Why Be A LAGGARD Instead Of A LEADER?

 Why Be A LAGGARD Instead Of A LEADER?

Please DON'T get me wrong.  Nothing wrong to be a LAGGARD because that's the result of all things that happened, all rolled into one.  But the bigger question is, is it fine to be a LAGGARD instead of a LEADER?  Let's put things in the right perspective, though.  No one wants to be a LAGGARD, that's for sure.  But as this poster goes, LAGGARDS are the result of either someone WHO DON'T LIKE CHANGE, or are 'SAFE PLAYERS' or those CONTENTED enough💎

That theory may not be true 100% of the time but looking back through my journey, I'd like to believe that at the very least, 70% of the time, indeed being a LAGGARD is a result of either someone who's comfortable with the STATUS QUO, or someone CONSERVATIVE enough in terms if mindset or someone who believes there's no other goal to aim more because what he/she has is ENOUGH📗📙📘

If someone has NO aspirations to be a LEADER, that is fine but there's a catch there.  When someone from the pack zooms to be a LEADER, in due time, the next fellow will zoom up to become a LEADER as well, then the next one follows.  Before you know it,  by then, you have become the next LAGGARD you didn't expect to become.  Surely, you did not consciously choose to be a LAGGARD but nevertheless, you ended up as one.  WHY?  What drove you to the very precipice and edges of a disastrous run📌

Got to remember that we belong to that monstrous crowd elbowing each other ti find his way not just up front but at the center, the very core of things.  But if initially you're standing at the back, it will take more than just a token effort for you to muscle your way up front✅✅✅

So, seriously, how is it easy to be a LEADER instead of a LAGGARD?  No mean feat here.  You got to work your 'ass' dumb hard like there is no tomorrow.  Only then you are able to achieve that breakthrough.  Playing devil's advocate, why are we running away to be a LAGGARD?  Fair and simple.  We DON'T want to fail.  Unfortunately, to be a LAGGARD is akin to courting FAILURE which we DON'T want to avert and avoid, right❓❓❓

What Can We Learn From Japanese Culture

 What Can We Learn From Japanese Culture

Not to downplay the richness of the many cultures we have in our global village but I thought it's worth it to deep-dive a bit and ask ourselve as to What Can We Learn From Japanese Culture.  Years back, I was a part of a 20-man party taking the chance to visit our office locations in Pune and Bangalore.  And out of the 20-man party, eighteen of them were Japanese executives.  So, our group was like 90% Japanese and that makes myself and my colleague as the 'odd men out' from a cultural perspective [although it was a non-issue].

But that gave me a first-hand and ringside view of what can we learn from the Japanese Culture.  And a big chunk of their cultural values revolve around RESPECT.  And if you work with them in the corporate environment, you would bear witness as to what RESPECT is going on.  When I stayed for a week in our Tokyo headquarters, I did bear witness how everyone would only pack off only when the 'big boss' has left the office premises.

This picture alone would show as to who'se the Japanese and who's not.  During my India trip together with our Japanese executives, I bear witness how RESPECT is happening every step of the way and it could be as petty as those times when we were to go down at the hotel lobby before boarding the shuttle bus that will take us to our office.  No one ever attempted to leave the hotel lobby NOT until the revered 'boss' arrived and said "LET'S GO".

When I was dining at Hiroshima City, I asked my Nihongo interpreter because I thought the MENU itself was 'content-heavy' and she showed me that a big portion of that MENU was showing the ingredients for the ordered dish including the quantity [in grams] per ingredient.  Call this TRANSPARENCY no less but this happens to be an intrinsic element once we learn to pick up insights from the Japanese Culture.  As you tend to spend weeks, months and even years interacting with Japanese, we would end up with more things to learn from the Japanese Culture.

Yes, MAKOTO got everything rolled into one as it means HONESTY and COMPLETE SINCERITY.  In a single word, what I learned for almost twelve years now is that INTEGRITY is at the very core of the Japanese Culture.  Regardless of your calling and in any facet and aspect in life, INTEGRITY is at the very core of the Japanese Culture.  At hindsight, we may be outside looking in but nevertheless, it won't cost an arm and a leg if we endeavor to embody these very core foundations of the Japan Culture because at the end of the day, it will redound to our benefit as a person📌📌📌

Count Your Blessings

 Count Your Blessings

This was my MEA CULPA many times in the past.  I kept hungering for what I didn't have.  I would regret not having this or that.  Ooooops, what happened to all the blessings I had?  This is my personal confession.  I seemed Xtremely far-sighted such that I was unable to see those things within me, within my reach. And I refused to keep my ears and eyes close enough to the ground to Count Your Blessings.  Alas, this is one of the most common lapses we are guilty of.  And since its recurring day-in day-out, we DON'T even see it happening💊

And what caught my eye to this duo of the printer and the paper?  This reminds me of partners/couples/spouses who are so enamored with a thousand things EXCEPT his/her partner/spouse, whew. How can things end up so convoluted like this?.   Again, we all seem to be far-sighted and missing out our partner/spouse right next to us.  Can we count our blessings❓

Now, what happens if ever we DO NOT count our blessings?  Well, firstly, the consequences may not be that apparent overnight but it will more than just sting you as the ripple effects would unravel over time, in the long term in fact.  Before you realize it, you have ended up with a persona so different from what you were.  And could you be by then❓

BTW, does it surprise you as to why children are many light years different from us adults?  Simple.  It's because they count their blessings every step of the way.  When they step out of the house and it starts to drizzle, they will cheer up and get excited no end by the raindrops.  Whereas us adults, we would blame the rains for messing up the tidied up body after a car wash.  Or we would even blame the rain for dampening our spirit, for us to suddenly feel like a LAZY DOG when the dire truth is that that laziness has been creeping up within you, inside out.  POOR YOU⌛ 

Oh, if there are popular objects thathave become personifications in counting our blessings, it's those BALLOONS.  Not surprising to know some people whose home is littered with balloons.  It's because balloons mean CELEBRATIONS and these highly positive people celebrate life by count their blessings📗📙📘

The HIGH GROUND

The HIGH GROUND

No sirrrs, this is neither the Star Wars Song nor the movie.  Instead, we'd like to tackle that HIGH GROUND where ideally we should be perched especially when we are arguing vociferously for a position we strongly believe to be legitimately and even morally on the HIGH GROUND.  You might ask, can we just stand afoot on any ground as long both our feet are on the ground?  No sirrrrs, you will be standing on shaky grounds if you do not gain a 'beachhead' for that HIGH GROUND💦

So, you might be itching to ask, how do we know that we are perched at that HIGH GROUND?  That's when you are having the material edge or advantage.  Those are times when you got the upper hand.  Those are episodes in our life when nothing can just go wrong, those moments where all are in your favor⌛

Let's look at the technologies lording it all over us.  What precipitated those quantum leaps of most of the technology players?  It all boils down to the most known secret in the industry that they have all the momentum going for them.  That is the HIGH GROUND we all cherish and do everything NOT to lose that.

And how about the preachers and evangelists we come across?  Why is it very extremely rare to find them NOT perched on HIGH GROUND?  As this poster goes, they position their spiel as a "CAUSE"  and without being self-righteous, once they start off their engine like that of a locomotive, stopping them is doable but as the brakes of a train can't be pulled within a hundred meters, they can go on unchallenged as they deliver their piece📌📌📌

Without sounding political, let's pause and think as to why the presence of the United States of America seems 'everywhere'?  When Ukraine was under siege, America was there.  Two weeks back, when the Chinese hegemonists were 'saber rattling in the Straits of Taiwan, America sent its forces [including its threatening helicopters] over to be a part of the 'saber rattling, all because America has the HIGH GROUND📗📙📘

Never Be A Sitting Duck

 Never Be A Sitting Duck

For all the reasons in the world and even for no reason at all, Never Be A Sitting Duck.  Regardless of your circumstance in life, NEVER be a hapless prey, a poor target of the predator because that may mean you are onboard a 'train wreck' that is doomed in its journey.  Whereas, in life, it pays to have the 'UPPER HAND' because as much as there is nothing wrong being the 'UNDERDOG', in real life, as it is in NBA games, you want to have your guns blazing right when the buzzer sounds at jump ball❗❗❗

As there may be more episodes in life wherein we are going down south than up north, there will be likely threatening situations that may derail you further down.  You could be struggling in your academics in school.  UNLESS you fix that, you could be a SITTING DUCK for alarmingly low grades. Or you and your partner have been struggling to smoothen your relationship.  UNLESS you fix that issue, your relationship can get murkier if an ill-intentioned person can plot sinister plans to just push your relationship beyond the brink📗📙📘

Or at the workplace, your performance has been more 'below par' and becoming that chronic of a concern.  UNLESS you fix it, you are another SITTING DUCK who could eventually end up on the exit door.  And if you're an entrepreneur where competition is gobbling you up, UNLESS you plot a realistic recovery plan, you could end up as a SITTING DUCK for anyone's picking.

Nothing wrong in being an underdog if that is a given.  On the other hand, you don't want to remain a SITTING DUCK simply because you are that diminutive underdog.  Craft countermeasures.  Find workarounds to counter the huge cathedral-high tsunamic waves that seem to engulf you.  UNLESS you find a fix for your being an underdog, that will be pitiful of you.

While heft and size do matter, the storied tales do NOT end there.  IF you need to counter a huge physical handicap by being smart enough, you can outgun anyone.  IF you need to get back to the drawing board for you to re-draw your strategies, go for it even if you need to take two or three steps backward before you can move forward even by half an inch.  Bottomline, be STRATEGIC and NEVER BE A SITTIND DUCK in life📌📌📌

Need A CHEERLEADER In Your Life?

Need A CHEERLEADER In Your Life?

Need A CHEERLEADER In Your Life?  Hold on your fort.  Before you post to advertise your need for your CHEERLEADER In Your Life, let me pull the brakes and this is NOT to be scrimping the budget.  Let me swing you and take a one eighty degree turn by cajoling you to please DESIST from looking for your CHEERLEADER In Your Life because although you need one, you can't find the best one out there❗

But to be fair to you, let me hear you out.  I know where you're coming from and I am fully aware for your need for a  CHEERLEADER In Your Life because everyone of us would need that. Regardless of what we are in pursuit, we need to be buoyed, boosted, inspired, spurred and honestly, to be emboldened [especially when our own drive or spirit seems to be sagging]💧

I totally agree, we cling to social media because that is the easiest and most effective way [to date] to reach out to our closes confidantes, our spouse/partner and people closest to us primarily because we TRUST them more than anyone else.  But did we realize that they can only do so much for you?  Guess who can be the best-ever CHEERLEADER In Your Life?  Voila, no one and just no one beats you to be the CHEERLEADER In Your Life, promise📌

True, we should constantly reach out to our networked support groups because at the end of the day, 'MORE HEADS are BETTER than ONE' but any external help is scratching the surface at best.  To scrape to the bottom, drill down deep and initiate an RCA [root cause analysis], this is where you need to summon you yourself being the very self-anointed CHEERLEADER In Your Life because no else can extricate yourself out best other than you💜

You can cull and gather all the inputs [and cheers] from everyone close to you but when it all reaches you, the BUCK STOPS there with you.  That's when you validate everything before you take that 'LAST HURRAH' kind of thing, summoning everything from within you, all because YOU are your very CHEERLEADER In Life🎾🎽🏆

Those Narrow Alleys

Those Narrow Alleys

We used to [wrongly] think and believe that we can LIVE LIFE on the FAST LANE.  That we could go full throttle.  That we could max things out.  That there will be no slow-downs.  That you can get things in a snap of a finger versus waiting for it in eternity.  But alas, that is more of a fairy tale than anything else.  In life, there are Those Narrow Alleys where we can't live without, where we need to wiggle out🔋

It's true, a big chunk of our time we would find ourselves traversing highways and freeways, enough for us to go for a full throttle.  Those are the times when we can drive FAST and FUROUS but even across inter-state highways, at some point, you got to slow down as you take exit points.  And farther down, you could be traversing a 2-way 2-lane road and much farther down, you could end in decrepit roads📌

Two months back when I took a break from work, initially I was driving at full throttle for roughly eight to ten hours only to screech to a halt when I had to wiggle my car out of congested towns in the countryside.  Swinging back to our life. that's exactly how it goes.  You CANNOT go a free-wheeling life year-round.  Quite a few times, you got to pull the brakes and slow down your drive💤

So, how do we handle life once you're constrained to slow down because you got to cut across those narrow alleys?  Those are the times when you CAN'T be too impulsive or just too random to come up to decisions.  On the other hand, those are the times when you have to be very calculating, very near-precise, very circumspect, cautious, guarded and contriving if you have to.  WHY?  It's because those narrow alleys in life will offer you very little, if at all, those elbow room or wiggle room when you can eke yourself out.  In worst cases, you could even end up locked-out in those narrow alleys and before you know it, you are just so stuck-up, there's no way for you find a safe exit from such predicament.  So, let us be wary and forward-looking for THOSE NARROW ALLEYS❗❗❗ 

Do You Play NOT To Loose?

Do You Play NOT To Loose?

Life may not be basketball, casino games or chess but if there is one thing that life is, life is always about competition no less.  You could be angling for higher academic grades in school.  OR you are trying to woo a girl you like heads over heels.  OR you are actively looking out in the job market.  OR you are now in that long-term relationship.  OR you're into business. Regardless, Do You Play NOT To Loose❓❓❓

That's the scary part.  If ever you play NOT to lose, if things go right [which you hope and pray], PLAYING NOT TO LOSE may mean that either in school, your grades neither improved nor worsened OR your chances of wooing that 'girl of your life' didn't become either dimmer or brighter OR in your job interviews, you were not down rejected but you were not chosen either.  OR in business, your coffers remained similar as in the past📗📙📘

In a worst case scenario [which will NOT be far-fetched if everYou Play NOT To Lose, losing when it's GAME OVER may just happen.  WHY?  Precisely, the culprit is the fact that you didn't PLAY to WIN.  By lowering your goals, conversely, you
LOWERED your chances of achieving higher results simply because you didn't aim high enough as part of your goal💧

So, what's our deal?  Please Do NOT Play NOT To Lose because that direction is what will dictate your motivational level.  And it's human nature wherein we are pushed only as far as we want ourselves to be pushed.  If all you want is a 'just enough' push, then you need to brace yourself for a 'just enough' result.  NEVER expect optimized chances of garnering the GOLD because you set your goal to achieve a BRONZE➰➰➰

What Fills Up Your Cup

What Fills Up Your Cup

Everyday we wake up in life, do we all agree that we got to Fill Up Your Cup EVERDAY.  BTW, I DON'T mean literally.  But in life, this is a non-negotiable GIVEN.  You got to replenish those 'stores' of your mental, emotional and physical energy.  These days when technologies have lorded it over our lives, to fill up our cup means we got to pull the brakes and power things off because we got to recharge our batteries.  BTW, do you want to recharge your batteries while you have NOT powered off yet?  That's a NO-NO if you don't want your battery pack to eventually give up💥

Some of us [that includes moi in the past] wrongly thought that that cup is bottomless.  No sirrr, you can dine and have your glass of lemon tea refilled but you got to ask for it.  Remember, many of us are in the midst of caring for others.  Your team in the workplace, your kids, your senior parents and of course your spouse/partner.  And that brings us back to this old saying:  YOU CAN'T POUR FROM AM EMPTY CUP📌

Whether it be PHYSICALLY, EMOTIONALLY, FINANCIALLY or PSYCHOLOGICALLY, you got to be refilling your CUP of LIFE but please DON'T wait for it to get emptied before you REFILL.  That's akin to that frying pan on the cooking stove.  In between your cookings, there's got to be oil or something in there, else the pan could get burned.  Such is the our cup of life⏳

The cost-free and easiest way to refill our cup is to KEEP MOVING.  Exercise, even in small amounts.  That can improve your mood in fact.  Some of us have that innate and burning interest on something worthwhile like writing poems, composing or even sketching and drawing.  MAKE TIME TO DO IT.  Towards endo of day, write down the 3 to 5 things you're grateful for today.  That SELF-APPECIATION will go a long way to refill our cup.  Hug someone from within your family to express your emotional and let out your affection for your family member💊

Take this GIF which tells us 'life can be lifeless' if your cup is empty.  And that is no farther from the truth. Topping the list for your to refill your cup is being constantly mindful of your HEALTH, your eating habits.  Enjoy bits of something rather than inhaling a whole quart of ice cream or an entire bag of M&M, whew.  Oh, if you can apportion a fraction of your time to read books, articles or even blogs [not to self-promote mine though] is a basic input to refill our cup.    Picking up an old hubby or starting a new one is most welcome.  Surely, you were able to figure this out during this two-year pandemic.  C'mon, DON'T miss out to refill our cup of life please❗❗❗

DON'T Play 'HARDBALL' Unless...

DON'T Play 'HARDBALL' Unless..

Yes, from time to time, we do have those tempestuous moments when we want to flex [not literally though] our muscles, that kind of saber-rattling moments but hey, DON'T Play 'HARDBALL' unless you can fulfill this short list of DOs and HAVEs.  Otherwise, forget that temptation else your efforts can easily go for naught.  Just DON'T Play 'HARDBALL' unless...

If you get entangled into an argument that turns into a tug-of-war of words, hold your ground and remind yourself DON'T Play 'HARDBALL'.  UNLESS you got all the cards stacked in your favor.  UNLESS you get into a position of strength.  UNLESS you have everything running in your favor.  UNLESS things are so lopsided in your favor  

NBA superstar Kevin Durant is our most recent basket case of NOT to play 'HARDBALL' unless you meet all the UNLESS qualifiers.  Imagine the Brooklyn Nets' superstar earning $40 million per year demanding for a trade?  Was he crazy?  Probably not.  Probably he [wrongly] thought he can easily bamboozle and play 'HARDBALL' with Brooklyn Nets billionaire Joe Tsai.  In the end, KD blinked.

Lesson here is that in negotiations, DON'T be the first one to blink, that's just a NO-NO because that could the START of your END. For jobhunters who lay down on the table their salary demands, they better be cocksure that they have all the top-tier credentials to boot for them to have at least that china man's chance of angling for the max $$$

Now, here's the tough nut to crack.  How do we negotiate if that guy across the table is several tiers much more senior or more powerful than you?  Not an easy way to wiggle out of that situation but do come fully prepared because your ace cards up your sleeves are your preparedness to bolster your positioning.  Just DON'T Play 'HARDBALL' unless..❗❗❗