It was 9:20 in the morning and we were eagerly
waiting for Mr. Anil Sachdev to start our preferent self –leadership class.
Finally, he came in as always with full of energy. He started the class with
the wisdom of Upanishad and he told us that everybody should have a good understanding
of Upanishad as it describes a pious relationship between a teacher and a student,
Holistic dialogues between a teacher and a teacher. He asked us to watch a
serial on Upanishads every Sunday at 10:00 am .So, that we can empathize the
ways how guru in his student life changes the way of looking at things by
showering all the wisdom he has on him so that he/she can live a meaningful and
goal-directed life.
In the second slot, he made us familiar with a
framework called Decision analysis by Ron Howard a Stanford researcher. In
which there were a series of questions that needs to be answered open-mindedly and
by being true to yourself. The questions are as follows-
What is the most important question in your life
(Example you can ask about your career choice like what is the best fit for you
as in role and responsibilities), 2. Collect meaningful plus reliable
information (collecting information justifying your decisions or alternatives),
3. Define several creative and doable alternative (Selecting alternatives which
are realistic and you know you can accomplish them), 4. Define the logic for
evaluation (Return of investment approach can be used that how much you are
getting out of it), 5. Values plus trade-off’s (You have to deal with both
these words very cautiously and mindfully as at some point of time in life same
situation will come and you will not be able to choose your direction Example
In your workplace you are pretty much happy with the kind of work you doing
there but at the same time somewhere in your mind you have felt that I am not
getting paid what I deserve), 6. Looking for implementation (Selecting the best
alternative and implement ting it to reap results).
Then he talked about creativity and innovation. As,
a lot of us had a doubt that we are not creative neither innovative for that he
shared a real life story and basically that was an experiment done on small
students .So, there were two classes same standard, they told teachers in front
of students that one of the class is very weak and they can't do anything in
life. In addition, on the contrary side he told the other class that these
students are brilliant and they have a great future ahead. Afterwards they kept
on track the students on performance basis and after 20 years, they came to
know that the students of brilliant class excelling in life very fast and on
the other hand weak class students are doing nothing and living a miserable
life. This brutal experiment had been criticized a lot as it had murdered the
adolescence of the students just for the sake of the experiment. Therefore, the
inference is that creativity and innovation are inbuilt and it’s within us all
we need to recognize it and bring it out by a click between body and soul. He
also told that India and South Africa are the worst countries in terms of
creativity just because a lot of layers stopping us to think creatively just as
those researchers’ told children’s and sabotaged their life.
After the break, he showed us through vivid
examples of creativity by asking lots of questions like Write 10 uses of the
pen, Think of a product by the use of pen and cup and make a business idea,
etc. He also shared one example of Concorde ( fastest plane) how it was
designed , Concorde’s R & D team had visited a school where they asked the
children “what is the fastest thing you could imagine” and children told them
“according to us grasshopper is the fastest” .And, so Concorde’s is designed
from the analogy of grasshopper. Then he told us to read a book named The 4th
Eye written by Pradip Khandawala.
Then he talked about our fears and the way to
evaluate it. So, there were consecutive questions on the scale of 10 so based
on the questions we had score all of us
on the same.
1.
Whenever I try to do something new ,
fear of failure strikes in between
2.
To what extent I am conscious about
others
3.
To what extent I am concerned about
the ambiguity
4.
To what extent you are concerned about
time and lack of resources.
5.
Are you scared of natural resources
like water, Fire, etc?
Then we asked introspection questions in the pair
of two like who inspired you the most in your life, what are the most inspiring
books and movies you have seen , Values that are very close to your heart. Based
on these questions we are required to write a mission statement of our life
based on questions, which were asked.
Last but not the least he walked us through a
concept called ladder of inference. In which there were seven steps as we go up
the ladder means as we move ahead in life are mentioned below-
1.
I take my action based on “my beliefs”
2.
I adopt beliefs about the world
3.
I draw conclusions –make judgements
4.
Assumptions based on the meaning added
5.
Constructed meanings (Cultural and
personal)
6.
Selected “Data” from Observations
7.
Observable “Data” and experiences (as
a video recorder might capture it)
By above-mentioned seven steps, he taught us, the ways
to analyze things happening all around and based on them make our perception.
In addition, our mind as a tape recorder keep on recording whatever has been
happening all around. In addition, our mind starts working that our beliefs are
the truth, the truth is obvious, and our beliefs are based on real data.
Moreover, whatever we have been seeing for the past few years we have spent
recalibrating our worldview and our definition of success.
Likewise, we keep on associate meanings based on whatever we have seen or observed
that best fits in our suit and then makes a conclusion.
As per curriculum, yesterday we had last lecture
of Self-Leadership that we never wanted to end so soon. The session started
with what is courage, where it comes from and he asked us to discuss it amongst
our table .So, we all discussed and came up with our definition of courage supporting
it with real life examples Like: we came up with Courage can be defined as it
comes from the inside-the cause for which you are fighting. Others, also came up with definitions like it comes
from passion-Goal, it comes from selflessness-when you serve a higher
purpose/cause, opportunity to take on big responsibilities, its situational,
etc.. He also shared one real life example that had happened a couple of months
back with TATA’s , TATA’s went directly to the PM for justification and
Manmohan Singh took a stand and went against the other’s ministers for TATA’s
justice. He showed situational leadership at that point of time.
Then he showed us a video that was based on
differentiation between happiness and pleasure. In that there were lots of
heart touching moments depicting how you can attain true happiness and pleasure
are all materialistic things. Then he asked all of us to reflect on the video,
so a lot of us shared their learnings like happiness is Living in the present
moment, the power of meditation, we choose to be happy from hate to love is a
fantastic journey, transforming your mind, passion and love for a cause gives
courage to fight selflessly leads to happiness. But my definition was very much
different from others “Whatever you have is happiness”, every time you go out
you see something which is luring your definition of happiness got revised,
which is normally iterative and kill all your happiness .So, to be happy you
have to enjoy each and every moment of life irrespective of its association
with the things and for that you also need to control your thoughts which can
be easily done by meditation.
Second, half he talked about money and happiness.
In that, he showed us a graphical representation between money and happiness,
that depicted in the start money and happiness goes in hand in hand up to a
certain level and afterwards it becomes constant and no effect of money was
brought happiness after that point. Then he talked about “Power of
unconditional love”, and quoted examples like the relation between a mother and
child, Saibaba with his devotees, mother Teresa, etc... It gives a feeling of
contentment and completeness of life after giving back to society selflessly.
Last but not the least he told us an effective way
to overcome our fears by the help of an introspective tool called Immunity
X-Ray.
In the End, we showed our appreciation to Mr. Anil Sachdev for enriching us with
the holistic picture of “The Ladder of inference”, “Creativity &
Innovation”, “Courage and Happiness” that completely changed our way of
perceiving things. In addition, the session opened avenues for thoughts on
enhancing one’s understanding of the self & self-leadership.
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