Mindful Realm Of Yoga

Heart Chakra

noreply@blogger.com (Evergreen) — Sun, 01 Mar 2015 00:29:00 +0000

I am not quite sure since when my heart become truely shutoff from the sense of compassion. Sitting on a bench facing vast sea and the blue sky in Boracay island, it triggers my awareness of my current state. My own heart chakra is truely closed.
I can feel it from my upper body condition. I wanted to change it and going to a much joyful state by opening up the chakra. Breath in more and slowly with a natural rhythm.

Perhaps this is due to too much of exposure to the business world out there or am I just too 'harsh' to myself ? Where is one's own compassion ?

得与失

noreply@blogger.com (Evergreen) — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 14:12:00 +0000

生命中的得与失，只是过往云烟，不需要太在乎。珍惜你现在所拥有的，是你所需要做的。別无它。

Sky Is Your Best Companion

noreply@blogger.com (Evergreen) — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 00:23:00 +0000

No matter how hard is life,
When you look up to the blue sky,
Everything will be alright.
The vast of the blue sky reminds you,
Nothing is impossible for you,
As long as you try with great effort.
Remember the sky is the limit.

Flying Through Time...

noreply@blogger.com (Evergreen) — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 04:04:00 +0000

Do you believe we really can fly through time ? When I say fly it doesn't means our physical body that fly but our soul. I believe sometimes in your life, you dream of something like people, some scenes, events and after sometimes it really happened. Same scenes, setting, same people sitting on the same sitting position & place. Don't you feel strange and curious to know why ? I admitted that I am a free thinker, without any boundary or restriction on my thoughts. For me, anything is possible as long as human mind can think of it. I have been searching on Einstein's Theory of Relativity few years ago and I think the theory might support what I am thinking about : a 'soul' that can fly through different time dimensions.
It sounds cool to me. Based on theory of relativity, things you see might not be the exact real things. Some scientists interpreted it in a way that speed of light can bend the time dimension and allows us to fly back to the past or future. This is exactly presented in the end part of silent film on Theory of Relativity. Watch it here.
From my own experience and combining the theory, I truly believe that when you slow down your life pace, chance of seeing the future is higher; but when you move in life too fast, chances are you will dream yourself in the past. That's my own theory, fron my perception, believe it or not, it's up to you. Let's the curiosity drives you the best !

My Quotes

noreply@blogger.com (Evergreen) — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 10:33:00 +0000

- Fearless Heart Is The Most Precious Gift Blessed.It Brings You Somewhere Out of Your Expectation.

- Take Time To Eat,Pray & Travel.

- Unbeatable spirit With Faith = Reborn.

- God changes caterpillars into butterflies, sand into pearls, coal into diamonds using TIME and PRESSURE. He is working on you too.

- Happiness is a journey.

- The best things in life are the people you love, things you experience and growth of your soul.

Refresing And Relaxing...

noreply@blogger.com (Evergreen) — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 10:19:00 +0000

I managed to have my pregnancy yoga session yesterday night before sleep. It was a short one but it really helps me to sleep through the night tightly and without any dreams. My body feel not so tense after wake up and feel more energized through out the whole next day. My standing & sitting posture also improved alot and feel much lighter during walking.

That's the amazing good result of practicing yoga even during pregnancy. My yoga teacher mentioned yoga only suitable for pregnant women if she has practise it for some time, 2-3 years consistently. Else it is not suitable for those who never practice yoga before.

Will continue the practice tonight again.

Note: I just realized that my son photo was posted in my yoga teacher blog ! That's was in April time ! Hmm..I guess I totally lost myself in the see of life but forgot to give my self some yoga time ...

Namaste !

Hearing The Time Ticking...

noreply@blogger.com (Evergreen) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 10:43:00 +0000

Time is tickling but my soul is lingering. Feeling a bit loofy and floating these few days. I have stopped my routine yoga class after 21 week of my pregnancy. But my yoga teacher has teach me a series of yoga flow which suitable for pregnant lady 2 weeks ago. I didn't actually practice if at home until yesterday.

I did it slowly since my tummy kind of big now and it was really soothing and relaxing after doing it, especially when I laid down for Nidra Yoga session. I had a good night sleep without any dreams after the session. Will do it again for tonight, just for the good sake of my baby & my body.

Note: 16 more weeks to go, counting...

Namaste !

The Story Of Hanuman

noreply@blogger.com (Evergreen) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 10:23:00 +0000

Here's a story I quoted from my yoga teacher blog site:

According to the story,

“Anjana was a beautiful woman who deeply desired to become a mother, so she prayed daily for the miracle of a child. The wind god Vayu admired Anjana very much, and when he heard her prayer, he decided to help her out. He blessed a few grains of rice and sent them with his bird friends, who were flying her way. Anjana was engaged in her daily prayer ritual. She had her arms stretched upward in anjali mudra, ready to receive the grace of God, when she received a few grains of rice instead. She knew better than to question what came to her through prayer, so she opened her mouth and tossed in the rice. Upon her consumption of the blessed rice, she became pregnant.

When her baby Anjaneya (which meant “son of Anjana”) was born, he was quite a precocious youngster. He was half mortal and half divine, since Vayu was his father. His demigod status is what often led him into big trouble. One morning Anjaneya woke up and saw what he thought was a giant mango floating in the sky. Since mangoes were his favorite treat, he immediately leapt up into the sky and rushed toward the fruit, not realizing it was actually the sun. When the sun god Surya saw this little troublemaker racing to take a big bite out of him, he threw a lightning bolt, which hit the boy in the jaw, killing him instantly and sending him tumbling to the ground.

When Vayu learned what Surya had done, his great fury made him take a deep breath. It was so deep that he sucked up all the air from the earth, and all the beings began to suffocate. The gods called an emergency meeting to try and placate both Vayu and Surya and restore order. Vayu refused to exhale until he got his son, Anjaneya, back. But Surya didn’t want his potentially dangerous child running around unrestrained.

Finally, an agreement was reached. Anjaneya would be renamed Hanuman, which referred to the broken jaw he received from the lightning bolt (hanu means “jaw” in Sanskrit). He would be revived, but cursed with short-term memory so that he would never recall his godliness long enough to cause any real harm. If he believed himself to be just a mortal, what damage could he possibly do?

And finally, he would be removed from his mother’s care so that he could start a new life. The trusted monkey king, Sugriva, agreed to take Hanuman under his wing, and the little boy took the shape of a monkey to better match his new family.”

Now this Hanuman is no ordinary monkey, who was to leave mother’s bosom and forget his godly nature for time-being, so that God could prepare him for his life’s grand mission to assist Ram, the greatest hero in the history of ancient India. Anjana, on the other hand, although she loved her son dearly, has to let go of him so that he could become a man of the world to fulfill his divine mission. In Anjanasana, we can access her fearless energy by thrusting our reluctant psoas muscle inside hip toward floor while folding palms into anjali mudra toward sky to indicate our surrender of inhibition and fear. Behind a heroic son like Hanuman, there is a heroic mother like Anjana. A fearless mother and ardent devotee like her is the lost role model for our modern mom-wanna-be.

It give me a tickle at my current life journey and great inspiration source !

The Look Of A Sani !

noreply@blogger.com (lilianneyu) — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 06:09:00 +0000

This posting written by my yoga teacher really touched my heart and inspired me in my current path of life. Things always come at the right point of time and as I said before, my guru will always appear whenever I need some guide in my life path !

Namaste !

Shiva Nataraja Symbolism

noreply@blogger.com (Evergreen) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:11:00 +0000

(Taken From LotusSculpture.com)

The symbolism of Siva Nataraja is religion, art and science merged as one. In God's endless dance of creation, preservation, destruction and paired graces is hidden a deep understanding of our universe. Aum Namah Sivaya. Bhashya Nataraja, the King of Dance, has four arms. The upper right hand holds the drum from which creation issues forth. The lower right hand is raised in blessing, betokening preservation. The upper left hand holds a flame, which is destruction, the dissolution of form. The right leg, representing obscuring grace, stands upon Apasmarapurusha, a soul temporarily earth-bound by its own sloth, confusion and forgetfulness. The uplifted left leg is revealing grace, which releases the mature soul from bondage. The lower left hand gestures toward that holy foot in assurance that Siva's grace is the refuge for everyone, the way to liberation. The circle of fire represents the cosmos and especially consciousness. The all-devouring form looming above is Mahakala, "Great Time." The cobra around Nataraja's waist is kundalini shakti, the soul-impelling cosmic power resident within all. Nataraja's dance is not just a symbol. It is taking place within each of us, at the atomic level, this very moment. The Agamas proclaim, "The birth of the world, its maintenance, its destruction, the soul's obscuration and liberation are the five acts of His dance." Aum Namah Sivaya.

"O my Lord, Thy hand holding the sacred drum has made and ordered the heavens and earth and other worlds and innumerable souls. Thy lifted hand protects both the conscious and unconscious order of thy creation. All these worlds are transformed by Thy hand bearing fire. Thy sacred foot, planted on the ground, gives an abode to the tired soul struggling in the toils of causality. It is Thy lifted foot that grants eternal bliss to those that approach Thee. These Five-Actions are indeed Thy Handiwork.."
~ Chidambara Mummani Kovai~

The Nataraja dances within the universe of illusion. The locks of his hair stand out in many strands as he whirls around in his dancing frenzy. His locks are decked with a crescent moon, a skull, and are interspersed with the sacred river Ganges.

Shiva's unkempt hair, a symbol of a rejection of society, shows him to be an ascetic. This contrasts with his role as a grhastha, or householder, with his wife and family.

Thanks For All The Food Blessing

noreply@blogger.com (lilianneyu) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:06:00 +0000

I has been blessed with so many nice food invitation since I am leaving soon the current company. But I really appreciate the arrangement and the great food blessed for me.

It has been a great 4 years my tim time, with my very own personal inner growth, especially the spirituality. And I guess it's time for me to make a move to see a whole new world out there with the great blessing. I am lucky enough to be able to join in one of the great company oversea and I definitely will use this great chance to expand my horison, personally or for my own career good.

Thanks for all the blessing given !

Ganesha Is Fresh !

noreply@blogger.com (Evergreen) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 07:52:00 +0000

1st verse

Ganesh is so fresh chillin on his throne / surrounded by incense fruit and gold with a heap of sweets piled in his bowl / he guards the gate and protects the threshold when your blessed by Ganesh than you can travel / on a sacred journey to an inner temple he paves the path that leads to the soul / & he’s known for removing all obstacles now some may think it’s illogical / a myth or it’s just philosophical but Ganesh makes everything possible / because elephant power’s unstoppable

chorus
Jaya Ganesha, Jaya Ganesha, Jaya Ganesha Om

2nd verse

To the god of all wisdom loved by all children / known for blessing homes that we live in to the lord of all creatures with divine features / inspiring the minds of all truth seekers to the son of Shiva and Parvati / with an elephants head and a fat belly with a snake for a belt to hold up his pants / he rides on a mouse and he loves to dance with a lotus unfolding inside one of his of his hands / & an axe to attack all ignorance a broom to remove all hindrance / and a noose to reduce all selfishness he writes the pages that the sages chant / droppin ancient vedic science so we can comprehend / all the many ways that we can transcend singin Jai to Ganesh he’s a yogi’s best friend

chorus
Jaya Ganesha Jaya Ganesha Jaya Ganesha Om

3rd verse

I pray to Ganesh to take away the stress / and pave the way into a place that’s blessed centered in the chest where the breath is felt / when your blessed by Ganesh than the stress can melt / he destroys the knots that confine your thoughts / he dissolves the walls & he breaks the blocks / he unlocks the door to the sacred core / & he guards the gate at the pelvic floor / the benevolent elephant who’s super intelligent / at the base of the spine he’s the earth element / he’s the ruler of the muladhara chakra / his brother rides a peacock and his names is Skanda / to the son of Uma and Mahadeva we offer this puja to Shri Ganesha / to the son of Parvati and Mahesh dedicated to Ganesh cuz he’s so fresh

chorus
Jaya Ganesha Jaya Ganesha Jaya Ganesha Om

Son Of Shiva - MC Yogi

noreply@blogger.com (lilianneyu) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 07:13:00 +0000

Here's anothe rap song by MC Yogi, on the story of Ganesh, son of Lord Shiva

1st verse

High up in the Himalayan mountain peaks / their lived a beautiful goddess named ParvatiParvati was the wife of the god named Shiva / the king of all yogis who destroys all demons / now Shiva loved to practice yoga deep in the forest / far away from the world & all the things that lure us /in deep s amadhi for weeks and months / practicing detachment completely untouched / but whenever Shiva left Parvati stayed home / often feeling sad & all alone / so one day she prayed & made a wish / for a son who she could have fun & play with / the very next moment to her surprise / a little baby laid right in front of her eyes / Parvati could hardly control her joy / for the gods had blessed her with a beautiful boy

chorus
Son of Shiva & Parvati / with an elephants head and a fat belly

2nd verse

One day when Parvati was taking a bath / she instructed her son to protect the path so he stood in the door just like a guard / there to make sure no one entered the yard it was at that time when Shiva returned / not knowing that his wife recently gave birth when Shiva saw the boy he told him to move / but not knowing who his father was the boy refused / now Shiva’s like this, truth consciousness and bliss / but he’s crazy when he’s angry so don’t get him pissed / feeling dissed and dismissed Shiva started a rumble an epic struggle that shook the jungle / then out of nowhere Shiva’s trident went chop and that’s when the boy’s head was cut off / when Parvati heard the noise outside she rushed to find that her boy had died

chorus
Son of Shiva & Parvati / with an elephants head and a fat belly

3rd verse

All the gods quickly rushed to the scene / as soon as they heard Parvati’s scream she turned toward Shiva with tears in her eyes / and painfully explained how the boy was there child / when Shiva realized the size of this mess / he became depressed, upset & stressed that’s when lord Brahma came up with a plan / let’s find another head so the boy could live again / Shiva said “we’ll take the first head that we find / but we really need to hurry cuz we’re running out of time” / deep in the jungle the gods met an elephant a wise old being who attained enlightenment / he bowed to the gods and he offered his head / and then they quickly returned to where the boy laid dead / Shiva placed the big head on top of the boys body / and at first it looked funny and even ungodly / but Parvati said the head fit like a glove / truly the face only a mother could love / when Shiva saw the boy becoming refreshed / he embraced his son and named him Ganesh

chorus
Son of Shiva & Parvati / with an elephants head and a fat belly

Enjoy !

Namaste !

Give Love - MC Yogi

noreply@blogger.com (Evergreen) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 02:13:00 +0000

Here is another lyrics for a song by MC Yogi, I love this very very much because it full of energy of love and spirit of love !!

Give Love - Giving4Living
Lyrics by MC Yogi (So you can sing along with me)

“Hush little darling don't you cry,
Every little thing's gonna be alright.
Don't worry don't be afraid,
Every little thing's gonna be okay.
Open up your heart, unlock the cage,
Turn the key and break the chains,
Love will always find a way.
If you want love, you gotta give love away.

(Chorus)
Give Love. Give your love away. Give love. Don't be afraid.
Give love. Give your love away now. Give love. It'll be ok.
Give love. Give your love away.

Love is life and life is living,
Living is love and love is giving,
When we live for love it gives life meaning,
When we live to give love, there's no greater feeling.
This feeling of kindness when loves inside us,
Nobody can sell this or try to buy this,
Cause love is priceless and it guides us,
Lifts us up and ignites us,
Love can bind us and remind us,
Love has no limit cause love is timeless,
Hate and fear will try to blind us but love unites us nobody can fight this,
Cause love is righteous,
And it might just save the whole world from this global crisis.
Throw your hands up if you know what the time is,
Open up your heart and let it shine the brightest.

(Chorus)
I believe the very best philosophy,
Is when we live to give love with generosity.
Giving consciously and constantly,
When we all give love there's no stoppin’, we
Just open up the door and let your love pour.
When you open up to love you can never be poor,
Cause there's always more inside the core,
Way more in store than you can bargain for.
An infinite supply for us to share,
So just throw your hands up in the air,
Wave ‘em all around the atmosphere,
Show the whole world how much you care.
We gotta give everybody love and respect,
Cause what we give is what we get, c'mon,
Always remember, never forget,
What we give is what we get.

(Chorus)
Hush little darling don't you cry,
Every little thing's gonna be alright.
Don't worry don't be afraid,
Every little thing's gonna be okay.
Open up your heart, unlock the cage,
Turn the key and break the chains,
Love will always find a way.
If you want love, you gotta give love away.

Give Love. Give your love away. Give love. Don't be afraid.
Give love. Give your love away now. Give love. It'll be ok.
Give love. Give your love away.”

Hope you like it too !

Namaste !

Be The Change - MC Yogi

noreply@blogger.com (lilianneyu) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 02:01:00 +0000

MC Yogi, a very creative rap singer, who really turn me up side down. I wonder how' such a modern rap singer, can assimilate the essence of spirituality with the rythm of rap music. It really open up my eyes how American so keen in taking something old and change it to something new, acceptable by all the people in the US. They got their great talent. I really salute their creativity and innovative soul and mind.

Share with you one of my favourite songs from MC yogi. He sing out the whole story, of Mahatma Gandhi, the great gist of his life time in this great song !

Be The Change - Dedicated to All The Spiritual Activist

1st verse
Once upon a time not long ago / there was a boy who would grow & become a great soul he lived in India and his name was Gandhi / he believed in human rights & he felt so strongly / that he made a vow to train himself / because he realized first he’d have to change himself / he changed his clothes & decided to walk / some days he practiced silence and refused to talk / when he was young he studied to be a lawyer / and then he became a great spiritual warrior / he read from the scriptures of every religion / came to the realization that we’re all God’s children / because he understood that we’re all equal he became a spokesman for the people / a karma yogi devoted to service to spread truth & peace was his purpose.

chorus
Be the change that you wanna see / in the world, just like Gandhi

2nd verse

Gandhi dedicated his life to the cause / even when it meant breaking unjust lawshe often faced prison and incarceration / but that only strengthened his determination he said he would make every sacrifice / but that he would never kill or take a life he used his heart instead of his fist / and he taught non-violence as the way to resist a peaceful soldier who used his mind / to fight for the rights of human kind but not just people, animals too / and his basic teaching “God is Truth” he joined Muslims, Sikhs, & Hindus / Christians, Buddhists, Jains, and Jews all the many paths that lead into / the light that shines bright inside of me and you

chorus
Be the change that you wanna see / in the world, just like Gandhi

3rd verse

“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind” / and it takes more strength and faith to be kind / with that in mind Gandhi took a stand / against the foreign occupation of his land / when things got violent Gandhi would fast / not eating for days until the riots would pass / but the biggest event that made the British halt / is when Gandhi-ji decided to harvest salt / the British empire installed a salt tax / and stealing salt was an unlawful act / so Gandhi and his peeps, took the streets / ten thousand deep they marched to the beach / but when they arrived they were beaten with clubs / but they didn’t fight back instead they chose love / the British military realized they were wrong / and eventually decided to go back home / you see, Gandhi-ji was a very great leader / but before all that he was shy & meager /as a young child he was just like you and me / before he became Mahatma Gandhi / the word “Mahatma” it means great soul / and its inside of us just waiting to unfold / if you follow your heart and act real bold / next time it’ll be your story that’s told!

chorus
Be the change that you wanna see / in the world, just like Gandhi

Check out more about MC Yogi from his very personal website : MC YOGI

Namaste !

Six Common Misperceptions About Teamwork

noreply@blogger.com (lilianneyu) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 01:43:00 +0000

(Taken From www.bnet.com)

Based on a new book by Harvard psychology professor, J. Richard Hackman called Collaborative Intelligence: Using Teams to Solve Hard Problems, spells out that our everyday understandings of how to work optimally together can be wildly out of whack.

Here are the misconceptions:

Harmony helps. Smooth interaction among collaborators avoids time-wasting debates about how best to proceed. Actually: Quite the opposite, research shows. Conflict, when well managed and focused on a team’s objectives, can generate more creative solutions than one sees in conflict-free groups. So long as it is about the work itself, disagreements can be good for a team.
It’s good to mix it up. New members bring energy and fresh ideas to a team. Without them, members risk becoming complacent, inattentive to changes in the environment, and too forgiving of fellow members’ misbehavior. Actually: The longer members stay together as an intact group, the better they do. As unreasonable as this may seem, the research evidence is unambiguous. Whether it is a basketball team or a string quartet, teams that stay together longer play together better.
Teamwork is magical. To harvest its many benefits,
all one has to do is gather up some really talented people and tell
them in general terms what is needed–the team will work out the details. Actually: It takes careful thought and no small about amount of preparation to stack the deck for success. The best leaders provide a clear statement of just what the team is to accomplish, and they make sure that the team has all the resources and supports it will need to succeed.
It all depends on the leader. Think of a team you have led, or on which you have served, that performed superbly. Now think of another one that did quite poorly. What accounts for the difference between them? If you are like most people, your explanation will have something to do with the personality, behavior, or style of the leaders of those two teams.
Actually: The hands-on activities of group leaders do make a difference. But the most powerful thing a leader can do to foster effective collaboration is to create conditions that help members competently manage themselves. The second most powerful thing is to launch the team well. And then, third, is the hands-on teaching and coaching that leaders do after the work is underway. Our research suggests that condition-creating accounts for about 60% of the variation in how well a team eventually performs; that the quality of the team launch accounts for another 30%; and that real-time coaching accounts for only about 10%. Leaders are indeed important in collaborative work, but not in the ways we usually think.
Teamwork is magical. To harvest its many benefits, all one has to do is gather up some really talented people and tell them in general terms what is needed--the team will work out the details.
Actually: It takes careful thought and no small about amount of preparation to stack the deck for success. The best leaders provide a clear statement of just what the team is to accomplish, and they make sure that the team has all the resources and supports it will need to succeed. Although you may have to do a bit of political maneuvering to get what is needed for effective collaboration from the broader organization, it is well worth the trouble.
Face-to-face interaction is passé. Now that we have powerful electronic technologies for communication and coordination, teams can do their work much more efficiently at a distance.
Actually: Teams working remotely are at a considerable disadvantage. There really are benefits to sizing up your teammates face-to-face. A number of organizations that rely heavily on distributed teams have found that it is well worth the time and expense to get members together when the team is launched, again around the midpoint of the team's work, and yet again when the work has been completed.
(For full report, you can get it from Harvard Business Review)

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His Voice Really Touch My Soul - Dave Stringer

noreply@blogger.com (lilianneyu) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 08:40:00 +0000

He is Dave Stringer, 1st time I heard his voice over Shiva Rea web site. The kirtan song's name is called "Hey Shiva Shankara".
His voice really touched my heart & soul. When 1st time I heard the voice, I thought the kirtan must be sang by an indian but later on I found out that he is westerner from Los Angeles. A very talented kirtan singer :

“A volcano of a voice! Stringer transported us to another time and
place. His fiery, soulful voice gave the entire room a feeling of a
down-home gospel jam and one could not help but sing along.” — LA Yoga
Magazine.

The Power Of Yoga, Time 2001

noreply@blogger.com (lilianneyu) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 03:32:00 +0000

(Taken From www.time.com)

Christy Turlington

Stars do it. Sports do it. Judges in the highest courts do it. Let's do it: that yoga thing. A path to enlightenment that winds back 5,000 years in its native India, yoga has suddenly become so hot, so cool, so very this minute. It's the exercise cum meditation for the new millennium, one that doesn't so much pump you up as bliss you out. Yoga now straddles the continent — from Hollywood, where $20 million-a-picture actors queue for a session with their guru du jour,
to Washington, where, in the gym of the Supreme Court, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and 15 others faithfully take their class each Tuesday morning.

Everywhere else, Americans rush from their high-pressure jobs and tune in to the authoritatively mellow voice of an instructor, gently urging them to solder a union (the literal translation of the Sanskrit word yoga) between mind and body. These Type A strivers want to become Type B seekers, to lose their blues in an asana (pose), to graduate from distress to de-stress. Fifteen million Americans include some form of yoga in their fitness regimen — twice as many as did five years ago; 75% of all U.S. health clubs offer yoga classes. Many in those classes are looking not inward but behind. As supermodel Christy Turlington, a serious practitioner, says, "Some of my friends simply want to have a yoga butt." But others come to the discipline in hopes of restoring their troubled bodies. Yoga makes me feel better, they say. Maybe it can cure what ails me.

Oprah Winfrey, arbiter of moral and literary betterment for millions of American women, devoted a whole show to the benefits of yoga earlier this month, with guest appearances by Turlington and stud-muffin guru Rodney Yee. Testimonials from everyday yogis and
yoginis clogged the hour: I lost weight; I quit smoking; I conquered my fear of flying; I can sleep again; it saved my marriage; it improved my daughter's grades and attitude. "We are more centered as a team," declared the El Monte Firefighters of Los Altos Hills, Calif.

Sounds great. Namaste, as your instructor says at the end of a session:
the divine in me bows to the divine in you. But let's up the ante a bit. Is yoga more than the power of positive breathing? Can it, say, cure cancer? Fend off heart attacks? Rejuvenate post-menopausal women? Just as important for yoga's application by mainstream doctors, can its presumed benefits be measured by conventional medical standards? Is yoga, in other words, a science ?

By even asking the question, we provoke a clash of two powerful cultures, two very different ways of looking at the world. The Indian tradition develops metaphors and ways of describing the body (life forces, energy centers) as it is experienced, from the inside out. The Western tradition looks at the body from the outside in, peeling it back one layer at a time, believing only what it can see, measure and prove in randomized, double-blind tests. The East treats the person; the West treats the disease. "Our system of medicine is very fragmented," says Dr. Carrie Demers, who runs the Center for Health and Healing at the Himalayan International Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy of the USA in Honesdale, Pa. "We send you to different
specialists to look at different parts of you. Yoga is more holistic; it's interested in the integration of body, breath and mind."

The few controlled studies that have been done offer cause for hope. A 1990 study of patients who had coronary heart disease indicated that a regimen of aerobic exercise and stress reduction, including yoga, combined with a low-fat vegetarian diet, stabilized and in some cases
reversed arterial blockage. The author Dr. Dean Ornish is in the midst of a study involving men with prostate cancer. Can diet, yoga and meditation affect the progress of this disease? So far, Ornish will say only that the data are encouraging.

To the skeptic, all evidence is anecdotal. But some anecdotes are more than encouraging; they are inspiring. Consider Sue Cohen, 54, an accountant, breast-cancer survivor and five-year yoga student at the Unity Woods studio in Bethesda, Md. "After my cancer surgery," Cohen
says, "I thought I might never lift my arm again. Then here I am one day, standing on my head, leaning most of my 125-lb. body weight on that arm I thought I'd never be able to use again. Chemotherapy, surgery and some medications can rob you of mental acuity, but yoga
helps compensate for the loss. It impels you to do things you never thought you were capable of doing."

A series of exercises as old as the Sphinx could prove to be the medical miracle of tomorrow — or just wishful thinking from the millions who have embraced yoga in a bit more than a generation.

Yoga was little known in the U.S. — perhaps only as an enthusiasm of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and other icons of the Beat Generation — when the Beatles and Mia Farrow journeyed to India to sit at the feet of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1968. Since then, yoga has endured more evolutions of popular consciousness than a morphing movie monster.
First it signaled spiritual cleansing and rebirth, a nontoxic way to get high. Then it was seen as a kind of preventive medicine that helped manage and reduce stress. "The third wave was the fitness wave," says Richard Faulds, president of the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in
Lenox, Mass. "And that's about strength and flexibility and endurance."

At each stage, the most persuasive advocates were movie idols and rock stars — salesmen, by example, of countless beguiling or corrosive fashions. If they could make cocaine and tattoos fashionable, perhaps they could goad the masses toward physical and spiritual enlightenment.
Today yoga is practiced by so many stars with whom audiences are on a first-name basis — Madonna, Julia, Meg, Ricky, Michelle, Gwyneth, Sting — that it would be shorter work to list the actors who don't assume the asana. (James Gandolfini? We're just guessing.)

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,106356,00.html#ixzz1PJMrUL59

David Duchovny practices Kundalini yoga; Julia Louis-Dreyfuss prefers Ashtanga. Sabrina the Teenage Witch stars Melissa Joan Hart and Soleil Moon Frye throw yoga parties. Jane Fonda cut out aerobics for it; Angelina Jolie buffed up for Tomb Raider with it. The newly clean
Charlie Sheen used yoga and dieting to shed 30 lbs. Add at least two Sex in the City vamps, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kristin Davis. All three Dixie Chicks. Sports stars from basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to Yankee pitcher Orlando (El Duque) Hernandez are
devotees. And speaking of athletes, who showed up the other day at Turlington's lower Manhattan haunt, the Jivamukti Yoga Center? Monica Lewinsky.

Where there's a yoga blitz, there must be yoga biz. To dress for a class, you need only some old, loose-fitting clothes — and since you perform barefoot, no fancy footwear. Yet Nike and J.Crew have developed exercise apparel, as has Turlington. For those who prefer stay-at-home
yoga, the video-store racks groan with hot, moving tapes. The Living Yoga series of instructional videos taught by Yee and Patricia Walden occupies five of the top eight slots on Amazon's vhs best-seller list.

"Vogue and Self are putting out the message of yoginis as buff and perfect," says Walden. "If you start doing yoga for those reasons, fine. Most people get beyond that and see that it's much, much more." By embodying the grace and strength of their system, Yee and Walden are
its most charismatic proselytizers — new luminaries in the yoga firmament.

"Madonna found it first, and I'm following in the footsteps of the stars," groans Minneapolis attorney Patricia Bloodgood. "But I don't think you should reject something just because it's trendy." Bloodgood had the bright idea to commandeer part of the lobby in the
office building where she works for a Monday-evening yoga class. Yoginis can spend a weekend at (or devote their lives to) such retreats as Kripalu, where each year 20,000 visitors take part in programs ranging from "The Science of Pranayama and Bandha" to African-drum workshops and singles weekends. In L.A. they can mingle with the glamourati at Maha Yoga (where students bend to the strains of the Beatles' Baby You're a Rich Man) or Golden Bridge (where celebrity moms take prenatal yoga classes).

Yoga is where you find it and how you want it, from Big Time to small town. In the Texas town of Odessa, Therese Archer's Body & Soul Center for Well-Being has 15 dedicated students, including an 18-wheeler diesel mechanic who drives 50 miles from Andrews, Texas, to
attend classes. "He is very West Texas," Archer says, "and I thought he would flip when he saw what we did." Yet in eight months the mechanic has sweated his way up from beginning to advanced work. At the 8 Count exercise studio in Monticello, Ga., Suzanne McGinnis runs a "yoga cardio class" that mixes postures with push-ups, all to the disco beat of tunes like Leo Sayer's You Make Me Feel Like Dancin'. As yoga classes go, this is not an arduous one, but the students don't know that. They grunt and groan exultantly with each stretch, and are happy
to relax when McGinnis stops to check her teaching aids: torn-out magazine pages and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Yoga.

So yoga can be fun or be made fun of; it can help you look marvelous or feel marvelous. These aspects are not insignificant. They demonstrate the roots yoga has dug into America's cultural soil — deep enough for open-minded researchers to consider how it might bloom into
a therapy to treat or prevent disease.

The sensible practice of yoga does more than slap a Happy Face on your cerebrum. It can also massage the lymph system, says Dr. Mehmet Oz, a cardiac surgeon at New York Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan. Lymph is the body's dirty dishwater; a network of lymphatic vessels and
storage sacs crisscross over the entire body, in parallel with the blood supply, carrying a fluid composed of infection-fighting white blood cells and the waste products of cellular activity. Exercise in general activates the flow of lymph through the body, speeding up the filtering process; but yoga in particular promotes the draining of the lymph. Certain yoga poses stretch muscles that from animal studies are known to stimulate the lymph system. Researchers have documented the increased lymph flow when dogs' paws are stretched in a position
similar to the yoga "downward-facing dog."

Yoga relaxes you and, by relaxing, heals. At least that's the theory. "The autonomic nervous system," explains Kripalu's Faulds, "is divided into the sympathetic system, which is often identified with the fight-or-flight response, and the parasympathetic, which is identified
with what's been called the Relaxation Response. When you do yoga — the deep breathing, the stretching, the movements that release muscle tension, the relaxed focus on being present in your body — you initiate a process that turns the fight-or-flight system off and the Relaxation
Response on. That has a dramatic effect on the body. The heartbeat slows, respiration decreases, blood pressure decreases. The body seizes this chance to turn on the healing mechanisms."

But the process isn't automatic. Especially in their first sessions, yoga students may have trouble suppressing those competitive beta waves. We want to better ourselves, but also to do better than others; we force ourselves into the gym-rat race. "Genuine Hatha yoga is a balance of trying and relaxing," says Dr. Timothy McCall, an internist and the author of Examining Your Doctor: A Patient's Guide to Avoiding Harmful Medical Care. "But a lot of gym yoga is about who can do this really difficult contortion to display to everyone else in the class." The workout warriors have to realize that yoga is more an Athenian endeavor than a Spartan one. You don't win by punishing your body. You convince it, seduce it, talk it down from the ledge of ambition and
anxiety. Yoga is not a struggle but a surrender.

It may take a while for the enlightenment bulb to switch on — for you to get the truth of the yoga maxim that what you can do is what you should do. But when it happens, it's an epiphany, like suddenly knowing, in your bones and your dreams, the foreign language you've been studying for months. In yoga, this is your mind-body language.

In daily life, that gym-rat pressure is even more intense: our jobs, our marriages, our lives are at stake. Says McCall: "We know that a high percentage of the maladies that people suffer from have at least some component of stress in them, if they're not overtly caused by stress. Stress causes a rise of blood pressure, the release of catecholamines (neurotransmitters and hormones that regulate many of the body's metabolic processes). We know that when catecholamine levels
are high, there tends to be more platelet aggregation, which makes a heart attack more likely." So instead of a drug, say devotees, prescribe yoga. "All the drugs we give people have side effects," McCall says. "Well, yoga has side effects too: better strength, better balance, peace of mind, stronger bones, cardiovascular conditioning, lots of stuff. Here is a natural health system that, once you learn the basics, you can do at home for free with very little equipment and that
could help you avoid expensive, invasive surgical and pharmacological interventions. I think this is going to be a big thing."

McCall, it should be said, is a true believer who teaches at the B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga Center in Boston. But more mainstream physicians seem ready to agree. At New York Presbyterian, all heart patients undergoing cardiac procedures are offered massages and yoga during recovery. At
Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, cardiac doctors suggest that their patients enroll in the hospital's Preventive and Rehabilitative Cardiac Center, which offers yoga, among other
therapies. "While we haven't tested yoga as a stand-alone therapy," says Dr. Noel Bairey Merz, the center's director, patients opting for yoga do show "tremendous benefits." These include lower cholesterol levels and blood pressure, increased cardiovascular circulation and, as
the Ornish study showed, reversal of artery blockage in some cases.

Yoga may help post-menopausal women. Practitioners at Boston's Mind-Body Institute have incorporated forward-bending poses that massage the organs in the neuroendocrine axis (the line of glands that include the pituitary, hypothalamus, thyroid and adrenals) to bring
into balance whatever hormones are askew, thus alleviating the insomnia and mood swings that often accompany menopause. The program is not recommended as a substitute for hormone-replacement therapy, only as an adjunct.

Some physicians wonder why it would be tried at all. "Theoretically, if you pressed hard enough on the thyroid, you possibly could affect secretion," says Dr. Yank Coble, an endocrinologist at the University of Florida. "But it's pretty rare. And the adrenal glands are carefully protected above the kidneys deep inside the body. To my knowledge, there is no evidence that you can manipulate the adrenals with body positions. That'd be a new one."
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,106356,00.html#ixzz1PJN8qJVV

In 1998 Dr. Ralph Schumacher, of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and Marian Garfinkel, a yoga teacher, published a brief paper on carpal tunnel syndrome in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The eight-week study determined that "a yoga-based regimen was more effective than wrist splinting or no treatment in relieving
some symptoms and signs of carpal tunnel syndrome." Letters to JAMA challenged the study's methodology. The authors replied that it was a preliminary investigation to determine if further research was merited. They said it was.

The most cited study around — Ornish's in 1990 — tested 94 patients with angiographically documented coronary heart disease, of whom 53 were prescribed yoga, group support and a vegetarian diet extremely low in fat — only 10% of total daily calories (most Americans consume 35% in fat; the American Heart Association recommends 30%). Cholesterol changes among the experimental group were about the same as if they had taken cholesterol-lowering drugs. After a year in the program, patients in this group showed "significant overall regression of coronary
atherosclerosis as measured by quantitative coronary arteriography."

Those in the control group "showed significant overall progression of coronary atherosclerosis." The findings were well received but open to a major challenge: that the severe diet, rather than yoga, may have been the crucial factor.

In 1998 Ornish published a new study, in the American Journal of Cardiology, stating that 80% of the 194 patients in the experimental group were able to avoid bypass or angioplasty by adhering to lifestyle changes, including yoga. He also argued that lifestyle interventions
would save money — that the average cost per patient in the experimental group was about $18,000, whereas the cost per patient in the control group was more than $47,000. And this time, Ornish says, he is convinced that "adherence to the yoga and meditation program was as
strongly correlated with the changes in the amount of blockage as was the adherence to diet."

Ornish hoped for more than the respect of his peers: he wanted action. "I used to think good science was enough to change medical practice," he says, "but I was naive. Most doctors still aren't prescribing yoga and meditation. We've shown that heart disease can be reversed. Yet doctors are still performing surgery; insurance companies are paying for medication — and they're not paying for diet and lifestyle-change education." (Medicare, however, recently agreed to pay for 1,800 patients taking Ornish's program for reversing heart disease.)

Why have so few studies tested the efficacy of yoga? For lots of reasons. Those sympathetic to yoga think the benefits are proved by millenniums of empirical evidence in India; those who are suspicious think it can't be proved. (Says Coble: "There seem to be no data to substantiate the argument that yoga can heal.") Further, its effects on the body and mind are so complex and pervasive that it would be nearly impossible to certify any specific changes in the body to yoga. The double-blind test, beloved of traditional researchers, is impossible when one group in a study is practicing healthy yoga; what is the control group to practice — bad yoga? Finally, the traditional funders of studies, the pharmaceutical giants, see no financial payoff in validating yoga: no patentable therapies, no pills. (Ornish's prostate-cancer study was funded by private organizations, including the Michael Milken Foundation.)

At the heart of the western medical establishment's skepticism of yoga is a profound hubris: the belief that what we have been able to prove so far is all that is true. At the beginning of the 20th century, doctors and researchers surely looked back at the beginning of the 19th
and smiled at how primitive "medical science" had been. A century from now, we may look back at today's body of lore with the same condescension.

"In modern medicine, we're actually doing a lot more guesswork than we let on," says Demers. "We want to say we understand everything. We don't understand half of it. It's scary how clueless we are." Desperate patients consult half a dozen specialists and get half a dozen
conflicting opinions. "Well, of course," Dr. Toby Brown, a Manassas, Va., radiologist says impatiently, "it's not as if medicine is a science." Hence the appeal of alternative medicine: aromatherapy, homeopathy, ginkgo biloba. Proponents may be crusading scientists or
snake-oil salesmen, but either way, their pitch falls on eager ears: each year Americans spend some $27 billion on so-called complementary medicine. "One lesson of the alternative health-care movement," McCall warns, "is that the public is not going to wait for doctors to get it
together."

Late last month the National Institutes of Health held the first major conference on mind-body research. "There is a major reason that many in biomedicine reject mind-body research: it is the pervasive sound of the popularizers," noted Dr. Robert Rose, executive director at the MacArthur Foundation's Initiative on mind, brain, body and health research. "The loudest voices, the most passionate and articulate spokespersons for the power of the mind to heal come not from the research community but from the growing number of gurus... the
hawkers on TV for alternative treatments, herbs, homeopathy, handbooks." Rose distinguished the nostrum pushers from those seeking to bring yoga and science together. "Thousands of research studies have shown that in the practice of yoga a person can learn to control such
physiologic parameters as blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory function, metabolic rate, skin resistance, brain waves and body temperature, among other body functions." Critics are quick to note that few of those studies were published in leading science journals.

Two oddities attend yoga's vogue. One is that America has the fittest people in the world, and the most obese. Yoga, typically, is practiced by the fit. Exercise, the care and feeding of body and
possibly mind, is their second career. The folks in urgent need of yoga are the ones who are at the fast-food counter getting their fries supersize; who would rather take a pill than devote a dozen hours a week to yoga; for whom meditation is staring glassily at six hours of football each Sunday; and who might go under the surgeon's knife more readily than they would ingest anything more Indian than tandoori chicken.

Here's another peculiarity: this ritual of relaxation is cresting at a cultural moment when noise and agitation are everywhere. We work longer hours, with TVs and portable radios blaring as the sound track for frantic wage slaves. If a teen isn't trussed to his headphones or plugged into a chat room, it's because his cell phone has just beeped. America is running in place, in the spa or at work. And after Letterman and Clinton, nobody takes the world seriously; everything is up for laughs.

In this modern maelstrom, yoga's tendency to stasis and silence seems at first insane, then inspired. The notion of bodies at rest becoming souls at peace is reactionary, radical and liberating. If it cures nagging backache, swell. But isn't it bliss just to sit this one out,
to freeze-frame the frenzy, to say no to all that and om to what may be beyond it, or within ourselves?

Reported by Deborah Fowler/Odessa, Lise
Funderburg/Philadelphia, Marc Hequet/Minneapolis, Alice Park/New York,
Anne Moffett/Washington, and Jeffrey Ressner and Stacie Stukin/Los
Angeles

Is A “Nature Deficit” Hurting Your Productivity ?

noreply@blogger.com (lilianneyu) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 02:08:00 +0000

(Taken From http://www.bnet.com)

When you exercise, do you

a) go to the gym?

b) jog around your suburban or urban neighborhood?

c) walk, run or bike through a local park or reservation?

I do B, but apparently I’d be smarter (literally) if I did C. A growing body of research is looking at the benefits of being in natureand finding that exposure to the great outdoors improves cognitivefunction. Experts have called it ecopsychology or attention restoration therapy.

What the research shows
In one study, researchers from the University of Michigan asked a group of volunteers to complete a task designed to challenge memory and attention. The volunteers then took a walk in either a park or in downtown Ann Arbor. After the walk, volunteers returned to the lab and were retested on the task.

The performance on the memory and attention task greatly improved following the walk in the park, but did not improve in those who walked downtown.

Why nature makes you smarter
One reason say experts has to do with how nature affects your attention. You have two types of attention, involuntary, where you attention is captured by intriguing stimuli, and directed attention, where you control your attention. Directed attention is important for executive functioning, memory, resolving conflict and suppressing distractions.

Being in nature exposes you to soothing stimuli that engages your involuntary attention, giving your directed-attention a rest and a chance to become rejuvenated. When you are in a city, you are constantly vigilant, your directed-attention is turned on. The authors
write:

…interacting with environments rich with inherently fascinating stimuli (e.g., sunsets) invoke involuntary attention modestly, allowing directed-attention mechanisms a chance to replenish.

Richard Luov coined the term “nature deficit disorder” to describe a condition of being so out of touch with nature that we lose humility, our spirituality, our humanity and we also are
at higher risk of obesity, depression and other ailments. His first book, Last Child in the Woods, was about the negative effects of a nature deficit on children, but his new book, The Nature Principle, describes how adults are equally at risk of being estranged from nature.

If you can’t be in nature today, get a screen saver of nature
In another part of the study, subjects who were simply shown photos of nature did better on cognitive function than those shown urbanimages. But the authors recommend you go out and experience the real thing.Do you notice a difference in your ability to focus after being in nature?

Laurie Tarkan is an award-winning health journalist who writes for the New York Times,

national magazines and websites including Health, Prevention, Ladies
Home Journal, iVillage and the Huffington Post. Follow her on twitter. Photo courtesy of flickr user Sky Eckstrom

Top 29 Laptop Apps, Downloads, and Services - 2011

noreply@blogger.com (lilianneyu) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 02:03:00 +0000

Top 29 Laptop Apps, Downloads, and Services

My Favourite Quote Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Evergreen) — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 06:11:00 +0000

This is the 2nd part of some of my favorite quotes that I would like to share out. If you missed out my Part I favorite quotes, feel free get it here.

The last one is the best of all !

Namaste !

Leadership Today Requires Observation And Worldview Skills

noreply@blogger.com (Evergreen) — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 03:39:00 +0000

On July 15, 2010, In Leadership today requires observation and worldview skills,

Roshan Thiran stresses that leadership today requires observation and worldview skills.

LAST weekend, while delivering an action-learning programme, I showed a video of two teams playing basketball. When I asked the class to count the number of passes being made by the teams, they all got the right answer. But no one spotted this big gorilla that walked into the court and danced for a good portion of the game.

These past few decades, we have witnessed numerous companies at the top of their industry get dispatched by unknowns from nowhere. Motorola, the ruler of cellular telephone, missed the shift to digital and was displaced by Nokia, a Finnish company producing snow tires and rubber boots a decade before they conquered cellular wireless. IBM, kings of the computing age, completely missed the PC revolution and was overtaken by Microsoft, Dell and a host of small start-ups.

At the same time, innovative companies were replaced by others that just copied. Xerox invented the photocopiers but Canon took it to a whole new level with the colour copier. Ford and GM had automobile leadership for years till the Japanese copycats came in with their high value economic cars and wiped them out. Why do all these companies get dethroned?

In recent times, the richest economy in the 16th century was Spain but within 150 years it became one of the poorest in Europe. Spain became more and more internally focused, moving from an open to a closed economy. A civil war, combined with its close-door policy, cost Spain its position of power.

Like Spain, many organisations similarly fall. Companies that close itself to the world and focus internally may miss the boat when change occurs. Just as Motorola missed the jump to digital, and IBM missed the PC revolution, organizations that stop looking outside, lose their way.

It’s the same in our personal lives. We are so busy in our work, our kids, our schedules and meetings, that we sometimes miss important changes that are taking place around us.

I recall a friend’s mother working as a secretary in the 1970s who was a great on the typewriter. But when computers made their debut in the 80s, she was made redundant and replaced by a savvier computer user. Companies face the same dilemma. When they are so busy with their internal operations and processes, they lose sight of the world and are soon replaced by new companies.

Just think of the products and services you use today. How many of these products are from companies that existed 15 years ago? We fly on AirAsia, buy furniture from IKEA, buy our computers from Dell, drink coffee at Starbucks, search for information via Google and we get leadership training from Leaderonomics!

Having a company byline that includes “established 1850” is almost a liability today. Reputation counts for nothing anymore. Shell has a home base in the UK and has a reputation as a producer of high-quality petrol. Yet, in its UK home market, the biggest petrol retailer is Tesco, a supermarket.

So, how do these companies lose their leadership positions?

One reason may be “social proof”, a theory developed by psychologist Robert Cialdini. The larger a crowd of people at the scene of an accident, the more likely no one will help the victims. If everyone is passive, everyone thinks that there is no emergency. Cialdini theory claims, “If a lot of people are doing the same thing, they must know something we don’t.”

Companies foolishly adopt this “follow-the-leader” attitude. Wang Laboratories, which established itself as a major computer force in the 80s, decided to follow industry leader IBM and forewent the PC market. Today it does not exist.

Another reason, asserts Charan and Useem, is that “a number of studies show that people are less likely to make optimal decisions after prolonged periods of success. Enron, Lucent, WorldCom – all had reached the mountaintop before they ran into trouble. Someone should have told them that most mountaineering accidents happen on the way down.”

Gary Hamel adds: “The seeds of failure are usually sown at the heights of greatness.” Once a company becomes an industry leader, defensive thinking seeps in and no one challenges the status quo. Many become insular and inward-looking. And miss changes taking place, becoming irrelevant to their customers.

Great leaders are always forward-looking and not basking in past glories or caught up in internal issues. Bill Gates constantly says “Microsoft is always two years away from failure.” Gates understands the need to be engaged with the world, its trends and market changes.

Intel is a great example of a company reinventing itself. Andrew Grove writes in Only the Paranoid Survive about how Intel faced competition from South Korea and Japan, which turned memory chips into cheap commodities. Intel quickly decided to exit the memory business entirely and become a maker of microprocessors. Grove came to this insight when he looked outside Intel and asked himself, “If I got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what would the new CEO do?” The answer was clear: Focus on our strengths – high tech, and get rid of memory chips.

There were many internal Intel issues but Grove knew if he continued to play the same game, he would soon be another fallen giant. He observed that high-tech microprocessors had a premium and he had a stable of scientists which he could deploy into that space. His worldview enabled Intel to remain a giant, albeit in a different product line.

Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, writes: “The key sign – the litmus test – is whether you begin to explain away the brutal facts rather than to confront the brutal facts head-on.” By forcing himself to see from the outside, Grove recognised the brutal facts facing him and made the necessary change.

So what lessons can we draw from these stories?

Firstly, change happens all the time. That is not anything to be paranoid about. What we need to be vigilant about is to always be observing what is happening from the outside in. And it’s not just about in your industry but changes everywhere. Book retailers never quite understood how Amazon.com suddenly appeared and wiped them out as no one tracked the Internet revolution.

Secondly, we need to be wary when we start becoming so internally focused and consumed by tasks and to-do lists. Great leaders learn to reflect and take time off to notice the “dancing gorillas” that walk into their lives.

Finally, watch out when you become defensive and reactionary. This is the starting point of your fall from the mountaintop. Great leaders that stay at the top for long periods are usually ones who have humbled themselves to believe that learning and growth never end.

Back to my gorilla video – whether you are a leader or an individual contributor, take some time to be still and mindful of the changes that are taking place. There are many big gorillas walking into your industry and workplace and if you are too busy “counting passes” inside your organisation, the gorilla may just consume you and make you an irrelevant dinosaur.

Roshan Thiran is currently CEO of Leaderonomics, a social enterprise focused on inspiring people to leadership greatness. Join his journey and become a fan of Leaderonomics and DIODE Camps at www.leaderonomics.com

Notes: Perseverance - commitment, hard work, patience, endurance

Putting A Dent in the Universe

noreply@blogger.com (Evergreen) — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 03:34:00 +0000

On February 2, 2011, In Putting A Dent in the Universe,

Leadership Lessons from Steve Jobs

“I want to put a dent in the universe” – Steve Jobs, Apple CEO

A few weeks ago, I received a book from publisher McGraw-Hill on Steve Jobs by communications coach Carmine Gallo. I started recollecting the “Think Different” Apple ad campaign. The ad was the starting point in Steve Job’s revival of a company he founded, was fired from and later brought back to turnaround. The ad was memorable because it was essentially about Steve Job’s leadership and his desire to “change the world.” The copy of the ad, read by Richard Dreyfuss, goes like this:

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. And the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones that do.”

This campaign featured Thomas Edison, Einstein, Gandhi, Amelia Earheart and other Apple heroes. Steve explained that “you can tell a lot about a person by who his or her heroes are” and his role models were people who “changed the world“.

Steven Paul Jobs has become “the most successful CEO today” according to Jack Welch, reshaping the computer, entertainment, music, telecommunications and the book industries.

Born to Joanne Schieble and Abdulfattah Jandali, a Syrian, he was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs who promised his biological parents that they would send Steve to college. Steve did go to Reed College but dropped out after one semester.

Although dropping out, he continued attending classes he was passionate about. He worked briefly at Hewlett-Packard meeting Steve Wozniak, who would later co-found Apple with him, then took a job with Atari to save money to go to India to “find himself”.

He travelled to India and came back a Buddhist with his head shaved and wearing traditional Indian clothing. Steve began that trip wanting to “change the world” but he did not know how. During his time in India, he realised that “maybe Thomas Edison did a lot more to improve the world than Karl Marx or Neem Karolie Baba put together.” Steve’s trip to convinced him that his Indiapurpose on earth was “to put a dent in the universe through ”innovation like his great role model Thomas Edison.

Studying Steve’s leadership, I uncovered that he, like Mandela, Gandhi, Napoleon, Jack Welch and other great leaders, all began their leadership journey in silent retreat ‘finding themselves and their passion‘. In fact, interestingly, I found 6 key steps which enabled all great leaders across time to “put a dent in the universe”. The steps are as follows:

1. Take Time to be with yourself to know yourself and find out what you truly love to do and what drives you

2. Define your vision of a better tomorrow and redefine it till the vision excites you

3. Sell and excite the world with the message of your vision

4. Build a plan of execution to achieve this vision, including the mobilisation of people to ensure the vision becomes a reality

5. Say “NO” to distractions and focus relentlessly on achieving the vision

6. Execute! Execute! Execute! and keep executing flawlessly with high quality overcoming obstacles that come your way

Finding Yourself & Your Passion

Steve Jobs dropped out of college, disappointing his parents in the process. But he was always curious claiming, “the minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.” He attended a calligraphy class because he was passionate about typefaces even though he knew that this class had no “hope of any practical application in my life.” Yet ten years later, this calligraphy class was the reason that the Macintosh had beautiful typography.

Steve believes his philosophy of following his heart is a key part of leadership adding “you must have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”

Then Steve went to India spending time with the surroundings and the Creator discovering his “calling.” In fact, when Steve in an interview with the Smithsonian postulates:

“I think you should go get a job as a busboy or something until you find something you are really passionate about. I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure PERSEVERANCE. It is so hard. There are such rough moments that I think most people give up. Unless you have a lot of passion, you’re not going to survive. You’re going to give up. So, you’ve got to have an idea, or a problem or a wrong that you want to right that you are passionate about, otherwise you are not going to have the perseverance to stick it through. I think that’s half the battle right there.”

And he is right. You have got to find what you love and are passionate about first.

Define your vision of a better tomorrow

Steve always sees a future with possibilities. He looks beyond today and sees something better in everything. He saw computers as much more than dreary productivity tools. He saw the MP3 player as more than a Walkman.

On the iPhone, he remarked, “”We all had cellphones. We just hated them, they were so awful to use. The software was terrible. The hardware wasn’t very good, ” and so he challenged his team, “Let’s make a great phone that we fall in love with. We’re going to do it. Let’s try.’ It was the same with the iPad. Steve had a way of seeing a greater future.

In Gallo’s book, he cites a story where Steve was recruiting a top talent to Apple 30 years ago. This talent asked, “What is your vision for the personal computer?” For the next hour, Steve painted a picture of how personal computers were going to change the world. He weaved his vision of how it would change everything from work, education, entertainment and everything. After hearing Steve’s vision, he immediately signed up to work at Apple, a small startup then.

Great leaders have vision. According to former Apple leader Trip Hawkins, “Steve has the power of vision that is almost frightening. When Steve believes in something, the power of that vision can literally sweep aside any objections or problems.”

Articulate the Vision

One of the key leadership lessons Steve internalised is the CEO’s role as company evangelist and vision spokesperson. Leaders can dream big visions but can they articulate that vision ensuring it’s appealing, vibrant, and gripping?

How does Steve message his vision so perfectly? Firstly, he is passionate about the vision and his energy flows from this passion. More importantly, he spends hours practicing and preparing ensuring his vision is fully understood. A BusinessWeek week article notes that Steve’s articulation of his vision “comes only after grueling hours of practice.” And he communicates by simply allowing you to visualise the vision. Most leaders have visions but the problem is they don’t communicate that vision effectively.

Mobilising People to Execute the Vision

A big part about Steve’s leadership is his ability to hire people who are “inspired to make the dream a reality” (Gallo). Ultimately, people are the key to success as no single idea Steve had would have been successful had not others joined his crusade.

Similarly, Martin Luther King and Gandhi did not develop followers just by his inspiring speeches. Instead, they spent the greater part bonding, building coalitions, and connecting with communities one person at a time. Their powerful agenda moved forward as they mobilised people together on a personal level. Great leaders have powerful one-on-one dialogues mobilising people to their cause.

Focusing on the Journey

Steve Jobs seems to be all over the place with so many new ideas and innovative products. Yet, he was extremely focused and clear where his journey required him to go.

Steve said, “the people who are doing the work are the moving force behind Apple. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organisation and keep it at bay.” He ensures that he removes hindrances from the focus.

Focusing on the most important issues means you have to say “NO to 1000 things” including distractions, which is difficult to do. Steve adds, ” Apple is a $30 billion company, yet we’ve got less than 30 major products. The great consumer electronics companies of the past had thousands of products. We tend to focus much more. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.”

Steve is clearly focused on a few key items that will truly “make a dent in the universe” adding “I’m actually as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done.” Likewise, we too can learn to prioritise and focus on truly value-added vision-related activity.

Execute Flawlessly

It’s easy to execute on your vision when things go well. Usually, things never go to plan. Steve recalls, “at Pixar making Toy Story, there came a time when we were forced to admit that the story wasn’t great. We stopped production for five months.”

At Pixar, there was a ‘story crisis’ for every film. And at Apple, according to Steve, there is a crisis for almost every single major project or product. But executing flawlessly means overcoming these challenges and tribulations through discipline, as he claims, “To turn really interesting ideas and fledgling technologies into a company that can continue to innovate for years, it requires a lot of discipline.”

Every Monday, Steve has a marathon ‘process’ meeting with his team. He says, “what we do every Monday is we review the whole business. And we do it every single week.” Ram Charan, famous business guru whom I interviewed recently on the “Leaderonomics Show” wrote a book on execution. The key message is the same as Steve — execution is boring and tedious and repetitive. But it’s this rigour that ultimately enables organisations to be successful. Steve understood the power of ruthless execution.

Finally, every journey will require overcoming obstacles. At 21, Steve was the charismatic boy wonder who co-founded Apple. He was worth $200 million by 25, but was thrown out of the company he founded by age 30. Steve lost everything when kicked out of Apple and could easily have given up and thrown in the towel. But he started all over again with NeXT and Pixar not losing his passion.

Leadership is never an easy journey. It is hard work and filled with challenges. Steve recently had to fight two near-death experiences with cancer but takes the positives out of it saying, “remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.”

No one said leadership was easy but it is definitely worth the journey.

————————————————————————————————————

Roshan Thiran is CEO of Leaderonomics, a social enterprise passionate about creating more Steve Jobs in our nation. To watch video interviews and learn from great leaders from across the world, login to www.leaderonomics.com/theleaderonomicsshow

Perseverance - commitment, hard work, patience, endurance;

Ruthless - having no pity : merciless, crue;

Love And Leadership Go Hand In Hand

noreply@blogger.com (Evergreen) — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 03:29:00 +0000

On February 22, 2011, In Love and leadership go hand in hand,

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It isn’t happy when injustice is done, but it is happy with the truth. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Love never fails.”

Paul of Tarsus

ON Valentine’s Day, when love took centre-stage, my thoughts started to drift to my apartment in Dallas, situated near Love Field, the home of the “love” airline Southwest. The company’s NYSE ticker symbol: LUV. The largest and only consistently profitable airline through tumultuous times, Southwest’s model of success has inspired countless others, including AirAsia.

Astonishingly, Southwest founder and former leader Herb Kelleher built the entire business on love. I heard Kelleher at the tail-end of his career attributing Southwest’s greatness to love, saying, “If you seek long continued success for your business, treat your people as family and lead with love.”

He named Colleen Barrett, who started her career as a legal secretary, his successor, because “she knows how to love people to success”. Barrett claims that she spends 85% of her time on her people. Kelleher adds that “an infusion of love is an essential, but oft overlooked ingredient in any business”.

According to new research, leaders who put love into their work are significantly more successful that those who rule by fear

Interestingly, rarely is love described as a leadership competency. Yet, a lack of love in some form is generally the cause of failed leadership. We want our customers to love us and our products. We want our employees to love their jobs and their company. Yet, when we talk about leadership, we ignore love. Says leadership guru Ken Blanchard: “It might sound slightly bizarre, but one of the keys for effective leadership is to be madly in love with all the people you are leading.”

So, why is love ignored? First, love is synonymous with sex, beauty and its physical form. This makes it dicey to talk about or express love in an organisation. Furthermore, love is intangible, causing leaders to be sceptical. Most leaders fear love, believing it is about group hugs, soft mushy talk or holding hands around a company campfire singing Rasa Sayang.

But what Kelleher meant by “leading with love” means truly caring, serving and loving people both employees and customers. “We’ve never had layoffs,” he once declared. “Our people know that if they are sick, we will take care of them. If there are occasions or grief or joy, we will be there with them. We value them as people, not just cogs in a machine.”

He really loves his employees and customers, knowing all by name and unselfishly delighting in their well-being. Although Southwest is a low-cost airline, its salaries is on par with those of other airlines. Its employees’ productivity remains the highest, allowing it to price tickets low. Its pilots spent more time flying and less time on the ground. Southwest can turn around an airplane in 20 minutes while others struggle. Its short hauls are more fuel-efficient than most big airlines’ long hauls. Because the leaders at Southwest love their employees and have a “love” strategy, their employees always deliver.

Entrepreneur Mark Cuban’s love for customers ultimately led him to becoming a billionaire. When it comes to customers, the owner of NBA team Dallas Mavericks, passionately believes that customers should be happy, even if it means working 24 hours a day to please them.

Love strategy for business

According to “love” guru Patch Adams, every organisation needs a “love strategy” as it delivers a better ROI (return on investment) than any other investment. According to new research, leaders who put love into their work are significantly more successful than those who rule by fear.

Great leaders are fuelled by love. They love what they do and they love the people they do it with. Indra Nooyi , CEO of PepsiCo, reinvented Pepsi by caring for people and the planet, pushing PepsiCo into becoming a “green company.”

Most business leaders have a disinclination towards embracing love as a business strategy because they are conditioned to believe leadership means being cutthroat, aggressive and mean. In their eyes, love is for sissies, and by being nice, they risk being viewed as soft and this can result in losing their grip on leadership.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Leaders who love their people are more likely to push their employees to perform at their potential through honest feedback. They raise the bar consistently just as a parent who loves their children do, disciplining them and ensuring the children face difficulties so they can learn and grow.

My yearly performance appraisals with managers who cared were never pleasant but at the end of the day, I knew exactly where I stood. Milton Mayeroff believes love is “the selfless promotion of the growth of others”.

Love is action

Love is not what you say or feel, but what you do. Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership was driven by passion and action. He lived humbly because he loved people and wanted to engage with all walks of life.

Love is action. Love leads to positive thoughts, thoughts to words, and words to action. Negative emotions destroy organisations. Biologist Humberto Maturana notes that love is the only human emotion that consistently generates productive and intelligent actions.

Leaders cannot ignore feelings as leadership is emotional, dealing with dreams, passion, inspiration and love.

The opposite of love is hate. Hate manifests itself through fear. Fear restrains behaviour. Love liberates it. Fear freezes enterprise, suffocates creativity, and deters people from stretching and growing. Fear drives compliance but not commitment. Unfortunately, most of our leadership practices are fear-goaded and insidiously rooted in our work structures and culture.

Love brings success

Basketball coaching legend John Wooden, who won a record 10 NCAA titles, considers love the “most powerful thing there is”. The power of love powered his coaching career. He exclaimed: “Your players must know that you care for them more than just as athletes. Certainly, they understand that they are there because of their athletic ability. But when you have them under your supervision, it’s up to you to make sure that they understand that you care for them as individuals. I’ve never had one I didn’t love.”

John must have learnt from Sun Tzu’s Art of War “… he who loves them as his own beloved sons and they will stand by him until death”.

Research shows love being more effective in driving organisational cultural shifts than visionary statements or brilliantly worded goals. Even hard-nosed leaders such as Rudy Giuliani believes that “if you don’t love people, then don’t be a leader”.

In studying successful leaders, we find success driven by the quality of loving relationships within an organisation. These loving relationships are seen through behaviours like compassion, commitment, care, kindness, reflection, intuition, inclusiveness and forgiveness.

Prominent leader John Hope Bryant believes there are four laws of love-based leadership for business:

l Fear fails Leading through fear is antiquated and crippling. Love is the antidote to fear.

l Love makes money Long-term loving relationships with customers and employees make everyone wealthy.

l Vulnerability is power When you open up, people open to you.

l Giving is getting Giving inspires loyalty and confers true wealth. John D. Rockefeller, regarded as the richest man ever, was governed by love and believed it was greater to give than receive. People rallied to him because he gave. He later used his wealth to build universities and fund great causes.

Military love

Surprisingly, we find high levels of trust in military leaders. Most expect fear to be the dominant leadership style but according to retired colonel Scott Snook, it boils down to love, adding “it’s a deep abiding love and respect for one’s comrades” that matters most in battle.

A study by sociologist Shils and Janowitz attempted to understand why soldiers fought till death and they concluded that a soldier continued to fight well beyond the point when the battle was lost “as long as he gave affection to and received affection from the other members of his squad”.

Soldiers love each other and are willing to lay down their life for each other. If love can be the touchstone of leadership in a vocation as violent as the military, then why not in business?

Snook adds that even during military training at West Point, love is emphasised continuously: Love your country, love your classmates and friends, and love the future officers you will someday serve with and love the soldiers you would someday lead. Great commanders love their troops and put their well-being above theirs.

Final thoughts

Here are some questions you can ask to help you get love into your organisation and start your journey to being a love-based leader:

1. When was the last time you did something unexpectedly nice for someone at work?

2. When was the last time you thanked or recognised someone for a particular special effort for the company?

3. Whom have you not thanked who has done something really nice or been especially helpful to you recently?

4. Who goes the extra mile routinely (for example, working late or doing things technically not part of their job) that you take for granted?

5. What are things you could do regularly to add “love” to your workplace?

6. What are actions that I can take to truly “love” my customers? (Not actions just for marketing reasons)

7. What can I do to bring fun and joy to the workplace?

Decorated army Maj-Gen John Stanford, known for extraordinary loyal troops, claimed that the secret to success is to stay in love. He said: “Staying in love gives you the fire to ignite others. A person who is not in love doesn’t feel the kind of excitement that helps them to lead others. I don’t know any other thing in life more exhilarating and positive a feeling than love.”

Many of us remember the dizzying joy of being in love. We need to get that energy in the workplace too. Leadership is an affair of the heart.

Love begins with you. So, this weekend, your people need you to take a good long look in the mirror and decide that your people and your organisation deserve a leader who has the courage to stand up and love them.

l Roshan Thiran is CEO of Leaderonomics, a social enterprise passionate about ensuring love permeates across the business landscape. To learn from great leaders from across the world, login to www.leaderonomics.com/theleaderonomicsshow.

Reflection...

noreply@blogger.com (Evergreen) — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 03:12:00 +0000

What house are you building?
SCIENCE OF BUILDING LEADERS
By ROSHAN THIRAN

Building a solid house can only be done through reflection.

“Keep doing what you're doing, and you'll get what you are getting. If that is good, great. If it's not, you better change.” Ang Hui Ming A FEW years ago, I heard about an elderly construction worker who wanted to quit. He told his boss of his plans to leave. His boss was sorry to see such an excellent worker go and asked him to build one last house as a personal favour.
[Image]
The construction worker said yes, but his heart was not in his work. There was no passion left. He resorted to shoddy workmanship and used inferior materials, cutting corners to get the work done. Finally, when the house was finished, his boss handed him the keys to the house saying, “This is your house. It's my gift to you.” The construction worker was stunned and full of regret as he knew he was sloppy working on it. If he had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently.
Isn't it the same with us? Often we work hard but after a point in time, we dish out less than stellar performances. Our attitudes differ but we console ourselves by saying it doesn't matter. But in most cases, it does matter.
Each day, we build our lives, one transaction at a time. Each day counts as we build our life's building. When I worked at General Electric (GE), people always spoke about the “house that Jack built.” Jack Welch, painstakingly, for more than 20 years, built the foundation of GE, then its rooms, its roof and finally completed a remarkable turnaround. This took patience, time and
years.
When we don't get the promotion we crave, or we fail to get what others get, we are surprised. Could it be because the house we built doesn't have strong foundations or good materials? It's not just last year's performance or last week's deal that counts it is your cumulative effectiveness on a daily basis.
So, how does one ensure that you are effective daily? Based on our research, it requires an equilibrium of action and reflection. While most leaders are biased towards action, the best leader balances contemplation and action, creating daily solitude for effective action.

Ineffective leaders
Most leaders say the resource they lack most is time. But if you really observe managers for a day, you will see them rushing to meetings, constantly checking their Blackberry, dodging fires, believing they are attending to important matters.

For 10 years, Bruch and Ghoshal observed behaviours of busy managers, and their conclusions: 90% of managers squander their time in all sorts of ineffective actions and activities. A mere 10% of managers spend their time in a committed, purposeful, and reflective manner. These 10% are usually classified as great leaders.
Worst still, psychiatrist John Diamond found that 90% of people “hate their work.” They come to work to punch their time clock and can't wait to go home. The difference between leaders who love their jobs and those that don't they take time daily to re-energise themselves and focus through reflection.

Reflection
The practice of reflection goes back centuries and is rooted in numerous institutions including the Japanese samurai. Ben Franklin, one of my leadership heroes, had a rather systematic approach to reflection, which was a fundamental part of his daily life. He developed a list of 13 virtues and each day he evaluated his leadership relative to these virtues. A sincere examination of ourselves is never easy. It involves the willingness to face and acknowledge our mistakes, failure and shortcomings. Albert Schweitzer, Nobel Prize winner, believes reflection in life is critical to
leadership as it allows you to take into “account what you have neglected in thoughtlessness.”
Interestingly, a key step in the Alcoholics Anonymous programme asks participants to make a probing and courageous moral inventory. Steve Jobs went to India to reflect prior to starting Apple.
In business, reflection provides an opportunity to consider the ramifications of the services they provide and how to keep raising the bar. Business grows when they look within. So, what does one achieve by reflection and contemplation? Productive action relies on a combination of three traits:

1. Focus the ability to zero in on an objective and see the task to completion
2. Energy the vitality that comes from concentrated personal commitment.
3. Learning the ability to correct past mistakes and improve onese

lf Focus without energy results in lethargic execution or burnout. Energy without focus leads to aimlessness or artificial busyness. And not learning from your mistakes ensures you repeat them.
All three pieces can only be obtained through reflection. Procrastinators are usually people with low levels of energy and focus. Leaders with high focus but low energy never inspire and generally end up ostracising the troops. Managers with high energy but low focus confuse their employees with chaotic activity.

Reflective managers are purpose-driven with high energy levels, learning from their mistakes. They start their day in reflection to ensure purposeful execution and action.

Focus

Confucius once said, “A man who chases two rabbits catches neither!” In Star Wars Episode 1, Qui-Gon says to the young Jedi Anakin, “Always remember, your focus determines your reality.” There is an ounce of truth in that Jedi wisdom. A focused person usually attains his/her goals. At the end of a tiring day, if we focus on how tired we are, generally we will remain tired and end up vegetating in front of the TV set. If we re-focus the mind from being tired to needing to be healthy, there is a bigger likelihood we will exercise. It is easy to stray with all the distractions, TV, Internet and mobile devices that we have today. These distractions can lead us off-tangent, stealing our focusing power. Reflection corrects that.

Energy and passion
Reflection generates passion and energy. Energy comes from passion. Passion is self-generated as you can motivate yourself to be excited about what you do.
Author Bill Strickland writes: “Passions are irresistible. They're the ideas, hopes, and possibilities your mind naturally gravitates to, the things you would focus your time and attention on.”
Strickland believes that only by following your passion will you unlock your deepest potential. “I never saw a meaningful life that wasn't based on passion. And I never saw a life full of passion that wasn't, in some important way, extraordinary.”

Learning from mistakes

Reflection allows us to learn from mistakes. We all make mistakes I have done so spectacularly at times. We have all been in situations where things don't go exactly to plan. But how often do we take the time to sit down to reflect on where it all went wrong? Plato's great words “know thyself” implies that a lifetime of self-investigation is the cornerstone for knowledge. John Dewey states, “We do not learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience.”
In fact, the Kolb Learning Cycle, is based on the belief that learning for real comprehension comes from a sequence of experience, reflection, abstraction, and action. All learning can come only through reflection.

Check your attitudes daily

Living an extraordinary life is done internally through the daily positive alignment of your attitude. Your attitudes and the choices you make today build the house you live in tomorrow. Build wisely! Build with commitment, pride, joy, love and passion.
Your attitude is contagious and sets the mood for those around you. Your employees get excited when you are excited. They are energised when you are. Plato opened up The Academy in Athens at the age of 40, when life expectancy was 36. He ran this first university, training Aristotle and others, until he was 80. Pursuing focused positive dreams arms one with high energy and leads to an extended, rewarding life.

I don't have time to think!

This is a pretty common reaction: I don't have time to reflect. Which begs the question: Do you have time to make the same mistakes over and over again? Or to remain unfocused, running around like a headless chicken? Or lack energy to fulfil your dreams?
I remember an old boss once told me that I was not paid to sit around and think. On hindsight, that was probably the worst advice I received. Leaders should spend at least a quarter of their time thinking about the future of their company and reflecting on the past. It may seem ludicrous to spend time reflecting but “real work” can only be done right when you know where you are going and have the energy to get there.

Final thoughts

If we could do things over, we probably would do many things differently. And better. But the problem is, we cannot go back. We are just like the construction worker. Each day we hammer a nail, place a board, or erect a wall in our career, family and lives. Are you doing it with focus and energy? Are we improving ourselves by learning from our mistakes?
If the fire in our eyes has diminished and we are going through life in auto-pilot, with the joy of life seemingly leaked out, it is time to take stock of life and reflect.
Socrates, Ben Franklin and most great leaders believed that reflection led to a productive and fulfilling life. And don't say you don't have time. After all, as Buddha aptly puts it, “All that we are is the result of what we have thought.”

Roshan Thiran is CEO of Leaderonomics, a social enterprise passionate about transforming the nation through leadership development. For more information on leadership programmes for your organisation or youth camps for your kids, call +60122006045 or login to www.leaderonomics.com

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