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