It Is All About Perspective

A college freshman wrote a letter to her parents. In the beginning, she told her parents that her skull fracture was healing, the fire wasn't so bad after the janitor offered to let her stay with him, and, oh, by the way, they were expecting a baby together. Her last paragraph revealed that she had no skull fracture, no fire, no janitor, & pregnancy, but she did get a “D” in chemistry & just wanted to put the bad grades into the proper perspective. - From Influence: Science and Practice by Robert Cialdini,

INSIGHT
Success or Failure, Happy or Sad, everything is relative - a matter of perspective.

Collaborative Leadership

A man once asked Pablo Picasso why all his art was so screwed up? Why didn't he paint reality instead of these distortions? Hesitating for a moment, Picasso asked, “So what do you think reality looks like? “
Showing him a picture of his wife, the man said, “Like this. It's my wife. “
“Really?” said Picasso, “She's very small. And flat too. “

Insight
Reality is subjective. Encouraging open discussion, leaders can surface  the subjective realities of their team and uncover new perspectives. By incorporating the suggestions & addressing the objections, the decision becomes a commitment to action.

Each of Us Is Different

A post on Linkedin asks people to give an advice in 4 words. In the 3 months it's up, it has received 4000+ responses, each in some ways different from the rest. Presuming 20% of the messages may have had similar advice, that's a huge 3000+ different pieces of advice!

Insight
Life teaches us different lessons and shapes each of us differently. Reason a coach suspends judgement to look at the world from the coachee’s perspective. He brings to the coachee’s world an eye trained to spot gaps in her thinking. The coachee’s world does not change, but the coach has provided new eyes to look at it.

Sweet Spot for Peace of Mind

#LivingStories
Beyond a certain point , money is not something you live for, feels Kumarmangalam Birla. “If I didn't have the money to buy the two works of art that I want,” he elaborates, “I'd feel pretty bad about it, but more than two  works of art and two holidays. I've no need for money.”

Coaching question
What are the things you would want to buy, after which you'd feel you do not need any more money?

Try doing
Practice cutting down on your needs and limiting your wants. Aim to choose the sweet spot between your Needs, Wants and Lacks.

Tell
How do you view your lacks?

Image:Ian Brown Lee

4 Ways Leisure Pursuits Can Provide a ROI

 “I’ve realized that somebody who is tired and needs rest, and goes on working all the same”, is a fool” - Carl Jung.

We live in a highly competitive world where employees have high material and professional aspirations. Many work at jobs that demand global business interactions, which keep them up at unearthly hours. To them any leisure activity may only seem at best like a dream, or worst, an unproductive use of time. Not just that, but any mention or suggestion to spend time on them, is likely to elicit a response such as the one below

Carl Jung's words notwithstanding.

But what if they knew that leisure activities could teach them valuable skills which could be assets to them in other their work, as well as other dimensions of their lives? What if they realized that the returns on them could be disproportionate to the amount of time invested?  Would it then make it a worthwhile investment for them?

Well, 'show me the ROIers', (and also others) read on and decide for yourself: 
1. ROI: Leadership and Negotiations Skills
Activity: Essaji Vahanavati, son of former Attorney General of India is a young partner at a reputed law firm. He is passionate about wildlife photography. Benefits: His leisure activity has ingrained in him the virtues of patience; given him an eye for detail; and taught him to stay cool in critical situations. During transactions, he can patiently wait for others to put their point on the table and at the same time quickly grasp the matter and come out with solutions. This has earned him the respect of senior partners at the law firm.

2. ROI: Importance of Making the Journey the Destination

Activity: World Bank economist Kaushik Basu spent his leisure time working on a longer method to prove what Pythagoras proved 2600 years ago. In a right angle triangle, the sum of the square of two sides equals the square of the hypotenuse.  
Benefits: To justify the new and longer proof,  he invokes the Greek poem Ithaca, which describes the long journey to Odysseus' home island. The island,  the poet Cavafy says, is disappointing, but Ithaca's charm is in the journey itself.

3. ROI: Patience
Activity: Stock market man Ramesh Damani has a thing for dough which made him seek out baking and attend a week's bakery course in Paris. 
Benefit: Asked for the similarity between brokers and bakers, Damani's reply is, "Both like the feel of dough....and both (investment and baking) need a lot of patience."

4. ROI: Inspiration

Activity: For geniuses, a routine was more than a luxury - it was essential for their work. Charles Dickens took three hour walks every afternoon, while Beethoven took lengthy strolls after lunch.

Benefits: For Charles Dickens what he observed on his walks, fed directly into his writing, while Beethoven carried a paper and pencil with him in case inspiration struck. 

Call to Action
Leisure activities can be both both satisfying and capable of building and honing useful skills and virtues. Discovering the parts between your profession and your hobbies which are similar, or support the other can help you get satisfying returns.

Commit to the Process

In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna advises to not let the fruit of action be our motive. Cartoonist Scott Adams, puts it as committing to a process, and not a goal.

Karl - John Persson,  CEO of H&M, may have that thought in mind when asked about his brand's targets for India. He said, "We never say, 'Let's reach amounts of stores or this sales target.' We want to deliver something fantastic for the customer. If we do that well,  the selling will come."

Leander Paes too must have thought along similar lines when he shared that all he does with doubles partner Martina Hingis is to keep her happy and relaxed. The tennis takes care of itself to produce wins such as the Wimbledon doubles championship.

Are You Promotion Focused or Prevention Focused?

According to Columbia university professor and author Heidi Grant Halvorson (2), there are two types of people; the promotion focused and the prevention focused.

Promotion-focused People: These are people, say psychologists, who see an opportunity for achievement, reward and success everywhere. "They look for people are looking for why the perceiver should say yes and are apt to adopt the mantra of  "nothing ventured nothing gained." Life for them becomes about "maximising gains and avoiding missed opportunities.

Promotion focused people:

• Tend to think more in the abstract and approach ideas with an open mind
• Are often quick workers, sometimes prone to error
• Are usually optimistic and they're comfortable taking risks
• Have strength in creativity and identifying opportunities.

Example: Richard Branson

Use your lens to navigate the world

Prevention-focused People: These people, compared to the promotion-focused, are more interested in preventing loss and maintaining the status quo.The prevention lens is searching for reasons not to say no.

Prevention-focused people:

•  Have a more concrete and detail-oriented thinking style.
• Can be defensively pessimistic and risk averse.
• have strength in their analysis, evaluation, preparedness and reliability.

No Right or Wrong Way: Both lenses are equally good ways of looking at the world, and one way of thinking is generally not better than the other.

References:

1. businessinsider.in

2. Author of No One Understands You And What To Do About It

Picture source: Pinterest.com