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The HeART of Living Intentionally

Living intentionally means making conscious and purposeful choices in your life, rather than simply going with the flow or letting circumstances dictate your path. There are several compelling reasons why people should strive to live intentionally:

Living intentionally does three things for you:

  1. Personal Fulfillment: Living intentionally allows individuals to pursue goals and values that bring them a deep sense of satisfaction and purpose.
  2. Clarity and Direction: It provides a clear sense of direction and priorities, making decision-making easier and life more meaningful.
  3. Reduced Regret: Intentional living minimizes the likelihood of regret, as individuals actively shape their lives and take ownership of their decisions.

Samantha from the Philippines always had a passion for the environment and a desire to make a positive impact. After years of working in a corporate job that didn’t align with her values, she decided to live more intentionally. She left her job and embarked on a journey to reduce her ecological footprint and promote sustainability.

Samantha moved to a rural area and started a small organic farm. She grew her own vegetables, raised chickens for eggs, and adopted a sustainable, eco-friendly lifestyle. She educated herself on permaculture and sustainable farming practices to minimize her environmental impact.

Over time, Samantha’s blog and channel grew in popularity, and she turned her passion into a successful business. She began offering online courses and workshops on sustainable living, and her impact expanded beyond her local community. She was not only living a life that resonated with her deeply held values but also making a meaningful contribution to the global sustainability movement. Today, on her farm she offers free yoga and mindfulness retreats.

Samantha’s story demonstrates how intentional living can lead to personal fulfillment, a strong sense of purpose, and a positive impact on both one’s life and the world around them. It showcases the power of aligning one’s actions with their core values and passions to create a life that is both meaningful and impactful.

Let me know if you would like to connect with Samantha and live out your life intentionally too.

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Do a Good, Clean Job the First Time Around

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Growing up in India in the 70s, I used to run many errands for mom. One of them was to run to a neighborhood vegetable vendor for our daily needs of chilies, mint, garlic, etc. Those were the days of no refrigerator at home and we bought fresh, ate fresh, and were, of course, total vegetarians.

This specific vegetable vendor used to display his wares from a concrete platform the size of a double bed, with no walls but with just a thatched roof for cover. There were times that I used to reach him way before he would be ready to sell from his shop with no walls. He would make me wait.

Wait I did, while he would very ceremoniously sweep, clean, wash and mop his whole shop. Wait I did, while he swept and watered the whole area surrounding his platform. He would then open his new stock delivered in freshly washed gunnysacks. Slowly, item by item, he would dunk them in water and set them up in tiny heaps for a single purchase. All the time washing, cleaning, and rinsing everything around him and his hands every so often. Wait I did, while he tied back the knots on the gunny sacks of stock and then light up some incense sticks and bless his abode and business. He would then stick the incense sticks into a potato and place it in a strategic location of his empire. Tucking his loose, white trouser bottoms under his legs, he would then, proudly, plop himself down in a lotus posture in front of his fine and fresh display. He’d put his hands together and announce that he was now open. He’d say, Namaskaram!

All this while, parts of me would wonder why doesn’t he just hand me the darn things I needed before the whole rigmarole. At the same time, parts of me would be spellbound by his rituals, his ceremonies, his discipline, and his dance of being clean, tidy and organized. Mom would insist that I buy all our needs from him rather than all the other vendors in his neck of woods. I did not understand her insistence then but years later, I did. He was not the biggest vendor, he was not the cheapest vendor on that street but his goods were always fresh, just rightly priced but his self-discipline was endearing and because of that, he, his goods and service could be trusted.

That was a long time ago. Now that people have moved on to buying fresh, buying from smaller vendors, buying closer to the source that is clean, tidy, and trusted I am wondering how popular and successful this vendor from my childhood would have been? He would not have needed all the noise, the buzz, and the big neon lights that many need. He would not have social media buzz to plug their products and services as we all do. He would have been a natural draw. His following would have been huge and totally organic.

My friend from Singapore, Philip Merry says, “Your number one (often overlooked) marketing tool-Do a good job the first time around.” That was true back in the good old days; it is true now and will be true forever into the future. When we do a good, clean, tidy, organized, value-creating job the first time around, the world does light up our brand, in neon lights, across the stratosphere.

I remembered this story and the lesson it brings forth when Patricia Aliphon spoke about how she keeps her presence on social media tidy and clean. “KonMari,” she called it. To me it sounded like Namaskaram!

It strikes me that no matter what we do and what we put out into the world, it must be clean, it must be tidy in presentation, and it must do a good job the first time and every time.

Many businesses took a beating last year. Matter of fact, all of us did. Most all of us are scrambling back onto a world that acquiesced new rules of play and the words tidy, clean, and good have become crucial parts of all conversations and conversions. We are doing the same with our offering to our market. We are not just concerned with being cheaper, better, and faster but we are disciplining ourselves towards being tidy, clean, fresh, and creating real value in real-time. And, I am betting almost all of you are on a similar journey. The little improvements we make towards our service and offering do, authentically, enhance our presence and influence on our worlds. From that tiny vegetable vendor in India to all of you across the world, Namaskaram!

P.S.

On February 18, we are running a free webinar on Authentic Influence™ for Entrepreneurs. We will be happy to have you all over to talk about how we are all bouncing back and bouncing back higher.

Here is the link: https://www.innersuninc.com/product/authentic-influence-for-entrepreneurs/

 

Or, you might want to download a FREE book on Five InSights into Success, here you go:

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Gumption, Resilience and Innovation for Tough Times

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Back in April 2020, at one of my open to public webinars on Emotional Intelligence, I had more than 2000 attendees and a large number of them were public school teachers. I was happily surprised. You see we had not positioned the webinar towards the teaching community. We had wanted to fill our Zoom room with business executives and business owners. We wanted them to weather the crisis and the oncoming challenges with calm and equanimity. My assumption is that the teaching community turned up in numbers because they wanted to learn the subject since changing times would demand a lot more from them than they had been used to giving in the past.

My suspicions about that are further validated because for the last several months, from across my home, I hear a female teacher conduct online classes. I hear her speak, explain, cajole, and applaud children. She goes on full throttle for hours and hours for several days in a week talking about math, the sciences, and values. It is just amazing and mind-blowing to see her expel so much passion and energy. Hats off to her and hats off to the nobility of her passion and profession.

In Delhi, a former diplomat and his singer wife, Virendra and Veen Gupta, took to the streets and beg

an to conduct free classes for underprivileged children who have little access to electronic devices and the internet. Paper and pencils in hands scores of children walk miles to come sit and learn under a tree in India.

The COVD-19 growth curve has not flattened across the world but it has flattened. Humanity has gathered gumption, garnered the ability to be resilient, and innovate thousands of products and practices in the last six months. Online learning platforms, organic classroom and office-dividers, re-usable and biodegradable masks, and partitions have come up from across the world.  Retailers and malls have turned their stores inside out. A huge amount of business and work gets conducted in open spaces, on streets, under tents and trees.

Our spirits are indomitable. We will go on to, of course, win this war with gumption, resilience, and abilities to come up with new ideas to surge ahead. On November 21, I will be running another free webinar on how to act courageously, with tenacity, and with a focus on innovation and growth in these changing times. Hoping that though they are not business-focused, the teachers who inspire the world will join us for GRI.T². That is gumption, resilience, and innovation for tough times. In the webinar, we will skim over the philosophies but dive deep into the possibilities and practices of changing the world one innovative action at a time.

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What to believe in times like these

It is true that our beliefs drive our behaviors and our behaviors drive our growth and progress in life and in our businesses.

It is hitting month EIGHT since COVID-19 turned the earth inside out. There is very little to tell you about why and how it happened or, even, what the consequences of this massive, tsunami of a disruption are because are experiencing them.

The question is what should we do get ahead of this. What should we do to progress? How do we behave and what should we believe in?

At Inner Sun, we have a belief about beliefs. We believe that beliefs are put together by three dynamisms.

The first is the dynamism that is innate, congenital, and embedded. In an individual, it is sometimes referred to as nature or personality; in a business organization, it may be referred to as “work culture”.

The second dynamism is the one that exists outside of this system and is of many forms; the way that it is often referred as the environment, the economy, or the ecology.

The third, the most vibrant, with a high potential to influence the inner and the outer dynamisms, is the dynamics of the process between the internal and external systems.  It is the process of combustion between what is and what is possible. This is where innovation and change is carved out. This is where a new life and a new world is born. The drivers of this intermediate dynamism are the first is the dynamism that is innate, congenital, and embedded. In an individual, it is sometimes referred to as nature or personality; in a business organization, it may be referred to as “work culture”.

In these blazingly vibrant and challenging times, individual and organizations need to huddle up and closely watch what is happening with our own awareness, intelligences, emotions, memories that we are accumulating, and the actions we are taking.

Organizations and individuals, in recent times, that have trusted these two beliefs have a robust potential not just to survive but also to thrive in the coming days:

Believe that there are better days ahead. Yes, those that recognize that this is one of the seasons of change in a larger sense and that spring is just ahead staying optimistic and enthused about what they do. “The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present, but it is a source of inspiration, of vitality and hope where others have resigned; it enables a man to hold his head high, to claim the future for himself and not to abandon it to his enemy,’ said Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Believe that we are all in this together. However, in a commercial sense, competition is good but in these challenging times, it is collaboration and compassion that are key to progress. “None of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful,” claimed Mother Teresa.

The higher the intensity and the quality control of these elements the better the results and the outcomes for tomorrow.

Think about this deep and hard. These things will boost your beliefs onto a better place and thus influence your behaviors towards progress and growth in these challenging times.

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Dumb to Dumbstruck to Dumber

My apologies if highlighting this thing annoys you. It might if you are the perpetrator these things. By these things, I mean the excessive use of plastic products.

Way before COVID 19 had hit us, our forests and oceans had already been hurt by the plastic waste that abused their beauty and their purity. That was dumb.

For a few crazy weeks during the global lockdown, nature had begun to bloom again. The air had cleaned up, the oceans had become pristine and the flora and fauna had begun to bloom. That was because we were dumbstruck by this change.

Then as our fears reduced and the desires to become productive again, rose we made some moves that surely were dumber. Our consumption of plastic and synthetic products just shot through the roof: masks, shields, curtains, acrylic dividers, and on the streets of Metro Manila motorcycle riders’ doinked up a large sheet of acrylic between the driver and passenger. That was actually the dumbest thing to do.

Check what UNCTAD has to say about this:

It is a societal flaw that when faced with a crisis we respond with short-term solutions than long-term. If we just pause to reflect twice rather than just once, we can and will come up with better solutions to all kinds of problems. No point in, habitually, going from dumb to dumbstruck to dumber.

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Freud On Humor

Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud has a take on humor that stresses that our attitude towards life needs to be funny. Freud believed that as we grow, the dreary grind of life and the entrapments of rationalizing all that exists make us slowly cheat ourselves of the inner child within us. Thus, our lust for humor, laughter, and life are also desires to reclaim the lost pleasures of childhood. When we were children, no effort was needed to bring laughter into our lives. We had no need for canned jokes, stand-up comedy, or anything else. We laughed at everything and we did so for sheer pleasure.

Tales and Techniques to a Funnier You!

To be funny requires that, at the start of every single day, we loosen our girdles, de-starch our collars, let loose our hair, twirl our mustaches, and get down from our high horses of authority and pretentiousness. It is possible for each one of us to be funny, but we must also develop a deep, burning intention to be funny.

Having the intention to be humorous is the first step in mastering humor. Your intention is the driving force that will enable you to practice the different techniques that will result to a funnier you. Every artistic expression and every talent demands constant practice. Methods and disciplines have to be followed to convert a technique into habit, and eventually, into a vital part of your personality.

The late Robin Williams in his early days would barhop in search of work. While performing, Robin used to appear completely natural and extemporaneous, but backstage before the show, he’d tell his director or manager all the steps he was planning to do. All his apparent talent, besides being natural to him, was also in fact method, practice, and determination!

In one of my creativity workshops, a participant shared a story about this monk who entered a monastery with a desire to achieve higher consciousness and enlightenment. But, being a well-educated urbanite, the wannabe monk saw no relation between higher consciousness and the wearing of an orange garb and the shaving of his head. Thus, he chose not to follow the seemingly superficial methods towards attaining elevated consciousness.

Years went by without him wearing the orange garb, though he meticulously studied and practiced the Buddhist principles. Decades later, older and still restless, he found himself nowhere near higher consciousness and enlightenment. Finally, out of sheer frustration, he had his head shaved and put on the orange garb. Suddenly, he was literally enlightened: his body glowed, his spirits soared, and every cell in his being was filled with wisdom and profound spirituality. He attained the kind of spiritual awareness and enlightenment he had been seeking all his life. The heavens seemingly opened up for him and he felt as if he were reborn. But suddenly, in the next instant, he collapsed and died on the spot.

Mastering creativity and humor is just like that—you will never know when the brilliant light will shine upon you. It will daze and dazzle you as you move towards it when you study the theories, beliefs, and techniques. But it definitely requires an intense desire to succeed and a severe dedication to attaining that success.

 

Link to my books on Amazon: http://goo.gl/OZSMj8

Link to my videos on YouTube: https://goo.gl/dVclfm

Links to upcoming events in your neck of woods:

Choice Clips from ExPat InSights:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjf3sHaZBSo

 

 

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A Bird in Hand

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A Bird in Hand.

 

“What do you want, birdie?”

“What exactly are you saying little birdie?”

“Are you hungry, or just dazed birdie?”

She just stayed there atop my index finger and kept blinking, opening and shutting her mouth as though she were talking to me. There was no sound but I could swear that she was trying to say something to me.

It was a full three and half minutes since I’d rushed out of a classroom full of a hundred and fifteen teachers-in-training at the Presidio in San Francisco. We had spent nearly four days conversing about mindfulness, emotional intelligence and compassion for leaders when I heard this bird crash into the huge glass windows and drop into the bushes.

There was another classmate in that room, Ahmad Faiz Zainuddin from Indonesia, who I first asked to go help the birdie in distress but he’d hesitated and I’d jumped into action instead. He happily took pictures with his phone.

When I reached her she’d just stood up, and was looking really lost. I slowly moved towards her and thought of stroking her with the back of my fingers. Surprisingly, she easily let me. That gesture, for me, usually worked with dogs and I was awed that a little bird fell for it too. I turned my hand around wanting to pick her up and carry her into the sunshine when, deftly, she hopped onto my fingers and stayed there.

A good number of my classroom companions were watching and I was amazed that such a tiny bird was offering me her trust. I’d seen dogs, cats and sometimes, even, butterflies endear themselves to people but a bird? This was a first! I felt honored and extremely responsible at the same time. I had to do something about a bird in need. Maybe the crash into the glass pane had numbed her such that she had no idea what she was doing. Maybe she was thirsty, hungry. Where could I find an edible worm instantaneously? There was nothing around except beautiful sunshine, a breeze and a lot of green fauna. Then, after nearly three and half minutes of chatting soundlessly with me she, suddenly, upped and flew away.

Today completes exactly sixty days since that beautiful experience. For every single moment since that day I have been wondering, why did that happen to me? What was the bird trying to say? Why me? Was there a message in that incident? What is the meaning of all this?  Why would such a scared, helpless, beautiful creature trust me?

Thus, this morning I sat myself down, quietly and firmly, for a very long time. I ran through my head all the images of that moment and the millions of thoughts before and after that. I browsed through all little and big conversations I’d had with friends to come to some conclusion about the bird. The billions of neurons in my head, heart and gut needed to know. I needed to know. I kept the pressure on, upon myself, for hours. I’d heard and I know that insightful answers evolve when you think really hard about something or don’t think about it at all. Finally, after a long time thought integration occurred and I had an answer. Aha!

The answer was that I did not need to have an answer. I do not need to know the answer even today. I can live without giving meaning to every incident, every conversation. Not everything, every being, every perspective that surrounds me needs to be known by me, thus controlled by me. In fact, isn’t it I who constantly reminds myself to just “be.” 

All experiences are journeys of exploration and they do not need to have a singular, intelligently defined destination. In fact, the very reason I was in that class with a hundred and fifteen others was to explore mindfulness not knowledge and intelligence. Being mindful means being aware, awake and open-hearted to everything; open to constantly changing and multiple perspectives from all directions, all the time.

Thus, I step back from wanting to give shape and meaning to a moment of life; a moment that a bird spent with me. I can live in a space and time that is changing and ambiguous because it keeps me vulnerable and open to life itself. I think that is what the little bird told me that October morning in beautiful San Francisco.

I also think that I ought to stop theorizing about a bird in hand.  I need to surrender to not knowing the how and why of a little bird’s momentary trust in me. I ought to let a bird hand be, just that, a bird in hand and not worry about the hidden two in the bush.

Raju Mandhyan

You Tube Videos : https://goo.gl/3HEepD

Books on Amazon : https://goo.gl/Uabo7f

 

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Five Philosophies of Appreciative Leadership

Most individual and organizations go around carrying a cudgel of “what is wrong and who is to blame,” in all the businesses and the organizations we lead.

This approach of looking for problems may work for complex machinery and systems but fails drastically when it comes to human groups because human relationships are not just complex but are complicated.

Thus, a mechanical+rational+cognitive approach to resolving issues rarely work and barely sustainable. Over the decades, a new strengths-based, affirmative approach, a way of life has been delivering brilliant and beautiful results.

What will work better is “what’s working, what strengths can we employ and who is passionate about taking the lead?”

And, it takes five beliefs that can come handy in driving productive change:

  1. Every individual and organization is a beautiful mystery to be unfolded and unleashed.
  2. In life, and at work there are multiple realities and these realities construct according to how we perceive them collectively.
  3. The strengths and the resources that we most focus upon will grow magnificently.
  4. Every positive, empowering question we ask will simultaneously give rise to affirmative thought followed by action.
  5. When we filter, choose and select every grain, every word in our conversations for success and strengths, we build a beautiful world.

Appreciative Leadership is a personal and organizational leadership program influenced by Appreciative Inquiry, a holistic method and a process to initiate, drive and succeed affirmatively and sustainably all change programs.

Right after the Hospital Management Awards on September 7-8 in Vietnam, on September 09, 2016 sign up for a whole day workshop on Appreciative Leadership organized by the Vietnam Marketing Association.

Should you wish to sponsor, help promote this please call or send an email to Ms. Mai Nguyen (Ms.) | Workshop Project Manager of VMI at

P: +(848) 3507 3575  |  HP: +(848) 908 863 118  /  Email:mainh@vmi.edu.vn  to confirm. Website: www.VMI.edu.vn

Appreciative Leadership

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Appreciative Leadership & Ha Long Bay

Individuals and Organizations are Mysteries to be Explored and Uncovered.

Individuals and Organizations are Mysteries to be Explored and Uncovered.

A few years ago, on a cruise, at early dawn we sailed into Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay. Not just the moment but the whole morning was nothing but magical, majestic.

The dark, dense water seemed to caress and draw the ship deeper into the bay. The giant rocks, strewn with shrubs, seemed to gently glide, bend and bow down inviting us to feel free and awed by the beauty. The sights were amazingly beautiful. The murmuring water was love-giving and the scents from the shrubs nourished our souls.

Today, as I relive the memory, part of me wonders why I didn’t find the dull darkness to be scary. Why didn’t the deep, dense water strike fear into my heart and why didn’t the jagged rocks remind me of the Titanic’s fate? I guess the answer to this mystery might lay in the fact that a part of me was expecting and looking forward to the sights, sounds and the smells of Ha Long Bay being beautiful and awesome. I also suspect that, over the years, the millions who visit and capture this beauty also undergo the same magic and majesty. They all come filled with a sense of wonder and an expectancy to witness the beautiful.

In a similar way, the underlying philosophies of ‘Appreciative Inquiry’ urge us to approach individual systems and organizations in a similar way, with the same wonder and a similar sense of being greeted by majestic beauty.  Appreciative Inquiry, a method of facilitation and developing organizations was first conceptualized by Dr. David Cooperrider of Case Western University in the 80s.

It claims, our default approach in looking at people, looking at teams and organizations made of people is to try and zero in on what is wrong with them and how do I, as a leader, fix that problem. It questions, what if we were to simply flip that first, defaulting assumption of ours and look for strengths, for resources, for successes? Wouldn’t that change our approach, our mind-sets and thus our behavior towards these entities, these systems and these living organizations?

Over the years, across the globe several leaders and change agents have discovered this secret and used it powerfully and fruitfully to turn individuals and organizations from good to great. It’s an approach, a way of life that adds power, beauty and strength into our initiatives to change and innovate.  The philosophical presumption is “individuals and organizations are mysteries to be explored and uncovered.”

On September 09, 2016 in Vietnam, in association with Vietnam Marketing and Management, I will be conducting a whole day, interactive workshop on Appreciative Leadership.  This follows the Hospital Management Awards being held in Ho Chi Minh City on September 7 & 8, 2016. On that day not only will I accompany you on this journey but also guide you into being able navigate your own ships into magic and majestic landscapes like Ha Long Bay.

Vietnam Marketing:  http://www.vmi.edu.vn/

Appreciative Leadership: http://www.vmi.edu.vn/news/pid/49/search/page/1/id/4544

My upcoming public workshops:http://www.informa-mea.com/hrsummit

Advanced Selling Skills in Vietnam: http://www.hospitalmanagementasia.com/cacnhadienthuyet?page=5

InSpire Like a CEO: http://www.genesistrainingevents.com/Raju/inspire.html

Appreciative Leadership: http://www.genesistrainingevents.com/Raju/AL.html

Corporate Storytelling in Dubai:http://www.hrsummitexpo.com/

Posts on Facebook: https://goo.gl/MXQEqU

Talks on You Tube: https://goo.gl/dVclfm

Choice Clips from the TV Show, ExPat InSights :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjf3sHaZBSo

Raju Mandhyan

www.mandhyan.com

 

 

 

 

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Stories as Drivers of Engagement and Innovation

Stories may be truths wrapped in roses, rainbows, and rhythm, but they also create the future–that which is possible and which can indeed be beautiful.

When organizations slow down or arrive at a difficult bend in their developmental journey, people within the organization need hope.  They need new dreams and fresh inspiration.  Success stories from the past empower us, but it is the stories into the future–stories yet to be lived–that catapult us into action and success.

These words are etched on the mental corridors of workers in this company that supplies milk and milk derivatives to nearly half the world.

Read more

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