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Words. Wisdom. Winners.
The Golem Effect
The Golem effect is intuitive.
If a supervisor or the individual themselves have lower expectations, then it leads to poorer performance by the individual.
It’s the Pygmalion effect that isn’t so obvious.
That if a supervisor or the individual themselves have higher expectations from themselves, it leads to higher performance by the individual.
We can understand how someone can lower their performance. But how can someone deliver higher performance? Isn’t there an upper limit to how much one can do?
Asking the question about the upper limit is precisely where the Pygmalion effect comes in. There is no upper limit. There are no limits.
Can you play that role for someone out there? When the entire world, including themselves, is bashing them up, can you act as the one who says, “I believe in you. Your capabilities. Your intent. Your potential.”
“And I know you will make it”
We don’t need 10,000 reasons why we will fail. We need the 1 reason why we will win!
The mirror
As we live our lives, we create an image of who we are, for our own selves.
We live by that image, stick to that image, believe that image to be permanent and true.
And rarely stop to ask ourselves, what if there is no image. What if there is no me.
If I didn’t create this image of myself in my own head, who would I be?
At some point of time in our life, we were introduced to the mirror.
That was the first time we saw ourselves.
The first time we created an image of ourselves in our own head.
And from then on, we have continued to hold that mirror in front of us, reinforcing the image.
Who were we, before the mirror was invented?
Would you be proud of it?
If your life were to be made into a movie, would you be proud of it?
The question isn’t whether it will do well at the box office, or flop. Whether it will win awards or not. Whether it will be loved by critics or not.
Would you be proud of it?
Living life everyday abstracts us from the highlights that we create. Highlights that will form the basis for any 90 minutes representation of our entire life.
Those big decisions, those meaningful relationships, those turning points.
We get so busy living our lives that we rarely stop to see the milestones we are leaving behind.
And a movie will do just that.
Pick up the milestones and create a narrative around them.
Would you be proud of it?
If your life were to become a movie, would you be its biggest critic or biggest fan?
3 things I have learnt from the Corona Virus
One
The world is global in ways we can’t imagine now. What started in a rather unknown city of China in Dec is in 112 countries by March.
We are no longer separated by land, water and air. We are connected by these very same elements.
Two
We suffer more in imagination than we do in reality.
People, for most part, has been paranoid. Of course there is reason to worry, to take precautions.
However, the extent of ill information floating around, the desperate need for conspiracy theories, the mindless accumulation of masks and sanitizers and toilet paper – shows the fragility of the human mind, yet again.
Three
The smartest, most capable individuals all across the world, would have made the most robust plans in December, for 2020.
None of these plans will materialise.
None of these plans will work.
It is not the one with the best plan that wins.
It is the one with the most responsive mindset that wins. The one who doesn’t fixate on the plan. Instead, realises the plan is the means. Not the end.
Reminder to the world
Those who worry before it is necessary, worry more than it is necessary
– Seneca
3 men make a tiger
If you are walking and someone comes up and says, “look there is a tiger out there”, you won’t believe them.
If 2 people came up to you separately and said, “look there is a tiger out there”, you will begin to wonder.
And if 3 people came up to you separately and said, “look there is a tiger”, you would believe them.
– Chinese Proverb
All it takes is just 3 people for you to believe a lie.
How many people are lying to you?
How many lies have you accepted as the truth?
Solve for the exception
Imagine you are trying to arrange for a get together with 20 other friends.
And you are responsible for deciding the date and time. So you set out to decide a certain date and time and then share it with everyone, asking “is everyone ok with this?”
And the barrage of reactions start. I am ok. I am ok. I am ok. And then somewhere down this stream, someone says, “can we change it to xyz.”
That’s the first instance of something valuable, right? Because you now know what to fix?
Imagine, you are trying to get feedback n your newly launched product.
You go to all your customers and ask them, “do you like the product?”
Most of them say yes. Until someone says, “actually no. And here is why.”
That’s the first instance of valuable feedback.
It is evident that what we are solving for is the exception. The small percentage that doesn’t agree with us.
And yet, what we ask for, is consensus.
We ask for how many agree with us, when what is useful is the small percentage that doesn’t agree with us.
“Is there anyone for whom this date and time doesn’t work?”
“Is there anyone for whom this product doesn’t work?”
Seek the exceptions. Because that’s what you have to solve for.
The problem
Go back to the time when you failed, when you lost, when you didn’t make it. It was likely as part of the reflection, you blamed someone else.
If only they had not done it. If only the had done it. If only they didn’t say this. If only the had said this. If only they didn’t behave this way. If only they had reacted.
Here is a reminder
Other people are not the problem.
It’s the belief that other problem are the problem, which is the problem!
Are we listening?
People tell us exactly who they are. All the time.
But we don’t listen.
Because we want them to be who we think they are. Who we want them to be.
Not who they truly are.
If only we listened.
No one was born knowing how to…
I see our kids and it’s evident that love is a natural emotion they are born with. The need to bond, to respond, to care, to acknowledge, to display.
But what isn’t natural, is hate.
To differentiate. To judge. To segregate. To distinguish. Based on color, caste, religion, how people speak, how they look, where they come from.
So all that the hate that we see in the world today, was taught!
Hate has been taught! To every single child in this world, that grows up to hate someone or something.
That is pretty hard hitting. It shows that we all collectively failed at some point of time.
We turned a natural born good emotion into a mix of good and bad.
We taught ours kids to hate.
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