Lessons for a father - Scared of everything

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There are not a lot of things in this world that do not scare me at some level. Everything from driving my car to watching a movie to eating at a restaurant. There is always the notion of "what if" lurking somewhere in my head. 

What if I get a flat driving on the interstate with my kid depending on me for safety? What if the movie, that we waited for so long and invested so much effort into watching, is a dud? What if the restaurant's definition of hygiene and mine do not meet and I go home with a food borne disease?

The same fear accompanies me to work. What if a bad or hasty decision on my part leads me to play a part in negatively impacting someone's career? What if I do not invest enough time in choosing a solution for my team and client that leads to short term gain but a long term problem?

There are, indeed, a lot of "what if's".

Every day there is a struggle to be more and do more. Every day, with a shrinking world, our lives are becoming harder and easier (depending on what you do and who you ask). In times like these, what would I gain from being scared all the time?

I treat my fear as a motivating agent. Instead of cowering in fear, I try and do something about it.

With my son in the car, for example, I take extra care to drive safe. With the dependency that my team has on me, I do not rush to decisions. They are a lot more deliberate. To not get out of date with the knowledge of my art, I try to read and learn continuously.

Yes, I might not have an end for my fears, but I do realize that the only way over it is through it.

Lessons for a father - What, Why, How and the 2/3rd!

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I like clarity in what I do. I would like to think that a lot of us do. Clarity, however, needs a few questions to be answered.

The most important question after we figure out WHAT we are doing is WHY we are doing it. If there is a reason to our effort, our deed is not in vain. Even if we falter, our attempt has a direction and a purpose. 

What we do, coupled with why we are doing it, definitely answers 2 of the 3 most important questions.

Now to the third question. HOW do we do what we do if we know why we are doing it?

Here is my belief. If we know why we are doing something, we would know exactly how to do it.

By keeping the end result in mind (WHAT) and the reason to do it (WHY), the HOW would make itself very evident.

Take, for example, our intent to become good citizens of a country. That is what we want to do. We want to do it so the country that we represent is well projected (one of the many examples of why we would want to be model citizens). If we really believe in what we are doing and why we are doing it, there might be little need for written laws. We would all know how to do what we want to do.

Good leadership and parenting are other examples (in many more) of what we might want to accomplish. We want to become better leaders and parents to help nurture individuals with a capacity to think and lead in their own way. Again, how we do that can become very clear to us, almost automatically, as long as we answer the WHAT and the WHY.

The what and the why answer 2/3 of the questions that we would need to accomplish results and taste success. As long as we do that, how we do that should come very naturally to us.

Lessons for a father - Want to solve a problem?

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Problems seem to be ubiquitous. They are also equal opportunity. Everyone, irrespective of rank or race, has them - problems.

So, what do we do with what we seem to have plenty of?

We solve them, one by one.

The question, then, really is - how?

We would all like that one talisman that would solve all our issues for us. Fortunately, we we have all been blessed with it. Unfortunately however,  and almost always in the hardest of times, we keep forgetting about it.

The power we are after is the power of BELIEF. Every solution, no matter how big or small, has to start with an unwavering belief that a solution is possible. 

Without belief in what we are doing, and in the ultimate success of our hard work, we might not get far. Once we have that, what we need next are truthful intentions.

We must want to, above anything else, solve the issue.

With belief, correct intentions, hard work and a dash of circumstance, we can be unstoppable in our pursuit of success.

Lessons for a father - The Perfect Salad

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A good salad is a piece of art. All the ingredients need to come together to bring out that perfect taste.  It is the diversity of the ingredients - the colors, the tastes, the halves and the fulls that turn the salad into an experience and that is where the art lives.

The perfectly made salad can be analogous to the functioning of our teams. Both at home and at work, different thought processes and personality types, working towards a common goal, can lead to the creation of a sense of harmony that is nothing short of a piece of art. 

Similarly to food, however, the final state should be kept in mind. As a team, we must have a very clear understanding of our goals. The goals might change over a period of time, but different components cannot be pursuing different goals while being a part of a bigger whole.

As with food, we must respect and acknowledge that, for example, tomatoes and spinach will taste different. Diversity can be our biggest asset. When it works, if allowed to work with the right ingredients and quantity, it is powerful. When it does not work, it might end up leaving a very bad taste.

Our salad, or leadership, therefore is an attempt to bring the ingredients of experience, knowledge, common sense, good judgement, purity of deed and heart, our faith and a dash of good old circumstance or opportunity into our bowls of professional and familial lives.

Let us all make incredible salads then. Let us make full use of all the ingredients that we have been presented with. Let us all make sure that we do not lose sight of a dash of fun on the side!

What are the ingredients of your perfect salad (team and people wise)?

Lessons for a father - Thank you all!

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I wanted to commemorate a huge personal milestone with something special. This week marks the 2nd anniversary of this blog. Whether it is for my son at home or my team at work, I do hope I can make a tiny, but positive, difference in their lives. Thank you for being a part of the journey till now. Normal services resume next week.

This week however, I was introduced to this quote by Carl Sagan. Thoughts like these help us realize what is important and real. I hope you benefit from it the same way as I did.

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

—Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, 1997 reprint, pp. xv–xvi

Lessons for a father - What is Equal Opportunity?

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The question is not whether we should be providing equal opportunities to people. The question really is whether equal opportunity exists in the true sense of the word.

The inclination and trust, almost always, is towards people that have a higher probability of being successful. 

How many times do we really take the risk and enable the "not so great" people to take up tough challenges? How equipped do we make ourselves, as leaders, to accept that the new person might take more time than the usual, that the new person might not understand what we expect them to do, that they might have a huge learning curve or, worse yet, that they might fail? It makes it harder because we all know of someone on our teams that can do it faster and better.

Equal opportunity must influence us, as leaders, to help people grow. Sometimes, a lot of times, success might not come outright and might require a lot of patience from us.

On the other hand, opportunities come to those who step up to the proverbial plate. Risk is taken with people that want to succeed, grow and want to give and be more. 

We cannot, no matter how great we become at leadership, impose success on others. The hunger to succeed must come from within.

I support an equal opportunity environment. We all must. Mine, however, makes me dependent on people that want to learn, grow, help, keep promises and make every new day better than the previous one.

Lessons for a father - In the Flow of things (Part 5 - Gamification)

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When do you work at your best? I know I provide my best performance when I can focus on what I am doing. 

Some of us know that focus as "being in the zone". No matter what our vocation is and no matter what we do to get there, once we are in the zone, we usually create awesomeness.

A renowned scientist by the name of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls this the state of "Flow". It is his theory that people are happiest when they are in a state of flow. It is a state of concentration with the activity at hand and the situation. It is a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter.

I truly hope that we all witness that state at least once in our life. It is a case of true intrinsic motivation; a time when things like ego, money, time or even food stop existing and making sense. In the zone, the work we are doing engulfs us and gives us nutrition in the form of bliss.

The key, according to Csikszentmihaly's research is for the task to neither be simple nor too hard. In other words, it should be one that can hold our interest (we all suffer from boredom) and challenge us.

Clear goals, immediate feedback and a good balance between the challenge and the person's skill set (their ability to perform the task) are the three important factors that help people get in the flow. 

A lot of research has been published that helps both an individual or a group utilize this theory. At the core of it though is the creation of an environment that allows us to focus and connect with what we are doing. The theory, in various avatars, is utilized in education, religion and spirituality, gamification, music and sports.

As leaders, it falls onto us to provide our teams with an environment that allows them to get into the flow. Only in the zone will greatness happen!

Lessons for a father - The Cost Of Context

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Lessons for a father - Forming or leaving a habit (Part 4 - Gamification)

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To be great or a disaster is based on the same rule. Our effort to gain knowledge or continue in ignorance has the same basis. To carry forward an addiction or to leave one behind can be attributed to the same starting point.

Know what that is?

Our desire to do so.

Motivation from our leaders (familial or professional) and reward are external factors. The first step towards achievement can only come from ourselves. We should want to gain knowledge, for example. We should want to be good or to add value to whatever entity we belong to. Only then, like picking up a habit or leaving one behind, would all the external factors make any difference.

Our son's attempt to write the perfect "A" is no different from someone going to college. They want to do something. The teachers in the case of the student, or his parents in our son's case, provide assistance and help only after they take the first step.

That is no different, once again, from an alcoholic trying to acquire their drink of choice. No different than someone trying to gain fitness in a gym. They do and get what they want simply because they want to. Help from groups, friends, family, doctors or trainers all come later.

Desire to be good then, to lead, to motivate and to achieve. Become a better version of yourself.  Add value in whatever it is that you do. Whatever you want to do, do take the first step.

Lessons for a father - Changing Behavior (Part 3 - Gamification)

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How do I get fitter? How do I learn a new language? How do I save more money to secure my family's future? How do I contribute more to my team? How do I become a better leader? 

We all have things we want to do and goals we want to accomplish. These can range from personal to professional in nature. Why is it, then, that we lose out on accomplishing all the goals that we set for ourselves? What if we changed our behavior to accomplish those goals?

According to Dr. B. J. Fogg of the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, three elements have to come together at the same time for a behavior to occur:

• Motivation: The person is HIGHLY motivated to accomplish the goal or exude a behavior.
• Ability: The person can very EASILY carry out the behavior or accomplish the goal.
• Trigger: The person is triggered/ cued/ asked to accomplish the goal

As leaders and parents, we have input in all three elements. 

Motivation to accomplish a goal can be internal but, as leaders, it is imperative that we provide the motivation wherever necessary. That external motivation can be anything from a monetary reward to giving a platform or an opportunity where the very human need for social cohesiveness, self confidence, self esteem or achievement can be met. 

The factor of ability can be influenced by providing training with the intent to help a person get better continuously. Ability, however, once again, can be increased without any external agent by following a path of learning. It can also be influenced by doing and accomplishing easy things. Running a marathon on the first day of getting fit might very well lead to failure, but what if the goal was to walk for a minute? That would be easy.

A trigger, unlike the other two, might mostly be an external entity. Friends and family members that I rely on for good advice, for example, might have to tell me that I need to get fit. My relocation, in another example, to a foreign country might trigger the need to learn a new language. Something, or someone, must remind me at the right time of my ability to accomplish a goal and where motivation already existed.

An entire industry of games and gaming exists around this behavior model. It is no different, however, than leading change in our team or our family. The same model of keeping the motivation up, doing simple things but learning continuously and responding to a trigger (a call to change or to accomplish) can be followed in any setting.

Happy accomplishing!

Lessons for a father - Shot of Dopamine (Part 2 - Gamification)

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What is your "Dopamine"? Almost everyone has their own version of the "happiness drug". Technically, it is a hormone and neurotransmitter of the catecholamine and phenethylamine families that plays a number of important roles in the human brain and body.

In a gamification setting,  the "dopamine effect" is associated with a sense of achievement and the happiness that someone feels when goals are met.

In a sense, it plays the part of a motivating agent that is responsible for us taking action towards our goals, desires and needs and "rewards" us with happiness thereafter. On the other hand, procrastination, self-doubt, and lack of enthusiasm are linked with low levels of dopamine.

To keep up our need of this happy state, one way is to break our bigger goals into smaller chunks. By doing this, we can control our brain to celebrate when we hit the finish line. This way we can create a series of little finish lines which releases dopamine. It is important, however, to celebrate. 

Project management methodologies and frameworks like Agile are all built around the idea of small and more "get-able" goals. There is power in achievement, no matter how small. There are numerous other examples of this in the real world. Whenever a bigger goal is broken down and made more achievable, the idea is to keep the people involved more motivated throughout. Think about the following:

• School systems
• Weight loss/ diet programs
• Gaming systems (Duh!)
• Learning a new language (bad words first?)

The list, above, is a small sub-set of ways and places where a "dopamine" system has already been implemented. It works. Brilliantly.

As leaders and parents, we can help by recognizing accomplishments of the people that might look up to us. The celebration does not need to be big either. Acknowledgement of the achievement via words, written or spoken, can be enough. The idea is not to wait for major accomplishments but to continue motivating by celebrating and honoring those small wins too!

It does not matter what role we play at any given time. It would appear that we must all invest in having and maintaining our Dopmaine Effect.

Lessons for a father - Playing the game (Part 1 - Gamification)

There is a part of the new age learning and teaching process that revolves around game mechanics and game design techniques. This is called Gamification. The intention behind it is to engage and motivate people to achieve their goals. It taps into the basic human desire of status and achievement.

I have been studying up on it for the past few weeks. It is a powerful method that is being used by organizations around the planet in helping people achieve everything from learning a new languages, follow process, increase efficiency and teamwork or even on-board new employees. That is not the end of it though. 

The same technique can also be used to engage customers, promote desirable software usage behavior (websites, applications and games all fall under this category) and even supplement, and sometimes replace, conventional classroom learning.

There are constituents of Gamification that would hold true in case of parenting or leadership too. One of those constituents are what are called Activity Loops. They are

used to encourage a user along a desired path of activity.

Activity loops in a gamified system are of 2 types:

•     Engagement Loops
•     Progression Loops

Engagement loops encourage a person to perform in the form of an accomplishment. The feedback, in terms of the accomplishment, then becomes the motivator and encourages people to take their performance to an even higher level.

Progression loops allows for the participant to move in multiple smaller progressive steps instead of one big leap which might overwhelming. Each sub-accomplishment allows for "rest" in between to set the player for a bigger/ harder fight in the next stage.

Leadership, or parenting, also expects us to provide external motivation whenever required. By following rules of gamification, we can follow a process that is capturing people's imagination around the world and gaining a lot of momentum.

Let us play the game in all its glory and keep improving with our accomplishments.

Lessons for a father - Are you smart enough to build Rome?

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My fitness trainer, Daniel, often motivates me by telling me that "Rome wasn't built in a day". That is his way of keeping me focused and remind me that physical fitness cannot be achieved in a day or two. It is continuous work that involves self-betterment.

Daniel is right. He usually is about all things fitness. But the same logic can be extended to just about anything that can get better, and for me, that is everything.

I can become a better father and connect with our child at an even deeper level. I can become a better husband so that the best thing to even happen to me, my partnership with my dear wife, gets even stronger. I have a whole list of things that I can do to become a better son, a fiercer friend and, possibly, a good leader.

All of that, like Daniel suggests repeatedly, is not going to happen in a day or a week or even a year.

Rome took centuries to be built. It emerged over time but was never a finished product. It kept evolving, getting better, and adapting to the world that kept changing around it.

While it was getting better, Rome was destroyed, voluntarily and involuntarily, multiple times. What made it successful was its solid foundations and the perseverance that its people showed towards it with the dream of making it a great city. History would suggest that they were successful.

Similar to Rome, our greatness can be a lot more possible with a foundation built on belief in ourselves, goodness in our hearts and reason in our heads. All that should also be accompanied with adaptability that allows us to evolve in all our relationships, professional or familial. 

To be like Rome then, we must be ready to work hard continuously - evolving, destructing and reconstructing and putting brick on brick. Greatness will not come soon but then, it is not meant to!

Lessons for a father - Taking our trash out...regularly

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Thursday is special for a lot of reasons. The end of the conventional work week is nigh. In the west, the day is named after Thor (the Norse God) and that makes  the day, by definition, super powerful. In India, the day is named after Brahspati, the guru (teacher) to all the Indian Gods and the regent of the planet Jupiter. Again, the day holds incredible power but also, almost equal parts, wisdom.

It is also "special" because the beginning of the day is marked with my dear wife reminding me, almost every week - yes, it is that bad, that trash needs to be taken out. The difference is those alternate weeks when both the trash and recycle bins need to be kept out for collection.

That is the house trash though.

What about the trash we carry within us? 

The week is spent in doing a lot of things. We meet people, some because we want to, others because we have to. We do hard work while taking unintentional failure in our stride. We give every day our best and we all need our power packed Thursdays, our take-out-the-trash-day.

I think we should choose a time, preferably every day, when we introspect and meditate our way out of the negativity inside. That trash can take a much higher toll than what we throw out on in the week.

Here is what has helped me:

• Create your own System Of Positiveness. Working out, good reading, meditating or switching off from the rest of the world and being with family and friends helps.
• Concentrate on what is going on right at that moment. Nothing else is under our control anyways.
• Try and run away from the "what if's" of life. Again, what might happen and what has already happened cannot and will not change unless we do something about the current moment.
• Believe in something and stand up for it. It does not have to be religion or faith. It does not have to be world peace. It must be something that we truly believe in.
• Have a vision and mission in life with the acceptance that life has a very wonderful habit of surprising us. Change is not entirely a bad thing.

Have a good cleaning day!

What else have you tried to clean yourself of built-up trash?

Lessons for a father - Chaos Or Art?

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What is art? If we look at one of the many officially definitions available online, we would get something on the lines of:

[Art is] the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power. - source

Technically, the definition is correct.  But there is something missing. I think art has a lot to do with the creators but it also has also to do with the people that experience it. A beautiful painting or poetry without connecting with people (even one person!) might end up being easily forgotten. 

The question then becomes this? Is it art if no one gets it? If no one gets it, is it just colorful lines on a piece of paper than being the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci? If no one understands it, or appreciates it, does it make Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge any less?

What if we apply the same principle to leadership? We might all consider ourselves to be great leaders. There is nothing wrong there. I am pretty sure that Messrs da Vinci and Coleridge drew and wrote not to be famous but for the shear joy that it brought to them. Their greatness, however, has to be, at least partially, attributed to the love and appreciation that they have received ever since they went public with their art.

Things that we do not understand or connect with are usually shunned. The importance of good communication and of patience cannot be highlighted more than when we are trying to bring about a real change through our leadership. The "also ran" do not provide inspiration. They do not set standards that people try and achieve and surpass in time. They are not the ones that become heroes. They, quite simply, also ran.

We might be able leaders. We might be artists with the ability to be the next Picasso or da Vinci or Kipling of leadership. We might be fine remaining where we are. It becomes a different story, however, if we want to be great at what we do. That requires others. 

True greatness will only come if we really touch peoples' lives to the point where they reciprocate with an elevated performance or change in behavior or achieving greatness in their own way and in their own time. Till that happens, the art of our leadership may make us happy but would lack real value.

Lessons for a father - Bringing Emotions To Work

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We have all had those days in our lives. Those are times when our favorite project is cancelled after weeks of hard work; when a customer gives us a lashing when we were actually sure of having a good meeting; when our friend (and co-worker) is laid off suddenly; or our boss assigns us more work when we already had more than our fair share of work.

Been there. Done that. Got a whole wardrobe of t-shirts.

If you are one of those lucky few, however, that have not had to deal with this, then you must know of people who have lost control of their emotions at work, slamming doors, yelling at co-workers or customers, and saying things they ultimately regret.

We all realize and understand how high people’s elevated emotions can run at the office.

In an ideal world, negative emotions would never seep into our professional lives. Work cannot be built around what we like or do not. My needs and demands, especially emotional ones, might not find any place at work. If they do, and some of them are met, we work at a place that is worth staying at. I know I do. That does not mean, though, that I do not have bad days.

Being emotional, even negatively so, might not be the culprit here. I think it is our incapacity to recognize our reactions as being emotional and controlling them before hurting someone else or, as it happens most of the times, ourselves. We require a calibration and an immense control over our behavior in times like those.

Leaders too make mistakes in this regard. There is belief sometimes that good speeches and an occasional loud cheer can tame and control their team's emotions. That is hardly the case. Peter Drucker had observed many years ago that, there is “so much talk . . . about ‘giving workers a sense of responsibility’ and so little about their responsibility, so much emphasis on their ‘feeling of importance’ and so little on making them and their work important.” He equated all this to a “soothing syrup for irritable children.” Even if it does work, the effect is very temporary and, in the long run, does more harm than good.

An organization cannot, even with the best intentions, create permanent happiness. It cannot, if we do not want it to, curb our negative mindsets into positive energy. We are individually responsible for that. And yes, happiness is an emotion. So is pride in our work. Frustration at failure is a very human emotion (one that should not stay for too long!). We are humans after all, and being emotional at work or otherwise is how we do things.

So yes, I would like to (and I am blessed with one!) have a team of emotional people work with me. I would like them to be happy with themselves and take joy in what they create. I would want them to feel bad when things do not go as planned. I would want them to hate failure.

But, I would also want them to have the sense to take a walk, or talk to someone they trust or go workout or have tea and do whatever it takes for them to not impact themselves and others with negativity.

Lessons for a father - Was that really a favor?

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"Can you do me a favor?", he asked.

"Sure, but in return I would need you to...", I replied.

Do you think whatever was done was indeed what was asked for? The person asked for a favor; he asked me to commit a deed for him. Did I do that? I don't think so. What I did, however, was committed myself to a transaction.

Every action, word or thought seems to have an associated cost. How do we move away from this very transactional way of living to one that allows us to treat each other, not as a prospective sale opportunity, but as an opportunity to bond and be human?

We have trained ourselves to look for profit wherever we can, haven't we?. So how would doing something with no prospect of profitability suit our core need? The order of the day might be to change the core need itself to one that builds relationships and looks at that very human thing as having the highest value.

I have always believed that we fail when we expect. Our intention should be to always act as givers with no intention of receiving anything back for what we do.

Here is my reply then to the question asked in the beginning:

"Sure. I will do anything and everything I can to help.".

Lessons for a father - Do Not Forget. Do Move On.

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Tough week this. Physically and emotionally, it took a lot to get through. It will be sometime before my professional team can get through the toll that last week has taken on us.

Having said that, I do realize, and appreciate, that I work with some very strong people. Their mental strength is par none and if I could choose a team of people to work with, I would not choose anyone else.

No matter what we do, we all deal with adversity. Sometimes, unfortunately, the challenge we face in our fight against adversity is just a bit too much to deal with immediately. It takes time and a lot of effort. Life, however, goes on even while we deal with our misfortune.

So what do we do at times like these? We compartmentalize. We push the thought aside and keep moving forward. Over time, we deal with the repercussions of the event. With time, we learn to accept loss and teach ourselves ways of not getting completely and solely engulfed by the event(s) that transpired. 

Compartmentalization does not make us cold, it makes us human. The idea of carrying, but putting aside, grief or anger for more than a moment, with the intention of forward movement, is what makes us strong. We must realize, however, that the negative impact of the event must be dealt with over time to stop a complete breakdown from occurring.

Adversity meets various reactions from us. We must stop whatever we are doing sometimes. At other times, we need to surround ourselves with our professional or familial teams. Some events might force us to ponder alone. Howsoever we might react, the reaction cannot be deemed wrong. It is how we deal with what life sends our way. Our reaction to situations makes us, us.

Lesson for this father this week; forget or not, cry or not, miss or not, talk about it or not, never allow adversity to take over your being and stop you from moving on.

Lessons for a father - The Idea Of Absolute Independence

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Let us start with a premise. No matter what the reason, all violence - especially one that spills innocent blood, should be abhorred and cannot be justified.

What happened in France this week and in many nations around the globe in the name of the divine, even in God's name, cannot and must not be tolerated. The killing of the Charlie Hebdo  staff by, not the followers of a faith but, terrorists has brought a very opinionated and hardly-ever-united world together. 

It makes me think about the idea of absolute independence though. 

Independence cannot make us insensitive. We are free to say, write and express whatever it is that we want, but it must not come at the cost of someone else's ethos. We love this time where we are free to choose whichever side we want, or no side at all, but respect and tolerance is a two way street and it should be kept that way.

Yes, there are people in the world that can do with a little more tolerance towards others. Yes, there are people that need to understand that they or who they follow is not the target necessarily. Yes, a little more loosening up might be required. Yes. Yes. Yes.

But, those who have the power to do so cannot redefine freedom either. If my faith asks me to cover my face in public, I should have the right to do so without the government telling me otherwise. If my faith asks me to wear a cross around my neck, I should be able to do that. If what I believe in asks me to have a beard, I must be allowed to grow and keep one. 

Freedom and independence do not choose. They are universal and people should stop expecting a homogenous world. There is diversity and context in the world and it is time we accept that.

So yes, I hate the fact that I live in a world where journalists can die because they drew a cartoon of an entity. I also cannot begin to understand a world when deaths, for things much trivial and in numbers much larger, in South and Central America, South Asia and Africa are going mostly unnoticed. Maybe, it is time we woke up and realized that we are connected as human being.

We definitely have a lot to think about this week. In the meantime, yes, Je Suis Charlie but also, Je Suis Anand and Je Suis Ahmad and Je Suis Abraham. Most importanly, Je Suis Human!

Hopefully we all can find peace within us.

Lessons for a father - Circle Or Oval Leadership?

I was spending time with my son and his new found love of play dough when he said something very intriguing. I was supposed to roll his play dough into a ball which, although constitutes a 3 dimensional entity, is still being called a circle. Apparently, what he received was not "circle enough" and so he held it in his hands and said "no circle...oval". He then proceeded to press down on what he now had in his hands (the oval that I had created) to make a circle out of it.

That made me think. How many times do we get an opportunity where we push what we have down to make something else instead of stretching it? Do we, as leaders, utilize our strength to force an "oval" into being a "circle"?

If we were to take a point




The question is this: are you a "push downer" or a "pull upper"?