Crisis becomes an opportunity when you get to 'eye' of the storm.

Ever wondered why does a sailor try to get to the eye of the storm if ever caught up in a sea storm while sailing?

A wise sea captain, caught in a tropical storm knows that if he holds his vessel on the periphery, it will get hurled from one side to the other. If he can reach the eye of the storm, he will enter a place of stillness. The storm will then subside and the ship can continue its journey. 

Recently, I came across the real life story of a courageous lady who followed her passion for animals and turned a financial crisis into an opportunity.  She started a unique business of mobile petting zoo during the last economic downturn in USA. This idea came to her as a blessing in disguise to support her passion for her pet animals when her husband lost his job and she did not have enough money to take care of her pet animals.

She set out to create a mobile petting zoo and aimed at conducting 10 events per annum, just enough to fund her pets care. But the idea became such a big hit that last year she conducted 700 events ! Now she has a big team to manage this unique business truly driven by her passion and love for animals. She had the option of making a practical decision of giving away her love for animals and may be sell them off to get money to run the house. But she chose  to remain stable at that stormy moment and went with the option guided by her inner conscious voice which was the mobile petting zoo business.

Another similar example to quote here is that of a blind musician named Raju Rao who is from Bhopal, India. Despite his visual impartment, this multi talented musician writes lyrics of songs, composes music, plays many musical instruments and even sings ghazal and sufi music. Not ending at that he has performed with some renowned artists like Ghulam Ali, Kavita Krishnamurthy and Anuradha Paudwal among others. All this happened only after he had no opportunity with other music studios  and hence, decided to open his own. This is again an example of turning a crisis into an opportunity.

This affirms that when everything around us is changing in a very intense way and against us then the best place for us to seek help is not on the outside circle, but deep within the self, where we can get in touch with self, the inner  being to find strength and stability, then come out with creative solution using lateral thinking and do  whatever it is  that we need to based on our inner conscious voice .

We are always safe at the eye of the storm that means in any adverse situation if we can focus within we will find solution to be safe and protected to sail on smoothly in life.

Beauty of life lies in diversity

Rainbow Enclosing the Aircraft Shadow 

Ever wondered why reflections cannot be the exact same realities of life?

Recently, I came across this interesting picture shown above, shared by my college friend. While on her way back home, to USA from India, she saw a pretty rainbow in the sky. With excitement, she took out her camera to capture that beautiful moment, just when she noticed another smaller aircraft, flying parallel to the one she was travelling in. It took her only a few seconds; to realize that it wasn’t another aircraft, but the shadow of the same aircraft she was travelling in!

Similar to her perception which lasted only a few seconds; don’t we all want to see a part of us in others; in our friends, relatives, co-workers or our children? Or isn’t this how we perceive our shadow in other people to be a reality? Even when we are building new relationships or trying to be in sync with the existing ones, we are constantly trying to find a piece of ourselves in the other. Quite often, we try to identify their traits, habits, choices and approach etc. with that of ours.

Unfortunately, most often the people who fall prey to such perceptions are our children. Just because our children are with us for the initial part of their life, (like a shadow) they really can't be driven by our choices and habits. If we fail to accept the differences in their opinions choices, likes and capabilities then we definitely have chosen to invite frictions in our relationship. This friction starts seeping in, when our kids get into ‘teenage’ and it gets really rough if we still do not identify their differences and give them the freedom of choice to ‘be’ just ‘who’ they are. A recent example, of this failure by a parent was reported in the Times of  India Newspaper last week(TOI - June, 2015), where an engineering third year student committed suicide by jumping from top floor of his residence building because he wanted to study sociology and he was forced to study engineering by his  parents.

This doesn't mean we do not discipline our children for what is ‘right’, but at the same time we need to agree to disagree sometimes and understand that each and every soul on this earth is unique and has a unique part to play on this world stage, in this eternal drama called, life. To have a strong, healthy and a lasting relationship, we need to realize that every individual is as different as his/her finger prints or retina impressions and; so are the soul impressions (traits, karmic accounts) of each actor on this world stage different. 

If we accept people without any resistance for "who" they are and enjoy the diverse human nature, having diverse habits, traits, capabilities  and choices, then we surely can excel in our interpersonal skills at work and at home. After all, we all love colors in the rainbow, don't you?

Hence, the beauty of life lies in diversity.

I Believe I Can Fly…

Why do we all have attachments with "My Firsts" in our life?

Quite often we hear out people connecting in the middle of a talk with their "firsts" like my first job, my first car, my first house, my first pet etc. etc. 

Why do people adore their firsts more than what they have now which is much better over the antique pieces that they used to have?

I still remember how my first job gave me a boost of being somebody and how my first car gave me loads of joy of being independent on the wheels. The firsts are always special in our lives no matter how tiny or obsolete they may look now or even then. But we always keep our firsts in our fondest of memories. :)

While doing a retrospect on the reasons of this fondness of people over firsts, I reconcile here as some of the reasons that came out for my attachments towards my firsts is firstly, the feeling of “self-worth” or fulfillment that the firsts gave are much more at an index level than the next ones in our life. Secondly, the effort that went into making it happen is much more than the next ones, this effort quotient is most definitely directly proportionate to how we value something that we get in our life. Lastly and most importantly it’s the desire or the passion to get there as a milestone is what is making it hold a very special place in our life’s journey.

So, if we want to collect more such fond memories similar to our firsts then we continuously need to challenge and break our own limits that we set for ourselves in whatever that we are doing and keep on flying to explore the new and direct our efforts towards it that makes it worthwhile to achieve and this is how we reach our peak potential i.e. self-actualization and hence, I Believe I can Fly.

Your freedom begins and ends with you

When you come to a point where you have no need to impress anybody, your freedom will begin.

Yes, true freedom lies with you ! ! ! When you choose NOT to be compelled by judging your progress and self-worth by comparing with that of others, you can clearly prioritize what’s important for YOU. 

Quite often we are not happy or content with where we are and we postpone our happiness to our next goal or our happiness gets stolen by success of others. But little do we realize then that we are actually getting into a cage of endless run and escaping our own freedom of choosing to live life the way we want and this is how we end our freedom.

You can drive the car of your life safely out there in the traffic of journey of your life and decide the comfortable speed for yourself when you realize this truth that you are the driver who can choose not to be in a race and you can choose to enjoy your drive with just what you have and just where you are ! ! ! You can exactly distinguish between what you need and what you want.Then you can clearly see your options and decide what suits you best. That is when your true freedom begins with you. 

Have a safe and happy journey of life. :-)

ArchanaPingle: Essentials for Success in The Corporate Life

ArchanaPingle: Essentials for Success in The Corporate Life: When it comes to success in the corporate life - everyone has their own definition of it, as each one is looking at it from their level. So there is no definite definition of success. But in essence mathematically you can say that "Success is about reaching from point A to point B."

Nowadays, most of the so called successful breed in the knowledge economy is passed out from Best of the Tech. collages and B-Schools, to even further glorify their path they would also not leave any stone upturned in their learning and  would surely attempt to get their lessons from the best of the management gurus in the world. Just as you have the 4 Ps (Product, Price, Place and Promotion) essential for the success of any product, they say that you need to have the 4 Ps(Passion, Plan, Patience and Perseverance)  in you for your own success too.

But the question is what happened to the success of the some of the most gloried of them all who were like celebrities in the Indian IT world ! ! ! To name a few Mr. Ramalinga Raju (Satyam CEO and Founder) and Phaneesh Murthy (iGate CEO)? Did these folks not have all the ingredients mentioned above to be successful? What made the whole building of their success collapse ??

Answer to these questions in my opinion is: The essential foundation to one's success is 3 Cs and that is Character, Congruent Communication and Compassionate Leadership.