Don't LET UP !!!

 Don't LET UP !!!

🎉Life is a grind.  And that means NOT grinding to a halt.  It's a long, treacherous trek with a high mortality rate and there's just NO LET UP.

For those who achieve milestone successes, it's the same mantra in life, there's just NO LET UP.  Kampai's left and right is fine but it has to be controlled, managed and restrained.  Not a drinking spree.  Not an overnight overflowing of booze.  [Sounds familiar?  Yes, just look around your community.  Folks celebrating like they hit the top lotto prize reaching hundreds of millions.

This is the life we live, a life of smoke and mirrors.  Things are fuzzy.  Images are blurred.  Silhouettes are sketchy at best.  And the mother of all tricks in life are those smoke and mirrors.  You will get waylaid.  You'll end up with the wrong turns.  You'll find yourself overshooting inter-state highways [that explains why long haul driving in the U.S. would necessitate a navigator with you].

Bottomline is, leave those yesterdays behind. Especially those yesterdays when you stumbled, when you fell flat on your face.  Just look ahead down the road, that's where you need to be glued to.

For those who hit some milestone successes, enough of one or two kampai's.  This is what we would hear over and over again, "getting drunk with success".  Unfortunately, that truism can be taken at its face value because literally, a lot of us are guilty because we end up drunk with booze, only to realize when you recover come late next morning that you gotta grind some more, that after all, you didn't hit the lotto jackpot !%}#?  Nyet anyway.

For those with misses, with foul-ups, it's never the end of the tunnel.  Just don't give up.  Surely it sounds a fallacy but we all feel giving up after a darn miss, even a near miss. But let those moments of frustrations pass through.  You'll get over it.  And you'll be fine.

For those leading the pack, that's no time to be cocky, not the time to let up as well because right behind your heels are dogs catching up on you.  And while it's tough maintaining your pole position, it's tougher catching up from behind.  Ask F1 champion Lewi Hamilton.  The choice option is a no brainer.

Yesireee, don't get me wrong, I ain't say that celebrations are a no-no.  Yes you can.  Yes you should BUT just stop by this cork board which screams "UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE CELEBRATE EVERYTHING".  

Hold on to that event organizer, that catering service.  Hold on to that champagne before you uncork it.  Hold on to the fires before roasting and feasting on tender meat alongside booze.

Remember, the best is yet to come and there are much more beautiful things out there in the horizon.  For now, don't feel bad if I'll frankly advise you that you deserve popcorns for now.  Go, grab that popcorn for now.😁

Keep Learning [especially during this Pandemic]

 Keep Learning [especially during this Pandemic]

💎We have a HUGE problem and this could be fatal unless we correct this ASAP.  

Because of this pandemic, everything stops?

Because of this pandemic, everything stalls?

Because of this pandemic, everything grinds to a halt?

No se🅝or.  Only face-to-face interactions stop.

Have seen it.  Have heard it.  Have witnessed it as wel.  Life has to go on, so the past months and even upcoming months, some of my work colleagues either have tied the knot or tying soon.  And obviously travel stops but that's about it.

Problem is, there is a collateral damage.  Because of this pandemic, the drive for learning and that thirst for learning seems to have grinded to a halt.  Save for our student population who needs to go on with their online learning, the rest of us seemed to have set aside learning, all because of this pandemic.

And this becomes a huge missed opportunity if we missed just one too many learning opportunities [especially because of] this pandemic.  We got everything twisted with the wrong turns if we continue to make this pandemic as our reason [bluntly, i'll call it ALIBI and EXCUSE] for sacrificing our progressive learning.  And if we will sugar-coat our reasons by claiming that you got NO TIME for learning, that's baloney.

And what more if that learning opportunity is FREE?  But hey, as this poster screams and shouts, "FREE is not so FREE".  This is not akin to foodies delivered by GrabFood or FoodPanda at your doorstep.  You need to know what you don't know.  And from thereon, know what you need versus what is just nice to have.  Frankly, even if learning opportunities are all over your place, it takes a self-motivated soul to make his move.  No amount of automation will self-enroll you and virtually bring you inside the virtual classroom, NO WAY Jose.

Why did the Apple Logo end up that way?  Simply put, the late Steve Jobs wanted to drive the message that if and when there's an apple of an opportunity, grab it, bite it.

To walk the talk, within the comforts of my home, I've taken up courses from Harvard, UCB [University of California-Berkeley], IIMB [Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore].  And with no bragging rights, I'll humbly admit that I got a long queue of courses where I am enrolled throughout the next 12 months over to 2021 [and the best thing is that most of it is FREE].

Let's GO GO GO, learning is a lifelong process.⏳

Purposefulness, anyone?

Purposefulness, anyone?

📌Anyone out there in the wilderness with no purpose?  I hate to say this but the blunt part of me won't buy the crap that everyone has and always had a purposefulness in whatever endeavor he is in.  

Unfortunately, many are back-riders.  Many are more likely to piggy-back than create their own ride.  Many more out there would rather coast along, going with the flow, so to speak.

Now, what if we'll tell you that the 'synonyms' of purposefulness could be... aimlessness, pointlessness, emptiness, hollowness, senselessness, name it you got it in this thesaurus turned upside down.

And that's the crux of our problem.  At some point in our lives, we keep on trudging but with a deep hollowness that simply keeps you afloat and adrift as the high seas keep chafing you from the Indian Ocean to Madagascar to Maldives.

Take that innocent lad.  He's grinning from ear to ear.  Why?  Because he's doing something with a purpose.  And when his mini-wheel borrow starts to unload, what did he reap?  It's that sense of achievement, that sense of fulfillment.

Shifting over the focus to our lives, surely at some point in our lives, we were kinda rudderless, purposeless.  But that's fine.  There are points in our lives where and when that's least surprising, especially during your youth. But, if you continue to be purpose-less long after your youth, that's a red flag that needs to be shot down or folded up.  Why?  Time is just too precious to lose.  Wasted time is wasted life.  And when those wastages seemed to have peppered your life's chapters, I am not brimming with optimism that your bagful of regrets will overflow.  By that time, it's too late.

Unless your purposefulness is at your very core, you would never realize that time slips so damn fast akin to quicksilver running through your fingers.  

Unfortunately, we have been so drunk with technology.  We got immersed with one too many shortcuts and hotkeys that all it takes to invoke a function is just hitting a key and when and where you err, you simply UNDO.  Too bad, there is no such thing as an UNDO in life.  You go and waste a decade in your life, that decade is gone forever.  You drift further with another twenty years, then it's GAME OVER for you.  And by the time you realize it, your Bio has been captured by the iPhone's TIMELAPSE function and there's just no UNDO.

For those at the starting block, take that STAIRCASE approach to its very core.  This is no rocket science.  And you don't need to be a genius to take this path.  THINKING is not effortless but it won't drain you.  ANALYZING may seem to crack your brain but it won't.  PLANNING is sheer discipline and when it gets embedded in your daily life, you don't need to empty your tank.  Obviously, you got to have that knack for the action words of TRYING, DOING and just KEEP on GOING.  Reaping the fruits of your persevering yet persistent labor will not go for naught.  And I'll bet on you for that.☝
 

Turning Things Around

 Turning Things Around

📌To most of us, turning things around seems a longshot.  Up front, we get daunted by the odds when all the cards are stacked against us.  Apathy. Indifference. Loss of confidence.  And worst, mistrust and distrust.  All these are ingredients for that recipe for you to fail even before you lifted a finger to go for it.  But the worst part is that loss of confidence.  That could be your self-confidence or that could be the confidence of people around you, be it within your family or your work environment.  But even then, it's never the last daylight you will see.  There will always be that slimmest chance for you to turn around.

Take trekking to Mount Everest, a feat that only a drop in the bucket [of our population] has managed to achieve.  Just being advised where you will start that trek is already daunting.  When mountaineers are advised to take that short flight to Lukla and from there, you have to trek for ten days to reach Base Camp.  And that's only the very point when you can commence your trek up there.  Based on statistics, there has been always a significant drop in the number of mountaineers once they get to know that, that's only Step 1 going up Mount Everest.  Yet, the bravest of the bravest did reach the peak of the peak but they had to hurdle a long ordeal with regard the extreme altitude sickness.  As per first hand accounts by mountaineers, once you reach 8,000 feet at Mount Everest, that's where the known 'DEATH ZONE' starts because from that point onwards, the lack of oxygen can disorient even the toughest of the toughest climbers.  And the mortality rate is really appalling to hear.

But if this your mantra, i.e. Failure is NOT the opposite of success but instead it is part of success, then who else will waiver and wither?

You don't abandon ship once you are at the high seas.  Neither will you turn around once you reach the Base Camp of Mount Everest.

In our lives, that matters most.  Once you get thrusted in a situation which becomes a make or break, why will you raise the white flag?  Especially if there is a very thin razor line between making it or failing it?

But who wants to fail anyway?  But again, this is easier said than that because to shut off your eyes from that FAILURE path, at the very least, you need to take a 90-degree turn.  By turning 90 degrees, there will be lots of downsides.  You gotta sacrifice some things.  You gotta lay all your remaining cards on the table.  You gotta tell yourself that this is the final crossroad that can tilt things either towards that brink of failure or that dawn to success.  Which path you need to take, YOU gotta summon everything in you to come up with that game-changing decision which can make or unmake you.

Besides your most basic needs when you are in 'survival mode', what else do you need?  Nothing much except that eight-letter word spelt P-O-S-S-I-B-L-E.  Drop that 'im' prefix, just dump it out.  Instead, complement it with another eight-letter word spelt 'P-O-S-I-T-I-V-E'.  

Staying firmly POSITIVE with everything that's POSSIBLE, trust me, you are in that right path to turn things around.  It won't happen overnight because you will get bruised, scarred, wounded, battered probably both psychologically and even physically but once you wiggle out of that conundrum, that will be the sweetest TURN AROUND that will be permanently etched in your life.

At this point, what else do we need?  It is this very inspirational quote from Napoleon Bonaparte, that famously successful French military leader who eventually became an emperor.  To quote Napoleon: 'You become strong by defying defeat and by turning loss and failure into success'.  

Fast forward to today.  Ellen DeGeneres, one of America's most visible personality was quoted: 'When you take risks, you learn that there will be times when you succeed and there will be times when you will fail and both are equally important'.  

To cap it off, your moments of failure will give you the proper perspective on success.⌛

'Storm in a Teacup

 Storm in a Teacup

Isn't this a common scenario replicated over and over again in our lives.  Petty stuff.  Minor disconnects.  Small gaps.  Thereafter, we just turn around to the other side.  Not giving the slightest importance to drill-down on the smallness of seeming irritants in life.

What's uncommon between animals, plants versus our problems.  The former do dissipate and die a natural death.  Our problems?  They won't die.  On the other hand, a small spark can lead to a full-blown fire which can quickly spread out like the Australian bushfires.  When someone instigates something, igniting friction, activate your contingency plans.

That's where our problems lie.  Rarely we see a brewing storm out in the horizon.  Instead, when we do we press the 'panic button'?  Only when we see the darkened clouds hovering over the horizon.  By that time, we are losing by default because we hardly lifted a finger at the earliest moment when the small spark started.  And that's when and where we're guilty [me, included].  We tag minor squabbles and conflicts as simply storms in a teapot.

Remember, in life, the road is not paved from coast to coast.  In fact, somewhere just after getting into that long stretch, the pavement ends.  And only then little little storms will start to spring up surprises.  What matters is how well timed is it when you pick up the gauntlet.  And in life, what makes or breaks you is the first precious minutes.  Your swiftness to react.  Act fast, you'll almost effortless kill a small fire that looks like a bonfire.  Take one step behind, you will lose the momentum.

To whom can we point our fingers?  Take that pointed stance wherein most of our fingers point back right in our face.  Point is, never belittle those irritants. those warts, those small stones thrown across our paths.  What should stomp us is that there's a huge difference in the required efforts to be exerted when pegging it to someone taking a swift action versus a laidback one who'd prefer to see the fruit-bearing trees to naturaly push down its fruits down to your laidback [a.k.a. LAZY] self.  The worst ramification is that your odds of overcoming minor irritants in life suddenly skyrockets, pushing your probabilities to further slide down.

And what could be the worst indictment on us?  It is this despicable attitude wherein, when we find something we're aligned, you won't lose time to act on it.  But once you turn cold on something, you bet, there will be tons and tons of reasons to impede you to take that next step.

This pandemic should bear witness to lots of storms in a teacup that have turned out to be super typhoons that turned petty tiffs into huge gaps within immediate families.  And when pride turns its ugly head, people get pushed against the wall and the unthinkable creeps in.  Nary a word within the household.  One protagonist withdraws towards the dungeons like the reclusive hermit who reminds one self that he/she doesn't need anyone else in life.  Oh c'mon, let's remember John Donne's one-liner, NO MAN IS AN ISLAND.

Free Fall... How not to

 Free Fall... How not to

Surely you were in a 'free fall' before.  Who has not been in that anyway.  Once, I was in that, too.  And extricating oneself from it is tough.  Tough man.  Can you imagine yourself totally force-less and it's only gravity that becomes the only force acting upon it.  And it can't be stopped.  But there's a way out.  Slow down that fall with a drag.  Create more drag.  And that's where the parachute comes into play.

In our lives, the last flickering hope to turnaround will be one steep mountain to climb back because at that point, life seemingly becomes like water, fast slipping through your fingers.  When life slips out of gear, pull all the strings, summon anyone and anything that will give you a life-reviving CPR.

It's true, storms can ravage down and even flatten the terrain but if there's calm before the storm, what is often overlooked is that there is calm after the storm.  And it's an everyday scene, after the storm, the skies are clear, the path gets clearer, even the waters become crystal clear.  Such is life.  After you go through a ravaging storm, wait for it to be over.  Wait when everything gets clearer because that will lead you back to your path to get back on your feet.

Remember, it NEVER rains forever.  All it takes is to cling to every lifeline while the rains will ravage your life.  And block off that fuel in your tank because your tank can't get emptied.  Getting emptied means life will snap out.  And while all cards will be stacked against you in the midst of that turmoil, you need to rev up the engine to keep you going, back on your feet.

Yessirrrr, if there's a calm before the storm, expect things to be calmer after the storm.  There's a catch though.  By that time, things are ravaged.  You got to patiently pick up the pieces and at worst, reboot and restart from Square-1.  But at that point, you're better off because your life has not snapped off.  The last threads of the ropes have not given up on you, not yet anyone.  

Word of caution, though.  After you have picked up the pieces and back on the road to recovery, be super-duper mindful of 'fall risks'.  Fall once, you'll likely survive.  Fall the second time around, you'll be at the edges of the cliff, praying for dear life.

How do you avert a second fall?  Learn your lessons especially when you learnt it the damn hard way.

Be a Round Peg in a Round Hole

 Be a Round Peg in a Round Hole

🌀Numerous times in our lives, we [wrongly] thought that circumstances and situations need to fit into us, within what we can and what we are.  And that covers our whims.

That's our faux pas [and I have my own share of mea culpas here and there] because once we get so comfy within our comfort zone, we lose track that the sun does not shine forever, that the high seas will not be forever calm and serene.  As there will be peaks, there we will be valleys when we skid and nose dive,

Such is life.  Mountains remain stationary unlike the melting glaciers.  When we trek up and through the mountains, we need to figure out our way.  There will be roadblocks that seemingly look as show stoppers.  Either we patiently chip those roadblocks or we need to figure another route regardless if it becomes a longer trek.

In our life as workers, do we agree that at the time we were being grilled in the battery of interviews, every challenge we were asked, we ALWAYS responded in the affirmative?  YES I WILL.  YES I'M WILLING.  YES I ACCEPT.

Now, does this sound familiar?  In our workplace, there remains a small number who, to be fair, are too discerning to the extent that everything for them is rigidly defined and it's for their best interest.  How about the company's interest?  Yes it's in the priority list but it's hogging the cellar down there.  In this pandemic, we heard a zillion times about layoffs and retrenchments.  YET, we have heard of a minuscule number who have tendered their resignations.  Whew!  What an irony.

Why can't we be like the kids?  These innocent souls don't give a damn with what they can't.  Instead, they will exert their darn best to push themselves into anything that's at hand, be it oversized footwear or not.

Swing over to the 'mature ones' in the workplace.  You'd likely hear lots of subtle noisy in the background.  Is this a script when competence shows its ugly horn?  Mind boggling indeed.  How can some have that audacity  to go cute or brute when the chips are down?  Over at the golf course, this doesn't seem to be par for the course.

Call this an attitudinal thing but it's not.  Instead, this is reflective of one's persona, one's character.  You gotta take a pulse check, a reality check. And if one's going through the motions with a seemingly 'good faith' that is less than good, isn't it ripe for those misguided souls to rip off that BandAid strip as it's likely that strip is what alleviates your situation when you're lickin' some self-inflicted wounds.

At the end of the day, before you cross the bridge and hop-on to another job in the market, grasp yourself by your lapels and revisit your judgment call if it's really 'worth giving up the farm for just bread crumbs'?  

Just doesn't work that way, dude.😖

Breaking Barriers

                                                 Breaking Barriers

🔅Happy Saturday.

Over my cup of coffee, let me start our weekend with this thread.  What breaks our back?  Barriers no less.  Barriers when we buckle down. Barriers when we founder.  Barriers when we disintegrate into pieces, left with nary an ounce of energy to resuscitate our flickering hopes to get back and come back.

Ironically and sadly, many of us are missing something a very basic element in life.  That is, barriers are there for us to break it up and not for barriers to break us down.  

The $64 dollar question now that stumps us is this:  Why do a lot of us [and I'm one of them] fail when we hit barriers?  

Probably, we keep complaining for a task we have at hand.

Probably, we are selective [a.k.a. CHOOSY] with a task we wanna do.

Probably, we were not realistic with the task, setting the bar way too high, with the goal itself ending up more as a barrier.

Probably, when you inject emotions in executing a task that requires objectivity devoid of the slightest tinge of emotions.

Oh, we'll be in deep 'sh___' if it's AOTA [all of the above]!  When we start complaining, when at work we become task-selective or if in our personal lives, we set to achieve something that is not realistic in the first place, sorry folks, one foot of yours is already in that hole.  Top it up with emotions getting into the mix, voila, that is a recipe for FAILURE!

Has anyone guaranteed that in life, you will be walking on long stretches of smooth concrete or asphalt?  No sir, we are into a rough-and-tumble game and the end game will only result either in aye nor nay, passed or failed, nothing neutral, nothing in between.  

So what does it take for us to trudge on? 

Firstly, wear your HARD HAT.  Meaning, you're not into games.

Secondly, you must have enough firepower under your hood.

Oh well, looking at the big picture, which Third World Country is near the top of the totem pole in terms of its billionaires population?  India, it's hands down!  Why can Indians end up so high when everyone else are from the First World?  

Let me offer my 2-cents.  It's the unparalleled drive of Indians to succeed.  Don't get me wrong.  We're not implying that my own countrymen don't have that drive to succeed.  Working with Indians right on Indian soil gave me that first hand opportunity to attest that the typical Indian's drive is at the full-throttle 5th gear whereas we're hovering between 2nd and 3rd gear.  Clearly on exception basis, the moguls are at the 5th gear but their numbers are minuscule, probably less than a fraction of 1%.  Indeed a pitiful number not to be proud of.

At work, it has to be collaboration no less.  As this adage has been proven correct over time, the sum of the whole is greater than its parts.  With teamwork and collaboration, your rickety boat can reach that far out in the high seas but what's key here is that each player knows his role and plays his role down to a 'T'.  And when they hit rock bottom, when the boat capsizes, the contingency plan kicks in.  Easier said than done but we gotta start somewhere, PLEASE.✋

Do We Push the Bird from the Nest?

 Do We Push the Bird from the Nest?

⌛What sets apart the bird, the seal and the camel from us humans?  And what explains the 'Great Divide' between cultures?

Tough love it is, dude.

At its most fragile infancy, birds get pushed from the nest as soon as the hatchling becomes a nestling.  And when it becomes a nestling, they get literally pushed off the branch so that they can figure out how to fly and be on their own.  The same 'quirky quickie' way happens to the seal frolicking along the edge of the waters and camels who tend to be in 'survival' mode across the parched tracts of deserts.

But these 'quirky quickies' is replicated with humans too.

While there are laggards [especially in the Third World], there are cultures and countries whose students become 'studs' in much shorter cycles.  And while the Nordic countries are in the top quadrant, Japanese students are atop the 'success rankings'.  Why?  It's because from generation to generation, Japanese push themselves the hardest, much harder than the 'far second' behind them.  And where's the United States?  Just behind New Zealand but not afar though.  And that is the lead pack in the rat race we are all locked in throughout our lifetime.  And there's no turning back. For the laggards, though, this is not the time for despair because there is a razor-thin line between the leaders and the laggards.  Obscurely, the laggards are just a bounce away, very much within striking distance of the lead pack.

And what's the formula to push us from laggards to leaders?  Leave your comfort zone.  Get out of its comforts.  Pick up the gauntlet and go where you may even be thrown like a matador facing a raging bull.  Surely, you will get scathed and wounded but that's the hard way to earn your spurs.  In fact, there is no other way if you're steadfast to take that upward trajectory of your 'flight plan'.  

A decade ago, I was spending 11 months in a year, working with Indian techies in Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.  And I was flabbergasted no end by their very contagious sheer and frenzied enthusiasm to learn new tricks from the SME [who's hosting a Knowledge Transfer].  And when the Indian 'studs' listen, they are so focused to the point of being reverential to their SME mentors.  Roll-up a decade, where will you find these Indian techies who, by that time, have ripened?  The cream of the crop may have found themselves in Silicon Valley before the overflow Indian techies will spear over to the U.K. and across Europe.  Even as we speak now, one of my functional bosses is an Indian migrant in Western Europe way back more than twenty years back.  And where is he now?  He's at the 'totem pole', on par at the course with the Global CIO.  So, what's the push we need?  It's our WORK ETHIC, dude.💪

Beware of Sheep in Wolves Cloth

 Beware of Sheep in Wolves Cloth

You may be a Kiwi down there in New Zealand, shepherding thousands and thousands of sheep grazing across the rolling hills.

OR you may be a part of a political leader's cordon sanitaire. OR you may even be the closest confidant of the Pope in Vatican. OR you may be one of the well-meaning members of a flock attending the enthralling weekly preaching of an articulate neighborhood pastor.

Regardless, beware when leaders trumpet that they are burning the midnight oil to manage the country's state of affairs,

Beware as well when that smooth-talking pastor starts to pass on the bowl for 'another well-meaning pastoral idea'.

Beware as well when the Vatican claims it has cleaned up its own house because very likely, it has NOT.

Are we to accept hook, line and sinker everything we hear from our leaders, from the government, to the church down to our villages?  Especially when they [deceitfully] claim that given a choice, they don't want to be sitting incumbents in their office!  That they would rather retire but again it's their commitment to their constituencies which constrains them to hang on for the poeple, of the people and because of the people.  

Not to be cynical, we can rattle off recent histories that doesn't shield even the power and mighty from culpability.  No less than the late Pope John Paul II [who's now St John Paul II] was advised by the late New York Cardinal John O'Connor NOT to appoint American Cardinal Theodore McCarrick because of his history of sexually abusing teenage boys and even adult seminarians.  It was not until in 2019 when Pope Francis finally defrocked Theodore McCarrick.  But the bigger question to society was how to give justice to the numerous victims when, because of the American laws on status of limitations where the period to lapse a judicial action against an accused lapses.

Let me quote this from Carl Jung.  It's a mouthful but it blurts out everything I want to spew out anyways: 'The MANIPULATOR is not a psychotic; he knows his story is not consistent with reality.  The MANIPULATOR is not simply a liar; he produces axioms and dogma.  The MANIPULATOR short-circuits normal information processing in his victims; with his calm, placating voice, he draws them into his fallacious construct, making them believe, preventing them from fact, reality and likeliness checking'.  

Doesn't that ring a bell?  Leaders who seem to hold you in a trance once he speaks in a cool [but cold and calculating manner]?  

To be forewarned is to be forearmed.