Inspiration for today...

LOST TRAVELER OR ACCIDENTAL TOURIST

By Shazneen Pathak 

Life has been like a road, some roads are big, and some are small. Some are straight and some are topsy turvey. As roads would have it, there are crossroads in life as well. The most confusing, baffling, difficult whatever you call it, is the crossroad in life.

When we face a crossroad, the mind comes to a standstill as to which road to take? Which road is going to take us where! There are few roads, which will lead you to happiness, fame, glory, and fortune, but on the other hand there are few which would take you towards sadness, failure, defeat, disappointments.

We have to decide which road we would take with completely no clue where we going to land at the end! No assurances No guarantees! Since life offers us no guarantees and assurances, it's better to take that risk and make that decisions because unless we don't decide, and go that way we will never know whether the decision was right or wrong.

Instead of standing on the crossroad better to move forward. It's not always that the road, which we think is right for us, is going to give us happiness, there are certainly going to be heartbreaks. You might not achieve what you had thought, but at least you tried. We really do not have power on the outcome but we definitely have the power of our decisions. Taking risks, does not mean to decide in the spur of a moment! Think and then move forward.

If we had known that the road we are choosing is a wrong one and it can make us lost, or the outcome is going to be bad, we would have never decided to go that way. We will only know about the outcome once we walk that road, whether the decision was correct or worthless.

When we have to choose, we need to analyze the options we have, sometimes the options are many, sometimes very few and sometimes none at all. We need to weigh the pros and cons, make option of our own if we don't have any! But at no point take decision haphazardly.

We cannot find that confidence to decide at times, especially when we have no idea what the consequences are going to be. Trust yourself and think that it's the best decision at that point of time. Do not regret it whatever the outcome, learn from it and make better decisions in future. Always remember life will give us more chances to make right decisions.

And after all, I believe it's all the matter of perspective, as to what you want to be a lost traveller or accidental tourist, because you never know which road opens which new horizon!

Relationship building in Leadership

From my favourite leadership thinker, John C Maxwell

I think a lot of the time we take relationships for granted. Because of that, we don’t always give them the attention they deserve or require. But good relationships require a lot of effort. To keep me on track in my relationships so that I’m investing in them as I must to make them successful, I practice this discipline: Every day I make the conscious effort to deposit good will into my relationships with others.

That means I give more than I expect to receive, love others unconditionally, look for ways to add value to others, and bring joy to the relationships I hold dear. Every evening, I evaluate this area of my life by asking myself, “Have I been thoughtful toward people today? Would they express joy that they have spent time with me?” If the answer is yes, then I’ve done my part.

If you want to improve your relationships through your everyday actions, then do the following:

Put Others First

The best way to start off on the right foot is to put others first. The most basic way to do that is to practice the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you take that mindset into all your interactions with others, you can’t go wrong. But there are also other ways to show people they matter and that you are interested in their well-being: Walk slowly through the crowd, remember people’s names, smile at everyone, and be quick to offer help. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Don’t Carry Emotional Baggage
Few things weigh as much as old hurts and offenses carried day after day in a person’s life. If you want to enjoy your time with other people, you’ve got to get rid of that kind of stuff. You can’t keep score of old wrongs and expect to make relationships right. If someone has hurt you and you need ot address it and get it out onto the table, then do it right away. Resolve it and get beyond it. if it’s not worth bringing up, forget about it and move on.

Give Time to Your Most Valuable Relationships
Most people give away their relational energy on a first-come, first-served basis. Whoever gets their attention first gobbles up their time and relational energy. That’s why the squeaky wheels instead of the high producers at work consume so much attention and why so many people have nothing left to give when they get home from work. Your family provides the most valuable relationships in your life. They should come first as you plan how to spend your time. After that should come your next most important relationships. It’s a matter of practicing good priorities.

Serve Others Gladly
I once heard an airline executive explain how difficult it is to hire and train people for his industry. He said that service is the only thing they have to sell, but it is the toughest thing to teach because nobody wants to be thought of as a servant.

Helen Keller said, “Life is an exciting business and most exciting when lived for others.” I think that’s true. The longer I live, the more convinced I am that adding value to others is the greatest thing we can do in this life. Because of that, when I serve, I try to do so cheerfully and with the greatest impact.

Express Love and Appreciation Often
After I had my heart attack, a lot of people asked me, “What was your dominant emotion? Was it fear, panic, questions?” My answer surprised many of them. In fact, it really surprised me. It was love. More than anything else in those moments of pain when I wasn’t sure whether I would live or die, I wanted to tell the people closest to me how much I loved them – my family, the people who work with me, longtime friends. I learned that you can’t tell the people you love how much you love them too often.

I think many people believe that the best way they can help others is to criticize them, to give them the benefit of their “wisdom.” I disagree. The best way to help people is to see the best in them. I want to encourage every person I meet. I want them to know the good I see in them. I practice the 101% Principle. I look for the 1 thing I admire in them and give them 100% encouragement for it. It helps me to like them. It helps them to like me. And what else could be better for starting – and continuing – a relationship?

Source: http://johnmaxwellonleadership.com

LIFE IS LIKE PHOTOGRAPHY

Life is like photography. 

You use the negatives to develop. 

unknown

Marina Abramović's trust exercise

A friend forwarded this to me and read this on the internet as well. Interesting experiment.

Marina Abramović, “Rhythm 0,” 1974

Marina Abramović is best known for her performance pieces, in which she tries to explore what is possible for an artist to do in the name of art. Her best known piece was the recent “The Artist Is Present,” in which she sat motionless for 736.5 hours over the course of three months, inviting visitors to sit opposite her and make eye contact for as long as they wanted. So many people began spontaneously crying across from her that blogs and Facebook groups were set up for those people. 

Her bravest piece, however, is my favorite. This piece was primarily a trust exercise, in which she told viewers she would not move for six hours no matter what they did to her. She placed 72 objects one could use in pleasing or destructive ways, ranging from flowers and a feather boa to a knife and a loaded pistol, on a table near her and invited the viewers to use them on her however they wanted.

Initially, Abramović said, viewers were peaceful and timid, but it escalated to violence quickly. “The experience I learned was that … if you leave decision to the public, you can be killed… I felt really violated: they cut my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the public. Everyone ran away, escaping an actual confrontation.”

This piece revealed something terrible about humanity, similar to what Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment or Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Experiment, both of which also proved how readily people will harm one another under unusual circumstances.

This performance showed just how easy it is to dehumanize a person who doesn’t fight back, and is particularly powerful because it defies what we think we know about ourselves. I’m certain the no one reading this believes the people around him/her capable of doing such things to another human being, but this performance proves otherwise.


Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=543221975709034&set=a.463525983678634.112932.100000637089787&type=1&theater

Jim's Reflections:

How can we (in our various capacities and roles) create the structure/atmosphere that brings the best and not the worst out of the people we work with and care about.

As we progress, our values will be challenged. Reading all the comments and posts on both social and traditional media for the past few month made me reflect a lot about our world and country. esp. in Singapore. Our country will be going through a lot of changes for the next few years and the problem your kids and mine will face are:

A. finding good jobs - there will be 40% graduates. I hope there are enough graduate jobs to go around for both our kids and foreigners;

B. affordable housing - land cost will be so high that housing will be very expensive for our kids to own. We will go the way of Hong Kong and Tokyo where the next generation may have to pay for the housing of this generation;

C. Cosmopolitan society - we will go the way of London and New York and become very cosmopolitan. If we integrate well, then no issue. If we do not, then life in spore will be fractured and unfamiliar.


The only thing that will anchor our kids are values, and not knowledge and information.


Question is: What are we going to do about this and how can we value add to make things better in this country we love? We should not just complain and do nothing. Not productive. We should focus on areas we have control and work proactively and positively.

-----------------------------

Also check out this YouTube vid – there’s some nudity, so only view if you’re comfortable.
Marina Abramović The Artist is Present trailer HBO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY3VwmiT3j4

Inspirational Quote

“The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.”

Nelson Henderson

Leadership Lessons

Learnt something about leadership today. Leaders must care...you as a leader must be present during your staff happy and sad moments.