My dear friends,
I wish to share with you all a ‘Mantra’ that I shared with the graduands during GLIM’s Convocation on 18 May 2016. It is a tiny mantra against “The Bhagavad Gita” which has become a compulsory core course for every student in Seton Hall University in New Jersey, USA having > 10,800 students. The mantra is that “All the external managements have to be preceded by Self-Management.”
After joining their jobs, many of the entrants are sent for corporate training programs some of which are grossly misnomered. For instance, Time Management. Time is an irretrievable resource and there can be no inventory management in it. You can only ‘self-manage’ to be punctual and to be time bound. Another example is Stress Management. Can you manage stress after it is created? You have to depend only on doctors from headache to cancer. According to an authority on stress-related diseases, cancer is the end product of non-forgiveness. The secret is to ‘self-manage’ so as not to create stress, anger or hurt by you, within you. How do you do this? Foremost is the awareness that you are the creator of all these emotions.
On his first day in office as President, when Abraham Lincoln entered to deliver his inaugural address, a fellow stood up and said “Mr. Lincoln, you should not forget that your father used to make shoes for me and my family” The whole Senate laughed. Lincoln said “Sir, I know that and I also know that there was never ever any complaint from any of his clients including your family. He was a genius and he used to pour his heart and soul in to his job. I am so proud of him. “Let me see to what extent I can reach his creativity and perfection while presiding over the United States.” No one can hurt you without your consent.
Buddha was known to be beyond hurt. One day one visitor took up the challenge and started hurling abuses at him till he was himself totally tired. Finally he said Oh! Buddha you are still smiling, you have no self-respect. Buddha replied with the same smile “It is like this. If you offer me an apple and I don’t accept, where will the apple go? The visitor replied “obviously it would remain with me.” Buddha said “it is exactly the same with abuses; they have all remained with you”
The Blame Game
Unfortunately, we are all caught up in a blame game. We make some body responsible for our hurt, anger and stress. This starts from early childhood. Can you imagine a 2-1/2 year old child telling her grandfather “Nani has hurt me inside. She says she will not give me ice-cream until I finish my food”. We smile it off. We also help the child nurture a ‘belief system’ of blaming others for any hurt caused. Whenever she falls down and gets hurt, we go and hit the floor or the obstacle to console her. We never explain her that she fell down due to her own lack of attention.
If we don’t find a person or an object, we start blaming the circumstances. Do we really have to? Let me give you an example. Recently, in an award function where a renowned doctor was being felicitated, he shared his life story. He said he grew up in an extremely poor family who were not sure of the next day meal. He had an elder brother who was always blaming his father and turned alcoholic. His younger brother went into depression losing all hopes from life. This man thought the only way for him was to study hard and become a doctor, if possible, not only to get over the poverty but also to treat both of his brothers one day. He used to borrow books from his friends when they were playing or enjoying their picnics. He studied under the lamp-posts and struggled through. He attributed full credit of his success to the extreme poverty. The wind may blow from any direction, but the direction in which you go depends on how you set the sails. Setting the sails is Self-management or more precisely the Thoughts-management.
Egolessness
Egolessness is one issue which confuses the youngsters as well as the grown-ups. Should they not be proud of their higher qualifications, superior skills, long and rich experience etc? Should they compromise on their self-esteem in order to avoid ego clashes? These doubts arise out of the ignorance of a fine line between ego and self-esteem. If you are contributing in a meeting and if you say “This is the best idea” it is ego. But if you say “This is my best idea” it is self-esteem. You can keep your self-esteem intact by giving space to others’ self-esteem.
Willpower
At times you start feeling that you lack “Willpower”. You lack determination, resolve and strength of will. In order to explore this, you should start examining your own daily routine. You want to get up at 6. You put an alarm and the bell rings. You choose to close it and sleep for another half an hour, 45 min. or more. You finally get up and it is time to brush and go for a morning walk. You compromise on a bed tea. Now the daily newspaper arrives. You get tempted to see at least the headlines and the sidelines and the interesting lines. Morning walk gets postponed to the next day and you somehow reach office 15 min. late even after skipping the shave. You think 15 min. late is allowed, and you are still in the comfort zone! Now pause and look back, wherefrom the “power of will” can emerge and cultivate, if you go on ignoring the inner voice? So, if you want to be powerfully self-managed, you will have to:
- Revisit your ‘belief-systems’ and alter them to the extent necessary.
- Revisit your ‘so called’ comfort zones and see if their shells can crack under the resonance of your own Inner Voice.
- And have a better control on your ‘thought factory’ which is generating 25 thoughts/min. or 36,000 thoughts /day.
Best wishes and Regards,
Dr. B.S.K.Naidu
BE(Hons), M.Tech., Ph.D., CBI-Scholar, D.Engg. (Calif.), FNAE, Hon.D.WRE (USA)
Chairman Emeritus, Great Lakes, Gurgaon, NCR, New Delhi, INDIA
Former Director General (NPTI & CPRI) Govt. of India
No job is small or big, the way in which you do, makes it small or big (c)
Great Lakes Institute of Management 