I have a met people in different parts of the world, who are always full of life. Nothing can or will impact their happiness in life. They live life as if today is the last day in their lives. They are positive about everything around them. They never give up on anything and face any challenge in life with a smile.

They are infectious with their positivity. They rub it on people around them. If you are in their company, you will feel a special energy flowing through you. You will experience optimism flow through you. Everything will seem possible and doable for you.

The question before us is how do they develop this attitude in life. Is it inborn or can it be developed ? I do not know the answer. But, I do believe that it can be developed if we are willing to believe in ourselves and in the potential of others.

I believe that for everything in life there are only two possibilities. One is -“ I can” and the second is -“I can’t “. Once I decide “I can”, I will find all ways and means to achieve my goal. If I decide, “I can’t”, I will try to find out all the excuses for not being able to achieve my goal. This happens in life and also in organisations.

This category of people always believe ‘ “They can”. They are always willing to take up any challenge and will give it their best. They never give up and are willing to lead or follow others as the situation demands. They will never crib and never complain about anything in life. They do not aspire for any power in life nor do they want credit for their contributions. They enjoy the journey as much as the destination.

One lesson we could learn from this category of people is that the key to happiness in life is to enjoy the journey of life. Most of us are so focussed on the results that we fail to enjoy the process. We live everyday as if it is a ritual. We are happy only when we achieve major milestones in life. On the other hand, these people celebrate life every day. The sun rising or the moon setting is a cause for celebration in their lives. For normal mortals like us, we tend to believe that the sun has to rise and set every day and so the moon. We fail to realise the joy of celebrating every moment of life.

Gratitude is another quality worth emulating from these folks. They tend to be ever grateful to life and everyone around them. They believe always life has been a gift for them. They are sure that people around them are there to always helps them. Their attitude to life and living is so positive that people around them find that they have no choice but to be good to them.

This seems to be the fundamental difference between them and most of us. We believe that we are the saviours of the world, atleast most of the time. We believe that our family, friends and colleagues cannot survive without us. On the contrary these people live life for others. They believe they succeed because of others. They are always thankful to family, friends and colleagues for their accomplishments in life.

So, the choice is simple. We need to just flip our beliefs and retune our attitude to life. Live for others rather than oneself. If we give more, we get more. If we spread happiness, we cannot but be happy in life. If we see joy every day in our lives, life is a wonderful gift.

As in the photo above, it is kids who can teach us this valuable lesson in life to be happy.

Life is the way we live it. Let us believe from today our life is full of possibilities. It is upto us to make it happen.

S Ramesh Shankar

30th May 2020

A young aspiring professional called me up early morning today.  He looked very much worked up.  When I asked him for the reasons for his anxiety, he explained how some of his seniors were taking away all the credit for the hard work he puts in at work every day.

This is not an uncommon situation especially for youngsters starting their career in an organisation.  Interestingly, you see and experience this phenomenon in all professions.  Today, it is easy for me to write about it and share my views.  When I went through the same experience, it was one of the biggest challenges at the beginning of my career.

When you experience it as a young professional, you feel betrayed.  You feel frustrated and sometimes feel like bashing up the senior who takes away all the credit for your hard work.  As you grow up in the organisation , you realise that you are not alone to face this type of challenge.  It is faced by many and almost in all professions.  A senior lawyer may win a case based on the arguments and efforts of his junior and take all the credit for the victory.  A senior doctor may do the same while treating a patient.

In organisations, we see senior leaders taking the credit for presentations made to other stakeholders, which were never prepared by them.  Sometimes, they take the credit for articles never written by them.  While it makes you feel bad, it is not uncommon to say the least.

The question is how do you deal with it in your career, when it happens to you.  At the first instance, it may be a good idea to vent out your feelings to someone  near and dear to you.  This may make you feel lighter and better after this bitten experience in your career.

Then you need to settle down and realise that you are not alone.  It is important not to get distracted by such phenomenon.  I remember an incident when a senior of mine tried to present my case in front of the Chief Executive in one of the organisations I worked.  He was trying to take the credit for my work in front of the CEO.  However, when the CEO asked a few clarifications on the case, he had to call me in and he was embarrassed when the CEO asked if I had prepared the case.

We always need to believe that “Excellence” is a journey and never a destination.  The leaders who try to take the credit for the work of their juniors have limitations and they do expose their limitations by such frivolous behaviour.  They get exposed sooner than later when they make this a habit to take credit for others ‘ work.

As  I said earlier, it is not easy to deal with a situation like this especially when you experience this yourself in the beginning of your career.  As you grow up in your career, you realise that people can take credit for your work but can never take away your value to the organisation.  Each individual brings a certain value and this can never be stolen by others.

This nature of some leaders to take credit for others’ work reflects their limitation rather than yours.  They get exposed sooner than later in front of other employees or other stakeholders.  One does not need to put in any extra efforts to expose them since they expose themselves because of the lack of depth in the subject they take credit for others’ work. Of course, the time taken for them to be exposed may vary and this could add to the frustration of employees.  But my experience teaches me that it happens sooner than you believe as long as you are willing to always give your best and let them expose themselves in the process.

As in the photo above, while a captain can take away the credit for his team’s victory, everybody in the team and even the spectators know who deserves the credit for that win.

I would continue to focus on excellence and let these impostors expose themselves rather than waste my energy and time trying to figure out why they do so. I would want to focus on my strengths rather than their weaknesses.

Let us always remember that “Mediocrity will never recognise Excellence”.

S Ramesh Shankar

27th May 2020

“Face is the index of the mind” is an an old saying. It is more than true. There is a lot of research to confirm that more than 70% of human communication happens through non verbal means. This means our expressions speak more than our words.

The best opportunity to learn from expressions is from the kids. They can express the entire spectrum of emotions of the human kind in more ways than one. None of us need to learn to speak to a child to understand their emotions. However, as we grow up we tend to forget to express ourselves

Alternatively, we are conditioned by the environment around us and our own belief systems that expressing oneself is immature or childish. In my view, this may be the beginning of the end of joy in our lives. A child emotes without any reason. Children express in every way they can. Emoting oneself appropriately not only may secrete good hormones in the body but keeps you happy always.

If we look back, our childhood was the best period of our lives, when we unconditionally expressed ourselves. As we grow into an adolescent , we tend to restrain ourselves, which then results in rebellious behaviour. Growing into an adult we stop emoting altogether. We think it is not mature enough to share our emotions with others.

The “adult” in us over rules the child. Every time we feel like laughing, crying or screaming, we regulate our behaviour to try to do the opposite. This may sometimes end up in awkward reactions in different situations. For eg. we may laugh when we are supposed to cry or the other way around. This is because the world around us conditions us on what is right and what is wrong.

The right and wrong emotions are not determined by our heart as it should normally be but how people react around us. If people may laugh at our crying, then we do not. If someone objects to our laughing we tend it to keep it ourselves.

We need to challenge ourselves. We need to live our emotions the way we want to. People who emote unconditionally are the people who have no blood pressure. If we forget to share our emotions, we may forget to cry, laugh or get angry.

If we condition ourselves too much, we may to tend to contradict ourselves. Our emotions will not reflect our true feeling inside. This may be easily be misunderstood and we may end up in conflicts with others around us.

It is time to rekindle the child in us. It is time to express ourselves the way we want to. Let us not be be guided by the reactions of others. Let us be guided by our own gut feelings. We need to learn to be true to ourselves. This may be the best way to live life fully.

Let us interact with children around us and learn from them. It is never too late to learn. Every child can teach us to live life the way we need to live. So what if we have forgotten the basics of life. It is time to look back to move forward sometimes.

Let us learn to express ourselves.

S Ramesh Shankar

15th Oct 2020