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Words. Wisdom. Winners.

Calm and passionate

“She comes across as a calm kid. Must be lacking passion.”

Except that she has so much of it that she doesn’t need to prove her mettle by being boastful of it.

The greatest achievement in life is having great achievements and not feeling the need to show them. 

It requires inner strength, self belief and zero need for validation.
In other words, it requires us to be calm.

Calmness is fire transformed into action; it is not the lack of it.

Scaling up leadership

When we say, “All good things take time”, we mean it for us as individuals.

Love, finances, family, individual success.

Almost every time we miss out on how good leadership is formed: by devoting a lot of time.

As an organisation scales, if it gets easy to manage people, then the leader is almost always doing it wrong. 

People are not data points, they are human beings that thrive on empathy and being heard.

Thus, a good leader will devote time to people and make it a point to engage with them. Caring doesn’t happen occasionally; it is bred in the culture of the organisation.

Delegation of leadership does not amount to leadership. 

Good leadership, like all good things, takes time and effort.

At home or at peace?

Maybe you had a traumatic childhood.
Perhaps you can never be positive because everyone in your family is negative and toxic.
Or maybe fights at home are your daily alarm clocks.

In such cases, you may wonder how to find yourself and your happiness back?

By getting financially independent and moving out of your home.

Home is not where you were born into.
Family is not where you were born into. 

Home and family are where you belong, where you can be you, where you can be vulnerable and where love and acceptance are staples.

Moving out does not mean you do not love your family. 

It rather means that you will be able to love them only when you love yourself first.

If being “in the home” doesn’t help, moving out certainly would.

Our work and grapevines

In almost every organisation, there are grapevines.

People who think how work should be done, how others are doing it, and how it serves as a platform for them to gossip.

The sad part is, sometimes it affects the people who aren’t a part of that grapevine. 

It leads them into believing that their worth is determined by how cool they are to be a part of that group.

Except, that’s false.

Our worth is determined by what we control, our input, that is our work.
What others think is something we can never control.

A great way to level up is to remind yourself what you can control.

Somehow, everything else you cannot control loses its importance.

Entrepreneurship as a choice

“I want to start a startup because I am tired of my boss.
Just can’t wait to have no boss ever!”

This is almost always the incorrect reason to venture into entrepreneurship.

Everyone is answerable to someone, including the CEOs of top companies.

Entrepreneurship is hardly about owning a company.
It’s about our mindset even when we have a job.

Do we wait to be instructed?
Do we wait for someone else to take the lead or do we lead others by example?
Do we want others to win or is it just a sole game?

Entrepreneurship is not a profession.
It is a state of mind. 

The test of criticism

“Do you even know how I was treated?”

Perhaps very badly. That’s sad. Shouldn’t have happened.

However, if we attach what someone else did to how we feel, we are always placing others on a pedestal to make us happy. 

That’s not vulnerable; that’s rather dangerous. 

A more secure (but harder) way is to know who you are, learn from criticism (if constructive) and forgive them even if they don’t ask for it. 

It isn’t a favour to them, it is a favour for our self worth. 

People are who they are, it is up to us to be who we are.

If we truly focus on our journey, no criticism could ever shake us.

We fear failure

We all fear failure.

Most often, we aren’t afraid of failure because of the expectations we have from ourselves.

It is what others will think of us when we fail, which is what we fear. 

However, how will we ever learn to fly if we continue to live for the validation of others?
How will we ever be able to take risks if others define that risk for us?

Freeing ourselves from the image people have of us is our freedom to fail.

Do values help?

How do we operate when no one is watching?

What’s a complete no-no, even if it is an immediate gain for us?
Do we want others to win, or is it just a sole game in a team?

Values aren’t something that we just write and let it be there. 

Values are who we are – something that we would never compromise on. 

When things fall apart and values don’t, it means we are on the right track. 

More than anything else, we know we are practising them right when others know us through those.

Our values are our foundations. 

While it is lucrative to work on the building, nothing keeps the building stable if there isn’t a foundation. 

How others help us unintentionally

Managing our time, having a great attitude and unlearning and learning every day is wonderful.

However, what makes us indispensable is how we manage people (including ourselves).

Everyone is from different upbringing, different belief systems and a different approach to life. 

They offer us a new challenge everyday. 

If there is one person who benefits the most by dealing respectfully with them, it is us!
It’s hard, it requires emotional labour. 

However, that is what humans are – not a piece of code, rather, a unique permutation and combination to solve for.

Knowing ourselves is important.
Understanding others is priceless. 

Words are all we have

I often talk about the fact that we are the stories we tell ourselves.

There is, however, a corollary to that.

A king returned to his palace one fine morning after his morning walk in the jungle. Upon reaching the palace, he discovered that his horse was lost.

He immediately sent his minister to search for the horse in the jungle. The minister saw a blind man outside the jungle and asked him, “Hey you blind man, did you happen to hear the sound of bells around a horse’s feet? Did a horse pass from here?”, to which the blind man replied, “No, I didn’t.”

After the minister didn’t return, the king sent his viceroy next. 

The viceroy saw a blind man outside the jungle and asked him, “Hey you blind man, did you happen to hear the sound of bells around a horse’s feet? Did a horse pass from here?”, to which the blind man replied, “No, I didn’t.”

Finally, the king took matters in his own hands and headed for the jungle. He saw the same blind man and asked him, “Hey Mahatma, did you happen to hear the sound of bells, indicating that a horse passed by?”, to which the blind man responded, “No His Highness, I didn’t!” 

Perplexed, the king asked him, “How do you know I am the King?”
“Through the words you used for me,” came the succinct response.

The stories we get to hear are the stories we tell others.

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