i-TFTD #30: Bless You My Friends

Recent leadership literature and medicinal research reports promote having an "attitude of gratitude". We tend to take for granted whatever we have and crave after what we don't. Sometimes a dose of facts helps put things in perspective and have a better sense of proportion. The following helps in that.

 Bless You My Friends
 --------------------

 If you woke up this morning
 with more health than illness,
 you are more blessed than the
 million who won't survive the week.

 If you have never experienced
 the danger of battle,
 the loneliness of imprisonment,
 the agony of torture or
 the pangs of starvation,
 you are ahead of 20 million people
 around the world.

 If you attend a church meeting
 without fear of harassment,
 arrest, torture, or death,
 you are more blessed than almost
 three billion people in the world.

 If you have food in your refrigerator,
 clothes on your back, a roof over
 your head and a place to sleep,
 you are richer than 75% of this world.

 If you have money in the bank,
 in your wallet, and spare change
 in a dish someplace, you are among
 the top 8% of the world's wealthy.

 If your parents are still married and alive,
 you are very rare,
 especially in the United States.

 If you hold up your head with a smile
 on your face and are truly thankful,
 you are blessed because the majority can,
 but most do not.

 If you can hold someone's hand, hug them
 or even touch them on the shoulder,
 you are blessed because you can
 offer God's healing touch.

 If you can read this message,
 you are more blessed than over
 two billion people in the world
 that cannot read anything at all.

 You are so blessed in ways
 you may never even know.

i-TFTD #29: Acres of Diamonds

Every kind of work has enormous opportunity lurking within it. The opportunities are there now, clamoring to be noticed. But they cannot speak or print signs for us to read. Our part of the bargain is to look at our work with "intelligent objectivity". If we have the wisdom and patience to intelligently, effectively explore the work in which we're now engaged, to explore ourselves, we would most likely find the riches we seek.

by ? (I have heard this from many sources, including motivational authors Earl Nightingale and Shiv Khera)

The story — a true one — is told of an African farmer who heard tales about other farmers who had made millions by discovering diamond mines. These tales so excited the farmer that he could hardly wait to sell his farm and go prospecting for diamonds himself. He sold the farm and spent the rest of his life wandering the African continent searching unsuccessfully for the gleaming gems that brought such high prices on the markets of the world. Finally, worn out and in a fit of despondency, he threw himself into a river and drowned.

Meanwhile, the man who had bought his farm happened to be crossing the small stream on the property one day, when suddenly there was a bright flash of blue and red light from the stream bottom. He bent down and picked up a stone. It was a good-sized stone, and admiring it, he brought it home and put it on his fireplace mantel as an interesting curiosity.

Several weeks later a visitor picked up the stone, looked closely at it, hefted it in his hand, and nearly fainted. He asked the farmer if he knew what he'd found. When the farmer said, no, that he thought it was a piece of crystal, the visitor told him he had found one of the largest diamonds ever discovered. The farmer had trouble believing that. He told the man that his creek was full of such stones, not all as large as the one on the mantel, but sprinkled generously throughout the creek bottom.

The farm the first farmer had sold, so that he might find a diamond mine, turned out to be one of the most productive diamond mines on the entire African continent. The first farmer had owned, free and clear... acres of diamonds. But he had sold them for practically nothing, in order to look for them elsewhere. The moral is clear: If the first farmer had only taken the time to study and prepare himself to learn what diamonds looked like in their rough state, and to thoroughly explore the property he had before looking elsewhere, all of his wildest dreams would have come true.

The thing about this story that has so profoundly affected millions of people is the idea that each of us is, at this very moment, standing in the middle of our own acres of diamonds. If we had only had the wisdom and patience to intelligently and effectively explore the work in which we're now engaged, to explore ourselves, we would most likely find the riches we seek, whether they be financial or intangible or both.

Before you go running off to what you think are greener pastures, make sure that your own is not just as green or perhaps even greener. It has been said that if the other guy's pasture appears to be greener than ours, it's quite possible that it's getting better care. Besides, while you're looking at other pastures, other people are looking at yours.

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Important point brought out in a simple story. Exploring and celebrating what we have, as opposed to things we do not seem to have, is a sensible attitude. Today's ultra-competitive environment seems to foster a behavior of silly comparison in everything. "Oh, did you buy that for $23? I paid $24 last month." In my daughter's school I have encountered parents who want to know the marks of other children before that of their own child.

i-TFTD #28

#28-1. To increase fear - wait, put off, postpone. To fight fear, act.
-David J. Schwartz

#28-2. Winners are those people who make a habit of doing the things losers are uncomfortable doing.
-Ed Foreman

#28-3. What one does is what counts and not what one had the intention of doing.
-Pablo Picasso

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Action orientation, especially aimed at completion of the boring, the unpleasant and the difficult, is a key characteristic of successful persons. We are told it can be cultivated as a habit.

How many times we end up explaining what we meant to do, what we thought, what we attempted, what assumptions drove our actions etc.? This is a typical mistake seen in a customer support environment. The customer or our managers are initially more interested in knowing what will be done, what needs to be done, how to resolve the issue. The time for analysis of the past circumstances is later, after resolving the issue at hand, when we want to identify preventive action for the future or assign accountability.

i-TFTD #27: Something Plus Acceptance

When someone is doing something or about to do something, in a way I don't want it to be done -- and I am not able to accept it -- I become angry.

When someone is doing something or about to do something, in a way I don't want it to be done -- and I am able to accept it -- I remain tolerant.

When someone is having something or someone is able to produce the results which I am not able to produce:
If I am not able to accept it, I become jealous;
If I am able to accept it, I get inspired.

When I am encountering uncertainty or is about to encounter uncertainty, which I am not sure how I am going to handle:
If I am not able to accept it, it causes fear in me;
If I am able to accept it, I feel adventurous about it.

When someone has done something that has emotionally hurt me:
If I am not able to accept it, it develops hatred in me;
If I am able to accept it, it helps me forgive them.

When someone is present in my thoughts, but is not physically present:
If I am not able to accept it, I say I am missing you;
If I am able to accept it, I say I am thinking of you.

Thus, Emotional Equation becomes:

Something + acceptance = positive emotion

Something + non-acceptance = negative emotion

So, it is not something or someone who is making me feel positive or negative, but it's my acceptance or non-acceptance of something or someone, which impacts things.

_____
Basic fact needed for spiritual and even psychological maturity. We accept its logic when we read it but are we able to practise its lesson?

Sometimes one wonders what is the difference between passive non-confrontation (out of fear) and positive acceptance and tolerance. I guess the difference is how it makes me feel in the long term. If I am uncomfortable or resentful for a long time, I probably avoided something in the guise of acceptance. If I am able to dispassionately look back and analyze the situation, and feel satisfied that I made a mature choice, then it could be an indicator of true acceptance.

i-TFTD #26: You are staring at your blindspots

I don't know who discovered water, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't a fish.
-Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980), media critic & writer

Something to consider:

Just like a fish can't see the water it's swimming in, you can't see the world immediately in front of you. It takes someone with a different perspective to point it out. These people can see opportunities that you can't see. They can see pitfalls that you can' t see. They can see them, ironically, because they aren't staring at them every day.

Something to try:

1. Sit down with a sharp person from another industry (or department or role).
2. Describe the details of a project you're working on (include your challenges).
3. Ask them to point out opportunities you might be missing.
4. Switch it up and do the same thing for them.
5. Recognize that someone else can often see the opportunities/challenges in front of you a lot easier than you can.

(Excerpted from the You are staring at your blind spots post by Doug Sundheim found in the Fastcompany blog archive.)

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A similar thought is expressed by the quote: The expert misses the obvious. I have often found that an "innocent" question from someone who is a novice in an area could throw up interesting new perspectives to explore.

Talking of novices, I also believe that our expertise in a subject is measured by whether we can successfully explain the basics of that subject to an absolute layperson. A favourite example I like to imagine is my explaining, say, user interface design as a career to my (late) grandmother.

i-TFTD #25: When Not Hearing is a Virtue

A group of frogs were travelling through the woods, and two of them fell into a deep pit. All the other frogs gathered around the pit. When they saw how deep the pit was, they told the two frogs that they were as good as dead.

The two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump up out of the pit with all of their might. The other frogs kept telling them to stop, that they were as good as dead. Finally, one of the frogs took heed to what the other frogs were saying and gave up. He fell down and died.

The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop the pain and just die. He jumped even harder and finally made it out.

When he got out, the other frogs said, "Did you not hear us?"

The frog explained to them that he was deaf. He thought they were encouraging him the entire time.

This story teaches two lessons:

1. There is power of life and death in the tongue. An encouraging word to someone who is down can lift them up and help them make it through the day.

2. A destructive word to someone who is down can be what it takes to kill them. Be careful of what you say. Speak life to those who cross your path.

The power of words... it is sometimes hard to understand that an encouraging word can go such a long way. Anyone can speak words that tend to rob another of the spirit to continue in difficult times.

Special is the individual who will take the time to encourage another.

Be Special to others.

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I think it also teaches us that we can be happier and achieve much more by choosing to tune out the negativities around us.

i-TFTD #24: Instinctive Behavior

The BUZZARD
If you put a buzzard in a pen that is 6 feet by 8 feet and is entirely open at the top, the bird, in spite of its ability to fly, will be an absolute prisoner. The reason is that a buzzard always begins a flight from the ground with a run of 10 to 12 feet. Without space to run, as is its habit, it will not even attempt to fly, but will remain a prisoner for life in a small jail with no top.

The BAT
The ordinary bat that flies around at night, a remarkably nimble creature in the air, cannot take off from a level place. If it is placed on the floor or flat ground, all it can do is shuffle about helplessly and, no doubt, painfully, until it reaches some slight elevation from which it can throw itself into the air. Then, at once, it takes off like a flash.

The BUMBLEBEE
A bumblebee, if dropped into an open tumbler, will be there until it dies, unless it is taken out. It never sees the means of escape at the top, but persists in trying to find some way out through the sides near the bottom. It will seek a way where none exists, until it completely destroys itself.

PEOPLE
In many ways, we are like the buzzard, the bat, and the bumblebee. We struggle about with all our problems and frustrations, never realizing that all we have to do is look up or outside the boundaries created by our problems to find the right solution.

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I do not the know the scientific authenticity of the facts above but it sounded thought-provoking enough to include in i-TFTD.

Leaders of teams could use this analogy to understand members of their teams: some might need a proper platform to fly, some need to be encouraged to look at the source of light, some need to see a clear "runway" before taking off...