Leadership Lessons being a TLI Chair in Toastmasters

“A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to be”

I have undertaken few club leadership roles such as the Club treasurer, VP-Education, President, and as an Area Director, at each level, I had different leadership lessons, which has helped me evolve as a leader. Last year July, I was entrusted with the responsibility of being the TLI (Toastmasters Leadership Institute) Chair. The Toastmasters Leadership Institute helps Toastmasters across the district to come together to network, share ideas, and be inspired. We share the best practices and experiences of senior Toastmasters with newly-elected club officers on how to best serve their clubs and grow as a leader. A lot of work had been done by the predecessors in setting up the TLI and reaching out to many members through the events. So, the bar was set for us to reach out to and raise it further.

As I look back now, at the whole term, there have been many memorable moments to cherish, and significant milestones which we were able to accomplish, maybe I will reserve it for sharing on another day. Let me delve in to my leadership lessons in the last one year.

    1. Leadership Success Triad – Vision, Autonomy, Flexibility

I came to appreciate this concept of leadership triad as being fundamental for leadership success in my role as TLI Chair. There are three aspects which one needs to have in place for smooth functioning and making a strong impact.

First and foremost, the question to be asked is “What is my vision as a leader for my team/company/employees? It is said:

“Leadership is about Vision and Responsibility, not Power”

Having a vision makes it easier to focus on when the going gets tough or it gets too much to handle. What is that we are trying to accomplish and what impact are we wanting to make, these questions will help us work towards achieving the vision without giving up.

The second dimension is the leader’s ability to give autonomy to your team and trust them to do the work. Most often, some leaders tend to micro-manage and end up taking all decisions for their team since they are the leader. They expect to rule their team with iron-fist and control them, expect them to abide by their decisions (or, orders!!). But that is a huge failing as a leader since it never gives the opportunity to the team members to showcase their talent. There is a fine balance to be maintained here, you have to give autonomy yet put in a process to check in frequently so to ensure good quality output.

The third success dimension is the flexibility to accept others idea/views. Sometimes, because of our past success, we may be tempted to believe that we know it all or ‘my way or the highway attitude’. Yet, as a leader, it is critical to keep this attitude at bay, because many failings happen because of the inability of the leader to adapt his views and accept others view.

In my TLI role, I had the opportunity to see all the triad elements in action (fortunately in a positive way).

The District Trio [TM Sarma Mahalingam (District Director), TM Pravin Mani (PQD), TM Satish Menon (CGD)] had the common vision of enabling members experience and we had the same focus for all the TLI events to give the best member experience, this ensured all our activities was aligned towards achieving the common vision.

As TLI comes under PQD (Program Quality Director), I had a trustworthy and passionate Toastmaster Pravin Mani who placed the trust on me and let me handle the TLI events as I deemed fit. He didn’t micro-manage or thrust his control on me except asking for updates and suggesting changes when required.

In terms of flexibility, many times during event planning, be it the event program agenda, role players finalization, we had differing opinions on the approach. Yet, at no point, we allowed our personal ego’s to come in, and we always were open to each other views and kept our common vision to dictate the final outcomes. I realized that being open to his views and event team views on some matters proved to right, since it was better than my view.

   2. TEAM in action: 

    Together Everyone Achieves More, and rightly so. Though, it’s become a cliché still it’s a satisfying experience to see it in action. The reality is, one can't truly succeed without having a good set of colleagues, who are equally passionate to work towards the common vision. We had a TLI Training calendar finalized at the beginning of the term (July-June) and budget allocated as per our plan. It was a good experience in project management and planning, since each TLI event was like a project/mini-conference by itself. And doing one event every month in the first term was equivalent to a full time job, if not for the support I had from my TLI team.

Each of my TLI event chairs and TLI SPOCs played a critical role in the success of each event. A big thanks to the following members:

TM Bhagath (Chennai Kilpauk YMCA TMC), TM Vinoth (HCL Pinnacle TMC)

TM Raja (L&T ECC TMC), TM Vijay (WABAG TMC),

TM Arun Kumar (Chennai Speakers Forum), TM Swathi Devi (DXC Chennai Chapter TMC)

TM Muthukumar (Infosys TMC, Chennai), TM Kavitha (CGI Chennai TMC),

TM Bharath (CGI Chennai TMC), TM Manisha (Wipro Chennai TMC),

TM Subramanian (BACI Chennai Silver Tongue TMC), TM Amartya (Terra VIT), TM Ranjith (Citi Odyssey TMC), 

DTM Malar (Virudhunagar TMC), TM Sasi Varier (L1 AD - Trichy TMC), TM Surya (TOASTMASTERS INTERNATIONAL-NIT TRICHY),TM Shantanu (K6 AD – Brisa VIT), TM Akhil (K5 AD – Nuvens VIT) and TM Gayathry (DCP Chair).  

Many role players had supported the event team for the success, Iam unable to put them here since I didn’t want it to become a vote of thanks article, yet their contribution and support for critical for the success of the various TLI events across Tamil Nadu.  

3.    Innovate to Succeed:

It is important for any entity to continuously explore the aspect of innovation as a means for continuous excellence. When we started the year, we consciously made the decision to innovate in few aspects to enable the member experience. So, we started with online zoom training (first of its kind then) yet it has come commonplace now in quarantine time. The online zoom was especially conducted for Division L members for ‘Train the Trainers” session. We followed it up with doing a live demo meeting for the “Conducting Effective meeting” TLI event. It got 190+ attendees and was immensely enjoyed by all the attendees. Next, we wanted to make the ‘New member Orientation’ session memorable for the new members who join Toastmasters. So, we launched the ‘Inter-Area Fun’ Contest where each area was grouped into teams and they played fun games and quiz based on Toastmasters, to compete and win prizes. Though attendance was less, it was enjoyed by everyone who attended it and the event pics say it all.

Usually, JTP and Emergence is considered a standard format, so to make it different and engaging for audience, we introduced ‘Judges discussion Panel’, where experienced judges panel discussed on their experiences as a judge and what to do and what not to do as a judge. Again, this was received well by members, who could relate to practical application of judging instead of a boring presentation to run by. Finally, ‘Emergence’ event where contest winners share their technique to prepare for contest, we innovated by clubbing a leadership session by TM Sridhar Renganathan. We had mixed feelings about it since we weren’t sure how the reception will be, because it was an afternoon session, whether people would be patient enough. However, it ended up as one of the best received TLI event with over 240+ registrations and many stayed back till 7:30pm to network and discuss.

So, be it business or your daily work, explore ways to innovate, and it will be a sure shot way to make your mark as a leader.

     4. Acknowledging others Support:

As the TLI team for this year, we were successful in making our presence felt, create memorable members experience and learning, which was acknowledged by many. It is easy to get into a mindset thinking that this success was only because of our efforts. While, we did put humongous efforts for all TLI events, a significant part of the event success was because of the support provided by others, especially TM seniors, talented individuals who agreed to be the faculty for the sessions and were generous with their time. One can't succeed on their own and often you need to take others along, for which you need to be humble and be open to reach out to others for help.

In our own lives and enterprises, if you have been successful, it might be a good idea to think and reflect about who all have contributed towards your success. It might be your family members, parents, friends, office seniors and others mentors, whoever it may be so, reach out to them and convey your thanks to them for their support. Sometimes, we tend to take certain support for granted, yet however small their contribution has been, they did have a role to play in your success.

I take the opportunity in this article to acknowledge all the speakers for the TLI events this year (mentioned in the chronological order of the TLI events):

**************************************

DTM Karthick Mohandoss (CAT-EDCI Club), DTM Sampath Sowrirajan (TN Mentor Chair)

TM Deenadayalan (HCL Speech Weavers), TM Gayathry (DCP Chair), DTM Sunil Jose (Asst Chief Judge), DTM Lalitha Giridhar (Chennai Toastmasters Club),

DTM Saro Velrajan(Chennai Speakers Forum), DTM Jayan (Meraki), DTM Vijayalakshmi (Meraki), DTM Sundararaman (Meraki), DTM Rahul Shankar (Tamizhootru Chennai Solvendhargal Mandram), TM Aravind Vikram (Ericsson TMC), DTM Pattabi (Madras TMC), TM Srijana (Ford Mustang TMC), TM Aadil (Chennai TMC), DTM Reena (Chennai Wordsmiths TMC), DTM Sampath Sowrirajan (TN Mentor Chair)

DTM Reena (Chennai Wordsmiths TMC),TM Subramanian (BACI Chennai Silver Tongue TMC), DTM Ravanan (Madurai TMC),DTM Sampath Sowrirajan (TN Mentor Chair)

DTM Sampath Sowrirajan (TN Mentor Chair), TM Raghavan Sridhar (AD-D2), DTM Sunil Jose (Asst Chief Judge), TM Pravin Mani (PQD), TM Adithya (Agua VIT)

DTM Subhadip Banik (Infosys TMC, Chennai), TM Selvarajan (Chennai Communicators Club), TM Sridhar Ranganathan (Chennai Wordsmiths TMC)

DTM Sunil Jose (Asst Chief Judge), DTM Jayan (Meraki), DTM Vijayalakshmi (Meraki), DTM Sundararaman (Meraki), DTM Parthasarathy (DXC Chennai Chapter TMC)

TM Shantanu (AD-K5), TM Nirav Katyal (Fogo VIT)

TM Hemamalini (L&T ECC TMC), TM Selvarajan (Chennai Communicators Club)

TM Mohanakrishnan (Symantec TMC), DTM Ravanan (Madurai TMC), TM Priyanka (Genesys TMC)

DTM Lalitha Giridhar (Chennai Toastmasters Club), DTM Rajeev Nambiar (Chennai Wordsmiths TMC)

***************************************************

Hope my above insights are useful to you in your own leadership journey. I sign off quoting the words of John Donahoe who said, 

'Leadership is a journey, not a destination. It is a marathon, not a sprint. 

It is a process, not an outcome.'

For those unaware of Toastmasters International, it is a nonprofit organization that operates clubs worldwide for the purpose of promoting communication, public speaking and leadership. I have been fortunate to be part of this wonderful community since 2012 and over the various years, have had experienced mentors and leaders from whom I have learnt and applied a lot in my Toastmasters journey. If you are keen to develop your communication or leadership skills, you can search for any Toastmaster clubs nearby your location, and attend one of its meeting as a guest.

Leadership/Business Insights from the movie "Imagine That"

“Only those who can see such signs of life are able to find treasures”

The above quote from Paulo Coelho well acclaimed “The Alchemist” stresses the point that the signs are always around us. If we can recognize, understand them and act accordingly, then our lives will far better. Often I have found that movies are a good source of motivation and the reel lives contain many insights which is applicable in our real lives. I have always found when I watch movies (maybe, not all yet some), they depict the reality of life and the humdrum which we lose ourselves into. If we look closely enough, then there are certain gems waiting to be taken and embellish our lives.

So, here we go, with understanding some insights from the movie “Imagine that”, a 2009 American comedy film starring Eddie Murphy. It centers on the relationship between a workaholic father and his daughter, Olivia, whose imaginary world becomes the solution to her father's success.

Disclaimer: This is not a movie review, I don’t have the skills to write movie review hence if you are expecting that you can read the movie plot here. The movie bombed at box office, though let that not keep you away from the amazing insights which it had.

Insight 1: Remember to have fun, not be serious always

It is interesting to note that the main protagonist of the movie, Evan is a top financial advisor ,a job which can be as serious as it can be. The pressure to be on the top and to be perfect is very high in all our work. However, it is important to have fun as we focus on work. The metaphor in the movie where Evan accepts his daughter imaginary world and starts doing childish things like dancing to please the guarding dragon etc, is an indication that fun should be an integral part of our work lives. When was the last time you had fun/real fun with your colleagues and most importantly, spending quality time with your family too.

Insight 2: Important to package your work differently to be noticed

Evan’s competitor Johnny Whitefeather has the whole company under some spell as he shares his views which sounds like nonsensical idioms filled with Native American mumbo jumbo. While, it is important to have strong content, this aspect shows why it is important to package our content with stuff which attracts the audience attention. Packaging can mean lot of things, how you structure your content, how do you deliver it, how to brand your initiative or position it to your target members. While focusing on packaging, ensure the content is solid and has value addition, without which the process will fail, which leads to our next insight, which is.

Insight 3: Air talk doesn’t win always, hard work matter

Evan gets used to his daughter’s help with her blanket “Go-gaa” to get financial investment tips. When the golden opportunity of leading his firm comes up, he and his competitor has to crunch numbers and present their analysis. Both Evan and his rival Johnny end up looking for help from imaginary sources instead of doing the hard work. Johnny tries to impress the client by talking mumbo jumbo, which gets called out as Air talk for lacking any meaning. Fortunately for Evan, his daughter ends up spending time at her friends and isn’t available, so even though he forcibly gets the “Go-gaa”, he eventually ends up working late through night to crunch the numbers and make solid analysis, which helps him make a better impression to win the coveted deal.

Bottom line, all said and done, if you are really keen to win, ensure you don’t compromise on hard work. Hardwork after all is the secret to success.

Insight 4: Family matters, focus on quality time with family

Everyone has pressure to prove at work. And everything comes at a cost. Most often, people run behind material success, money, fame at the detriment of their family relationships. Work is important no doubt about it, and there is nothing wrong in aspiring high and working hard for the promotion. Yet, it is wise to realize that all said and done, our true (invaluable, if I can add) possessions will be our family relationships with our spouse/kids and parents, and true friends/dear ones.

It is unfortunate to see people spend their peak time of their lives in making money and not being there for their kids and when they are ready to spend time with kids, they have grown and gone out to make their own lives. Look back at your life and ask this question, how much quality time you are having with your family and dear ones.

Insight 5: Find your style, don’t copy others blindly

Johnny assumes that Evan is using a shaman technique to make hit guesses about whether to buy or sell company stock, which has led to his popularity. So, when the big moment presents itself, where both are given a task to analyze portfolio holdings of the legendary investor, Johnny resorts to forcing his son to the medium to get shamanic insights, in the process, forgets to do the required analysis of the holdings, where as if he had done it properly, he would have walked off with the prize.

At work and life, we may sometimes be amazed by others style of doing things. While it is good to derive inspiration from others, one should blindly copy someone else style, at best it will give you mediocre outcome and worst, leave you looking like a fool. In business too, this becomes important, when companies try to adopt other’s best practices without customizing it to its own culture.

Hope you found the above insights useful and relevant. What other insights have you had from the movie. Would love to hear your thoughts, leave them in the comment section.

Stay Safe and Sound.

Unknown Legacy of Former India PM

Recently I finished reading the book “Half Lion”. The book is about the story of how PV Narasimha Rao (PVNR or PV) transformed India. The book was an eye-opener for me in many ways. Before I get to that part, let me clarify few things.

Before I read the book, I had known very less about PV. Just few images from my childhood days in DD channel of the former prime minister who hardly made any impact in media. One remembers a smug faced man, with bald head, miniature stature, hardly anything charismatic about him that would make him stand apart. In fact, I thought there is anything impressive about him. All that changed after I read the book:

His is the only minority government which completed its tenure of 5 years fully. Minority governments before and after him had hardly survived more than a year. He had minority representation in the Parliament, had his own party members plotting against him and yet he went on to lay a path for India which had played a big role in taking India, where it is today. Here are some of the greatest achievements of his premiership:

We all know Manmohan Singh as the brain behind liberalization which brought the wave of growth and prosperity in India. However, few know that PV is the actual architect of bring in reforms which liberalized the economy, eased the licence raj and imposed restrictions in free trade with other countries. He succeeded in convincing his own party members in voting for the reforms who didn’t want to liberalize Indian economy believing we were selling ourselves to foreign interest.

He is vilified for his role in Babri Masjid demolition and is considered party to the plot. However, the reality is different. His only mistake was to trust the ruling government in UP that they will protect the mosque, (and who eventually had plotted to demolish the mosque). He had even tried back-channels to speak to VHP, BJP leaders to ensure no damage won’t happen to mosque, however selfish interest had backstabbed him. 

Vajpayee government got the limelight by declaring India as the nuclear power (by conducting nuclear test in Pokhran), however the reality is PV played a crucial role in furthering India’s nuclear program. According to the book, the nuclear test was planned in April 1996, but since PV’s government lost people mandate in the elections, the test were postponed and PV handed the mantel of the work to Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

When he was the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, he brought in land reforms which hurt him as well, since he owned hundreds of acres of land himself in his native village. Yet his belief in having social justice for the land workers, made him push land redistribution reforms (paradoxically, he was replaced as a CM for this very action, because of the landlord lobby).

PM Modi has become famous for visiting foreign countries and wooing investors to invest in India. PV started the initial trend of inviting investors over to India, and marketed India’s potential to the world. Until then, the world saw India as a socialist place which had its doors closed to external world. His pro-foreign policy has been furthered by subsequent governments.

Paradoxically, one of PV’s key actions which backfired against him is this decision to arrest corrupt politicians in the Hawala money case. His own party members were indicted in the case, due to which he lost his own supporters in his party. So much so, for taking actions against offenders, morally right decisions, yet a huge political mistake.

Being the first Non-Nehru lineage person to become the Congress President, he did more than required of him. And for all his contributions to India, he stands vilified by his own party men, abandoned during his final days (his body wasn’t allowed to be kept in Congress headquarters as is the norm and he didn’t have his memorial in Delhi, so to prevent him being seen as an all-India leader).

The best part of PV was he had the ability to play the timid mouse, a wily fox or a courageous lion as the situation demanded. His life offers insights for anyone interested in strategy, and outwitting competitors, may it be political or business. I usually don’t support any political leaders, since this generation leaders are hardly inspiring except a few. Yet, after reading the book, I felt that he hadn’t got his fair share of praise and recognition which he deserved.

This blog is meant as a tribute to the man who as an individual was sincere and placed country interest above himself and achieved so much despite having so little power unlike his predecessors. He truly was one of India’s greatest Prime Minister.

P.S: I loved the author Vinay Sitapati’s writing style. It was lucid and easy to comprehend. A narrative writing which balanced concepts and conversations, the book was a fun read. 

The Choice

The only person from whom I derived strength had suddenly deserted me. A sense of unworthiness filled up inside me. What’s the use of living? The one person for whom my heart beat seemed to barely care about me.

Tears trickled down my face uncontrollably.

Nearby, on the table I saw the sharp edge of the knife glistening. I made up my mind and stretched my right hand towards it…

**************************************** 

Timeline: Two hours back

It had been 15 minutes since I had ordered a drink. Nothing was going right in my life. There were rumors of recession hitting my company and equations with my boss had touched the lowest bottom. Somehow my manager had taken a liking to criticize every action of mine. The same job, the same dull and boring faces, the same dull machine, nothing was exciting about life. The only bright side was the paycheck at the end of the month.

The world seemed tasteless and lifeless. Until I met her.

Sneha.

We had got to know each other in our first workplace. We had an employee social group and both of us were enthusiastic members. Since, we were active volunteers; we worked closely on many assignments. Eventually, we got to enjoy each other’s company. Not only did our friendship bloom, our feelings for each other bloomed as well. I proposed and she accepted. Those two years were the best years of my life. We started to make plans for making our relationship a permanent one.

Things don’t always go the way we plan it.

We both got better career opportunities and we had to make a tough decision. I relocated to Hyderabad and she moved to Bangalore. We promised to keep in touch but the heavy work load and late night shifts spoiled the plan. Days would fly by and we spoke over phone only during weekends. After planning for three months, were we able to make time to meet in person.

The ‘Hangout’ restaurant was our favorite spot. I had arrived early and was waiting for her. The place brought back so many memories with her. Our first date, our first kiss!

The clinking of the wind chimes brought me back to reality.

"Sir, Normal Water or Mineral Water?" asked the waiter.

"Mineral water without ice" I said.

"Waiting for Madamji, Sirrr?" He asked with a mischievous smile.

Just then, I saw her enter the restaurant. She was wearing a black tops and jeans. Her favorite. She came and sat in the chair opposite to me. Usually, she would sit beside me so I was surprised why she decided to sit across me. I wanted to tell her about how much I missed her and how I longed to see her.

"I missed you a lot" I said.

She didn’t say anything.

Usually she won’t miss an opportunity to say that she missed me too. Something was off.

So, I asked "What’s happening?"

"Life is good. I am getting to meet many interesting people", she started eating her food. After sometime she said "You know there is a guy who I met".

My heart skipped a beat. A guy! Who is he? I asked.

"Well, he is amazing. He makes everyone fall for him. The way he speaks, the way he moves, he is the perfect guy", and on and on she went. She recollected the times when she had gone out with him on weekends and he made her try stuff which she wouldn’t have done normally. He has freed me, she continued.

Of all the things I had dreamt, this was the last thing I needed to hear. She had been seeing the guy every weekend!!

The only bright light in my life flickered. It was clear that she had feelings for this guy. Surprisingly all these were the words which she had used to describe me, during our initial courtship days.

We finished our dinner as she continued to share instances of how good the guy was and how she was discovering new things in life. With every statement, it felt like a knife was being thrust into me.

We bid adieu and I rushed back home.

I entered my apartment. The lights were off and I slumped on the chair in the middle of the room. I couldn’t control my emotions. Tears started trickling down my face.

The only person from whom I derived strength had suddenly deserted me. A sense of unworthiness filled up. What’s the use of living? The one person for whom my heart beat seemed to barely care about me.

Nearby, on the table I saw the sharp edge of the knife glistening. I made up my mind and stretched my hand towards it.….

"Giving up so soon?" I heard a voice behind.

Shocked, I asked "Who are you"?

"Someone who cares enough"

The voice sounded familiar yet I couldn’t figure out who it was. A man wearing a black coat gently walked forward and stood before me. His face wasn’t visible as he stood in pitch darkness. However, the light reflected from outside through the window illuminated just enough to catch a glimpse of his cloth and a shred of twirled hair in the front which moved every time he walked.

What do you know about what I am going through? There is nothing in my life to live for. My life is a mess. And the only person who I thought loved me has abandoned me, I cried.

He listened patiently. He took something shiny from his long overcoat pocket and tossed it over to me. It was a metallic watch. However instead of the clock dial, it had concentric circles. The inner circle had revolving area and the outer circle had twelve tiny dots.

What’s this? I asked.

This is the watch of Destiny. With this, you can go to any moment of your life, once to past and once in future. However you will have only an hour to spend. Then you will return back and after five minutes, you get to visit your future.

Did he say a moment of my life which I can change!!

One moment came in particular. During the dinner Sneha had mentioned that when she was settling down in Bangalore, she was going through a tough phase at home and there was no one to support her. When she was struggling, she came to meet the new guy and liked him since he had been there for her. If only, I could go back and support her in the time of her need. Maybe, then she will still love me. Initially we had planned to meet once she had relocated to Bangalore. However, I had to cancel my plan last minute since something else had come up. But now, nothing else seemed more important than meeting her. So, I visualized the scene and touched the inner dial. The tiny dots blinked for twelve times and I felt a tingling sensation.

**************************************** 

Timeline: Two months back

I was standing near her apartment. I found her flat and knocked on the door. She was surprised to see me. She jumped on me and started crying. I hugged her tightly and comforted her. We didn’t speak but I could understand that she was going through a tough time and that she was happy to have me with her. She shared about her struggles and we discussed about how we plan our future together.

I felt that since I was being with her during her roughest phase, she would continue to love me. Eager to find, if it worked, I fast forwarded the side dial to the time when I was waiting in the ‘Hang Out’ restaurant. Hopefully, the final thirty minutes would end in a romantic way!

"Waiting for Madamji, Sir?" the waiter asked with a mischievous smile.

I saw her enter the restaurant. I was eager to hear what she would say.

Has her love remained the same for me?

Does she yearn for me the same way as I yearned for her?

I was getting excited with each moment as she came nearby.

To my shock, instead of sitting next to me, she came close and sat opposite to me.

She started sharing about this guy who she had met and who had bowled her over. The only difference was that this time, she quoted different reasons for getting attracted to him.

My heart skipped a beat. Even after changing an instance in the past, when I was with her during her low phase and in-spite of discussing our future, she found other reasons for getting attracted to him.

I couldn’t stand it. She went on talking about how impressive the guy was.

Why didn’t she love me anymore? I am not fit to live, I cursed myself.

Meanwhile, the watch dial’s light blinked brightly. The one hour time was getting over and I saw myself lift up and found myself in the dark room slumped in the chair.

So, how did it go? the Man asked.

Life is nothing but lie and betrayal. I loved her and was there for her. I felt we were made for each

other and will be together forever but she didn’t feel that way. She still chose the other guy over me.

Well, there is another perspective. Sometimes, for some people, love is limited to their need of you. Once their need is fulfilled, so is your presence. There is nothing wrong in what you did. You cared for her with all your heart. If she couldn’t realize that, it’s her problem; not yours, the Man said.

I started breathing heavily. It was extremely painful and unbearable to see that the girl who I had loved so much saw all this as a transaction. I felt used and thrown.

If this is what I get in return for caring for someone so dearly, I don’t think I deserve to live.

Before you decide to end your life, don’t you want to try out the dial one more time? Another few seconds and you get to see how your future will be? The Man prompted.

Saying so, he turned and moved.

I observed him carefully as he walked to the door. I knew that time was running out but suppressed the urge to check my watch. I took a deep breath and started counting in reverse under my breath.

"Ten, nine, eight, seven..."

And clicked on the dial…

Timeline: Ten months later

A cool breeze blew across my face. I was sitting under a sun shade near a swimming pool.

I wondered what I was doing here.

A beautiful lady came and gave me a peck on my cheeks. Then she came and sat close to me and kept her hand on mine.

"What do we buy for Ma? Her birthday is coming up next month, isn’t?

I didn’t have a clue whom she was referring.

Who Ma? I asked cheekily.

Your mother, stupid! Her birthday is coming up next month. We said we will buy her a nice sari.

How did such a beautiful girl end up being my wife! I felt on cloud nine. She not only cared about me but also thought of my mother. Sneha rarely used to be concerned about others, forget enquiring about my parents.

Another thought struck me. What if this affection was short lived? Sneha too in the initial days had appeared loving yet in due time, all that had changed. Why not confirm it by visiting the future and seeing if this was a permanent. I clicked on the second square once more.

Timeline: Two years later

I was driving in a hurry, horns blaring around me. Sitting in the car, all I could hear was commotion. I drove across few streets and parked my car.

Happy Anniversary darling! I heard a beautiful voice as I entered the door.

A woman dressed in elegant blue and green sari approached me. She was carrying a baby. As soon as

I came close by, the baby had a big smile on his face and held out his arms towards me.

Seeing her and the child, I felt blissful and loved.

A sweet family which I had always dreamed for.

After freshening up, we went out for dinner. Being a special day, she had planned a candle light dinner. We spoke about how the years had passed so quickly and how Aryan had grown too.

Time just seemed to fly. We came back and after putting Aryan to sleep, we went to the terrace. A gentle breeze swung by and her face glowed beneath the moonlight. I clasped her hand and pulled her close to me. I brought my face close to hers and said "Promise me, you will always be with me. You are the light of my life".

"I will be there for you for the rest of my life" she whispered.

And we hugged. All my worries of finding the right person disappeared.

So, a wonderful life exist, a new life exist. I felt my body outline becoming thinner and looked at my watch. The last dial was flickering indicating that the time was coming to an end. Time had just flown.

I opened my eyes and found myself in the chair again. This time, I was relaxed and was feeling better.

I was reflecting on the experience I had since the two visits.

The Man walked to the front and stood with his back to me and said:

"I hope you got what you were looking for. Just remember. In life, nothing happens to you. It always happens for you."

Meanwhile, his outline had become semi-transparent and I saw the logo on his coat. It looked familiar. It had a symbol on the front pocket.

Where have I seen it?

He walked a little further and vanished into the darkness of the room.

I was taken aback.

This man… If he hadn’t come at the right time, I would be dead now. I didn’t even get a chance to thank him.

Then it struck me.

The front pocket! The logo "A". It was my valediction coat.

It was gifted to me by my parents. I had asked ‘A’ to be stitched on the front pocket.

I rushed to next room and unwrapped the coat. I put it on & walked towards the dark portion of the room where the Man had disappeared.

As I stepped forward, I hit against something.

I looked at it & smiled.

I saw the man with a black coat and with a shred of twirled hair on the top.

I was standing before the Almirah mirror!

Success is always around us

‘Success’ is a mystical thing. All of us want to be successful. Yet most of us want a free ride to success. Even though the intent is there within us to succeed, most of all aren’t willing to do what’s needed to become successful.

My weekend started off with a working Saturday by the end, I was quite tired & exhausted. In such cases, Sunday becomes a treasured day. But as I woke up in the morning, I was feeling quite lazy and completely purposeless. Though, I had few things which needed my attention, I wasn’t at all inspired to do anything on that. My mind was occupied with something which was wondering about something which left me powerless. All I did was switch on the TV, had food, lie on bed & pass time. The day passed like seconds. 

In the evening, when I was conversing with a friend, I realized that how much we take life for granted. There are so many things which inspire us, motivate us to do something, yet we end up choosing to pass time, wondering about things we don’t have & get stuck on issues, be it with people, our worries, problems etc. In the process, we exhaust the most precious resource which is NOW, instead of being at our best and when we are at our best, success becomes an outcome.

That’s when I thought I was stuck in the same trap. Few things which I had been planning to do, like writing a blog, reading a book, planning few things all were put on hold, just because I was waiting for something to happen and since that didn’t materialize, other things got inadvertently impacted. But the moment I realized that, I chose to work on. I did some exercise which usually makes me feel good in the end, switched on my fav music which usually inspires me & then got down to work on the things which mattered and which I wanted to accomplish. Here, Iam penning an article for my blog which I had been planning on for more than 3 weeks.

It is said that amidst the busyness of life, the simple things get side tracked. Most often the simple things are the most important as well. In the daily rush of our life, we make the simple things complicated. What’s needed to simplify our life is just to take a step back and look at what we have. Usually, the stuff which are required for us to be happy & be successful is just around  us. Be it caring parents, friends, resources to utilize, all is just with us. We just need to recognize and then choose to act on that.

I didn’t intend to pen a gyaan type post, yet for me it was a big realization on how daily moments just slip pass by while we keep waiting for things to happen, hoping for things to happen & wonder if things will happen. I took a step in doing something productive & break myself out from the quicksand of ‘waiting & wondering’ which goes on & on.

What we have with us for sure is NOW, and if we can choose to look at the things which we have with us & act, then in due time, things will surely happen.

Success is always around us, isn’t? 

Speech craft – A Journey of Discovery

One of the speech craft participant commented in the final session “Speech craft is a place where one learns not how to become a speaker but how to become a crafter”. And truly so at the end of 6 week Speech craft session at L&T Construction, HCI (Heavy Civil Infrastructure) IC, the participants had become Amazing Crafters; Crafters of words into mesmerizing speeches, Crafters of ideas to powerful thoughts & Crafters of personality. The whole journey proved to be of immense learning & discovery both for the participants as well as for me.

I would like to share 3 insightful learning which I had for myself during the course of coordinating the speech craft sessions. Hopefully, you find it useful as well.

1.       Camaraderie by Senior Toastmaster members: One of the unique selling proposition of Speech craft was the educational talk in each of the 6 week sessions. Whoever I had approached right away agreed instantly to come over as the educational speaker in spite of the fact that all of them had a busy schedule & had other commitments. My sincere thanks to TM Sridhar Ranganathan, DTM Lalitha Giridhar, DTM Nina John, DTM Saro Velrajan & TM Rajesh Natarajan, whose sessions were quite valuable for the participants.

2.       Assumptions Challenged: The Speech craft program was done for senior managers & Deputy General Managers and hence when we begin, I had a lot of assumptions. That

•     they may be have a mindset of know it all types,
•     they may not be able to commit the time required for the session amidst their busy schedule,  
•     they will not be regular in attending all the meetings,
•     they will be least interested in knowing about Toastmasters

Almost all of my assumptions proved to be wrong. All the speech crafters were excited about the opportunity to become more competent speakers and took each session seriously by putting immense efforts to give the speeches in every session. In fact, other than 3 members who dropped out since they got shifted to other location after the first session, the remaining 12 members gave a speech in all the sessions. Plus, 2 members became members of our Toastmaster club in the midway of the program. It made me realize that most of the assumptions which we carry about people may not be always true.

3.       Expressive Communication - Competitive Advantage: Even though the speech crafters were senior managers and had large teams under them, they exhibited extreme enthusiasm & commitment in taking part in the speech craft and for the right reasons. And as one speech crafter said “Speaking is important so that the talented gets to express his work to top management. “Most often, a talented person remains unnoticed due to lack of communication skills. If one needs to be successful, one should know not only how to speak but how to communicate the right message in a right way.  Hence, as long as you can communicate well, you have a strong competitive advantage over others. And Toastmaster helps you gain that advantage.

Especially for a corporate, the outcome of the speech craft is directly proportional to the support extended by the top management of the company. Iam thankful to Mr.Srinivas Remella (Technical Training Head) & Mr.Anil Kalaga (Training Head) who were enthusiastic about the Speech craft program right from the start and extended complete support to ensure the participants are benefitted from the program. I also thank Division D Governor Deepa for her continuous support & personal interest in ensuring the program success. My heartfelt thanks to my Toastmaster friends who supported in the successful execution of the program.

I enjoyed & learnt from the session as much as the speech craft participants. The transformation which we saw in each of the participants in the final session was amazing. Overall, the 6 week journey has been truly fulfilling & of immense learning.I strongly recommend anyone who wants to start a self development regime to start attending Toastmasters, there are plentiful of opportunities to develop yourself on multiple dimensions.

As the quote goes “Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends…” The travel will continue, so would be the voyage of learning & discovery.

What are your Assumptions

Recently during a discussion with my manager, the topic of discussion turned to my involvement in a work which was handled by another team in HR. I reasoned saying i felt that the work was confidential hence i didnt involve myself in it. He said "you seem to be bounded by so many assumptions".

Thinking over it i realized that so many times in our life, we have so many of the assumptions which put a veil over how we see our life. Just to name a few couple of assumptions which come to the top of my mind are:

• Autoricksaw drivers always charge high fare
• Politicians are corrupt
• People who drink/smoke are bad
• Money is the root of all evil, etc etc etc. 

During last weekend while traveling outside, I wanted to take autoricksaw to go to my destination.Usually, I dont ask any autoricksaw fellows who would be waiting at the bus stop since I have always assumed that they will quote a high fare. However this time, I felt why not ask and see what he says. So, when i enquired not only he quoted a nominal fare, I was able to negotiate with him to put the fare and charge an extra 10 bucks. The point is, my assumption about autoricksaw guy been unfair & charging exhorbitant fare was proved wrong. All i did was question my assumption.

i dont mean to say our assumptions may be wrong. In some cases, it may be right, but blindly following some assumption because thats what our parents had told us or that was what we had experienced several years back, might lead us to ignore the reality and keep ourself confined.

As a good colleague of mine used to say "When you assume, you make an ASS of U & ME".

So friends,

What assumptions do you have in your life?  To what extent they dictate your life.

Can you try challenging them and see how true or relevant they are?