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.

Passion

Every moment is a gift, when we stay open to what is appearing now

 – Janet and Chris Attwood

On Sunday, nearly 400 Goans attended Janet Attwood’s workshop on her simple yet profound – Passion Test. The event was organized by the GEMS Trust (Goa Entrepreneurial Mentoring Services Trust) to share valuable ways to empower passion amidst students and parents, educators and artists, entrepreneurs and youth.

Janet showed full evidence of her own passion in her animated expressive style. She got everyone to list ten passions and then used her successful template to help identify top five passions and evaluate them further as per the ‘Passion Test’. But the biggest learning was in her suggested power of three – intention, attention and no-tension – to define apt markers for each passion.

Janet explained that we are constantly creating the circumstances that surround us by the virtue of the beliefs we hold to be true. In fact our results always match our true intentions. But the intention will come to nought if we do not focus our attention on it. Often this attention will bring to fore fears and worries. Hence we need to acquire the simple, easy, effortless process of no-tension to align perfectly with our passion.

We can connect to true happiness when we connect to our passions. They reside in our mind alongside logic that seeks to dilute, defeat or demean them. Janet’s formula of uniting intention, attention and no-tension is the best way to impact our passion and happiness quotient. It is the effortless path to discovering our life purpose.

True intentions, focussed attention and no-tension
must ‘unite to impact’ each purposeful passion!

                              

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India.

Human Dignity

Due to Murlidhar’s fearless stand against a Britisher’s abuse of an Indian bride, Mahatma Gandhi had called him as ‘Abhay Sadhak’ (seeker of fearlessness). However one night, when he saw a leper - a mass of flesh with no trace of fingers and sores in place of eyes and nose - he fled! Later, feeling ashamed he returned, picked up the leper, gave him food and took care of him until he died.

Murlidhar went on to grow in his fearlessness as Baba Amte. He devoted his life to the care and rehabilitation of leprosy patients, even allowing his body to be used for experiments to grow leprosy germs. However, he would say, ‘I have cured the leprosy of the body, now I must cure the leprosy of the mind.’

The sad reality of prejudiced fear has been seen once again. In a school in South Goa, parents are insisting on the removal of HIV positive orphans. The reasons for such inhuman demands are many. Lack of proper information about the dreaded disease has been further damned by wrong information by a few who are supposed to allay fears. But most pertinent is the trepidation that we feel for the one who we identify as someone like us.

The late Baba Amte would have articulated the need ‘to cure the HIV of the mind’! We know that the HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) may or may not lead to AIDS (Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome) - a chronic, potentially life-threatening condition. However, the HIV of the mind will lead to the death of humanity itself.

We can overcome the fear by uniting many ways. The first is to have the right facts. Secondly, deliberated reason must challenge the notion of the afflicted person being condemned by fate. To empathise with the person and their family, all we need to ask is, ‘what if it was us?’ But most importantly we need to remind ourselves of our duty towards the survival of human dignity.

Facts, reason and empathy will ensure human dignity
when they ‘unite to impact’ our true sense of duty!

                              

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India.

Missing

Once, we went over to a relative’s place for a birthday dinner. We were three: my wife, my daughter and me. The hosts were three: husband, wife and daughter. The other guests were again a family of three. All in all, we were just nine persons for dinner. Imagine our shock, when we reached the dining room to see an over-laid dinner spread waiting for us.

There were two salads, at least five preparations of fish, two of chicken, one of mutton and three different preparations of vegetables; besides of course two types of rice and three varieties for dessert. While I was making a mental note of what to eat and what to skip, the other guest exclaimed, ‘Sol Kadi naa?’ (Konkani for a popular brew made from coconut milk and kokum). The poor hosts rushed to prepare the ‘missing’ item.

Indeed, I was bewildered at the ability of the person to note exactly what was missing. In fact, ‘sol kadi’ is my favourite too, but in the lavish spread, my choice was limited to pick a few preferences from within them. With so much around, I was least bothered about identifying what was missing.

It was unfair to the hosts to point out a flaw in their menu when they had far exceeded the requirement of a decent meal. But my sympathies were for the man who could only see what was missing. At the best of restaurants, he would be unhappy to find his ‘sol kadi’ missing. I could imagine his plight at his home dinners when he would consistently complain, ‘Sol Kadi naa?’

So often, we notice what is missing even when we are offered a plateful. Instead of being content with what we have, we crave for what we don’t have. That day, the host had given us their time, their space, their love and of course loads of food. It was pertinent to look at the many things we received and unite those receipts to impact our gratitude to what we got, rather than what we missed. How could we complain, ‘Sol Kadi naa?’

Look what lies on the plate, not what’s missing...

The receipts must ‘unite to impact’ thanksgiving!

                              

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India.

Beyond Hearing

When she would return from her play school, my daughter had wonderful things to tell. No sooner she heard my question, ‘What happened at school today?’ she would begin to narrate the various incidents that occurred at school. I loved to hear about the new things she learnt, about her friends and the things that they did together.

One day, I was at home reading a book when she arrived home. I asked my regular question and she began to chatter away. I was hearing every word while reading a book. Suddenly she stopped speaking and started to make grumbling noises. I looked up from my book to ask her, ‘what upset you?’ She promptly replied, ‘you are not listening to me!’

I immediately denied her charge. To prove that I had heard everything she said, I began to repeat what I had heard. But she was unrelenting. She asserted, in the way only a young child can, ‘You were not looking at me! How can you listen if you are not looking at me?’

Listening is often confused with hearing. It requires us to move beyond hearing and proactively participate in the most important interpersonal skill! It requires the speaker to truly believe that the audience is listening. Paying obvious attention through right body language responses is very crucial. It also requires responsive feedback through apt questions, nodding, etc.

When we look at the listener, we receive communication beyond hearing. We notice expressed emotions and understand beyond the sound of words. More importantly, the one speaking is convinced that we are indeed listening and this encouragement ensures continuity in the communication. Looking and reading body language, giving feedback through responsive nodding and participating in the dialogue will indeed unite to impact our real listening.

Looking, responding and participating will aid listening...

These three ‘unite to impact’ to move us beyond hearing!

                              

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India.

Pass-it-on

Our world, bursting with technology, is full of well meaning people who pass on messages. Last month, I received a request to help blind students to write their exams. The contact number of the person to be contacted was posted as well. The message turned into a ripple effect as the receivers united to impact the consciousness of the community by forwarding it to all in their list.

However, calls to the number drew a blank. Obviously, all the well meaning citizens had not bothered to call the number and confirm the validity of the message. In their hurry to be the first at spreading a good message, they had ignored the basics of confirming whether the message was real.

So often, so many of us use sms and emails to forward what seems interesting, important or intriguing. So often, our intentions might be sincere but woefully incomplete when we fail to confirm the truth and facts. On the contrary, our intentions are exposed as superficial and extraneous.

Worse, consider those who play the pass-it-on game with hate messages. Masks of indignation are so easily worn by those who casually try to unite the impact of messages that come their way. These careless forwards result in fear manipulation that allows anti-socials to run amok. The pass-it-on chain regressively unites negativity to deadly impact.

Before we unite to impact, we must be clear about being positively convinced ourselves. Passing information is a good thing. However, we must first confirm for ourselves whether the details are valid. If not, we are just careless persons pretending to be conscientious. And when we forward hate messages that eventually raze humanity, we are not just careless… we are criminals!

Before you pass-it-on confirm facts and repercussion...

 ‘Unite to impact’ only after total personal conviction!

                              

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India.

Information

Imagine you are driving with your team in a bus. There you are travelling for hours and every now and then pops the question, ‘have we reached?’ It seems strange but is common occurrence. All are in the same bus, travelling the same road, going to the same destination? Yet the query, ‘Have we reached?’

When we hold information close to the heart, we end up carrying the enormous load all by ourselves. But if we share that information, then everyone can put in their little bit towards achieving it. In fact it is pertinent to move beyond just sharing the information. We must ensure that those in our team with whom we share the information with, also share the same convictions and have the same purposes.

There is nothing more powerful than an entire team pulling in the same direction, dreaming the same dreams and striving towards the same goals. Great leaders unite, among their team members, what can be termed a information package that combines vision, conviction and mission in terms of action plan. They use persuasive skills to sell the package. Some team members need to be inspired or some might simply need more information.

The leader has access to more information than the rest and this must be shared prudently. Throwing all available data at everyone is not helpful. The leader must filter the information before passing it on. Timing the sharing is also important. The team might not need to know all the details in one go. This might confuse their priorities and make some people collapse as they see the hurdles, real and imagined, looming before them.

How to share information is also vital. Sometimes, it is better to talk upfront. Other times, it is better not to talk face-to-face. Whichever way, sharing the information is an important task. More important is to ensure that the sharing also results in a buy-in by the team members. It is hard to move the carriage forward if all the horses are pulling in different directions.

Share vision, conviction and path of mission...

 ‘Unite to impact’ teams with information!

                              

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India.