Veda_BLP028_Self Leadership_Oct 2012

It was 16 October 2012 morning; Anil sir started the leadership class by asking “What is the most important question in each of our lives?”  As we were pondering over the question and wondered how we would achieve our goals even if we figured what bothered us the most, Anil sir, showed us the way by asking six more questions which helped us to frame the strategy, define path, create alternatives, define logic, consider values & trade offs and finally implement the idea into action. Personally it created a positive impact in my thinking and approach towards life. We can use these methods in our daily life to make any major or minor decisions.

Later, sir discussed four dimensions of creativity. Again, we were asked to question ourselves about our strengths, weaknesses, best suited job, our creative hindrances etc. This made me dwell further into my goals and my personality. We further went on to discuss about how our creativity gets hampered through the thorough conditioning which we receive from our childhood. A holistic education with a broad-minded upbringing will enhance an individual’s creativity, thinking & approach towards life.

We also discussed ‘The five fears’ which stops us from being true to our self and hinders our self confidence to grow further in life. We were asked to question ourselves on our fears of failures, our skeptic approach to try something new, concern for ambiguities, lack of time & resource and our true passion for nature. All this helped me to understand what actually stopped me from chasing my goals and what created fear in me to follow my passion in life.

Later we discussed all the values which are close to our hearts and the people in our lives who matter the most to us. We also discussed the seven ladders of inference, our assumptions and biases.

On 22 October 2012, we started our day with an emotional note as we discussed & celebrated the anniversary of the heroes of 1962, Major Shaitan Singh and his troops, who sacrificed their lives for the sake of reinstating freedom and safe haven to our country and its people.

Anil sir shared one of his very interesting and heart warming personal experience, where his family had struggled through the crucial times of social turbulence. He spoke about how he realized his inner strength and courage at the toughest life threatening situation.

We discussed more about courage and how each of us displayed courage in our lives and realized our hidden intrinsic traits & strengths which we had never known before. Later we spoke about Happiness and its causes. We saw a video of Mr. Mathew, a Buddhist monk from France, speaking about happiness and its underlying perceptions and assumptions. He told that happiness was something intrinsic and it can be attained by achieving inner peace, serenity, inner freedom & confidence. To achieve the above said, we should meditate and be more compassionate towards our self and others. We should observe our dark clouds of anger evaporate and attain clam and peace.

Later we spoke about the determinants of Happiness which are mainly the religion, good relationships, thinking style, exercise – Mental & Physical. Meditation provides mental exercise and rejuvenates our body. Meditation observes the way we think, either positive or negative.

Anil sir made us practice 15 minutes of meditation in our class and personally for me, the feeling after meditation was very refreshing, rejuvenating and serene. I decided to practice meditation and yoga more often from now on.

Later on, Anil sir explained Immunity X-ray to us where we had to write down our habits which we feel difficult to change. Sir told us to confront all the grey areas in us, face the truth and write down everything which was in our mind. We had to first accept the truth to bring about the change in us. We realised that unconditional love was the powerful tool which was within each of us and we have to realise it.

Veda Prada N_BLP028_AI(Snehal Shah)_September 2012

Appreciative Inquiry is something which I was exposed to from the time I joined SOIL. We were partnered with our fellow class mate and asked to inquire them appreciatively.

Even thought I was aware of what appreciative inquiry was, my understanding of this concept was not completely clear. I always wondered whether it had any negative implications.

 Snehal madam’s session on Appreciative Inquiry on 19^th of September 2012 was an eye opener and it cleared most of the doubts which I had on appreciative enquiry. We had a whole day session on appreciative inquiry with loads of activities, games and quizzes.

Initially we started with an activity where we were supposed to pair up randomly with our partners and inquire them based on the question which Snehal ma’am had described to us before each activity.

I had initially paired up with Sujatha for the question, ‘What is AI according to you?’ In response she told me that AI is mostly recognising the state of mind of another person by empathising with their feelings & positively responding and correlating to them.

My partner for the second question, ‘Your experience of conducting AI with the alumni?’ was Kanika. And, her response for this question was that she initially faced trouble in reaching out to her AI partner, Shantanu Srivatsava. But later when she got his time and had the chance to interact with him, she found out that he was a very cordial person who readily shared information with her.

My partner for the third question, ‘What according to you is the negative aspect of AI?’ was Neetika. And, according to Neetika, the negative aspect of AI was that it lacked quantitative scalability and thus would not be effectively applicable in corporate world where every outcome is measured against some metrics.

My partner for the fourth question, ‘What does Lord Ganesh & the festival Ganesh chaturthi symbolise?’ was Ritika. And according to her, Lord Ganesh is a Hindu god symbolising knowledge. And the festival of Ganesh chathurthi symbolises a ten day procession which involves bringing home an idol of Lord Ganesh, offering prayers and sweets to him & then at the end, immersing the statue of the lord into a lake for welcoming him the next year.

After all these activities, Snehal ma’am explained to us the actual meaning of AI and how it is something more than just bringing out the positive aspects of our partners. We further discussed about the Glad, Sad & Mad aspects involved with the employees of a large scale organisation. Before attending the session we were asked to take up a survey on happiness. And at the end of the survey each of us were scored in section of three happiness levels based on our choices. I was rated 3.18 in the section Pleasant life, 3.28 in Good life and 4.00 in Meaningful life.

Snehal ma’am explained to us the meaning of each level of happiness. Pleasant life signifies the state where our material needs are fulfilled. Good life signifies being engaged in activities which an individual is passionate about. Meaningful life signifies a purposeful life which is led by values and morals. An individual leading a meaningful life has higher dreams and purpose to help others selflessly.

We were divided into groups based on our scores for meaningful life and we were asked to define meaningful life and we were also asked ‘What kind of images came to our mind when we thought of meaningful life?’, followed by many other questions. I was in the group which signified intermediary level of meaningful life. And it was quite amazing to see how our answers coincided with the personality traits which ma’am described for each group.

Later, we were introduced to the five principles of happiness namely, Constructionist, Principle of simultaneity, Poetic principle, Anticipatory principle and Positive principle. We also learnt about the 4D model which involved Discovery, Dream, Deliver and Design.

At the end of the session we were given a case study ‘Will BBC become the world’s most creative organisation?’ For this activity we were further divided into groups of nine students. It was an amazing experience to work with my team mates under time pressure.

Overall, the session was very informative, interactive & interesting with fun filled activities.

Veda Prada. N_BLP028_Self Leadership_Happiness_September 2012

Happiness is a state of complete bliss & satisfaction which a living being feels from the core of one’s heart & soul. And ironically, happiness is attained through one’s own self, by the harmony of mind & soul. But we usually correlate happiness with the external factors, especially our beloved ones and other material needs.

 In a way, superficially it’s true that our beloved ones are the main source of our happiness and sorrow. We are so habituated in exchanging all the warmth & love from our loved ones that we presume them to be the only means of our happiness and we expect more and more from them every day until we encounter a day when our expectations are not fulfilled. This leads to the intolerable sorrow & depression. In the roller coaster of happiness & sorrow we forget that we are solely responsible for our own happiness. Nobody can make us feel happy, sad, inferior or superior without our consent.    

There are typically two types of happiness; one being temporary which lasts for a very short duration and other which creates a great impact in our lives and lasts for lifetime. Temporary happiness is usually associated with temporary ecstasy and fulfilment of material needs.  Once our needs get fulfilled we grow more greedy and selfish. Our hunger for temporary happiness can never be satisfied. In contrast, long term happiness is long lasting as it creates a sense of self actualization and we lose interest in material needs as we attain self satisfaction.

We as individuals create different barriers for our own Happiness. We link our happiness to our surrounding people, place, atmosphere and other things. We are highly disturbed if anything linked to us does not offer us what we expected of it.

Every living being is bound by emotions and humans are no different. Our lives revolve around people and relationships. With them, come emotions and memories. Memories don’t have base but still have strong presence in our lives and the more we try to forget them, the more they get engraved in our thoughts.

Memories can be both good & bad. Good ones cheer us up every time we remember them. Bad ones depress us every time we remember them & with time they take up the forms of the other strong feelings like guilt, fear, revenge & regret.  These feelings eat up all our enthusiasm and the urge to lead a happy life. They force us into darkness & gloom and we as individuals succumb to our own mental inhibitions and mirage. We are so lost in the negative cloud of darkness that we don’t even realise that if we had created it then we have the power to destroy it.

We are the creators & destroyers of our own happiness & grief. We just don’t realise it. It is indeed very difficult to realise this and practically apply it in our daily lives. It takes lots of courage, determination and persistence to overcome our own fears & grief.

It is always recommended that we seek out for our loved ones or friends to recover from a trauma. We as humans are so connected that we reach out to our people at all the times, either happy or sad. Thus, the cycle of life continues. But the moment we master our feelings through self actualization, we would hardly rely on any external factor to change or alter our behaviour and feelings.

We should always control our feelings as per our wish and never let our surrounding influence our behaviour and emotions. Happiness can only be achieved through inner peace & harmony.

Images courtesy: Google images.

Veda Prada.N_BLP028_Self Leadership_September 2012

For BLP (Business Leadership program), every semester usually starts with the leadership session from our beloved Anil sir. Our first leadership session was amazing and we expected the same kind of session in the second semester too. And, as hoped, we did get involved in an emotionally enriching session which was very much required for all of us in BLP as we had recently lost two of our beloved friends & bright students to an unexpected heart wrenching accident.

After the sad incident, this was the first time that all of us were in the class and it seemed quite weird & painful to see the unoccupied seats of Gaurav & Rahul. All the memories associated to them rushed to my mind every time I looked at their seats. The entire class seemed to share the same emotion as there was a mocking silence when Anil sir brought up the topic of their death and asked us to discuss our views. No one spoke for initial ten minutes; we just stared blankly everywhere to avoid eye contact and tried hard not to get emotional again.

But sir was very persistent that we get into that emotional state and release all our depression by openly discussing our feelings with our classmates. Well, that did work remarkably. We were able to come out of our misery and sadness. After we took control of our emotions, sir showed us a real life short video of a girl on “Things to do before I die”. This video had created a rage and inspired many lives. Anil sir wanted to implement the same in our SOIL too and now we too have a “Things to do before I die” bulletin at our cafeteria J

Later in the session, sir shared his personal experiences which encouraged us to face the challenges, learn from our mistakes and move forward in life. We were shown how different empathy & sympathy were through a live demonstration in the class. One of our class mates was asked to keep his shoes on & get into the shoes of another student and then later, remove his shoes & then get into the shoes of another student. It was practically evident that we cannot perceive and empathise others wearing our own bias or perceptions.

Anil sir made us recognise our own strengths through appreciative inquiry. Each of us were appreciated by our fellow partner for our unique strengths and sir very beautifully interpreted them to the entire class. As a memento of our lovely experience and to recognise the unique strengths of our classmates, sir suggested that we have a knowledge tree depicting every student with his or her unique traits in the cafeteria J

Sir also explained to us the importance of emotional quotient in our personal & professional lives. He also mentioned that emotional quotient is mainly developed through mutual trust, respect and the complete acceptance of an individual along with one’s differences. We were asked to recognise & pen down all the emotional barriers which stopped us from being happy. At the end of the session we formed a circle and shared all our emotional experiences so far in our lives. Sir suggested that we honour Gaurav & Rahul by designating places for them & commemorate their goodness by remembering them every day in our lives.

On the whole, it was an amazing experience as we felt very light hearted, calm and at peace after the session.

Veda P.N_BLP028_Self Leadership_May 2012

Today was our first academic session of SELF-LEADERSHIP after rigorous training on self-realization for past one week.  As usual we started our day by attending morning circle and offering our prayers to the almighty. Later in the initial stage of the session we were asked a very intriguing question - “What important question should I ask myself to be a self-leader?” by Mr. Anil Sachdev, who was the faculty for the session. This made us think on a deeper level and ask ourselves as to what qualities we think we should possess in order to be goof self-leader. Through group discussion on this question, I got to know different perceptions and dimension my group mates had on this question.

Anil sir shared lots of his personal experience to enhance and feel the concept of self- leadership on a deeper realization and understanding.  We were introduced to the SIX LAYERS OF SELF which mainly focused on the way a person first perceives a feeling by using five senses which brings out instinct, reaction, emotions, choices and how eventually it becomes a habit or fear. Finally everything relies on ourselves as we become the source for every choice and decisions we make in our life.

I also realised that communication through eyes is very powerful. And successful leaders usually use eyes as one of the communication tools. Anil sir explained how the idea of creating SOIL was conceived and he quoted most of his personal and professional experiences to support the theories on self-leadership traits.

We were involved in understanding EGO and ALTER EGO concepts through group activity. We realised that alter ego can really help us in analysing our goals and rectifying our thinking abilities.  I also learnt that listening skills can really impact one’s character and professionalism. Anil sir also told us that a good leader is a good listener.  And we also got knowledge on the power of touch and compassion.

Finally we understood that leadership ability is present in every individual and it is only that we need to bring out our abilities by self- realization.