Secrets of Success

Chapter 1

Revelation

Alexander, after conquering several kingdoms, was returning home. On the way back he got unwell and his deteriorating condition took him to death bed. With death staring at him, Alexander realized how his achievements, possessions and conquests all of a sudden were of no use. He now wanted to somehow reach home as he longed for his mother. However, he knew his sinking health will not allow this to happen.

As he lay in hopeless condition, he called for his generals and said, I will soon depart from this world, however I will like you to fulfill my last three wishes.

My first desire is that, he continued, my physicians alone must carry my coffin. After a pause, he said, next, I desire that when my coffin is being carried to the grave, the path leading to the graveyard be strewn with gold, silver and precious stones which I have collected in my treasury.

The king rested for a minute and continued, My third and last wish is that both my hands be kept hanging out of my coffin. The people who had gathered there wondered at the king’s strange wishes. But no one dare ask him. Alexander’s favorite general kissed his hand and asked, O king, we assure you that all your wishes will be fulfilled. But tell us why do you make such strange wishes? At this Alexander took a deep breath and said, I would like the world to know of the three lessons I have just learnt.

Lesson 1: I want my physician to carry my coffin because people should understand that no doctor can really cure any one and cannot save people from the clutches of death. Therefore, people should not take life for granted.

Lesson 2: Strewing precious ornaments like gold, silver, etc. on the way to the graveyard is to make people realize, that nothing out of these priceless possessions will go with me, in spite of conquering everything and acquiring riches. Therefore, chasing wealth and making it a life goal is only a waste of time.

Lesson 3: Having my hands hang out of the coffin is to make people comprehend, that I came empty handed in this world and will leave this world empty handed. With these concluding words, the death conquered him…

Alexander the Great realized this truth of life only when he was caught in the jaws of death. How often do we realize this eventuality? We tend to get busy in our own world, oblivious of what may unfolds to us in our lives. The only time we tend to think over life in general and the truth of death in particular is when we lose our near ones or we come across something fatal. At other times we behave as if life is a continuous process and perhaps everything in our life is permanent.

This is certainly not to discourage you to live the life the way you want to; paradoxically this is to help understand that if we can comprehend the meaning of life, we can make our lives more meaningful. This will also ensure that we are more happy and successful in our subsequent endeavor.

Psychological science has made great advances in the field of psychology and parapsychology. This has helped us gain a more comprehensive understanding about Mind and Brain, and how they can be stimulated to serve our needs. Today, innumerable self development workshops are being run across the globe. Even the corporate world cannot undermine the importance of soft-skills and behavioral training workshops for the employees.

Greater knowledge about the working of the mind and brain has lead to inestimable techniques to counter our impediments in life and hence move forward materialistically and spiritually. In today’s times, Materialism and Spiritualism coexist thereby laying impetus on Wellness and Well being.

Strategy

Life is a Strategy. Our success and failures, our upsides and downfalls, our situations and circumstances, are the result of the strategy which we plan and execute. If we are excelling in life, it means that our strategy is good however if we are struggling it denotes that there is some flaw in our strategy and we need to identify and overcome those flaws. If we don’t take our own decisions and delegate someone else to run our lives, then that too, is an adopted strategy.

Similarly, we keep planning our lives, the results of which are in our favor at times and against us at other times. Out of two children one may score better in the exam than the other. Here, both of them have their own strategy though, it worked for one and did not, for the other.

Apart from doing corporate training workshops on Emotional Quotient (EQ), Spiritual Quotient (SQ) and Train the Trainer(TTT) Workshops, I also conduct Psychometric Tests and Individual Counseling for students. In my experience, the parents who get their children for Psychometric testing and counseling are those who are doing extremely well in their lives and professions. Most of the student’s parents are professionals including scientists, doctors, charted account engineers, etc., who are accompanying their children to different places so that they get more insight about themselves and are able to deal with academics more effectively. This is the strategy which is being adopted by parents. It is not solely about heredity that a scientist’s or doctor’s son becomes a scientist or a doctor but, about how well it is strategized by their parents. Also, the children of these professionals will continue to do well not only because they were intelligent but also because of the parent’s strategy in their upbringing.

If you are to prepare a meal, how well the meal is prepared, is totally dependent on how you cook. And how you cook it, is your strategy. The strategy will include your knowledge, experience, for how many people you are cooking, the steps you are following, your focus level, the mood in which you are cooking, whether you are cooking out of choice or compulsion, etc. If you let your negative moods overpower you or demean your knowledge and experience about cooking only because you have never cooked it for 50 people before, then, that would be an unconscious strategy and so you will not be able to do it. We are either consciously or unconsciously strategizing all the time.

Concepts & Strategy

What strategy do we adopt? Do we adopt the strategy by bringing in concepts like No one can change my destiny or I will get what I am destined to get or the concept is that, I am the master of my destiny, I am responsible for my life. Our concepts shape and build our life. We will further discuss the conceptualization in the next chapters.

Emotional Quotient

Earlier, there was a lot of emphasis on Intelligence Quotient. However today, though Intelligence Quotient is regarded as important, it now has to share its crown with Emotional Quotient and Spiritual Quotient. And it is this combination of Emotional and Spiritual Quotient which takes one towards both success and higher evolution.

Emotional Quotient (EQ) is about knowing and managing our emotions. Man is nothing without the environment and his interaction with this environment is invaluable as they involve emotions. These emotions may be negative or positive, whichever they are, we should know how to regulate them. One should desist from getting too excited in a favoring situation and one should also not start brooding when things may not favor him. The importance of EQ becomes even more important when, on an average, there are 60,000 thoughts visiting our mind everyday.

Ways of EQ Regulation: PRICECARO

PRICECARO in Hindi means to evaluate, similarly it is indeed imperative for us to evaluate our lives and help ourselves be more productive and happy. Each trait shared below helps you to enhance self in every way.

Purposeful Thinking - Thinking with a purpose and in the right perspective is the key. This will not happen if your mind controls you. However, when you start controlling your mind, purposeful thinking can never go out of your system. It is about thinking constructively and every thought is invested in how you can have better understanding about life and self. You should try and think about things which are directly related to you and subsequently the measures that you would take to consolidate self and be insightful.

Brooding is purposeless thinking which takes us towards failure. Therefore, purposeful thinking is a must and it can be created by consciously observing one’s thoughts closely and brainstorming on it. Remember, one purposeful thought leads to another purposeful thought.

Resilience - Thomas Edison failed Ten Thousand times before his electrical innovation; however, he never said he failed. He said he learned ten thousand ways a thing just won’t work. He further added he would have failed the day he would have said, I cannot do it any more, and I QUIT.

Work in every field can be monotonous. Even cricketers like Sachin Tendulkar when they go out to play their flow of emotions, motivation and enthusiasm vary. Even if they are playing in front of thousands of people and being watched by millions at home, still they have monotony creeping in. This is because, for them people, fans, media etc. has become a very normal sight, therefore, there are times in their lives that they are short of inspirations and motivation.

Resilience is about self motivation and pulling oneself out of the clutches of negative emotions and feelings. Being resilient helps you to bounce back especially when you THINK you are down and out. It helps you get back into the game when others would think the game is over.

Initiative - Each time you take initiative, no matter what the world thinks of it, remember your initiative has given you one more learning experience. Moreover, it is also taking you one step forward towards your objective. Therefore, never shy from taking initiatives, especially, when your mind and body are stimulating you towards it. Even if you are introvert particularly at work, you need to consciously develop a habit of taking initiatives. After all, the world never knew anything about those who forgot to take initiative.

Competence - It is very important to know how much you know and what you are going to do with it. If you are incompetent, you will know deep inside that you are short of expertise, and this will ensue negativism and fear, paralyzing you even before you have taken the first step towards your work.

Therefore, read and research a lot in your field, as this will not only raise your competence level but also give you confidence. Henry Ford never got a formal education but in the field of mechanism he was as competent as anyone else.

Empathy - You first need to be sensitive to yourself and only then you can be sensitive towards others. Therefore, introspect; question your thoughts, feelings and behavior. Also respect other’s feelings. Respecting does not necessarily mean agreeing with other’s feelings. Look from the other’s point of view and strive for a ‘win-win’ situation. Empathy would mean wearing other’s shoes and seeing where they pinch. Therefore, do not impose your views without patiently listening and understanding to what the other has to put across.

At times people get confused between sympathy and empathy and they tend to take sympathy as empathy. Sympathy is surreal, it is showcasing a feeling which you covertly do not feel but would want to still show it, perhaps, since you want to be in others good books. Therefore, sympathy is from head to heart and empathy is from heart to heart.

Confidence - Whatever you do, do it with conviction. We are not only talking about the overt confidence level that one may show around but also at the covert confidence in what one feels, thinks, and acts. You can measure your confidence level by assessing answers to multiple questions in a situation. Test yourself by brainstorming about various possible outcomes in a situation. You will learn about confidence in detail in the Chapter Faith.

Adaptability - We unconsciously create and possess a comfort zone for our self. Today, if your doorbell rings at 21:30 especially when you are watching television, perhaps you tend to get vexed thinking who has come at this time to disturb and why.

The minute you open the door you see guests walking in and you may wear a forced smile and greet them. This is because, we have a comfort zone and have already planned what we have to do at that time. And when someone walks in uninvited, we get uncomfortable and angry thereby making the guest also uneasy.

Our comfort zone is identified by our mood swings, which happens due to our mind controlling us instead of we controlling our mind. Therefore, we not only need to see that our moods do not influence our comfort zone but we need to keep expanding our comfort zone. This will help us adapt ourselves to any given situation, which will further enable us to be more flexible and not dogmatic in life. One can increase his comfort zone and be more adaptable by regularly pushing himself in situations away from the comfort. For e.g, missing a television show by doing something else at that time or being more accepting and patient towards something which comes unexpected.

Rapport - Organization are made of internal and external customers. Internal customers are those who are working with you in the organization as your seniors, subordinates, colleagues. External customers are the people who you cater to through your product and services. It is imperative to have a good rapport not only with the external customers but also with the internal customers who are evaluating your performance in terms of desirable behavior. Therefore, we need to ensure that we enjoy good rapport with every one and incase we dislike someone we should not have hostile behavior towards him. Surely, you would like to be with people who are positive, pleasant and caring. Similarly, if you are like them everyone would like to be with you.

Optimism - An individual should always show optimism. You need to be positively hopeful and optimistic that things would further change in your favor. Also be pragmatically optimistic that the result Nature would bestow on you would invariably be what you deserve and not what you desire. Remember, Pessimism stops us from acting and leads us to brooding; however, optimism makes us act, act and act. And success belongs to people who ACT. You would learn about confidence in detail in the Chapter Mind.

Skill vs Attitude - In my workshops, I usually ask my participants to think about their role models. Role models are those who you look up to, who you would like to imbibe various qualities and traits from. I tend to get answers from participants about their role models being courageous, punctual, supportive, positive, kind, helpful, hard working, etc. My next question is to identify from these traits, the qualities which the participants believe to have academically acquired. Academically acquired means on which traits or qualities they had formal education in school and subjects that they have read and learned in school. And the answer is 1 or 2 traits and that too, they are not quite sure of. Then I ask them what they thought of the other remaining traits to be and after long pause and thinking the answer is, these are Attitudes.

The inference is that the person we look up to and would like to be is not merely because of success they have achieved but because of the attitude they displayed. Attitude leads to behavior and is the key to Emotional Quotient while whatever one acquires academically is Intelligence Quotient.

Once I was sitting with the General Manager of a fortune 500 organization and she tells me that, whether a person is from IIT or IIM is only symbolic for us, and that too till the time the person is appearing for the interview. However, once he joins our organization it is irrelevant for us from where he studied as now our area of focus is his attitude and deliver-ability.

Similarly, once speaking to a Director of another organization with a turnover of more than 2 lac crores, he said, we have had a lot of recruitment from IIT and other big organizations. However, we have more often found that these recruitees have not been able to stay with us for a very long time, since they did not have the attitude to move out in the fields whenever desired by the organization.

Spiritual Quotient - Everything is about Attitude and Emotional Quotient. At times, when we are not able to balance it and are overpowered by certain negative emotions like fear, anxiety, uncertainty, stress we need to look at the other side which de-stresses and rejuvenates us. This helps us become resilient and we are once again able to focus with the Right Attitude. This other side is known as Spiritual Quotient (SQ). Spiritual Quotient has a pivotal role to