Subtle Influence, a teacher’s story.
Growing up in India, I went to a Zoroastrian School. It was a good school and as with most schools, it had all kinds of teachers.
Some were nice and some not so nice. Some were passionate about their work and some regarded their work as just a job.
I remember them all, the stuff they taught us and the way they taught us. As I now train, facilitate and coach others in personal and organizational development, the subject of learning and the quality of learning transfer often comes up.
Of them all a teacher called D.N. Irani at the Sardar Dastur Hoshang Boys’ High School, stands out and apart in my memory.
D.N. Irani had a remarkable way of teaching, behaving and carrying himself when he traversed the corridors of the school. He was tall and lanky, with very little fat on his body. He wore his salt-and-pepper hair closely cropped and was always clean shaven. He was about the size and shape of Clint Eastwood, as Clint Eastwood looked in his fifties. In a light blue short sleeved, bush shirt with khaki chinos and soft brown leather sandals he seemed to serenely glide from the classrooms to the library and the to the faculty room.
When approached in the corridors or in class D.N. Irani never seen seemed hurried or tense; he always heard everyone out fully before he responded. No sounds, no momentary movement or novelty in his surrounding would make D.N. Irani flinch. He remembered faces and the conversations he had with those faces even if all the faces of the boys in a highly populated Indian school looked much alike. In this school with its reputation of toughness, D.N. Irani walked tall and spoke slowly but always carried a big chunk of subtle influence. The boys would part in the hallways to let him pass, like Moses’ Red Sea, although nothing in his attitude or behavior demanded such from the boys.
Whenever other teachers or even the school head master was faced with a hooligan crowd in class they would always send for D.N. Irani to come and restore peace. And D.N. Irani never failed at quieting down a class simply by turning up and planting himself in silence. In the middle of all storms his mere presence would, somehow, make everyone see the bright and beautiful side.
What is it that D. N. Irani did for him to be so respected and revered in the tough Sardar Dastur Hoshang all-Boys High School?
D. N. Irani had presence. He was grounded and totally at ease with himself. When he looked at you, he saw all of you, in appearance and in demeanour. When he listened to you, he heard everything you said and everything else you made the effort to tell him. He rarely interrupted and did not jump to conclusions while watching and listening to you. He never passed judgment about people and their issues until he had gotten maximum information. He was never hasty or mad about expressing his point of view. And when spoke, his expressions and opinions were unequivocal and stated in simple, direct language with a mellow tone to his voice. Even when his statements were not in your favor, you always felt he gave due respect to your individuality and humanity.
Today as I look back, I am more and more convinced D.N. Irani’s sense of seeing, hearing and kinaesthesia (which is feeling, touching and smelling) were razor sharp. He cognitively and deliberately made efforts to always keep his senses alert, alive and empathetic.
You see, everything we are, think and do is devised, developed and deployed by our five senses. Researches and scientists talk about genetics–our DNA and our traits–as codes in our birth cells transferred from our parents. These codes may be in chemical or energy form but they’re all accessible and recognizable through appearances, sounds and behavior. They are also referred to as visual, auditory and kinaesthetic codes.
Everything we learned from the time our mothers conceived, carried and nurtured us has been written and is stored in our brains using these codes. From our formative years through our youth, and into our adulthood, everything we learn and everyone we interact with happens through the function of our five senses. Our knowledge, values, principles and belief are all stored in our memories. An inventory of this storage is maintained in the format of our five senses and a combination of these five senses.
In his classic book, How to Think like Leonardo Da Vinci, Michael Gelb talks about Arte/Scienza – the art and science of improving the quality of our thinking. Michael Gelb suggests we improve vision by studying art, landscapes and beautiful sights. He recommends listening to classical music, sounds of nature, inspiring speeches and creative stories to sharpen our sense of hearing and our minds. To improve our sense of taste, smell and touch, he encourages activities that alternatingly soothe and stretch these senses, thus strengthening and sharpening them.
Stronger and sharper senses improve our ability to think and we become more aware and sensitive to other people and to our surroundings; therefore, improving our ability to interact with our world.
Individuals like my former teacher, D.N. Irani, knew this at an intuitive and cognitive level. Perhaps they had no chance to explain these paradigms they lived by, but they became living examples of this acute awareness and practice.
Here are five practices to enhance your sensory acuities, heighten your awareness and improve your ability to live in the moment;
- Start with a clean state of mind. If any recent visual, auditory or kinaesthetic experience is on your mind–perhaps an unappealing sight you have just witnessed, a song humming in the back of your mind or the scent of pungent food- then consciously let go of the experience using the Reasoning Brain. Let it all be erased from the desktop of your mind.
- Enhance visual acuity. Whenever you see an object delve a bit more on its shape, size, and color. Think of it as visually studying something in detail. This works equally well when observing human facial expressions.
- Enhance auditory acuity. Listen to music and distinguish the sounds of the different instruments involved. Make an effort to mentally dissect the high notes and the low notes of the This works equally well when listening to another person. Listen for pitch, power, percussion, pauses and the parlance. It’ll help you better discern messages they may not be actually verbalizing.
- Enhance your kinaesthetic acuity. When for example, you carry a puppy, feel his weight, his fur, his nails, his bones and all the features th
Subtle Selling Strategies from the Neurosciences and Neuropsychology
at make up a puppy. Feel his body temperature, the moisture or the coarseness of his fur. Pay attention to his smell and breathing. Note how of all this impact your thinking and feeling towards the puppy. This also works well when you are in the presence of another person. Take note of their presence, their skin, their scent and how all this impacts your feelings and opinions about this person. You might have heard the statement, “there’s something fishy about him.” It doesn’t mean he smells like a fish. It means his presence, behaviour, and communication gives you an uneasy, suspicious feeling.
- Integrate the data gathered from all sensory inputs when dealing with others. When talking to strangers, notice how their appearance and the quality of their voice make an impact on you. Observe how their scent influences your impressions. Integrate data from all these sources, but be aware the impact on you does not truly represent them. Gather all this data and then let the Reasoning Brain investigate them objectively.
Enhancing sensory acuity is firstly, about becoming conscious of all the inputs and noting their impact on our three brains and secondly, about cognitively segregating the useful from the non-useful data. Sensory acuity can store up good knowledge and wisdom in the triune brain. High quality cognitive knowledge and empathetic wisdom will turn us into D.N.Irani, a person of subtle influence and power.
Taken from book, the HeART of the CLOSE, available at Amazon
