Understanding Human Psychology

While reading How Women Rise by Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith, one particular chapter stopped me in my tracks — Reluctance to Claim Your Achievements. It’s something many women professionals experience: the instinct to deflect praise, to share credit (even when it’s not due), and to soften the spotlight when it’s pointed their way. As I read about a senior professional who, even in a high-stakes interview, kept mentioning her colleague’s contributions over her own, a vivid memory of mine surfaced. A few years ago, I had led a significant Learning & Development and Talent initiative in my organization — a program that required months of effort, stakeholder management, creative design, and seamless execution. When the project concluded successfully, I was called out in a team meeting for the achievement. Instead of standing tall in that moment, I instinctively slid into sharing mode. I said, “It was a team effort,” and even added names on the presentation slide to acknowledge...

  Why Learning Faster Than the Competition Isn’t Optional Anymore — It’s Survival There’s a quote I keep returning to — “The only sustainable competitive advantage is an organization’s ability to learn faster than the competition.” – Peter Senge And it’s not just for organizations. It’s true for individuals too. In today’s world, if you're standing still, you're falling behind. This quote became the heartbeat of a chapter in my book “Learnager” — a book that isn’t just a guide to learning, but a mindset manual for those who want to thrive in fast-paced corporate landscapes.  LEARNAGER isn’t about being a student again. It’s about becoming a lifelong, self-driven learner — someone who embraces reflection, adapts quickly, and transforms knowledge into meaningful action. Why is this important? Because learning is your real leverage. Not your title. Not your years of experience. Your ability to unlearn, relearn, and evolve. And if Senge’s insight resonates with you, LEARNAGER show...

  Six Years, Many Dreams Six years ago, on 16th July, a little heartbeat made mine grow stronger. Today, she turns 6 — my daughter, my mirror, and often, my teacher, she shaped me to be a better human. I find myself reflecting not just as a parent but as a learner what these years have been for me, how I've grown up. Because alongside her, I’ve grown too as a better human. Through phases of chaos and calm, through questions and quiet moments, she’s unknowingly taught me the power of resilience, reinvention, and reflection. And today, on this special day, another dream quietly takes flight. I’m thrilled to share that my book LEARNAGER From Learning to Leading in The Real World is launching today. 📘 Available on: Amazon KDP – LEARNAGER : From Learning to Leading in the Real World   https://amzn.in/d/badNOEx   Pothi Print Book https://store.pothi.com/book/dr-shazneen-gandevia-learnager/ Pothi e book https://store.pothi.com/book/ebook-dr-shazneen-gandevia-learnager/ The...

  It’s a Double Century! Yes, this is my 200th blog. It feels surreal to even type that. It all began during the uncertain days of the COVID lockdown. When the world outside shut down, and the world inside felt equally unsettled. Work was reduced to Zoom calls, my PhD had hit pause indefinitely, and my 8-month-old daughter hadn't yet seen a garden or sunshine. Every day was filled with anxious news updates and stories of people holding on to life. In the midst of it all, I turned to writing. I searched YouTube to learn how to build a blog page and just… started. Since then, there's been no looking back. Sharing my thoughts has been healing, humbling, and joyful. Though friends and family appreciated my words, I often wondered— is someone else reading this on the other side of the world? Today, I look at my blog’s stats and smile—page views from different countries, posts that resonated. I feel deeply proud and grateful. Thank you, dear readers, for being part of this jour...

This post contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Being open to feedback and coaching isn’t just about listening—it’s about embracing vulnerability and being willing to grow. A truly coachable person doesn’t just nod along when engaging in conversations, but openly shares their real self, even while receiving feedback, they actively seek it, question it, and appy it.   Many people think they are open to feedback until they hear something they don’t agree with. That’s where the real challenge begins. Can you sit with it instead of rejecting it outright? Can you take a step back and ask, Why does this feedback not sit well with me? Sometimes, what we resist the most is what we need to hear the most.   Coachable individuals don’t just accept everything blindly—they ask questions. They clarify, they reflect, and they find value even in feedback they don’t fully agree with. If you immediately dismiss feedba...

I recently came across a fascinating social experiment that perfectly illustrates how our minds work when performing a critical thinking task. In the experiment, a speaker presented two circles—one blue and one red—to an audience and asked them which was larger. He also added an intriguing statement: The circles are not identical. Then, he asked the audience to vote—some believed the blue circle was larger, while others chose the red. After collecting their responses, he revealed the truth: the circles were 'identical in size' all along.  The experiment wasn’t about optical illusions; it was about perception and influence. By merely stating that the circles were different, the speaker planted a seed of doubt. The audience, trusting the authority on stage, let their minds work based on this assumption, even though their own eyes could have told them otherwise. This experiment highlights a crucial question: How often do we challenge the very starting point of our thinking?  

Innate, yes, you have it within you. Those knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) that are so much in demand for growth in your organization and in your career. May be you have never looked for. Seek and you shall find. Many-a-times coachees are completely unaware about their potential. They may just be frustrated of a lost chance for promotion. Being frustrated really doesn't help as it just leads to a more of upset feeling and even the existing job role gets affected negatively to a great extent. Either the person may feel that he is not being valued and he may get such kind of perception about the outside world, which may not be real. Instead try to dig in and know the innate KSAs which would help him immediately get started to work for a promotion next year or mid year.  It is not impossible if we work towards it patiently. Just find out what the job role requires and what is it that you have it in you and are not yet putting it to the best possible use if you are unaware or it...

  So let's look at something very interesting today. Being a coach and trainer, I've been frequently meeting people on their personal and professional development concerns. A very prominent facet which comes out in most of the discussions is life feels like it is stuck, I'm not moving any further professionally. Hence personal life is also feeling low and dull. In an interview of Richard Bandler, I heard him say, "You can get intelligent day by day or dumber day by day. But you can't remain the same.' Now, what does this mean? And how is is related here? It means that as time passes you either use your life experiences and the learnings to improve their ways of work or they live mindless by doing dumber stuff.  So coming back to the challenge that most individuals face now-a-days. Most people who I speak to for coaching know they deserve better at work, better positions, better salary, challenging job profiles, recognition and fame in society. But how do they g...

  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...

  We all have our own beliefs which guide in many aspects of life to take a certain course. Our beliefs also influence our thoughts and feelings towards others, be it family, friends or work colleagues. Whether what we believe is a fact is another debatable topic. But because we have beliefs, we choose certain behaviours and respond in peculiar ways. How are these beliefs formed and why do we live with them or rather do they stay with us throughout life? Can we change these beliefs? Should we? The answer to belief formation isn't simple. It is a process which is a part of personality development. It is formed as a part of experience as we interact with others. But beliefs make us categorise people as good or bad; once we feel that a person is good or bad, we take a firm stand in our minds and it tends to reduce our flexibility towards life. Let me get more specific here. Every behaviour elicits a reaction and that reaction usually is a definate or confirmed response which we giv...

  In a training session I asked my audience to introduce themselves. I invited them to describe their special qualities by using adjectives for themselves, while they introduced. It turned out that few did not find positive words for describing their qualities. For example a woman stated “I am Stubborn Seema.” (name changed to protect identity). I paused the introductions for a bit, and looked at her with a certain disbelief in my heart. How can one describe self with such a negative quality and that too in an open forum. The woman was trying to say she is stubborn and that is in all the aspects of life and that would reflect in the training room too. If that is the case, I was sure the rest of the training days, I would have a student in the class who would be not absorbing the ideas I put forth and a difficult to interact element. I wanted to change her outlook and refresh her perspective about herself, then and there. So I questioned her, “Okay, so if you say you are stubborn. C...

  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...

  The Beautiful Journey Towards Success Smart work does not replace hardwork to achieve success. To be a leader, to grow to that level, you should have done all the work that you are going to then, at that stage, supervise. Your hands on experience much earlier in your career will help you confidently take future roles. Sadly, the generation in their 20s, so many of them, do not resonate with this concept. This is purely my observation over a few years and I am open to any logical argument, if you propose otherwise. May be this interaction and observation of mine is limited to the call centre industry that I've been associated with beyond 4 years now. After finishing swanky MBAs or engineering degrees too, a large number of pass-outs come to join BPOs as a Customer Care Agent. Where, I do very much respect all types of jobs, at the same time, I feel waste of a college seat, waste of money, time and talent should not be done. After a great degree, unfortunately done under the for...

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...

 Have you ever felt a deep sense of emotional connect when someone is narrating a situation? Did you ever relate a personal story to an issue your friend,teacher, parent or trainer is narrating? I'm sure we face such feelings multiple times in our daily life. Learning occurs when we listen to life experiences of others. Listening is a powerful mind tool. Research suggests that we remember around 25 to 50 percent of what we have heard.  A great deal of material is available on storytelling and learning how to do it better, in today's times. Adults learn from each other everyday through stories. So we are actually storytelling in our everyday lives, always. We have stories at workplace, in webinars, in classrooms, in training rooms, even the media, always, tells us a story. By story I do not mean pure fiction. Stories mean incidents which are either real or fictional, but they leave us with lessons to learn from. If you want to enhance your learning, then listen to other's s...

  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...

  To learn you need to unlearn and relearn and associate your learning with something in your daily life.  You cannot keep learning new information unless you  revise and practise for improving retention. To improve memory and learning, you need to practice the newly learnt information over and over again. Just taking in new information would be like pouring tea in a cup, which will eventually be full and over flow untill you consume some tea, that is ustise the learning practically. Reading and knowing about new things brings immese intellectual satisfaction, but it does not necessarily guarantee retention. To assure yourself of adding value by spending time to learn new things, we must challenge ourselves by putting them into practise in different ways in our daily schedule. According to an article in APA, learning performance is enhanced if students engage in deliberate practice.   A Youtube video of certified speaker, corporate trainer and guinness record holder...

  What is common sense for today's generation is innovation and science for the previous one. My husband said this to me. And that made me ponder on. Our lockdown life, due to covid, has prompted the government to apply strict rules. One of that includes 'only essential services will work from office'. Since I work in one of those sectors, it was my usual day to work. On my way back, I booked a cab service through an app; just a regular affair for me. The driver called and asked me where I was, I told him to follow the map, but he failed to understand and asked me for directions. While he arrived, I was on the phone, so I gave the OTP of the ride to the driver. Engrossed in my convesation, waiting for the ride to begin, I started to get impatient. I asked the driver what the matter was. Then I saw him struggle with the app to put the OTP and get the directions. Losing my temper I asked him to make it quick and finally gave him inputs to get going. Soon after, the driver sta...

 Have u ever felt a feeling of remembering a past instance in an extremely distinct manner? Such that you can feel, smell, taste exactly what u did at that time in the past. Books are a source of knowledge for us, however, that is reinforced and imprinted in our minds through experience.   We all learn through experience. It is more so to do with how common things around us have left an impression on our minds. For example, in school, our science lab was a fascinating world for us. It taught us how common things like heat, electricity, pressure, gravity, etc. worked, and this left some lifetime learnings. Most of the early life experiences are either at home or at school. Parents and teachers play an almost irreversable role in the child's life. Certain incidents either positve or harrowing, make such a distinct memory, that even after years, the feeling which it gave at that time when the incident happened can arrive.   According to research by the APA , p eople who hav...

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 ...