Thank God you have feelings and are in control!

Eyes that do not cry do not see
Swedish Proverb

Our feelings are important. In my time management seminars some participants regret that sometimes they feel angry, irritated, jealous, upset etc. I tell them that feelings distinguish living beings from nonliving things. As long as we live, we will have feelings. When we die, our body will not have any feelings just like a table and chair!

We are not only living beings, but also human beings. As human beings we not only have feelings, but we also have the ability to control and conquer the same. Animals also have feelings, but they are not in control of their feelings. As they cannot control their feelings, they cannot conquer the same.
When overcome with feelings, our intelligence should guide and channelize our feelings to achieve constructive objectives. Our anger, irritation, jealousy etc, are required to achieve something in our life.

Because animals cannot intelligently deploy and direct their feelings, they are getting extinct. Even strong and huge animals like Dinosaurs are extinct today. Stronger animals like lions, tigers and elephants are enslaved by the man.

So, we should have feelings and in control of the same so that we maintain this edge over other living things!

Next time when you get too angry and irritated, remember this!

N C Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com

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Adjustment is the essence of life!

Life is the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations.
Herbert Spencer

We pass through various phases of life, from the time we enter our mother’s womb till we are gone. Every time we go through a transition from one phase to another, we have to adjust with the new environment. Consider the transition from the protective womb of the mother to the din and noise of the world. The survival of the baby depends on the ability to adapt and adjust to the new environment.

The baby enters the school from the protection of the parents where it was alone to a place where it has to share and compete with other children. The child has to adjust. The child becomes a student and the adjustment should continue. Friends disappear and the spouse enters the scene and the adjustment becomes even more relevant. The skill required to run a family takes into account the element of adjustment.

Not to talk about the organisational platform where one has to adjust and align the personal objective with that of the organisation.

The element of adjustment is relevant even at the biological level. What happens if the transplanted kidney does not adjust with the other tissues of the body?
Over this weekend can you evaluate yourself on this ‘adjustment quotient’?

N C Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com

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Learn to enjoy loneliness!

Solitude is fine but you need someone to tell that solitude is fine.
 Honoré de Balzac

We came alone and we will be leaving alone! All the company that we enjoy today are temporary. When I write these words, I do not want to sound philosophical. It is reality.

I happen to move with lonely people – parents who live away from their children; wife or husband living alone for whatever reasons; retired people who do not have the company of their office friends anymore; people in their old age etc.  Certain things are bound to happen and we cannot stop them whether we like it or not. One such thing is old age and loneliness.

When I meet these people I come across two types: those who accept and enjoy their loneliness and those who experience the burden of their loneliness. I also noticed that those who enjoy loneliness have something to do both physically and mentally, something to keep them busy and engaged.

Getting ready to face old age and loneliness is an important portfolio. If we do not invest our time before we arrive at that stage, we find that phase of our life miserable.

Consider a hobby or project which you want to undertake when you are going to be alone and equip yourself with such skill, knowledge and passion! It could be writing, painting, gardening etc.

N C Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com
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Want to be unique? Then do something unique!

You are the only you God made... God made you and broke the mold.
 Max Lucado

We want to be unique. At least, most of us want to be. We admire our role models and legends. At some point of time, when we think of them, we also want to achieve like them. But the critical issue is: are we willing to sweat it out? Are we willing to work like the way they worked?

If unique people achieved this distinction, it is not an overnight event. They did not get up one morning to realise that they have become great! Their daily routine is different. Their weekly calendar is different. Every month they toiled so hard that every year they were moving close their goals.

It is natural to aspire to be unique. At the same time it is also the law of nature that only unique activities will make you unique.

Have this checklist in front of you which you should ask on a daily, weekly and monthly basis:
•    Have I done something unique today?
•    Have done something unique this week?
•    Have I done something unique this month?

If you get a consistent ‘yes’ to these questions every day, every week and every month, you will also become unique over the years!

Pretty simple, isn’t it?
N C Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com
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Are you willing to enjoy the consequence?

A year from now you will wish you had started today.
Karen Lamb

I was packing for my US trip. The airline in which I booked my ticked allowed only one checked in baggage and the hand baggage should be less than 7 kilograms. My friends who had traveled in the same airlines warned me that they are very strict on this. Any additional luggage will mean another US$100/-.

But I had packed two checked in suitcases and my hand baggage was also very heavy. This situation made me to strictly audit every article that I packed by asking a question: do I need it? If I don’t take it what will happen? If I pack it what will be the consequence in terms of the additional cost I I will have to give to the airliner?

Any article which did not pass this ‘test’ was ‘offloaded’!
At the end of four hours, I was surprised that I was able to accommodate all that I needed to take in one suitcase and I still had some additional space to pack!

This is what happens in our life also. Within our available time we can do all that we have to do, if only we eliminate all those other things which we don’t actually need! We have to be conscious about the consequence of doing or not doing that activity!

N C Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com
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As you think, so you will live!

Our way of thinking creates good or bad outcomes.
Stephen Richards

Our beliefs about ourselves will decide how and what we feel and what we do! If you believe you are bold, you will undertake courageous tasks. If you feel you are a coward, so you will behave.

Time has a continuity and we had a past, have a present and will have a future. Our mind understands this and guides our brain. Suppose we owned a car and we have sold the same, our mind knows that we don’t own that car anymore and will not open the car door even if the car is parked in front of our house!

This principle can be used to overcome some of our negative habits such as such as laziness, procrastination etc. Pick up any five habits which you feel are limiting your progress and change the way you think about the same giving them a time context. For example:

•    I was lazy; I used to be lazy...
•    I used to procrastinate...
•    I used to be addicted to coffee...
•    I used to over eat...
•    I used to be a spendthrift...

Honestly try this inner dialogue for a month and see what happens to your negative habits!

N C Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com
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Emotional value and commercial value of things!

The heart is a strange beast and not ruled by logic.
 Maria V. Snyder

The other day I was traveling to United States via Hong Kong. I had a South Indian couple in their sixties traveling with me. They were proceeding to New Jersey to see their newly born granddaughter. We had nearly five hours to catch the connecting flight to San Francisco.

The lady wanted to do some shopping in the airport shopping arcade. She was looking at various dress material, very conscious about the price tag, always calculating how much it will cost them in India and on this count they were not willing to pick up any. They were also very conscious about what their daughter and son in law will comment with regard to the price. I noticed that they were dragged between equal and opposite forces – on one side emotional need to buy something for their granddaughter, and on the other side the commercial value of the thing they wanted to buy.

I explained to them that their emotional value should outweigh their commercial value for the product!

Next minute they walked out of the shop with a nice frock for their granddaughter!

Things may have a price tag, but emotions do not have price tags! You cannot put a price for anything and everything!

N C Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com

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Is your communication useful and interesting?

“Write to be understood, speak to be heard, read to grow.”
 Lawrence Clark Powell

I was conducting a workshop for school teachers on how to ‘electrify’ their classroom. Often teachers complain that they are not able to retain the attention span of their students. Some teachers regret that they have chosen a wrong subject to teach since many students don’t like the same. Yet, I pointed to them, there are teachers who became legends in teaching a very dry subject.

I explained to the teachers that we are human beings and what makes us unique is our ability to communicate. Communication is not just delivering a message. Even an electronic gadget can do this. We are not electronic gadgets!

Next time when you feel that others did not rate the quality of your communication as good enough, check the following parameters:
•    Is the content of your communication useful to those who listen to you?
•    Is the process of your communication interesting to your audience?

You may have to deliver a message which is useful to your audience, yet they may not be interested in listening to you. This is where your communication skill will become relevant. This principle is relevant whether you speak or write to communicate.

At the end of any communication, small or big, evaluate yourself on these two important parameters!

N C Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com
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Are you relevant and useful?

“It doesn't really matter who you used to be, what matters is who you've become.”
 Robert Tew

I take the trash to the trash yard where the residents who live in that housing colony bring their trash and dump them into a large container. Periodically the same is removed.

Every day I notice some new item dumped there. One day I will see an old chair and on another day a sofa set. Yet another day I saw a microwave oven and an ironing table. Obviously the owner of these things found the same unnecessary in their apartments.
I was listing the various reasons why anybody would through away these things to the trash yard. I listed the following common sense reasons:
•    They occupied space without offering any service.
•    They outlived their purpose and hence not required.
•    The owner had something more useful and effective than these items and hence threw them away.
•    They are defective and hence cannot be repaired or it is cheaper to replace them than to repair!

When I stood there I was reflecting as to how many of these reasons will apply to us also! Our presence to wherever we live should add value to the people who keep us – whether it is an organisation or our relatives. The day we are not relevant to them for any reason, we may have to leave that place either on our own or get rejected!

Think: are you useful and helpful to your people and hence valuable so that you don’t become a ‘human trash’!
N C Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com
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Learn Public Speaking

It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
 Mark Twain

Public Speaking is an important skill to be developed.  Many people are afraid of public speaking next only to death! As you go up in your life, you will have many occasions to make presentations to convince people. In some functional areas such as marketing and customer service, this presentation skill assumes a very important dimension in career growth.

Many of us honestly believe that speaking is a natural skill, since we have been speaking right from the time we are born. For many of us it may not be true. Public Speaking is an art. Like you learnt cycling and typing, you can also learn to be a good public speaker.

Here’s another simple exercise. Deliver a ‘one-minute speech’ to a tape recorder and listen to your own voice and evaluate. Recall your role model, who is a good public speaker and visualise how he will deliver the same speech. Try this exercise at periodic intervals and make continuous improvement. Watch your presentation skill growing!

Start today!

(From my book '100 Exciting Ways to Live')
 
NC Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com
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Learn to Practice Silence

Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the Gods.
 Ralph Waldo Emerson

Have you heard the old adage ‘speech is silver and silence is gold’? Here’s a very difficult exercise – keeping quiet! Set your timer and decide not to speak even one word during the next one hour. You will realise how difficult is this ‘easy’ exercise.

The ability to speak is a unique gift, which only human beings have which distinguishes us from other living things. But it is also the most misused and over used skill. When you practice silence, you will notice that it substantially enhances your focus and energy. You may question how your energy and speaking are connected to each other, but it is true. In addition, this ‘self-imposed silent hour’ will also give you the gift of ‘thinking time’.

A journalist friend of mine maintains complete silence every Wednesday and he says that it is his ‘writing day’.

There is another context, where you can practice silence, that is, when others speak. Some people cannot wait for others to complete their communication and will interrupt. From today notice if you also belong to this ‘club’!
(From my book '100 Exciting Ways to Live')


N C Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com
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Develop Flexibility

Thus, flexibility, as displayed by water, is a sign of life. Rigidity, its opposite, is an indicator of death.
 Anthony Lawlor

Flexibility is a very important trait. If there is life, there will be flexibility. A live plant or tree is flexible. If the tree is chopped and dried, it becomes inflexible. So is the case of a human body. As long as there is life, the human body is flexible.

I come across people, who do not like even small changes in their daily life. They want to sit in the same seat, eat the same food, meet the same people during lunch, etc. There are some people, who will be very inflexible even in very small things like the tea cups they use and the route they take to office. 

Try this from today. Take a different route to your office. Sit in a table different from where you used to sit in the canteen. Dress differently. Eat in a different restaurant. Order a different food and enjoy. If you have a home office, change the direction of the table and notice how you feel. If you feel shy to speak to new people, get yourself introduced to the first stranger you meet today!

Do it today!
(From my book '100 Exciting Ways to Live')
N C Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com
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Carry a ‘My Mistakes’ Book!

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honourable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
George Bernard Shaw

There is a very powerful NLP Presupposition: ‘There is no such thing as failure, only feedback’. Failures and mistakes teach us more than what success and right actions could teach. As we carry on with our various activities, we may commit mistakes and there could be slips. Error is human.

Why don’t you jot down at least one mistake you do every day? For example, ‘today, I shouted at my colleague unnecessarily’, ‘ I forgot to charge my cell phone and went through a crisis and tension unnecessarily’, ‘ I misplaced my air ticket and searched for it with hardly an hour left for the flight departure’  etc.

By this exercise you will develop an attitude to notice small mistakes and this is a very important trait in successful people. As you start noticing such small mistakes, you will become very careful at a very unconscious level and you will also improve an eye for details. 

Try this from today!

N C Sridharan
(From my book '100 Exciting Ways to Live')
www.thetimefoundation.com
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Carry a Book of Learning!

Learning never exhausts the mind.
 Leonardo da Vinci

Some time back I wrote about an idea book, which I suggested that you carry it wherever you go and jot down every idea that pops up in your mind.

How about a ‘learning book’? The other day I met a very important person, who showed me a book in which he writes every day, what new thing he learns on that day.  A learning book registers something you learn every day.

Suppose you miss a flight, write down one new thing you learnt while you went through the tension of missing the flight. If you meet with a minor accident, jot down what you learnt out of that experience. If you mess up something in the office and your boss shouts at you, jot down one learning point.

Once in every month read all the learning points that you’ve registered and you will be stunned at the richness of the experience!

It’s a simple, yet powerful self-improvement plan.

Do it from today!
N C Sridharan
(From my book '100 Exciting Ways to Live')

www.thetimefoundation.com
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