Switch From 'I Was' To 'I Am' For Success!

Monday Morning Mantra - Silence and the Inner Being

Vishu Greetings and an Inspirational Story

Happy Vishu to all my friends and your loved ones!

For those of you who are feeling down in the dumps due to the ‘uncertain’ times we’re going through…here’s a little inspiration on this blessed day.

Someone once said that in the jungles of Africa when a lion wakes up he knows that he will have to run faster than the fastest deer to satiate his hunger. In the same jungle when a deer wakes up it knows that it has to outrun the fastest lion to remain alive!

The moral of the story according to me is: Life is full of uncertainties. Don’t waste your time suffering from a paralyses of analyses of what’s happening around you. Instead concentrate on developing an amazing mind and body.

And whether you wake up every morning as a lion or a deer, start running before someone steals your thunder away from you!

The Sledgehammer's Edge

The Sledgehammer’s Edge is a moving story about how one can use the several Powers of the Universe to successfully achieve every dream in one’s life and create amazing masterpieces for the world to enjoy.

It is because we think, we exist and not the other way around. The very content of our thoughts dictate the standards of our existence. We have a choice in every moment of our lives to either be a victim or a winner! The story entwines itself around a young boy whose personal and professional dreams are turned into reality by a man who makes him recognize the inner strength he has by surrendering to the Universe and all its Powers embedded within his inner Being.

This book takes you on a path of realization of the enormous powers that lie within you to be exemplary in every walk of life. Hence, this book is not necessarily entrepreneurial in nature, but deals immensely with the Soul, Mind and Body and how they subtly relate to each other in creating masterpieces in whatever one does, both personally and professionally.

Leadership is not about leading a group of people or an organization to success but living a life delightfully and living it from the very core of one’s inner being without being prejudiced by the fears of the unknown influenced by one’s external experiences.

Written in the simplest form of narrative, this book will tug at your conscience and lead you to believe, just as Raj, our protagonist did in the Powers of The Universe. I have written this book in a simple and uncomplicated language flow so that anyone, across the world who reads it, will be able to understand each and every paragraph crafted by me.

Aatmashin

Welcome back to my world!

The enigma of life is a ceaseless transitory of the combined forces of reality and the metaphysical. And while we wander through our lives living each moment in the best manner deemed by us, we cannot divorce off our existence from the three most important dimensions of our lives: the Mind, Body and Soul.

The Koi Fish:

A Kaleidoscope of several positive characteristics. Beautiful creatures known for being courageous and to fearlessly face challenges in turbulent waters. Their determined nature embodies both creative self-expression and a fighting spirit enabling them to stand out from the crowd. The Koi fish inspires one to remain focused and to succeed with grace and style.

The Yin and Yang:

Yin and Yang is perhaps the most known and documented concept used within Taoism. The symbol is a philosophy of chaos and harmony.  The cyclical form of the Yin-Yang symbol reflects the ever-changing complimentary movement of the two sides. They are two sides to a coin, birth and death, night and day, friends and enemies, light and dark, fire and water, positive and negative…where both aspects are necessary and an equilibrium is sought. Essentially, Yin-Yang conveys the complicated dualities of life and the paramount need for balance and moderation.

The AUM:

AUM (and not OM as is often mistakenly pronounced obliterating its actual spiritual sound vibration) symbolizes the Prana or life breath which runs through one’s body bestowed by the Parabrahman. As per our ancient Vedas, AUM is the conglomerate sound of the creative, preservative, and dissolving vibrations of Nature. “A (Akaara)” represents the vibration that brings into manifestation the created universe; “U (Ukaara)” represents the vibration that preserves the creation; and “M (Makaara)” represents the destructive vibration that dissolves the manifested universe back into the Infinite Spirit. Sometimes, if we sit very quietly, we will hear the sound of AUM, like a distant cosmic hum. Listen within you. It is not outside you. It is you!

The Weeds:

Graceful and beautiful. Yet can entangle, suffocate and destroy life especially those that meander through them. They exist in abundance constantly encasing in an attempt to mentally and physically imprison individuals with their toxicity.

The Water Bubbles:

The Water Bubbles are a combination of relaxation, peace and constant progress unhindered by the weeds it passes through. While it emanates from the bed of the sea, it can only move upwards to the surface. In our lives, no matter what the challenges, self-progress will remain a constant upward movement if one exists influenced exclusively by one’s Inner Being and not perturbed by the chaos in our external environment. In addition, the water bubbles’ journey from the seabed to the surface also signifies a journey from birth to death eventually leaving behind our physical existence and conjoining with the Universe just as the air inside the bubble does on reaching the surface of the sea. Thus symbolically bubbles denote many things: life, creation, the body, soul, illusion, form, impermanence, freedom, vulnerability, subtle world, and a dream.

The Aatmashin is an expression that was created by me to relate to the various facets of our lives that readily exist deep within our Inner Being and in our External that eventually form a collective inclusivity for a blissful and harmonious actuality.

www.anandknair.com

The StartUp and the concept of ICE

Collaborative Leadership

Lakshman Ganiger – An Artist in search of his Highest Possibility!

Welcome back to my world!

It was an early Sunday morning, while jogging through the pristine landscape of my favourite Cubbon Park in Bangalore that I chanced to happen to almost wiz past a wall that displayed a series of beautifully painted watercolor illustrations mounted on simple black rectangular cardboards. I immediately slowed down and came to an absolute halt. Creatively done paintings in pleasing colours, hues and shades spread breathtakingly across a large  expanse of the wall. Impressed, I just had to the meet the artist and searchingly looked around till I finally located him lovingly caressing a couple of his creations!

Lakshman Ganiger was a 21 year old passionate young artist whose welcoming eyes twinkled with enthusiasm while his warm smile spread charmingly across his face as I introduced myself. He was happy to talk to me for a while and we settled ourselves down on the grass verge close to the Bandstand.

Lakshman and his family hailed from a small village named Kurchi close to Belgam in the north of Karnataka. Born to a poor family, his father was an arts teacher and, quite obviously, he seemed to have become a chip of the old block. While as a child he had dabbled with his father’s paints, he had never taken his talent seriously till much later when he realised that formal education in any other subject than art was not his cup of tea.

While as a young child artist he had won several prizes for his paintings in local competitions, it was when he won the prestigious Pratibha Puruskar Award at the age of 15 when he seriously started contemplating on furthering his natural dexterity in his inborn forte. It was his father who eventually encouraged him to enrol himself in a course in Visual Arts for a better understanding of this medium.

As we sat engrossed in conversation, I realized it was a wonderful journey I had embarked upon with him: a depiction of what art meant to an artist. To Lakshman art was about totally dissolving oneself into ones creative existence within the mind which ultimately would catalyse the process of crafting the definitive creation. Painting, unlike most other forms of art has no sound or vibrations. It only has a visual impact and communiqué. And this is why he believes that painting is one of the most powerful mediums of self-expression.

 

In addition, Lakshman also believes that there is an artist in everyone. It all depends how deep you seek within yourself to find it. He also believes that art is a natural talent and one should not entirely depend upon a teacher to nurture it. One should not imitate or follow another artist’s style of expression or else one will lose one’s own individualistic articulation and will merely become a clone of another.

Apart from his passion for art, Lakshman also has a strong faith in the fact that everyone can achieve their dreams no matter what it takes. While in the National Cadet Corps during his teens, he had noticed that many of his colleagues who dreamed of finally joining the Defence Services gave up their aspirations because of personal or monetary pressures. This led him to create an association which he termed as the ‘Roaries’ whose tagline was: Stop killing your Dreams! Through this association, he and his team members have helped the youth to take their first few steps onto the trail of finally achieving their desired goals in life, including a future Olympics hopeful in rifle shooting!

Lakshman’s  true concept of Leadership is to be absolutely conscious of every moment that one exists in. And not only to be conscious but to exclusively exist in each moment and attempt to create each and every moment into a masterpiece of one’s expression!

Finally, as the sun rose higher into the morning sky, I asked Lakshman what his final goal in life could conceivably be. His eyes took on an expression of mixed enthusiasm and determination as he looked at me and said, “I want to reach my highest possibility as an artist and yet I have no idea how or when that will ever happen. But I will never ever give up and will keep practising till the day I achieve it!”

And then with a twinkle in his eyes he further added, “But the real question is: when I finally achieve my highest possibility, will that be the ultimate or will there be an even higher possibility to achieve?!”

Lakshman Ganiger. Age 21 years. In search of his highest possibility. I looked up at the Universe and smiled…

Anand K Nair

Leadership Coach. Motivational Speaker. Life Counsellor. Author. Business Consultant.

Founder,

Anand Nair Leadership Foundation

Email: anand@anandknair.com

www.facebook.com/anandnairleadershipinitiatives

Author of: The Sledgehammer's Edge

On Love and Bonding!

Welcome back to my world!

It was a chilly Diwali morning as I sat on my balcony with my regular cup of green tea after my usual workouts. Across my apartment existed a fairly large expanse of a roughly walled piece of land occupied by a sole caretaker and his family of three residing in a hut surrounded by a meagre growth of daily necessities including a couple of banana and papaya trees, two cows and a scant number of chickens. The rest of the topography was a miniature jungle of sorts but pleasing to the eye considering the neighboring concrete expanse.

It was the dawn of the Festival of Lights, an occasion where families of traditional orientation wake up much before twilight, vigorously rub themselves from head to foot with oil, bathe, pray, joyfully burst crackers and usher in with the rising sun victory of good over evil, light over darkness and knowledge over ignorance. However, in our modern day ‘simulated’ existence the average urban family wakes up to a combination of hangovers over the previous night’s exultant unbottling of spirits while chucking around playing cards over a crowded table, checking of messages and emails on their smart phones, or better still digging their heads back under their pillows and extending their nap time till lunch!

And since I had participated in none of the above and instead, done my regular thing every morning, I was blissfully reclining in my cane chair and sipping out of my teacup when quite suddenly the door of the caretaker’s hut flew open and out burst the family in absolute wild abandon laughing away to glory. Obviously this caught my immediate interest and I couldn’t help but focus my entire attention to what had begun to unfold before my eyes.

Father, mother, daughter and son held each other swaying gently to the chants of a prayer being sung by them while facing the rising sun from the east. Once this ritual was over it was time for the next which was the oil bath. Both son and daughter seized the oil bottles from their mother’s hands and started smearing oil, most lavishly, over their parents’ heads as they sat quietly on a few stones wholly enjoying the massage. It was then the children’s turn and positions were switched interspersed with much giggling and playful ‘smacks’ from their mother. This was then followed by a cold water bath which was exuberantly accomplished by pouring water on each other from an old blue cistern followed by warmly rubbing each other with a couple of thin cotton towels and then turning back to the sun in a final salutation before hugging each other tenderly and re-entering their hut.

And then there was silence for a while before the family came out once again joyfully lighting up a few sparklers while the chickens ran amuck.

As I sat sipping the remnants of my green tea, this visual encounter I had just witnessed repetitively played within the portals of my mind. What an amazing experience! It took me back several decades when, as a young boy I had been part of such similar rituals. A period when our lives were untouched with cybernetic influences but filled with practical moments of value, love and bonding. Value, Love and Bonding which were expressed through thoughts, words and deeds. Not through simulated creations that merely required one to express oneself through an oblong pad of alphabets. But through a desire to communicate one’s deepest feelings of adoration and respect through physical touch and expressions that only a pair of eyes and a smiling mouth could emulate.

I also realized what an amazing show of parental Leadership I had just witnessed! Keeping the family fused with traditional values and ever-bonding love while respecting each other’s individual freedom requires humongous understanding and patience by parents. And all this while ensuring relationships within the family never become estranged.

This was a morning I knew I would remember for a long while. A morning that was so delightfully extraordinary. A morning that forced me to reflect momentarily on the past and the way we existed today. And yet a morning that was wonderfully spiritual and festive!

I stood up from where I was sitting and wondered why my throat felt a bit choked and my eyes just a tad watery…

Anand K Nair

Leadership & Motivational Speaker. Mentor. Counselor. Author. Business Consultant.

Founder,

Anand Nair Leadership Foundation

Email: anand@anandknair.com

www.facebook.com/anandnairleadershipinitiatives

Author of: The Sledgehammer's Edge