ENDOWMENT

What really is endowment? Can a girl with flair for dance be described as endowed with talent? Surely not until an audience applauds her act! When we speak about somebody’s endowment we are obviously talking about a proven performance, not about a covert value. And hence a positive attitude along with skill-development will determine what can be endorsed as endowment.

Among young children, it is easy to notice an inherent flair for singing, drawing, story-telling and dancing. With inspirational nurturing, natural flairs can be developed into skills. But competitive comparisons with the performances of other children often results in a lack of belief. And hence adults often declare that they cannot sing or draw or dance!

Endowment is often buried under the minefields of low self esteem and lack of belief in one’s own potential. Many of us give up on our own passion and the possibilities that lie aligned to the actualisation of that passion. Endowment is like a seed that germinates when nurtured as needed. It is pertinent to note that endowment is synonymous with self-confidence that comes from various factors that unite to impact promise and translate into performance.

Earlier 'endowment' referred to expertise or achievement of a pre-determined objective. Today 'endowment' denotes broader nuances of leadership potential, abilities to straddle varied functional areas, cultures and geographic boundaries - all in a seamless manner. Real endowment needs the development of soft skills, steadfast values, the ability to work in teams, to think out of the box, and importantly, the willingness to learn and share.

Endowment oft is distant from detection
 ‘unite to impact’ the nurturing actions!

                              

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India.

FAILURE

Thomas Edison tried thousand different materials in search of a filament for the light bulb. When none worked satisfactorily, his assistant complained, ‘All our work is in vain. We have learned nothing.’

Edison replied very confidently, ‘Oh, we have come a long way and we have learned a lot. We know that there are two thousand elements which we cannot use to make a good light bulb.’

The acumen of learning from failure is unassailable, yet it is extraordinarily rare. This gap is not due to a lack of commitment to learning. The real reason is thinking that failure is bad and that learning from it is pretty straightforward: reflect on what we did wrong and avoid similar mistakes in the future. These widely held beliefs are misguided.

First, failure is not always bad. It is sometimes inevitable, and sometimes even good. Second, learning from failures is anything but straightforward. Once we learn from failure, we can persist and come back stronger, more tolerant and disciplined, more successful, more flexible, more willing to take risks and be open-minded, and happier as a result of these experiences!

Rather than be a perfectionist, we must opt to be an optimalist. A perfectionist focuses on the outcome with goals that may be overly grand and unattainable. He is afraid of failure, less of a risk taker, assumes an all-or-nothing approach. The optimalist focuses on both journey and outcome, accepts failure. He sees it as feedback; tends to take risks and steps outside the comfort zone.

We must unite the experiences we learn from various failures and find value or a lesson and satisfaction in a less than perfect performance. It is said that ‘it is only a failure if we don’t learn something.’ We must forget the shame that comes with failure. It is the journey and not just the end result that matters.

The feedback, the challenge, the risk and the resolve
 ‘unite to impact’ lessons that from failure evolve!

                              

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India.

UBUNTU

The term appears in the epilogue of the Interim Constitution of South Africa (1993): ‘there is a need for understanding but not for vengeance, a need for reparation but not for retaliation, a need for ubuntu but not for victimization’.

Nelson Mandela would explain Ubuntu with an analogy: A traveller through a country would stop at a village and he didn't have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food and attend him. That is one aspect of Ubuntu, but it will have various aspects. Ubuntu does not mean that people should not enrich themselves. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to be able to improve?

Ubuntu is an idea from the Southern African region which literally means ‘humanness’ and is often used to mean ‘the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity’. Ubuntu induces an ideal of shared human subjectivity that promotes a community's good through an unconditional recognition and appreciation of individual uniqueness and difference.

We think of ourselves far too frequently as individuals separated from one another, whereas we are connected and what we do affects the whole World. When we do well, it spreads out. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that we can't exist as a human being in isolation. We can't be human all by yourself, and when we have Ubuntu, we are known for our generosity.

 A person with Ubuntu is open and does not feel threatened that others are able and good, based from a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed. When appropriated by many, Ubuntu will unite to impact attitudes and actions towards a responsive and responsible world where spontaneous communities will involve in collaboration for the common good.

Indeed, we are bound together in an interconnected way
let’s ‘unite to impact’ the attitude of Ubuntu, each day!

                              

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India.

DISTRACTIONS

A man was complaining to Pedro, ‘my child is perpetually distracted’.  Pedro queried, ‘positive distractions or negative distractions?’ The man stopped playing with his mobile and said, ‘what did you say?’

A distraction is something that takes your attention away from what you are supposed to be doing. If you cannot keep from checking your social networking forums every ten minutes, that's a distraction that's going to interfere with your other priorities – family, work, passions, people.

However a distraction can also be a refreshing change. If you are worried about your presentation tomorrow, watching a mindless show on TV may be a welcome distraction that helps you relax. Actually the word comes from the Latin dis(apart) and trahere(drag). So distraction is when you're dragged away from your task or from your worries.

Positive distractions divert you from negativity and help you emerge refreshed to take on priorities. These include choices like going on a trek, playing sports, attending dance or singing classes, watching entertainment, pursuing some hobby or even talking with friends and family. Social networking sites, television, gadgets can easily turn negative distractions when done in excess. However, when indulged in moderation, they can be refreshing too.

Each one is a multi-layered individual. We play many roles and cope with varied challenges and pied priorities. The key to happiness and success is to involve in multiple positive distractions. If we do not choose positive distractions, we will tend to be attracted to negative distractions and allow them to turn into bad habits that take focus off our task.

We must identify what makes us happy and at the same time it does not estrange us from the people we love or distance us from the things we really want to do. We must unite these positive distractions to impact our focus on our own chosen priorities. Then, we would not have time and space for worries or negative distractions to intrude, except moderated indulgences.

Hobby, leisure, relationships are positive distractions
‘unite to impact’ the focus on priorities sans tension!

                              

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India.