The Gates of Heaven and Hell

The Gates of Heaven and Hell

Story time (Don’t I just love stories).

One day the Zen Master Lao Tzu was meditating at his abode, when he was interrupted by a very anxious  Army General. The General, a mighty man who had won several battles was experiencing a lot of anxiety and restlessness within, and wanted to know if he would go to heaven or hell because of the wars he had fought and the number of people he had killed.

Instead of answering him, Lao Tzu knocked him on his head with his fist. The general, already an irritable person, was enraged. He screamed at Lao Tzu ‘HOW DARE YOU HIT ME ON THE HEAD’. His face grew red with rage, to which Lao Tzu calmly responded saying ‘Here lie the gates of Hell’. The General, immediately realizing his mistake bowed in front of the great Zen master ‘Please forgive me, I should not have lost my temper’ to which Lao Tzu, gently smiled and said ‘Here lie the Gates of Heaven’. The General went back in peace with a big smile on his face. Lao Tzu resumed his meditation.

All that Lao Tzu did was to trigger a response. The General’s first response was directly from his ego which drove him to rage. The Generals second response came out of humility and a sudden quantum moment where he realized that the choice of heaven and hell was within him and not some place he would go once he died. With this incident with the Zen Master, the General realized that the anger and guilt that he was carrying within as a result of his past deeds manifested itself in the form of a negative reaction. The moment he came to terms with it, his entire reaction changed in a matter of seconds.Basically, the general had to make peace with his past in order to experience heaven within.

Heaven within comes from being at peace with your life which in other words is a sum total of your past and your present. Since the present exists only in concept, it’s safe to say that our life is summed up by our past.

Everything that we did to bring us to WHERE we are now and WHO we are now.  The word PAST tends to terrify most people because it has a negative connotation. When someone says ‘oh he/she has a past’ it generally means they’ve not had a good past. The past isn’t negative, not by a long shot. The Past is experience, The Past is growth, The Past is a life that has been lived. The Past guides us to our future and teaches us invaluable lessons so that we don’t repeat our mistakes. 

The problem often lies when we allow the past to dictate our future. And that’s what leads us to hell within. The role of the past is to prepare us for the future not to dictate it. It strengthens us by putting us through the good times and the bad so that we evolve and grow. We learn about what works for us and what doesn’t. Past experience plays an important role in self-preservation. The Past highlights any alarming situations that we may be facing or are likely to face. Most importantly, The Past provides us with ammunition to make our choices. But do not allow it to make those decisions for you.  When we give too much importance to it by clinging on it, we experience hell within. 

Try this exercise- walk forward but look back. You can do it for a few steps but beyond that, apart from having a very sore neck, you will be directionless, I guarantee it, and you just might keep bumping into something or the other. And that’s because you’re not meant to look back all the time. Sure, when you do stop for a while in this journey of life, its fine to look back at how far you’ve come, smile, and say to yourself ‘you’ve come a long way, baby and yet there is still much to be done, so get up and get on with our journey’. Thank the past and move on. That’s when you will set foot into the Gates of Heaven within. Because you will be at peace J.  

Merry Christmas to all you wonderful people. May the coming year bring you peace within or as Kung Fu Panda rightly puts it ‘Inner Peace’.

‘Appreciation? What’s that?’

This one is something I read sometime back and it actually has quite a profound meaning. So here goes.

Jack happened to visit his neighbor Jim that morning. Jim has a dog called Max. Max is a wonderful dog. That day Jack was up early and happened to stroll past Jim’s courtyard. He noticed that in the morning Max had woken up before his master. He would climb on his two feet and unlock the door. He would then pick up the bottle of milk, go to the kitchen, leave the bottle of milk on the table, go out the door again to pick up the newspaper and keep it near his master’s favourite reclining chair. He would again head back outdoors to perform his routine actions. He also noticed that Max would come back home but not before wiping his feet on the doormat so that the house wouldn’t get dirty with his pug-marks.

‘Wow, what a smart dog’ Jack thought to himself. ‘I must compliment Jim for having such a fantastic dog, he is indeed lucky’. Saying this he strolled into Jim’s house (which was open) only to find to his shock and horror that Jim was beating up Max with his leash calling him ‘a stupid son of a bitch’. Jack hurriedly rushed to stop Jim ‘HEY JIM, STOP IT, WHAT ARE YOU DOING??? WHY ARE YOU BEATING HIM?’. What Jim said shocked the daylights out of Jack. Jim was beating Max because ‘the stupid son of a bitch didn’t close the door on his way back in’. Jack looked at Jim with deep sense of disgust and said ‘You are outta your mind, he’s done much more than any other dog that I have ever seen, can’t you see that leave alone appreciate it?’. Jim got even more angry ‘APPRECIATION? NO WAY, WHY DIDN’T HE CLOSE THE FUCKING DOOR, HE DESERVES TO BE BEATEN UP’.

Jack's heart sunk for the poor dog that was cowering under the table trying desperately to avoid the next lash of his master’s leash. What happened next was that Jack called the local Animal Welfare organization and rescued the poor dog which had one eye bleeding. A case was filed against Jim for Animal abuse. Jack decided to adopt Max. and thus began a lifelong relationship of trust, love, appreciation and giving :)

What’s the message behind this story? That no matter how hard you try to please someone, if they only want to look at the things you did not do, then they will punish you; instead of rewarding you with the most basic thing that we call appreciation. And that is very uncool. You may or may not appreciate good behavior but punishing severely will only result in that person or thing moving away from you. And its more likely that they will leave permanently. So if you have a Max-like person in your life remember to show your appreciation and  never let that person go. But, if there is a Jim in you life, never try to change him or her because he or she dosent want to change. And if he or she cannot appreciate what you bring to the table, then let them eat alone J J they simply don’t deserve your company.

An Enlightening Session with Jeff Hoffman

For those of you who may not be aware, Jeff Hoffman is a serial Entrepreneur. He has played an important role in building and running several new-age businesses including the highly successful www.priceline.com. 

During an Entrepreneur Bootcamp session here in Pune, he enticed us all with his immensely rich experience including success stories, lessons learnt from failures, how to build a business, how to identify and rectify flaws etc., but the one thing that really made a mark with me was this one particular nugget of wisdom that he shared. Read on…

AFRICA 

It so happens that in Africa, one of the most useful and easy ways to hunt down monkeys is quite unique. Hunters would dig holes in the ground and wedge a Banana into it. The Banana would be wedged just so that it is difficult for the monkey to pull it out. 

Now here’s the interesting part…when monkeys climbed down from their trees and onto the forest to try and pull out the wedged banana, they would not be able to. They would keep trying and trying to pull the banana out but since it wedged, it just wouldn't come out.

What happens next?

The hunters would then simply walk over to the monkey and capture it :((  Over the years, what the hunters realized is that no matter how dangerous the situation became, once the monkey grasped the banana, it wouldn't let go. It therefore became an easy way for hunters to catch them. 

What the Monkey didn't realize is that all it had to do was to let go of the banana and it would be free. Instead, in trying to hold onto the banana, it eventually lost everything include its life. Fellow Monkeys would scream ‘danger’ but they just wouldn't let go of the Banana.

The above story can be applied to many of us. Are we holding onto something that can and will cause havoc in our lives? And more importantly, are we aware of it? If we are aware of it, then are we ready to face the impending outcome? 

While this can be applied to every facet of life, entrepreneurs like us tend to be faced with such situations quite often. In order for us to grow, we need to break our patterns of thinking (i.e the monkey wanting the banana) and watch for warning signs. If we don’t, we tend to undo all that has been done because of our seemingly impractical, inane and innate stubbornness. Do share your thoughts on this as well. In the coming days, Ill try and put more such nuggets of wisdom that he shared.

May The force Be With You :)

Self worth, Self Praise, Self belief and everything that goes with it

This one’s a constant debate, aint it?  If you are really good at what you do, should you indulge in self-praise every now and then or just bottle it all up in the name of 'humility'.  Now here’s what I think. If you’re good at what you do (especially true when it comes to your work), speak up and tell people how good you really are. Does that sound like you’re over-indulging yourself? Hold that thought for a second. Do you remember any one business pitch you’ve made? Or any interviews you’ve attended? Good. So now that I have your attention, I want you to recollect the event. Didn’t your interviewer ask you ‘what do you think are your strengths’. In other words, he’s asking you what you are good at. Do you remember writing anything negative about yourself in that CV you posted online? Yup, there you go. Now think of that sales pitch you made. Did you mention any negative aspects of your firm/company? Obviously not!!!! Can you imagine yourself sitting in front of a prospective client and/or employer and saying stuff like ‘oh Im not all that good, don’t go by what people say!!! Im actually pretty mediocre!!!’ Sheesh!!! That would be quite an interview wouldn’t it? And then what about that job/deal? Well, you just kissed it goodbye !!! Or imagine this, you own a restaurant,and a customer came asking you what’s good. Would you instead tell them what not to try??? You would tell them what’s really good.

If you’re one of those who is going to wait for others to talk good about you, Im sorry my friend, but you belong to another era. Today, people are way too self-obsessed, have too little time to look beyond their pathetic lives to appreciate someone and even if they do, they’ll put a comment on your FB profile. That’s as far as they’ll go. At least thats as far as most of them will go. For the few exceptions, they're the ones who are really special. But this aint about those people. Its about you.

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It’s when we talk good about ourselves that we actually get other people to talk good about us. Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean you should stand on top of the Empire State Building and scream it out using a loudspeaker-“Hey, Im good, work with me. Im the best, be with me or gimme the deal”. That would make it extremely embarrassing and you’d probably get arrested for causing public nuisance. The point Im making here is to have a healthy sense of self-worth. Coz only if you do, will the world stop piling on its excretion on you. Until then, you’ll be the world’s favourite shitting hole. and guess what,  you’ll actually feel good about being the world’s favourite shitting hole. Coz you’ll think, ‘oh well, at least I have some use of myself’. and guess what, more and more shit piles onto you. 

In fact, general Self-worth has nothing much to do with how good you are at doing the things you do. Its got more to do with how good you feel about yourself as a result of who you are and not who’s in your life or what’s in your life. The day you start validating yourself by who’s around you or what’s with you, that’s the time you will be farthest from yourself. Because in life, people will come and go, so will things, but you will be with yourself forever. Your relationship with yourself is a lifelong affair. Treat it with Love. Nourish it. Nurture it. Sure, there are times when you will fight with yourself, calm yourself down, get yourself excited and do many other things (some unmentionable :D ) during your lifetime. But the one thing you really should strive to be is to be honest with yourself. This is more often than not the most difficult thing to do. As Amish Tripathi wrote in his Shiva Trilogy ‘Delusions create the most compelling of beliefs’ or like what Obi-wan Kenobi says in Star Wars ‘Many of the truths we cling on to depend greatly on our own point of view’. Both mean the same thing. Only you can fool yourself into believing what’s real and what’s not. What’s important and what’s not. What you perceive will only ‘appear’ to be the truth that truth will never remain. Because our mind is dynamic, what we believe to be true one day will turn false the next day. And then, in hindsight, we either admonish ourselves for the mistakes we made or we wish that we could’ve gone back in time and rectified it. Both are pretty useless thoughts, coz if you keep looking back, you’ll never move forward. Well, you might, but chances are that you’ll either have a very sore neck or you might just bump into something and hurt yourself even more. And when you don’t move forward, your self-worth is the first thing that gets hit. And the hit lasts a very long time.

A good sense of self-worth means to first to accept the fact that we are all humans and that we do make mistakes. And then it means you need to be able to forgive yourself. And last but not the least it means you need to give yourself a chance to believe that you do indeed deserve the best that life has to offer. And whoever you are, pat yourself on the back for coming this far coz. As Robert Frost wrote,

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Its your self-belief that'll get you out of the forest and keep up the promises until you finally sleep. Now, go and make that pitch. Or go and attend that interview. And let’s see what happens. My guess is, MAGIC. SHEER MAGIC :) 

My next article will be on humility... Until then Happy reading people :) 

Life works in Tandem. Part 1

Life seldom works in isolation. Several key moments in our life appear to be so because there is a build-up to it. The build-up happens because of our actions that were further derived by the choices we made or didn’t make. Let me give you one fantastic example of this that happened to me in my Life.

It was the year, 2002, a year that saw many dramatic changes in our lives. The year started on an extremely discouraging note when we found out that my Mothers kidneys had failed. Add to this my unemployment woes compounded. I was officially broke and without a job for over 8 Months. I had attended several interviews. Everyone said the same thing. The boy has potential, but we can’t hire him now. If that weren’t enough, I was going through personal hell. A person very dear to me chose to dump me at the most vulnerable period of my life. But then a series of events unfolded that changed the course of my life permanently.

It was a typical Hot and Sultry day in April. I spoke to mom who had just resumed office after her transplant. All seemed well and I told her I was going to check out the British Education Fair at the Taj Coromandel. There was really no way in the world that I was going to be able to afford an international MBA at that point in time. We had already incurred a huge cost in Moms surgery, my brother’s wedding was to follow in August and as I had said before, I was stone broke.  But hey, it doesn’t cost to pay a visit. I was wrong there again. It did cost me Rs.100 to enter.

As I strolled aimlessly from one stall to another, I visited the Warwick Business School. Not a chance. 600 on the GMAT (I was in the mid 400’s) plus the course and accommodation would cost me close to Rs.20 lakhs. I moved on. Middlesex Business School. Had an extremely cocky guy for a University which was ranked so low. Didn’t like him or the University. By now, I began to wonder what life had in store for me. As I moved towards the exit, I heard a friendly voice call me by my pet name ‘Olly’. I turned around to see the friendly smile of a person I had met only once in my life. His name was Vijay Naidu. He ran a Student Admission service for 3 or 4 universities across the UK. I had met Vijay briefly during my visit to Nagpur in 2001. I had gone to meet my cousin Atul. Atul and Vijay were very thick and often socialized together.  Back to the present, Vijay heard me out patiently and simply said to me ‘tooh Southampton jaa’ (Go to Southampton). I wasn’t optimistic. Even if it did cost a fraction of Warwick, the course would still cost me at least Rs.10 lakhs. At best I could muster up Rs.2 lakhs.For that too, mom would have to stretch herself. Again.

In May, Vijay came back into town with Nabil Nour, the admissions officer of The Southampton Institute. They both assured me of any support that I would require and made me an unconditional offer. I was surprised to say the least. Kindness did exist in this world. I was ecstatic. Felt like a new lease of life. But now the hard work started. Vijay advised me to check with a few nationalized banks on their policies. I visited several ranging from ICICI to HDFC to HSBC to Canara Bank to check what they had in store for Students.  I finally stood at the entrance of Central Bank.  I was greeted by Mr Narasimhan, Branch Manager. Our conversation didn’t last very long. I told him that I had Rs.2 lakhs and needed another Rs.4 lakhs as a loan. That would cover my boarding costs and the fees for two terms out of three. He asked me how I would arrange for the 3^rd term fees. I said I would work hard albeit part-time try and contribute as much as I could. The rest I would need to leave to God. He asked me to provide whatever security I could as collateral. I said the only thing we had were a few LIC policies but that too would not suffice. He asked me to bring my Mother.

Our next meeting happened 2 to 3 weeks later. In the meantime, I had organized for my mark sheets, bank statements, employee references, etc. Narasimhan was candid with my mother. He said that it was indeed rare to see a student walk into a branch managers office all by himself, and request him for a loan. He was more accustomed to a silent student accompanied by his/her parents wherein the parents would do all the talking and the student sat silently. He said it didn’t matter that the value of the security was half of the loan amount. I also had with me one of our very close family friends Kamal Asher. Kamal uncle came in as a guarantor for the remainder amount. My loan was cleared. Narasimhan looked at me and said “I am confident that I will never have to invoke either the securities or the guarantee. You will not let any of us down”. That was again two acts of kindness (Kamal Uncle and Narasimhan, a rank outsider).

My dream materialized in September 2002 when I finally left the shores of India to pursue my MBA at Southampton Institute. What I would like to highlight is this. Had I not met Vijay Naidu in Nagpur, I wouldn’t have known him. Had I not known him, I wouldn’t have had that offer letter. Had I not visited every bank in town, I wouldn’t have met Narasimhan. Had I not met Narasimhan, I wouldn’t have gotten my loan. On a more moral note, had I not a good reputation with my near and dear ones such as Kamal Uncle, he wouldn’t have been my guarantor. If I were to add more, had my break-up not happened at that critical point in time, I wouldn’t have left the country. I would have lingered on and probably faded into an abyss.

This entire series of incidents that led to my going to UK, changed me many ways. It changed my thinking, my beliefs, my actions and therefore my outcomes. It’s not to say that I do not question when things go bad. I still do. There is an occasional burst of anger followed by moments of depression. But what has changed is that I have learnt to cope with every setback and recover quickly. Because deep down inside, I believe that Life will find a way out. And it always works in tandem with someone else’s. Never in isolation. J

We the people

Just saw Swades for the nth time and it continues to make me take a long and hard relook at life in general. It's not about fancy designations at work or at the corporate, its not about whom you report to or what you do, It certainly aint about buying that new car which gives you an apparent ego boost, not about the number of influential people you meet and get clicked around with. Not about achieving targets, meeting deadlines, being the best broker in the firm or in the country. We get so caught up in counting the numbers that lead up to our targets, the number of awards that grace our showcase. We get great kicks in walking into a five star hotel and get so annoyed if the doorman doesnt do his duty up to our expected levels. We think it to be so fashionable to be seen on page 3 or to be invited to that much sought after 'party' that we feel a lower sense of self-worth if we are omitted.

Swades gives me a reality check. A check that subtly yet powerfully relects the triumph of human spirit. A story of one man's transformation brought about by the troubles he sees his fellow countrymen facing and moreover, transformation brought about by understanding his ability to make a difference. The fact that by sharing and giving we feel a sense of accomplishment that is unparalleled. That the smile on the faces of the people we love is worth more than any wealth in the world. Its about we-the people.
Jai Hind!!!