I grew up. It triggers me. Shakes my inner peace. For instance, I get angry when he does some things in his online school classes that is not as per the ‘rules’. When I reflect, I often find that the way I respond to those situations is not what I would have liked to. Especially when I have a day packed with work and the classes take a lot of my time away.
When I come from a place of inner peace, I do not get triggered into an automatic response. I am able to pause and respond with something better. Something that is more useful to me. To my child. To others around me.
I am not fully there yet. But definitely getting better at it.
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A couple of years back, we had to fix some issues with the electric wiring in our apartment building. One of the electricians who came had only a tester cum screwdriver with him. He said it is the only tool he needed. He could screw, unscrew, cut, tap and hit with just that one tool.
I met him a few weeks back. This time he was carrying a bag with many tools. When I asked, he said he had changed his opinion. He realized how using different tools helped him be more productive and do a better job. It also helped him get more sophisticated work that brought him more income.
We often end up using either one thing or a small set of things in our own life. For example, we use/overuse a small set of strengths at work without checking what the situation demands. We try to solve radically new challenges using existing skills.
At the being level, the tool many of us end up using a lot is our mind. So much that we identify ourselves with it.
Remember. The mind is just one of the instruments we have. Not the only instrument.
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It’s Sunday again. A day on which we are usually freer than we are on other days.
This Sunday, let us free ourselves from the addiction to thinking.
When we identify ourselves too much with our thinking, we are either in the past or in the future. We are reliving our past moments. Or trying to find ways to fulfill ourselves in the future (Ex. When this happens, I will be happy). The present moment hardly exists for us in such a case. We do not experience things as they are unfolding.
Thinking is a part of our life. Let us not make it our life.
Happy Sunday!
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“I love my team at work and my family back home. I do so much for them. But I don’t get back much from them. People are thankless. So I decided I won’t do anything for them henceforth” said a coachee recently.
The love that he described is egoic love.
You help me, I help you.
I help you, you thank me.
You make me happy, I make you happy.
And when that doesn’t happen, I will cut off.
This also manifests in different other forms like something is wrong with the world. Or something is missing in my life. Or (s)he is conspiring against me. There is egoic insufficiency.
True love goes beyond all this. It is much deeper. It happens when the attachment to others goes. You do stuff because you love doing it. You help because you love doing so. Not because you expect anything in return.
It’s magical. Try it out, if you haven’t.
Photo by J W on Unsplash
Do you have FOMO? Fear of missing out?
Fear that you are missing out on something? Something that others are experiencing now? Fear of lost opportunities?
For example, you see an ad. Say for a course on coding. You fear your kid is missing out on something important. You fear other kids will be at an advantage. The ad plays into your fear to get you to enroll.
You are at work. You have this urge to check social media. You see photos of some of your friends. You fear that you are missing out on all the fun they are having.
You see posts of fellow artists or peers or competitors on social media. You fear you are missing out on the opportunities they are getting.
FOMO is a big cause of stress and anxiety. Do not fall for it.
Convert FOMO to JOMO – Joy of missing out. Enjoy what you have in the moment. See what you can do in the moment to be happy. Do what you like. Work towards your life purpose.
“What’s meant for you will reach you even if it’s beneath two mountains, and what’s not meant for you won’t reach you even if it’s between your two lips” – Etaf Rum
Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash
Ramkumar R 