AI Fears And My POWER - UP Framework To Combat It

Almost every blogger, vblogger, podcaster, columnist and whoever have you, is going literally BALLISTIC with their views on Artificial Intelligence or simply AI, from the time a 'hydra' called Chat GPT surfaced!

Whoa! If one has to go by most of their interpretations, it's almost doomsday around the corner!! It reminds me of those days very long ago when as adolescents, we would shiver and shake whenever accosted by a bunch of soothsayers who'd walk the streets with placards declaring "The World Was Soon Coming To An End". It took quite a few of those declarations over a period of time for it to eventually dawn on us that they were sheer mumbo-jumbo because, as you can see, the world still hasn't come to an end!

That's one of the reasons why I haven't got carried away with so many views expressed on AI so far. Listen, I was born in an era which was still rejoicing the invention of a gramophone. And since then my life, along with a generation of die-hards, have experientially sailed through ever changing ecosystems constantly - a meandering traverse from the gramophone to the iPhone and beyond, if I may say so.

But there always existed intermittent fears with every change that happened. Whether the change was one of a series of inventions - manual typewriters to electronic ones to computers to laptops to typing on just a flat screen or from rickety old manual, non-powered cars to the modern 'zippers' to the electrically operated ones - or whether the change were a series of rapid technological innovations that often led to newly produced products becoming almost operationally obsolete such as the present day mobile phone sets. In whatever form changes happened, YES it was always accompanied with it's fair share of fears of the unknown, undeniably.

But like those silly placards that prophesied doom, no new invention or innovation till date ever doomed our existence personally and professionally. That's because, while we always tend to allow our minds to create 'doomsday mind movies', the intelligence of our logical control battles the change to our entire advantage eventually. And believe me, I've been there, done it and seen it all!!!

So for those of you who are almost drowning in your fears, not of the AI in particular, but of every interpretation of its projected doomsday prophecies floating around in all the social media handles you spend most of your productive time drifting through aimlessly, here's a very practical view from an Old Maverick called the POWER-UP Framework:

The POWER-UP Framework

1. P: PLUG-IN TO YOUR ECOSYSTEM. All of us have this procrastinating tendency not to plug into the ecosystem we exist in. We hate change even though we know at the back of our minds, it's a constant. If you consciously or otherwise keep straying away from closely observing the way it shifts and shakes and not move in tandem with it, you sure are going to get swallowed up by its 'advanced Avatar' sooner or later.
2. O: OPEN YOUR MIND TO CHANGE BEING A CONSTANT. Understand change. Dissolve into it. Becoming one with it. Most often, change is always for the better. Flow with it. Ride on its crest instead of hiding beneath the wave. And watch your mindset grow with it.
3. W: WORK ON SELF-DEVELOPMENT. Dr Carol Dweck, a psychologist professor at Stanford distinguished, quite pointedly between a Fixed Mindset versus a Growth Mindset. She said that a fixed mindset believed that one's basic abilities, intelligence, talents are fixed traits and nothing could be done to change those. Whereas, a growth mindset believed that one's abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. The choice is yours to make.
4. E: EMBRACE NEW SKILLS. In an ever changing ecosystem, you will become redundant if you don't keep Up-Skilling. We don't live in the gramophone era anymore. I realised that decades ago. And since then, I've been constantly Up-Skilling. From a nerd who used to stare at a record spinning on a turntable fascinatingly, to someone who's presently automated his entire set of ventures and initiatives, I'm doing good!
5. R: REPEATEDLY CHANGE YOUR INNER CIRCLE OF CONNECTS. You will always be the average of the five people you mingle with. As you keep riding the crest of change higher and higher, keep connecting with those who are as passionate as you are to be the best version of yourselves. The better the version, the better the growth - personally and professionally.

And here's two more I've added to POWER you UP with:

6. U: ULTIMATELY YOU MATTER. One of the most fascinating lessons my Mum taught me was the importance of a 3 worded sentence: I AM RESPONSIBLE. You are responsible for everything that happens in your life including your failures and successes. No one else really is. So get this straight into your head. You've never ever missed a boat in life. That's because you're the boat. Sinking or staying afloat is your responsibility.

7. P: PEN PROGRESS ON PAPER. Journal, journal, journal. every evening before you tuck into bed, put pen to paper and write out your thoughts. Writing is the slowest medium of communication. And yet, the most powerful when it comes to chatting up with your mind. Write out your failures and your successes for the day. Size yourself up and add a couple of notches above it all to become an improved version of yourself the next day. Add a couple of new 'To-Dos' and you're good to go for another ride on the crest!

Cheers and hell with fears of the unknown...including AI!

Ciao for now!!

Anand Nair

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