Wisdom Calling

What you are today is a direct result of your habits. If you have a healthy body, it is because of your healthy food habits and exercise. If you are obese, that too is the result of your carelessness in your choice of food and exercise. When you are aware of the things that you need to change to build up a good habit, you find it hard to do because you are attempting to change the wrong thing. To examine how habits make or break a person, let us see the three steps of habit formation. Step 1: Reminder   You are driving back home. On the way, you come across your favourite restaurant. The sight of the restaurant reminds you of all the delicious foods available there. This is the trigger that reminds you of all the mouth-watering food items offered by the restaurant. Step 2: Routine You just park the car to have the most loved food of yours. You enter the restaurant and order your favourite food and eat it. This is the actual action. Step 3: Reward The food now has sa...

We are living in a fast-paced, increasingly unstable and rapidly evolving world. In this dynamic business environment, volatility, cut-throat competition and stress are bound to happen. Winning by hook or crook has become a new normal. Due to increasing technical advancement, the world is simultaneously facing deteriorating environmental conditions, political disorder, destitution, and imbalance in the distribution of wealth. The present industrial revolution in the field of technology combined with material and biological systems diminished the lines between digital and material. The current business world and the world by and large are Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous, which, in short, is called the VUCA world.  The acronym VUCA was coined by US Army War College in 1987 to portray the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity of the world after the cold war. The world is constantly changing, where even small changes are becoming unpredictable. Circumstances unfu...

An engineer turned actor, a lawyer turned politician, a teacher turned filmmaker: every one of them has their own stories to tell when they left their safe abode to choose a rather unconventional profession where success is not guaranteed.  After the PU result, what next is the question that every student encounters. Not that they never had plans. However, the current situation and the result push them to think again. What you are really good at might not align with what you really want to do. Therefore choosing a course out of n number of choices is definitely a challenge which is more severe than Hamlet’s dilemma.    The following factors will help in taking the right decision in choosing a career. 1. Write What You Are Passionate About : Make a list of things you are really passionate about. It could be as simple as writing, singing to making drones (I am not responsible if the drone reminds you of someone!) or coding. I opted for Science for my PU education only out o...

We are living in a world that is Vulnerable, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous, which is in short called VUCA world. Things have started to be unpredictable due to the inventions of technology from the beginning of the 21 st  century, but it happened so far only at the level of individual and organization. COVID-19 has caused this uncertainty for the first time on a massive level. Millions of people all over the world have lost their livelihood due to the economic blow caused by COVID-19. The Baby Boomer generation, who are born between the 1940s and 1960s, had a balanced life and their behaviour is driven by rules. They go by the rules and have a contented life. The same thing more or less happened for the next generation, who are called Gen X who are born between the 1960s and 1980s. Their behaviour is driven by incentives. The people, who are born between 1980 to 1994, are famously known as Millennials who are self-driven. Though they were not born with technology, they are th...

I embarked on a new journey in my professional life when I resigned from my first job in the year 2016, to join another institution. Even though I didn’t change my profession, there was a radical change in the mindset of the students and the management at the institution I joined. It was not an easy task for me to adapt to a totally new environment as I had a very convenient and peaceful work-life balance at my previous institution. Within a month of my reporting to the new job, the principal came with a feedback format to get the feedback from the students.  Though the feedback was not that horrible for me, considering the students’ mindset, (Which took me a long time to understand) that was  the first time I got a significant amount of negative feedback from them along with positive feedback. From the traditional education system, where the fee was very moderate, to a feedback-based education system, where students have every right to ask what they want as they have paid a h...

Most of the times in our life, we don't find the right eco-system to nurture our passion, to fulfil our ambition. That is where perseverance comes into the picture. Think of any of the goals you wished to pursue. You tried it for a few days and gave up when you felt that that was not going to work. The first reason for giving up was already discussed in my previous blog post (Why Do You Fail?-1). We discussed that our failure to reach any goal is due to our failure to turn the behaviour into a habit that complements our goal. Another reason for our failure to manifest success is our failure to stick on. Giving an example from the entertainment industry helps to understand this concept better. How do you recognise an artist? It is relatively easy to recognise the artist who performs a lead role in movies or serials, but what about the supporting character artists? Many years ago, I watched a Kannada movie which was in news for its unique content. But, I couldn't remember the art...

Success in simple terms could be defined as the manifestation of any significant desire into reality. There are broadly five areas of success such as Career, Finance, Health, Relationship Building and Spirituality. When a person desires to achieve something, it starts with a thought.  If the thought is strong enough, then it is followed by complementary behaviour. If that behaviour becomes automatic, then that habit becomes instrumental in reaching the destination.  Most of you start with a positive thought of achieving something. But, unfortunately, the thought is not that strong enough to motivate a particular behaviour for a long time. If there is no repeated behaviour, there is no habit. And when there is no habit, success will be infinitely far away. The one vital reason you fail to form a habit is that you are TRYING TO CHANGE THE WRONG THING. Let's take an example. The thought is that I want to be successful in writing a book. If I have to write and publis...

Many years ago, on the annual day program of our college, one of my students performed a semi-classical dance with her friends. She asked me via text the next day for my feedback on their performance. I am basically not a big fan of classical dance because of my substandard taste, though I am an amateur yakshagana and theatre artist. Commenting on her dance would only expose my ignorance of that dance form. So, I replied that I was not eligible to comment as I didn't know much about dance.  But she insisted. The dance was very slow. It could rather be called dramatic movements. There weren't many steps. From the audience point of view, no one would think that the dance was worth memorable unless for someone who had taste for classical or semi-classical form. I didn't want to sound dishonest in my opinion.  So, I told what I felt. She responded to my feedback telling that that was how classical dance should be. And I didn't know much about it! She mad...

None of us wants to lead a miniature life. That is why we set goals on every new year day! And this new year is no special. You might have great plans for your future, a new venture, a new course, a new skill to acquire or any other goals related to your professional or personal life. But COVID-19 might have obstructed 90% of your plans, which you had otherwise planned to act upon. If I ask you how the lockdown is, you may tell lockdown has affected 50% of your lifestyle. Those who work from home, you may still follow the same routine, or even more work as some may end up working more than office hours. However, while you have planned to live your life 100%, you put all the blame on the coronavirus, moaning your plans have been thwarted. But, are you living at least 1% life? The question may offend you. You would say corona has not battered you to that extent. You still follow a certain routine. But, leading a 1% life doesn't mean leading less than 100%. On the contra...

If you grew up reading Aesop's fables, you have come across a popular story of the poor farmer and the golden egg. The goose of the farmer started laying a golden egg one fine day. When the farmer was about to throw the egg thinking that it was a trick, he gave it a second thought to check it properly, and he was surprised to find that the egg was golden. Image courtesy: iuemag.com The farmer couldn't believe his good fortune. But, with wealth comes the greed to make more wealth as early as possible. The farmer was not patient enough to wait for one golden egg each day, and thus decided to kill the goose at once so that he could find many eggs and get-rich-quick. As the result is quite obvious, he couldn't find any eggs. And at the same time, he lost the sole source of his fortune. At the outset, the story seems to teach us the moral of having patience, and one should not be too greedy. If you try to understand this story from a metaphorical point of view, i...