Category: motivation

Have you ever been told that your idea is impossible? Remember the Chinese proverb: “The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.” In other words, don’t let the doubters hold you back from taking action.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna says (Chapter 2, Verse 47): “You have the right to work, but never to the fruit of work.” So, our focus must be on putting in our best effort without getting hung up on the outcome.

But let’s be real – sometimes, despite our best efforts, things just don’t go as planned. In those moments: Karma Yoga to the rescue! This is the philosophy that teaches us to perform our duties with dedication and detachment, without getting too attached to the outcome.

So, next time someone tells us our idea is impossible, remember the Chinese proverb, channel your inner Karma Yogi, and go for it anyway. And if it doesn’t work out, well… at least we can say we tried!

In an NBA post-match press conference recently, star baller Giannis Antetokounmpo was quizzed by a journalist, on failure. The usual, “would you consider this a failure now that you’ve lost this important game?”

The NBA star countered beautifully.

He asks the journalist if he gets promoted every year at work. Of course not!

And so if you do not get promoted at work one year, then are you considered a failure? Is that year considered a failure? Of course not!

It’s just one stepping stone after another on the path to success.

Nay, traversing the path itself is success!

While it’s easy to say we need to relax and breathe when the punches flow fast and thick, is there something we can keep in mind to make the process easier?

Sure.

One, is to practise getting many punches. Keep putting out our best work, and be shameless in seeking feedback, no matter how bad or good.

Two, is to keep moving. Not to evade the punches, but to grow from them. To use the message for improvement, while ignoring the messenger and their mode of delivery.

Three, is to always remember that our work is what we do, and not who we are. If we take things too personally, that’s a setup waiting for disaster. As Keynes said, in the long run, we’re all dead. So no tension!

How do we take punches? Not literal ones. Just the ones where we get negative feedback.

Even though we’ve done our very best, there are things outside our control. Our intent might have been perfect, but sometimes stuff does hit the fan.

Can we do anything about it now? If the answer is no, then it might be a good idea to just relax and take a chill pill.

If you are someone who is creative and imaginative, then it’s likely you are going to conjure up some wild images of the worst that could happen.

As they say, fear is just imagination taking a wrong turn.

It’s okay to get bad criticism. Or negative reviews. It’s not the end of the world. The world honestly couldn’t care less. If we didn’t care much either, we’d bounce back in no time.

But is this all there is to it? More tomorrow!

Success in life is plenty about “who you know”.

Everyone knows this, and most people hence try to keep knocking on as many doors as possible, hoping someone will suddenly notice them and give them a pot of gold.

Nope, not how the real world works, according to a book on success that I had the chance to flip through at a bookstore.

“Who you know” comes from “who you are” and “what you have to offer”.

“Who we are” is a function of our values and ethics.

“What we have to offer” is a function of the work we do.

If we work on these two aspects, then everything else, success included, will follow.

There are many ways to be disciplined.

You can do things every year. Every minute, every hour. Every week, every month.

But none of these are as good as a single day.

The sun rises and sets with a rhythm. It’s observable, and we humans “get it”.

If success is in our crosshairs, all we need to do, is to keep building our body of work, day after day after day, and before you know it, years will have gone by, with all that work having turned to gold.

But is it easy?

As the comedian Russell Brand says, “One day at a time. It sounds so simple. It actually is simple but it isn’t easy: it requires incredible support and fastidious structuring. “

How many will remember us once we are no more?

Maybe a few close ones, and that too for a very short period of time.

Life soon goes on.

People find ways to cope, and over 99% of the people in your life wouldn’t even think about you anymore.

All the stress and anxiety you put yourself through in order to please these same others…. Poof!

It will help to think of all this the next time we stress about something. Who are we really living for?

While we know we should not quit, it is important to identify where all our efforts need to be put in first.

There are many things we chase after – money, status, promotion, bonus, relationships, properties and what not.

We cannot get eveything. But we can perhaps get what we want if we choose wisely and work with full focus.

This choosing, implicitly involves “quitting” some things. Which is great.

But my Guru says that all of these need to be quit. Not necessarily physically, but mentally. All the attachments to the material world need to be quit. It takes an insane amount of grit to do that. More than the grit required to succeed in any material discipline.

So, from a spiritual point of view, it’s really not a question of Grit versus Quit. It’s always Grit and Quit.

This is the question posed to us in a very interesting book called Quit, by Annie Duke.

We’ve been told since forever, that we just shouldn’t give up. Perseverance is the key to success. Quitting is for losers. If you give up, the world has no place for you. And on and on, there’s so many of these messages and quotes and what not – we’ve all been at the receiving end of many of such.

But Annie is one of the best poker players in the world, and she knows a thing or two about quitting. If you’ve played poker, you know that no matter how much luck you have on your side, you can’t keep winning every single game.

She summarizes beautifully:

Success does not lie in sticking to things. It lies in picking the right thing to stick to and quitting the rest.

But where does spirituality fit in to this? Find out here tomorrow!

Was reading an interview by Satya Nadella, the current CEO of Microsoft.

The question he was asked was whether early in in his career after joining Microsoft, did he think he would make CEO some day?

Mr Nadella’s answer was awesome, because he said he never even once thought about becoming CEO, as he was focused purely on excelling in his current (at the time) work.

Here’s his killer advice in his own words:

Don't wait for your next job to do your best work. 

We can even remove the words “for your next job” from the above sentence, and it would be great advice for anything and everything we do in life!

Yes, you know who that is? Who’s 100% successful?

Why, it’s you of course!

If you’re reading this, it means that you have succeeded against all odds, all failures, all problems, and have still made it to today.

You are 100% successful at not having been defeated by your worst days.

Isn’t that such an optimistic thought?

What can you not achieve in the future, with such an untouchable inimitable success rate behind you?

What do you think the ideal height of a basketballer should be? What about the height of a pro basketballer? And what of one who plays for the world famous all star Harlem Globetrotters? 7 feet? Or 6 and a half feet? Or at least 6 feet right?

Maybe you’ve never heard of Mani Love then. His height? Wait for it…

4 feet, 5 inches.

Think I’m kidding? Please watch a few YouTube videos of his. Like maybe this one.

It’s insane what he can do. Some of his moves, no 7-footer can ever pull off.

But if we were limited to 4 feet 5, would we have the belief in ourselves to achieve what he has?

What other self-imposed limitations are impeding us today?

Raising the bat is common in cricket, when the batsman scores a 100 runs. A century.

The batters raise their bats if they score 200 or 300 as well, or even more.

But there was one occasion where a batter raised his bat after scoring just 1 run.

Yes, your read that right, one, not one hundred.

Why?

Because in his prior 6 innings, he had got out for a duck, i.e. a grand score of zero.

It would have been a problem only if this guy didn’t come out to bat the 7th time around. But he did. And he celebrated that 1 run with aplomb!

A great lesson for me in persistence, and in self-deprecating humor. ????