A thought

Are you better at what you do than you were a month or two ago?

A lot better?

How did you get better? What did you read or try? Did you fail at something and learn from it? Does that mindless stuff you do at work when the boss isn’t looking make you better or just pass the time?

If you got better faster, would that be a good thing? How could you make that happen?

A lot of questions…. But the truth is that work rewards improvement. It didn’t used to. It used to reward stability.

A leader

When the leader moved on, nobody seemed to notice it. Some people said that the leader didn’t do much before – “See everything seems to work like magic without him.”

What most people missed was that the hardest thing for a leader was to make himself not required in due course.

Work AND Story

Most of the time we do the work. The work is our initiative and our reactions and our responses and our output. The work is the decisions we make and the people we hire.The work is what people talk about, because it’s what we experience. In other words, the work tells a story.

But what if you haven’t figured out a story yet?

Then the work is random. Then the story is confused or bland or indifferent and it doesn’t spread.

On the other hand, if you decide what the story is, you can do work that matches the story. Your decisions will match the story. The story will become true because you’re living it.

While the advice may end up being similar, each firm lives a story in who they hire, how they present themselves, etc.

The story creates the work and the work creates the story.

Reasons to refuse your idea

“It’s been done before”
“It’s never been done before”

Even though neither one is truthful, accurate or useful, you need to be prepared for both.

Problems

There are three ways to deal with a problem, I think.

• Lean into it.
• Lean away from it.
• Run away.

You lean into a problem, especially a long-term or difficult one, by sitting with it, reveling in it, embracing it and breathing it in. The problem becomes part of you, at least until you solve it. You try one approach and then another, and when nothing works, you stick with it and work around it as you build your organization and your life. [I don't mean you just bully the problem, or attack it. I mean that you accept it, live with it, breathe it and whittle it until you've achieved your goal. Once you start looking forward to your interactions with the problem, then you're leaning into it.]

Some people choose to lean away from the problems that nag them at home or at work. They avoid them, minimize them or criticize the cause. Put as little into it as possible and maybe it will go away.

And sometimes, a problem is so nasty or overwhelming that you just run away.

I’m a big fan of the first approach. And sometimes, quitting isn’t such a bad idea. The second approach, alas, is the one that many of us end up with by default, and the one that’s least likely to pay off.

Your life

I found these quotes today and they struck me as very profound and it sums up how I feel about life:

“Nothing is ever wrong. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.”
“Life is like a bicycle. You don’t fall off unless you stop pedaling.”

I am discovering that even my most painful events and memories serve a purpose, they helped me become who I am today. All my life I have been learning, maybe not even realizing it, but I have been making discoveries, changing and evolving, becoming more ME. I feel like I am in such a great place in my life right now, I have made connections with the past, made peace with some painful and traumatic memories, I have learned to forgive, that each of us did the best we could with what we had available at the time, I guess in some ways, I am growing up, becoming REAL. I am trying to become healthier, do more for myself and I recognize the need to put myself first. If I don’t take care of me, then I can’t take care of anyone else.

What do you say?

In two thousand oh eight…

Always focus on the positive. Never give in to negativity and darkness. Count your blessings, not your laments. Stay as warm and open and receptive as a child. Dare to go your own way, dare to be free. And in good times or bad, never be afraid to lead with your heart.

– Unknown source (May be John Travolta or Paul Chutkow)

Happy New year to you all.

With love

Gangadhar Ambati

Dyslexic

As a child he studied as hard as he could but Chemistry was something he found really hard to grasp. They wrote a test one day when he was in 7th standard. He knew he wouldn’t do well but he hoped to at least pass the test.

No such luck.

Ms. Indira (or Mindi as she was known by the students) handed out all the tests, and as per usual, saved him for last.

“Ah. Mr. Babu,” she said with her familiar smirk. “Guess what? You failed again. Am I surprised? No. Why? Because you’re an idiot. You should be at a special school because of your, uhhh, little remedial problem (Is he dyslexic!?!). You should not be here at this School. You are dropping the class average and making me look bad.”

She approached him and prodded his forehead with her stubby finger. “You irritate me.”

“Mr. Babu,” said Mindi. “Get to the front of the class and tell your classmates why you are such an idiot.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” he said.

He lowered his head and went to the front of the class.

He stood there, not knowing what to say.

“Well!” she said.

“I dunno,” he said, softly. Feeling totally humiliated.

“Typical,” came her reply. “You don’t know. Pah!”

“According to you, I’m an idiot,” he said, suddenly. “But my grandmother says I’m a genius. I wonder who I’m going to believe?”

Mindi, a rather large woman, grabbed him by the collar and propelled him out of the door. She took him down to Principal’s office where he was caned three times for insubordination and told not to show his face in his office again.

He dreamed last night that Mindi was tormenting him again. She’s been messing with his dreams for quite a long time.

He woke up that morning and decided that he’ve had enough of her. He has made a decision to retire Mindi as his tormentor. She is therefore released from duty forthwith.

It is over.

Done!

He will no longer be Mindi’s victim because, truth be told, he is not a victim. He just happened to be a little, dyslexic kid who messed with a science teacher’s beloved averages.

So long Mindi.

PS: Seen the movie, Tare zameen par recently.

A Query

If you teach a toddler that pressing your nose makes you honk, eventually he’s going to wonder what sound you make if he jabs you in the eye.

Oh! Kids!!

There’s a school a block from my house and every morning my street is over-run with ten to twelve year olds.

They laugh as they walk to school, shout and call to each other. They run between groups, their bodies busting with energy and spirit. They’re lithe and young and free, and they radiate an almost blinding vitality — their whole lives strech before them, crowded with limitless possiblities, and their exuberance can be felt in the air.

One of these days, I’m going to hide in the bushes with a hose.