Harpreet Singh_BLP039_Self Leadership_October 2012

October 16^nd, 2012

Session started with Anil Sir explaining the ‘Power of Intellect’ and the related decision making framework.

The framework is as follows:

Ø  Define the frame

Ø  Collect meaningful and reliable information

Ø  Define several creative and doable alternatives

Ø  Define logic for evaluation which includes your risk and returns

Ø  Values and tradeoffs

Ø  Implementation

This Framework suggests that every individual should follow a certain set of processes while making any decisions. This framework can be used for various important choices and it would certainly help in evaluating one’s decisions. Way is- the individual should collect some reliable data, create multiple options, set the evaluation criteria and then look at the values and trade off’s. Only then the decision has to be executed. Anil Sir then explained how the conventional approach of mind reduces the creativity in a person.

Later we learnt about the 4 dimensions of creativity. On exploring what prevents the person from being creative we learnt that FEAR stops a person from being creative. The fear of failure, criticism, ambiguity, wilderness and lack of time and resources are some which hinders creativity.  Anil later explained the ladder of inference. Seven steps in the ladder of inference explain the thinking process that a person might unknowingly experience to get from a fact to a decision or action. 

October 22^nd, 2012

                

Class started by honouring the 50^th anniversary of the India-China War of 1962. Anil Sir then ask a simple question to the class- What does courage mean to you? Anil Sir then discussed the story of our brave soldiers like Major Shaitan Singh and discussed his personal experience of display of courage during 1984 Delhi genocide. Then each one of us was asked to discuss the stories of courage in our groups and come up with our own definition of Courage. The most appropriate definition of courage given by one of our classmate was- “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear”.

Then Anil Sir showed a video of Mr. Matthieu Ricard which conveyed the message that the Happiness is a skill to be learnt and it requires some effort to develop this skill. The key determinants of happiness are-

Ø  Religion

Ø  Good Relationship

Ø  Thinking style

Ø  Exercise

In the end, we talked about Robert Kegan, Overcome the immunity to change. A powerful tool that helps people overcomes tough habits and fears by the immunity x ray.

Harpreet Singh_BLP039_Self Leadership_September2012

Self Leadership session by Anil Sir (Sep 10, 2012): It is always very nice to be a part of Anil Sir’s class. This was our second session on Self Leadership and was also the first class of our second term. We were just back to the classes after very hectic period during the first term exams and then witnessing the worst moment of our life. Anil sir started the session by asking the students to form groups and think for a while what they have learnt about the life from the incident that has occurred a week before. Then he asked us to share our thoughts among our group. The things that came into our mind were that Life is very uncertain and unpredictable and nothing is permanent here. Things which are so close to you are meant to be separated one day. Similar thoughts came from other groups also.

A video, “Before I do, I want to” which was about sharing the emotions and certain wishes, was shown in the class which was really inspiring. The same campaign is going to be carried out in the Soil Cafeteria.

After that, Sir briefly discussed the six layer model of Self awareness which was introduced in the first session of Self leadership.

1.     Body (5 senses), Perception          ->          Data, Diversity

2.     Instinct, Reaction                         ->          Information

3.     Relationship, Emotions, Mind         ->          Emotions, Compassion

4.     Intellect, Choices                         ->          Knowledge, Ethics

5.     Ego, Values, Habit, Fear               ->          Wisdom, Sustainability

6.     Life giving forces, Truth               ->          Mindfulness, Union

This time Sir explained Emotional Quotient which plays a very important role in shaping the Leadership traits in a person. Difference between Sympathy and Empathy was very beautifully explained through a simple “Shoe Exercise”, which elucidated the fact that it is not possible to get into the other person’s shoes until you remove your own shoes . Sir explained that many times you don’t agree with the other person, at that times try to see other person’s perspective, not just the thought, but feeling behind that.

Emotional Intelligence (EI) linkage was also very beautifully explained which is as follows:

Listen -> Understand -> Empathy -> Trust -> Respect -> Accepting Uniqueness -> Genuineness

The second part of the session was about a positive psychology, known as Appreciative Inquiry (AI). In this exercise, we were divided into groups of two. We were to ask some very simple questions to our partners, the impact of the answers of which was to be found out later.

1.     When were you at your best in SOIL?

2.     What happened, who all were involved?

3.     What was special about the experience?

4.     When do you think Soil was at its best?

5.     Who all were the people involved?

The students were then asked to discuss with the class, the strength and positive qualities of their partner which comes out on the basis of answers to the above questions. The answers were then documented & categorized in two parts so as to know the positive attributes of both the individuals and SOIL as an entity. The purpose of the activity could be easily understood once it was done and that is the beauty of the Appreciative Inquiry.

The next activity was Introspection Activity, which focussed on Self Understanding. In this activity we were to ask ourselves three questions:

·         Unstated emotional expectation of those who I care about

·         Regret about the past

·         Guilt that I carry with me

These above three things are the ones which deprives us of happiness.

In the end, the whole class formed a circle and shared their views about the session. We thanked Anil Sir for conducting such a beautiful session which helped us a lot in enhancing our Self Leadership and Self Understanding.

Harpreet Singh_BLP039_Happiness_September 2012

What is happiness? Meaning of this word is different for different people, but it is a fact that everyone in this world wants to be happy.

Normally, people mistake the sensual pleasures as happiness and hence their efforts are also directed towards these. It is considered that happiness means a search for pleasures of the senses and a life full of sensory joys is treated as a happy life. It is considered desirable to lead a life of attachments, work hard, grow more food and develop industries and then the country will prosper by all these and all will be happy. But the point is, if all these comforts bring happiness into the lives, then the people having all these comforts should be happy even now. All the developed countries which are full of all these comforts must then have all happy and quiet people. However most of the people even there are also unhappy, disturbed, impatient and worried. It is, therefore necessary to consider seriously what happiness really is because the pleasures arising out of several joys are not happiness. They are, in fact, unhappiness because they have the restlessness, which makes one unhappy. Happiness means ease and complete lack of restlessness and pleasures of senses do not have that mental ease. Whatever we enjoy with the help of the senses is sensual pleasure only. It is happiness in name only. Happiness is in fact an eternal bliss and is above senses and cannot be had from the objects. Therefore sensual pleasures are imaginary and are quite different from real happiness.

Other belief is that Happiness or Unhappiness lies in imagination. It is said that if you want to be happy look towards the poor or the one who do not posses as much as you do. Again, it is unkind to regard one happy by imagining that one is better than the poor and the unhappy. This attitude also satisfies the sense of pride of possessions. This can never be called happiness. So, it is very unreasonable to hold that happiness lies in imagination.

There is one more perception. People are asked to do this and do that and are said that this way their desires would be satisfied and they would get the desired objects and become happy. So, these people regard happiness as satisfaction of desires and unhappiness as denial thereof. But, the point here is- it is not possible to satisfy one's desires because there are countless desires of countless people and the material things are limited. Also, new desires arise as soon as the previous ones are satisfied. Thus the eternal current of desires continues for ever. It is, therefore, definite that ever changing desires can never be satisfied. Conceptions like those of satisfaction of desires and achieving consequent happiness are merely mirage in the ocean of the great desert of life. All the desires are never going to be satisfied and we are never going to be happy in the satisfaction of desires. It is also not correct to say that we will be happy proportionately with the desires satisfied, because real happiness lies in the absence of desires, not in their satisfaction. Because we reduce our restlessness in partial absence of desires, it can, therefore, naturally be understood that complete absence of desires will lead us to complete happiness.

Real happiness is a matter of experience, not of speech, not of demonstration. It is basically the state of harmony with yourself as well as outside world. It can be had only by being one with our soul itself. Since the soul is full of happiness, experience of the soul is the experience of happiness. Happiness always comes from the inside. Even if the experience of happiness appears to be coming from an outer source or experience, the actual happiness is coming from the within. Happiness is not to be had from somewhere else, for the soul is itself made of this happiness. Happiness is a warm glow of the heart and mind at peace with itself. Happiness is not to be possessed; it is to be enjoyed, to be experienced. It is the experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.

Harpreet Singh_BLP039_Self Leadership_May 2012

Self Leadership - The first  and very essential thing required to become an inspired leader.

Anil Sir described Self Leadership superbly by introducing the beautiful notion of Body, Mind and Soul.

Six layers of self. What an amazing concept. Soul, which is the innermost layer,  is the subject while the others are object. We are the Soul, the Life giving force. We are owner of other five layers and we can control/observe/watch these layers. When all these layers in a person are aligned, an Inspired Leader is created.

Another prominent learning was - Sometimes we need to unlearn to learn something.

We came to know about the power of three means of communication- Observing, Listening and Touch, and how effeciently these methods can be used.

Eyes can say a lot. An inspired leader should be able to understand what the eyes are communicating. Power of Listening is such important that the Great Listeners can get what others try to say, not what they say. Similarly, the power of touch gives the sense of warmth, togetherness and break the barriers among people.

Inspired Leader should develop the qualities to make use of the above methods in order to communicate his message.