monday muse

HYPE

2012-02-13T10:19:00.000+05:30

Ten years ago, at the inaugural of a training workshop, my colleague trainer was presented as having conducted over 500 training programs. However, he was shocked to note that I was described as a trainer who had conducted only 300 workshops. In the tea break, he pulled up the organizers for attributing lesser programs to me, despite being senior as well as more active than him.

I led my friend away and told him that the person introducing me was quoting from information provided by me. Still bewildered, he queried, ‘how is it possible?’ Calmly I suggested that maybe his figures were wrong. In the evening we sat down and realized that he had conducted lesser than 60 training programs. His statistics was obviously hyped up.

So often we indulge in publicising or promoting ourselves through extravagant, inflated or misleading claims. Over a period of time, we start believing the hype that we ourselves have generated. Eventually we start describing the hype as fact. But the biggest casualty of such hype is our own mind that succumbs to mistaken beliefs.

Beliefs based on self-generated hype delude our discerning skills and put us on shaky ground. Sadly, hype is increasingly used to stand out in a world driven by media frenzy. But to be better at rising up we must ensure that the ground we stand on is firm and real. Otherwise we cheat others, as well as ourselves, by succumbing to the attitude of deceit born of falsehoods.

When we shun fruits that chemicals have turned ripe...
How can we BE BETTER by resorting to fraudulent hype?

- Pravin K. Sabnis

HEAR IT

2012-02-06T12:06:00.000+05:30

Two friends, who met after many years, went for a walk together, renewing old times. Suddenly one of them stopped and said, ‘Hey, I think I hear something.’ He put aside a loose paving stone to set free a cricket that was chirping. His friend remarked, ‘that’s amazing… so many persons are on the street at this hour, hurrying from work; yet you alone heard the cricket above all the traffic noises.’

The first calmly remarked, ‘people hear in life only what they want to hear. Right now, the noise of traffic has neither increased nor decreased… but watch.’ He dropped a coin from his pocket to the sidewalk. Everyone within an amazingly large hearing distance stopped and looked around.

The man, who heard the cricket, had been able to retain his childlike ability to hear sounds. Obviously this was aided by his interest in the sounds of Nature. The hearing ability of the crowd was restricted to materialistic motivations like the sound of coins. We are born with amazing abilities to use our senses, but for most of us, as we grow those abilities get narrowed down to hear and see lesser and lesser.

It is true that we hear what we want to hear. Hence whenever we state that we did not hear something, we need to reconsider our attitude. We must accept that the onus is on us to heed and hear. Never mind the distractions; we must be better at listening. And the way to do that would rediscover the child within… that child was born with the ability to maintain an engaging interest and hence could hear it!

We did it so well as a child who could hear it...
Let’s BE BETTER at empowering the interest bit!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

POINTLESS PRESENTS

2012-01-30T11:11:00.001+05:30

So often, the organisers of events, where I get invited to speak, invest a lot of time and money in buying a present that I refuse to accept. What would I do with over 100 pointless presents in a year? I do convey my sentiments to the organisers, well in advance, but it is a modern malady to involve in a regressive ritual of unnecessary gifts.

Birthdays, weddings, anniversaries and festivals are now occasion to hand over uncalled for gifts. Most of these languish in storage space. In fact, buying gifts obligate friends to do the same, even if they cannot afford it. Even the resort of recycling is redundant as it consumes energy and resources.

My father would insist that the best present is the gift of time. But we do not want to part with our precious resource and hence we choose to offer pointless presents. The best of intentions are meaningless when the eventual action is the gift of trash or the burden of obligation. It would be better to decide to not receive or give pointless presents.

Let us offer our time and attention instead. Spending time together empowers the quality of relationship. To satisfy the great need of attention is truly a sensible thing to do. And it creates a wonderful obligation in that person to return your love and attention...

To BE BETTER at bring to fruition sincere intention...
Instead of pointless presents, gift timely attention!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

TEST

2012-01-23T11:55:00.000+05:30

A man believed that his wife was turning deaf. Before going for medical help, he decided to confirm his doubts through a simple test. When his wife was in the kitchen, he stood at the door, some 10 feet away, and called out, ‘Darling, what are you doing?’ He heard no answer.

He walked to an arms’ distance behind her and repeated his question. When he heard no reply, he was sure his wife was really deaf. Nevertheless, he stepped next to her, and repeated his query in her ear. His wife replied, ‘this is the third time, I am telling you that I am cooking. You should go to see a doctor for your hearing problem.’

It was the man who could not hear his wife’s answer, but he believed that it was his wife that could not hear his questions. So often we test the capabilities and competencies of others, but surely it would be better to test our own realities. If the problem lies within, the test would be incapable of reflecting reality.

So every time, we find fault with somebody, let’s ensure that our opinion is not a faulty perception based on erroneous observation handicapped by our own shortcomings. We must test our own inadequacies first, lest they negatively influence our assessment when we test others.

To BE BETTER at knowing what’s faulty...
Every confirming test must start with me!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

TOO TIRED TO MOVE?

2012-01-16T08:29:00.000+05:30

A pet dog’s late night howling woke up his owner and his wife. They tossed and turned for a while. The dog’s laments continued. The wife asked her husband to go out and see the reason for the dog’s distress. The man barely stirred saying, “I’m too tired to move”.

The howling continued for another hour, and again the wife begged the husband to go and see what was troubling the dog. Again he gave the same answer, “I’m too tired to move”.

Eventually the wife went out into the night and the howling stopped. When the wife returned, the man asked, “What was wrong with that stupid dog?” “He was lying on a thorn bush” said the woman “He was just too tired to move”.

So often so many of us are like the dog – people who would rather howl and complain rather than change their position? So often, so many of us are like the man – people who would rather suffer and wait for someone else to solve their problems instead of doing it themselves. The excuse masquerading as a reason is that we are too tired to move.

Lethargy is a matter of choice not a product of circumstance. Rather than be stuck in an apathetic attitude, we must choose to step out of inactiveness. Surely it would be better to claim ownership of every predicament that surrounds us and respond aptly and promptly.

Shun the defeating excuse of being too tired to move...
Let’s BE BETTER at promptly choosing the proactive groove!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

WALLS

2012-01-09T07:34:00.000+05:30

The search is on for a “perfect” home by those who live in houses that seem “imperfect”. The quest is a better and bigger personal space and privacy. Nevertheless, in the new home too, there is a growing concern for privacy even if the number of people in the family has reduced. And the commonly preferred choice is to build walls!

The divisive wall between the two Germanys may have been brought down, but new ones rise in our homes. Balconies are enclosed with walls of brick or cages of metal grills. Windows are covered with walls of one-way glass or double layered curtains. Doors and windows are kept closed so often, making one wonder why they were put there at all. Fence walls are getting higher… gated communities are growing!

Communication gaps are widening between family members due to each one retiring to their own rooms. The same is true for relationships within neighbourhoods. This is not to rubbish privacy or security concerns. Gibran wrote, “May there be spaces in your togetherness.” We, of course, create only spaces, sans togetherness.

It would be better if we were to emulate the Japanese way of making homes. Of course they live in a seismic sensitive land that influences the design of walls which are essentially delicate frames that can slide and fold… where home is when all walls are put away! Relationships thrive only when the walls make way for an opening…

Put away the walls and open every window…
Let’s BE BETTER at making bonds truly grow!

- Pravin K. Sabnis
Ooty, India.

DIG YOUR OWN WELL

2012-01-02T14:22:00.000+05:30

New Year is a time for making new resolves. Whilst most resolutions are consigned to the dustbin, some survive due to the sheer sincerity of those who own them. And amidst the latter, lie certain resolutions that connect worthy dreams to committed action beyond the occasional occasion... my friend, Rodney was owner of one such worthy resolve...

When Rodney built his house, he decided to dig a well. His decision was in sync with his deep connect with a self sustainable approach towards resources, energy and ecology. But what was pertinent to note was that Rodney decided to dig his own well. For months, he would use spare time to dig out the hard rock behind his house. He is reached a considerable depth all by himself.

Most of us would love to have a well in our backyard. Some of us would invest in getting it dug up. However, very few would dig their own well. And most of these few would include farmers, tribals and others who work with their hands. The rest of us would have pushed ourselves on to the glorified platform of thought competencies with long wish-lists but a reluctance to put our efforts into action.

We need to ask ourselves what is it that we do to realise what are worthy wishes. Do we repair our own stuff? Do we clean up our own mess? Do we back our wishes with aligned actions? While wishing for something worthy is good, it would be better if we choose to ‘dig our own well’... like Rodney is doing!

Even if our resolve is worthy enough to tell
... it will BE BETTER if we dig our own well!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

LAST STEPS

2011-12-26T12:10:00.002+05:30

Last Saturday recorded the demise of a dynamic socialist and freedom fighter, Shamrao Madkaikar, at the age of 101 years. While much can be written about his immense contribution to his various causes, this Monday Muse chooses to focus the primary reason for his longevity... nurturing by his son, daughter-in-law and family members.

Shamrao showed immense passion for life, but it was the round-the-clock care and attention that helped him live well. He was confined to a wheel chair in his final years. Yet he was surrounded by support that only true love can bring. His son, Narayan seemed to be repaying the debt of parenting by playing the father to his own father.

The Hindi film, Baghban had posed the pertinent query, “If a man helps you to walk your first steps in life, why can't you help him walk his last steps?” Though Narayan had no hesitation in parenting his parent, our society has too many elders without care-giving assistance. Not just physiological needs, emotional needs too are short-changed.

To be better at parenting parents, we must revisit the things we did while parenting our children... overt depiction of love, encouragement, patience, tolerance and unwavering support. Surely that is the least we can do to those who helped walk our first steps in life... by helping them walk their last steps with dignity, love and caring... like Narayan did with his father, Shamrao Madkaikar.

Now it our turn to BE BETTER at parenting
by helping walk the last steps of the aging!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

PURSUIT

2011-12-19T09:42:00.001+05:30

It is quite a common site to see dogs chase vehicles that pass by. Once an amused observer asked a dog owner, "Do you think your dog is ever going to catch a car?" The owner coolly replied, "That is not what worries me. What bothers me is what he would do with the car if he ever caught one."

So often, so many of us behave like that dog who pursues a meaningless goal. And since success eludes us, we keep getting agitated and stressed out. Eventually pursuit itself becomes the main occupation while the thing being pursed remains consistently elusive.

For everything we set off to pursue in life, it would be better if we ask ourselves the fundamental questions of the relevance, the need and the worthiness of the goal that we chase. For every pursuit, we should be clear about what we would do when the pursuit ends in a result.

Pursuit of the meaningless is a habit that merits a avoid
Let’s BE BETTER at ensuring that goal is not a void!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

PURPOSE

2011-12-12T10:40:00.000+05:30

“I am not really a cartoonist. I just draw!” – Mario Miranda

Mario Miranda died yesterday. Surely his impressive body of work as well as his inspiring life will continue to delight and motivate so many of us. It is pertinent to note that the above quote of Mario illustrates his clarity of vision of what he did and what he set out to do... to draw!

To draw had always been an irrepressible instinct for Mario. As a child, he would use charcoal bits from the fireplace or mud to draw on the walls of his house. His mother bought him a book and Mario’s picture diaries kept getting compiled. Eventually, he turned his passion into his profession. Nevertheless, he did not allow his original purpose to be doused at the altar of his profession.

Most doctors set out with a purpose to serve, most lawyers set off with a purpose to ensure justice, most teachers set off with a purpose to share learning, most journalists set off with a purpose to unravel the truth, so on and so forth. However, down the line our purpose is diluted by cynicism or complicity or lure. Like Mario, we need to be better at being true to our original purpose.

We need to ask ourselves whether we have forsaken the original purpose for whatever we set off to do. It is a primary responsibility to our inner self to be aligned with a path that is worthy and a cause for satisfaction and happiness. For we have seen that Mario lived a fuller life by not disconnecting from his original purpose... to draw!

to BE BETTER at staying true to original purpose...
Remind yourself why you set off on this course!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

BULL’S EYE

2011-12-05T10:40:00.000+05:30

There is a story of the FBI being called into a small town to investigate what appeared to be the work of a skilled sharpshooter. All over town, many bull’s-eyes had bullets that had penetrated the exact centre of the targets. When the investigators finally found the man behind the shooting, they asked him how he had been able to shoot with such accuracy. His answer was simple: First he shot the bullet, and then he drew the bull’s-eye around where it had hit.

Often, the temptation is to rationalize our lives in such a way that no matter what we do, we flatter ourselves that it’s okay. Instead of living our lives with precision and clarity of focus, we chose a delusory approach to living. We choose to construct a self-laudatory Bull’s Eye around our aimless or wayward attempts.

When we position the target around our result, we deceive not only others... we deceive ourselves. Surely it would be better if goals are pre-determined and pre-declared. The Bull’s Eye must be identified before the actions, to hit target, are unleashed. Otherwise, we will be diverted from the attitude and approach to hit the real Bull’s Eye!

to BE BETTER at the Bull’s Eye game...
first set up target and then take aim!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

HALF TRUTH

2011-11-28T09:03:00.000+05:30

A sincere sailor got drunk, one night. This was the first time he had done so. The captain recorded it in the log, "The sailor was drunk tonight." The sailor knew this comment would affect his career, so he the captain to add that it only happened once in three years which was the complete truth. The captain refused and said, "What I have written in the log is the truth."

The next day it was the sailor's turn to fill in the log. He wrote, "The captain was sober tonight." The captain read the comment and asked the sailor to change or add to it explaining the complete truth because this implied that the captain was drunk every other night. The sailor told the captain that what he had written in the log was the truth.

Both statements were true but they conveyed misleading messages. Obviously they were half truths. So often we resort to half truths for a variety of reasons: carelessness, selfishness, to evade or pass on the blame. Never mind the reason, the result is the same: deceit.

We must be better at both, understanding as well as communicating the complete truth. We also need to examine the implications of our perceived truths. Surely if we can realise the result of what maybe a careless half truth, we will be more careful in our responses. For a half truth can be as dangerous as a lie.

Beware of the implications of half truthfulness...
Let’s BE BETTER at careful responsiveness!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

FORESIGHT

2011-11-21T11:37:00.000+05:30

On the same day, Pedro and Ladro joined a wholesale enterprise. Both worked very sincerely. In due course, the boss appointed Ladro as sales manager but Pedro remained a sales rep. A disheartened Pedro queried with his boss about the injustice meted out to him.

The boss assigned Pedro to find out if any melons were being sold in the market. He returned with an affirmative... when asked the rate Pedro went back to get the information. Next, Ladro was given the same assignment... he returned with a host of details: the number of melons on sale, the rate, discounts offered on big purchases, inventory and quality details, etc. Pedro decided not to resign but to learn from Ladro.

It is pertinent to note that successful persons are more observant, think more and understand in depth. Every moment, they see beyond to foresee the larger picture. Every day they look beyond the day to foresee the year. And since the difference between a year and a day is 365 times, their foresight becomes a crucial ingredient in their success.

Too often we shrink the possibility of foresight to just notice only the immediate. We need to ask ourselves, how far have we seen ahead in our life? How thoughtful in depth are we? After all, those who see beyond the limiting frame are also able to stretch the success probability because they choose to be better at foresight.

See beyond, think deep and do what’s right...
let’s BE BETTER at stretching our foresight!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

WASTE NOT

2011-11-14T08:35:00.001+05:30

A recent Hindi film showcased the modern Spanish festival in which revellers throw tomatoes at each other just for fun. It is pertinent to note that the origins of the festival can be traced to a brawl in 1945 in Bunol, where tomatoes got used as weapons. In the initial years, the authorities would round up the revellers but later they got around to organising the festival!

Inspired attempts to recreate the fest in Goa were squashed by indignant citizens who decried the criminal waste of food in a world where hunger is rampant due to food scarcity. It was heartening to note condemnation from all quarters to the event. But the larger question remains whether such public posturing will result in a conscious attempt to ensure that food does not get wasted.

So often, at parties, in hotels, in homes… food finds its way to the garbage bin. Such callous attitudes reflect a deep insensitivity to those who go hungry. A lot of modern traditions flaunt the unkind revelry of excessive waste of food. While it is good to see the opposition to the heartless event, it would be better to inculcate practices that are sensitive to the larger world that we belong to.

The planet earth is our common home. The resources – food, water, energy, fuels, ecology, etc – belong to collective ownership. When some of us abuse our privileges to waste resources; it results in the denial of the resources to the less privileged brethren. We have to move beyond condemnation of public fests that involve wastage… we must inculcate personal habits that align with that outrage.

A rising voice against waste is the right thing to do...
But let’s BE BETTER at aligning personal practices, too!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

HOPE ROPE

2011-11-07T12:32:00.000+05:30

Trained elephants are often held, in their enclosure, by only a small rope tied to their leg. No chains, no cages. Obviously the elephant can, at anytime, break away from the bond but it does not. Actually, when they are young and much smaller, the trainer uses the same size rope to tie the elephants. At that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.

The animals can at any time break free from their bonds but because they believe they can’t, they remain stuck right where they were. Like the elephants, we too get held back by overpowering bonds of initial conditioning. We go through life hanging onto a negative belief that we cannot do something, simply because we failed at it once before...

Initial failure often tends to weigh heavy on our belief systems and prevents us from recognising our own potential. But we need to be better at not allowing failure to blur our attitude towards our own aptitude. After all, failure is a part of learning and growth; it cannot become flimsy reason to be held back in life... the conditioning rope has to be undone by holding on to hope inspired committed attempts to transform the situation!

Do not allow failure to hold back liberating hope...
Let’s BE BETTER at escaping the conditioning rope!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

LOCKUP

2011-10-31T09:22:00.000+05:30

A vain locksmith would often boast that he could escape from any lockup in less than an hour. Some of his friends built a new lockup and challenged him to break free. In the presence of a large crowd present, the locksmith marched into the cell, and the door was closed. He immediately went to work. Hidden in his belt was a flexible, yet tough and durable ten-inch piece of steel, which he used to work on the lock.

After an hour of elusive result, his buoyancy began to desert him. His reputation was at stake and he was soaked in sweat. Every passing minute seemed an eternity. At the end of two hours, he literally collapsed against the door... and it opened! Actually, the door had never been locked, except in his own mind...

The door had never been locked except in the locksmith’s own mind, which meant that the door was as firmly secured as if a thousand locksmiths had put their best locks on it. Indeed it is easy to unlock any physical locks, but not the lock that lies in the mind. The locks, in our own mind, prevent us from getting out of our “lockup”.

Most of us are confined in a “belief lockup”. In order to break out, we need to first recognise the fetters in our mind. Next we need to seize ownership of situation and choose the path for true liberation of our mind. And it is pertinent to remember that to be better at overcoming the mind lockup; we must give a little push to the mental restrictions rather than exert excessive pulls that keep us confined in the lockup zone.

Let’s BE BETTER at escaping the lockup in the mind
The little progressive push is all it takes, you will find...

- Pravin K. Sabnis

SPARK

2011-10-24T12:35:00.001+05:30

Sixty years ago, buses in Montgomery were divided into two sections... the front was reserved for the white people and the rear was kept aside for the black people. The sections were determined by the placement of a movable sign. If the ‘white’ section got filled up, it was extended by asking black persons to stand up and move to the rear. If there was no room, they had to get off the bus.

On 1 December 1955, Rosa Parks who was sitting in the front row of the ‘black’ section of the bus was ordered out of her seat as the ‘white’ section had filled up. Rosa refused and as a consequence she was arrested. Parks’ action to reclaim her dignity was not the first... there were others, too. But her civil disobedience became the spark that precipitated the historic movement led by Martin Luther King.

Rosa wrote in her autobiography that ‘I didn't give up my seat because I was tired… I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old… just forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in… The more we gave in, the more we complied with that kind of treatment, the more oppressive it became’

So often, we give in to unfair situations because we give up on our own personal dignity. But when we stand up for real values, we will be better at aligning with humanism and common good. We can choose to transform into the significant spark that can overcome the worst of possibilities that may loom large.

Like Parks, let’s BE BETTER at asserting dignity
Little sparks can transform imbalanced reality!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

PAPER BOAT

2011-10-17T12:01:00.000+05:30

Last week Jagjit Singh, who harmonised so many mesmerising gazals and other songs, passed away. One of his songs from a forgettable Hindi film has seized our consciousness to become unforgettable. The lyrics of ‘Kagaz ki kashti (paper boat) refer to the lament of a person who has earned wealth but lost connect with his child-like innocence.

A first verse is a plea to ‘take away my riches, my fame, even my youth... but in return give me the monsoon from my childhood, the paper boat and the drops of rain...” Childhood is when the simplest of things are triggers for great happiness. It is time to be happy with things around rather than the futile pursuit of happiness as a commodity.

Everyone craves for the simple pleasures of childhood. Yet so often, we choose to run the dash for complex materialism. As children, we could play with an empty box or a stone or a paper boat... But as adults we tire easily of everything and we chose to be perpetually dissatisfied with what we have and hope to be better at gathering further acquisitions.

The choice is simple. Stop lamenting and choose childhood attitudes... we need to be better at reclaiming our childlike innocence and fascination for life’s simple pleasures... these are found in contentment and connect with relationships and Mother nature... and this is best done by the playful attitude where we create and ride little paper boats in natural streams caused by the falling rain...

Make the paper boat, make time to share and play
Let’s BE BETTER at reclaiming the childhood way!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

REBOOT

2011-10-10T10:40:00.000+05:30

In 1976, Steve Jobs formed Apple and built the world’s first commercially successful personal computer. In 1985, Jobs was fired from Apple by the CEO and the board. Imagine being fired from the company you started and by the very people you helped recruit.

Early in his career, Jobs was described as someone who ruled “by force of personality, making numerous economies with his ridiculing the ideas of others, his unwillingness to hear views contrary to his own and his outbursts of bad temper”. The lack of humility finally did Jobs in.

Jobs really didn’t know what to do for a few months. He felt that he had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down. He met with David Packard and tried to apologise. He started a computer company aptly named NeXT and bought a struggling animation studio named Pixar.

In 1997, Jobs was back at Apple as “interim” CEO. His first move was to drop the very operating system developed by him at NeXT and that Apple had purchased from him two years earlier. That move wasn’t the Jobs of old. He had mellowed and seemed more open to ideas. Jobs himself was sure none of this [NeXT, Pixar, the iPod, the iTunes, the iPad] would have happened if he hadn’t been fired from Apple.

Every big setback provides us to reboot ourselves. We must be better at using the opportunity to overcome every weakness that was reason for the setback. We must follow the route chosen by the inspirational Steve Jobs who showed that ultimate nirvana needs us to reboot our attitude.

Every setback provides the opportunity to reboot...
Let’s BE BETTER at emulating Steve Jobs’ route!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

LOSING GOLD

2011-10-03T08:40:00.000+05:30

My friend, Avinash Tavares shared a tragic scene seen on a televised Talent show. A couple of kids had won the second place but there was no trace of a smile on their faces. Their parents were weeping bitterly. Avinash raised pertinent queries: Whither sense of achievement? Whither sense of gratitude towards all those who helped the kids rise to such a performance?

In an increasingly competitive world, in the quest to be better, too many of us are insisting on nothing but the best. When we frown upon even second best positions, imagine our disdain for those that come last! All this is in sync with the media catchphrase about those who win second position: ‘You don’t win silver, you lose gold’

A real sense of achievement has to flow from the satisfaction of sincere endeavours and not from the vagaries of results. The very act of taking on a challenge has to be, by itself, a cause for celebration. An attitude of gratitude is the only fair return to all those who help in different ways from guiding, training, facilitating... including those who are audience.

More important than winning is to have a winner’s attitude that comes from celebrating efforts and sportsmanship. The score should not be allowed to douse passion. Eventually, it is never about winning or losing gold... we need to be better at ensuring that every failure turns into a stepping stone to success. After all, it is only true sportsmanship and earnest efforts that wins hearts of others... and ours too!

Losing gold does not deserve despair and misery...
Let’s BE BETTER at celebrating golden efforts truly!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

EYE OF THE TIGER

2011-09-26T11:14:00.000+05:30

Don’t lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive...
– from the song ‘Eye of the Tiger’ (film Rocky III)

Having played cricket at the club level, my father had a fondness for narrating accounts of exploits of various players. One such story was about Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi. Though Tiger, as he was popularly known, passed away last week, his legend lives on... not just, for what he achieved, but also for the manner in which he did it.

At the age of 20, just six months before he got selected to play for his country, a car accident left him with a severely impaired right eye. However, there was no stopping him as a batsman who relished scoring at a brisk pace and hooking the fast pacers and stepping out against the spinners. Tiger lost his eye but did not lose sight of his ambition.

After losing his eye, even pouring water into a glass was a challenging task and one can well imagine the complexity in judging the motion of the cricket ball. And as India’s youngest captain to date, he had to not only justify his own place in the side, but also win over the respect of his team mates. His statistics may not appear dazzling, either personally or as captain, but they mean little when taken into context.

Pataudi changed the face of Indian cricket with his mindset. My father believed that the can-do belief that future teams displayed has its roots in Tiger’s fighting instinct ... To be better at surviving the worst of subversions in our life, we must not allow dreams to die... rather look ahead like Tiger did with a single eye!

Tiger has shown that if we happen to lose a crucial eye
Let’s BE BETTER at ensuring that dreams do not die!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

NOT LATER!

2011-09-19T10:13:00.001+05:30

There was a man who toiled day and night to make things better for his family. Even evenings were spent attending classes to equip him for promotion in his main career. Whenever the family complained that he was not spending enough time with them, he would point out that he was doing all this for them. After all, he too, craved for time with family.

His hard work paid off and he kept getting promoted to better salaries and greater responsibilities. The situation turned better for the family, but he was still constrained for time to spend with them. Eventually, one fine night, he declared his decision to give up work to spend time with his family. He died in his sleep that night!

The best of intentions cannot be procrastinated upon to a point where they become irrelevant or inconsequential. So often, in the quest to enhance existence, we give up on the things that constitute living. We have to be better at adding the value of timeliness to all our important priorities… especially the important ones.

Houses require money, material and maintenance, but homes thrive on relationships, which grow only with a sense of belonging between family members, which is aided by sharing of smiles and sorrows, of hopes and worries, of dreams and teams… not just as an occasional emotion kept for later, but as a regular recurring action… again and again!

Don’t put off priorities for later, things may not be the same
Let’s BE BETTER at regular timeliness… again and again!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

DO IT!

2011-09-12T14:21:00.000+05:30

Amateurs worry about equipment,
Professionals worry about money,
Masters worry about light,
I just make pictures!
– Vernon Trent

Visual artist, Trent’s famous quote captures the choice of attitudes for not only photographers but all other professions and activities. He articulates the dilemma of the amateur as well as the master and the professional. So often, in the quest for excellence, we are paralysed by inaction.

The crippling motives could range from concerns of the availability and quality of resources (worry about equipment), to the desired benefits (worry about money) to the vagaries of situational hurdles and problems. However, proactive persons ‘do it’, regardless of the resources, benefits or situation.

When we ‘do it’, we reach the crucial threshold point between planning and doing. Thus we make the tipping transformation from talking to walking that talk! However, this does not mean totally ignoring factors of material, money, etc. It is more about choosing action over inaction... We take flight when we look beyond fetters. To be better at real living, we must quit worrying and choose to ‘do it’!

Don’t halt at every crossroad of inconsistent worry
Let’s BE BETTER at ‘doing it’ rather than be sorry!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

4 M's

2011-09-05T08:30:00.001+05:30

From the formative years to adolescence and adulthood, a teacher inspires, motivates and guides the student on the journey of discovery, learning and knowledge. The teacher can make or mar the learning attitudes of students. Good teachers move beyond job description to a lofty task of facilitating positive transformations among young minds.

Teachers are expected to play multiple roles that could be described as 4Ms... as a mentor, motivator, (role) model as well as monitor. And since, everyone is in a teacher’s role in some situation or the other; we need to be better at empowering our attitudes and approaches with the 4 M’s template.

Does our teaching employ a mentoring approach instead of an only-instruction-transferring methodology? Do we choose to inspire with motivation? Do we practise what we preach and ensure that we are consistent as role models? Do we monitor the progress of the learner so that we can be better equipped to facilitate future learning needs?

In the answers to the above questions, we shall discover the best practices to adopt as a teacher. Surely, if we look back at the teachers who made a maximum impact on our attitude, knowledge and skills, we well notice that they were sensitive mentors, enthused motivators, responsible role models and diligent monitors.

Mentor, model, motivator and monitor, they say
Four M’s to BE BETTER as a teacher every way!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

GRABBING MONKEYS

2011-08-29T09:26:00.000+05:30

An interesting method is employed to arrest marauding monkeys who invade homes. A box with nuts is used to lure the monkeys. However the opening at the top is just big enough for the monkey’s hand to slide in. The lured monkey grabs the nuts and forms a fist which cannot pass through the small opening. The monkey has a choice to let go of the nuts and escape. However it continues to hang on to the nuts.

The monkey gets captured because of its greediness. So often, we behave like the monkey. We grab beyond our need. We grab without bothering of the implications of choices fuelled by greed. The lure of grabbing blinds us from the consequences of such actions. We hang on to what we grab, even if it results in our freedom being compromised.

We also hold on to old things and ideas that can no longer help us to succeed. We fear the vagaries that the future may bring and so we refuse to change. We are comfortable with where we are and what we have, so we prefer to be held hostage there.

To be better at being unfettered in life we have to hold on to the choice of letting go of the unnecessary greed. Even genuine needs should be filtered across the sieve of imagining implications. Real success does not come by grabbing possessions... it is realised by securing liberation from unreasonable greed that blinds and eventually binds us in a bind!

To be truly free, do not grab more
Learn to BE BETTER at letting go!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

COMFORT ZONE

2011-08-22T12:07:00.000+05:30

In an experiment conducted on a frog, interesting observations surfaced. When dropped into a container of hot water, it immediately jumped out. Next it was placed in a container of cold water which was being slowly heated. The bullfrog was able to adapt to the slow change in temperature and eventually got so comfortable that it stayed in the container and was “cooked”.

Surely, so often, so many of us are in the comfort zone. Our various needs and necessities are fulfilled. Like the frog, because we feel warm and comfortable, we refuse to get out of our comfort zone, and prefer to stay where we are. We fail to notice gradual changes in situation. But change is mostly invisible to those who retire to the comfort cocoon.

It is pertinent to note that in life we are either creating or disintegrating. There are no situations that exist as stationary. There will always be some movement of change. So if we are not moving ahead in life, we must by nature, be moving in the opposite direction. In fact as Pedro says, ‘The comfort zone is one of defeat or death.’

Hence we need to respond to the situation, by first recognising the subtle changes in it. And for that we have to be better at focussing on the little signs of change that are part of a greater transformation in a situation. It is about focussing on larger dreams, rather than smaller destinations; apt and prompt responsiveness, not careless complacency that surrounds us in every comfort zone.

Change is opaque to residents of the comfort zone
Response will BE BETTER if aided by a focus cone!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

INTERDEPENDENCE

2011-08-15T08:53:00.001+05:30

Indeed independence is a very crucial developmental stage that steps ahead out of the clutches or crutches of dependence. However while growing up; independence is not the purpose of maturity. We need to connect our healthy independent individuality to relationships and networks to create a sustainable interdependence.

Mother Nature is a great inspiration as a model of interdependence. Flowers offer nectar to the bees who return the favour by pollinating the flowers. The very oxygen that keeps us alive is a gift from our plants in exchange for the carbon dioxide we gift them. The entire eco-system is a magnificent web of interdependence.

Interdependence is social, too. Natural resources, technology as well as thinking bring us to each other’s doorsteps. The entire world is just a single global village with a growing interdependence on various factors that includes viable opportunities as well as disastrous threats. And hence it becomes imperative to connect to the path and tools that can help create a more just, wise and sustainable planet.

Anything that fires or facilitates our co-creativity and our collective well-being is an empowering form of interdependence. We need to be better at learning from each other, weaving our lives in an interdependent tapestry… through open dialogues in our relationships, in our teams, in our communities… through a responsive and responsible attitude and approach… where the lighthouse is one of ‘common good’!

While independence liberates our individuality...
Interdependence leads to BE BETTER collectively!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

NEXT MOVE

2011-08-08T11:42:00.000+05:30

It is always your next move – Napoleon Hill

Dynamic persons are always on the move. However, it is not enough to just step ahead; we need to see the steps that lie ahead. Visualising the future moves can be a very effective thing to do. We must always frame our present move by what we plan on doing next.

Like in the game of chess or checkers, each move has many implications. Depending on the possible consequences we need to equip ourselves with choices to make in every situation. But like Hill says, it is most important to make that next move. Otherwise we will lag at the crossroads of indecision or at the cul-de-sac of further progress.

For instance, if we make the move of creating a blog or a website, it is important to make the series of next moves to update and maintain our effort. So often on social networking platforms we see persons who want to connect but have failed to upload even basic details. The move to join a network will be in vain without requisite next moves.

It is pertinent to note that in communication or networking, branding or marketing, leadership or managing, human relations or public relation; we need to better at the next move. Just initiative is never enough. It needs the backing of appropriate ‘next’ moves that are part of a time-bound plan designed on the framework of consistency and commitment.

Do not rest too long before the next move
Let’s BE BETTER in the consistency groove!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

CHINESE BAMBOO

2011-08-01T13:38:00.000+05:30

The Chinese Bamboo Tree has a very peculiar story. A few days after planting its seed in the ground, you'll see nothing. For years you'll see nothing, except a tiny shoot sprouting from a bulb. Never mind your earnest efforts, it just refuses to grow. The best of nurturing seems to be in vain. But in the fifth year, it will grow 80 feet tall!

Now imagine a scenario where the person who plants the seed calls it quits before the fifth year. It is natural for frustration to creep in when no transformation is evident for four years. The agony is in direct proportion to the intensity of effort. But surely, it would be tragic to miss out on the deserving glory of the 80 feet shoot.

So often we quit just when positive results to our proactive efforts are just round the corner. It is not enough to take initiative and follow up with sincere actions. To be better at getting a deserving consequence we must inculcate the attitude of patience and perseverance. The outcome may be delayed but it is worth the wait when the end-result more than makes up for the delay.

Let’s BE BETTER at patience in every waiting game
The script of bamboo & success remains the same!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

HUMAN PLANK

2011-07-25T14:34:00.000+05:30

Magic has always been fascinating for an audience. The illusionist, as expert magicians call themselves, uses his skill honed over years of consistent practice, the power of engaging speech and innovative set up of a drama. He takes his skill to the level of refined art. The primary motive is to entertain, and surely to an impressive impact.

Many from my tribe of trainers are attracted by the skill of magic and its ability to impress the learners as a tool that intrigues as well as excites the participants at a training workshop. However, while most would reveal the logic behind the magic, there are a few who indulge in deceit by claiming that the trick is based on some special powers of hypnosis.

One such trick is the ‘human plank’. The act involves making a subject lie horizontally between two chairs, making the body rigid and making another volunteer stand upon that person for dramatic effect. Actually the trick requires no hypnosis... rather it depends on the fact that when the subjects are positioned in the appropriate manner, they can support more weight than it may seem possible to the audience.

While it is good for educators to use the magicians’ trick as an activity to aid esteem building, it would be better if we shun the temptation to betray the trust that learners invest in us. The plank of trust between the learner and the teacher should not be built on consciously conceived irrational interpretations of what is a perfectly logical phenomenon. Persons who betray the trust deserve to be exposed for their deceit.

Let’s BE BETTER at honouring the trust learners invest in us
The human plank is a logical possibility, not hypnosis fuss!

- Pravin K. Sabnis
Musings conceived while in Kerala, India.

GIGO

2011-07-18T14:05:00.001+05:30

In the late 1990’s, while conducting training workshops for teams from the IT industry, I learnt a great deal from them about using the computer and the internet. Additionally, I also learnt of the unravelling of their vocabulary of abbreviations. One such term was GIGO - Garbage In, Garbage Out!

The phrase was used to point out that computers mechanically process the most ridiculous of input data (garbage in) and produce nonsensical output (garbage out). The term was most popular in the early days of computing, but applies even more today, when even impressive computers spew out loads of erroneous information in a short time.

GIGO is also used to describe failures in human decision making due to faulty, incomplete, or imprecise data. We involve in a tendency to put excessive trust in information on the internet. If we allow ourselves to blindly accept unsubstantiated information, surely we will spew out similar nonsense. We need to apply our critical thinking at all times to be better at ensuring that we do not suffer the GIGO syndrome... or change the context to Good In, Good Out!

‘Garbage in, Garbage out’ is a regressive inclination...

Let’s BE BETTER at the critically thoughtful actions!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

LET GO!

2011-07-11T10:52:00.000+05:30

A wise man shared a funny incident with his audience. Everyone almost split their sides with laughter. Strangely he repeated the joke to the sound of restrained mirth. He kept cracking the same joke again and again till there was no laughter in the crowd. Then, with a smile he queried, ‘when you cannot laugh at the same joke over and over again, why do you keep crying over the same thing again and again?’

The above anecdote came to me through e-mail. Surely, we hold on too much to the negative incidents in our life. Even when the wound has healed, we still carry the pain. Life moves on but often we languish in travails gone by. We keep crying over the same thing again and again.

We need to draw inspiration from little children. They can laugh at the same joke again, yet they forget the unpleasant in a jiffy. But as we grow older we begin to let go of the joys and hold on to the sorrows. The past sadness is allowed to sour up the possibilities in the present and the opportunities in the tomorrows to come.

After all, it is said so well that it is futile to cry over spilt milk. It is best to let go of the past and the moments old. We need to shrug off the grip of discouragement that comes from being burdened by a bad experience. We must be better at celebrating the affirmative and overcoming the negative.

Let go of the sadness of moments old...
BE BETTER at casting a positive mould!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

LET EAT!

2011-07-04T12:08:00.000+05:30

‘Do not force feed, let the person freely eat’ - Pedro

In my tribe of trainers, traditional techniques employ the revealing theory which is often followed by justifications to underline the importance and relevance of the revealed information. However it is pertinent to note that most effective method that meshes better with how the brain works and assimilates information, is to introduce information through what is described as the EAT theory.

The acronym EAT refers to the three-stepped formula of Experience, Awareness and Theory. The approach starts with the learner going through an actual experience or sharing learnings from an earlier experience. The second step includes debriefing and discussion to bring about an Awareness of what they experienced. Lastly to tie up loose ends, the trainer confirms the Theory is confirmed in its entirety.

The reverse process singularly focuses only on explaining the theory. Information is passed on but the probability of real transfer of knowledge is at a huge disadvantage. After all, all information that is not understood by the recipient is in vain. On the other hand, experiential learning draws its vision from the maxim that ‘lessons are not meant to be taught… they are meant to be learnt.’

The same principle is applicable to teachers and other educators as well. In fact, it is all about freeing the learners’ mind and helping it embark on a dynamic journey of observation, thinking and interaction. Surely we can be better off at facilitating learning if we allowing learners to EAT with an open mind!

Why force feed and fetter learners’ feet...
BE BETTER at letting them freely EAT!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

FACE IT!

2011-06-27T11:07:00.002+05:30

Every time when we look at ourselves in the mirror, what do we see? Surely we see what we choose to be. If we see a glowing or a glum image it just reflects our dominant emotion at that time. It also mirrors possibilities of positive transformations in our thoughts.

Surely what matters is not what we face but how we face it! For instance, a bald person may go beyond acceptance of the situation to a confidence level that transforms it into a style statement. On the other hand, we notice the pathetic distress of those who cannot face a declining hairline.

We need to focus on ‘what is’ rather than ‘what is not’. It is all about facing the outside reality with inner strength. And inner strength comes when we take ownership of our lives, of what we are and of what we have. But first, we must face it by unlearning negative perceptions of what is good and what is bad.

Transformations best happen inside out. Worries and fears disappear when we face any situation with grit. We need to BE BETTER at looking beyond the surface to connect to the beauty of the inner self. It is pertinent to note that when we change our outlook to our own predicament; we see the outer world too, in positive light.

Let go of worrisome fears, just face it...
Let’s BE BETTER at ownership of grit!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

BLACK SPOT

2011-06-20T15:10:00.000+05:30

Yesterday, I was in Mumbai to conducting an unlearning workshop titled ‘Hum Tum’. It is a Hindi version of my workshop on relationships – Me & You. Most of the members of the host organisation, Shree Jhab Jain Parishad, came along with their wives. Hence the thrust was on the most intimate of relationships – the one with the spouse.

One of the points that came up for discussion was the general reluctance of voicing appreciation towards spouses. This was in sharp contrast to the practice of sharing criticism. For instance, we make a fuss over food that is saltless or too salty. Yet when faultless, we may not state it to be so.

The founder president, Khimraj Jain shared an anecdote. A husband found a black spot in his cup of kheer. Thinking it to be a dead ant, he scooped it out with a spoon onto another cup. He kept finding more black spots and repeated his activity until the cup was empty. He told his wife that the kheer was full of dead ants. His wife calmly pointed that there was a black spot on his spectacles and none in the kheer!

Appreciation and criticism are eventually in the eyes, ears and minds of the beholder. Surely, all of us need to be better in our consistency and sensitivity in ensuring a sensitive response to every stimulus in a relationship. It is important to respond, but it most important to repond fairly... all the time!

Clean the black spot off your viewing glass
and BE BETTER at responding without fuss!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

FRAGILITY

2011-06-13T12:08:00.001+05:30

A disciple once asked his Zen master about why the Japanese made their teacups so delicate that they broke easily. The master replied, ‘the teacups are not too delicate; but you need to be better at handling them. You must adjust yourself to the environment and not vice versa.’

So often, when we are clumsy and end up breaking something, we affix onus on its fragility. But it is pertinent to note that things don’t break due to their fragility alone, rather they break due to our own inability to match up to the delicate realities of the situation. The prime reason is the careless approach that arises out of an insensitive outlook based on a changing perception of the situation.

Consider the example of parents who may show great patience with a toddler, yet they may not display the same endurance with a grown up child. This is due to the perception that the older person has outgrown susceptibility to fragility. Human beings are known to retain their tenderness beyond childhood, right up to old age and surely they merit the same sensitive approach.

Hence, whether it is persons, situations or things, we need to be better in our attitudes and approaches in first recognising the aspects of fragility and then responding with tender and sturdy sensitivity. After all, most things that are delicate cannot be put together if broken. In more ways than one, the future of fragile things, situations and relationships lies only in our hands!

To BE BETTER at handling fragility...
Remember it starts and ends with me!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

BIGOTRY

2011-06-06T09:13:00.001+05:30

‘Adgula Madgula’ was the closing film at the Marathi film fest held last weekend in Goa. The title refers to a traditional lullaby and obviously the film is about a baby. The first part shows a quixotic but well knit family awaiting the birth of a baby. The second part shows their stunned reactions when they discover the baby is dark skinned, unlike anyone in their families. They shun the one who they so eagerly awaited!

The story brings to the fore the irony of racism. We Indians, who suffer racist attacks elsewhere, are quite often full of ridiculous bias towards dark skinned people. Bigotry is the bane of humanism and yet it is so prevalent due to the constant social stereotyping of persons based on colour, religion, language and other irrelevant factors.

Abraham Heschel referred to racism as the maximum of hatred for the minimum of reason. We have to examine whether we harbour such irrational instincts of hate. It is not enough to argue that our prejudice does not result in the outright rejection of human beings. Luke warm acceptance is more bewildering, like Martin Luther King said.

The test of our humaneness is the character and the consistency in our response to others. To be better human beings we must unlearn the negative conditioning of chauvinistic bigotry. It is not enough to declare our open mindedness; our every action should move beyond intolerance and accept the true spirit of humanism, without a trace of discrimination.

It is only humanism that will set us free
Let’s BE BETTER at shunning bigotry...

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Voltaire

2011-05-30T10:09:00.000+05:30

He died on this day in 1778, leaving behind an inspirational legacy of tolerance towards dissent. Voltaire was a prolific French writer, critic, historian and philosopher, who employed wit and logic to advocate the cause of civil liberties, freedom and social reform. He produced works in varied literary forms of plays, poetry, novels and essays. His ideas influenced important thinkers of the American and French Revolutions.

However the oft-cited Voltaire quotation - “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” – is said to be incorrectly credited to him. The words were used by Evelyn Beatrice Hall in her book - The Friends of Voltaire - to state Voltaire's attitude. Voltaire championed the cause of tolerance to such an extent that he supported the rights of the people who disagreed with him.

Today in an increasingly intolerant world, we need to be better at inculcating Voltaire’s attitude and approach. We need to be more open minded in very passionate debate and discussion. And to do so we have to genuinely believe like Voltaire did, that all human beings are not only equal, but also that they have a right to disagree. It is all about disagreeing without being disagreeable.

I must BE BETTER at ensuring real tolerance in me

by not being disagreeable every time I disagree!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

EXCUSITIS

2011-05-23T10:27:00.001+05:30

It is said so well that if somebody speaks of lack of time, it means one of two things... the person does not know how to or does not want to and is being unabashedly untruthful! Effectively it is a skill thing in the first case and an attitude thing in the latter. But both situations are ones of excuses, as in a plausible case of being pre-occupied with other priorities, one would opt for real reasons not unreasonable excuses!

The syndrome of excusitis refers to the behaviour that finds all sorts of excuses to justify lack of action. So often we come up with unoriginal justifications for the unjustifiable. The person seized by excusitis not only wrongly believes that his stance appears logical, but also tends to be gripped by recurring excusitis in other situations as well!

It is common to hear excuses for not having called or visited due to the lack of knowledge about telephone numbers and addresses. In today’s age of information explosion, such excuses are most bizarre. When my mother wished to see her cousin whom we had no information about other than that he lived in Pune, it took just a few minutes with the telephone directory and a dozen calls to trace him down and visit him.

The problem with the overpowering impact of excusitis is that it blinds us from our own abilities. It makes us shirk responsibility and give up on our own competencies to face any challenge. Hence every time, an excuse arises in our mind, let’s opt to be better at taking charge of our choices, our actions or the lack of them! Escaping excusitis leads to embracing the ownership of our lives and our true potential!

Let’s BE BETTER at ownership of our every action...

instead of embracing excusitis as a regular reaction!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Bengaluru, India.

ON CAMERA!

2011-05-16T10:56:00.000+05:30

So often, nowadays at every little event, you see a crowd of young and old enthusiasts, standing in an awkward pose, back bent backwards and forefinger on the trigger... all set to capture the scene on cameras of different sizes and types. Never mind that the hosts have commissioned a professional photographer to document the event.

Earlier the camera was meant for the ones who could afford it or the ones who could use it. Now it is easily affordable as well as usable. It comes as an add-on with other tools like mobile phones. It has empowered the needs of photo documentation. Journalism and even activism has found its uses to capture, chronicle and transfer visual information.

However the fundamental focus of the camera’s real potential is lost on its many converts. More often not, the furious frenzy of such photographers displays that they are only interested in clicking the shot rather than experiencing the activity being captured. They rush from shot to shot, observing nothing. It is akin to W H Davies’ poetic lament, ‘no time to wait till her mouth can... enrich the smile her eyes began’!

The camera is a highly useful invention, but it remains secondary to the human eye and its sensitivity to the minute detail and the larger vision. It would be better for us to use our eyes before we use the camera. The personal experience and the understanding that comes from it helps empower the photographer’s penchant for perfecting the skill... like so many talented lensmen so well display!

Let’s BE BETTER at experiencing the real activity...

Instead of a mechanical capture for needless posterity!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Mumbai, India.

FIREWALKING

2011-05-09T11:31:00.001+05:30

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

The feat of walking barefoot, on a bed of red hot embers, is performed among many communities across the world. The ritual continues to be identified as a test of courage and strength or as a test of one’s faith. However science has demystified the practice. Burn will not be induced unless the skin remains in contact with the fiery coals for substantial time. The same principle is seen when we move our finger over a flame.

Nevertheless, hazards and risks remain, if firewalking is done improperly. Hasty running as well as over cautious slow walking will result in blisters. In my tribe of trainers, the firewalk is an increasingly used confidence-building activity during self-help seminars and corporate team working workshops.

The activity of firewalking holds many lessons. The firewalk helps connect to a dynamic self belief that helps reach beyond limiting beliefs. Breaking through one’s perceived boundaries frees an incredible amount of creative energy, allowing people to redefine themselves as people to whom the impossible becomes achievable.

The most valuable learning is that the fiery path will not be a painful experience, except for the hasty and the reluctant. To be better at taking on every scorching challenge that lies in our path, we must combine self belief, and an understanding of the situation, with a well planned and time bound approach.

Let’s BE BETTER at walking every fiery section...

with a plan empowered by self belief and action!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

HELPING HANDS

2011-05-02T11:04:00.000+05:30

In his first years in the field of clinical biochemistry, Narendra Nayak had collected blood specimens from a variety of patients. This had inured him to the suffering of disease. But a recent experience tugged at his gut! His restaurateur friends Ajit and Raja wanted to do something for needy children. His wife Asha suggested feeding children who were in a special home for the HIV positive, in Mangalore.

Narendra wrote about their moving experience with the kids, none above 18, and their predicament of a short life despite the available medication. He wrote about resource deficit at the home and appealed for the generosity of helping hands to support the tender needs of a shunned childhood. The write up tugged strings in many a mind as help started coming in from all over the world.

Some sponsored utility stuff. Others made liberal donations. Vijetha chose to spend her entire vacation with the children. When she realised that some needed footwear, she decided to buy for all so that none felt left out. But the owner of the shop, Alwyn Rosario was himself moved that the generous discount that he offered made it look as if the shoes were being given free. Indeed the circle of helping hands had widened.

Narendra who heads the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations (FIRA) likes to state that ‘helping hands are always better than lips which pray!’ So often, so many of us are moved by the pain of others... but so few extend a helping hand. But it is not enough to extend the helping hand, it would be better to extend the number of helping hands!

For the world to BE BETTER some earnestly pray...

But it is the helping hands that show the real way!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

KINDNESS

2011-04-25T09:53:00.002+05:30

When Annie was brought in the Tewksbury Institute, nobody could do anything with her. Doctors found it difficult to even examine her. She was locked up in a cage. A hospital maid felt sorry for her and baked her some brownies. She walked cautiously to her cage and said, ‘Annie, I baked these brownies just for you.’ Then she ran behind a pillar… afraid Annie might throw them at her. However, Annie ate the brownies.

From that day, they started to be friends… she even got Annie laughing. One of the nurses noticed and told the doctor. They asked her to help them with Annie. This is how they discovered that Annie was almost blind. A year later, the Perkins Institute for the Blind opened its doors. Annie went on to become a teacher of the visually disadvantaged.

When Annie came back to Tewksbury, the Director showed her a letter written by a man about his daughter. She was unruly… almost like an animal. She was blind, deaf and ‘deranged.’ He was at his wit’s end, but he did not want to put her in an asylum. He wanted a teacher who would come to his house and work with his daughter. Annie Sullivan became Helen Keller’s ‘miracle worker’ and lifelong companion.

When Helen was once felicitated, she declared that Annie Sullivan had the greatest impact on her life. However, Annie disagreed. The woman who had the greatest influence on both their lives was a floor maid at Tewksbury. History was changed as one person took initiative triggered by the sentiment of kindness. The sentiment does rise in most hearts, but the situation transforms to be better only when thought leads to aligned action.

Let’s BE BETTER at acting upon thoughtfulness...

History is re-scripted by deeds of kindness!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

EARTHERIAN

2011-04-18T11:46:00.001+05:30

‘Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. – Chief Seattle, 1855

There is a committed band of dynamic persons who are connecting to the larger world through their passion for astronomy, ecology and humanism. Their fascination for the earth, things therein and around, eventually breaks all possible barriers and boundaries created by mankind over the ages.

It is pertinent to note that such persons no longer remain Indian, Asian, American, Australian, African or European… they become Eartherians. As children of Mother Earth, they respond as custodians of the common good of all Eartherians including the generations to come of the entire spectrum of the web of life on earth.

To be a better Eartherian, means to shun all prejudice and aligned hatred and violence. It is all about discovering our collective heritage and our common lineage not just with all mankind but also with living and extinct animals. It is about evolving to be better at quest for knowledge and an attitude to involve in sustainable practices. It is about being, both responsible and responsive.

This Earth is ours, and the sky is too…

Let’s BE BETTER Eartherians, me and you!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

SEEKERS OF TRUTH

2011-04-11T13:47:00.001+05:30

‘Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it’

– Thomas Paine

On 11 April, 1827, Jyotirao was born in a vegetable–vendor family from the Mali caste, in Pune. His sharp intellect was noted by his neighbours who convinced his father to admit him at the Scottish Mission's High School. Here, Jyotirao Phule was influenced by Thomas Paine's book 'Rights of Man'. He developed an impeccable sense of social justice and grew passionately critical of the oppressive caste system.

His relentless struggle to reclaim justice and equal rights for farmers and Dalits, made Phule the most significant figure in the social reform movement in Maharashtra. Along with his wife Savitribai and others, he initiated positive transformations in the spheres of education, agriculture, caste system and social empowerment of women.

He educated his wife, Savitribai and opened the first school for girls in India in August 1848. He vehemently advocated widow-remarriage and even got a home built for housing widows during 1854. Leading by example, he opened his own house and let all make use of the well water without any prejudice.

He founded the Satya Shodhak Samaj (Society of Seekers of Truth) to prevent exploitation and abuse of the Bahujan Samaj by the upper castes. Phule felt reason alone would empower society to be better at reclaiming human dignity and social responsibility. His life remains inspirational in our situation where truth suffers treason in the maze of modern superstition and hatred mongering against humanity itself.

Jyotiba Phule inspires us to BE BETTER at reason…

Humanity is abused when truth suffers treason!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

SEIDLER’S SPEECH

2011-04-04T10:47:00.002+05:30

The emotional trauma of the Second World War coupled with the murder of his grandparents in the Holocaust, laid the seeds of David Seidler’s stammer. Attempts at speech therapy failed until he decided that ‘I deserve to be heard’. He was inspired by radio speeches of King George VI. His parents encouraged him, ‘David, he was a much worse stutterer than you, and listen to him now. He's not perfect. But he can give these magnificent, stirring addresses that rallied the free world.’

Later on David went on to study the journey of the King who overcame his speech impediment. David’s research resulted in the award winning screenplay of the film, ‘King’s Speech’. Seidler’s story as well as screenplay is inspirational to everyone who bears the burden of a speech impediment.

Much before his war-time accession to the throne, the King goes to an unorthodox speech therapist, Lionel Hogue. They work together on muscle relaxation and breath control, while simultaneously probing the psychological roots of his stammer: a strict father; the repression of natural left-handedness; a painful treatment with metal splints for his knock-knees; a nanny who would deliberately pinch him to make him cry before his parents; and the early death of his little brother.

It is pertinent to note that Hogue has no qualification other than his experience in helping shell-shocked soldiers find their ‘voice’. His highly effective methods are based on getting his learners to be better at believing they have a voice by unlearning all negative strokes from the formative years of childhood. After all, technique would be in vain in the absence of an empowered temperament.

May we BE BETTER at finding our primed voice…

Self-belief helps overcome every impediment vice!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

NUTS & GUTS

2011-03-28T11:30:00.001+05:30

Some parents say, from your roots don’t go astray

Education in the mother-tongue is the need of the day…

Other parents say, let our children have our way

Education in English will ensure an apt global pay…

But heed the children and what they have to say

Surely they would rather learn the fun way!

A real mess is served in the education tray…

where the nut gets screwed and the gut gives away!

The syllabus is a maze real knotty, and hey…

Queries are termed naughty in the class bay!

Self-esteem is eclipsed in the mind where it held sway…

As irrelevant leads to irreverence with every passing day!

What’s the point of learning Geography, if on eclipse day

… parent and teacher retire to the dark superstition bay?

What’s the point of testing data from the Science tray…

when the permission to experiment is stalled by a ‘nay’?

The wonderful world of mathematics goes regularly astray…

As the mechanical obscures the elementary, every single way!

As dates and details get hammered into a mind turning clay,

The History lessons defeat the message in the factual fray!

Not just black on white, prose or verse is really about grey

… unbridled is imagination, but education narrows the way!

Why the compulsion to learn by rote without going astray?

Theatre-fun would be better for the Bard to seize the day!

Learning is directly proportional to the fun, they say…

Yet book is thrust in the hand that must play with clay!

‘Leave the kids alone’ sang Pink Floyd on another day

Languages are the drapes for expression, just another way

Education is to empower the nut without the gut giving way!

Education needs to be better in the primary basic way…

- Pravin K. Sabnis

PERIGEE-SYZYGY

2011-03-21T13:58:00.001+05:30

Perigee-syzygy is a term that observers of astronomy use when a full or new moon coincides with a close advance by the Moon towards the Earth. Perigee is the point at which the Moon is closest in its orbit to the Earth, and syzygy is a full or new moon. The phenomenon occurs often, and one such extreme position happened on 19 March 2011.

The media was full of doomsday predictions by the ‘supermoon’ – a term coined by an astrologer, Richard Nolle in 1979. However, the ‘Association of Friends of Astronomy’ (AFA) in Goa chose to use the occasion to educate the public through detailed information as well as actual viewing of the astronomical occurrence.

Satish, Raj and Rakesh of AFA led an interaction that demystified the fiction encircling the event. After all, there was no evidence that the episode would trigger predicted devastation by quakes and tsunami. They pointed out that reality of earlier ‘supermoons’ was distorted by doomsayers to buttress their business of fear. Inquisitive minds sought to know whatever possible impact due to perigee-syzygy.

Obviously, the biggest impact of the event was that people of all types had gathered with a choice to be better at analytical observation and critical thinking. The dynamic team of AFA had shared their knowledge as well as attitude and extended their circle of thinking individuals propelled by a thirst for facts and a fascination to unravel the unknown.

To BE BETTER at sifting fact from super-moon-fiction…

View perigee-syzygy as a time for rationale validation!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India.

http://astrogoa.blogspot.com/2011/03/supermoon-demystified.html

SMS

2011-03-07T10:45:00.001+05:30

Melville Bell had developed Visible Speech: a written system used to teach speaking to the deaf. When the Bells moved to Boston in the 1870s, his son worked as a teacher at a School for the Deaf. At the age of 29 years, the son went on to be the first to receive a patent for his revolutionary invention – the telephone, on this very day in 1876. Alexander Graham Bell had successfully bettered the telegraph.

Over the years the telephone has evolved into becoming a very handy tool as well as an easily available and affordable appliance. However, it is also very true that communication via the phone is getting curt, mechanical and one-sided. The primary intent to help people communicate across a distance is being reduced a ‘telegraph’ way of communication, especially in the case of mobile phones through SMS – short message service.

There are so many of us who use the phone less to talk and use it more to send SMSs. Surely the original intention of Bell’s invention was to bridge the communication gap created by physical distance, but often we receive an SMS even from someone sitting next to us. It is not as if SMS is a bad thing, but it would be better to choose direct talk or a note or a face-to-face encounter as a better way of interpersonal communication. After all, it is said so well that the mechanical is death!

May we BE BETTER at personal connection…

Let SMS be a distant second to direct action!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

RAMAN EFFECT

2011-02-28T12:59:00.000+05:30

India celebrates February 28, as Science Day. On this day in 1928, C.V. Raman, through his experiments on the scattering of light, discovered what is termed as the Raman Effect. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930 for his work essentially inspired by his observation of the deep blue of Mediterranean Sea from the deck of his ship.

Before Raman put forward his theory it was believed that the sea was blue because it reflected the blue of the sky. Raman observed that the Mediterranean appeared blue even when the sky was dull gray. After far-reaching research, he found that the color of the sea changes because of a phenomenon called inelastic scattering of light.

It is pertinent to note that his path breaking finding happened in his humble laboratory in India with no sophisticated instruments or technology that was available to the western scientist of his times. In fact he did not have the money to buy a light source, so conducted his experiments using sunlight. Raman said “The essence of science is independent thinking and hard work, not equipment”

The Raman Effect journey started with an observation that generated questioning and unleashed a thinking process backed by testing work. Our attitude of thought is our vital resource. The aids of technology and support of equipment is secondary. Hence we must emulate Raman and be better at unconstrained thinking and dedicated pursuit of the logical actions that arise from that thinking.

May we BE BETTER at unfettered thinking…

To find the solutions which lie scattering!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

HEAR OUT

2011-02-21T10:50:00.001+05:30

On Saturday, Video Volunteers organised a viewing of the weekend community news show, on NewsX channel ‘Speak Out India’. It includes inputs from ‘India Unheard’ - an initiative (by filmmaker Stalin K Padma & Jessica Maybeery) to empower voices that get eclipsed in the mainstream media. One input by community correspondent, Devidas Gaokar showed farmer Rama Velip speak out whilst standing in the mess created by mining in his field.

Hopefully, the video will be viewed across Goa. Hopefully it will facilitate a better grasp of an irreversible destruction of Goa’s fields, forests and water bodies. Hopefully it will provoke a proactive resistance to the ones who commit the crippling crime as well as those who aid them by supportive acts of omission and commission or by plain indifference.

The word ‘hopefully’ gets into every statement as Rama, Devidas, Seby and others have been speaking out for so many years, but in vain. They have been backing what they say with evidence, yet they are voices unheard. And if and when they are heard, they go unheeded. And if and when they are heeded, they are bypassed by flawed logic of greed masquerading as need!

So many voices go unheard due to our insensitivity, if not complicity. Surely our world would be better if for every person that needs to speak out, there is someone who will hear out, sincerely. This sincerity is to be measured not just by the attention we pay to one speaking out but the aligned actions that we undertake. We need to own up to the reality that we are either part of the solution or part of the problem… even the ones that are unheard, because the onus is on us to hear out!

May we BE BETTER at heeding the unheard situation…

By first hearing out and then responding with apt action!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

LOVE?

2011-02-14T08:03:00.000+05:30

Since last evening, many of us received messages by SMS, email and on networking sites that ‘on 14/02/1931, the legendary Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were hanged to their deaths, but Indians forget them and celebrate Valentine Day!’ I replied to the messages I received with the poser: ‘so what happened on 23 March 1931?’

Obviously, when desperate to prove our love for our country, we forget to even examine fiction that flaunts as fact. In their haste to be hypocritical pious about their patriotism and an excessive self righteous condemnation of Valentine Day, my friends forgot to examine the integrity and intensity of their own feelings for the three martyrs!

We must take a reality check about the sincerity of our own stated emotion. Genuine love need not pose as superficial pride. Of course, nor does it have to be superficially flaunted on days which have been only marketed for commercial reasons. But this cannot be justification to look down upon people who celebrate certain days, especially if we ourselves are standing on sanctimoniously shaky ground.

How can we claim love for our motherland, if we are indifferent to the land grab that decimates lives and livelihoods? How can we profess our love for Nature, if our actions are actually harmful for the environment? How can we celebrate a day in the name of love, if our actions reflect intolerance and hatred for some human beings? Surely, it would be better if we connect to the real Bhagat Singh and the real St. Valentine!

Love is neither a competitive nor an occasional emotion...

Let’s BE BETTER at connecting with appropriate action!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

COMPENSATION

2011-02-07T09:28:00.000+05:30

Over the weekend, advocates and activists, came to Goa for a HRLN organised National consultation on ‘Litigating against Corporations for Human Rights!’ It was indeed a ‘festival of facts’ of the struggle to reclaim democracy from the grip of unscrupulous corporates patronised by corrupt governance and aided by an often hostile judicial process.

Vaishali Patil who leads the fierce resistance to the Nuclear Power Project at Jaitapur, Maharashtra, told how an overwhelming majority of the villagers refused the compensation cheques in lieu of the forceful land acquisition. Their resolve stood up to the aggressive Government that violates human rights to back a hazardous project that spells doom for livelihoods but also endangers lives much beyond the area.

Once, a Government Secretary explained his estimate of how compared to the poor returns for the farmers’ back breaking work, they would earn better from the interest accrued from the compensation, without doing any work! An 80 year old woman immediately made a counter compensation offer to the Secretary, of a voluntary retirement package to be raised from contributions from over 2000 humble households! Needless, to say, the Secretary was furiously offended.

Compensation changes meaning when it concerns our lives and our rights. In the combined lexicon of Government and Corporation, the word compensation is muddled in language-pollution. And this is more so due to the growing disconnect of us consumerists from the attacks on the lands, lives and livelihoods of the people whose work sustains our lives as well as the world we live in.

We crib about growing food prices, yet we are puzzled by the resistance of the farmer against the annexing of his land. We wax eloquent about the environment, yet we believe that development happens when a forest is mined. We complain about traffic jams, yet we buy bigger vehicles for ourselves. We fight for our own rights, yet we insist that others surrender their claims for an unfair and forceful compensation.

Indeed, the world will be better only if all of us connect to true empathy by putting ourselves in the shoes of the aggrieved. Too often, we are disconnected from reality. When we know, we understand. When we understand, we must do what we know needs to be done. After all, the stakeholder’s struggle requires both, empathy and ‘real solid’ solidarity!

Indeed it is inhuman to barter rights for compensation...

Let’s BE BETTER at connecting to empathetic action!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

SILENCE

2011-01-31T12:16:00.001+05:30

‘Speak through Action’ –Rajan Babu, 2006 National President JCI India.

Last weekend, my close friend and creative trainer, Vividh Pawaskar and yours truly went to Kholapur. We had gone there at the invitation of my friend, Anirudh Borkar who leads the Rotaract District 3170. Ani had persuaded me (as only he can) to conduct an early morning outbound as well as a hall based session at his Conference.

On Sunday morning, as breakfast was delayed, we moved to the main Hall. Some eager delegates were getting themselves clicked against the imposing backdrop. Save for one who asked Vividh to click a few photographs, the others moved around in stunning silence. It took us a while to realise that we were in midst of 25 extraordinary persons who had moved beyond the constraints of being deaf and mute.

We learnt much in our interactions with them. While delegates with cars were yet to reach the venue, these chaps had walked a sizeable distance so that they could be there before time. They displayed high self esteem and were making the most of the conference experience. Their awesome attitude was seen in their expressive gestures as well as in their actions aligned with discipline, dedication and togetherness.

Now we had to be better at effectively connecting to our 25 new friends and others like us. We had to be better at communicating concurrently in words as well as silence. After all, it is only in silence that we become better at empathetic listening and critical observing. After all, it is only in silence that we truly become focussed and effective in our expression. After all, it is said so well that silence is golden!

The world of silence is truly empowering

to BE BETTER at simple communicating!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

PROCRASTINATION

2011-01-24T13:06:00.000+05:30

Procrastination is an attitude to put off intentionally and habitually the doing of something that needs to be done. The term ‘procrastination comes from the Latin word ‘procrastinatus’, which itself evolved from the prefix ‘pro’ meaning ‘forward’ and ‘crastinus’ meaning ‘of tomorrow.’ Popularly it implies blameworthy delay due to laziness or apathy.

However, this Monday Muse looks at the procrastination habit that seizes non-lazy, proactive people as well. In fact it is positive qualities of well intentioned persons that can result in them finding themselves in a position of procrastination. These qualities include perfectionism, being analytical, saying ‘Yes’ to every task and being ‘busy’.

For instance while perfectionism can be a good thing, making every task hang at its altar results in immobility. Similarly, excessive analysis creates paralysis of action. Not being able to say ‘No’ results in overburdening and hence forces the door open for procrastination. And of course, when one is busy with a single task, other tasks go for a toss.

Procrastination is a result of mixed up priorities and excessive tactics. We must look at the larger picture and identify important and urgent tasks. If the task can be delegated, do it! We must be better at sifting and prioritising all our commitments, our responsibilities as well as things we really enjoy doing… lest procrastination pulls down the proactive person in us as well!

To BE BETTER at overcoming the pulls of procrastination
Let’s prioritise responsibilities & commit to timely action!

- Pravin K. Sabnis
Mysore, India.

RECCE

2011-01-17T12:29:00.001+05:30

This year, a few of us have formed a forum of trainers and resource persons. The intent was to provide an opportunity for the trainers to learn and share. The structure of such a platform was deliberated upon for many months by many minds. Eventually I suggested that we have a ‘recce’ meeting which helped crystallize the sublime thoughts and paved the way for everyone to realise exactly what we were thinking about.

Recce was a word that we learned in trekking and mountaineering. Every time we planned a new trail, a few of us would undertake an exploratory ecursion to confirm the best possible route. We would identify spots to visit as well as do time budgeting. Invariably the recce ensured a successful trek with a larger group of participants.

The term derived from ‘reconnaissance’ refers to an exploration conducted to get information. Also known as scouting, it is a military idiom for a preliminary survey to gain facts. A recce is more than a survey and analysis. It is about pre-experiencing the proposed plan to be better in responding to the challenges of the situation.

So often we plan to do embark on certain paths or projects. Quite often we do not start for lack of knowledge and experience. Whether it is a mission or an initiative or an endeavour, the path becomes familiar when we embark on a recce. Larger dreams are better realised by exploring the recce experience that helps us understand the situation.

To BE BETTER prepared use the right tactic

To know the path, the recce will do the trick!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

CHANGE

2011-01-10T10:50:00.000+05:30

‘Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results’ – Albert Einstein

Einstein’s famous quote is so very true that if we keep on doing the same things, taking the same actions and thinking the same thoughts, guess what we are going to get? The same results that we been getting! Wherever we are right now in our life is the direct result of the actions and thoughts that we have been taking. When we look around, what do we see?

If we like what we see; if we see an organized, clean space; if feel strong and confident; then we been taking positive actions and thinking positive, strong thoughts. If on the other hand we are unhappy with the way we have shaped up or we feel low about the situation that surrounds us, then obviously we have to introspect on our approach and change our actions.

We must take responsibility and own the fact that the results we see are because of the choices we made. We must not pose as a victim of outside circumstances. To be better at changing the results, we must choose to be in control of every desirable change in thinking, habits and actions.

Let’s BE BETTER at making every necessary change

In thoughts and actions to enhance the result range!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

RESOLUTION

2011-01-03T10:18:00.000+05:30

‘Be the change you want to see in the world’ - Mahatma Gandhi

On the threshold of New Year, at our family gets together, the children arranged the activities. One activity was for everyone to pen down, at the stroke of midnight, personal statements on two charts. One was a Wish-List; the other was a list of Resolutions. A few seniors questioned the distinction between the two, but the children had got it right!

One may wish to be healthier and fitter, but it would be better to resolve to make the lifestyle changes necessary for the transformation. One may wish for peace, harmony, friendships, relationships, success, worthy causes… but it would be better to resolve to create and participate in processes to make the wish happen.

What we wish for and what we resolve to do are as different as just craving for a desired destination and creating a road map to get there.

A wish is just a thought, a dream. A resolve is a commitment, a mission to actualise the dream. A wish is an imagination. A resolve has to be real. A resolve is about making the necessary choices and backing them with earnest resoluteness.

Hence, while we put together wish lists for ourselves, our families and our communities, let’s be better at moving beyond desire. Let’s resolve to make the wish happen by our commitment, determination and persistence. May our wishes be well meaning and backed by the resolve to be the change that we want to see in our world!

Let’s BE BETTER at making resolutions for action

Wishes fly only with wings of steadfast dedication!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India.

WRITE-HABIT

2010-12-27T19:29:00.000+05:30

It was on the first Monday of 2004, that yours truly started what is now called the Monday Muse. I was fascinated with the theme – touch to transform – of the then National President of JCI India, Rajesh Chandak. When I shared with him a couple of musings on the theme, he insisted that I mail him one such musing on every Monday. I did so until April 2005, when I succumbed to the pressure of having to write every Monday.

Six Mondays I broke my write-habit, only to realise that my writing was being seriously followed by a few persons whom I held in great esteem. They included my leaders, mentors and trainers in JCI. It was the persuasive motivation by the people who mattered most to me, that Monday Muse continued with a consistency, save for an odd Monday when I would be away in the wild, disconnected from internet connectivity.

Today at the end of the seventh year of this write-habit, I choose to hold a rear-view mirror to look at the learning of the journey. To everyone who wants to write, the way is simple… simply write, without worrying too much about how it will be received. Be open to criticism and make the changes where you agree. Acknowledge sources and never pinch another’s work and pass it off as your own.

But the most important principle is to write as a habit. It is only when one writes consistently, two things happen… firstly, one grows with every creative venture and secondly a unique style of writing emerges. So many poets, writers and others never connect to their fullest potential, only because they do not engage in it as an effective habit. It is good to start something, but to be better we must transform it as a habit.

Keep at the habit and sure we will BE BETTER

Monday Muse shows how, seven years later!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

BASICS

2010-12-20T12:07:00.000+05:30

During my school days, I read the story of a King who went on an extensive trip across his kingdom! When he returned back to the luxuries of his palace, he complained that his feet were aching. It was the first time that he had been on such a long trip, and the road that he walked on was uneven and rocky. Yet, as he had enjoyed the travel, he told his courtiers of his wish to travel again.

Immediately the learned court consultant suggested that every road in the kingdom be covered with leather. All the courtiers complimented and applauded the plan. However, the king noticed his court jester smirking. Upon being ordered to speak his mind, the jester said, ‘just cut a little piece of leather to cover your feet… spend the money instead on making shoes for everybody who travels on the rough roads!’

It is pertinent to note that situations are better transformed not by attempts to change circumstances superficially, but by empowering persons to tackle those circumstances. The larger lesson is that for planning to be better, it must focus on the traveller rather than the road, on the driver rather than the vehicle, on the farmer rather than the food industry, on existent sustainability rather than vague magnificence.

The story also underlines a valuable lesson of life… of starting with basics. It is all about transforming our own efforts and actions to achieve the desired results. Let us remember that instead of investing too much hope and effort in altering the larger predicament, let’s be better at making basic transformations.

The feet come first, the road comes later…

at starting with basics, we must BE BETTER!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

FULL-ON

2010-12-13T11:40:00.000+05:30

Goa Sudharop (a team of Goan Diaspora) along with Fr Agnel College, Pilar organised a 3-day workshop for college students on the theme of ‘Goan Volunteer Spirit’. The resource persons were volunteers working towards positive transformations in different ways. Many a Monday Muse has been inspired by the attitude and approach of these sincere volunteers. Today, we learn from one more of them – Swati Kerkar!

Swati was inspired as a school student by the successful struggle by her villagers against the Nylon66 plant. Many years later she and a handful of youth replicated the campaign against the land grab on the same plateau by a SEZ. They grew to a core team of 80 villagers who built the awareness and solidarity in and beyond the village of Keri.

Swati kept reiterating that their resolve was never reliant on the chances of victory but rather their grit was founded on an unconditional commitment to the cause. Swati and her tribe, persisted in their resistance to stop destructive work at the SEZ site as well as successfully petition the High Court which passed severe strictures against the process and ordered the scrapping of SEZs.

Actually, Swati was insisting that any mission should never be motivated by the probability of success; rather we must always move full-on! The modern term ‘full-on’ refers to holding nothing back. Just look at the way one plays any sport. Real sportsmanship is about playing full-on. It is the same for other passions. Whatever we initiate will be better off, only if we give it our all… if we go all the way, full-on!

May win-prospects never shape zeal, when we take on…

we will always BE BETTER off when we operate full-on!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

MAP

2010-12-06T12:22:00.000+05:30

Zen philosophy insists that truth has nothing to do with words. It likens Truth and words to a moon and a finger, respectively. Buddha says that though the finger can point to the moon’s location, it is necessary to look beyond the finger to see the moon.

Being obsessed with the pointer is pointless. More often than not we tend to spend too much time in analysis of the pointer. If we are discussing whether things are better or worse, we generally get stuck in the validity of concepts and models. Surely it would be better to step out and experience something directly.

It is pertinent to note that the map is never the territory. It is just a pointer based on a belief, a perception, an image or a thought process. If the map is right, we may reach our location. But if it is incorrect, we have to discard the map. Most of the time, our map keeps changing depending on the position we are in and our desired destination.

It is okay to have a map, only as long as we know it is a map. It is more important to connect to real territory. Too often, we allow the map to become an addictive restriction. Whether it is our own ego, life purposes or larger community concerns, we would be better off if we move beyond the map and embark on the journey of real experience sans the map.

Let’s step out for the real experience to tap…

and BE BETTER at moving beyond the map!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

BARREN?

2010-11-29T08:08:00.001+05:30

Recently, a researcher was surveying responses to proposed amendments to the draconian Land Acquisition Act. In the village of Keri in Goa, Ramkrishna Jhalmi was asked whether he felt it was okay for the Government to acquire barren land. His response was worthy of a bond with land that only a tribal so passionately possesses.

Ramkrishna pointed out to his head and asked, ‘if I lose all the hair on my head, does my head become barren? Should then my head be knocked off?’ He questioned the urban perception of barren land. After all as a young student, he saw his village resisting the imposition of a polluting plant on the top of hill plateau of Keri. Their struggle was triumphant at the cost of the life of Nilesh Naik, killed in police firing.

A decade later, Ramkrishna and his village struggles to save the plateau from the rapist controls of a SEZ (special Economic zone) which is just another glorified land grab for real estate. For them, the plateau was far from barren. Besides being grazing land and having spiritual significance, the plateau was the rain water receptacle that charged the various springs, wells and water bodies. An assault on the plateau would translate into irrevocable destruction of the surrounding seven villages and the splendid spice farms therein.

So often, the urban educated see things superficially, wearing glasses of greed in the garb of need. What gets ignored is the underlying reality and the ramification of actions arising about prejudices about what gets labelled as barren land. To be better at connecting with the reality where no land is really barren, let’s remember Ramkrishna’s poser: will you knock off your head if gets barren of hair?

No land is really barren, if we look deeper…

let’s BE BETTER at seeing the larger picture

- Pravin K. Sabnis

WHAT THE DROP TAKETH

2010-11-22T10:19:00.001+05:30

The anecdotes of Emperor Akbar and his trusted aide Birbal are entertaining as well as enlightening. Once, the Emperor received the gift of a rare perfume. As he opened the bottle, a drop of perfume fell to the floor. Akbar instinctively moved to retrieve it by wiping the floor with his finger. As he looked up he noticed a bemused look on Birbal’s face… his eyes seemed to mock the Emperor for being scrounging.

To change Birbal’s perception, Akbar summoned him the next morning to his bath. He asked his attendants to fill up the bathtub with the best of perfumes. Akbar sought to show Birbal that as Emperor he could afford to waste as much perfume, as he wanted. Birbal when asked to react said the immortal lines, “Boond se jati, woh haudh se nahi aati” (An entire tub full cannot retrieve what the drop took way!)

Birbal sought to tell the Emperor that his earlier instinctive action (that exhibited miserliness) could not be undone by an intentional action (aimed at big-heartedness). Our character is determined by our reactions, not by forced posturing. It is better to be transparent then wear favourable masks. In fact every little action and reaction, every spoken word and emerging thought reflects our true self!

To be better at being what we would like others to see us as, we have to look at what we really are. Introspection is the prerequisite for desired transformation. And that transformation has to begin from within to without by clarifying our values and aligning every action with our own declared principles. Otherwise the posturing in the tub shall not retrieve what the drop taketh away!

What the drop taketh cannot be reclaimed by a phony reaction…

let’s BE BETTER at renovating our inner self and external action!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

PRACTICE

2010-11-15T08:25:00.001+05:30

During our school days, we would be all charged up every time we see a martial art movie. We would walk on our toes, run up the stairs with buckets filled with water and eventually join some martial art class. However, save a few, most would drop out of what seemed only an occasional infatuation. The interest was genuine but the commitment was like a sparkling, fizzy soda.

Motives play a significant role in inspiring action. However, the effect of motivation is effervescent. So often, we enthusiastically embark on journeys to do things we find exciting and attractive. And so often, the initial exuberance seems to drop down the way. Making a start can be rendered futile, if we do not go the whole distance. And going the distance merits going beyond motives and developing the practice.

Practice is the term commonly used to describe appropriate actions of a consistent nature. We need to develop the right practices to move towards desired destination. Jim Rohn said it so well, ‘Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going’. However, a practice is not just a habit that develops by itself. It is a conscious process of walking the talk.

A practice requires a greater commitment along with a plan that includes discipline, dedication and determination. Whenever inspired, we must be able to make a plan of investing our time, thoughts and action. Otherwise motivation will be just an occasional emotion. So whether it is learning a new skill or making a fresh pledge we need to be better at empowering effective practices.

Let’s BE BETTER at keeping on going…

our practices need solemn empowering!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

DEEP & WIDE

2010-11-08T11:25:00.000+05:30

Look around at people you find interesting to converse with... They could be friends, doctors, pharmacists, barbers, shopkeepers or the like. What is the secret of being a successful conversationalist? They can talk politics with a politician, finance with a banker, sports with a sportsman, education with an educationist and so on and so forth.

Where does a good conversationalist learn to speak at almost everything under the sun? Besides reading, the good conversationalists possess the tolerance for listening and learning from every person they meet. However, it is pertinent to note that we would not be so eager to visit the conversationalist if he was bad at his basic job.

Never mind the additional attraction that your conversation skills offer, the other person will patronize you only if you are good at the basic job that you are expected to do. Learning is generally ignored after attaining desired academic levels, mainly when entrenched in the comfort zone of a secure job. However, it is a folly to stop learning.

Consider the traditional barber. He is a good listener and an engaging conversationalist. However, he also is constantly keeping apace with the latest trends, styles and news. Let’s choose to BE BETTER like the barber who goes after both depth and breadth of knowledge and skills… depth to be better at his basic expertise… and breadth to be better at conversation with his customers…

Let’s choose to BE BETTER like the barber

By going deep and wide as a proactive learner!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

MENTOR

2010-11-01T09:10:00.000+05:30

In Greek mythology, Odysseus entrusted his fiend Mentor with the full care and education of his son, Telemachus. Because of Mentor's near-paternal relationship with Telemachus, the term Mentor has been adopted as a term meaning a parent-like teacher.

Mentors provide expertise to less experienced individuals to help them advance their careers, enhance their education, and build their networks. Many teams organise mentoring programs in which newcomers are paired with more experienced people, who act as friends and guides. In fact a major contribution that any person can make to his team and organisation is being a mentor to others.

The qualities of an effective mentor include risk taking, trustworthiness, a depth of knowledge and above all being emotionally strong. They engage in showing concern for the development of team members, giving good counsel when required and motivating the necessary struggle of their protégé towards progress.

While we see glowing examples of successful team persons who have grown through mentoring, it is also pertinent to note that too few, among us, are ready to devote time and initiative to the task of mentoring. The reasons range from an inability to share to the lack of patience to cheer from the sidelines. However, if we seek to leave a legacy in our lifetime, we must choose to be better at mentoring.

First we must make the choice to give time to share our experience along with care, concern and participation in the protégé’s progress. However, it is important that the mentor is not a back seat driver or just a how-to-do lecturer. But surely, it is a desirable role since the mentor too moves to higher planes as he mentors his mentorees.

Don’t just lead or be an occasional tutor,

Let’s BE BETTER at being a mentor !

- Pravin K. Sabnis

PICTURE PERFECT LIFE

2010-10-18T08:49:00.000+05:30

We are constantly surrounded by verbal and visual messages that shriek and screech out that our life will be truly perfect if only… we had a better complexion, a better figure and physique, a better house, a better coat of paint on the walls, a better vehicle, a better bank… so and so forth. So many of us fall for the advert bait and barter away the outlook of contentment for the quest of a picture perfect life.

By swaying to the tune of ‘my life would be picture perfect only if…’ our focus on ‘my life’ becomes hazy and the spotlight remains stuck on an elusive picture perfect lifestyle! The essential difference between the two is the real reason for an extended season of discontent. We stray away from taking ownership of our life and play the game of chasing an illusory and imagined happiness.

When we succumb to the ‘my life would be picture perfect only if…’ trap, we lose touch with the reality of the present. And as we lose touch with the present, we disconnect from the attitude of gratitude. Surely, it is difficult to be grateful for what we do not possess. Hence it is necessary to practise being in the present and be grateful for what we have.

Eventually perfect lives are ones where self esteem is positive. And for our self esteem to be fortified, we must be better at practising basic contentment. And basic contentment happens when we take ownership for what we are and what we have. After all, more important than the size, shape and style of the cake, what matters is the way we relish it!

The picture perfect life is an illusion, dude…

Let’s BE BETTER at the attitude of gratitude

- Pravin K. Sabnis

JAI PRAKASH

2010-10-11T10:37:00.002+05:30

The slogan ‘andhere main ek prakash… Jai Prakash’ (a light beams in the dark… Jai Prakash) echoed in the 1970s. The dark times referred to the authoritarian rule of then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi; which eventually led in the infamous declaration of a National Emergency. Constitutional and democratic rights were trampled upon and a dissenting media and protesting citizens were under severe attack.

It was in these dark times that Jai Prakash Narayan, popularly called JP, stood up as an inspirational loknayak (people’s leader). JP was born on 11 October, 1902. A bright student, he joined the freedom struggle. Equally influenced by Gandhi and Marx, he eventually moved towards the Gandhian principles of non-violence.

In 1954, JP dedicated his life to Vinoba Bhave’s Bhoodan (donating land to the Dalits) campaign. He gave up his land, set up an Ashram in Hazaribagh and worked towards uplifting his village. He gave up Rahneeti (polity of the state) to embrace Lokneeti (polity of the people). JP believed that Lokneeti should be non-partisan to build a consensus based, classless, participatory democracy. He became an important cog in the countrywide network of Gandhian Savodaya workers.

In 1974, he led the student’s movement in Bihar and transformed it into a larger people’s movement with a call for Sampoorna Kranti (Total Revolution). He became the pivot for the protest and overthrow of the draconian Emergency. While others crawled when asked to bend, or played indifferent, JP chose to take on the darkness by standing up to it!

His life is lesson to stand up to the larger challenges. He moved from the active politics to community work to a people’s movement. It is not enough to do community service. It will be better if we measure up to the greater challenges that constitute the larger picture for humankind… like JP did!

Let’s BE BETTER at taking on the dark doom…
Like JP, let’s stand up to chase away the gloom !

- Pravin K. Sabnis

INDIGENOUS

2010-09-27T09:37:00.000+05:30

The Goan Diaspora initiative, Goa Sudharop conducts workshops for college students. This year, the series connects youth with the theme of Spirit of Goan Volunteerism. Sociologist, Dr. Bernadette Gomes in a session, screened her documentary on the secluded Gouly community of Goa. The scenes of the habitats, the clothes, the lifestyles of the Gouly community seemed an unreal revelation for most.

Soter D’souza started the next session by asking the students to share their impressions about what they had just seen. The reactions ranged from terming the Goulys backward and being caught in a time wrap to comments pitying their discrimination and the fact that they were denied development and modern amenities and facilities.

Soter challenged the comments by questioning whether the indigenous community deserved patronising pity. After all, they lead sustainable lives in harmony with Nature. They walk the eco-friendly path while the urbanised citizens only talk about undoing the damage which is a result of irresponsible modern practices and tactics.

The word ‘indigenous’ refers to that what comes from the origin. The indigenous people are the tribes who are the original settlers of their lands. They continue with their original lifestyles and sustainable approaches. They indigenously resist the constant attack on their land, lives and livelihoods by the modern excuse of so-called development.

All of us need to be better as responsible citizens of this world by learning the attitudes and approaches of the indigenous communities who nurture sustainable lifestyles in harmony with our Mother Earth. Otherwise we would be deserving of contemptuous pity for our direct or indirect ecological sins that arise when we forget our origins!

Let’s BE BETTER at keeping away from eco-sins…
& stick like the indigenous people, to our origins!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

FOLLOW THE FLOW

2010-09-20T08:14:00.000+05:30

A traveller lost his way while moving across a mountain. He came across a meditating monk. The traveller asked for directions to get out of his predicament. The wise monk calmly counselled him, ‘Just follow the flow’.

This advice underlines a philosophy with many interpretations. A simplistic reading suggests swimming with the tide. People guided by such a construal, generally accept things as they are. They do not believe in challenging or confronting a contrary situation. They follow the ‘conditions’ and choose not to sweat about any struggle to change the conditions.

However, the maxim is understood differently by trekkers. For us, it is a guideline to either get to the source of the flowing water or to its mouth. Depending on their choice of destination, we follow the flow to get either to the origin or to the other end of a larger water body that invariably nurtures a settlement. Instead of getting rooted to the spot, people who follow the flow are the ones who make a move.

Surely, we can be better at managing the challenges if we follow the flow by stepping out of a riveted state. Either we can get to the bottom of things or take things to their logical end. We can learn from a paper boat that flows with the flow. It swerves around obstructing rocks and moves on even when overturned by the flow it follows.

Let’s BE BETTER at getting out of the groove

Follow the flow and make the choice to move!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

TEACHER

2010-09-06T07:57:00.002+05:30

‘Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel’- Socrates

Our personalities are moulded by the valuable lessons that we learn from our many teachers. They include our parents, formal teachers at school, skill teachers who teach us music, sports, as well as peers and even our own students. But the roles of parenting, teaching and mentoring generally come into two types.

It is pertinent to note that many see the role has one that moulds the personality, akin to a potter shaping a lump of clay into a magnificent creation. However, each child is a living being with infinite potential and is a future tree waiting to grow and bloom. Hence effective teachers are the ones who choose to be gardeners to the seed of potential that lies in the learner.

While the potter breathes life into dead clay, the gardener has to take care about not stifling the very life of the seed. In their respective professions, the potter and the gardener assume appropriate roles. However in teaching and parenting, while the gardener’s approach can really shape a personality and script a destiny, using the potter’s path can result in tragedy or cause a mutiny.

However, the role of a gardener is not as easy as it looks. It requires us to be better at tolerance, facilitation, allowing space and empowering the learner’s right to make a choice. William Arthur Ward said it so well: that ‘a mediocre teacher tells, a good teacher explains, a superior teacher demonstrates and a great teacher inspires!’

Let’s BE BETTER at the noble task of teaching

The learner-seed is nurtured with gardening!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

TAKING INITIATIVE!

2010-08-30T13:10:00.000+05:30

Training sessions are enhanced by the use of appropriate videos. One of personal favourites - a video created in 2007 as part of the Lead India Campaign launched by the Times of India Group – is an excellent example of ‘taking initiative’. It can be easily viewed on the internet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFs5vWxW-vc

The early morning traffic is blocked by a fallen tree. On either side, people await a solution to the problem. But a young child drops his school bag and ventures to push aside the big tree. The onlookers, one by one start joining him and together they are able to shift the obstacle. Obviously they were inspired by the initiative of the proactive child.

Surely, the child did not have a false estimation of his own strengths and abilities. Yet he initiated action since it was needed. Taking initiative is not about measuring up to achievable tasks. Taking initiative is about taking up a worthwhile mission. It is about stepping out of our comfort zone and taking up the responsibility to set right a situation. Proactive persons do not wait for others to join their action… they show the way by taking initiative and thus inspire others to join along.

However, it is not enough to start off. A famous Buddha quote identifies two mistakes while walking the road (to truth)… one is not starting and the second is not going all the way. So many good initiatives are reduced to nought because people give up before the initiative is actualised. We must choose to be better at sustaining a continuous commitment to the initiative we take on or the one we join in. And we must overcome our own negative thoughts and doubts.

Let’s BE BETTER at taking initiative

By overcoming every looming negative!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Light, please!

2010-08-23T09:41:00.000+05:30

Once, Alexander the Great went in person to see the Greek theorist, Diogenes and found him lying in the sun. When the monarch offered to fulfil his stated wish, Diogenes promptly requested, ‘please stand out of my light!’

The above anecdote raises pertinent points for mentoring as well as leadership. Too often we suffocate and stifle the very people we want to help out by dominating their space with our overbearing presence and shadowing their own inspired guiding light. So often, even mothers smother their children!

All this seems so strange, as all of us, as young children, have resented the same domineering by parents, teachers and elders. Yet we repeat the same story of shadowy surveillance, interfering interruptions and back seat driving with the same people who we wish would do something on their own! However there is nothing wrong in standing besides as long as don’t eclipse their light!

To be better at helping and supporting anyone, we must be able to give them the space to take ownership of their dreams, their plans and actions as seen in their own guiding light. In fact, after the incident with Diogenes, Alexander reportedly told his men who were jesting about the philosopher, ‘if I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes!’

Let’s BE BETTER at helping others grow

By standing out of their light’s glow!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

AUGUST, 16th!

2010-08-16T10:27:00.000+05:30

In India, the Independence Day is celebrated on 15 August by wearing patriotism on our sleeves. Our clothes, our facebook status, our group SMS and everything possible, proudly declares our pride in being an Indian. Almost all such publicly stated sentiments of patriotic pride are genuine and sincere.

However, it is pertinent to notice the same sentiment in the same people on the subsequent day – 16 August! Some years back, on the day after Independence Day, ace lensman Rajtilak Naik captured a plastic tricolour flag lying amidst similarly discarded garbage irresponsibly thrown along the sides of a road. Surely, on Independence Day that same flag must have been held firmly by a patriotically charged person.

The best of words and the grandest of posturing mean nothing. Plastic patriotism is nothing but a superficial mask that is worn on convenient occasions. In fact, posturing through only superficial symbols pushes us away from the earnestness of our real sentiments. Real patriotism is not about feeling proud, rather it is about doing our country proud through responsible and responsive deeds.

What we do or say on Independence Day is an occasional emotion. What we do or say on 16 August, and the other days, is of greater importance. If we want to be better at real patriotism, let’s be better at saying and doing whatever it takes for everyone to equally reap the benefits of real freedom, dignity and opportunity!

Plastic patriotism is nothing, but just an occasional emotion…
Let’s BE BETTER at backing intention with consistent action!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

HOBSON’S CHOICE

2010-08-09T09:12:00.000+05:30

‘Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants, so long as it is black.’ - Choice offered on the Ford Model T.

In the late 16th century, Thomas Hobson rented out horses to university students at Cambridge. The students picked up their favourite steeds, and hence a few of Hobson's horses were overworked. To remedy the situation, Hobson began a rotation system, giving the customer the choice of taking the mount nearest the stable door or none at all. This rule became known as ‘Hobson's choice’.

Although, the term is used to mean ‘no choice at all’, Hobson’s choice is not an illusion of choice. Also, it is not the same as Morton’s fork which is a choice between two unfavourable options. It is a free choice in which only one option is offered. A person may refuse to take that option. The choice is therefore between taking the option or not. It is about aligning with either of the two alternatives: take it or leave it!

So often, we find ourselves in a bind over a situation of Hobson’s choice. We feel cornered as we think we have no choice. However, it is pertinent to note that every road offers the option to walk or not. If we consider the option of opting out, we are liberated from the situation of single choice. Many people have made a successful paradigm shift in their lives and careers because the chose to be better at understanding the second option in Hobson’s choice.

Let’s BE BETTER at a choice that seems only one

Hobson’s choice is about take that or none!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

THE OTHER SIDE

2010-08-02T12:06:00.001+05:30

Once, a wanderer came to the banks of a wide river. He wondered on ways to cross the broad barrier, but in vain. Just as he was about to turn back, he saw a Zen master on the other side of the river. He shouted out, ‘Sir, please tell me how to get to the other side of this river’? The monk promptly yelled back, ‘Young man, you are on the other side’.

Like all Zen stories, this tale too holds multiple lessons. However, let’s consider it for the aspect of interpersonal skills. The two banks of the river represent two individual personalities that lie aligned parallel to each other. The river represents the space between the relationships.

While we seek to travel the journey to the other side, it would be better to understand that our side too is the other side with regards to the person across. So getting to the other side necessarily includes connect with initiative on the side that one stands on. The same concept is articulated with great simplicity in the quote, ‘if it is to be, it is up to me!’

More often than not, our closest friends are the ones where we take the initiative for maintaining and empowering the relationship. The onus of friendship cannot be on the other person. The responsibility lies with me to be better at doing everything necessary for my friend to see a friend on the other side… which is where I stand!

to BE BETTER at connecting to the other side

let’s do the needful, on the side that I reside!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

THE OTHER SIDE

2010-08-02T12:06:00.000+05:30

to BE BETTER at connecting to the other side

let’s do the needful, on the side that I reside!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

WEALTH

2010-07-26T09:25:00.001+05:30

Na biwi na baccha, naa baap bada na bhaiya...

The whole thing is that sabse bada rupaiya!

(not wife, not child, not father, not brother...

The whole thing is that the most important is money)

- Old Hindi song by actor-filmmaker, Mehmood

Wealth makes people go around in a never ending pursuit. It is the driving force for everyone, and a principal priority for the ambitious. At the inaugural of ABLE - JCI India’s training program for businesspersons, the Chief Guest, K Vallabhdas shared his father’s take on five types of wealth.

He listed the first type of wealth as personal health. The second is the wealth of relationship that comes from the unquestioning love from the spouse. The third is the unconditional nurturing that we receive from our parents. The fourth is the uplifting affection that is reciprocated by our children. And the last and the least in the list is the wealth of money.

All of us run too often behind money at the cost of the four greater forms of wealth. But money will come to nought if the first four are lost. Interestingly, the four concerns cover a wider spectrum of a better world for all of us. For we cannot makes our homes better for our family, elders and the children better without ensuring an environment of health and security, a world driven by responsive and responsible actions.

Let’s BE BETTER at acquiring the wealth

that comes from loving family and health !

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Alleppey, Kerala

PERSONAL ANTHEM

2010-07-19T12:26:00.000+05:30

150 years after his birth, Rabindranath Tagore’s legacy as a poet, novelist, musician, and playwright continues to inspire… as does his poem - ‘where the mind is without fear and the head is held high’. While the entire poem is inspirational, the first line articulates the apt vision for a nation and its citizens.

In the film Sholay, Gabbar Singh said the immortal lines, ‘jo dar gaya, samjho mar gaya’ (fear is death). Our fears are part of the conditioning that we are subjected to since our childhood. Gandhi described fears as creative imagination. They grow to a magnitude that blurs our sense of perception. We must overcome these fears to be unfettered in our flight to newer horizons!

So often we indulge in plastic pride. While arrogance is self-defeating, true self-respect and self-esteem are the psychological foundations for the progress of every personality. They empower individual initiative and help fulfill dreams. ‘Head held high’ also refers to looking ahead to the vision that beckons.

We sing the national anthem that Tagore wrote. However we may have been a better citizenry and a better nation if we were to regularly recite and enthusiastically embrace the words of ‘where the mind is without fear’. Surely, it is an empowering anthem and it would be better if each of us chose it as our guiding lighthouse… as our personal anthem.

Overcoming fears and enhancing self esteem, we find

is the way to BE BETTER at empowering every mind!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

RISE UP monday-muse-12 July

2010-07-15T06:59:00.000+05:30

Imagine a situation where a person trips and falls to the ground. What should he do? Should he wait for somebody to help him rise on his feet once again? What if there is no help forthcoming? Surely in such a scenario, most of us should choose to rise up on our own.

Self initiative is necessary to overcome an overpowering situation. Whenever our spirits are down, we must lift them ourselves. Proactive persons who take prime responsibility for changing the situation or even a downward mood are the ones who refuse to stay low. They opt to rise up on their own using the simple choice of self-help.

However, being the first to help oneself is not a practice to be employed only in times of defeat or despair. Even, when we deserve to rejoice over the smallest of success, we must choose to initiate appreciation and celebration. It is a lesson, we must learn from the footballer who scores a goal. He does not wait for his team members to come and applaud him. He immediately breaks into a frenzied run of celebration.

Too often, we shift the onus of support as well as appreciation onto others. And when none is forthcoming we sink into a deeper depression. We must learn to be better at taking ownership of all the happenings in our lives, both, the ones that lift our spirits and the ones that sink them as well. That’s the way to rise up, every time!

Let’s BE BETTER at initiating the right response

... to rise up above the overbearing helpless pause!

- Pravin K Sabnis

CHARISMA

2010-07-05T12:41:00.000+05:30

All of us are influenced and impressed by charismatic people. All of us seek to be owners of charisma that can influence and impress others. It is a special quality of impact personalities whose principles, purposes and powers differentiate them from others. To be called charismatic is considered a valuable compliment!

Many of us believe that charisma is a trait that cannot be developed since it appears to be a deep-rooted personality characteristic. But, it is pertinent to note that it is a quality that can be acquired and learnt. For example, being enthusiastic and emotionally expressive is a major ingredient for dishing out charisma – and surely, it is possible to learn to become emotionally expressive.

Look around at people whom you find charismatic. You will notice that they smile easily and seem constantly enthused. Notice that their ever eager energy is very visible. And this is so because they do not hold back their actual feelings. The best method to develop charisma is to be better at expressing our feelings more assertively, openly and freely.

More importantly, charisma is about transference. Others must validate our charisma. And they will do so, only if it impacts them positively. The way to acquire charisma, according to Dan Reiland is, ‘Be more concerned about making others feel good about themselves than you are making them feel good about you.’

let’s BE BETTER at charismatic effectiveness,

by discovering our emotional expressiveness!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

2010-06-28T13:49:00.000+05:30

Here’s an inspirational story that I first heard from my favourite teacher, Fr. Gatti... A visitor to a beach noticed that the waves brought along hundreds of starfish. However, when the waves ebbed, they left behind many starfish to die. The man decided to save the starfish. He would pick them one by one and throw them in the water.

A passerby observed the starfish saviour with amusement, ‘There are hundreds of starfish. How many can you help? What difference does it make?’ This kind-hearted man immediately responded, ‘It makes a difference to this one.’ And he threw yet another starfish back to the safety of the sea.

We need to ask ourselves: what difference are we making? Big or small, does not really matter. Surely, if everyone made a small difference, we would be responsible for a big difference. Importantly, for the one who is impacted positively by our initiative, we will have made the difference. And for ourselves we will have made the difference of moving to being part of the solution rather than being audience to a predicament.

Those who initiate efforts, only if results of great magnitude are assured, can never really make a difference. Ayn Rand has said it so well, ‘Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision.’ To make a difference, we must be better at taking initiative, without getting trapped in gauging the scale of impact.

In every situation, let’s BE BETTER at making a difference

... by distancing our actions from the success reference!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

PRAVIN SABNIS conducts UNLEARNING UNLIMITED outbound workshops. MONDAY MUSE is based on JCI-India’s National President’s theme: Touch To Transform (2004), We Are The Future (2005), Speak Through Action (2006), Develop New Dimensions (2007) & the JCI theme – BE BETTER (2008 onwards).

TRUE SELF

2010-06-21T15:05:00.000+05:30

An eager student approached a Zen master with a poser, ‘I don’t know who I am. Please, help me see my true self!’ The master just kept silent. The man began to plead and persist, yet the master gave no response. Finally the man resigned to his frustration and moved to leave. At that moment, the master called out to him by name. ‘Yes!’ the man exclaimed as he spun back around. ‘There it is!’ exclaimed the master.

This Zen anecdote reminds me of the number of occasions when I search for my spectacles, only to have somebody else point out that I am wearing them! Obviously, it is yet another funny search to find what already is in my possession. Ditto for our search to discover our true self!

However, if we really look, our true self need not be a blind spot. Our true self is obvious to the ones who encounter us often. Others can see the obvious because they see it in our behavioural responses. If we analyse the consistency or the lack of our behaviour in response to varied persons and situations, we will be able to understand the choices we make based on our wants and needs.

Others can help us realise what we really are, but it is only we who can choose what we want to be. Hence, rather than spend time, effort and energy on getting to know our true self, let’s be better at becoming the true self we would like to be. It is important to focus on what we would like to be, instead of only determining what we are!

Let’s BE BETTER at being true to our self…

Rather than a shallow search of our true self!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

WIIFM

2010-06-14T16:06:00.001+05:30

In most organisations, leadership responsibilities include the important tenet that motivation to achieve goals is proportional to the extent that self-interests are satisfied. This theory is popularly known as ‘What’s in it for me?’ or WIIFM. To put it simply, the WIIFM principle states that self-interest is the greatest motivator.

The WIIFM principle is used by many motivators to find out needs, desires or motives of their team members. These needs are determined by asking people what they want directly or indirectly by observing what interests them. Unsatisfied needs can make one experience the drive to pursue goals and satisfy his needs.

However, self-interest need not be of selfish nature. It is pertinent to note that helping others can satisfy self-interest. Surely, even being humane results in an experience of need satisfaction. For instance, not everyone participates in community work to satisfy the self-interest of recognition. So many do it because it satisfies their self-interest of making a difference to the situation or maybe just feel good!

Persons who involve in positive, proactive work have actually aligned their WIIFM with a broader vision and a larger mission. They are the ones whose self-interest lies in looking at larger interests of society. All of us need to be better at ensuring that our WIIFM is progressive and sensitive to the greater needs of humanity.

Let’s BE BETTER at looking beyond where self-interest stood

WIIFM should align with needs of the greater common good!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

CUP OF CAFFEINE

2010-06-07T15:15:00.000+05:30

One night, a businessman was working late in his office on a crucial assignment. He was exhausted and was finding it difficult to remain awake. He reached out for the bottle of coffee that his secretary kept in her desk and made himself a hot cup of coffee. He immediately felt refreshed and was able to complete his work.

He mused over the magic produced by the cup of coffee in altering his tired mind into alertness. He was convinced that the crucial ingredient in the coffee that made the conversion possible – caffeine – was indeed a remarkable substance. He decided that he should thank his secretary for her thoughtfulness in keeping that coffee bottle in the office.

The next day, he presented a box of sweets to his secretary, profusely thanked her and waxed eloquent about the wonders of caffeine that was in the coffee that was in the bottle in her desk… Hearing this, his secretary began laughing and showed him the label of the coffee bottle which read – decaffeinated coffee!

His ‘belief’ that caffeine would drive away his tiredness transformed his state of mind. If he chose to believe, even a plain glass of water would have had the same effect. Our mind rules our body and our beliefs rule our mind. It is pertinent to note that conviction borne of strong belief needs no other crutches! Not even caffeine!

No need for crutches like cups of caffeine,

Let’s BE BETTER at beliefs that sustain!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

SOUND DETECTIVES

2010-05-31T09:04:00.000+05:30

Sensory awareness plays a crucial role in Out Bound Training. One such activity is called Sound Detectives. Participants are asked to close their eyes and listen. They are told to detect the various sounds that they can hear… the nearest one… the farthest one… the loudest… the softest… eventually they open their eyes and share their experience.

The Sound Detectives activity is also done at Hall based Training, but the detectable sounds and their distance from the listener gets limited. The activity is best done in the wild or areas away from man-made-machine sounds. Participants are amazed to discover the range of sounds that they can detect… right from those of small insects to sounds of trucks that ply in the distant.

This experience holds valuable lessons of how to be better at the skill of listening. It shows that the onus of listening is primarily on the listener. To be better at listening we must be able to shut off all distractions and focus on our sense of hearing. Our ability to hear reaches and stretches far beyond our own expectations… if we would only listen!

Learn to listen and listen to learn – is a motto profound

Let’s BE BETTER at detecting the surrounding sound!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

CAREER

2010-05-24T08:15:00.000+05:30

Results of the HSSC Board and Entrance Examinations have been declared. Those, whose results are below expectations, seem desperate and lost. And ones who have done well, also appear tense and nervous. Most students and parents are careering towards the race track of career choices. Interestingly, the term ‘career’ has its roots in the Latin word – ‘carrera’ which literally means race.

The pressure is increasing on our youth to make career choices without looking at dreams, aspirations and aptitude. Unlike earlier, when career options were limited, today a plethora of potential professions are available to plan a career. Yet, young students are being conditioned to attach value to few careers. Worse, they are being discouraged from moving towards their childhood dreams.

It is also pertinent to note that very few have the personal courage or the support to change tracks midway in their academic education. Too much pressure is generated by narrowing on select few career options. And most such career choices are at the cost of the real career – our life! It is important to not distance ourselves from real living. Career is, after all, the progress of the course of life. And living is beyond so-called status and handsome remunerations.

Surely, it would be better to make the choice of attaching value and purpose to our own living. We need to examine whether our careers will permit us to have the time for the real needs of our life – family, community, the environment… As for the dilemma of taking up a remunerative career, it is prudent to go by the only-two-choices philosophy - ‘choose the career you love or love the career you choose’.

Don’t get careered by the confusing choice strife…
Let’s BE BETTER at choosing the real career of ‘life’!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Sandwich generation– monday muse (17 May’10)

2010-05-24T08:13:00.000+05:30

SANDWICH GENERATION

Upon completing his training in restoration and conservation, Victor Hugo Gomes returned to Goa to take charge as curator of the Musuem of Christian Art at the Seminary of Rachol. His research made him realise that years of accumulated wisdom in agrarian practices, traditional implements, tools, arts, crafts and the valuable artefacts in and around the state, was being neglected or left to decay.

Victor went on to embark on an arduous and remarkable journey of visiting and collecting items of Goa’s rich cultural heritage. His ethnographical Goa Chitra museum is not just a fantastic collection of ancient artefacts. Adjacent to the museum is a 3-acre field that has been created using traditional organic farming methods and allows visitors to actually use some of the implements on display within.

It all began for Victor with an awareness of being part of a sandwich generation. A sandwich generation is the crucial link between major transitions in society. It stands on the threshold of time, as an increasing dependence on technology and mass manufactured products push out time-honoured tools and practices. The real loss, as Victor says, is about losing evidence of the sustainable lifestyles of our forefathers.

Victor and his wife Aldina, inspire us to be better at carrying on the legacy of long-established wisdom and practices. It is up to us in the sandwich generation to ensure that the collective wisdom of sustainable living, acquired over the ages, is not lost to the future generations due to wrong choices in our lifestyles. If cannot add, may we at least maintain the worthy legacy of forefathers and pass it on to the next generation.

It will BE BETTER if the sandwich generation…
Will make the connect with sustainable action!

- Pravin K. Sabnis
Check out http://www.goachitra.com

CURTAIN CALL

2010-05-10T12:52:00.000+05:30

In stage shows, at the end of a performance when the performers return to be recognized by the audience for what is called a curtain call. One by one, actors, dancers, musicians and backstage artists assemble on stage to receive their rightful applause from an appreciative audience. However, the tradition is not restricted only to stage performances. In sports contests, sportspersons who perform well return to the field of play after a big play or at the conclusion of the game for recognition. In movies, the curtain call showcases the film's end credits through clips, stills, or outtakes of the various players.

The concept of a curtain call came to mind after hearing of the shocking news came of a friend who died last weekend. Some spoke, some wrote about the tragedy of a youth dying young; about his achievements and the legacy of a life cut short. But sadly death permits no curtain call. The one who is dead cannot bask in the warm appreciation or even affectionate criticism by the ones who miss him.

Hence it is important that we give performers the benefit of appreciation through a curtain call, while they are alive. What we speak or write in their memory has meaning only for the family, friends and community and others, not for the one who is dead! Hence it is necessary that appreciation of a worthy effort or achievement is immediate.

However curtain calls are not about lavish felicitations or eloquent tributes or awards. As any stage performer would tell you, curtain calls are about unadulterated appreciation. Nothing more. Nothing less. Hence it would be better if the deserving get called for the curtain call as often as they perform!

May the curtain call happen every time it is deserved…
Let’s BE BETTER at appreciating before life is severed!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

JUST ASK!

2010-05-03T13:27:00.001+05:30

A Zen tale tells of three monks who practised meditation together, sitting by the side of a lake. One day, one monk opened his eyes and stood up to say, ‘I forgot my mat.’ Instead of walking around the lake to their hut, he stepped onto the water and serenely walked across the lake! Upon his return, the second monk declared, ‘I forgot to put my clothes to dry.’ He too walked across the water and returned the same way.

Now the third monk decided to test of his own abilities. He rose to declare, ‘your learning cannot be greater than mine… I too can match any feat you two can perform!’ he rushed to the water's edge to walk across it. He promptly fell into the deep water. Wet but undeterred, he climbed out of the water and tried again, only to sink into the water. The other two monks watched as this went on for some time.

After a while, the second monk turned to the first and said, "Do you think we should tell him where the stones are?"

Just because something appears easy for others; it may not be so for us. Disproportionate pride in our perceived abilities arises from a snooty attitude that makes us presume that we can easily do what others do effortlessly. In the quest to be better; we belittle the method and attach undue and bloated importance to our own capabilities.

So many things can be emulated successfully, only if we were willing to be humble learners! Pedro says, ‘avoid assumptions; to learn, simply ask’. After all, that’s how we learnt to do so many things in our childhood. Let’s shun childish arrogance and embrace childlike humility and eagerness to ask and learn…

May learning by humble asking never make us queasy…
sure, we can BE BETTER at doing what others find easy!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

TALENT

2010-04-26T11:50:00.000+05:30

What really is talent? Can a person with a melodious voice be described as talented? Surely not until an audience appreciates his singing! When we speak about somebody’s talent we are obviously talking about a proven performance, not about a latent quality. And hence technique and temperament will determine what can be certified as talent.

Among young children, it is easy to notice an instinctive flair for singing, drawing, story-telling and dancing. With inspirational nurturing, natural flairs can be developed into skills. But competitive comparisons with the performances of other children often results in a lack of belief. And hence adults often declare that they cannot sing or draw or dance!

John W Gardner wrote, 'There are those who perform great deeds and those that make it possible for others to perform great deeds. There are pathfinders and path preservers. There are those who nurture and those who inspire. There are those whose excellence involves doing something well and those whose excellence lies in being the kind of people they are, lies in their kindness or honesty or courage.'

Earlier 'talent' referred to expertise or achievement of a pre-determined objective. Today 'talent' denotes broader nuances of leadership potential, abilities to straddle varied functional areas, cultures and geographic boundaries - all in a seamless manner. Real talent needs the development of soft skills, values, the ability to work in teams, to think out of the box, and importantly, the willingness to learn and share.

Each of us are owners to many a talent

Let’s be better at developing the latent!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

GREAT DAY

2010-04-19T09:22:00.000+05:30

One of the best lines of wishes that I picked up from my favourite teacher, Fr Gatti was, ‘Have a great day!’ Before I met him the best wish that I heard was ‘have a good day’. Instinctively to me it was akin to a hopeful wish that only good things should happen. However, Fr Gatti’s wish resonated with resolve and inspiration to make the day great.

So how does one make a great day? It is pertinent to learn the lessons from little children. Babies can gleefully play with empty boxes and other trivia. For them, the sights of a bright flower or a chirpy bird or a gushing stream or a splendid rainbow are all triggers of great joy. A day of play with friends and family, whether outdoors or indoors, are occasions for certifying it to be a great day.

Surely, we were the same when young. Yet so often, we adults wait for our ‘great days’ without realizing that the day that went by and that the day that comes will be great days only if we look upon them as such. We tend to set too many criteria for happiness: ‘when I get this’, ‘when I have more money’, ‘when I have a better house, better furniture, so on and so forth’ and we forget to live every day, enjoying today.

We should be more like children who truly live in the moment! As we get older, we distance ourselves from the approach of enjoying each and every day. We must retain our child like attitude of living each moment to its fullest and making a better and greater day! We need to realise that more important than money and material are the valuable moments of time invested in enjoying simple pleasures.

Learn from the child, life’s little joys seem to say

Let’s BE BETTER at making possible a great day!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

TURBULENCE

2010-04-12T09:23:00.000+05:30

‘Smooth seas do not make skilful sailors’ - African proverb

The test of the skill of a sailor is his ability to manage the challenges of a rough sea. And the biggest challenge of them all is in the mind. Will self-doubts overcome belief? Will wild winds blow holes in our purpose? Will the bumpy waves drown down perseverance?

Surely the strongest trait of character lies in the value of perseverance. The dictionary explains perseverance as steady persistence in adhering to a course of action, a belief or a purpose. Yet, so often we are derailed by the changing tracks of chaotic challenges. So often, our craving for peace results in running way from turmoil. We choose to play blind, deaf, mute and lame to the unrest in the circumstances.

Craving for selfish peace in the midst of turmoil is akin to sterile thinking. It will never enhance your acquired skills. On the other hand, the biggest achievements in arts, science, and also in our history, are the outcome of turbulent thoughts taken head-on by resolute minds. Those who can literally ride the rough seas are the ones who will be better at developing their abilities and actualise their potential.

Come on now; do not sing the loser’s song,

Let’s be better at taking turbulence head-on!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

LAST LECTURE

2010-03-29T08:52:00.001+05:30

The Carnegie Mellon University had an academic tradition where top academics were invited to deliver a hypothetical ‘last lecture’. The speaker had to share the pick of his wisdom with the world as if it was his last chance! However in 2007, when Randy Pausch stood up to speak, it was no hypothetical situation as he was actually facing death!

A month before the lecture, Randy’s pancreatic cancer, after a year of surgery and chemotherapy, was confirmed to be terminal. However, in his ‘last lecture’, Randy shrugged off pity. He didn’t speak about death; he spoke about life and of living a more fulfilling life, by simply achieving childhood dreams. He offered insights from his childhood and important lessons he wanted his kids to learn. He reiterated the need to enjoy everything we do and to live life to its fullest before it ends.

On 25 July 2008, Randy succumbed to pancreatic cancer, but his book based on his last lecture continues to inspire. He said that he would rather have cancer than be hit by a bus. After all, if he died suddenly, he wouldn't have had the time to spend as much possible time with his family and getting their life ready for his death and beyond. Knowing that he was going to die resulted in enhancing his remaining life.

To be better at living the life that we really want to live, we must put together our ‘last lecture’… our thoughts, if we knew we had few days to live. We need to reconnect to our childhood dreams that lie hidden in the maze of complexities that are created by our desperate dash towards materialistic goals. When we envision our ‘last lecture’ and allow it to align with a mission, we will find true meaning to our lives.

Our last lecture can truly be our guiding mission…

To BE BETTER at living life in sync with our vision!

- Pravin K. Sabnis