Professional musings of an Old Maverick - Part IX

Business Development ‘Gladiators’ – Triggering the real YOU!

Part – IX

Professional Attributes to become awe-inspiring Business Development Gladiators!

Welcome back to my world!

In our previous journey we had talked about how important it was for BDEs to carefully plan and prepare before they decide to meet their clients. This, as explained earlier, would make that big difference between embarking on a very long term relationship with your client or being shown the exit door!

On this journey, we will explore the next two Professional Attributes: The Introduction and Probing.

 The Introduction:

This is when you get to meet your client for the first time. Needlessly to say, the Introduction is the first step towards building up a relationship with your client and needs to be taken very seriously. You will be trying to traverse a ground that you will have to finally shape from initial familiarity to bold professional bondage. And this depends majorly on how well prepared you are to meet the client (refer previous blog: Part VIII).

Please don’t ignore the old saying: The first impression is the last impression! If you are unable to impress your client in the very first few moments of your meeting, it could well end the relationship permanently. Here are a few hints to impress:

1.  Attire: Do not where any attire that is remotely outlandish. You aren’t headed for a party! Wear simple business outfits that enhance your image as a professional. Your face is the first thing your client is going to see. Keep your hair combed back neatly; your eyes warmly expressive and wear a broad reassuring friendly SMILE!

2. Body Language: Don’t meet your client with a put-on swagger or looking like you’re just about to enter a boxing ring! Walk up to him with measured, unhurried steps steeped in confidence. Shake his hand warmly while introducing yourself. Hand him your business card. Look into his eyes when speaking to him and not furtively around the room. Wait till he requests you to sit down. Don’t grab a chair right away. And don’t forget that SMILE!

3.  Conversation: Don’t attempt to get sociable immediately. Don’t rush it. If your conversation is well measured, it will eventually happen. Instead, briefly tell him about yourself and the work you do. Be precise. You are not about to write a lengthy essay. Eventually introduce him to your organization and then let him begin asking the questions. Let him do most of the talking hereafter. Don’t forget: you are a solutions provider and unless you don’t discover what your client’s challenges are, you will not be able to offer solutions. So it’s imperative you train yourself to be a GOOD LISTENER. And keep occasionally SMILING!

4.  Respectful: This is important. Always give your client a strong feeling of respect for who he is. Everyone warms up when they are respected for who they are. Self-Respect is something that naturally exists within all of us and we unconsciously need it never to be insulted. Disrespect can switch a positive relationship to a negative one as quickly as you could snap your fingers!

Once you have positively introduced yourself and your organization and are enjoying a good conversation with your client it is time to begin to probe.

Probing:

Many BDEs believe that probing is an art. I don’t think so. As human beings we are naturally inquisitive and hence good ‘probers’! So what is ‘arty’ about it? But yes, we need to be cautious in terms of how much to probe by curtailing our levels of inquisitiveness as we proceed probing our clients. An over-excess of it can be detrimental to all honest efforts in probing.

Probing is a very sensitive thing to do. And this may be a reason why most BDEs call it an ‘Art’. When trying to understand the present challenges your client is facing and the reasons why he believes that your product can plug it all, keep your conversation around the most salient features of your product and your understanding of how it can benefit your client by carefully listening to his challenges.

At this juncture, I would advise all BDEs to view ‘LISTENING’ as an art instead of ‘probing’ as one! Most BDEs I have come across get so enthusiastic about their product explanations that they shift from genuine listening to uncontrolled lecturing at the drop of a hat during a client discussion. Never forget: you are a solutions provider and if you don’t listen carefully or patiently, there are no solutions you will be able to provide with your product to your client.

Next, make notes as you speak with your client. Make a note of every important point he stresses on. This has two advantages: One, he knows you are listening to him attentively enough to note down every concern of his. And two, these notes will help you create a rocking presentation on how your product can fill the gaps he has just expressed during your next product presentation or negotiation meeting with him.

Remember that probing for information from your client should always be done fearlessly and precisely. After all, that is the reason why your client has decided to meet with you. He has a concern and you have a solution. It really is that simple!

Ciao for now! See you all next Monday when we journey on to understand how to give a world class presentation on your second meeting with your client as Business Development Gladiators!!

Anand K Nair

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

Founder,

Anand Nair Leadership Foundation

www.facebook.com/anandnairleadershipfoundation

Author of: The Sledgehammer's Edge

Professional musings of an Old Maverick - Part VIII

Business Development ‘Gladiators’ – Triggering the real YOU!

Part – VIII

Professional Attributes to become awe-inspiring Business Development Gladiators!

Welcome back to my world!

As we journey on we will now explore the Professional Attributes that combine with your Personal Attributes, we chugged through last time, to become ‘Awe-Inspiring’ and result oriented Business Development Gladiators! We will proceed to practically understand what Business Development is all about and how we effectively go about the business of taking the Organization’s products to its deserving customers. We will try and cover every aspect of the chain of events that need to be carefully understood from Preparation to Closure and beyond!

The Professional Attributes of a BDE are several and actually form a chain from beginning to end. Hence, it is very important to individually understand, in depth, each of the attributes as they are interlinked with each other in a manner that is absolutely seamless and continuous.  But what are the attributes?

Let’s observe the picture below carefully:

If you observe the above picture judiciously you will be able to understand where I’m coming from. Right from Planning and Preparation to Closure, the Professional Attributes of a world class BDE must exist within one self, right from the beginning of your career till its very end! And it must not merely exist there; but be continuously honed, like the edge of an axe, every moment of your existence as a Business Development Gladiator!

Plan / Prepare:

Business Development is a highly planned activity. Nothing is adhoc here! Most of us tend not to either plan or prepare ourselves to achieve what is expected of us by our organization and therefore, most often, we miserably fail. And when we do, we tend to blame everything ceaselessly: from the product to the market forces. What we fail to do is actually guilt ourselves for a lack of adequate planning and preparation.

1.  Become ‘one’ with your Product: BDEs are not just mere sales people selling products, but solution providers. Effective BDEs plug gaps that exist where their clients are concerned. To do this, you must be absolutely aware of every feature of your product both practically and technically. Your understanding of your product should be so unique that when, questioned of its features and what they efficiently do, you should be able to answer without batting an eyelid! Study each of the products features and rate how much it could possibly influence the client’s requirement. Adopting this simple evaluation technique will give you an understanding of which features of the product needs to be talked about at length and which can be avoided for the time being.

2.  Become ‘one’ with your Client: Remember you are a ‘solutions provider’ and hence you need to carefully research two important spheres:

  Ø Who could be your prospective client? Don’t sell coal to Newcastle. There is an           abundance of coal there! Be realistic in this sphere of research and clearly identify         your target clients. Once you have done that, research the gaps that possibly could        exist in your client’s operations and how your product could ultimately plug them.        You may not reach a 100% accurate conclusion, but at least you would be mentally       prepared with some solution providing ideas which you could talk about confidently.

  Ø Knowing as much about the prospective client identified by you is very important.       Carefully educate yourself on who you will be soon meeting. The client’s habits and     interests; Qualifications; Past experiences; whatever possible information you can         obtain on your client. It will greatly contribute to the content of your conversation         while enhancing the quality of your discussions when you finally meet with your           client.

3.  Become ‘one’ with Yourself: Becoming ‘one’ with yourself is all about tapping the immense reserves of ‘Self-Confidence’ that exists in you. If you have become ‘one’ with your Product and Client, I don’t see a reason why you can’t, quite effortlessly, become ‘one’ with Yourself! Becoming ‘one’ with yourself is very important because, as I said earlier, you are not just selling a product, but providing a solution. You should confidently probe for challenges and gaps that your client is presently experiencing when in conversation with him. The first meeting with a client is always a very critical one because it could either lead to a long lasting relationship or a quick exit out of his office!

Always meticulously plan and prepare for your first meeting with your client. Practice a product presentation and keep revising all the research work you have done on both the product and the client. This will give you immense confidence to go beyond just the initial meeting and actually take a long and successful journey with your client.

Ciao for now! See you all next Monday when we journey on to understand how to effectively introduce yourselves as Business Development Gladiators when you first meet with your client…

Anand K Nair

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

Founder,

Anand Nair Leadership Foundation

www.facebook.com/anandnairleadershipfoundation

Author of: The Sledgehammer's Edge

Professional musings of an Old Maverick - Part VII

Business Development ‘Gladiators’ – Triggering the real YOU!

Part – VII

Personal Attributes to become awe-inspiring Business Development Gladiators!

Welcome back to my world!

As we journeyed last week, I had emphasized the importance of two attributes that need to be inculcated within you to become awe-inspiring Business Development Gladiators: Personal Attributes and Professional Attributes. As we journey today we will explore the importance of Personal attributes for your benefit.

But before we do that, let’s understand who we are as Business Development Executives or ‘Gladiators’. As each one of us knows, Business Development is not a career span for the weak-hearted! It requires people like you and me who are strong willed, less prone to being over emotional, have limitless abilities to handle pressure and unquestionably physically fit. And therefore, very especially for the BDE, the period of ‘6 to 9’ as discussed in my previous blog (‘Triggering’ You to become awe-inspiring Business Development Gladiators! – Part VI) is very essential for peak performance during ‘9 to 6’! A mind and body that can easily disrupt disruptiveness can only be borne out of a healthy exposure and experience between ‘6 to 9’ of your existence. Hence, pay attention to each of the moments that exist in this timeframe. Take absolute advantage of it and vitalize deep within yourselves an unbreakable power to take on the stresses and pressures that each one of us will have to endure as BDEs. And the final reward? 90% of Chief Executive Officers across the world were BDEs when they plunged into our kind of an arena!!

Now then, what are the Personal Attributes important for all of us to heighten our performance over the years as BDEs? Let’s closely look at the pic below:

To cut short a long list of personal attributes touted by several management gurus across the globe, I have found just four of them adequate enough as a BDE myself:

1.     Belief

2.     Commitment

3.     Attitude

4.     Passion

Belief:

We all know that nothing can ever be achieved without BELIEF. And yet the very word ‘Belief’ is so confusing! What really is ‘belief’? What are we supposed to ‘believe’ in? How do we inculcate ‘belief’ in our minds and thoughts? More importantly: how do we relate to ‘belief’?

Let’s proceed to unravel ‘Belief’. Belief is nothing but a sincere part of you that resonates with your ‘Purpose’. A ‘Purpose’ that you feel, deep within you, that will fulfill you and make you feel you have actually achieved something beautifully awe-inspiring.  Hence, more vividly defined: ‘Belief’ is a wondrous path connecting You and your Inner Being to a ‘Purpose’ which will be ultimately gratifying!

Now you may, as all inquisitive BDEs like me, would inquire: What are we supposed to ‘believe’ in? Believe in just 3 things. I, Me and Myself and to hell with all the shinga-linga-dingas almost every other management guru preaches. Am I sounding egoistic?! Hell no!! I’m just laying it on the table for you exactly the way I felt about ‘Belief’ when I first discovered it. Trust me: You and only YOU are the creator of your own destiny and thus ‘Belief’ begins and ends with you. So believe in yourself. Believe in the fact that you are made so beautifully perfect that you can take on any number of challenges, no matter how intense, and turn them into remarkable opportunities! Each one of us was created by the Universe to do much bigger things in life than we can imagine. Unfortunately, the majority of us does not know this and hence remain mediocre throughout our lives. We were never meant to be MEDIOCRE. We were meant to be high-octane PERFORMERS! Connect with your Inner Being. Think from a higher level of consciousness. And lead every moment of your life towards creating astounding masteries with whatever purpose you have chosen.

Commitment:

Once your belief is strongly aligned with your purpose, committing yourself to achieve the ultimate bottom line is, quite obviously, the next sequence of a personal attribute. Commitment evokes a very strong sense of intention, focus and delivery.

I recall when I was a young BDE myself, the organization that I worked for those days was in need of a Tagline for itself. They threw open a competition to award anyone who could conjure up a tagline for them and would be rewarded if chosen. I thought deeply of what the company’s offerings were to its several clients. How I had connected my belief in myself and the products I was handling to my purpose of fulfilling my sales targets. And then I came up with a tagline: ‘We commit to deliver and deliver our commitments!’ Needless to say, I won the competition!!

If you had to carefully study my tagline entry, you will discover that you can only make a commitment once you have strongly aligned your beliefs with the purpose. And it is only when this happens that you can make a commitment to deliver. This is why I so easily thought of the tagline I submitted to my Organization. Remember, you can only make a commitment once you have aligned your beliefs to the ‘purpose’ seamlessly.

Attitude:

Attitude is a subject that has been much talked about right from my days in school and throughout every board meeting or annual sales meeting I have attended as a professional. And the only sentence that remained largely hyped was: ‘Always remain positive!’  Great…but how? Every time my colleagues and I were dressed down by our seniors, positive attitude always seemed to disappear out of the window from all sides!

Quite frankly, ‘Attitude’ is a very complex and dynamic thing. In my opinion there are no good or bad attitudes. If you have carefully journeyed with me through the initial stages when I talked about the Power of Awareness, Being in the NOW and connecting with your Inner Being you would not require an explanation of what really attitude is all about. However, in a nut shell, Attitude is not about being ‘Positive’ but being ‘Corrective’. Attitude is a corrective mental reaction to external stimuli and not retaliation to it. As long as attitude is corrective it will always be productive.

Passion:

Finally, what is Passion?  Passion is the emotional quotient that ignites all your Powers Within to assist you in creating awe-inspiring masteries in whatever you have chosen to do. If your beliefs are deeply aligned with your purpose; your commitment to deliver is seeped with self-confidence and your attitude is highly corrective; all you will now need is the passion, flowing readily in you, to successfully turn your thoughts and desires into reality no matter what the challenges that may lie ahead!

On our next journey we will discover the Professional Attributes that combine with the above Personal Attributes to lead you on a path of becoming amazing Business Development Gladiators!

Ciao for now till we meet next Monday again J

Anand K Nair

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

Founder,

Anand Nair Leadership Foundation

www.facebook.com/anandnairleadershipfoundation

Author of: The Sledgehammer's Edge

Professional musings of an Old Maverick! Part VI

Business Development ‘Gladiators’ – Triggering the real YOU!

Part – VI

‘Triggering’ You to become awe-inspiring Business Development Gladiators!

Welcome back to my world!

I do hope you have enjoyed the journey so far: from discovering your Inner Being to understanding the true meaning of Leadership covered in my previous five blogs, crafted very specially for each one of you.

It is time to delve on the various ‘Triggers’ that would finally turn you into awe-inspiring Business Development Gladiators. And hence this journey will now meander through several interesting ideas and topics that will take you on a path of self-achievement as we chug along, so to speak.

For every entrepreneur, one of the most important teams that exist in his venture or organization is the Business Development Team or the BD Team. This is simply because this is the team that will always be solely responsible to take his suite of products to the market. Therefore this team is very much the entrepreneur’s financial generating team. A team that can well auger the speed of the entrepreneur’s organizational growth resulting in an abundance of profits and resultant benefits for his entire set of teams that exist with the entrepreneur apart from just the BD Team.

Having said this, it isn’t unusual that almost every member of the BD Team is continuously under pressure to perform. Every new financial year begins with setting of annual targets broken down to quarterly and monthly ones, and in several organizations, even into weekly and daily ones. It is because of this that every business development executive I have met through all my workshops and otherwise, fears targets more than imaginary ghosts popping out of graves! Often targets are set based on ‘researched’ market potentials and an assumption that the BD Team has the potential to achieve them. In addition, most often than not, targets set by entrepreneurs for their BD Teams are more centered on how much their teams cost them (clubbing it with other costs such as raw materials, production, non-BD personnel salaries, marketing, profit margins, etc.) instead of understanding the concrete combined human potential that exists within the team to factually deliver a forecasted bottom-line in sales.

So be it! Let’s journey on to see how we could, nevertheless, go beyond our fears of possible non-performance to actually becoming BD Gladiators expanding our own Powers of Potentiality embedded deep within us by the Universe. After all, what the heck are targets? They are just a series of benchmarks to achieve in our pursuit towards excellence as Gladiators!! And this is a fact of life. Gladiators like you and me are born to pursue EXCELLENCE in whatever we do creating amazing masteries perpetually!!!

And don’t confuse ‘Excellence’ with ‘Perfection’. The very word ‘Perfection’ should be removed immediately from your dictionary. Practice does not make Perfect. Practice makes Improvement. As long as you strive to improve you will always be highly innovative. Innovation is the key to unlock doors of excellence!!!! BD Gladiators are deeply seeped in innovating on their systems for performance…never aimlessly trying to strive towards perfecting it.

At this juncture, I would like to share a slide I often share during my workshops for BD Gladiators like you:

Can you possibly relate to this slide? What is it trying to portray? Why is there a wave on the left side and numbers with a question mark on the right?

The ‘Wave’ depicts absolute seamlessness of life! There are no defined and structured moments in life dividing it into personal and professional periods. Most people tend to do this and then create watertight compartments in their lives leading to a phenomenal amount of stress and so called ‘work life imbalances’. Life is seamless and every moment of your life is as important as the other and needs an equal amount of attention. People who live in the ‘Now’ understand this more amiably than people who don’t and therefore live stress free lives. For example, I find it important to spend quality time with my family and friends as equally important as the time spent with my own Teams or clients. When I do this, I create awesome masteries in the relationships I am connected with: be it my own family or friends or my professional acquaintances. Each one is important in my life and is hence, given an equivalent importance.

The numbers on the left are really time-frames: 6 pm to 9 am (generally considered personal time) and 9 am to 6 pm (generally considered non-personal or official time). While I firmly believe life is seamless, just for a better understanding of what I am trying to express, I have broken it down to two parts of our 24 hours existence. And the reason why I have done so is to focus your attention on the fact that what your quality of thoughts and life is between 6 pm to 9 am (the next morning) will determine the quantum of your success between 9 am to 6 pm (and not the other way around) when you will be spending most of your time pursuing a professional path towards excellence resulting in, not only, an overall positive progress in life for yourself, but for every member of your family. And progress is life! The more we progress the better we emancipate our existence with both tangible and non-tangible comforts. Thus, live 6 pm to 9 am judiciously, inculcating right physical habits while mentally exposing yourself to improved thought processes and content. This will, undoubtedly, have a major increasingly constructive effect on your existence between 9 am and 6 pm!

As we journey on next Monday, we will rapidly traverse through two very important aspects of the ‘Triggers’ I would like you to know about: Personal Attributes and Professional Attributes. I can assure you: once you deeply understand these two attributes and what they consist of, without any uncertainty, whatsoever, your performance as a Business Development Gladiator will undergo a progression of enhanced performances!

Ciao for now till we journey on next Monday. Stay safe and see you soon J

Anand K Nair

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

Founder,

Anand Nair Leadership Foundation

www.facebook.com/anandnairleadershipfoundation

Author of: The Sledgehammer's Edge

Professional musings of an Old Maverick - V

Business Development ‘Gladiators’ – Triggering the real YOU!

Part – V

Path to our Inner Being

Welcome back to my world!

It is time now to explore the Path to be perpetually connected with our Inner Being to eventually reach an awesome state of thinking from a higher level of consciousness, very critical for true leadership both in our personal and professional lives.

To discover and walk towards connecting with your Inner Being, a very vital requirement for exceptional leaders, you have to first understand and accept that your Inner being has got nothing to do with either your Body or your Mind. You in reality are neither your Body nor your Mind. You are just your Inner Being that exists deep within your Soul. And therefore, factually speaking, you are only your Soul. But how do we reach there to ultimately conjoin, once again with our Inner Being?

There is only one singular method: Get MEDITATIVE! For just 20 minutes a day, preferably early in the morning. Sit relaxed on the floor facing the east with your legs folded comfortably into each other. Your palms should be placed on your knee joints facing up to the Universe and your chin slightly raised. Close your eyes and focus on the center of your forehead between your eyebrows: the location of your ‘third eye’. Remind yourself as you breathe in that you are not your Body. And once again remind yourself as you breathe out that you are neither the Mind. Breathe slowly and distinctly, concentrating on your breathing and what you are saying as you seep deeper into becoming meditative. Be in peace and just meditatively think of what you are reminding yourself as you breathe in and out. Ignore thoughts that rise in your mind without willfully resisting them. Thoughts will come and go. But over a period of time you will be able to, successfully, not delve on them and they will soon become meaningless.

With practice, you will eventually come to a stage, as I easily do now, to begin to go beyond your Mind and Body and reach your Inner Being lodged deep within your Soul: a solemn, blissful and calm existence that is actually YOU!

And as you further begin to explore and conjoin with your Inner Being over several weeks of meditative practice, you will soon come to a state wherein you will commence to experience an amazing knowledge Within.  A knowledge that was readily available all these years but you never ever saw or experienced it because till now, you had lived your life looking outward instead of inward. But that’s ok. The past is not important anymore. Be in the Now!

Most believers of the Universe look up to the skies and request fulfillment of their deepest desires and hope that the Universe will conspire to make it happen for them. But if you take this journey with me, you will soon find that the entire Universe is you and you are the Universe! You will not only find the Universe deep within you, but you will also find the person you so much desired to be, already present within you!

Once you have reached this space, you would have reached the resources to becoming awesome Human Beings, Visionaries, Planners & Strategists, unquestionably humanistic Man-Managers, Solution Providers for every challenge possible and awe-inspiring Leaders because you would now be in a state of calm and harmony seeped with colossal quantities of self-confidence and capable of thinking from a higher level of consciousness!!

My journey from a fledgling Management Trainee, in my professional existence, to finally ‘teeing off’ as a CEO of a multi-crore organization three decades later, may have never happened if I had not discovered my Inner Being at a very early stage. And it is because of this, I encourage each one of you to begin to walk the path towards discovering your Inner Being as early as conveniently possible. Irrespective of how old you are or how many years of experience you have already chalked up, the discovery and conjoining with your Inner Being will always be highly beneficial to you. You will be able to exist in a space that you have probably desired your entire life, but never knew the path towards it. Trust me…I know what it feels to be finally conjoined with one’s Inner Being!!

The truth is: within you lie enormous Powers to capitalize on. They are there for you because it was embedded in you by the Universe even before you were born. It is time for you to recognize each of these Powers, delve in them, and then utilize each one of them to create a new and blissful future for yourself armored with a combination of these Powers with your mind ensconced within a state of a higher consciousness!!

While we may have come to the end of our ‘metaphysical’ journey involving my explanations and experiences of True Leadership, we have not come to the culmination of our entire journey yet! In fact, this is just the beginning.

Stay with me as we discover, part by part, the several ‘Triggers’ that will make each one of you exemplary Business Development ‘Gladiators’.

Ciao for now till next Monday J

Anand K Nair

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

Founder,

Anand Nair Leadership Foundation

www.facebook.com/anandnairleadershipfoundation

Author of: The Sledgehammer's Edge

Professional musings of an Old Maverick - IV

Business Development Executives – Triggering the real YOU!

Part – IV

The Power of being in the NOW.

Welcome back to my world as we journey on into the understanding of the Power of being in the NOW. But before we do that, let’s just revisit the last bit of our previous journey on the importance of the Power of Awareness…just to refresh our minds as we begin chugging along once again:

“…The levels of your concentration and awareness would have become far more superior and powerful within you as compared to any others around you and this will, quite obviously, greatly enhance your existence both personally and professionally. Your ability to successfully think, analyze and visualize solutions to everyday challenges would become just simple tasks to execute without becoming a victim to any stressful moment whatsoever…which is one of the true hallmarks of Leadership!

However, you would still have to discover the Power of being in the Now and the Path to discover and be perpetually connected with your Inner Being to eventually reach an awesome state of thinking from a higher level of consciousness.”

To understand the Power of being in the Now, it is important for you to first master the Power of Awareness we talked about previously. The simple example that I gave of transferring water from one bucket to another without spilling a drop was an ideal one on how you can practice, every moment, to remain in absolute awareness of what you are continuously doing. It is only when this habit is inculcated within oneself will one be able to, not only, understand the Power of being in the Now, but to experience it as well. Because to live in the Now, you will have to learn to be in complete control of your thoughts and the manner in which they could influence your existence, if you became a slave to them. When your thoughts flitter through your mind uncontrollably, your existence and emotional equilibrium will reflect it almost immediately. But being constantly aware of yourself and your thoughts will help you to be in absolute control of your mental existence which will directly reflect on your personality as a human being and professional.

First off all please accept one important fact of your existence: YOU ARE NOT THE NATURE OF YOUR THOUGHTS! Someone once said that it is because you exist, you think. I strongly differ with this. I believe that it is because you think you exist and your existence is purely based on your understanding of what goes on in your mind, albeit what the nature of your thoughts may be. Once you have gained the mastery of the Power of Awareness (Part III of my Blog series), it will effortlessly lead you to the understanding of the Power of being in the Now.

Buddha once said, “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” No one could easily sum up the importance of being in the Now then Buddha could. From childhood to adolescence to adulthood, we lived totally subjected to our external environment. All negative experiences during this exposure created what is commonly termed as our ‘fears of the unknown’.   These fears of the unknown have, most often then naught, obliterated our present thinking and seriously affecting the future.

Most successful people neither ponder on the past or think of the future. The former does not exist in the present and the latter could well be a myth! What truly does exist is the present and it is this moment that has to be dealt with; not the past or the future. And dealt with how? Not with fears of the unknown obliterating the present. Or doubts caused by past failures. Or with an awe and tension that ‘even this may not happen’ psychosis!

Here are a few tips for you to be able to live in the ‘Now’:

1) Remove resistance.

Stop resisting what is. If you are stuck in a traffic jam, you are stuck in a traffic jam. You can’t center yourself in the now if you don’t accept it. Even if you are in a situation you don’t like or intend to change, accept it as part of your current reality.

2) Find rose-smelling moments.

Give yourself a few moments to smell the roses each day. Stopping your routine, even for only thirty seconds, and grounding yourself in what is around you can have a calming effect.

Most people don’t do this unless captured by something magnificent. But even simple parts of life deserve a chance at reflection. Spend fifteen seconds to see how the light bounces off the edge of a glass. Or look at the pattern of clouds in an overcast sky. Just a small investment can make you feel more centered for the rest of your day.

3) Experience what you are doing.

Actually experience what you are doing. How often do you eat a meal without really tasting the food? Listen to music without noticing the notes? Talk to your friends without really listening?

If you are going to do something, engage with it. Try to isolate specific flavors in the food you are eating. Notice the different instruments in a piece of music you’ve heard thousands of time. Empathize with a friend who is talking to you.

Whether you choose to experience something or not doesn’t matter for productivity. It takes the same amount of time for me to really taste a bowl of soup than just slurping it down. But by choosing to focus on your current task you can draw far more enjoyment and peace from it.

4) Cut down multitasking.

Cut out the need to do several things at once. Not only has this been shown to be ineffective from a productivity standpoint, it also makes it more difficult to concentrate. Concentration is key to the now habit. Without the ability to effectively use your attention, you can’t hope to focus on the now.

5) Enjoy limitations.

The most important freedom is from the internal conflicts of worries, negative thoughts and distractions. When you’ve cultivated a high degree of internal freedom, external freedom matters less. 

Even if most of us have our basic rights and necessities, there will always be limitations. Going to work, chores, family responsibilities, etc are an almost inescapable reality. But you can use those limitations to guide your thinking towards the now. Limits can be the rules you have to abide by in the always interesting game of life.

6) Discipline your mind.

Where does this internal freedom come from? Discipline. Disciplining your body, thinking and actions means bringing the internal forces under control. This is a skill that takes time to develop. But once done, you will experience awesomeness!

7) Follow a goal, but detach from the result.

Goals are a difficult subject to tackle when applying the now habit. How can you have a goal, which is based in the future, and still focus on the now? The answer is that goals give an overall direction to what you are doing today.

You can work hard by an inspiring goal and not be consumed by it. Emphasize the actions you are doing right now over the end result. Remember: as long as a goal serves to order your current actions, then it can help you focus on the now.

8) Daily gratitude.

Spend a few moments to reflect on what you are grateful for. Gratitude doesn’t mean, “Well it could be worse…” Gratitude means being happy now instead of just happy later. It means being thankful for the interesting challenges and opportunities life has given you.

9) Cut away distractions to a meaningful life.

Simplify your life. Cutting back on things that aren’t contributing to your growth helps you focus. When you are constantly surrounded by noise of activities, media and people that aren’t adding anything, it is harder to focus on what does.

10) Engage yourself.

I don’t believe inner peace has to come from a monastic life in the wilderness. The happiest people I know are the ones most engaged in life. I usually wake up knowing I have a day full of exciting challenges and tasks. There are always moments for reflection, but by engaging yourself more you do what the now habit is all about, living and not just existing.

In the next journey that we undertake next Monday, we will explore the Path to be perpetually connected with our Inner Being to eventually reach an awesome state of thinking from a higher level of consciousness. And then move on to the ‘Triggers’ that make Business Development Gladiators indisputably successful!

Till then…have a wonderful week!!!

Anand K Nair

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

Founder,

Anand Nair Leadership Foundation

www.facebook.com/anandnairleadershipfoundation

Author of: The Sledgehammer's Edge