Category: Emotions/Relationships

Anything natural is generally good…

IMG_0131I have always been an admirer of nature. I have admired nature in all its forms. I love the hills, mountains, rivers, deserts and the sea. I love trees, forests, animals and birds. Of course, I like human beings and love to observe how they behave with all forms of nature. I have wondered as to how we have progressively tried to destroy nature in the name of growth and development.

I am a diabetic and had switched over to sunflower oil and other so called healthy diet based on what I read and believed from people around me. I then met a leading diabatologist in Mumbai. He advised me to go back to my roots. He simply stated that I should follow the diet patterns my family has been following over centuries. For eg. He advised me to switch back to TIL oil from sunflower oil. He said nature has a way of adapting the body to suit the health of human beings. If you belong to a particular region, you should follow the food habits of that region.

This was a revelation for me. I started believing that “Anything natural is good”. It is not only true but experience of mine substantiates this belief. While technology and science has helped us develop wonderful things, I still realize that there is no substitute for similar things found in nature. It is like no perfume on earth can invigorate me more than fresh jasmine flowers in my garden.

I am yet to see a painting more beautiful than the skyline every evening during sunset. There is no building in the world which is more intricate than a bee hive or an ant hill if you dig deep into how they are constructed. Similarly I am yet to experience the joy of being in the midst of a dense forest , in the city centre of the best cities of the world. I do not know why but nature engulfs you. It embraces you and makes you feel special.

As human beings instead of learning from nature, we have tried our best to destroy it. A simple example is the use of plastic. While plastic is a great discovery and it has benefited us in multiple ways, it is unnatural and hence harmful in many ways too. It has choked drains, killed kids, and has been the root cause of many catostrophies because of human misuse.

If we look at the contra of my hypothesis, I believe everything unnatural is harmful to human beings. While artificial sweeteners and flavours can quench our taste buds they are ultimately harmful to human consumption. It may be more beneficial to have juices from fresh fruits rather than carbonated drinks. The marketeers of these carbonated drinks may have made us believe how prestigious it is to consume them.

It could be neem leaves or its extract to brush your teeth and compare it to the multiple chemicals used in our toothpastes every day. It could a cup of fresh milk in the morning as compared to diet drink today, which has no nutrients. We were eating fresh fruits as part of our breakfast. Today we take artificially flavoured cereals, which may lose their original nutrient value because of the unnatural ingredients.

Jack fruit as in the photo above is considered the king of all fruits and has multiple benefits. Almost every part of the fruit and tree is useful to human beings.

It is time to wake up. It is time to bounce back. We need to get back to nature. We need to protect our trees and animals. We need to protect the earth and may be other planets from all the pollution and waste we are dumping on them. We need to realize that nature gives us everything we want for a sustainable living and further keeps us happy. Instead of giving back in equal measure, we have ended up destroying nature.

Time to wake up and get natural.

S Ramesh Shankar

Create Passion not Tension

d25cc881-520c-4a13-83ed-54bfdaed1bed

Employees around us complain of stress and tension. Some of it is self inflicted but most of it is imposed by their managers or leaders. Why do leaders create tension ? I have never understood this phenomenon. It could be due to genuine inability to keep their stress to themselves or their lack of self confidence. It could also reflect on their inability as a leader. Some leaders also believe that they can get the best output from their team if they create tension. The contrary may be true in reality.

What should managers do to get the best from their team members ? Managers should create a vision and then infuse passion in their team. The vision will give direction to their team and the passion will take them towards their common vision. So, managers need to realise that they can get the best from their team if they create passion, not tension.

What happens when you create tension for your team ? First and foremost, nobody wants to work for you in the long term. Second, your team will lose their self confidence and will falter at every turn of a project. They will dread failure and will run away from your team at the first possible opportunity. Nobody enjoys stress and that too from his or her manager.

Stress leads to tension and this in turn leads to negativity in the team. The environment drains the energy of the team and everyone ends up finding fault with each other. Most of the deadlines are not met. There is no positive vibes in the team. The attrition in such teams will be the highest. Most of the team members will look for opportunities outside and will ditch the time at the first possible instance.

On the other hand, what happens to teams, where leaders create passion. It’s fun to work in such teams. The leader generally raises the bar. They create a very enviable vision along with the team. The team is party to the co-creation of the vision. This ensures that every team member is passionate about how they can contribute to attaining that collective vision.

Positivity is the second name of such teams. Everyone around wants to join such teams. They are willing to sacrifice from short term benefits to work in such teams. Money, time or resources are never a constraint in such teams. We typically see this in start ups. The promoter or a leader shares a brilliant idea. Then they work with the team to visualise the future together. Once this is done, there is nothing which can stop the team members give their best to achieve the team’s success.

I am not one stating that it is absolutely not necessary to set stretched targets to your team. In times of crisis, an atmosphere of urgency is needed to deliver results. Army commanders at the front line command by inspiration. Their commitment is leadership by example. They do not put their foot soldiers in front and stay behind. Similarly, good leaders will lead from the front. Even when they create a sense of urgency, their team members are keen to contribute their best and do not reel under tension.

As in the photo above, if someone is passionate about cycling, they will do it every day and not consider it a tension to maintain their health.

All of us are or would be team leaders in the future. It is important to remember that stress and tension creates negative energy. Passion and vision creates positivity. As managers and leaders we have to create a positive culture infused with fun at the workplace. This may be easier said than done. But once we are able to create this environment, we need not bother. The team gallops even when we want them to walk. If we struggle to do it by ourselves, we can learn from the best leaders around us.

Let us try to live our passion every day.

S Ramesh Shankar

It’s good to cry too…

It is generally believed that men do not cry. It is mindset that if you cry, you are not a man. This gets reinforced by many life incidents. My father was a very soft spoken person and never cried. I have never seen him raise his voice or get angry at anyone. I had also never seen him cry. So, I also believed this belief that men don’t cry. Then, when my mother died and I was lighting her funeral pyre, I saw tears roll down my father’s eyes. I realised that crying is normal to humans.

It is a fact that all of us have emotions. Some of us express it, while others may not. My father never expressed his sadness and thereby his sorrow with others. He could neither be seen jumping around when he was overjoyed nor sulking in sorrow with tears rolling down his cheek. He preferred to keep his emotions to himself. My father has been a role model for me in my life. I always wish that I learnt to be half as patient as he was always.

Today, we try to inculcate in children not to laugh or cry aloud. It is ingrained in them as if it is bad manners. In my view, we should encourage our children to express their emotions openly. The more we laugh and cry in this world, the more we will be in balance. We will learn to share our joy and sorrow with others. We will learn to let go and also share the emotions with others.

It may be true that I have inherited this quality from my father. I have also cried only a few times in my life. But, I realised that every time I let the emotions pour out of me in the form of tear, I feel relieved. Recently my brother in law died and when his son was lighting his funeral pyre, he burst into tears. My nephew is a young lad in his early thirties and could not bear the loss of his father at such a young age. The priest halted the funeral and advised the young boy to cry aloud and let his emotions come out.

We need to learn to emote. We grow up being told not to laugh or cry. The conservative society labels young men and women who cry as not brave enough. In my view, this is not right. It is good to cry and laugh. It helps you to release your pent up emotions and let go. It may also help you to forget and forgive people if you are willing to let go off your emotions.

I was hurt by an uncle of mine during my young adulthood, when he declined to help me when I was in distress, while treating my ailing father on his death bed. I was very upset and deeply hurt by this incident. I almost stopped talking to this relative. Years passed by and while I was narrating this incident during a training programme, I burst into tears. I could not control my pent up emotions. After I regained my balance, I was willing to forgive this relative and even spoke to him later.

Emotions are an integral part of our being. We need to let it be and let it go as and when it is necessary. We may get overjoyed and we should jump in joy and share our joy with others. We may be overwhelmed with sorrow, when multiple incidents occur one after the other and we lose control. We need to share this sadness with others and cry aloud so that we can vent out our feelings.

In my view, laughing and crying should be an integral part of our living. We should laugh and cry every other day as we breath every day. It is good to laugh and equally sound to cry. Let us not be guided by age old mindsets that “Men don’t cry”. It is human to cry and we need to realise that we all are human beings. We all cry at birth and make others cry when we die. Let us also learn to cry in between birth and death.

Lets learn to cry.

S Ramesh Shankar