Manvi Choprta_053_Self Leadership_October 2012

Self Exploration is the key to positive change. My belief was further strengthened in the leadership class conducted by Mr.Anil Sachdeva.  What a wonderful session, so many things we often think about but cannot vocalise were put into perspective.

We started off by discussing the framework for decision making invented by Ron Howard which essentially provides guidance to an individual and aides decision by following a process that involves an individual asking his or her self a set of six questions these questions are follows 1. Define the framework for decision you want to take 2. Collect meaningful and reliable information 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 (In terms of risk and return), 5. Value and trade off (a decision might seem highly rational but possibly conflict my core values), 6. Looking at implementation (What one should do to get things implemented). To understand this concept better we did a small individual exercise, I asked myself the question, I want a job if so what kind, I must admit that not only did doing the entire exercise bring more clarity and guidance that helped me reach a decision but it also carved a path to reach by end goal essentially by working backwards.     

Our next session was on creativity, a forgotten term for most of us since we are now so conditioned and tuned to thinking only logically. We essentially tried to identify why we are so low on creativity and what factors could be possibly responsible. I agree with the entire discussion, the sad and harsh reality remains that from our childhood; we are socially conditioned by our parents, teachers to think logically, any signal of creativity is silently discouraged. We were told of an experiment where a group of students whose teachers were told that their class is not bright, dropped out of college and vice - versa. The statistics therefore are not surprising; India scores the lowest on creativity.

 Even when sir conducted the creativity test exercise by either showing us a pen or asking us to create a product, compare a stubborn engine to a mother in law. I must admit I found it quite hard and not so because the exercise was difficult but only because I hadn’t thought this way in a long time. However the best part of the creativity session for me was running around, becoming an engine, flying like a bird. I cannot begin to express how free and spirited I felt, after a really long time. Surprisingly I dint feel any inhibitions.

We then spoke about the mostly unspoken ‘fear’ in which we were asked to ask ourselves four questions mainly 1.whenever I am trying to do something new, to what extent does the thought of failure strike me.2. When I am doing something new to what extent am I bothered what others would say. 3. To what extent I am concerned about ambiguity. 4. To what extent are you concerned about time and resources 5. Are you scared of natural resources?  To my surprise, I scored in the medium range, this taught me a lot, the fact that I am more fearful then I actually thought. I would also need to do some work in this area.     

We also spoke about inspiration, thought about books, movies and people that inspired us and what that tells us about our. I realised I am inspired by people who challenge themselves every day, work with sincerity and dedication.    Lastly we discussed the ladder of inference which involved seven steps .We analyse what is happening around us and then reach a conclusion. Our mind starts believing that what we believe is the truth and truth is obvious, On the basis of what we have seen , we associate our meaning and whichever suits our best, we tend to draw conclusion based on that.

The last day of the class was a session of power, emotion and motivation.   We were told some harsh and brave stories of soldiers who laid down their life for the country. We tried to infer the reasons for this kind of courage to appear, why had Indian soldiers in 1962 war against china fought the war so bravely when they were only 130 in no compared to 3000. How did Anil sir collect build a community that would successfully defend itself in times of the 1984 riots? Why do people shield others without fearing for their own life? The answer was courage but how is the courage born is it inbuilt or does it appear, was what we tried to figure out. Some wonderful thoughts emerged, realisation that we are a part of the universe a country, possibly if one is passionate about something, a habit way of life comes in a moment of emergency. In desperate situations, comes when you have deep love in your heart. According to me, courage comes when you value your life and yourself, it is this realisation which gives you the strength to make a difference since you feel more valued and privileged than others. Also only if one is highly motivated does one become courageous?

We saw a video on happiness and discussed on our table what happiness means to each of us. The video essentially outlined the importance of managing your mind. We often focus on every aspect of our life, manage our physical fitness but we forget that our mind needs tuning and managing as well. How your mind can be managed through meditation which is enhances an individual’s compassion and makes one more mindful. The video also distinguishes between happiness (internal) and pleasure (materialistic). When we discussed our definition of happiness, according to me happiness is enjoying the small things in life, be it getting wet in the rain, drinking coffee with your family at midnight, doing good work.

We also spoke about money and happiness meter, where after a certain point no amount of money can increase the happiness levels. I agree with this, as I have seen it happening around me. We also spoke about the power of unconditional love, just like a mother has for her child  and the feeling of contentment it brings to selflessly do for people.

We did the happiness exercise and I was relieved that I and my group scored fairly well on the happiness meter. The most interesting part of the next session was asking myself an important question, what is it that I need to change to handle my emotions, relationships better. Honestly I realised that maybe If I was more practical, I would do much better in every area of my life. Not only do people value practical people, the less one is taken for granted. One must strike a balance between doing for others, doing for self. Both are important.

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

 

By Manvi Chopra         

      

 

    

Aditya_036_Self Leadership_October 2012

Today we had another memorable and awesome stint with Mr. Anil Sachdev under the ‘Self leadership’ Program. Our session took a start with a brief description about the five layers of ‘Self-realization’ which was discussed in the previous sessions of Self leadership. Today’s session covered the ‘Power of Intellect’ and the related decision making framework. This framework is really helpful as it helps a person to make the right decisions. The research analysis done on this frame work suggests that every individual should follow a certain set of processes while making any decisions. The few of the processes are defined as:

·         What is the most important question?

·         We should collect meaningful and reliable information in the context of question

·          Creative alternatives should be defined

·         Logic for evaluation – Risk and  Returns associated with the decision

·         Values and trade offs

·         Implementation of decision

The above mentioned list of processes would certainly help in evaluating one’s decisions. Anil Sir also mentioned about the Upanishad Ganga which is telecasted by Doordarshan every Sunday. This TV series elaborated on the leadership skills of the inspired leaders of rich Indian culture and her civilization. It also illustrated the sacred relationship between a teacher (Guru) and the student. In the latter half of the session, all the students formed a group and performed an activity in which we had to identify our career objective based on decision framework. The options for career objectives as follows:

·         Take up a lucrative job

·         To become an entrepreneur

·         Hold yourself for sometime

·         Do nothing

In the above mentioned activity we analyzed our course of action and also did a self retrospection in order to acknowledge the goal of our lives. This activity was followed by another group exercise in which a matrix was drawn and each individual were asked to rate themselves. The drawn matrix featured a comparison between the types of education received and kind of upbringing experienced. There was also a discussion on the aspects of creativity, the power of ideation fluency, originality of thinking and associational fluency. Anil Sir also mentioned about a book ‘The Fourth Eye’ by Pradip Khandwallla, this book helps an individual to overcome the fears of life. In another activity, students were asked to realize their own fears.  We had to rate oneself on the scale of 1 to 10 to different questions (which certainly gives us the fear quotient). The learning I took from this exercise was to understand our own fear and the comprehensive techniques to get rid of these unsaid fears. The students also devoted their time to think about their mission and values of their lives with a series of questions that surely helped each one of us to get a better clarity on our future goals & objectives. In the final phase of this wonderful session,  we were extremely delighted to get introduced with the wonderful concept of ‘Ladder of Inference’ based on the Peter Sengi’s work. This concept can help people to create better understanding of thinking process.

In the last and final session of Self Leadership Series by Anil Sir, the students were asked to form teams and perform an activity on discussion about ‘Courage’. On each table we have to cite the real life examples. Few of questions asked among the teams were e.g. how the courage stimulates?  Each team came with their different viewpoints like it courage comes from within our hearts and from the cause we are fighting for, it can also come from the selflessness and courage is not absence of fear but a realization / judgment of cause more important than fear & many more. In the final half of the session, I really got impressed by the video about Matthew Richard view on happiness wherein he talked about attaining happiness. In this video Mr. Matthew mentioned an extremely important point that how the happiness index in US has gone down over the decades though the average family income has soared up. He also mentioned the Gross happiness Index (GHI) which is being followed only in Bhutan.

In the end I would like to mention special thanks to Anil Sir who took out his valuable time for us from his busy schedule. His teaching will take us ahead in our lives not just in corporate part of our life but also in help us in leading a meaningful life.

 

Debanjan_063_Self leadership_October 2012

Today’s class with Anil Sir started with the definition of courage and he told each table to discuss within ourselves and try to find out the answer to the question as to where does courage comes from? Each of the teams discussed and the essence of what we got was:

Courage comes from the following factors:

è Realization that we are a part of a larger community and identifying that we are there for a greater cause.

è Comes from inside, the cause for which you are fighting also gives you courage.

è It comes when you are passionate about something

è From being selfless.

è In case of extraordinary challenge, it helps us overcome our limitations.

è When there is a spark inside you.

è Service strengthens courage.

è Ethics leads to courage.

è Opportunity to take on big responsibility.

è Courage is not the absence of fear but the realization that there is something more important than fear.

è Also courage comes from deep love.

After this Anil sir told us to do an exercise in pairs. He told us to write down our vision. He told that if the vision is embarrassing or it sound like ‘humblepie & motherhood’ then that is a great vision.

My vision was: Improve lives of people in the eastern part of India.

Then Anil Sir showed us a video on happiness and told us to reflect upon that video and discuss in groups and write down what we meant by happiness.

We discussed in the class and among ourselves and came up with the below points which we felt could bring in happiness. Those points are:

è  Living in the present moment

è By meditation

è Compassion is a big factor for happiness, it impacts brain waves

è Materialistic aspect of life don’t bring permanent happiness

è Honoring life and going for inner-fulfillment

è We can choose to be happy, from hate to love is a fantastic journey.

è Joy and happiness are not pleasure

è Passion, love for a cause leads to courage and courage leads to happiness.

Again Anil Sir told us to perform another exercise where he told to rate ourselves on a scale of 1-7 the below questions

1)      Do I consider myself happy?

2)      Compare to most of my friends do I consider myself happy?

3)      Some people are always happy no matter what, do I agree to this?

4)      Some people are always un-happy no matter what, do I agree to this?

Our team scored 5.67, 6, 5.6 and 2.1 for the above questions.

Then we had a discussion regarding ‘whether money makes a person happy or not’? We discussed that money can only bring short term happiness to you but to get long term happiness we must practice the following factor:

è Religion

è Thinking style

è Good relation

è Exercise

We also discussed some economic factors that determine happiness. We also discussed that happiness is something that cannot be measured and compared. Also people know what makes them happy.

After this we had a session on Meditation. Anil sir also taught us how to practice meditation. Then we discussed about the one thing that I thought if changed can bring the best out of me. That thing has to be worked upon action, in thinking process and also via relationship.

In the end session Anil sir introduced us to the Immunity X-Ray.

He told us to choose a habit that was very difficult for us to eliminate. Then I was to write down what I did instead. Then I need to note down the hidden or competing commitment and the assumptions based on those commitments.

This session on leadership series was very insightful as it went out to the dark corners our minds and helped to reflect ourselves.

Ravneet Singh_BLP015_Self Leadership_October 2012

16-Oct-2012

The class began with a quick insight into the learning from the previous classes about six layers of self awareness followed by discussions about the plays enacted by us at Sidbari as part of CORD visits. Continuing further, Anil sir introduced the concept of intellect and its role in the decision making process.

The process of decision making begins with defining the frame followed by collecting meaningful & reliable information. In the next step we define several creative and doable alternatives followed by defining the logic for evaluation. Moving further we focus on values and evaluate tradeoffs. Finally, one needs to look into the possible implementation of the decision.

We then discussed about Dr. Ron Howard and his research on “Decision analysis”. This was followed by an exercise in which we analyzed, identified and discussed our career choices within our teams, using the Decision framework.

Later, we discussed on creativity and identified the possible reasons for being low on creativity. We talked about the interesting Indian scenario on how most of us start losing on creativity aspect with maturity. A holistic education system and an open minded upbringing of children is the need of the hour. We did a fun exercise wherein we jolted down the some of the creative uses of objects like Pen, cup integrated with marker and mapping an engine with mother-in-law. In relation to creativity we discussed about Ideation fluency, originality of thinking, associational fluency and Synetics.

The lack of creativity was further linked to the concept of fear. To get a better understanding, we were asked to do an exercise to analyze and overcome our fears through knowledge and comprehension about it.  Further we discussed about the values close to our hearts and the people who matter the most to us. In the last session, we learnt the concept of “Ladder of Inference” given by Peter Senge. It is an effective tool that helps in understanding and explaining why we so often get into conflict and fail to get resolution.

22-Oct-2012

The session began on an emotional note discussion on the bravery and courage of Major Shaitan Singh and his troops during the Indo China War of 1962. We were asked to reflect on the question: “What does courage mean to you and capture the essence of it?” Moving further sir discussed about his personal experience of struggle and display of courage during the 1984 riots. We then came up with our views regarding Courage. One of the most appreciated definitions of courage came from one of our classmate which said” Courage is not absence of fear but the judgment that something else is more important than fear”.

Anil sir shared a video of world’s happiest man Matthieu Ricard which emphasized on the importance of living in present moment. It reflected that happiness is intrinsic can be attained by achieving inner peace, inner fulfillment & self confidence. We can achieve it through regular meditation as it is very powerful technique of watching your breath and attaining peace. 

We further learnt about the value of happiness in real world and determinants of happiness. The determinants are:

1.        Religion
2.        Good Relationship
3.        Thinking Style
4.         Exercise-Mental and Physical

 It was followed by an interesting discussion about how economists can learn from psychologists so that happiness can find a place in economic thoughts of the country.

In the last session, we had a great time practicing meditation with Anil sir in class. I felt refreshed, rejuvenated and connected with my inner self. With my amazing experience during yoga classes and this session, I have decided to continue with yoga and meditation practice.

In the end, we learnt the concept of ‘Immunity X-ray’ which is a scientific way of overcoming your fear and bringing change in oneself. We were asked to think and write about things that we want to change in our self but have often found it difficult to change. We have to confront all the grey areas in us, face the truth and overcome the mental blocks which form hindrance in the path of achieving what we aspire.

Hargeet Singh Brar_BLP057_Self Leadership_October 2012

The class of self-leadership on 15^th October started with summarizing what we did till now. It included the discussion on the six layers, study of one’s own self and appreciative inquiry. Then we went on and discussed about how we learnt Appreciative inquiry at Sidhbari and then practiced it during our trip to nearby villages where CORD has done tremendous amount of work for upliftment of people and how people have taken responsibility of their own growth.

Then we talked about the framework by Doctor Ron Howard at Stanford University for strategic decision making. This framework tells us about how we make choices for ourselves. It has various steps where:

·         The first step is to define the most important question we are trying to find the answer to.

·         Then we collect meaningful and reliable information related to question defined in step one, followed by defining several creative and do able alternatives.

·         Then we need to define logic for evaluating risk and return. For example if the board of Tata Steel has to decide the next MD, then they may define the framework of competencies required and based on that they can take unbiased decision.

·         We must also decide upon the values and tradeoffs related to each alternative. E.g. some decisions may sound compelling but they may go against your core values so you need to discard such decisions.

·         Finally once the question and alternatives are defined and the best alternative is found, we need to formulate the strategy to implement the same.

This framework is a great tool in decision making but is only useful when the list of alternatives is exhaustive and we clearly know our values and tradeoffs. I could see the importance and use of this framework in making career choice. For example the question one may ask is “What career to take up that keeps me happy?” and use the framework to get best possible solution. Many a times we feel that to gain something, one needs to lose something. When such a situation arises, one must revisit his list of alternatives and redefine them more creatively in way that you need not lose anything.

Building upon it, we then talked about the creativity one may have and tests to measure creativity. According to a survey done, all of us are most creative in the age group of 5 to 15 years. India is among the worst in the world on creativity level. The reason for the same is our education system that keeps on putting layers of conditioning on our creative minds to shut them down. Then we discussed about the dimensions of creativity:

·         Ideational fluency: means coming up with large number of ideas in limited amount of time.

·         Originality of thinking: how original your ideas are

·         Associational fluency: it is combining images with different aspects. E.g. Concorde design was inspired by grasshopper.

Creativity can be increased by using these dimensions and also by overcoming our fears. There are many tools to measure our fears. This gives rise to five laws that prevent us from being creative. Using this framework, we need to answer some questions on 1-10 scale, 1 being lowest and 10 highest. Whenever I am trying to do something new, to what extent:

·         the failure strikes me?

·         am I conscious of what others will say?

·         am I concerned about ambiguity?

·         am I concerned about lack of time and resources?

·         it bothers me when what I want to do requires me to be outside and in touch with nature?

One good thing about creativity is that each one of us having total score more than 25 has scope of reducing the same. Getting out of our comfort zone and going to Mother Nature helps to reduce fears.

Then we prepared our life maps showcasing our high and low points throughout our lives. We marked the most critical moments we encountered in life and which impacted our life. This analysis helped us to study our set of core values.

During the final session of the day, we went through the ladder of inference. It states that we begin to think our beliefs are truth, our beliefs are real data, the truth is obvious, the data we select is real data and we have all the data we need. But Stanford studied that 80% of information presented as facts was biased and was based on beliefs of few folks. It shows that the decision makers do not use real information. They base their decisions on data they have and feel it to be authentic. We must use the ladder to challenge our questions and find are they based on real data or our biases. Then we closed the day with closing circle and an important message-LOVE means loving your own values eternally and LOVE helps to overcome all fears.

 

In continuation to the class on 15^th October, the class on 22^nd October stated where we left last time. We discussed that how we can overcome our fears. Sir shared his story from 1984 riots in Delhi. It gave us clear picture that when love for a cause is so intense that you forget your own family, you transcend all the fears and show extra courage. Then we did a small exercise in pairs and shared with each other, the moments in life when we showed extraordinary courage. Through this exercise we could capture the essence of courage as: courage comes from the passion, the goal one has in life. It comes from selflessness, when you serve for the higher cause. Service or sewa strengthens one’s courage. Courage is not the absence of fear but the realization that something else is more important than fear. Then we talked about how an IAS officer had courage to help Tata Steel to fight for mines. The officer got the courage to do so for Tatas because they are the people with integrity.

We then went on to discuss about our dreams in life. Then we shared them with our classmates. One of us has a dream to see India as major player in the Olympics. So for this he is ready to do whatever it takes. Then was the time for the video on the habits of happiness by Matthew Ricard. The video taught us about the happiness associated with living in the present moment, power of meditation to stay happy and much more. The happiest mind is far more strong and brilliant than an agitated mind. Also happiness comes to those who choose to be happy and transforming your mind for the better is happiness. We always say “I want happiness” where I is our Ego and want is desire. So when we get rid of our ego and desires, we are left with happiness.

Then we also talked about Immunity X-ray and how it can be useful to change ourselves for the better. Towards the end of the day, we talked about how unconditional love is the key to happiness. Unconditional love calms our minds and gives us permanent joy. Sir ended the day with beautiful message- power of unconditional love is inside you. Everything that comes between you and happiness can be removed and you have full right to stay happy. J

Shikha Bhatia_BLP059_Self Leadership_October2012

We had another session on Self Leadership by Anil Sir on 16^th October where he started the class with a question, “What is the most important question in each of our lives?”.

Then he asked few more questions after that to explain us the ‘framework of strategic decision thinking’.

•              Collect all meaningful and reliable information
•        Define creative and doable paths/alternatives
•        Define logic to evaluate Risk and Returns
•        Define Values and Trade offs
•        How to implement the idea into action?

We also learnt different dimensions of creativity. We did so many activities based on that which helped us in realizing that how a child is always full of creativity which keeps on decreasing with age. Each one of us has so much potential but we are always restricted because of one or the other reason. Fear of failure always stops us from working towards our goal.

Anil Sir beautifully explained the concept of “Ladder of Inference” - the thought process that we go through usually without realizing it, to get from a fact to a decision or action.

(Source: Google Images)

We always start with Reality and facts at the lowest level and from there:

• 1      We select these based on our prior experience and beliefs.
•         Interpret based on our understanding as what they mean.
•         Apply our assumptions to reach to conclusions.
•          Draw conclusions based on the interpreted facts and our assumptions.
•          Develop beliefs based on these conclusions.
•          Take Actions that seem right to us based on what we believe.

On 22^nd October, in the continued session by Anil Sir, he started the session again by asking a question that “What does courage mean to you and capture the essence of it?”

After a few minutes of discussion below mentioned points were collated:

•        Courage comes from Identification with the community, selflessness, extraordinary challenge, opportunity to take big responsibility
•        SPARK from within
•       Courage comes from the passion-Goal 
•      Courage comes from dreams and their power; passion for a cause

Courage is not absence of fear but the judgment that something else is more important than fear.

We saw a video of world’s happiest man Matthieu Ricard and learnt the importance of living in present moment. He explained that happiness is totally intrinsic and can be attained by achieving inner peace and inner fulfillment. We can achieve it through meditation as it is very powerful technique of watching your breath and attaining peace. 

Anil Sir made us practice meditation in class and it was a great experience. I felt connected with my inner self and it is always rejuvenating and amazing feeling.

We also learnt about determinants of happiness: Results

•           Religion
•        Good Relationship
•        Thinking Style
•         Exercise-Mental and Physical

In the end, we learnt a new concept of ‘Immunity X-ray’ which is an amazing way of overcoming your fear and bringing change in oneself. We were asked to think about something that you want to change in yourself but you find it difficult to change. People are not able to overcome their habits because they have some hidden competing commitments.

Sarvesh Pingulkar_BLP017_Self Leadership_October 2012

The last two sessions of Self leadership in October really have transformed the thinking and certain beliefs of all students.

16^th October –

The session 3 started with recapitulation of the concepts of 5 layers of Self-Realization from previous sessions – Body, Emotion, Intellect, Ego, and Soul. Then the session started with the concept of Intellect, in continuation with previous sessions on body and emotion, and we started understanding the power of intellect through a process that one should follow while making decision in life.

The process starts with understanding the most important question, the answer to which “defines the frame”. Then one needs to look for meaningful and reliable information, followed by creative and doable alternatives. It is followed by finding out the logic for evaluation, considering the risk and return associated, along with value to come at conclusion. Finally, one needs to look at the possible implementation of the decision.

Then we were asked to identify the type of career and career goals that we want to pursue and based on the decision framework identify the best career objective.

The session also had the discussion on creativity, which was mainly on the originality of thinking and associated ideational fluency. We also discussed about a book, “Fourth Eye”, written by Pradeep Khandwalla.

We did an exercise to understand our own fear inside and how to overcome it through comprehension and awareness about it. A separate discussion on value and mission of life through a few questions helped us to clarify our mind about our future goal.

Final hour of 3^rd session helped us understood the concept of “Ladder of Inference” coined by Peter Sengi. It is a tool to be aware of how one’s action has sub-layers that determine the cause of the action and how one creates perception about his own thinking.

22^nd October –

The last session on self-leadership was culmination of past 3 sessions and it started with the discussion on definition of “courage”. We discussed the topic within our groups and later shared with the class. One definition which stood out prominent was – “Courage is not the absence of fear; but it is the realization of something that is more important than fear”.

We watched the video of Mathieu Ricard on happiness, in which he spoke about attaining happiness and happiness is nothing but a state of being. We then learnt about the value of happiness in real world through a few questions, determinants of happiness, and how economists can learn from psychologists so that happiness can find a place in economic thoughts.

Finally we learnt about a very powerful tool called “Immunity X-ray”, which is a scientific way to understand one’s own thought and getting rid of unproductive habits. It also involved understanding the way the challenges, mental blocks and the way to action which the one aspires for.

Dipti Sethi_BLP048_Self Leadership_October 2012

16^th October

The Mind in communication: COGNITION

·      Assumptions based on the meanings added

·      Constructed meanings (cultural and personal)

·      Selected “data” from observations

·      Observable “data” and experiences (as a video tape recorder might capture it)

(Choose data that suits you)

Based on Assumptions à Conclusions

The Ladder of Inference

Describes one of our basic habits of mind: our reflexive use of inference and judgment as if they were statements of fact

·         Our beliefs are the truth

·         The truth is obvious

·         Our beliefs are based on real data

·         The data we select are real data

·         We’ve all the data we need

Observe “Data” and experiences

·         Select data from what I observe

·         I add meanings (cultural and personal)

·         I make assumptions based on the meanings I added

·         I draw conclusions

·         I adapt beliefs about the world

·         I take actions based on my beliefs

23^rd October

Today Anil Sir discussed about Courage and Happiness.

COURAGE comes from:

·         Our identification with community and country.

·         Inside – the cause for which you are fighting.

·         Passion-goal

·         Selflessness – when you sense a higher cause

·         Discovering aspects in yourself

·         Extraordinary challenge – You overcome limitations when you’ve courage from within

·         Spark within

·         Deep love for something

·         “SERVICE” or “SEVA” - which strengthens your courage

·         If you’re true to yourself and your ethics build courage

·         Opportunity to take on big responsibility

·         Courage is not absence of fear but the realization that something is more important than fear.

HAPPINESS: To explain that, we were shown a video by the most happiest person on earth: Mr. Matthieu Richard. He explained the difference between Pleasure and Happiness. Pleasure is not long lasting. Eg: If I love a chocolate cake, I’ll feel very happy first time, less happy second time and disgusting third time. It follows Law of marginal utility. However, happiness or better to say well being is not only a pleasurable sensation but a deep state of serenity and fulfillment which underlies all emotional states. Of course our outer conditions should be good enough but our inner conditions should be strongest enough because if you get the most comfortable place on the 100^th floor of most beautiful building and you are unhappy inside, then you will find a window in that apartment to jump. And you can control your inner conditions better than outer one. However, if you save some child’s life then that gives a great sense of happiness. Also, people more inclined towards right part of brain have more risk of going into depression as opposed to people inclined towards left part of brain.

Summarizing, above in points, Happiness is:

·      Living in the present moment

·      The power of meditation

·      Compassion as a “Huge Force” – impacts brain

·      “Things” don’t bring Happiness

·      Practice – to meditate

·      Honor life – Inner Fulfillment

·      We chose to be happy

·      From hate to love is a fantastic journey

·      It’s our choice to love – Love and hate can’t co-exist

·      Joy and happiness are not pleasure

·      Passion and love for a cause creates courage which leads to Happiness

·      Transforming your mind is Happiness

·      In some countries, GHP (Gross Happiness Index) is used nowadays as a measure of stability rather than GDP (Gross Domestic Product)

Determinants of Happiness:

1.    Religion

2.    Good Relationship (Doing good to others + Appreciative Inquiry)

3.    Thinking style (Positive thoughts)

4.    Exercise (Yoga)

It’s true that Happiness comes from inside and for that to happen as per Maslow Hierarchy needs your spiritual (by Religion), social (by Good relationships), mental(by Thinking style) and physical(by Exercise and Yoga) needs must be satisfied, then only you can think about a higher cause or you can develop your love for a cause and which will then make you courageous enough to face any extraordinary challenge.

Practically, I also believe that Money is not everything but to say that you’ve to earn it enough.