Tag Archives: Negativity

If you want to begin 2017 with a bang, put your faith on four fundamental equations

Dec 31,2016 / By

abcThere are 4 fundamental forces, which govern all what happens in our universe – gravity, electro-magnetism, strong and weak forces. Likewise, there are 4 basic equations that govern all what we do.

We spend days and decades doing our things; but most of us fail to see how things are interwoven or interconnected. There exist clear cut relationship between causes and consequences or events and effects.

Here below are 4 equations that are universally applicable from the strongest person to the weakest in our world and give you command on the results from what you do:

  1. You believe = What you perceive or conceive repetitively
    This equation is the mother of your ideas, beliefs, tendencies, traits or habits. It shows that beliefs do not come from blue; but you actually build them. Whatever you think or observe on a repetitive basis or you are made to do so, you would start to believe it, regardless it is right or wrong.
    This equation governs your learning in school, college or elsewhere. It builds your fantasies, fascinations, faith to fundamentalism or fanaticism.
    One of the far reaching repercussions of this equation can be observed across the world – humans are very prone to negativity; our attention is very quickly drawn by adverse scenarios or news. We tend to think, talk and see more of wrong or depressive things and in that process, we build up wrong beliefs or ideas resulting in our anger, anxiety, fear, frustration, doubts, depression or superstition.
    So, to develop good ideas or right beliefs, you have to perceive or conceive right things.
  2. You become = What you believe
    If you believe in dynamism, you are bound become dynamic. If you put your belief in leadership qualities, you can never be a laggard. You want to stand tall, nobody can make you small.
    If you believe that you can be a singer, engineer, professional or public icon, you would become that. All that you need is a belief, which is unquestionable and unshakable; which you would not doubt or dither, go back and forth. You would relinquish anything that comes as a roadblock; but not reverse that belief. Then, such powerful belief would automatically push you to pursue what you want to be, develop a passion and open door of opportunities to get there.
    This relationship works both way; so if you believe you cannot become someone you like, you would not.
  3. You get = What you give
    Often bosses complain that their sub-ordinates do not respect them; but then they are oblivious of the fact that they do not deal with them with respect. If you give smile, then it is not possible that people would not return it with smile. If you give trouble, you would necessarily get in trouble. You love someone sincerely; it is impossible that person would not fall in love with you.
    So, you get what you give. It is universally applied to all of your actions without exception.
    If we fail to notice such a simple cause and effect relationship, it is only because of our ego, biases or obsession, which blinds us to see what exactly we are doing or giving.
  4. You see = What you sow in your mind
    One morning, you wake up in great spirits and you find everything going great that day. But, another day, you get up with low energy and esteem, though nothing has changed externally.
    So, what has actually changed?
    It is ideas and images, which you have sown in your mind previous day, during dreaming or first few moments after waking up that have actually changed for good on 1st occasion and for worse, in case of 2nd.
    So, you would always see, what you have sown in your mind. Positive and negative aspects or angles of everything exist side by side. Depending upon what is in your mind, you start to focus on plus or minus or mix of the two and you fathom things accordingly.
    If you want to see things in order, you have to put your mind first in orderly state. If you like to witness happiness around, you have to be happy. But, if you have roped in miserable ideas in mind, you would only reap miseries.

So, these equations give you complete control on whatever you want to believe, become, get and see!

What else do you need in 2017 and beyond?

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Why likes of Trump would not only survive but always thrive

Nov 11,2016 / By
Portrait of angry boss shouting at his secretary through megaphone who is indifferent to it

How not to get bulldozed by bully! Image source – flickr.com

Look at any country, company, community or family – difficult person or people always dominate and decent ones lie low. In a school classroom, naughty students are always noticeable and receive teachers’ most attention; but nice ones find themselves neglected.

In just concluded US Presidential race, it is widely believed that both of main contenders were difficult personalities; but then what made Donald to trump Hillary?

Few days back, a respectable Indian newspaper carried an article penned by a well-known writer about 2 drug lords – Pablo Escobar of Colombia in real life and Walter White in reel life. She narrated how impressed she was by their sheer dynamism and determination, sharp minds and wished that such unmatched talent could be channelized for good cause of our society. She is not alone in her thoughts of compassion and sympathy. Most of us are very fascinated by villain-heroes, who are on relentless pursuit and ruthless run for a cause they believe as fair but by flouting every law. What most or masses always mistake in understanding that massive energy and enigma of such heroes exist only because they are villains!

The seed for power and popularity

The seed for power, position and publicity is in man’s Ego. If level of ego in a person is above certain threshold, it creates uncontrolled desire and drive for name and fame, nurtures blind belief – “I am the one, who alone can be right and can do it.” Mind of such person gets shut from realities and respect for others.

If you have watched Donald Trump, he enjoys extra high level of ego, much beyond the threshold, when compared with his rival/s.

By-products of ego are arrogance and reckless run for one-upmanship and showmanship. On a larger platform in a country or company, ego and its by-products are often misunderstood – ego is perceived as esteem or pride; arrogance is projected as great confidence and reckless pursuit is pronounced as passion. It is more prevalent in developed societies, who like to gloss over qualities in preference to quantities. I have been privy to host of such incidences during my tenure with a US multinational company.

Spreading negativity and then making positive promises

It is very easy to declare things are bad; but it is difficult to say things are good since that would need intelligence and patience to substantiate. People easily get alarmed when they are told that things are going to be bad. It evokes their emotions and creates confusion.

Likes of Trump master the art of painting a dismal picture of present even if it is rosy, exploiting people’s emotions and manipulating those with positive promises. Therefore, the slogan “I would make America great again” has gone down pretty well with public, not knowing by which account USA has indeed gone down!

People sympathize with who they perceive as victim or powerless

We often misunderstand mindset of masses.

If you have noticed, throughout election campaign in USA (and that happens even elsewhere), rivals and media were busy exposing (bad) truths about Trump but never brought his myths in focus. He was smart enough to project himself as victim in the hands of media and party in power. He could translate it into public sympathy. On other hand, Hillary could never be seen as victim of allegations by her rivals, as she was once in powerful position and now backed up party in power.

Virtues of one in power can easily be translated into vices by the one who is powerless.

So, as long as we succumb to our ego and negativity especially fears, likes of Trump would always succeed and we will not be able to wield our true strength!

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Biggest blunder in our world – dealing with “wrong” by going wrong!

Sep 21,2015 / By

When things go wrong! Source: http://www.flickr.com/

To deal with what has gone wrong, we tend to adopt wrong ways! Most of us feel justified in doing so and in that process, we go more wrong and commit more blunders!!

Above self-justification usually comes in 2 ways:

  1. No; we are not doing anything wrong by going wrong, since that is the only way a wrong person or thing can be corrected!
  2. We can’t help going wrong; after all we are human beings!

Justifying what one does is in our DNA. Therefore, we generally don’t care whether our actions bring right results or make things worse.

Open any chapter of history or observe current happenings; writing on wall is very clear –

“Whenever things had gone bad, people had lost their balance or goodness, resorted to bad means and hit the wall. Then either they had come to their senses to do right things and restore normalcy or continued to struggle with no sign of “bad or wrong attitude, approach, behavior or things” abating!”

This saga continues at all levels – from personal to companies to countries. If employees could not meet their targets, hell would be broken loose by bosses. If some sub-ordinates are weak in performance or personality, first thing that a supervisor would do is to ignore or avoid communicating with them. If a profit center in a company has incurred losses, heads would roll. If a kid or household help has broken a glass, we will break lose our temper.

Let us look at what happens when there is conflict among a group of people. Emotions and temper would run high. Conflict escalates. But it ebbs, when counsel by one wise person within the group or from outside prevails on wisdom of the rest and if that does not happen, the conflict would only engulf many more!

Take fanaticism or fundamentalism in several parts of world at this time. Some people are imposing their doctrines or dogmas at global level through terror and killings. To counter or suppress that, some countries use their weaponry technology, power and money muscles, resulting into more killings and further maligning and multiplying those, who are already malignant!

When something goes wrong with our health – common cold, catch in the legs to cancer – most manage to mess it up further. We would become pessimistic, sad, irritated…, though every doctor would advise – be cheerful and hopeful! No doubt, treatment would do its job to cure/heal; but all researches show that evergreen advice of doctors and a good frame of mind would accelerate restoration of health and/or make it much less painful!!

Simplest problem like being in rush, majority mismanages to do everything (avoidable) to go in reverse gear! 

From above examples, it is very clear that wrong approach can never mutilate wrong; instead, it would help it mutate and multiply!

Why nearly all of us go wrong in dealing with wrong

Here is the deal:

  1. Action on basis of 1st reaction of our mind is the easiest thing to do!
    Majority confuses 1st reaction of mind as their instincts and that is a worse gaffe!!
  2. Above spontaneously satisfies our ego and that gives birth to our biases and a feeling of being justified in our actions.
  3. It then leads to cementing the thoughts at the back of our mind that what we perceive as bad or wrong things must be dealt by giving back, pointing fingers, banging, anger, accusation or shouting to physical harm in worst case.
  4. Negativity always sits on our nose and hence is handy; whereas positivity needs patience and peace of mind that we find difficult to practice!
  5. Our history and hormones have inculcated hero cult in us, which gives us sadistic pleasure of seeing offenders or villains being thrashed out verbally or bodily or even finished.
  6. It is for above reason that we feel compelled to retaliate against wrong doings!

Why only “right” has possibility and power to root out “wrong”!

We seem to ignore the simplest analogy or logic, nature has beautifully presented to us:

Identical polarities or charges repel each other e.g. two negative or positive charges would move apart and can’t impact each other; therefore, the two survive individually. But, a positive and a negative charge would collide and cancel each other. By the same token, a wrong or bad can be corrected by right or good, but never by another wrong or bad action! It is also precisely for same reason that wrong brings reaction and retribution, whereas right bestows reconciliation and restoration!!

Unfortunately, aforesaid 6 points create illusion in minds of most what exactly is wrong or right. Clearly, wrong is what creates reactions, raises emotions or temper, conflict or controversy and interference with others.

Right is clearly what creates solutions initially or eventually and would result in:

  1. Evoking tolerance, patience and positive vibes
  2. Eliciting understanding and acceptance of the way others are and why they do things in consonance or contradiction to your expectations
  3. Encouraging open communication on your part
  4. Ebbing or Erasing past memories of your prejudices
  5. Evolving your response, action or judgment without fear but with fairness and frankness

So, if you can rely on what is right as above, you can comfortably deal with or manage what is not right or conflicts, controversy, crisis or even crime at personal, professional or public level, regardless you are employer, employee, supervisor, sub-ordinate, buddy or bête noire!

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Mind boggling effect of thoughts on our being, body and its built!

Aug 23,2015 / By

Reflection of good thoughts! Source: http://www.flickr.com/

A study by scientists of Swansea and Milan Universities of people in various age groups has concluded that those, who spent too much time on internet, are more susceptible to caching cold and flu. Internet addicted people suffer from stress, when they are disconnected with internet. Cycle of relief and stress that they go through leads to altered levels of cortisol – a hormone, which is responsible for impacting human body immune function. Previous research had shown that excessive use of internet leads to greater sleep deprivation, worse eating and drinking habits among users. Note that culprit may be internet; but real cause is addiction and/or stress, which is nothing but thoughts albeit negative!

In 1950’s, Henry K. Bleecher of Harvard University published his research finding that 30 to 40% of patients suffering from chronic ailments improved after taking a placebo! A placebo is like dummy tablet say sugar pill that has no therapeutic value, but patient sees it as part of treatment without recognizing that it is dummy but believing it would help. Since then lot of medical research has proved that placebo does work and leads to biological changes in body, which are actually triggered by psychological changes. It only establishes intimate relationship of brain with body; mind over matter!

How our brain controls body

Regardless of biological explanations how brain controls our body, bottom line of this control is our thoughts. Ironically, very little work has been done in physics or physiology on “How a thought gets developed in human mind”! It is our thought that sends command through nerves/ blood vessels to concerned part of body to control it in a specified manner.

See below short/long term physical effects of thoughts on our body:

  1. If you are generally optimistic (essentially positive thoughts), your eyes glow and face wears smile or serenity! In longer term, aging effect on your body is slower.
  2. If you are carefree and rarely tense, you would enjoy good health and immunity with body weight being normal. However, if you become careless/casual, you would run risk of becoming obese.
  3. If you a confident person (confidence comes by clear thoughts), you would raise your head, look straight and walk fast. Over time, you are less likely to suffer from cervical or spinal problems!
  4. If you are generally stern and angry faced, you would develop crow’s feet lines around eyes and wrinkles on forehead.
  5. If you are worrying or stressing type, you would be vulnerable to host of health issues – poor digestion system, IBS, high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiac ailments or disturbed sleep leading to dark shadows under eyes and weak immune system!

Train your thoughts and tag your world along!

Everything that we experience comes through our thoughts in mind! It is only our thoughts, which give us feeling of life in ourselves and in others around us. Absence of thoughts is absence of life and in medical terms, one is brain dead. Our intentions, perceptions, ego, emotions, desires, needs, habits, tendencies, traits, biases, beliefs, fears or faiths are nothing but a set of thoughts. We tend to classify those differently, since our sensory response to each of them is different. Our world is roughly 50% physical comprising of matter and energy and 50% is virtual comprising of our thoughts!

Such is colossal effect of thoughts; but equally callous/casual is the approach of most people towards thoughts! Normal tendency is to think – oh, what is there? It is just a thought; it does not matter! Stark fact is our thoughts become our talks and tasks, after getting converted into words and wishes/wants!

Thoughts also create radical impact:

  • Thoughts help you dream and design your destiny! 
  • They shape your personality!
    Medical field generally talks of genes impacting your persona. But, genes only determine your tendencies and your thoughts can alter same. If genetic tendencies are favorable, impact of your thoughts would get accentuated; but if contradictory, those would impede impact and you would struggle more for a change!
  • Thoughts can influence upcoming events, until those become a reality! 

Now, how to train your thoughts!

My research has revealed that you can train your mind only for positive thoughts; but never for negative thoughts! Negative thoughts would always build automatically!!

Less positive you are, more negative would you be. When your negativity recedes, positivity rises! To train your thoughts:

  1. If you are happy and hopeful, you are ready to go to step no. 6 below.
  2. If your mind is laden with loads of thoughts, divert your mind and get busy with your work, until your mind becomes light.
  3. If you are confused or irritated and can’t find reason for same, believe that what is in your mind is rubbish. Simply discard it.
  4. If your mind is preoccupied with some problems, determine what needs your immediate attention and what can wait. List down the latter on a piece of paper; but attend what is immediate, leaving aside everything else.
  5. Finally, when you think you are focused, then is the time for next step.
  6. Practice to build your thoughts only on basis of your present observations or goals and knowledge but never emotions.
    Nothing else must be considered to build your thoughts.
  7. Our mind keeps wandering, which actually means random thoughts roaming in our mind. Lot of researchers and psychologists suggest that allow them to come and go; just observe. This is a right thing to do; but what is not right is to create pressure in mind to drive them away, since by doing so, you create opposing thoughts, which is wrong. Instead, believe random thoughts are redundant; hence give no importance. This is the best way to practice and push them away!
    Another significant revelation from my research – “Random thoughts or remembrance of even most loved or respected ones, including God, can’t stand you in good stead! It means a malady in mind – traces or tones of obsession or prejudice!!” So, practice to think or remember even God consciously!
  8. Drill in your mind nothing is more important than to focus of what you choose to do now!
  9. Secret of your positive thoughts is surfacing of your happiness! Practice to capture and consolidate those thoughts!!
  10. Make serious efforts to allow single thought at a time in your mind!

By training your thoughts as above, you would witness miraculous and mind-blowing changes in your being and body!

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Greatest management technique is in mastering Murphy’s Law!

Mar 21,2015 / By

Toast more likely to fall on side of jam, if carpet is more expensive! Source: http://www.flickr.com/

Ever since I released my 1st article about Murphy’s Law on 08-Aug-2013, I have been experimenting with this law and collecting data to establish its truths and myths and the way it impacts what we do.

I wish to emphasize the law has very significant influence on our professional and personal lives, because a microscopic view of same helps to understand how to come to the grip of realities and how to influence events that have still not become realities!

To recap, Murphy’s Law is a simple statement “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong!” Popularity of this law is vindicated by fact that several books have been authored after converting it into innumerable corollaries and quotes, which indeed applies in our day to day life. Irony is that this law or its interpretations do not talk of “Anything that can go right, will go right”, which is absolutely correct and valid for all of us! It is a clear case of negative statements catching fancy of everyone, whereas positive ones should be firing our imagination! Great paradox is none of us want problems; but we always get stuck with what we want to strike-out!!

Murphy’s Law proves that humans are error prone. If we can reach to roots of how this law works, we would be armed with formidable technique of avoiding wrong decisions and actions, rightly managing business and people.

Mystery behind Murphy’s Law

My research for past 18 months shows:

  1. When I was desperate that my vendors supply on time, they delivered late on 16 out of 19 instances (84%)!
  2. Whenever I was cool, 13 out of 15 times (87%) vendors delivered on time!
  3. When I was confident that things would now not go wrong, 51 out of 80 times (64%) things did go wrong. When I analyzed in retrospect, I found that I was overconfident!!
  4. I decided to investigate why I commit mistakes while filling in a payment cheque, which I wanted it to least happen.
    I found that 18 out of 20 instances (90%), I was conscious (rather over-conscious) that I must not commit mistake while filling the cheques.
  5. I received 9 pieces of disturbing information in last 18 months and 6 of those were followed by more distressful issues (67%) within hours!
    It then occurred to me that whenever there is headline news in print media about harassment or intolerance, similar news from other places keep getting reported for few more days. Not that such subsequent incidences were fresh; those had already occurred but reported now. It clearly confirms that people quickly relate negative news to other negative ones and relay same promptly!
  6. Whenever I was determined not to get disturbed by anyone, more than 80% of time I was disrupted by unexpected visit of someone or phone calls.
  7. I had woken up in morning very irritated on 11 occasions due to body aches. I purposely decided not to take pain killer. On those days (100%), more irrational things happened, infuriating me; but those incidences stopped, when I took pain killer and got physically relieved.
  8. One weekend, I prepared tea for my wife with all good thoughts and care. No sooner she took first sip, she banged – what a bad taste! I started to wonder why my positive state of mind provoked her negatively; but soon realized that while being lost in that state, I had put extra spoon of sugar.
    I then learnt my lesson that getting obsessed with ovations or overwhelmed with emotions is actually not positive!!
  9. Once I started my day on high energy; but completely got drained by series of bad incidences. I started to wonder what’s happening. Oh; it was Friday 13th Feb, 2015! But, I never believed in such day/numbers!!
    So, I decided to check whether I would have bad patches on the next similar occasion. On Friday, 13th March this month, I decided to welcome worse but it never showed up!
    So, it was my negativity of 13th Feb, which took the toll and not number 13 and Friday! 

It is negativity, which nags us all the way!

Above real life examples are akin to Murphy’s Law. Incidences under point 1, 3 to 6, 8 and 9 show how negativity makes things go wrong. 2 shows when you are positive, things go right and 7 shows how when you become positive even with help of medicine, wrong changes to right!

Following would demystify Murphy’s Law:

  1. “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong” is just a statement of negative reality. Opposite is equally true!
  2. Since we are prone to negativity, we notice, worry and count it far more often than positives. We consider counting positive is no brainer; so lose its count.
  3. People relate and relay negative information far too promptly than positive ones.
  4. Negative happenings make us too conscious and hence vulnerable to commit mistakes. That’s why we experience negativity bringing more negativity. 
  5. Notion that negativity can counter negativity is bunk; yet we believe in it. That’s the reason we are tempted to handle rude person with rudeness or reciprocate abuses with abusiveness.
  6. Negativity highly satisfies our ego!
  7. Negativity comes easy and takes innumerable forms – worry, wishful, fear, fury, obsession or depression. Therefore, most find glamor in negativity, whereas glory comes from positivity.
  8. It is an illusion that while being negative, you can ever be positive! These are mutually exclusive!!

If you can manage or manipulate Murphy’s Law as above to stay positive, you would be the most effective manager at your work as well as life!

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