Readings: Vigyan Bhairava विज्ञान भैरव verses 1-13 summary

Vigyan here implies experiential knowledge, pure consciousness, awareness rather than analytical knowledge.



Nature of Bhairava 

 I am manifesting the universe in the space of my own consciousness, I am the creator, being of the nature of everything. Abhinavagupta (Tantraloka III.283-285)

Bhairava (भैरव) is of the nature of pure I-consciousness (अहं ) which is therefore resounding in every conscious being. He pervades, sustains and absorbs the universe. He liberates beings from the fear (भय = fear ) of samsara and he illumines everything with his ligth (भा = very bright light). By becoming becoming one with non-dual I-consciousness one can attain the Bhairava nature (Tantraloka II.283)



After previously listening to the Trika / Trantra completely as explained by Shiva (Bhairava) Parvati (Bhairavi) had few doubts that she wants to be clarified (1-7)

• What is essence of reality (तत्वतो)
• What is form of energy (शक्तिस्वरुपकम्)
• चक्रारूढमनच्कं = in vibration (स्पन्द) or without movement (अस्पन्द) or appearance of no movement when in motion and vice versa
• Can the Sakala form (सकल रूप) of energy states be same Lower (अपरा ) medium (परापरा ) and supreme (परा)

Sakala (सकल) -  Where there is any sensation of space, time or formKalna means that which can be perceived, that which can be heard, that which can be seen that which can be touched. 

Bhairava is pleased to response and state 8-9
All the different paths and ways expounded in texts are useless and like delusion. It is maya, like dream or  castles in air (गन्धर्वनगरभ्रमं)

ध्यानार्थं भ्रांतबुद्धिनां क्रियाडम्बरवर्तिनाम।
केवलं वर्णितं पुंसां विकल्पनिहितात्मनां ।।10

The various ways (in Tantra) are are only described for people who are indecisive/doubtful (विकल्प). .  These people are not steadfast mind (भ्रांतबुद्धिनां) and take pleasure in performing superfluous actions (क्रियाडम्बर).

Bhairava in next few verses (11-13) goes on to refute all the doubts (this or that type of queries) and states that the ways established in Tantras are like diverting ignorant boys from bad actions (बालविभीषिकाः).

#Vigyan #Bhairava #विज्ञान #भैरव #Agama #KashmirShaivism #pratyabhijna #Trika #vedanta #Sanskrit #Shloka #advaita  #NonDual #Shiva #Shakti #Guru #Philosophy #Spiritual #ShivaYogi

Reflections

Two score and three years ago I came into being. The scale of time extends to infinity in both directions. We all have a finite time here to live, contribute and prosper. The current situation only accentuates further the fragility of our lives. 

Looking back on my journey one constant that I find is an aspiration to learn and understand. I can come to terms with a thought that I do not have the answers. What I find harder is to give up the quest to understand and live a more meaningful life. 

 This quest has taken me across oceans, changed the direction of my life innumerable times. Led me to commit some atrocious mistakes and errors of judgement. I have fallen flat on my face. I have also received help and support for which I was not worthy. I have been fortunate to be among friends no matter where I was, 

 In this moment of reflection I would like to share a few themes that have guided me

1. Dream Big
2. Make it real 
3. When you get there there is no there there
4. Enjoy the moment and the process
5. Leave things better than you found them

Let me also take this opportunity to thank you all for being part of my life and enriching it with your presence.
  
© Ratish
12 Apr 2020
Pune

Readings: Mundaka Upnishad मुण्डक-उपनिषद् 1.2.2

 Mundaka Upnishad मुण्डक-उपनिषद्
 
यदा लेलायते ह्यर्चिः समिद्धे हव्यवाहने। 
तदाज्यभागावन्तरेणाहुतीः प्रतिपादयेत्।।1.2.2।।

 Whenever the flames of the ignited fire begins to quiver and tremble at that time deliver your offerings in between the two Ajyabhaga*.

When interpreted from Karmakanda these verses are explain activities performed during a fire ritual - pouring of clarified butter in between left and right offerings to agni  and soma.
This can  also interpreted as the  -  * in between the two breaths or between Brahmagni (consumer) and soma (Anna+) consumed. The agni is constantly being stoked by prana and apana.
+Refer to 1.1.8 Mundaka Upnishad for creation sequence Brahma, Anna and prana etc.

 जिस समय अग्नि के प्रदीप्त होने पर उसकी ज्वाला लपलपाने लगे उस समय दोनों आज्यभागों* के मध्य में आहुतियाँ डाले

 कर्मकाण्ड की विधि मेंं इसे यज्ञ में * धी को अग्नि एवंं सोम  की आहुतियों के बीच डालना।

इसे  साँसों (प्राण और अपान) के मध्य या बह्माग्नि (भोक्ता) और अन्न (भोज्य+) के मध्य भी समझ सकते हैं।
 
+ 1.1.8  मुण्डक-उपनिषद्   बह्म, अन्न, प्राण आदि क्रम के लिए पढें

Readings: Mundaka Upnishad: 1.1.6

 Mundaka Upnishad मुण्डक-उपनिषद्

यत्तदद्रेश्यमग्राह्यमगोत्रमवर्णमचक्षुःश्रोत्रं तदपाणिपादम्।
नित्यं विभुं सर्वगतं सुसूक्ष्मं तदव्ययं यद्भूतयोनिं परिपश्यन्ति धीराः।।1.1.6।।

'वह' जो अदृश्य है, अग्राह्य है, सम्बन्धहीन (अगोत्र) है। अवर्ण है, चक्षु तथा श्रोत्र रहित है, जो अपाणिपाद (हाथ-पाँव रहित) है, नित्य है, विभु है, सर्वगत है, सब में ओतप्रोत है, अतिसूक्ष्म है, अव्यय है, जो समस्त प्राणियों की उत्पत्ति का उद्गम-स्थल (योनि) है, ज्ञानीजन (धीर) सर्वत्र उसका दर्शन करते हैं।

That which is imperceptible, ungraspable, self sustained (has no roots), immutable, beyond words (name) and sight (forms), without hands and feet (organs of action), eternal, all pervading, present everywhere, exceedingly subtle, that is the undecaying which the wise perceive as the source of beings.



Translations : Sanskrit (Shankaracharya's commentary) and English
 ____

अद्रेश्यम् - अदृश्यं सर्वेषां बुद्धीन्द्रियाणामगम्यमित्येतत्।
 That which is unperceivable to faculty of mind (manas, chitta, buddhi and ahankara) and senses 
अग्राह्यं कर्मेन्द्रियाविषयमित्येतत्
That which is beyond the grasp of organs of action
अगोत्रम् अनन्वयमित्यर्थः। न हि तस्य मूलमस्ति येनान्वितं स्यात्।
That which does not have any root and is not connected (with anything else)
अविद्यामाना वर्णा यस्य तत् अवर्णम् अक्षरम्
 Non existent is who's form - Formless or immutable
तत् अपाणिपादं कर्मेन्द्रियरहितमित्येतत्
 That which does not have organs of actions (without hands and feet - speech,)

Readings: Mundaka Upnishad 1.1.3

Mundaka Upnishad मुण्डक-उपनिषद्

कस्मिन्नु भगवो विज्ञाते सर्वमिदं विज्ञातं भवतीति।।1.1.3।।

भगवन् ! किसके जान लिये जाने पर यह सब कुछ (जनने योग्य) जान लिया जाता है ?

O venerable one! through knowing what all that there is to know becomes well known?

Translations : Sanskrit (Shankaracharya's commentary) and English

Execution The Discipline of getting things done - Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan

Strategies most often fail because they aren't executed well.

The leaders who executes assembles an architecture of execution. He puts in place a culture and processes for executing, promoting people who get things done more quickly and giving them greater rewards. His personal involvement in that  architecture is to assign the tasks and them follow up. This means making sure that people understand the priorities. which are based on his comprehensive understanding of the business, and asking incisive questions. The leader who executes often dos not even have to tell people what to do; she asks questions so they can figure out what they need to do. In this way she coaches them. passing on her experience as a leader and educating them to think in ways they never thought before. Far from stifling peoplel this kind of leadership helps them expand their own capabilites for leading.

The walking around is useful and important but only if the leader doing the walking knows hwat to say and what to listen for.

Organisations do not execute unless the right people, individually and collectively, foucs on the right details at the right time.

BUILDING BLOCK 1
The Leader's Seven Essential Behaviors

1. Know your people and your business
2. Insist on realism
3. Set clear goals and priorities
4. Follow through
5. Reward the doers
6. Expand people's capabilities
7. Know yourself

BUILDING BLOCK 2

Creating the framework of cultural change

Your aim is to ask questions that bring out the realities and give people the help they need to correct problems.

We don't think ourselves into a new way of acting. we act ourselves into a new way of thinking.

An organisations culture is the sum of its shared values, beliefs and norms of behaviors. Values may need to be reinforced, they rarely need changing. 

The beliefs that influence specific behaviors are more likely to need changing. The beliefs are conditioned by training, experience, what people hear inside or outside about the company's prospects, and perceptions about what leaders are doing and saying. People change them only when new evidence new evidence shows them persuasively that they;re false. 

Linking rewards to performance. 

The foundation of changing behavior is linking rewards to performance and making the linkages transparent. A business's culture defines what gets appreciated and respected and ultimately rewarded. If a company rewards and promotes people for execution, its culture will change. 

The importanc eof robust dialogue

You cannot have an execution culture without dialogue - one that brings reality to the surface through openness, candor, and informality. Robust dialogue makes an organisation effective in gathering information, understanding information and reshaping it to produce decision.

When people speak candidly, they express their real opinions not those that will please the power players or maintain harmony.  Indeed, harmony - sought by many leaders who wish to offend no one - can be the enemy of truth. 

Leaders get behavior they exhibit and tolerate

The culture of company is behavior of its leaders. Leaders get the behavior they exhibit and tolerate. You change the culture of a company by changing the behavior of its leaders. You measure the change in the culture by measuring the change in the personal behavior of its leaders and the performance of the business. 

BUILDING BLOCK THREE:

The job no leader should delegatge - having the right peopole in the right place. 

Follwing through ensures that people are doing the things they committed to do, according to the agreed timetable. 

THE THREE CORE PROCESSES OF EXECUTION

People process: Making the link with strategy and operations

A robust peoples process does three things. 

• It evaluates individuals accurately and in depth. 
• It provides a framework for identifying and developing the leadership talent - at all levels and of all kinds - the organisation will need to execute its strategies down the road and 
• it fills the leadership pipeline that's the basis of a strong succession plan. 

One of the biggest shortcomings of the traditional people process is that it'sbackward looking. focused on evaluation the jobs people are doing today. Far more important is whether the individuals can handle the jobs of tomorrow. 

The basic goal of any strategy is simple enough: to win the customer's preference and create a sustainable competitive advantage. while leaving sufficient money on the table for the shareholders. It defines a business's direct an positions it to move in that direction 

If a strategy does not address the hows. it is candidate for failure. 

A strong strategic plan must address the following questions:

• What is the assessment of the external environment?
• How well do you understand the existing customers and markets?
• What is the best way to grow the business profitably and what are the obstacle to growth?
• Who is the competition ?
• Can the business excute the strategy?
• Are the short term and long term balanced?
• What are the important milestones for executing the plan?
• What are the critical issues facing the business?
• How will the business make money on sustainable basis?

What Got You Here Won't Get You There - Marshall Goldsmith

The Success Delusion, or Why we Resist Change

We

• Overestimate our contribution to a project
• Take credit, partial or complete, for successes that truly belong to others
• Have an elevated opinion of our professional skills and our standing among our peers
• Conveniently ignore the costly failures and time consuming dead ends we have created
• Exaggerate our project's impact on net profits because we discount the real and hidden costs built into them 

But our delusions become a serious liability when we need to change

Four key beliefs help us become successful. Each can make it tough for us to change. And that's the paradox of success: The beliefs that carried us here may be holding us back in our quest to go there. 

Belief : I have succeeded

Successful people believe in their skills and talent.
Belief 2: I Can Succeed
I am confident that I can succeed. Successful people believe that they have the capability within themselves to make desirable things happen.
The challenge is to make them see that sometimes they are successful in spite of their behaviour.
Belief 3: I Will Succeed
I have the motivation to succeed.
Over commitment can be as serious an obstacle to change as believing that you don't need fixing or that your flaws are part of the reason your're successful.
Belief 4: I Choose to Succeed
When we do what we choose to do, we are committed. When we do what we have to do, we are compliant.
The more we believe that our behavior is a result of our own choices and commitments, the less likely we are to want to change our behaviour.
Cognitive dissonance - It refers to the disconnect between what we believe in our minds and what we experience or see in reality. The underling theory is simple. The more we are committed to believing that something is true, the less likely we are to believe that its opposite is true, even in the face of clear evidence that shows we are wrong.

Almost every one I meet is successful because of doing a lot of things right, and almost every one I meet is successful in spite fo some behavior that defies common sense.

Their success has showered them with positive reinforcement. so they feel it's smart to continue doing what they've always done.
If there's any art to what I do maybe it happens at the decisive moment when I discover someone's hot bottom.

The Twenty Habits that hold you back from the top

1. Winning too much:  The need to win at all costs and in all situations – when it matters, when it doesn’t, and when it’s totally beside the point.
2. Adding too much value:  The overwhelming desire to add our two cents to every discussion.
3. Passing judgement:  The need to rate others and impose our standards on them.
4. Making destructive comments:  The needless sarcasms and cutting remarks that we think make us sound sharp and witty.
5. Starting with “No,” “But,” or “However”:  The overuse of these negative qualifiers which secretly say to everyone, “I’m right.  You’re wrong.”
6. Telling the world how smart we are:  The need to show people we’re smarter than we think we are.
7. Speaking when angry:  Using emotional volatility as a management tool.
8. Negativity, or “Let me explain why they won’t work”:  The need to share our negative thoughts even when we weren’t asked.
9. Withholding information:  The refusal to share information in order to maintain an advantage over others.
10. Failure to give proper recognition:  The inability to praise and reward.
11. Claiming credit that we don’t deserve:  The most annoying way to overestimate our contribution to any success.
12. Making excuses:  The need to reposition our annoying behavior as a permanent fixture so people excuse us for it.
13. Clinging to the past:  The need to deflect blame away from ourselves and onto events and people from our past; a subset of blaming everyone else.
14. Playing favorites:  Failing to see that we are treating someone unfairly.
15. Refusing to express regret:  The inability to take responsibility for our actions, admit we’re wrong, or recognize how our actions affect others.
16. Not listening:  The most passive-aggressive form of disrespect for colleagues.
17. Failing to express gratitude:  The most basic form of bad manners.
18. Punishing the messenger:  The misguided need to attack the innocent who are usually only trying to help us.
19. Passing the buck:  The need to blame everyone but ourselves.
20. An excessive need to be “me”:  Exalting our faults as virtues simply because they’re who we are.

The higher up you go in the organisation, the more you need to make other people winners and not make it about winning yourself.
Trouble is candor can easily become a weapon. People permit themselves to issue destructive comments under the excuses that they are true. The question is not "Is it true?" but rather "Is it worth it?"

The interesting thing about not listening is that for the most part it's a silent invisible activity. People rarely notice you ding it.
When you find yourself mentally oor literally drumming your fingers while someone else is talking. stop the drumming. Stop demonstrating impatience when listening to someone.
When somebody makes a suggestion or gives you ideas. your're either going to learn more or learn nothing. So thank them for trying to help.
Gratitude is a skill that we can never display too often. Gratitude is not a limited resource nor is it costly.

The first is assessing the situation, the second is isolating the problem, the third is formulating 4 woo up to get your superiors to approve 5 you woo laterally to get your peers to agree 6 you woo down to get your direct reports to accept 7 implement

Listening
Is it worth it? engages you in thinnking beyon the discussion to consider
a. how the oher person regards you
b. what that person will do afteerwords
c how that person will behave the next time you talk.

Decisive

How to make better decisions

Decisive - Chip & Dan Heath

A remarkable aspect of your mental life is that you are rarely stumped - Daniel Kahneman

The normal state of your mind is that you have intuitive feelings and opinions about almost everything that comes your way. You like or dislike people long before you know much about them; you trust or distrust strangers without knowing why; you feel that an enterprise is bound to succeed without analysing it. - DK - Thinking, Fast and Slow

The Four Villains of Decision Making

Any time in life you're tempted to think,'Should I do this OR that?' instead, ask yourself, 'Is there a way I can do this AND that?'

Narrow framing - (unduly limiting the options we consider) the tendency to define our choice too narrowly, to see them in binary terms.

Confirmation bias - (seeking out information that bolsters our beliefs) Our normal habit in life is to develop a quick belief about a situation and then seek out information that bolsters our belief.

The tricky thing about the confirmation bias is that it can look very scientific. After all, we're collecting data.

And this is what's slightly terrifying  about the confirmation bias: When we want something to be true, we will spotlight the things that support it, and then, when we draw conclusions from those spotlighted scenes, we'll congratulate ourselves on a reasoned decision.

Short term emotions - (being swayed by emotions that will fade) When we've got a difficult decision to make, our feelings churn. We replay the same argument in our head. We agonize about our circumstance. We have kicked up so much dust that we can't see the way forward. In those moments, what we need most is perspective.

Overconfidence - (having too much faith in our predictions) People think they know more than they do about how the future will unfold. The future has an uncanny ability to surprise. We can't shine a spotlight on areas when we don't know they exist.

Vanishing Options Test: You can't choose any of the current options you're considering. What else could you do?

What if our least favourite option were actually the best one? What data might convince us of that?

Multitrack (Consider more than one option simultaneously)
Toggle between the prevention and promotion midnsets

• Prevention focus = avoiding negative outcomes.
•  Promotion focus = pursuing positive outcomes

Find someone who's solved your problem
When you need more options but feel stuck look for someone who's solved your problem
Look outside: completive analysis, benchmarking, best practices
Look inside: Find your bright spots'

Consider the opposite
To gather more trustworthy information, we can ask discomforting questions
Can we force ourselves to consider the opposite of our instincts?

Zoom in Zoom out
When we zoom out, we take the outside view, learning from the experiences of others who have made choices like the one we're facing. When we zoom in, we take a close-up of the situation, looking for "color" that could inform our decision.

Zooming out and zooming in gives us a more realistic perspective on our choices. We down play the overly optimistic picture we tend to paint inside our minds and instead redirect our attention to the outside world, , viewing it in wide-angle and then in close-up.

Often we trust "the averages" over our instincts but not as much as we should.

The inside view = our evaluation of our specific situation. The outside view = how generally things unfold in situation like ours. The outside view is more accurate, but most people gravitate towards the inside view.

If you can't find the "base rate" for your decision, ask an expert

Ooch
Ooching = running small experiments to test our theories. Rather than jumping in headfirst, we dip a toe in
Ooching is counter productive for situations that require commitment

Overcoming Short-Term Emotion
Fleeting emotions tempt us to make decisions that are bad in the long term

10/10/10 provides distance by forcing us to consider future emotions as mush as present ones.

• How will we feel about it 10 minutes from now?
• How about 10 months from now?
• How about 10 years from now?

Perhaps the most powerful question for resolving personal decisions is "what would I tell my best friend to do in this situation?"

Honour Your Core Priorities
Agonizing decisions are often are sign of a conflict among your core priorities.

Core priorities: long-term emonional values, goals, aspirations. What kind of person do you want to be?

By identifying and enshrining your core priorities, you make it easier to resolve present and future dilemmas

Bookend the Future

The future is not a "point" - a single scenario that we must predict. It is a range. We should bookend the future. considering a range of outcomes from very bad to very good.

• Lower bookend - we need to premortem. It's a year from now. Our decision has failed utterly. Why?
• Upper bookend - we need to preparade. It's a year from now. We're heroes. Will we be ready for success?

To prepare for what can't be foreseen, we can use a "safety factor"

Set a tripwire

Tripwire ensures that we are aware it's time to make a decision, that we don't miss our chance to choose we've been lulled into autopilot.

Tripwires encourage risk taking by letting us carve out a "safe space" for experimentation

Tripwires allow us the certainty of committing to a course of action, even a risky one, while minimizing the costs of overconfidence.

In life, we naturally slip into autopilot, leaving past decisions unquestioned. A tripwire can snap us awake and make us realize we have a choice. Tripwire can be especially useful when change is gradual.

Social Media Activism, Shannon and the 4 Villains

Social media can be used to accumulate and amplify our beliefs and preferences. Our interests, associations and interactions in the virtual world can shapes our world view. 

Some have appropriated this platform for activism - to present an argument, prove a point and further their cause. They carry their personal biases into the virtual world. Content (words,links, images, videos) that resonates with, strengthens and vindicate their viewpoint is widely circulated.Often they feed off people who hold similar views or defend against opponents of their cause. 

We face a constant onslaught of misinformation promulgated by fixated individuals. We inadvertently add noise to the system acting on our natural impulses. There is a need to develop a method that will filter out these distortions. 

Communications theory can be used as an approximate model to describe the issue .The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point. The terms used in communication theory (noise, information, capacity, channel and bandwidth) can't be referred in exact context in social media parlance but it presents an interesting parallel.

Shannon [1] was concerned with transmitting messages through a channel even in the presence of noise.

• Noise and distortion may be differentiated on the basis that distortion is a fixed operation applied to the signal, while noise involves statistical and unpredictable perturbations 
• Distortion can, in principle, be corrected by applying the inverse operation, while a perturbation due to noise cannot always be removed, since the signal does not always undergo the same change during transmission 
• If the noise is increased over the value for which the system was designed, the frequency of errors increases very rapidly 

In recent times the tone, tenor and quality of the social activist discourse leaves much to be desired. How do we stop being another noise source and contribute to clarity of the message? On which criteria we should act or deliberately choose not to react. The Four Villains of decision Making [2] presents a strategy (WRAP) to counteract our natural tendencies and arrive at better choices.

1. Narrow Framing - Narrow framing means that you are not considering all the alternatives available to you and defining your choices too narrowly. 
• Does the argument or position covers a narrow cross-section or presents it in binary terms.
• Does it not even consider options that may be better? 
• Is there a tendency to put a spotlight on specific aspect while neglecting positions that do not support the argument or are contrary? 
• Action: Widen Your Opinions
2. Confirmation bias - Confirmation bias means that when you want or believe an idea to be true, you pay more attention to the information that supports that belief. People naturally tend to select information that supports their pre-existing attitudes, beliefs and actions.
• Does the viewpoint feed to our confirmation bias? 
• Action: Reality Test Your Assumptions
3. Short term emotion - Short-term emotion clouds thinking. When you are emotional about a decision, you might replay arguments over and over until you can’t think straight, even though the facts have not changed. 
• Does the argument only panders to your emotions or asks you to take immediate action on some issue without proper consideration 
• Action: Attain Distance Before Deciding
4. Overconfidence. Overconfidence is believing that we know what the future holds. Being overconfident leads to not considering alternatives or what might happen if your choice doesn't work out well. 
• Are the views projecting any foregone conclusions for a future event? 
• Action: Prepare to Be Wrong

Social media can be used to seek information, test hypothesis and  broaden our outlook. Activists tend to have a rigid opinion, seek supporting arguments, have high emotional stake and unwavering allegiance to their cause. They intentionally or unintentionally contribute towards higher noise  and loss of communication fidelity. Take a pause and reflect before spreading content that should not be amplified.

I end by quoting Robertson Davies "Be sure you choose what you believe and know why you believe it, because if you don’t choose your beliefs, you may be certain that some belief, and probably not a very credible one, will choose you."

[1] Communication in the Presence of Noise: CLAUDE E. SHANNON
[2] Decisive: CHIP & DAN HEATH

© Ratish

6 tips to help you focus on your most important improvement area this year

My challenge is to achieve desired results by engaging in deliberated actions that lead to the intended results. Often times, we do not act in consistent manner with what we know is the right things to do. There is a disconnect in our intent and action.  This is something I would like to focus for the year.

 I have used tools (6 Successors To The Elevator Pitch) suggested by Daniel Pink in his book "To Sell Is Human" to position this as a self selling pitch. This concept can be used to reinforce your focus for the year as well.

1. One word pitch: |Push brevity to its breaking point. Reducing your point to single word demands discipline and forces clarity. Choose proper word and rest can fall in place. 
2. Question Pitch: When you are asked question you are compelled to respond. 
3. Rhyming Pitch: Rhymes boosts processing fluency. The ease with which our mind slice, dice and makes sense of stimuli
4. Subject line (Email) Pitch: Utility,Curiosity, Specificity. Utility works better when lots of email- something to gain or loose. Curiosity in low demand -intrinsic motivation.  
5. Twitter Pitch
6. Pixar Pitch

Once upon a time  ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___

Here are my practice pitches on intent vs action that I will use to keep the focus this year.

One word pitch:
Action

Question pitch: 
Why are your excuses stronger than the intent?

Rhyming pitch:
Focused effort every waking hour 
Makes dream real with its magical power. 

Subject line pitch:
6 tips to help you focus on your most important improvement area this year (will try alteration)
Twitter Pitch: (will tweet)

Pixar Pitch                  
Once upon a time I had a good intention
Every day I wanted to act on it but got distracted with other things 
One day I disregarded my excuses and took a small step
Because of that I was able to make small progress in desired direction
Because of that the feeling of making an impact got reinforced
Until finally my actions became stronger than my excuses.


© Ratish

Notes to myself: Words and Conversations

Events in recent past have led me to question some of my current mental models on conversation and usage of words.
I had to conduct few difficult conversations with individuals. Also some quips I made were not well received. I have considered retorts and sarcasm to be integral part of conversations.

Words if used in an inopportune manner may be used to misguide, incite hatred, cause hurt or even to filibuster and wash out an entire parliament session.

I required clarity around a few constructs

• What to speak
• What not to speak 
• How to speak it

These are not new questions. Some directions came from the readings:

सत्यं ब्रूयात्  प्रियं ब्रूयात्नब्रूयात्  सत्यमप्रियं
प्रियं च नानृतं ब्रूयात्   एष धर्मः सनातनः

Speak the truth which is pleasant. Do not speak the truth that is undesirable. Never speak untruth, which might be pleasant.This is the path of eternal morality. 

To narrate how things happened is not truth

Some of directions came from sages and practitioners. Kabir in his couplets says:

बोली तो अनमोल है, जो कोई जाने बोल |

हृदय तराजू तोल के, तब मुख बहार खोल ||

Words are priceless for those who know how to use it. They should be weighted inside carefully and then should be spoken out.

मधुर वचन है औषधि, कुटिल वचन है तीर |

श्रवन द्वार है संचरे, साले सकल सरीर ||

Pleasurable words are like medicine and harsh words are like arrow. It enters through the gates of ears and causes distress to the whole body .

While it will take more practice to resolve "what and how" part of the question. From the readings it is clear that I need to exercise more discretion on "what not to speak" part first. We derive pleasure from witty retort as it makes conversation lively and entertaining. The discretion part is that it  should not hurt others.


© Ratish
16 Aug

Notes to myself: Intent vs. Action

Most of us have good intent in life. Many of us do not deliver against our intent consistently.

How do we translate the intent into action? The velocity of outcome can be tracked through FPS:

• Focus on why: A strong "why" that will keep you driven. The clarity will help you choose among the options on how this can be best achieved. It will eventually help you coming back to (or not) it if it needs getting done or it may be superseded by alternatives. 
• Prioritise: Know what the "must haves" are in given situation and time frame. Think about the 80/20 rule. It may be OK to put a few things on the back burner for a while and define what success would look like for things that matter 
• Score: Measure the progress against desired outcomes. This will help you realign and provide the necessary inputs to course correct.

Challenge yourself to follow-up. Consistent follow-up is the differentiator between a dreamer and achiever.

© Ratish
Didcot

Notes to myself: Blind-spots - Can we spot them?

Advent of new year brings along a ritual where we take stock of  life. We reflect on our successes, challenges, contemplate on improvements and course corrections. Our resolutions often get diluted with passage of time. .

We manage to keep some of our long term objective outside the span of immediate recall. We devote our time and effort to pursue other tactical initiative or competing priority [1]. Without focused effort it appears that  mundane takes from the important.

We still have hope as studies suggest that we can use week, month and other natural checkpoints to regain focus and get back on track. [2]. By creating weekly/Monthly reflection ritual we increase our chances of making progress and eventually attaining our long term goals.  We may do this in-spite of missing a few intermediate milestones due to other diversions.

One of the insights I had from annual reflection was that my fastest growth has come in the area where I felt most uncomfortable, lacked proficiency or generally felt out of depth. It is easier to negotiate the learning curve when you can identify the area of improvements. There is ample resources and guidance available that will correct these.    

Some of my biggest challenges have come from my blind-spots. These are areas where I consider myself to be adequately informed or where I am totally unaware of my deficiency [3][4]. Will our blind-spots always remain in the realm of "known unknown", "unknown unknowns" or "unknowable unknowns"?[5][6]. 

Analysis of my historical blind-spot have revealed a pattern of my conditioned responses and behaviour traits that can be broadly classified as: 

• Not questioning currently held beliefs
• Crafting arguments to defend my position or rationalising it
• Thinking it is "You  not Me"
• Attributing my behaviour or choice to my personality type that cannot be changed
• Neglecting feedback provided by people around me   
•  Failure to recognise change in environment or context

Being aware of our habits and the associated triggers may alert us to the issue. We need a focused strategy to rectify this deficiency. The components of our structured response can include some of the methods and techniques below:

• Change Mindset: Our mindset is often times the limiting factor that keeps us rooted in our old beliefs and actions. Without having a positive learning attitude it will be difficult to make any progress. Acknowledge that you do not have answers figured out for everything under the sun and beyond. 
• Be aware of your defence mechanism and constructs that you frequently use. Watch out for habits, triggers and conditioned responses. Do not treat them as shields to duck under cross fire. 
• Be open to suggestions and explore opportunities to learn form experiences of oneself and others. 
•  Be more aware counter points and alternate view points to positions you naturally hold. Challenge your most dearly held beliefs or assumptions. 
• Work with others: We may overestimate our capability and be unaware of our own deficiencies. This calls for even more meaningful engagement with our interactions with others.This will give us better handles to unearth issues that are hidden in our plain sight.You may even pick up book or browse videos on any topic to broaden the vision
• Have people in your life who will tell you "as things are not as you wish to hear it". 
• Be open to feedback, actively seek it and be sincere to learn and change 
• Get views from people from different background
• Do not discount feedback from people whom you may not like for any personal reason. 
• Seek opportunities to discuss with others 
• form the point of view of expanding your own understanding rather than influencing others. 
• Try to grasp how they deal with similar situations or what helps them identify their own "blind-spots".
• Deliberate Practice: Identify at least one area that you perceive to be your biggest area of improvement - think of "elephant in the fridge". These may be the things that have almost become a second nature to you.Put deliberate focus to identify gaps, learn and improve on specific area through sustained practice and correction loop. You can internalise learning and behaviour changes by follow-ups:
• Become aware of your mental constructs and arguments and your knee jerk reactions.  
• Notice the scenarios, activities and circumstances in that act as trigger or cues
• Identify and plan measured response in future situations. Ideal scenario will be when you become aware of trigger at the moment and can choose to take measured response instead of conditioned response
• Reinforce new behaviour and learning with regular practice  
• Schedule regular review sessions to identify progress and course correction

Mirrors make our driving safer in dense traffic, undulating roads or inclement weather. Similarly awareness of blind-spot helps us to overcome limitations and march forward in personal growth path.  

© Ratish

References:


[1] Good and Bad Procrastination
There are three variants of procrastination, depending on what you do instead of working on something: you could work on (a) nothing, (b) something less important, or (c) something more important. 

[2]The Fresh Start Effect: Temporal Landmarks Motivate Aspirational Behaviour

People are more likely to pursue various types of aspirational behaviour (e.g., dieting, exercising, goal pursuit) at the start of “new epochs” initiated by the incidence of temporal landmarks, including the beginning of a new week, month, year, and school semester, as well as immediately following a public holiday, a school break, or a birthday.

[3] Dunning Kruger  Effect

A cognitive bias wherein unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than is accurate. The mis-calibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the mis-calibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others
[4] Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments
Successful negotiation of everyday life would seem to require people to possess insight about deficiencies in their intellectual and social skills. However, people tend to be blissfully unaware of their incompetence. This lack of awareness arises because poor performers are doubly cursed: Their lack of skill deprives them not only of the ability to produce correct responses, but also of the expertise necessary to surmise that they are not producing them. People base their perceptions of performance, in part, on their preconceived notions about their skills. Because these notions often do not correlate with objective performance, they can lead people to make judgements about their performance that have little to do with actual accomplishment.
[5]  Anosognosic’s Dilemma: Something’s Wrong but You’ll Never Know What It Is
Unknown unknown risksare problems that people do not know they are vulnerable to. Unknown unknowns also exist at the level of solutions.  People often come up with answers to problems that are o.k., but are not the best solutions.  The reason they don’t come up with those solutions is that they are simply not aware of them.Unknown unknown solutions haunt the mediocre without their knowledge.
[6] Donald Rumsfeld quote
“Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns- the ones we don't know we don't know.”

Notes to myself: Read Manuals - Less is more

Notes to myself is an attempt to create a new ritual. The intention is to capture thoughts and experience in life through reflection on recent events and experiences.

Our memory is biased towards recency. Each recent event appears as a letter crisply typed on a page. This page is deposited in the library of our mind gathering dust. In due course some of the pages become faded, some blank and some words and sentences of page remain true. The more often we visit a page or book from this library the longer it stays lucid.

We tend to loose details through automatic purge that happens daily. We use the same page to rewrite our story each day. Only a very selective parts of our experience, events, places visited, learnings ever make it into the library after the cleanse.

These notes are an attempt to document things that have impacted me in some way. It may provide material to reflect in future, solidify lessons learned, act as a guide post on how events have shaped me and provide course correction information.

This is not intended as a daily journal. It is meant for regular periodic reflections, may be weekly.

Read Manuals - Less is more

I am a photography enthusiast and have a DSLR for more than a year. This new year day I was in London for the new year's parade. It provided some spectacular photo opportunity. I was fortunate to have a good spot and the weather was holding as well. I got some good images from this even.

After the event I compared my images with ones posted on official event page. The professionals had and advantage of better gear, had flexibility to better position themselves. In retrospect I could have achieved even better results if I was more conversant in using various features of my device.

I  have never bothered to go through the camera manual - Who does this anyway?  I had read about digital photography, looked up work of renowned photographers and browsed through a few tutorials.This has resulted in gradual improvements in my skill over a period of time. All this while I was woefully unaware on specific on the features and capability of my camera.

With the life full of distractions and wants we tend to skim things. Having too many options clouds our focus.  We do not devote time or effort to go through the grind . It is an easier option to move on to the next best thing that catches our fancy. It takes practice and repetition to anchor the learning and make them your own.  Before we can soar we should learn to stand on firm ground.

I had started developing an itch to own a telephoto lens. I am putting this plan on hold while I sort a few things out. Sometimes "Less is More" and you may need to go deep before you can go broad.

© Ratish