Understanding Human Psychology

At times you wonder, what can you do different for other people around you? Can you do something which they will remember you for a lifetime? Well we all have that potential to do something which is so difference that people remember us for it. Have you ever thought why people write there autobiography? Yes most of the times they write to inspire others. They want to celebrate their life story. They want to inspire others by talking about the successes and struggles they have been through, the steps they took towards success, they want to talk about what are the take away which others can also follow or maybe tweak something in that and then follow. Your Stories can inspire someone to pursue their dream. Never doubt the impact of sharing it. I do understand that everyone is just living their life and may not have the thought and time to share their stories. However the truth is there is so many so so many of us who have wonderful stories to share and to get inspired from. Do we all req...

  Have you heard of the story of the elephant in chains? Yes, to tame the giant, when they are young and not strong, they are tied to a pole or a tree using ropes or chains. They are not strong enough to break themselves free at that time. As time passes by they consider it a given that they will be tied to the pole forever. Even with full strength in their bodies, they fail to apply it as they have accepted their life tied to the pole. Another story we have often heard is of the boiling frog. A frog is kept in water and kept to boil. The frog initially is very comfortable. Till the water is warm it feels like this is the ideal temperature. At one point the frog starts feeling hot, but does not still want to jump out as earlier he did not do it. After a certain temperature, the water is boiling and the frog is unable to act, so it boils to death. The other day I saw a truck full of chickens outside a chicken shop. As the man was pulling out the chickens and handing them to the shop...

 Are you relevant to the current times? Keeping pace with the tide is vital to be relevant. Relevance is doing what keeps you up in your game of life. What does it take to stay relevant in today's world? I asked many of my friends and colleagues, what does it mean for you to stay relevant and what do you need to do to stay relevant? Since I am in the training and coaching field, I got answers from individuals of the same cohort. They stated that for them relevance means know what is latest in your area of expertise, gaining mastery over skills and behaviours of your type of job. For being relevant, usually we upgrade our knowledge, learn new skills and inculcate behaviours which clearly push your growth trajectory.  But staying relevant also means shedding old notions, letting go off what does not work for you anymore. Staying relevant means making way for the new, giving up unhealthy and unresourceful ideas and beliefs. Like a snake sheds his skin, and birds shed their old fe...

  Confidence is the ability to feel beautiful without someone need to be telling you that you really are.. If you have doubts about yourself and do not value yourself, how would others value you. No they would definitely not.  You know your worth. And if you do not you must explore it. Yes, social validation proves great when you are already having the high spirits. But at most times when the spirits are low and you carry a low self-esteem, even social validation proves to be a momentary rush of energy.  You can be judged by others opinions. And why do I say that? Because all opinions will vary. If you actually start looking at yourself through others eyes, you will land up having to be dependent on the other person's thought-process about you. You will have many different opinions from people and they will highly influence you to think their way. Each will have their own. No point in having a confused indentity consisted on other's thinking.  Most of the time people...

  In continuation to the story of the manager who understands how bogged down Seema is with her work and personal commitments, yet fails to put some empathy to action. The manager had decided to actually get another person who would do all the tasks which Seema was supposed to do. This new person, as per the manger would do a better job than Seema.  So was the manager planning to replace Seema? Not really.. But the other side to the coin was perish.. Seema would see the other person doing much better and getting all the praises and eventually leave the job as she would be looking at her own inefficiency. This was the subtle idea the manager had. Although overtly, the manager would never ask her to go.  They say the grass is always greener on the other side. Seema had been long thinking that she deserved a better boss, and so did the manager think of Seema as an employee. But they never thought of actually resolving thier mutual differences, understanding each other and lo...

  This is the last part to the series of blog which I was writing related to competence. Here I will talk about unconscious incompetence. Well, as the name suggest, you are completely unaware about what are the knowledge, skills and abilities which are lacking in your portfolio to do a particular job well. This is a blind area for the individual because the individual has never set, and thought about the same in his very busy schedule.  The very basic requirement which he will need to know to fulfill a particular task and even conduct a job search for self. I've met coachees who are very difficult because they are at the basic level of understanding of their KSAs and completely in their own world. They may not even realise that I am not knowing this skill to go to the next level. Never explored the unknown and never planned to walk that path. To them, one day, when somebody points out to them about a particular competency they lack in, or about a particular competency which th...

 Yes, you read it right. It's not enough to know what you don't know. That is Conscious Incompetence.  You know you are not good at something and you are aware that you don't know a skill. So act upon it. As per NLP, every human can learn any skill and grab any knowledge he requires at any age . Many times as a coach I face a situation that there are people who are very well aware of what they are not knowing and lacking in their career. But surprisingly, it does your brother them even. So many a times as a coach I face the situation where people come complaining that they have lost out on a promotion or they have not progress on their job as they were desiring but when asked about their efforts, it clearly shows that they have not putting those efforts which are required. It is not just enough to know that you are not having those skills. You are not even ready to put in the efforts required; that you sit with a coach or a mentor or a senior manager and try and understand...

  It's a picturesque view of nature around. Clear waters, birds chirping around, galloping dolphins, fresh breathable air, green grass, trees in full bloom. Yes we had it all. It was a brief period where we really got to see it all. The lockdown brought humans in cages and animals out of theirs. As we are now opening up again we realise the damage we are doing to nature day in and day out. How selfish can we get? We humans have already depleted much of Earth's resources.  Still if we see nature, we feel calm, composed and healed. For meditation, for inducing a deeply relaxed state, we often hear sounds of the sea waters, birds chirping, sound of the soft wind blowing. Nature continues to heal us. What are we doing to protect it? Truth is we are too busy in the world inside of us, to be really concerned about the world outside of us. We live in our heads, our life stories, our dreams. We then live in this physical world and so we do not pay attention to how nature actually is h...

  Its me today and you tomorrow   In my experience, I've seen multiple people who are in a position to help others, but they hesitate or directly refuse. The last 2-3 years have been so troubling for the entire world. With Covid 19 setting its foot so strong in the entire world, different countries are affected with varying degrees of severity. However, one thing in common is humanity at large suffered in various ways, the effects and after effects of the pandemic. Thousand of people lost their source of livelihood, few thousand lost their loved ones and innumerable others faced depression and anxiety issues due to restricted movement or isolation. Many people posted their needs of jobs, hospital beds, ambulance, oxygen and even food, on social media, and many reached out to them with open arms to help them pass that difficult phase in life. Many other times when crises situation has come up, like natural calamities or manmade terror attacks, kind human beings have helped to...

Creative Problem Solving When the ball pen did not work in space, as ink did not flow in absence of gravity, millions were spent to develop a pen which would work. Then came a very simple suggestion, simply use a pencil! Although many of us have heard of this story which describes how simple solutions can be arrived at, when seemingly complex problems are thought through with a calm mind. This story is purely fictional and just to explain the concept of valuing simplicity over complexity. The solution may be right in front of us most of the times.  A video on a channel shows a young woman was given a math problem to solve, which she, after few minutes, gave up. When a child sitting beside her solved it in one go. This was the problem and the solution. Problem : 5 + 5 + 5 = 550 (add one straight line to make both sides equal) Solution : 5 4 5 + 5 = 550 A website, whatwedoallday, trigged my thoughts further towards the simplicity in which seemingly complex problems can be managed...

  Starting a new business? Getting settled in a new job? Adjusting in a budding relationship? Still figuring out work from home even after a year up for it? Any of these...Difficult, is it? However prepared you are to make the shift in your life smooth sailing, you are bound to have initial hicups in any change you want to make. Change, however, is inevitable. No matter how much we try to keep our life in control, the truth is you are never in complete control. Some amount of ambiguity is always tagging around.  Ambiguity is in all or some areas of our lives. So its the ambiguity that troubles and not the change itself. It's said that 'Its a matter of time that you settle down with the new way of life.' How you think and feel about change, will determine your reaction to change and subsequent effect on your life. What if we see 'change' in a positive and productive context? It is natural to get daunted with what is new. At times, even minor changes like a change in ...

  Learning comes naturally when you are motivated to learn. A child learns how to sit, walk, move around, and talk. Although we know these are gradual progressions which any individual makes in his life, as growth and survival instincts, it is also a motivation to learn, grow and engage in that new action. We learn so many things in our life time due to this drive within us. Hunger teaches us the understanding of food and at times how to cook. The need to remain connected has taught us how to use new technology, applications and devices which offer that connectivity. Wonder if the schools offer that kind of motivation to learn! In my times, I had not faced any strong desire to learn new subjects, know about different topics as the curiousity was not generated by the education system itself. With the New Education Policy 2019 in India promising a major reform in the learning culture of schools, it is just a matter of time that the claims are proven correct. The hindrance to imp...

Simple Pleasures of Life    As a child, I loved to play with balloons, the attractive colours, the fact that it could rise in the air and float for a while before falling down, the shapes and sizes it would be available in and the ones which were blown on parties and weddings, all, so fascinated me. I felt elated playing with one. Owning a balloon to yourself at a party was pride and happiness for a child, in our times.     As I grew up and got swankier games to play with, I had forgotten the humble balloon and what it could teach a child, and how it can keep a child entertained for a good deal of time, until a few weeks ago when I saw the happiness on my child’s face when she got a balloon to play with. After a hard day’s work, I retired to take a walk in my society, as a woman passed by with a bunch of balloons, each tied to a stick, and each had some grains of fine sand put inside before being blown up. That caused a light rattling sound when the balloon was ...

Lockdown Lifted Since the lockdown is lifted by the Government and normalcy has been resumed, many have taken the period of lockdown like a by-gone. It's like become a thing of the past and they want to forget the few months when they were confined and regain their freedom entirely. It's not actually wrong to feel that way. We all want to refrain from getting into a lockdown situation again and also want to forget the ill effects of the pandemic on all the aspects of our lives. That includes family life, social life, economic downturn, psychological trauma which we faced. Yes, we want to forget all of it. Which is fine. New Normal However, we are not realising the fact that the virus still exists in and around in the society. There are so many asymptomatic carriers who unknowingly are mixing up with other healthy individuals who have not yet come in contact with the virus. Somewhere what happened due to the lockdown is, we got scared and worried about our lives and the live...

  New Normal In the last few months, the world has seen the unexpected, unforeseen and unforgettable. This pandemic has brought us to realise how small and irrelevant our planning gets in front of the wish of nature. A single virus, manmade or natural, still in debate, caused havoc in our lives. In the name of the new normal, everything changed. However, the term new normal is not new. As per Wikipedia,   it is 'a state to which an economy, society, etc. settles following a crisis when this differs from the situation that prevailed prior to the start of the crisis. The term has been used following the financial crisis of 2007-2008, the aftermath of the 2008–2012 global recession, and now the COVID-19 pandemic.  During the COVID-19 pandemic, the term new normal has an increasing use to refer the changes of human behaviour changes during or after this pandemic. Doctors at the University of Kansas Health System anticipate that the pandemic will change daily life for most ...

For all those who have lost their jobs in the pandemic, for all those who are suffering from COVID 19, for all those who have lost their family or friends to this disease, for all those who are facing salary cuts. For all those who are struggling to get their basic necessities home, for those who are facing the anxiety of an uncertain future, for those who are facing psychological issues staying at home or the threat of being exposed to the virus at the workplace. Yes, all of you, rather all of us! I know there are many. Most of these are so common and the world has seen these adversities rise in the year 2020 by leaps and bounds .. . 1. Social life has changed to become a virtual life. 2. Parties have become online.. be it birthdays or anniversaries. 3. Religious gatherings can no more be observed.. religious festivals are celebrated only with family at home. 4. Cleaning and disinfecting home, offices, public spaces have become a norm. 5. Self-isolation even in case of cold ha...

2020 Homebound After much commotion and fuss, we have finally spent 50 days under lockdown. These 50 days have changed our thoughts, impacted our emotions, and transformed our lives almost irreversibly. Blessed are most of us who have safe homes, family, and access to good food and other amenities. Having many luxuries of life, we have spent our lockdown time in varying ways. Apart from doing the mundane tasks of home and office, there are enormous opportunities for engaging in a productive manner that people have found in the comfort of their homes. Taking to social media platforms people have announced their passions. By shares, comments, and likes they receive, they find solace of being connected with the outside world. Although the internet offers us many more ways to be involved and busy. We may not practically be able to do a lot of things considering they may not fit our lifestyle. In these days I have seen people doing some of the following tasks: a) ...

Recently I read an open letter was written by the CEO and Co-Founder of Airbnb Brain Chesky to his employees. It was an expression of a well-crafted business strategy accompanied by a message that reflected care for his employees. For business over the world, this year is all about survival leave aside profits, and for survival and sailing through this tough time, we need to stand as one. For sustaining business, Airbnb also decided to ask about 1900of its 7500 employees to leave the organization. But this shocking news was broken by the CEO in such a positive manner in this letter, as if he were addressing his family. The company has decided to be fair with the severance pay that employees should receive, are giving them support for getting a new job, providing health cover for an extended time and offering mental health support. Many business leaders have been contemplating on taking hard decisions, just like Airbnb did, while some are changing the ways of working and have ...