Inventing joy. What brings you joy? Is there a story that stops you from doing those things? A narrative, some reasons (maybe excuses), the delays, the people, the rationalisation? Do you want to invent another story, one that allows you to experience joy? Who'd be the hero of the story?
Bad decision mode. When we are on low energy, or feeling low self-esteem, or when things feel like spinning out of control, that's a sign to stop everything and simply rest and recharge. Ironically, that's when our mind feels is the best time to make significant decisions. It
Good enough to ship? Done is better than good. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic. Done is, of course, better than perfect. Perfect is a trap. It's a figment of our imagination. It doesn't exist. It can't exist. It only exists to keep us from shipping. But, done is also
You are the gift. When you show up as a teacher, you are the gift that the student was looking for. The one who would help her learn a skill, create an environment of curiosity, help her do things she didn’t think she could do. When you show up as an artist, you
Beyond fear. When 2 people (or organisations or even countries) are afraid, they put up their defences and it feels like both are walking on eggshells. Every gesture becomes a potential threat and is likely to be shot down. The fear becomes the story on its own. The calculating selves take over
Which version? Which version is you? The one who is your best self, the one who wants to make things better, the one who is ambitious, generous and seeks to be a contribution. Or the one who wants to fit in, to shrink, to hide, to not offend anyone, to be just
Walk with spirit and love. Rosamund Stone Zander teaches 5 infinite games in her book, Pathways to Possibility. These games have the capability of helping us loosen the grip of the critical voice and help us find agency and connect with possibility. One of the games is to "walk with spirit and love"
Feeling at home. There are people who make you feel at home. They may be friends or you might be meeting them for the first time. It's the way they interact with you, the warmth they bring with their presence. Each of us has that opportunity everyday. To make someone feel
"There is all the time in the world." An excerpt from Pathways to Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander: “The game with no goal and no limits, called “there is all the time in the world,” has the power to get you back in step, to bring you back to your center, to connect you once more with a
Working with resistance. When we are doing ambitious work, work that may make things better for those who we seek to serve, without a doubt resistance would show up too. It will distract us with tasks and chores and do whatever it can to keep us from doing the work. What we can
Transactional relationships. There are certain people and organizations who want only a transactional relationship. Everything is linear. You pay, this is what you get. We are not friends. We are not we, we are you and I. Then there are some who build connection, who invest in a we story. It’s
Energy management. Most of our work is managing our energy. Finding things and people and places that energise us and distinguishing them from the ones that require energy. If all we are doing is engaging with the latter, it's no wonder that we feel drained all the time. The reality
Grit / Quit. Here's Annie Duke from her book Quit: "That’s the funny thing about grit. While grit can get you to stick to hard things that are worthwhile, grit can also get you to stick to hard things that are no longer worthwhile. The trick is in figuring
That happened. Now what? You were late to a meeting you were not supposed to be late at. You made a mistake in the slides to the client. You didn't reply back to the email you should have replied to. And now it's too late. Now what? You can beat
Working with insecurity. Insecurity will show up, in all of us, from Frank Sinatra to Tom Hanks, to you and me, to some degree. We have little control over the feeling. It will show up when the limbic part of our brain senses threat, whether or not the threat is real or not.
Quitting is not easy. Especially when you are invested in something with all your heart. But sticking to it even when you know that there is almost no likelihood that it would work is taking away from yourself the chance to work on something better, something worth pursuing. Again, it's not easy.
The desire to fit in. Affiliation, the desire to fit in, is a strong force. As Seth Godin puts it in This is Marketing, it can be explained in seven words: "People like us do things like these". Many times, though, we default into the "people like us" and the "
States of consciousness. At times, we experience a version of the self which is content and secure. It is not afraid. It wants to be generous, to take risks and to be on the hook. It seeks to ask, “How can I be a contribution here?” Then, we also experience a version which
Let go. Letting go is an adult game. Toddlers can't play it. For the toddler, it's a matter of life or death. Even or especially if it's a story it's telling itself. And the toddler part of ourselves is no different. It attaches itself
Time travel backpack. If you pack a bag to travel across time, maybe to give it to a past self or a future version of yourself, what would you take? If I had to pack the bag it would mostly consist of books. The minimum version would have at least these: 1. This
The one you don't want to choose. When making decisions, we are biased towards certain choices and against others. This bias interferes with making a strategic decision. Many times, it's the choice you don't want to make that makes the most sense. And it might require courage and patience to make the right
An employee in the myth of “you” In an interview with David Letterman, actor Shahrukh Khan (SRK) said, “I am an employee in the myth of Shahrukh Khan” Your best self might be an employee in the myth of you. What is the story (myth) you are working on? How can you build it like a professional
When do you decide? Do you make decisions when you are low on energy, low on self-esteem, tired or stressed? Or when you are feeling like your best self, engaging with abundance and possibility? Our future is a reflection of our decision making. It matters when and where we make them.
Where to? Can we answer the "where to" without the "where from" and the "how would we"? Are we able to express our desires and intentions irrespective of our circumstances? The logistics matter, but they come later. First, we need to figure out where are we
Project mindset. Life gets better when we approach things with a project mindset. We define what the project is for, we identify what needs to happen so that it might work, we become aware of the constraints and the unknowns, and we show up with intent. On the contrary, the job mindset
