Enlarge. Excel. Evolve.

Excess of everything is bad including excess of goodness and excess of intelligence. These days, I am really tired of my Monkey Mind. One moment this monkey mind is in the past, next in the future and if forced, then only it is back to the present moment. Bloody hell! it is always looking for an excuse (the way MBAs look for an excuse to jump from one job to another) to jump from past to future, one idea to another, jumping from India to US, from US to France and then from France to Pondicherry city, from Pondicherry to New Delhi. Oh my God, how can someone hop so fast? It can jump from East to West as if there was no culture and climate difference. Now I understand why it is going bonkers. After all, how can one adjust so quickly from the London chill to the Delhi heat, it’s not even taking time to acclimatize? The funniest part is even when I am writing an article on, “Living in the moment,” it just notices the word moment and jumps to remember some beautiful moments of the ...

As soon as a friend saw, I was sitting on my desk, writing on love and leadership, he immediately objected, “Why are you mixing oil and water? There is absolutely no relationship between love and leadership.” I was equally firm, “Open the parachute of your mind, my dear. Love is the highest ideal of leadership. It is difficult to mix them of course but they are like a husband and wife who become the most compatible after the long battle during the honeymoon is over” We tend to have narrow definition of love (and Valentine’s Day) equating it with man-woman or life partner emotion. But love is the essence of spirituality, once you understand the unity and oneness of humanity, you discover the bond of love which connects us. Love means care, it means warmth, it means nurturing, affection, trust and so on. Four well known international leaders who have written on love and leadership include Janiece Webb, (Sr VP, Motorola, USA), Lars Kolind (CEO, Oticon, Denmark), NS Raghavan, (Jo...

Many people believe the key to their success can be easily found in one simple answer. They spend their time chasing rainbows, looking for the Holy Grail, feeling certain there is a missing piece needing to be found. Millions of dollars a year are made by “experts” professing they have found this proverbial key to success. Scan the bookstore and you’ll find books on how to dress for success, how to become a millionaire, how to take your business global, how to …….? If it were really this easy, shouldn’t one manual cover everyone’s path to success? Really, what all these experts are telling you is how they individually found their own way. Yes, these books can inspire and lend ideas, but really our job is to marry our individuality to our success. Each one of us has our own strengths, passions, skills, talents, and behaviors that are uniquely ours. Instead of looking outward for that quick fix, go inward. Discover your own uniqueness, then explore how it can work for you. In other words...

Patience is a form of peace, the very result we so often seek but struggle finding. When we are patient, we are still. We are at rest. We are resting in peace – a term we might want to use more often with people who are actually alive in spirit. Patience is a virtue. It is a gift we give ourselves and one another. It is abundant and infinite. There is no limit to patience. It puts us in touch with the eternal now, the endless moments of truth. How often do you hear someone say they do not have time to do certain things that are healthy and productive, like reading enlightening books, listening to inspirational music, looking at illuminating works of art, exercising, meditating, relaxing, or simply enjoying the moment? What better time to do some of these things than when we might otherwise be practicing impatience? Patience is a healthy state of mind, a wise alternative. Impatience is not. It has nothing to do with the physical body. It is purely a state of mind, a matter of perspecti...

When people face change, there is often a tendency to resist. Why is this? What is it about change that people resist? Or is it really “change” that we resist at all? Could it be something else? After all, people do not resist a pay increase? Nor do people resist changing clothes, changing menus, changing jobs or changing lifestyles. We tend to vote for change at the polls. Nearly every candidate runs a campaign focusing on change. We change our minds and we change our moods, often daily and without effort. In fact, our bodies are designed for change, effortlessly. Nature is all about change. Do you think grass has to try to grow green? So if it is not change that we resist, what is it? The answer is deceivingly simple; it is a negative “perception” of change, held in mind and driven by a fearful ego. If we see the change as negative or overly disruptive, we tend to resist. If we see it as positive, we tend to accept it. This is a powerful and significant force. Our perception influenc...

The Ring of Inner Peace How long has it been since you held a negative thought or responded in a critical way? Think carefully. Consider all situations: a traffic jam, a slow computer, an unfriendly neighbor, a demeaning boss, a loss of money, an excessive bill, an ache or pain. Do you find that you experience criticism and judgment frequently? Do certain people and situations tend to annoy you? Are you someone who gets agitated and stressed often? We all have “tests” like these to pass, sometimes daily and frequently hidden in disguise. It is one of the great wonders of life as spiritual beings in human form, fearless souls bound by fearful, negative ego thinking and doubt. As human beings, we feel anxiety and stress when we fear the future and we feel grief, guilt and remorse when we hold thoughts of doubt or regret about the past. These thoughts of fear and doubt aiming at a time other than the eternal now weigh us down and distract us, often manifesting into the very results we wis...

From Egopreneur to Entrepreneur to Ultrapreneur TM Today there is a 95% failure rate with entrepreneurial businesses. Depending on who you talk to, there are many different ideas as to why they fail. These ideas are based on that person’s background, experiences, education, bias, and so forth. There are thousands of books on how to be a successful entrepreneur and just as many workshops and seminars. If there is a secret to entrepreneurial success they would all be saying the same thing. They aren’t... The good news is that most entrepreneurs don’t know what they are getting themselves into when they start a business. The bad news is that most entrepreneurs don’t know what they are getting themselves into when they start a business. Very few of them have any business knowledge. They don’t understand business. There are multiple dynamics working simultaneously within a business. The business owner starts out being excited about a product or service they want to sell, and that’s it. I ca...

Two Perspectives on the fear of criticism ‘Two perspectives’ is a new monthly column with two different perspectives from two different continents and cultures on the same topic viz.  from Janet Smith Warfield (based in Florida, USA) and  Dr Amit Nagpal (based in New Delhi, India). Janet Smith Warfield’s Perspective  When I am afraid of criticism, who is the critic: the person out there or the person in here?  When I was fifteen, I overheard a classmate call me “queer.” It felt like a knife through my heart.   I could only think that there must be something dreadfully wrong with me. I was different. Boys rarely asked me out. I wasn’t part of the clique. I liked school and wanted to learn. I got good grades. My parents adored me and my teachers praised me as one of their better students.  Many of my classmates had abusive parents, hated school, hated homework, cracked jokes, gossiped, clowned, dated, and got drunk. ...

Brenda, tell me about Life Coaching and what kind of life coaching do you offer? The type of life coaching I offer is group life and career coaching facilitated in personal growth workshops that are engaging and fun!   The group interaction creates a dynamic synergy, and the experiential process is an empowering one filled with discovery about self and others.   I love what I do! My particular designation is that of Life Skills Coach , with university training based on the Saskatchewan NewStart model, whose founders “saw Life Skills as an important historical step leading to social advancement”, ( The New Dynamics of Life Skills Coaching , 1995 ).   Life Skills training has roots dating back to 1964 and was first introduced in an anti-poverty NewStart training program (Adkins and Rosenberg) approved in 1966.   Brenda, tell me something about the Life Skills Model? The Life Skills Model is first “a theoretical model, which has a basis in modern psychology and adult...

Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful mothers of the world. One of the proudest moments of my life has been when one of my students called me ‘Walking Encyclopaedia’ Whatever little I have achieved in my life, the credit goes to my habit of reading books, my spiritual practice and my strong academic foundation. All the three are gifts of my mother though I often had unrealistic expectations from her and that’s why there were huge ups and downs in our relationship. The saying goes, “God could not be everywhere so he made mothers” but I believe god is everywhere and yet she/he needs the help of mothers to do her/his job. We have the highest expectations from both God and mother. After seeing the Hindi film, ‘God tussi great ho’ (God you are great) I have developed sympathies for both God and mother. We are so unrealistic in our expectations from God and mother and yet when it comes to our duties, we take them for granted. The mother is also our first teacher. ...

Change the character, not just the personality “The most important ingredient we put into any relationship is not what we say or what we do, but what we are. And if our words and our actions come from superficial human relations techniques rather than from our own inner core self, others will sense that duplicity. We simply won't be able to create and sustain the foundation necessary for win-win relationships. " Stephen Covey "Human Revolution" term was first used by Mr Josei Toda, second president of the Soka Gakkai International, Japan to describe the process by which individuals -gradually expand their lives, -conquer negative and destructive tendencies, and -ultimately make the enlightened state their dominant life-condition Let’s try to understand Human Revolution from another perspective - changing our character, not just the way we project ourselves. The word “character” comes from a root word that means “to engrave,” and we are, in fact, the engravers of ...