Complacency

"Comfort Zone" – What a wonderful zone to be in, while reading this itself I get so much of comfort feeling. But in reality, Is it really a wonderful zone to be in?. “You can grow only when you come out of Comfort Zone” – We read and hear this statement very often. We also know how important it is to grow. But even after knowing that are we ready to come out of our comfort zone?? We want comfort zone in everything, it starts right from 5-6 AM in the morning. We know that we have to start our day fresh and active, but when it comes to getting up from the bed L Snooze button is a like a boon for us. But we also know it is not so.

I was working in an account which gave me everything – Opportunity, recognition, growth, role, support, guidance. I worked for a wonderful leader, from whom I learnt a lot. After 4.5 years, I had to decide whether to continue or to make a move. Trust me, it was one of the toughest decision which I had taken in my career. I decided to move out. People ridiculed me for making that decision, even I was not 100% confident about my own decision.

During this confused phase of my life, I picked up a lesson from Rohit. We decided to change his school after he completed his 7^th grade. I was worried about how well he can adapt to the new school. To my surprise, I found that he never complained about what he is missing in the new school in comparison with his old school. Rather he started enjoying his new friends, new teachers, new environment etc. Every day he used to tell me what he liked in his new school. His focus was in finding what is better in his new school.

This helped me to make a decision to move out. Though I gained confidence by looking at Rohit, after being in one account for 4.5 years, moving out was like fish out of water. I was worried, upset and not clear about how I will manage and started going into my shell. The new account was so welcoming, they made me realize that I have not made any wrong choice. Though I had initial struggles in settling down, people in the new place supported and guided me so very well that I could gel with them easily.

On 1^st April 2015, my mentor gave me a target to achieve. Today I have crossed the first milestone to achieve the target. I could do that only because I decided to come out of my comfort zone. I would like to thank people who gracefully agreed to release me from the previous account and importantly people who accepted me in the new account with my limitations.

The lessons what I learnt from this whole episode are

1. Being complacent will not give you any growth. It rather stops your growth
2. The real fear is not due to the actual situation, but the imagination what we have about future. That is what stops us from taking a decision
3. Coming out of Comfort Zone doesn’t always mean that your next destination will be dark place, you have lot of good people around you. See, I have found many such people J

I found this to be strange and interesting: In any normal scenario, we think “The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence” but when it comes to making a decision to move, all of a sudden we feel this side is better and the other side is dark!!. Is it because of the fear we have in coming out of our comfort zone?

Flying Elephants – Part 2

In my previous blog, I mentioned that I will tell you all about my experience in “Flying Elephants”. When the workshop started, I was not at all surprised, as I could see many of the participants had a body language which said “I am sitting here, just because my parents forced me to attend this session”, few of them openly said that also. This is exactly what I anticipated.

The participants were of various age group ranging from 7^th standard to college 2^nd year student. As usual they had some ice-breaker games which enabled the kids to talk to each other. Then these 35 members were divided into 5 groups. I was assigned as the coach for one of the group. Well, I had very less job to be done, as my team had 7 extremely talented girls (2 – 11^th Std, 4 – 12^th Std and 1 – B.Arch 2^nd Year).

The first activity on grabbing opportunity did the magic of making them be little attentive, according to me that was the first step to grab their attention. From that time onwards, kids started slowly paying more attention to what is being told, again not all of them, at least few of them became alert.

The next magic happened when they did an activity to learn the power of their own thoughts. I would say that is exactly where even I started paying more attention to the words and the actions happening around me. From that time onwards, kids were completely with the MindFresh team till the end.

Workshop was conducted in such a way that the kids and coaches never felt bored, we all had lots and lots of fun and the key to their success is that they ensured that each and every fun activity had a learning in it. MindFresh team was at its best to bring out the talents of each and every kid. Each group kept getting points for each of their talents which includes – Dancing, Singing, creativity, Writing blogs, poems and many more….

There is one thing which we all can get free of cost, people will be generous enough in giving that to you even if you don’t ask for it. Advice!! MindFresh team didn’t do that mistake in those 3 days. They never gave any instructions to the kids, all they did is: make the kids understand the consequences of each and every thing – Wasting time, getting distracted, negative thinking etc.

Time management was one of the  key topic covered. They took Stephen Covey’s 4 quadrants and made the kids realize where they are spending their time. It was amazing to see kids talking about strategies to focus on 2^nd Quadrant activities, this is something which I learnt 2 years back. I don’t know whether I am too late or the kids are learning too early!!!! I can hear you guys saying, both are correct J

In nutshell, this workshop focused on rewarding the kid for their creativity (lots of activities were conducted for bring out their creativity), killing their fear factor (they encouraged every kid go to the stage and talk), teaching them the importance of human values, learning skills, time management, how their brain works and how to control emotions. At the end of the 3^rd day, I felt it was worth the money and time spent by each parents and kids.

Do you know which group won the Championship?? Of course, it was the team which adapted me as their coach!!! As I said, they were every talented and matured little girls and they won the championship absolutely because of their own talents… J I had a great learning and experience in Flying Elephants. Thanks to MindFresh team for this great opportunity.

Flying Elephants – Part 1

Hope all of you enjoyed your long weekend. I had a completely different experience this weekend, I spent all the 3 days with 35 energetic little friends. Yes, I got an opportunity to be the coach in a Teenagers workshop called “Flying Elephants” conducted by MindFresh (www.mindfresh.in). I heard about this workshop from my friend and sent Rohit for this (couple of months back). Rohit liked the workshop and learnt a lot.

2 weeks back, I received a call from Padma (from MindFresh) asking whether I will be interested being a coach in this workshop. I really wanted to be part of this, as I was eager to know how someone can handle 35 teenagers in one place that too for 3 days, when I am finding it extremely difficult to handle one!!

Let me tell you about MindFresh and Flying Elephants. Kirtanya is the CEO of MindFresh who is actively supported by Jaya (her sister) and many more volunteers.  They conduct many workshops, but their signature workshop is “Flying Elephants”. The workshop focuses on the following aspects

• Importance of grabbing Opportunities
• Power of positive thinking
• How Brain works
• Learning skills
• Power of Emotions
• Distractions any teenager would get into
• Time Management

When I saw these topics in their pamphlet, I was 100% confident that it is going to be a boring session for Teenagers, in fact, I felt even I will get bored if I have to attend this. I was little doubtful whether Rohit will even manage to be there for one single day. Last day of the workshop, every single kid including Rohit praised the MindFresh team. They were in-fact sad that the workshop has come to an end.

On the last day, Parents were invited and Kirtanya gave a speech to us for 3 hours. To be honest, I felt it is worth spending 3 hours to learn how a teenagers brain work and how are we (parents) supposed to handle them. She even made us realize few of our mistakes which we have done while handling the wonderful kid we have got.

But one thing which kept haunting me was, how they are making the kids sit and listen to them for 3 days. Do you have the same curiosity to know? Then you have to wait….. J J  In my next blog, I will write about my experience as a coach and tell you how MindFresh is making this workshop an interesting one for the teenagers.

Learning agility...

What a break!! We had a wonderful vacation in Kerala. Whenever we plan for a vacation, Rohit will always have only one request, he would want us to book a room in a hotel which has Swimming pool. Don’t assume that he knows swimming, he will just soak himself in water for hours and be happy about that.

This time when we started planning our vacation, I felt that we should teach Rohit to swim before going for vacation so that he can have real fun of being in the swimming pool. One day Josephine told me that she has enrolled for swimming class and she has completed 6-7 days of class and she has learnt the basics of swimming. She suggested that place for Rohit and also said I can also learn as the classes are from 6 AM to 7 AM (without impacting office schedule)

I liked that idea but as always I had an apprehension about me learning a new skill that too at this age!! And that too along with Rohit!! Josephine motivated me. When I got little confidence, I told Kumaran about this, he also encouraged me to enroll. Our classes started on 4^th May, Rohit and I were put in different batches (little relief for me that I need not get embarrassed in front of him if I fail to learn)

As expected, Rohit started picking up fast and even I started learning to float, kick and even move!!! Rohit got a better coach comparing to mine (You see, otherwise I would have learnt better than Rohit J), so he used to come and share few tips for me and my new friends in our batch.

At the end of 12 days, we learnt basic swimming. During our trip, all 3 of us spent good time in the swimming pool. I still remember, during our previous vacation trips, I used to sit and safeguard the belongings of these two boys and click pictures for them, but this time, I got two boys to click pictures while I was swimming. What a medical miracle!!! J I would like to Thank Josephine for being my role model and encouraging me to enroll, Thank you so much Josephine. Special mention to Kumaran (even if he comes back home from office at around 11 PM or 12 AM, he never hesitated to get up at 5:15 AM and join us for the class).

My mentor once mentioned that one of the key leadership qualities is learning agility. I had my own doubts about learning new things now. But the fact that I have learnt swimming has given me confidence that age is not a barrier for anyone to learn something new. All we need to do is to set a goal for us and work towards that. With this addition of new skill in my personal profile, I have started preparing a list of things that I would want to learn which includes Learning Hindi L (somehow this never clicks for me, anyone has got suggestion please?) and car driving (another problematic area, at least for the safety of others on the road)

Change is inevitable....

The only thing that is constant is Change. Few things changes over a period of time, few of them changes in a blink of our eye. Suddenly it rained heavily in Chennai and it ensured that whole city was drowned in water. Chennai is known for being hot, hotter and hottest, but now Bangalore is hotter than Chennai. No, no, I haven’t joined meteorological department. J

Last week, I had a good discussion with my new mentor. During our discussion, he gave me a simple but profound advice to focus on my strengths and improve them further and not to waste time on my weakness. When he asked me about my strengths, I could say few with a doubtful tone. And that is when I understood that I was not clear about my own strengths. My mentor suggested me to take a MBTI assessment and find out my strengths.

MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) is an assessment consisting of psychometric questionnaire designed to measure psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions. Based on the answers given by an individual, their personality can be identified. In total, there are 16 personalities available as per this assessment. MBTI result will provide 4 letter each denoting a possible pair of personality trait:

Extraversion ( E ) or Introversion (I)

Sensing (S) or Intuition (N)

Thinking (T) or Feeling (F)

Judging (J) or Perceiving (P)

This assessment helps to understand our strengths and weakness (I should practice to not worry about my weaknesses, my mentor is watching meJ), career paths, working habits, Parenthood etc. It is really interesting to know more about our self. There is nothing good or bad about getting a specific personality, each one has its own strength which we can focus on.

Now comes the flashback, almost 8 years ago when I took my MBTI assessment I found that I am an Introvert. But when I took the same assessment yesterday I found that I am an Extravert. With this change, my personality has changed to a major extent. Yes, the only thing that is constant is Change. (Finally I have tied back to the topic of the blogJ).

Have you tried this assessment before? Whatever may be your answer, you can try to take it once now. I am sure you will enjoy reading the report J

Life is a race. Run, Run, Run......!!!

I made it today….. Nothing is impossible, I have broken the 4 minute barrier. Wondering what? OK, let me tell you all what actually happened….

I would like to start with a big Thanks to Facebook and WhatsApp. Around 2 years back, we slowly got connected with our School friends thru Facebook. We all met after almost 21 years, a memorable day. We were 18 of us, spoke a lot and laughed our heart out. It didn’t stop with that, we created a WhatsApp group for the School friends and started being in touch. As any other group, our group was also very busy during initial days and slowly it become little silent.

One fine morning, Pinni (Her name is also Kavitha and we fondly call her Pinni) posted her picture which was taken during Wipro Marathon, she had run 10 KMs!!!!. That was the trigger point for me. So far, many of my friends have told me to try these Marathons, but I never felt that I can do it. I always felt that, I am too old to try that, after Rohit, I am not fit to try all that. Trust me, I have worked hard to find reasons why I cannot do it, but never spent even a single minute to think how I can do that.

Now after seeing Pinni’s picture, I really got motivated. She was my classmate, who is of my age, if she can do it, then I should also be able to do it. So I registered for Feb 21^st “Save a Turtle” 3 KMs run. I had registered for Kumaran and Rohit also (No other intension, I want them also to be healthyJ). For many of you, 3 KMs might sound very simple, for me who had never participated in any sports or physical activities, that itself was a tough one. :-(

We had around 40 days for preparing our self for the run!! (You can also read it as jog or walk). My little Hero came for my help. Rohit and I used to wake up at 5:30 AM and go for 30 minutes’ walk on daily basis, at times I used to jog also. My childhood friends Priya and Gayathri also enrolled for this. So we used to ping each other about the progress we are making. (Literal RAG status on whether we went for walk or not on that day :-P )

Finally this morning, the impossible became possible for me. Such a good feeling to finish it and write this blog. THANK YOU SO MUCH PINNI. You are the one who kindled the thought it me. We all have decided that we will not allow this momentum to die. I have even registered for next week 5 KMs run!! I wish to take this as a good example that It is never too late to learn or start something new.

Never Give Up....

I got few videos from my SIL this morning in WhatsApp. They are videos of my niece (Athina). I watched those videos at least 10-15 times. She is just six months old, cute little girl, who is trying to make her first crawl. It was very interesting to watch her. All that she knows now is to balance her body on her hands and knees. She wants to move, but yet to learn that she has to co-ordinate the movement of her hands and knees. Instead of trying to move her hand and legs, she is trying to shake her whole body to make a move. After some time, she gets tired and leans to one side and have a happy rest time. May be, she is thinking how to try next time to make her first move!!!

Initially when I saw this videos, I was laughing at her tries. Slowly I started realizing how much a baby is inclined to try and make it happen. In spite of all failures, she is very persistent in trying. In fact, this is the case with every new born baby at each stage of their development. None of them get anything right at the first try, they all fail and then keep trying till they get success.

What are we doing as Adults is the question which came to my mind. I don’t know about others, at least I can tell you, that I try once or twice and then decide that this will not suit me and I GIVE UP big time. Where is the persistence which we had as kids gone as we grow up? We learn a lot as we grow and we also unlearn a lot of which we knew already.

The question is what am I going to do to learn that attitude and keep trying to achieve what I want. These are few things which I have learnt today which I am going to try and follow:

1. Have a Clear Goal (Many times, this itself is a problem for me)
2. Develop a more positive attitude
3. Learn to embrace change (Reminds me of “Who moved my cheese” and “Our Iceburg is melting”)
4. Learn from mistakes and become strong (Don’t crib! – This is for me!!)
5. Be more patient—good things will happen if you keep trying (Again, apt for me!!)
6. Get a mentor you trust (I have already got few and one more kindhearted person has accepted my mentor request – See how lucky I am J )
7. Be a person of action (Just speaking and writing blogs won’t help. L Action is important. I am talking about myself only!!)
8. Don’t let your past dictate your future (Use this moment. “The power of Now” this is the book which I am reading currently, all I can say is: it is making me sleep L )
9. Try a different approach and keep an open mind. Stop doing the same thing and expect different results
10. Don’t let anyone else lower your self-worth (This service will be available free of cost, say to NO to them. Experience speaks!!)
11. Be a part of a community of people who want the same thing (Hello, anybody there??J)

There is no doubt that Athina is going to be successful in her first crawl in next few days. It is only about me and my persistence. I will keep you all posted.