Understanding Human Psychology

  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 he

  In a training session, I recently learnt about an inspiring story of a 13 year old Chennai based girl, M Nethra. The real life hero and inspiration did not know what her good deal would give her in return until it really did. The story goes, that when the first lockdown struck there were many people who were left stranded on the road, without food, without adequate supply of ration, and money to meet the daily expenses. These people, mostly the daily wage earners, at that point of time, thought that they should leave for their villages to survive or else they would have to perish in poverty. Due to the sudden announcement of lockdown and closure of state transport systems, they had only one choice, that is walk many many miles to reach their destination. They had extremely a little money to survive and they thought the best way to survive for long term is to go to their hometowns as there was no mode of earning left in the city. Their plight was all in the news and was known to the

In over a decade of corporate experience and few years spent in educational sector, I have come across all kinds of personalities in the senior management cadre. By this I mean, I've seen those who truly believe their power is their Designation, their Chair and their Title (the way they are addressed- sir, mam). And I've seen those who recognise and follow the fact that a leader is what he is because of his followers. Respect is earned and commanded and cannot be demanded. I've seen those earlier lot of people which I mentioned here, are highly driven by cabin culture. The size of the cabin and the table they have is their reason to boast. Sadly, within themselves they attach their self worth to it, and in one way they are slaves to their Chair. I say this because they attach their purpose, respect, ego and life to it.  Then there is a category 3 which I call the 'confused minds'. They are the ones who yearn for a large space and want their names to be addressed wit

  Recently I was attending a session on counseling where we were discussing energy exchange between the counsellor and counseled. We also spoke about how a counselor must be able to empower the client by maintaining the same energy within. By energy here I do not mean the obvious physical display of energy or physical strength. Energy here means the energy our aura reflects, the energy charge which every atom in this universe has.    Coming back to the session, I heard a question pop up to our speaker, 'Sir, many-a-times I have heard that we must stay away from negative people, negative energy. That drains out our own energy drastically. Sir, but you asked us to empower everyone. What do you suggest in case of negative people who drain our energy?' There was a pause and gripping silence in the group. I felt like many resonated with this question.    I too got answers, in form of different thoughts, which I was not sure of whether right or wrong. But yes what I felt were my

  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 upli

  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 and

 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 impleme

  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 on memory, Nishant

  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 have fond mem

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 shaken. The woman came t

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

Step back and look inward for confidence Recent events of celebrity suicides, teens taking extreme steps in a bet or truth and dare game, and people playing blue whale to take stupid dare and stunts which risks their lives. These have forced my mind to raise the question, How precious is life for us? Here, the question is not of the life of others. That is far. But it is the question of our own life. The fetus spends nine months in the mother's womb, to fight all odds and have a life in this world. Every mother takes extreme pain to give birth, with the hope of having a healthy child. It takes years of love, nurturing, caring, learning, time, energy, responsibility and most of all patience to bring up a child. It is a mammoth task to develop a value system, get education, employment, settle in life, fulfil your duties and above all realise your dreams. And after going through the walloping and enormous series of developments and changes, we take life so lightly. Statistics sho

Let's Think of Values Values are principles or beliefs, held by each of us. These are instilled in us, to the core, generally in early life, mostly the influence of family, social circle, and school. Although, the overall impact of the culture and society we live in dominates how we think and freeze our views, and make us take a stand on various topics; values guide our behavior, motives, ultimately influence our goal. If your goals are aligned to your values, you stand a better chance to achieve them. First, understand your values and beliefs. What is it that you care for intensely and intently. Many things in your life will be dependent on your values, how you make a living, live your life. If goals are not aligned to your values then they will ultimately fizzle out after the initial rush. As your values do not sync, you will start losing interest in that goal. Trust yourself and your intuitions. Simplify the solutions that you set for yourself. The more complicated th

Throughout childhood and my school life, I was a shy and to an extent introverted girl. I would talk to a group of close, trusted friends. It was grade 7 when I was standing on the stage for an elocution competition, and stage freight struck me hard. I got severe cramps and fell down right at the place where I was standing. Today, after almost 20 years, I am a successful trainer and L and D professional, with 11 plus years of experience. So how did this fear vanish? Or did it diminish, and some of it is still there?  Here I shall share some things which I did over the years. Most of them are tried and tested over places by people and they have worked wonders to overcome stage fear. Glossophobia- Fear of Public Speaking Fear of Public Speaking is known as Glossophobia . About 75% of the population suffers from this condition. However, most people do not know about it, as they do not get a chance to engage in public speaking, or they get over this social phobia once t