Patterns

Its been ages since I last wrote here. There were many reasons and one of which is that I felt lazy to come here and start writing. However, the good news is that my mind is filled up with more information and thoughts than the last time I was here :). So now I have this idea to write a book. This article could be the start of something big! Enjoy and I hope you will learn something out of it. 

If I tell you that the most important word which might be preventing you from achieving greatness is the word "pattern", what would you say? Its not procrastination, its not laziness, neither is lack of initiative or any single thing. Its patterns. Before all of you start bringing up arguments against my word, read for a few more moments and then tell me what you think!

Human beings are faced with a infinite amount of choices from the day they are born. They need to learn to become independent - learn to walk, communicate, eat, drink, run and all those other things that help us survive. Every day you are faced with choices that you need to make and most of them are now quite simple such as brushing your teeth and wearing your clothes and putting on makeup.

These basic activities are established first by watching the others around you and then trying to mimic them until you achieve the objective. For a baby, trying to catch a dangling toy can seem difficult at first the first step. The brain starts to fire random neural patterns until the baby catches the toy. Until then she will try her best to generate random patterns of hand movements as she doesn't have full control of her arms yet. She sometimes cries in frustration at the inability of being able catch this object. But if you observe, she finally finds one neural pattern that the exact way that will help her reach the objective. Then she "learns" this pattern and keeps firing this pattern until she gets better and better at it. The most fundamental point is that we do this for EVERYTHING. We do this to learn a new skill - this is why its frustrating at first as the brain is not used to the new pattern. Therefore, changing an existing pattern is very difficult and sometimes almost impossible unless there is a definite barrier to following the old pattern. For example, you may use the Computer mouse with your right hand. Changing hands would be almost like torture unless you have developed a pain in your right hand and there is no option but to switch. Initially it will be torture to use the mouse with your left hand but the brain is now firing a new pattern and calibrating your movements and within a few days you will be quite comfortable with your left hand.

Now put this same theory into your behavior. Everything that we do or say or feel is based on various patterns the brain has stored. If you shout at people when you are angry, the brain saves this pattern as the usual reaction when you are given a certain stimulus which causes you to be angry. Without fail, the brain picks up the relevant pattern and you start to shout everytime you are angry. Everytime you invoke this pattern of behavior you get better and better at and most importantly notice it less and less. The people around you will at first not be agreeable to this pattern as it may be a NEW thing for them. Eventually, they start recording this pattern as your behavior when you are angry. Both parties will get used to this pattern in this manner. Every new person that comes into contact with you will have this difficulty unless they have had a similar experience and therefore a pattern is already registered in their mind. Remember that everyone is constantly either getting used to new patterns or experiencing old and trusted patterns. This is also the reason why the same incident is viewed by different people with different reactions. In a country where a bombing is frequently heard of will elicit different reactions than in a country where violence of this sort is unheard of. The moment the profile of the bomber is uncovered every single person in the country who knows of this information will try and use this pattern. This is why terrorist organisations use children and women for violence as society has more tolerant patterns of behaviour towards this segment of the population. Advertisements create these patterns effectively to entice you to buy products. They create a Brand pattern in your mind about a particular product. Some of these patterns are so powerful that you even will not realise that you have been brain washed. One such pattern in the MacDonalds Yellow Arch. By accident or design kids learn to identify this pattern at an early age. My son used to recognise this pattern around the age of 1 year. I was amazed at how he was able to pick out the yellow arch well in advance. Probably kids know this and the happy meal better than even religious symbols. If you sit down and watch a kids cartoon on cable TV, you will realise how many patterns are slowly being instilled in our kids minds which are like sponges.

Credit card companies understand patterns. They initiate a competition where they get you to swipe your credit card at a particular supermarket a specified number of times to qualify for a discount. So once you pull this particular card at the checkout counter at this supermarket a number of times, you will do so automatically even after the competition is over unless you are conscious enough to realise this. 

Like me if you are one of those people who insist something is missing when it is right under your nose. If you notice closely either it is because its in a different

If you have read this so far (hopefully) you will begin to understand that every thing you do consciously or unconsciously will be a pattern. A pattern is a good thing. It has its advantages. It will help you do various repetitive tasks without much thinking. You will become good at it through repetition. A factory worker gets used to set patterns. You shop at the same supermarket and you go to the right shelves. Supermarkets know this and they change the setup every so often so that you "See" new products. However, the usual reaction is irritation as your pattern has changed. Try brushing your teeth with the hand you don't use usually. You will find it difficult but if you persist you will be able to use either hand. Try holding your mug with the other hand. If you try these little things, you will start to appreciate the benefits of patterns.

However, patterns can be destructive. Any teacher knows that when the child learns something first the "wrong" way, it is it quite hard to change. Just for this purpose I will use the term "wrong" but the right concept is that you learn the way the rest of the world has accepted it to be the most effective way at that point in time. Herein lies the problem. When you learn the pattern, you need to evaluate it from time to time and see if the world around you benefits from the particular pattern you are used to.

The mind can play tricks on you. What you see with your eyes is purely based on the patterns in your head which were created from your own experience. For example, if you were raised in an environment where the only color you saw was White. You would find it extremely uncomfortable in an environment where the color white is absent. Every word you read in this article will be triggering many patterns. This is why you may understand things differently even in the most clearly explained article. This is also why people have accidents and the common answer is that "I didn't see him coming" which is absolutely true in the person's case. You may not SEE the vehicle in the wrong lane since you are not used to SEEING this pattern. You are assuming that all traffic will use the right lane ie. that it the pattern you will have if you were born in a country where the drivers are disciplined. If you were born in a country where there is no discipline whatsoever, you will be able to cope up more with this uncertainty. My father used to say that the most effective vehicle to learn driving on is a motorcycle or a bicycle. The reason for this is that your instincts and awareness is improved because of the greater chance of an accident. Therefore, you learn to anticipate accidents more and develop lightening fast reactions. These patterns will help you to graduate to a bigger vehicle.

What do you think so far? Every single thing that you do or say or see or feel are based on a load of patterns that you have developed over so many years. Some of them have helped you become successful. Some of them are limiting you. Some of them make you a better leader or a team player. Some of them have actually made you a less desirable person. As you start analyzing each situation you will see people continuously changing patterns to accommodate people or circumstances which are much stronger where they either change or move out from the current situation. Some live in mental agony as their mind refuses to adjust with the new Pattern. The mind does everything possible to reject the new pattern - this may be a new job, a new boss, a new partner, a new car, a new phone. Some patterns can be learnt when it is your choice to change the pattern. This is the key. If you WANT to change your pattern then you can successfully learn the new pattern. So if you feel that you are not LIKING a change, it is because your mind feels threatened by the unknown and rejection is a survival instinct. Many people would do anything to NOT change the pattern. They will protest, they will start a war, they will kill. Some others will just go with the flow but will never be truly comfortable.

So what is the best way to approach this. Take stock of your abilities. Try to identify the patterns that serve you well. The chances are that your current job is a reflect of the good patterns you have. You can tweak them and improve on them to be more effective. There maybe a set of new patterns that you will need to improve yourself and your relationships. Listen to them and analyse. The best is to see what others say and do in your presence. Are they comfortable with you or do they avoid you? There may be trust issues. Uncovering some of these patterns can be a tedious exercise. First work on the patterns that are important. If you are not making enough sales there may be patterns that are not helping you to sell. For this you can watch a good salesman in action and try and mimic him. This can be difficult. The best is to ask someone to critique your work and styles. The best athletes do this constantly. Their body movements are analysed to find out the slightest weak point and its corrected by erasing the unproductive pattern. Most athletes develop injuries due to bad patterns. We can use the same technique for ourselves.

Why should we change a pattern? We don't really need to if you want to be like this for the rest of your life. Some patterns may still work for you in the long run. However, the world around you is constantly changing. You need to adapt to the changes in your environment. Many people are developing better patterns. Kids today are developing better patterns as they can learn a lot more by watching others and there is a lot of information out there. Younger people have more opportunities where they show better suited patterns. So you need to change the patterns that matter. The best thing is to develop a pattern that evaluates every one of your important patterns and innovates on them!! Did you get my point? Changing your patterns should be a pattern itself that you constantly engage in.

Kids are very good at changing patterns when they play. They like to experiment. We don't like this. If a child eats chocolate sauce with pizza, we would shout at him and tell him that its not an accepted practice. Why do we believe that its bad to have pizza with chocolate sauce? It is not a pattern that we are familiar with. However, it may be a healthier pattern than smoking or alcohol. Discouraging a child from being creative in this manner fits him into a stereotype that we are comfortable with. This sometimes kills the child's creativity. We love to create patterns that we like. When we don't like patterns that others have we even resort to wage war on them and force them into our patterns which are more "Civilised". Einstein was a child that had different patterns. He was kicked out of school for not conforming to the patterns the school was familiar with. In the x men movie, Dr. Xavier runs a school for the gifted children and trains them to use their powers effectively. Imagine how many children we may have "killed" by trying to get them to conform to our patterns? We may have lost geniuses, entrepreneurs, inventors, actors. Christopher Nolan was allowed to use his dad's video cam at the age of 9 to create films with his toy soldiers. What if his dad didn't let him play with this expensive toy? Look at his career and see how many movies of his have brought in millions of dollars. Luckily for Einstein, he still was able to continue on his amazing journey.

I hope by now you are convinced enough to start looking at the patterns that you have. If you reject what I say here, that is an important message to you. You have at least one destructive pattern that is not letting you learn something new! Some patterns such as negative thinking can be even more destructive when the law of attraction comes into action as you will attract everything to you by your thoughts. In my mind, the pattern is one of the most important concepts to learn and try and understand. It is a must for trainers to know and most of the best trainers know about patterns. They may know it as a different concept. NLP is a effective method to break old destructive patterns. Concepts such as anchors effectively help you remove patterns that are impeding your growth.


Small note: Most books on success focus on helping you realise that you need to change your patterns. However, most books don't tell you about patterns directly. So I hope I have given you a starting point. You can read Seven Habits of Highly Effective people or 17 Principles of success or any other book on self improvement, but the fundamental concept is trying to identify and modify your patterns and keep improving them on a continuous basis. The change you want in your life can only be brought about by removing destructive patterns and institutionalising new ones.

How to be less bored with what you do

A lot of people I know including me (assuming that I know me well :) ) have this problem of getting bored with something within a short period of time. Why and how does this happen? For example, take your new smart phone that you killed yourself to get. What happens after a few months? If you belong to the general population you would get bored with it after a while.

Your job? This happens too. The job you always wanted seems a little boring after a few months or a couple of years. You want to do more or you get frustrated as to why there is no progress for you as well as why the company doesn't use your talents effectively.

After so many years of thinking about this from personal experience, this is what I figured out. Not many companies will make use of your full potential. This is a common feature in most companies, unless you are in a situation where resources are scarce and then you will work a 16 hour day to make up for 3 other members you should have in your team!

Many people leave companies looking for challenges. They feel they don't use their full potential. Most of the time, they don't find what they are looking for. If you feel like this, I may have the answer for you. Few principles to think about are:

1. If you have a lot of excess energy and passion for work, YOU need to make use of it. Its YOUR responsibility.
2. Any new activity that will seem challenging at first becomes easier as you gain practice and it seems less challenging. This is normal. You need to keep challenging yourself if you start feeling bored.
3. As long as you put in the required hours and deliver what you need to deliver, the company you work for will not complain.
4. Finding something more to do may not be always practical in the place of work.

This is the process that I have come up with to help you manage this excess energy. You can even use this for your current job, if there is a possibility to expand your role. REMEMBER - this will mean more work - one of the principles of success from Napoleon's book is that you have to do more that what you are paid for !!! I never said this is going to be easy did I?

1. Put down a list of things that you love doing.
2. Mark the ones that you don't have time to work on.
3. Pick the one which is most practical to do now.
4. It is also good to identify your strengths.

If you are a creative person, you could pick a few things which are creative but new to you. For example, if you are a highly creative technical person, you can take up music or even cooking or even interior designing as a hobby. Although this will be new to you, you can still learn something new as your basic talent is creativity. It may seem odd at first but the moment you develop this new skill you will feel much calmer. If your basic talent is organising, you can put your effort into things which need organising. This may be something in the community, a CSR activity or simply organising an event.

Key point - unless you have the passion to use your energy and do something different, you will not get anywhere!

The objective is to have a repertoire of things you can do when you feel bored! If today all you can do is either develop software, or sell a product effectively and yet you feel bored whilst getting high performance ratings, you are a good candidate for this. If you don't do something now, the chances are that you may feel unhappy about your life and your work even if you perform well. Something always seems to be missing :).

Over the years I have developed a few things that I do just to get rid of my excess energy. These are in line with my strengths. The basic strength I have is creativity and the need to improve something from what it is. I also need a base to work with and then keep improving it as I go along. I used this concept in learning to cook, to compose music and start writing. I also like to teach people how to improve themselves. This is all in addition to my job that does take a load of my time. This helps me to feel less bored with life as I have a few things to keep me occupied during the time I am awake! And during the time I am asleep? Well I'd rather not say :)

Thoughts become your destiny

Deepak Chopra in his wonderful literature mentions that your thoughts define your destiny. Take a look at yourself now. The person you are now, is a realisation of your thoughts in the last 10-15 years of your life. If you examine your thoughts right now, you will have a good indication of where you will be in the next 10 years.

I saw the movie "The Secret" and read Deepak Chopra's - Spontaneous fullfilment of desire. I am a firm believer that your thoughts do help you to achieve your life's purpose. If you do have negative thoughts, you can be sure that these thoughts will manifest themselves and you will go down a negative path.

Thinking positively is no easy feat. We are bombarded everyday from all sides that we are not good enough, our world is about to end and that we are useless! How do you keep a clear head when everyone around you is negative?

Buddha said something quite interesting about the company you keep. He said, "Keep company with people who are better than you, who's thinking is positive and intelligent. Don't keep company with fools or people with bad intentions." The first step in thinking positively is that you need to be with at least one person who is better than you. If you can't find a person, don't keep company with anyone! OK I am joking, but I hope you get my point. As a practise I gravitate towards people who think positively and who have a positive vibe about them. I do interact with others, but I keep it to a minimum.

Your mind is easily influenced by thoughts. The source of your thoughts could be from your environment, your parents, your friends, spouse, children and also you. Early in our lives, our mind is programmed according to what we see around us. We create a mental map about what we see and experience. This may or may not be reality. If your father says that poor people can't be trusted you will create that in your mental map of the world and most of the time since your judgement is shaded by his thought, you will only see what fits this mental filter. You will refuse to see otherwise. Any experiences to the contrary will be dismissed as an exception.

Based of your age, you may have to de-programme your mind with some of these perceptions. To do that you need to identify what those are. These will be things you are uncomfortable with. For example, you may be uncomfortable talking to your boss simply based on the perception that he doesn't listen to you. If this perception has been created by either you or others, you need to re-examine that perception. What are the instances when he didn't listen to me? What are the examples of when he did listen. Did I ask why he didn't consider my idea? Did he have a point? You have to take the emotional reaction out of the incident and examine with a fresh eye. Your boss may even have a perception that you don't come up with ideas! That is simply because you gave up after one try or based your behaviour on other's experiences.

So you can reprogram your mind to think differently and take action. If one idea is cast aside, ask for feedback. Improve on it and present it again. Even look for evidence that your idea may have still been accepted and the boss takes credit for it! This is OK. What matters is that your idea was implemented and that you are able to come up with good ideas. Never ever hold back an idea just because you wont get credit for it. An idea that is NOT implemented is worthless.

Positive thinking is not easy. Try this little experiment. Create a small thought in your mind to come to work 15 minutes earlier. Keep this thought in your mind as you drive. This should not be a worrisome thought and should not get you in a stressful mood. Keep the thought and the intention and see what happens. You would be amazed at the result. The first step to positive thinking is to have the intention clearly in your mind on what you want to accomplish. This helps you build an awareness in your mind about what you want to do. It will also help you see opportunities in the traffic that you usually ignore when you think that you will never get to work on time. "I will not get to work on time" thought will close your mind to opportunities that will enable you to go to work on time.

While you read this, put this thought into your mind - "I want to see the color red" and look around you. Something amazing will happen: you will start seeing all the red color stuff around you. You can do it with any color. This is how our mind works. You can ask it to perceive things or to identify things you want it to identify. Your mind is a tool which is far powerful at either destroying your life or taking you to great hieghts. You use your phone to keep in touch with people. Your mind is no different. Its a tool to help you live your life. It can also destroy you if you don't use it right.

There is another thing about thought that is hard to understand. They can come true!! You won't believe me, but how many times have you thought of a long lost friend and he/she calls you suddenly. How many times do you think about wanting that phone or laptop and suddenly you come across a shop that sells the same brand. There is a certain quality about our thoughts that has a connection to the outside world. Its like we are in a network and our thoughts can have far reaching effects.

However, its an art that needs to be cultivated. You have to start with something simple and develop your positive thinking ability. You also need to know what you want to accomplish. Simply asking for a iPad has no value to you. You may end up with an iPad but why do you need one? What is the ultimate purpose? So in the end it boils down to knowing what you want to do in your life and how you set up its purpose. Then all the thoughts you have can be in line with it.

Thats about it for now. Hope this helps since it has helped me so many times. If you want to, you can read up on Deepak Chopras' Spontaneous Fullfilment of desire or Watch "The secret". The former is a more scientific approach to explaining thoughts and the latter is a more new age video. But it does work! I can guarantee that.

Have fun and keep life simple!!

Life is simple?

Been a long time since I blogged here! After one year of talking about life being difficult, I thought I would contradict myself here. No offense to the late Dr. Scott Peck.

I have this feeling that we make life complicated when its quite simple. Probably we are bombarded by advertisements of people being happy all the time with Phones, LCD TV's, Sound systems, Food processors and washing machines.

Life is perceived to be difficult because we are never satisfied. How many of us are genuinely happy with what we do now, or the phone we use or the boss we have or the car we have?

Most of us want a different model, or admire someone else's wife or girlfriend or their family. I had the chance to interview someone who wanted to come back to Sri Lanka. His point was that the country was going through a good phase and that there was better scope for success now that the war is over.

On the other hand if you speak to a Sri Lankan now, its a different story. The urge to leave the country has not gone away. There are people who have been away from the country for years coming back while the lot stuck here are going to those countries? Its actually amusing since the reasons are the same - greener pastures. So does that mean their problems are solved? Answer is a resounding NO!

Why is this? Day in day out we are not willing to live within our means. We stretch ourselves and get a better car and make a commitment which will mean that we will want a better paying job in a few months which means we need to work harder and spend more time away from families and in the end realise that the family complains too much because we are doing so much for them and yearn for a what? A better understanding spouse and we all know where that ends! So lets say that you find a better spouse. So now you have a better car, a better job and a better spouse. Will this last? Well no!! The cycle starts and very soon you want to build a house since you had to part with your house as part of the divorce settlement and so very soon you are working harder and longer .. do I have to continue?

Well then what do we do?

1. Be grateful for what you have. You may earn 10,000 rupees a month but you are better off than billions of people who are unemployed. Your car may be 10 years old but you HAVE a car! Your phone maybe an older model but hell, can it keep you contactable? You TV might not be LCD but how many hours do you have to sit in front of the LCD anyway? So do you really need it?

2. Be willing to take small steps. Figure out what is important to you. Is it the LCD or the CAR or making sure that your child gets a good education? Prioritize your commitments and plan! Anyone who plans their expenses well can become a millionaire with a bit of effort and sacrifice. Ask anyone who has made money. Did it come easily? No, lots of successful guys have at least 2 or three marriages or have broken families. Why? Since they sacrificed their time with family to pursue their business. If you don't want to be the next Bill Gates then be the Best Dad in the world for your son! Bottom line every bit you focus more on something means that you lose time with another aspect of your life. So when you are single you can focus more on the career and save some money so that you can manage a family.


3. Moderation - Try everything in moderation. Do you really need a big house? What can you manage with? When my doctor told me that my Cholesterol levels are high, this is the thinking pattern I used. What are the foods that I love and what do I eat just because its there? The answer was shocking. There were only a couple of things that I really liked. So I gave up biscuits that I didn't like too much, I gave up ice cream, I gave up fried fish and french fries. What do you think happened? I ended up enjoying the food I liked and my Cholesterol levels came down in a couple of months! Remember there may be so many things that we do simply because we do it simply for the sake of doing it. A lot of it is meaningless and in the end stops you from enjoying life in the long run. So remember, the more emphasis you give to one part of your life, the more you lose from other parts of your life. If you give more emphasis to work, you may lose your health or your family, if you give more emphasis to your family you may lose your job. The truth is that everyday there may be different things you choose to give priority to. I have a list of things and the order changes every day and every moment. You can never have a fixed list of priorities. But you can have a list of things that are important to you in life and mentally rearrange them as you go along. There is hard and fast rule to this. The only litmus test you can do is to get feedback from others. How many people are genuinely happy to be around you? When you go home if you don't get a positive vibe or when you arrive in the office if people do their best to avoid you - start thinking about the way you behave. Most people will never give you direct feedback - they will just ignore you!

4. Life is short. Have a list of things you really like to do and do them!! Who will remember you when you die? Most probably you can narrow down that list to about 5. People forget, so don't try and please everyone. Who remembers George Bush or Carl Lewis? So how would you expect millions to remember you? Its simply not possible and you will end up regretting your life. I am not asking you to stop trying to be the next Obama or Mother Theresa. If you want to do it, remember that you will end up sacrificing a lot of things. This is OK if you are willing to pay the price. Whatever you do, people forget and they are never satisfied. So in the end you will not be happy if you base all your life's work on helping a large group of people.

So in conclusion, life is really simple - we are supposed to eat and procreate :-) Everything is secondary. One saying that comes to mind is from Stephen Covey - Life is all about Living, Loving and Leaving a legacy.

Simple steps

1. Look at your life now. List the things that you are happy about and which is not a big problem for you. Example. do I really need that phone I am busting my guts out for? Or do I really need that car that is making me unhappy everytime I see one on the road?

2. List the things that are important to you and honestly assess how much you are doing them right now? Family - how much time do I give them? Job - do I really work hard for the salary I get? or do I do too much? Health - Am I in good shape or should I improve?

3. List the things that are counterproductive - Do I really need to party every week? or get drunk every week? See how it impacts your life now or even later when your organs give out.

4. Then list of the things you will do for each aspect of your life. Take baby steps. instead of 4 booze nights a month - spend one night in a Gym. Instead of working 5 straight 12 hour days, cut it down to 4. No one will blame you as long as your output it good. Improve your productivity. Practice makes perfect. The more you practice, the better you get at it. Teach someone else what you know. The chances are that when you get the opportunity to move higher up in the ladder, you will have a few people who can take your place. Life is abundant and full of opportunities and sometimes we are blinded by the short term problems we face. Learn something new. A year ago I wanted to learn to cook Indian dishes and now I can make it better than Mango Tree :-). I cook once a week for the whole family. This keeps everyone going. One thing I learnt from cooking is that, you need to be appreciated for what you do and its disappointing when its not appreciated. Let me ask you this, how many times in a day do you use "Thank you" in various settings and appreciate what the people around you do for you? Don't worry, I don't either :-) We are very liberal with criticism but misers about praise. I am not saying to start saying Thank you for everything but appreciation goes a long way. If you want people to consider you an important part of their life, treat them that way!

5. Be down to earth. The other aspect is how often we say sorry and apologize for goofing things up. There is a great reluctance to admit that someone made a mistake. More often than not, most conflicts arise when each person tries to defend their own turf and not give in. I have this wonderful saying on maturity - the ability to listen to another's point of view without trying to defend your own. The next time you get into a conflict, try and stop yourself from defending your point of view and say sorry. See how the other part simply cools down immediately (Well this may not work for about 1% of people :-) ). Bottom line - we all make mistakes. Some mistakes are not clear to us and is clearly visible to others since we are of the firm belief that what we do is always right! Its human nature. How many times can you find mistakes in your own writing. Even this article will have spelling or grammar mistakes. But I can maybe find only a few of them even if I read it 20 times. So all you need to do is be aware that you will make mistakes. Its nearly impossible to live life without making mistakes and therefore don't act like you don't make any :-).

Finally remember, life is just a finite period of time you spend in the human state. I have no idea what comes next but this life is for us to learn as much as we can about what life really is. Its not about the latest phone or the fastest car. In the end, did you learn enough for you to progress to the next stage of our life or do we stick to this never ending misery of wanting more?

Your call!!

Bye for now

Share this with people if you think what I am talking about makes sense :-) If not that's OK too :-P

Emotional Intelligence

Its been a while since I wrote something here. Sometimes I do wonder, no one reads this page anyway. But its therapeutic to write!.

I thought of talking about something that was uncovered as part of extensive research on the human brain. That is on Emotional Intelligence. Research has shown that a high level of intelligence doesn't necessarily make a person successful in life. Daniel Goleman in his book - Emotional Intelligence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence talks about how emotions and being able to control and use them can make a person successful in social, work and family settings.

Some of the points that I found earth shattering are:

1. Our brain has parts that are millions of years old. The brain stem is the most basic part of our brain which controls our basic functions like digestion, breathing
2. The emotional part of the brain has the basic emotions like anger and fear that helped us survive in a chaotic environment. Anger gave us strength to fight, Fear helped us run away from danger.
3. Amygdala is a part of the brain that controls emotions.
4. The neocortex which has the more rational part of the brain is the youngest part of our brain. Its folded up as it developed very fast during the last 10,000 years. This part of the brain helps us process information and take rational decision.
   
5. However, the Amygdala has direct connections that can bypass the rational brain that makes us do things without thinking rationally.
6. Sometimes the Amygdala can give us the wrong signals and try to protect from non-existent dangers.
7. The Amygdala helps us be emotionally rich than any other species. This is what creates a bond between mother and child and helps in our development.
8. A non-functioning amygdala can create a human without emotions.
9. A HIGH IQ Alone doesn't ensure success in life. Most brilliant people have had little success in life and relationships.
   
10. Highest performers are people who can build networks of relationships.
11. People pick on your mood and the stronger personalities dominate a groups' mood.
12. Your feedback can be misinterpreted by the way you say it. Try and keep sarcasm, anger to a minimum when giving feedback if you want to get results.
13. 
    

Definition of Emotional Intelligence - (Salovey, in Daniel Goleman - Emotional Intelligence)

1. Knowing one's emotion - ability to understand how one feels.
2. Managing Emotions - Ability to control ones emotions.
3. Motivating oneself - Ability to increase your own motivation through your own efforts
4. Recognising Emotions of others - Ability to empathise with others.
5. Handling relationships.
   

To conclude
Emotions play an important part and the ability to control your emotions and being able to understand emotions of others will help you succeed in relationships and in life.

Thats it from me for now.

Love this quote

In the heat of battle it ceases to be an idea for which we fight or a flag. Rather we fight for the man on our left and we fight for the man on our right and when armies have scattered and when the empires fall away all that remains is the memory of those precious moments we spent side by side.

This is true for anything. Sometimes what we fight for is not important as much as living those moments. I have been involved in a few projects when things got really hairy and we had to spend long nights trying to solve problems.

Today what I remember about those projects is how we all pulled it through working for the team and giving our 200%. Sometimes the end goal is not important. What I treasure are the mistakes we made and how we resolved them. You do learn from that, and move on. But there is no guarantee that you will not make the same mistakes again.

Fighting for something is like a drug. We love fire fighting, we love the challenges it brings. There is no other ability that I can think of that gives you more rewards than the ability to take calculated risks. Some of the happiest people I have met are risk takers. They love taking risks and they grow like nothing. Does the name Virgin ring a bell? Richard Branson?

Unfortunately I am not a risk taker such as that. But most of the risks I have taken have paid off. Some were stupid risks, so they also paid off but you end up paying a price. I take my risks on Need For Speed on a Lamborghini Murceilago. Simply because you can always try again :-). Life is also like a computer game. Only thing is that it has a limited number of safety nets.

But I am working on it :-). Want to take a few more risks :-) Maybe try out the Evo on Need for Speed.

But how does one take risks?

e.g. Your boss comes up with an idea that you have no skills to perform. This is definitely a risk that is worth taking. You will need to invest time. But a few reality checks first.

Most good ideas sound dumb at the outset. Some really ARE dumb. But some SEEM dumb because its not in our current paradigm. So this is where you take a risk.

- The investment is your effort
- The return
- is that you will learn something new
- you will build your brand with your boss as a guy open to new ideas
- the idea might turn out to be a really good idea

Downside
- The idea may not fly. But you have learnt something new.

Some Advice
- Make sure you identify what you will learn in the process. This is important since you will know at the most even if the idea doesn't work out, you will learn something. This could be the only thing that motivates you in the end.

That's about it for now. TAKE RISKS. LIVE LIFE and that will make you happy.

Weekends and Weekdays

Some people like to wish "have a good weekend" at the end of the week! How important are these 2 days out of 7 days of the week. Going by the 80/20 rule, are these two days more important and do they give you 80% return?

My feeling is that every moment has its good and bad moments. Separating the weekend from the weekdays doesn't make much sense. I say that every day should be a "Good day!!". I sometimes watch the week WHIZZ past to the end of the week. Sometimes the weekend seems as long as the 5 days !! So time is relative and the more fun you have the faster you eat up time or is it the other way round.

The weekend is like an island that gives you enough breathing space to take on another hard week? Maybe a paradigm change is required. From my life, each day has places where I can recharge instead of waiting till the weekend.

1. 30 minutes right after waking up. Is a good time to get some high energy by contemplating about the day ahead and energising youself. Being around a kid is also great cos they are a great source of positive energy. I end up watching birds with my son or watching the morning sky and spending a few moments of bliss.

2. Right after you get to work. If you get in early there is no one to bother you. You can relax and listen to some music until you clear up any important tasks before you get disturbed by your team mates.

3. Lunch time - is a good way to laugh and have some fun which gives you energy to get through the rest of the day. A few meetings are good to break the monotony.

4. Your trip home. I love this part. I listen to some cool music and by the time I get home I feel energised.

5. A 30 min walk does wonders before you have your dinner. Again this can be with some upbeat music to get your heart pumping.

6. Dinner with family is a good time to get an update of what went on the whole day. Right after dinner its cool to spend some time again with a kid looking at the stars. Make sure you have an early dinner which may not be practical for all the high rollers :-).

7. Listen to a meditation mp3 or some slow music like chillouts, contemporary jazz to get you to sleep.

So like I said, you don't need to look forward to the weekend anymore. Every day has millions of opportunities to relax.

Thats all for now..lol