Business to the Buddha

Tag: consistency

  • Don’t be empathetic







    Do an experiment – do not empathize with people. I mean try this, when you are talking to someone or listening to someone just do not empathize. Just listen as if the other person is talking to a stone.Be completely disinterested. Than once the person is through with his/her blabbering just reflect, reflect that the person is/was in this mood or that mood. Continue doing this experiment for few other people. You would realize that this other people or persons are in some mood. You are just “a third party” “an observer”. In some time you would realize that people fall in different mood segments. Our mood changes and therefore we move from one segments to other.

    I was doing this research on relationship between Indian Classical Music and Yoga. In that research I came across music therapy and color system’s relations with it. Each color reflects a different emotion, Ragas do the same. Each Swar of Indian classical Music is associated with a Chakra in human body. These chakra’s have an associated color too. This research made me connect a couple of things. Approach note here. Ragas are called Colors of life that is emotions.

    Each color reflect an emotion, each one of us reflects an emotion. When you observe people disinterestedly (here I have called it without empathy) you would observe people are reflecting a particular emotion or color.

    Now look back – before that person came to you, were things different? Things were same – air was flowing, sun was shining, perhaps it is/was raining, birds chirping.  The nature did not differentiate before that person came to you and after that. It is only you who (if empathize with other person) change your mood. Observe around you the world is same whatever you think, feel or do. That is being consistent (in Hindi – eksar). Related blog – Swasthay – dwelling in oneself.

    We are like a Prism. A “consistent” sunlight falls on it and it scatter the color components of sunlight.

    http://chipl.edublogs.org/files/2010/11/Reverse-light-spectrum-yy6cje.jpg

    We also scatter our mood in surrounding. Otherwise place (space) is consistent. The color can be a rage – red color or a serenity – blue color. We should strive to be a “combination Prism” which reflect light without scattering it. (Image source)

    I say – be empathetic but do not get rundown by the emotions of others. That would be being Swasthay – dwelling in oneself.

    Disclaimer –
    1. The Author does not endorse “being non-empathetic”. The author is trying to make a point “assuming” if we do not empathize for this experimental purpose we would be able to understand that nature does not change if we are in one mood or the other. Nature is consistent with itself (as Sunlight). We are the Prism which reflect particular color of the consistent sunlight.
    2. Most importantly – author does not preach and does not believe he is someone who should preach.

  • Learn Non Stop, continued…







    In continuation of my earlier blog on the mistakes I made in my MBA and what I learnt, I received responses from my friends specially would want to mention two here – Sanjan and Prof Subba Iyer. Thank you both for taking time and responding to me. I talked to Sanjan and here is what he wrote to me (I liked it and asked if I can post that on my blog?), so here is what he write – …I have always believed that every mistake you make in your life is like a beacon which guides you constantly on to the right path; the only condition being you got to interpret that beacon in a correct way and bingo! There comes into play your prudence and judiciousness.

    Thank you Sanjan for the kind words. So here are next few mistakes and what I learnt from them.

    7. In management nothing is black and white (especially in marketing, the engineering mind with numbers always thinks in binary); learn to differentiate between gray and grayer (Prof Lopez, had a tough time teaching me – an engineer – this thing)

    8. Try to do the most challenging thing. I always thought since I didn’t watch TV for many years now, I cannot help making good advertisements. In the class of Prof Sohan Shah (Marketing Communication) making advertisement concept used to be a challenge and I used to shirk by doing other team assignments. The very next week of the end of Marketing Communication course our team (Ankit Jain, Kaushik Deb, Sandeep Shukla and I) was adjudged second-runner in Ad Mad competition.

    The reason I believe is, there was just one thought in our mind, we have to do this no matter what. We saw other teams making far better videos and we knew our team does not stand a chance in terms of videos, yet there was only one thought in our mind – we will stand there and present what we have in our mind. Thanks to the Branding Club (Swyl Saksena, Sahil Lihala and Neha Saini) you helped me imbibe a lesson.

    9. Consistency, this was the reason for being judged as the second runners in the event. Consistency matters in day-to-day life too. It does not mean that one has to be consistent wherever he/she is, consistency means improving consistently

    10. However small is the idea, stay with it, nurture it and try to explore possibilities. Our team (Neha Om, Murtaza Bakir, Shafaat, Tarun Kushwaha and I) worked on a business plan which prima-facie was “hum!”, “ok”, “yes we can think of this” at last won best business plan in an open competition

    11. Whenever something goes wrong; review, review and review what went wrong? Mistakes are the best tools to learn.