Bamboo In The Wind

Oversight is something that is often just felt. It feels reassuring. You are at your best, most productive. Oversight with enough proximity helps secure your perimeter and continue experimentation. And there is adequate space to maintain the sanctity of privacy and freedom. Creativity thrives in an environment that has oversight. The vibrant culture is an outcome of the oversight surrounding the action. It is hindsight, a realization that is institutionalized to become a culture. Someone in your surrounding has to assume the responsibility for providing oversight. Define how far to go. When to stop.  It lifts the spirits, raises confidence, and allows for risk-taking.  Too much oversight creates dependence. Too little of it makes the environment risky. But the right amount of it can surprise you with a stunning performance. The progressive, innovative efforts were the doings of those who conceived them. But they were also the doings of silent oversight the passers-by offered. ...

It is not a surprise that you don't have takers. Work to gain permission from takers had to start a while ago. If you are looking to offer what you have to someone without their prior permission that is unlikely to work. It starts with focusing on the first few you care about and want to help. Knowing that the first few trust you goes a long way. Because you will know that their feedback will likely come from their heart and care for you. If they do not seem to like your work, you better stop and focus on bringing out something else to them. And if they pick up your work and find it to have what they need, you are in the game. It is very likely these few happy campers will bring in a few others to look at your work. Going small audience rather than mass scale is the best way to build connections and gain permission. Building an asset is the best way to get followership. You develop connections and gain trust when the asset is valuable.  If you need takers for what you have now, you...

Versatility shows a willingness to adapt. You are more open to adjusting your ways in concert with the situation. The skills you deploy change as per the mood of the audience and situation. With versatility, monotony vanishes. It is helpful to dent your own image of yourself and show your other sides. You always have them buried under the weight of your expectations. Versatility is evidence of one's creativeness. The ease and speed at which you can seamlessly adapt make you negotiate your own world effortlessly. When you are versatile, your utility tends to be high. You are deemed flexible, and you can fit in more situations than those who are rigid. In times of change where technology brings advancements at a rapid pace, it is hard to keep up with your rigidity. After all, who would want to deal with stagnation, the shrunk pool of opportunities? The rigidity was a good choice when the industrial mindset required your to have predictable work and measurable earnings. In the vastly ...

Have you ever been bullied by the feeling of disengagement? At some point in your personal or professional life, disengagement has run over your enthusiasm for remaining plugged and being part of  constructive action. Disengagement comes from situations you face. You are involved in something with intent and commitment and encounter something bothersome. It is contrary to your belief or does not fit with your effort. You aren't prepared for a roadblock at that juncture. Unable to tackle it, you feel trapped! The reaction is to make do with it.  You sometimes call it a compromise. Ignorance is another one. Letting it be.  In some ways, it is a unilateral walk-out from an unfavorable situation. The hope is by distancing yourself, you can get others to bend backward. To stall them from further action until they notice your pain.  Disengagement is thus a reaction to something hard to resolve on your own. What more? You hope to make others re-engage with you expecting a t...

Endeavor to search for problems and find their solutions is the game everywhere. What about the takers? Their pain points, what ails them, what is hurting them? That is the hard part. Understanding the takers' views and seeing through what provides them the relief is a difficult job. Something that cannot be avoided if the solution has to work. Validating it with a small audience is the way to know that a genuine need is spotted. The problem appears natural, and takers are eager to see someone alleviate their pain. Theoretical problems and launching efforts to solve them have become ever easy. Easy access to capital and stories about the vitalities of why solutions are needed aggravates the problem of unclear problems taking up mindshare. Stories as told in glass houses hardly matter. Often stories are imaginary. They apply to some scenarios but are vastly irrelevant to many others. Early takers are the real deal. They are the ones with real needs. And yet, they are walked over for...

Well, you are not bothered about inconsequential mistakes. Especially one-off, inadvertent human errors that don't harm you. Genuine mistakes. As Confucius, the Chinese thinker, says, "A man who has committed a mistake and does not correct it is committing another mistake." He is right. Mistakes have the potential to harm you. They can sometimes inflict irrecoverable damage.  Many mistakes happen because you are unclear about what you want from life. That is a big unknown most face at some point in their life. You then encounter the expression of insecurity, fear, sadness, unhappiness, anger, stress, and disappointment. The best approach is to respond to the unknown with intent and rigor.  Warren Buffet said, "The best protection against inflation is investing in your skills."  Inflation brings hardships and uncertainty. And having skills positions you to respond. Skills bring new opportunities to achieve what you want from life. Even when odds don't look in...

You have preferences. You have rules. Preferences tend to be a bit softer on you. You act based on your mood. Preferences are flexible. Rules are meant to be obeyed. You make rules because certain things are non-negotiable. One can make rules about anything that supposedly improves their situation. Rules help in breaking undesirable habits.  In the absence of rules, you second guess yourself when faced with temptation. It is easy to fall back on behaviors that are easy and provide instant gratification. In the short run, preferences outweigh. They provide the pleasure of being in the stream with the flow. Comforting self is of utmost importance. Rules are meant to be hard to keep up with. They feel like a tiring swim against the flow. They have the power to hop over temptations. Complying with the rules builds a resilient practice. Rules are the basis for providing structure to anything you do. The right set of rules opens spurts of productive actions with intent. And yet, they sti...

Rush has problems all over it. It is a sign you do not have a clear idea of what you are involved in, where you are in it and how far you are from where you need to go.  You know that you are supposed to be where you need to be, and you are not sure if you can reach there faster. Rushing is a reaction to chaos that arises out of poor planning. Rushing makes you make decisions with a short-term outlook. We think your immediate near-field visibility is the broad picture of what we are set out to do. Feeling the rush? You need to take a deep breath. Climb up the terrace. Look down in your front yard and get a good measure of the chaos in front of your house. Picture yourself in there from a distance. You will notice you are fire-fighting one thing after another. You are trying to win the adjacent without knowing whether that will lead the chaos to stop. Hoping that it will. Take a top view you will notice how poor your battles are. Understand the broad picture and then turn the run in...

It is very satisfying when we get things done. It does not matter if the results were what we needed. We got it done. It's satisfying that we made progress. We moved from an earlier state to a new one. That is what counts. We now belong in the new surrounding. We will now encounter new experiences. We will be received differently in our new position. That is what we needed.  Unlike in a snake and ladder game, we now need to figure out what the next dice roll will be. It sure will bring more surprise, more experience, and more confidence. First, get something done. Now. 

No matter how hard you practice, preparing for primetime requires a composed mind. You need to carry the belief that you have all the tools in your repertoire. Primetime is all about being out there and performing your act in the company of co-participants and audiences. You need to go with an open mind to adjust your performance to tune into the mood of the audience you care about. Adapt if something requires change. Experiment runtime, surprise yourself and others if need be. Enjoy the primetime. Allow for mistakes and embrace adjustments when they do occur.  Primetime is not about winning the performance. It is about showing your best effort. It is also about appreciating that you have the opportunity to seek attention from your audience that came to see the act. They want to see a competent performer. Sure. But they are looking for a connection from someone who understands why they are there. They will be happy that you cared and know what they need and tried to bring some fun,...

You encounter conflicting inputs, events, and actions in self-interest. It moves something with us. We feel bothered. You can shrug them off as none of your business. That only means such acts have the power to continue to affect you sometime in the future. Why might they affect you? Passivity. A passive observer, listener, or actor waiting for a scrip are examples of tendencies of reluctance to engage. Participation against will. Half-hearted involvements. You act reluctantly only when you are cornered. You tend to move when the situation is unfavorably positioned for your well bring, and you feel threatened. Being a passive participant slows us down. We miss opportunities to progress, help, or accomplish. Assertion helps you have active participation. You are respected for voicing your internal feelings. It avoids expressing with a facade. Express a genuine opinion. You learn to see all angles of the argument. Be in others' shoes to know how their view versus yours fits in. Best ...

It is straightforward to respond to what you encounter. So we do. We start the day doing things because it is the norm. Not because it's what we want to do. Social pressures make us act in a certain way. Be the stereotype. And thus, we pick up activities in life or work that slowly become undesirable habits. Distractions are hard to deal with it. Most distractions look like regular activity within a period. We get up at the workplace to have coffee every hour. At home, we like the constant flipping of TV channels. We switch between mobile phones and TV. Consumption of content remains a secondary aspect. We change jobs because we cannot get along. We expect role changes every few months because we don't get the kick from our routine. There are innumerable examples of how we pick up innocuous-looking activities. Often they tell us that we are losing sight of what we are good at. Distraction is the first step toward discontent and dissatisfaction. Distraction begins with internal ...

When you are with others, what you remember is the cordial interactions. This is true when interactions reflect genuine care and concern. Interactions that directly touch on your well-being, what you do, where you are from, and what your interests and beliefs are, what they can do to help you. All such interactions tend to be fulfilling. They try to understand you at your core. Not be judgemental. Not trying to look at you superficially.  The generosity of offering others your attention is a gracious act. It comes from the confidence of having abundance and feeling secure about yourself. On the flip side? You think if you offer yourself too much, you are getting emptied out to your detriment. The gripping fear that you are deprived of focus, priorities, and the fear of falling behind makes you act stingy. You think concessions and the money will save you focus and keep you on track. Often it's not what the others really want. It is also not something that you want. Everyone is just...

Honesty is your virtue. Way of being. It represents a deep and pervasive commitment to seeking out the truth. You can learn to be honest. Experiences tell you when we behave transparently and truthfully, it earns you respect. Shaping your thinking, to be honest is always possible. You can use techniques to learn to see if you respond to situations selflessly.  Being honest means telling the truth. This means avoiding the temptation to refuse mistakes. It also means making sure to volunteer your best behavior.  A large part of demonstrated Honesty comes from your natural inclination. It's the urge that is part of you. Have you ever felt the dither when you try to speak the untruth? You are required to make efforts to be dishonest. You are still tempted to be so. Why is that the case? The path of Honesty requires strong self-belief, producing work, dealing with failures, and establishing your belief system based on experiences. It means you face obstacles, opposition, and reject...

It is simple. Inclusion is an energy booster. The feeling of being part of the community makes us have a relatable seat. Do we need a seat, to begin with? Perhaps we do. Right through upbringing, we tend to look for relevance in our surroundings. In family settings, friend circles, social settings, and professional environments, in all such places, we need a seat at a gathering.  Why? Because it is human nature to be able to associate. We want to be associated at an equal level. Or sometimes, we need to realize the hierarchy. The nature of our association is based on where our seat is.  Interestingly, our position is that of pawns in the game of chess. It is changeable. It depends on our actions (moves). The best part is that the set norms expect positions to be in a certain way. As such, even follow-on actions happen as per the set norm. Position we hold determines the flow of intelligence and communication laterally, top-down, or bottom up. Accommodating is a gracious act of...

At first, it looks chaotic. Pandemic, health care, economic upheaval, changing norms, political uncertainty, disrupting new order, evaporating old structures, educational systems, advancements in medicine, technology, and social interactions. It all looks so confusing.  Increased pace makes everything around us look chaotic. However, if we take a step back, we realize that change is bound to happen. Interdependence only increases when things move in different directions bounded by acceptable structures, organizations, and cultures. One change triggers change somewhere else.  Most often, we can relate to the cause and effect of the changes. Many other times, we need to see the process of change. Unless we trace the links to get to the root event. And until then, a narchy prevails, and fear sets in. We feel clueless. That is precisely the place for someone to volunteer, step forward, be proactive and lead the charge. In a continuously evolving world, with the pressure of dealing...

We have the tendency to wait until late. Play the late-cut and beat the fielder in the cricketing realm. Is that the best approach? In certain situations, it might make sense if there are visible moving parts in front of us. We can usually guess when might be the right time to act.  In uncertain situations, however, making our move too late can be unwise. We think being an early mover will create a poor impression. Poor impression with who? In a perfect world, everyone goes to the length of seeing what we have. However, in a present world of short attention spans, we mostly see instant reactions rather than thoughtful responses. That puts a burden on the creator, entrepreneur, and starter. Will we lose out if we move with work in progress? This is resistance and fear camouflaged in what others might think of us and our work. We must be brave to look at our work thoroughly, with honesty. We must seek the most trusted feedback. Brutally honest inputs are often from those who look at ...

Patience has its own role. It avoids reaction. It provides the necessary pause and helps us see the happenings from a distance. Wait and watch is a good strategy when many things are still in flux. We cannot fathom how forces are still playing out and whether to throw ourselves in the ring or wait for a more appropriate time to do so. When emotions are at play, and the situation is a bit tense with differing/unclear views about the matter at their peak. The wait-and-watch strategy makes everyone put their point of view forward. Letting people express themselves without intervention clarifies the situation faster beyond our imagination! Emotional outbursts must be permitted, for they always represent the first reactions. Observing the situation from a distance has inherent advantages. Level of neutrality sets in. You tend to not take sides and thus become relatively unbiased. Once you are biased and begin the take sides, we are no more neutral.  Wait-and-watch. Offer advice only whe...

Layers are natural. They are the real deal! Layers represent what something is made up of.  Human beings are made up of looks, features, behaviors, emotional experiences, making sense, accessibility, support, extensibility, and integrability. Similarly, products constitute solutions, features, experience, accessibility, support, extensibility, and integrability. Layers tell us about the constitution of something. What something is made up of. Unless we know how to carefully peel the layers, we would not know why something works the way it does. Hastily trying to get to the core of anything means we have not peeled each layer and inspected its attributes. Attributes tell us the importance of the layer above and beneath.  Layers educate us on the years of the process that built that layer. It is a reflection of experiences. Layers are formed after years of hardships, pain, exposure to good and bad experiences, fights, skirmishes, wins, satisfactions, and injuries. The layer repr...

T he beauty of calibration is that it clearly tells us that we are at a stage after finding something imperfect. It also acknowledges that you can tune up to reduce imperfection. Calibration represents an opportunity to spot an inadequacy and tune the solution until we are sure of its usefulness. The calibration process teaches us that it is ok to iterate on the solution until it is close to a state of proper utility. State of equilibrium.  Calibration is using feedback and bringing anything close to the desired concept of a perfect model. Doesn't Innovation involve iterating and improving something? Innovation often needs iteration a thrives on the process of calibration. Innovation can work only when something exists with imperfection and needs a change to improve utility.  We bring changes to things we do for a better, more accessible, and more efficient experience. Calibration means an adjustment. It moves us in an improved direction.  It makes you pause and inspect. ...

You often do not see the desired effect of what you are working on.  There could be innumerable reasons why things do not work out. It could be that there are no takers for what you produced. You misjudge what the market needs and what you created.  There could be other reasons. Poor quality of work, Poor experience, Others outdid you, etc. The reason efforts did not work could also be because of poor experience of human interaction when the recipient tried to use what you had.  The reasons could be many. However, your understanding of reality must be uniform. Something needs fixing without which wholehearted acceptance is unlikely to come. Often persevering despite failure could be a valuable trait as long as we realize that the cause is worthy and pivoting to adjacent areas provides new hope and signs of acceptance. Sometimes wasting efforts in fixing something for little gain might be counterproductive. Then cutting our losses is a good call. Closing out lost causes op...

Sometimes coercion is used to get things done. Coercion thrives on getting things done by force and threats. We think the position of authority requires us to ensure results at any cost. Coercion is a way to get results but perhaps not the best way to lead anything. Beware of using coercive methods to get meaningful work done! Coercion has the side effect of creating an environment of mistrust, discontent, or deceit. Can emotional outbursts be used as a coercive practice to get your way? It seems that emotional outbursts are often based on self-interest. Inflicting pain on self can mean others give in to their positions. Coercion always leaves a bad taste. There is a place for Coercion when someone is unwilling to listen to facts about extreme situations that can adversely affect others. In all other places, Coercion has no place. It is best replaced by Agreement. Agreements are influential. It reflects adequate inclusion of opinions and inputs. It shows everyone is taken into confiden...

Bringing something differentiated usually requires a unique approach more than building something new. We often think differentiation should mean something new. What if we got something different and yet if it is not new? New to us may not mean new to others. What we see as new may just reflect something others already know but have not cared to pay attention to. Thus newness might mean something different after all. Uniqueness might show up in the approach, the difference in how something is done, how something works, or something is organized, measured, or even cataloged. New might represent something that could have been done but was missed. Differentiation comes from carefully noticing that if something is approached in a way that people will want it. If we get acceptance, we have created something of value. Value stems from how people saw it and liked it. Differentiation adds connection. People connect because of a refreshing perspective on what often existed before. Different per...

If you believe that success comes from luck, then beware! There is a place where luck plays a role, for example, in health matters, natural calamities, or accidental events stemming from situations beyond your control. In almost all other aspects, fortune favors those who act consistently. There is nothing else that puts you in an advantageous position. Actions have the power to provide small reliefs. Smaller wins. Often unnoticeable, yet over time they start to mean something. Signs of positive feed are often weak.  They are sort of weird realizations of something being different. We might brush aside those in disbelief. Such is your response to anything feeble. If you keep your actions, you will see the signal getting clearer. You will then recognize that something is different. In fact, the change in energy level might be the first response to continued positive feed. Once you start feeling the feed with identifiable changes around us, belief sets in. You start finding the reaso...

In professional life, clinging to ideas, efforts, and roles at any cost is counterproductive.   It shows over attachments, unreasonable expectations, and a desire for control over outcomes. Have you ever noticed what went on in your mind while we cling on? Then, we work against our intuition, evidence, and support even when the situation is hopelessly against progress. Clinging on indicates waiting until it is too late or refusing to accept that energy spent clinging on does not yield any benefits. The opposite of clinging on is to adapt and change the direction. Embracing change provides hope to you and those with you. A sense of confidence builds up about new possibilities. It generates revitalizing support to march in a new direction. Sometimes letting go is the best way to unentangle from inaction. It's freeing and creates a force to produce new energizing actions.  Proof of the pudding is in eating.

It's usually hard to embark on a journey. Embarking requires a strong desire and guts to deal with uncertainty. It also needs the initiative to sort out how to march - a plan. Embarking depends on the story we tell ourselves. A positive story or a negative one. A positive one may not turn into a reality, but it provides the necessary motivation to keep going and the self-assurance required if we run into a stumbling block.  Conversely, a negative story can potentially freeze us from acting. It feeds us with resistance and reasons to find ways against acting. On the other hand, stories are reflections of our inhibitions and self-doubt that stem from fear of the unknown. Sidestepping our inhibitions is futile. We must see them in the face, confront and find a believable story that makes us move. There will be occasions when we feel hopeless, out of ideas, and out of luck.   Stories are rooted in our experience. We just need to inspect the stories we tell ourselves. We must also ...

Curiosity is the reason you find sweet spots. It surfaces problems that remain unaddressed. It uncovers the hurdles that lie in the path of making something easy. It provides you the reasons why no one tried to solve such problems. With a curious mind, you have a good chance of finding potential problem space and possibly why you will make progress where others only see hurdles. Curious mind opens you to possibilities. It offers challenges worth taking on and provides motivation to keep going.

Dread running into bumps?  If your plan, idea, or art does not involve any significant bumps in moving forward, it's probably not worth it. In fact, if there were no bumps, everyone would do it. It's a good idea to pursue a path where you see and understand the significant bumps that kept others away.  Bumps are usually not a problem; they are often a feature.

We take advantage of situations, decisions, and interactions when we see the benefit. That is capitalizing something to our advantage. We can continue to realize the benefits if we are in a similar position repeatedly. Clearly, the key is to learn to see the benefit. Benefit does not mean self-gain like instant gratification. The benefit often goes beyond the immediate gain. It provides a longer-term outlook on who we are and what we need.  When we learn to find what to capitalize on, we quickly start building new skills that beef up our ability to do solid, fulfilling, rewarding work. We begin to capitalize when we learn how we make decisions. Situations and interactions bring unknowns. How we process unknowns and clarify them puts us in a position of benefit.  When we learn to put ourselves in a position to benefit regardless of the circumstances, we have learned to capitalize on actions that support our cause. Ruthlessly inspect what stalls us. Detect what to capitalize on ...

Failure is often a reflection of mismatched expectations. We expect to accomplish something without fully knowing what it will take us to achieve it. Fear sets in when we find ourselves away on the path of achievement. We fear because we will likely miss a given commitment. We fear that we will look unreliable to others. Fear sets in because we think we are letting ourselves down. Not achieving something is not a failure.  Giving up is a failure. Failure has the power of freezing us. It makes us inactive. When something looks hard, it's best to break down the problem into something small that we can understand. When we can create smaller actionable steps, it has the potential to unfreeze us. It allows us back into the game. Fear vanishes when we start to solve smaller pieces of the puzzle. We don't have to focus on the complexity. Instead, we need to focus on what is doable. Focus on what is required in the present circumstances. Calibrating expectations to real us takes away t...

We decide what our goal is and how we intend to reach it. We decide the compromises we are willing to make to reach that goal. We decide every day how much time we are willing to work to reach it. And how many weeks and months. We decide how we will seek help when we are not making progress. We decide when to praise ourselves for the work done, and we lament ourselves when we find our work is not up to the mark. We decide our pay raises, our holidays, and our working weekends. We decide what to do to unblock the days, satisfy the customers or attract an employee. We are the decision-makers. Most often, we know how to take instructions from others. What if we make a mental switch. For once, if we stop taking instructions from others and do what they want. And instead, we do what we decide to and want to. It is a fulfilling gamble to go from working for someone else to working for ourselves. We just need to know what it entails.