Lessons for a father - A Mind Without Fear

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Fear is a very powerful emotion. It can, if people choose to use it, also be a way of getting things done. 

To be frightened is a very natural thing. Almost all of us fear something or the other. So, the question really is not whether we should harbor fear or not, the question is: what should we do about it?

Being a parent one of the biggest fears, or concern, remains that of the well being of our child. We, both my wife and I, work towards making sure that he is safe and secure and well looked after. 

Leadership, at work, should give us similar opportunities with our team. The well being of the team should definitely be a part of our to-do list.

What should, however, not be a part of the list is the fear of failure. If we start a venture, no matter how big or small, being frightened or being tied up with the omnipresent "what if", makes sure that our chances of success take a beating.

For example, at home, despite all our efforts, our child might bump against something. At work, we might have the best laid plans, and the project might not be as successful as we wanted it to be.

So what?

Instead of being frightened, let us learn from our mistakes and move on.

Leadership is not about cowering with the possibility of being unsuccessful. It is about making sure that we give our best to whatever it is that we are doing. It is about facing our fears, accepting it but not stopping. 

Another way of dealing with our fears is to not do what frightens us. That can be a solution.

But, in a time when we are expected to conform, we need people that can lead. In a world that craves for people that are good at following guidelines and rules, it almost becomes pertinent for a leader to work towards breaking the status quo.

Let us all, for the new year, promise ourselves to clear our minds of fear, strive towards success, not stop if we face failure but rise above it and grab what we want and deserve.

Two words - Hope and Change can alter the course of a nation. Fearlessness in the face of adversity will, most certainly, drive a nation forward.

In the famous words of one of the greatest Indians, Rabindranath Tagore:

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake

Lessons for a father - Que Será, Será

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Just like leadership, there are multiple ways of parenting as well. Neither is right or wrong necessarily, but the result might be. Styles of parenting, or leadership, I think, can be divided into 3 major categories:

1. When we try and control everything
2. When we provide inspiration and an environment for success to happen
3. When we practice a hands-off attitude and let events occur

All 3 have their pros and cons. 

If we were to mould our parenting and leadership style on the first type, trying to control everything usually leads to a decline in mutual trust and a sense of confinement. Those we lead, as parents or professionally, might feel stifled in the long run and the relationship and growth usually goes haywire. 

The second type allows us the creation of an environment for success and doing things that inspire others to give their best. It is a very hard task requiring a very dedicated effort while spending a lot of time. We have to, very deliberately, create an environment that focuses on camaraderie, clarity, openness and trust. Only then can success really happen.

The last one requires, possibly, the least amount of labor on our part. It might also be termed a "laid back" approach to parenting and leadership. All we have to do is train ourselves to believe that we cannot influence people or the overall environment around us. Just like the song - Que Será, Será, whatever will be, will be. At that point, we stop being leaders and start representing the proverbial cog in the wheel. 

We see a lot of the latter in modern day sociopolitical setting as well as, sometimes and sadly, in our professional lives. With the right to express our views, we change from do-ers to commentators. We become experts, overnight, with multiple opinions and forget the 2 very basic principles of leadership:

1. Fence dwellers cannot be leaders. For us to be able to lead, we have to be a part of what is going on - a system, a game, an event, whatever it might be. Being in one does not mean being blind. Being a part of the system would allow us to learn the rules and limitations so we could break them if we need to and make the system better.
2. For us to be leaders, we need the company of a few people that trust us. Without the belief of those people around us, we are not leaders; we are just another person with, may be, a bunch of theoretical nonsense going on in our heads.

The coming holidays might be a very good chance to lay back and think about moving away from the extremes a little bit. Let us give ourselves a chance to breathe, think, create, help and do. 

Let us all inspire people to succeed by themselves, while knowing enough to offer a helping hand if need be.

What kind of a leader do you want to be? Let me know. I would love to hear from you.

Lessons for a father - Invictus

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We, sadly, seem to be living in the age of excuses. They seem to be everywhere - both excuses and people that use them. 

To be different then, to do away with excuses and get down to the business of doing things, requires courage, conviction and, sometimes, the ability to not give a damn.

The Bigger Question(s)

Why is it necessary to be the maverick anyways? Why isn't everyone OK with following the rules that have been so clearly laid out? Why, then, do we find a need to question and break status quo on a daily basis? 

These rules, after all, have been there for hundreds of years and have served us well till now. 

Haven't they?

The Problem Is Us

I think humanity excels at creating boundaries. Not just the geo-political kind but the ones that create limitations and barriers for all of us. What makes the world go round these days, is less a hunger to improve and more the word "should".

We should all go to college. We should all become scientists. We should all marry and have children and a dog and a house. We should all gauge our level of patriotism by our decision to join the military. And once we are done with ourselves, we should make sure that our children follow the same rules. 

Why "should" they do anything different? That would be anarchy. People thinking by themselves and for themselves is nothing but unruliness, which should be looked down upon. Right? 

Wrong.

Look at what Nelson Mandela did. He was sent to prison for more than 20 years on charges of being a terrorist in South Africa. 

Instead of living with anger he forgave everyone, abolished apartheid in his country and became one of the most loved leaders of his people. "Madiba" became South Africa's Gandhi. He became their Martin Luther King. 

He could have easily done what was expected of him. He could have given up in the prison. He could have spread hatred and could have easily chosen to be the leader of only a part of South Africa. 

He did not do that. With all the hardships and pain, he became a medium of tolerance, love and change. Through the strength of character and his spirit he became unconquerable - invictus.

The Lesson For All Of Us

Leadership requires us to change and break boundaries. It requires us to be courageous in times of adversity and calm in times of chaos.

Let us change the time then. Let us fight for things that really matter. Let us work on things that have been deemed impossible. Let us collaborate and innovate. Let us create solutions to problems that are as old as humanity itself. Let us cure Malaria, Tuberculosis, Cancer, AIDS and hatred. 

More importantly, let us lead the world towards an age where following our conscience becomes more important than following rules that do not matter any more. 

If things do not go your way, do remember that there is something that always belongs to you - you!

For as William Ernest Henly very aptly said:

I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Lessons for a father - Worst enemy = Best friend

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Being a geek, an affinity for data comes naturally to me. It usually gives me a lot pride in knowing how my team, at work, did in the past or whether following a different process to finish a project could have been better. 

The strategy to understand past actions and get better can, however, be a two-edged sword. What if the past holds us back from moving forward? The best friend, our previous experience, might turn into our worst enemy if we let is become a baggage for us.

While we deal with failure in our lives (all of us do at some point), the idea should be to learn from our mistakes but not base our future on the fact that we might have failed at the task once in the past. 

The flip side is also true. Just because we tasted success at accomplishing something in the past, should not guarantee that we will be successful this time as well.

Every day brings with it a fresh start. What we learn from our past should make us stronger and better poised to handle the future. If we, however, let our past successes and failures influence our future, we might become stagnant and stop growing.

Only by learning AND moving on, can we ensure that our friendship with experiences past remains intact and does not become a painful baggage that we carry with us.

Like the great Rudyard Kipling so wonderfully said

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

....

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Lessons for a father - The Most Underrated Part Of Parenthood

Parenthood is, and should be, the hardest thing that we ever commit ourselves to. So many things depend on us doing the right thing. That also is, sometimes, the tougher road to take. 

With the immense amount of work and care needed to raise a child, why would we choose something that is, from the very beginning, tough?

May be because we have lost our marbles? Or because we like putting ourselves in uncomfortable situations? 

Actually, we are all just trying to do the right thing, hard or not.

And, to try and do that all the time, we all require our health to be as close to perfect as possible.

The problem is this: we get so involved in sleeping and waking up (or not sleeping at all) and cooking and cleaning and playing and making the house child safe and driving and parenting that we do not take care of ourselves as much as we should.

Like the air stewardess says on the flight: If you are traveling with a child or someone who requires assistance, secure your mask on first, and then assist the other person.

Secure your mask first. Take care of yourself first. 

In other words, make yourself fit enough to help others before putting yourself in that position. We do that in the flight because it is the law. We seem to, as parents, not be doing such a great job at keeping ourselves in top shape in our daily lives.

I cannot say what it would take to make you healthier. For me it is usually a combination of good food in moderation, exercising and surrounding myself with happiness received from good books and great friends and family.

Everyday I commit myself to the following list:

• Exercising
• Reading a good book
• Interacting with positive people
• Constantly learning, absorbing and evolving
• Thinking of and thanking God for what I have and what I can offer.

With the holidays upon us, we will have multiple opportunities to indulge in abundance. Let us pause and make sure our decisions of today do not reflect badly in our tomorrow.

Image: Flickr(Fruit and Vegies)