Passion to Pressure

In today's world, everyone is mad behind one thing or the other. Someone is crazy about movies while someone is crazy about studies. One paints a lot while one writes a lot; one talks a lot while one speaks a lot. Different people carry different kinds of interests but there is always a limited set of practices that take highest priority in their lives and they go on following them. While doing so, many don't even realise as to why they started prioritizing certain kind of interests more than the others. Over a period of time such interests get converted into passions. Passions start defining a person from then onwards and build the pressure to perform each time.

It's not difficult to develop passion towards something. It happens naturally for every human being. Unfortunately some of the people get into wrong notions of passions and also wrong passions that don't lead them to good progress in life. No matter whether the passion is good or bad, it encompasses us as we spend more amount of time with it. Gradually we start living just to pursue our passions. Passions become the leader of our lives. Passion is what gets us an identity and we wouldn't like to lose respect that's once earned. As a result, performing our passions on a regular basis becomes more of a necessity than responsibility or vested interest. This builds pressure on an individual to perform well each time the audience expects him to do so. This pressure convinces any depressed soul on this planet to launch himself back on the stage and show what he became famous for. This is positive pressure. Pressure is very much required on all of us to perform to our peak levels. Without pressure no one ever gives his/her best. Coal lying under the pressure of the earth's crust for thousands of years finally converts into precious stones called as diamonds. Likewise the passion pressurizes us to work hard to live up to the status of the passion. Under this pressure we become those diamonds which start glittering and emitting light in the form of our passion.

Each one of us is talented in one or the other way for sure. All that we have to do is to explore our hidden treasures in ourselves. The world out there is waiting to see what you have in store for it. People who lack opportunities and resources behold a dream in their eyes that you have the ability to give them freedom from their apathy. You have the responsibility of this universe to make it better. Discover your passion by trying out all that you can get your hands on. You need to search through a million pebbles to find the real pearl. Once you find it, it shall rule your life from then onwards to take it to the best extent possible.

Prompt and instant

Recently, during a book-reading session with my friends, I came across a line which asked, 'How long is your response to stimulus?' The stimulus can be anything that's external or internal. How fast we are in answering the stimulus determines our speed of action. The world is delighted with prompt and instant replies and actions. The slightest delay that we do in our prompt responses results in sowing seed to a disease called procrastination.

 

The general perception of people about others is that people are lazy. Each one has his own set of problems which seem much bigger than that of others. Amidst the chaos that one is going through, it's generally tough to be alert all the times when there is an external calling. It might not just be the problems, even the to-do list of a person might be too long to cater to someone else's calls. Unfortunately, the outside world is completely unaware of the problems that we are entangled in or the tasks that we are entitled to fulfill our duties to. When opportunities knock our doors in the form of others, if we are not prompt in answering them, they move on to the next door without waiting for us. Hence problems or our work can never stand as a reason for not responding promptly to others' requests. On the other hand, if we are prompt in responding to an external request or call or an order, we are respected for our quick responses and opportunities shall follow later.

 

Prompt response does not mean that one has to leave all the tasks at hand and start answering the external request. If each one left their work to fulfill what others ask for, then not even a single work will be completed. Prompt response only means to answer the incoming query and providing a suitable action plan for the same. Once a prompt response is given and an action plan is stated and decided upon for a task, it enters the to-do list of the person and should be done as and when required. However, work will happen only when our responses are instant and prompt.

 

Feel free to throw in your comments here.

26 between 62 and 71

Good morning all! It was one of the most memorable days today in my life. For the first time ever in my life, I was invited as a chief guest for an event for MBA students though I, myself am not a MBA post-graduate. The event was COMMUNION-2013 at Dr. Ambedkar Institute of Technology, an engineering college in Bangalore, India. It was an honour to share the dais with prominent dignitaries who presided over the event. I was invited to deliver an inspirational speech regarding the most pressing topic 'Career opportunities for Management Professionals'. I have been into  my career only about 3.5 years back and here I was to address people about career opportunities. I should thank the hosts for believing that I could pass on some useful information which I graciously accomplished.

 The event started around 9:30 am in the morning with the conventional inauguration speech followed by an invocation song by the students of MBA. Dr. B.R.Dwaraki from RIMS (Ramaiah Institute of Management Sciences) who is a Registrar (evaluations), was the chief guest for the function along with me. Both of us were introduced to the audience. Then it was Sri Dwaraki sir's turn to address the audience of close to 100 MBA students. He was a man with a huge warehouse of knowledge, wisdom and experience. He brought out some of the best excerpts from his past and advised the students as to how they need to be prepared for their future. His speech was highly informative and humourous as well. All the students enjoyed the sense of humour that sir possessed. He addressed about women empowerment and the importance of the role of women in our society which won the hearts of all the girls in the auditorium. He shared some of the most important lessons that he had assimilated from over 4 decades of his experience in his profession.

 

At 11 am, it was time to strike the chord of inspiration and energy and that is when the IU speaker, Mr. Mohan.B.N (not-being-so-modest) was invited on the stage. It was once again a pleasure to address the MBA students after addressing the same stream of students in Krupanidhi School of Management, Adarsh Institute of Management Studies and Sheshadripuram School of Management Studies. I started off with how just 1 or 2 degrees of education can't fetch us our dreams. It requires us to be 360 degrees aware in life in order to materialize every dream of ours into reality. It's not compulsory for students to pick one out of the many career opportunities available in the market. It's up to them to decide what kind of career they want to follow and create an opportunity in that field of passion. It's not compulsory to pursue just one career in life; one can pursue multiple careers at the same time. I shared my own example about how I became a trainer, public speaker, blogger, upcoming author, mentor, counselor etc in last few years of my life just by following my passion and dreams. This session served as the ignition to the weapons of talents that students possessed in them and the purpose of my speech was served. 

 

I would like to deeply thank the management of Dr.AIT, Smt. Pankajakshi mam, HOD of MBA department and Arundati Pai mam for making this event happen and for their utmost hospitality. I also would want to thank all the staff and student coordinators for their amazing contribution and participation. Last but not the least, I would like to thank my entire IU team and my mentor for the amazing support and guidance that they have bestowed on me. As we are towards the end of this post, I want to reveal the secret behind the title of this post. On the stage, to my left was Mr. Dwaraki sir who was 71 years of age and to my right was Mr. Devaraj sir, Chief in-charge of PDP sessions at Dr. AIT who was 62 years of age and I was the young chap seated between these two amazing gentleman, sharing the stage with them as a chief guest at a tender age of 26. I just want to thank the Almighty and my parents for all the blessings that are being showered on me. Thank you God once again!

The blame game

Once upon a time in a village was a farmer who had a goat. He used to take the goat to the farm everyday and tie to a nearby tree and go for his work. One fine day it so happened that the farmer tied the goat to the same tree and went for his work. He had also placed his lunch box near the tree. There was a monkey on the same tree which had observed this routine from a long time. Once the farmer had left from there it went down and took the lunch box. It ate all the curd rice that was in the box. Since the goat was tied to the tree it couldn't help to avoid the monkey from taking the box. After eating the monkey smeared some of the curdrice to the mouth of the goat and went back on the tree top. When the farmer came back he saw that the box was empty and the bits of curdrice on the goat's mouth. He assumed that the goat had eaten the lunch and punished it.

Probably some of you might have listened to this story earlier. The wicked monkey put the blame of its theft on the poor goat by which it ended up on the receiving end of the farmer's rage. I am sure that you might be thinking back those incidents when you were in the place of the scape-goat due to a similar blame-game. In today's busy world everyone is so much engulped in work that twenty fours of a day are insufficient for any person to complete all the work that is assigned to him/her. At the same time one doesn't want to reject the work that comes towards him/her inspite of shortage of resources because every new work is regarded as new opportunities for growth. But when it comes to the failure in performing the work not everyone is ready to accept the responsibility for the same. That is when starts the game of excuses and the blame game. Obviously no one wants to be at the receiving end of the wrath of the authorities. Probably the fear of this is what drives one to enter the blame game. Its a vicious circle which once entered just doesn't allow you to come out of. The blame game continues until the last person doesn't find the next shoulder to transfer the blame on. All I feel is that it just takes away major chunk of your precious time of life.

No wonder that its an impulse to blame that is difficult to avoid sometimes. If you ever blame you don't have to take it too much into heart and feel guilty if you decide to correct the situation. Just explain to the team and person as to why you think so and apologise if the other person felt offended. Plan immediately as to how all of you can collectively get together to solve the pending tasks. Ever if you are on the receiving end of the blame don't allow your anger to block your mind. Just keep your smile on and do the same task of planning to complete the work. This itself will make the other person to take back the blame. At the end of our lives neither will we remember the blame we got or whom we blamed. Lets have sweet memories to cherish forever.
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