Fear

Yes, I do fear writing on some of the topics of my interest. Why? I am afraid of criticism. I am afraid to reveal myself to my readers. It feels like being naked in public. I am afraid that my blog won’t have any common theme other than the fact that I am writing it. But I am overcoming this fear gradually. Steve’s post on ‘the hidden inner life of existential depression’ made me realize my weakness. It takes courage to write on topics that reveal parts of you. I am sure he must have been criticized and ridiculed by some. But it helped me. It must have helped others. So, I am going to shed my fears and try to help others like Steve. See I am writing about my weaknesses in this post hoping that it’ll help you to shed some of your fears.

Anytime you work with materials that are deep parts of yourself, you feel revulsion at showing things about yourself that you don’t want people to know. – Janet Flitch

Writing skills

Earlier I used to write drafts that I would delete eventually. I know I should have saved them if not post them but I couldn’t bring myself to hit the save button seeing the poor writing. Now I regret. I am still new in this writing arena. Also, I have not been an avid reader until recently. So, I never developed a good writing style. But I am trying. John at ‘Pick the Brain’ is one of my inspiration. His post on ‘how to attract an audience by writing with style’ provides useful suggestions for writers to improve. The process is slow but I believe I am improving.

Why bother?

It is difficult to realize that Educated Being is helping others unless someone communicates it to me. Sometimes I start writing and then just delete it thinking why bother, does it matters. Recently I received an email from one of the readers on how Educated Being has helped him, and how he wants to hear more from me. Another one asked for my permission to nominate it for best education blog at blogger’s choice awards (though I haven’t heard back from him yet). This surely flattered me but it also opened my eyes. I realized that there might be other Educated Being readers who enjoy my posts but just don’t communicate for some reason. Most of us are like that. I am no different. But I’ll change now. And I won’t let it bother me anymore. I’ll write.

Ph.D.

Well, this is just an excuse though I have to fight for time away from my research.

After writing all this I am contemplating if I should publish it, save it as a draft or delete it. After re-reading what I wrote I have decided to publish it. I am trying to walk the talk. So, here it goes.

Promises may fit the friends, but non-performance will turn them into enemies. – Benjamin Franklin

A promise gives other person a basis to expect something humanly tangible from you. He is then less worried about the uncertainties and this makes him at ease to some extent. But if you want to rise beyond expectations, over deliver.

Why to deliver more than promised?

1. For personal satisfaction: I try to keep promises I make. That makes me a responsible person. But there is nothing unpredictable in it. Fun is when I over-deliver and exceed the expectations. Whenever I deliver more than promised, I feel good for doing a quality job, and my confidence gets a boost. Moreover, my ‘extra’ efforts are recognized and appreciated by others.

2. To gain trust: Once people around you know that you put in extra efforts to deliver beyond expectations, they start trusting you. They will stick with you as long as possible since they know that at the least they are going to get what is promised. I am a vegetarian and I face problems when I go out to dine because of limited choices. But in a few restaurants, they understand my plight and offer me more options than stated on the menu. So, I visit those restaurants more often.

3. To take relationships to the next level: Delivering more than promised makes you extraordinary. You not only gain trust but also win a following. You create evangelists for your brand. Why people love Google, Firefox and Apple so much? Why their users become their marketers too? It is because they deliver more than what other search engines, internet browsers, and personal computers offer. The relationship between them and their users has advanced to the next level. Please find me a user who is not happy with them.

Have you ever under-promised and over-delivered? Do you put extra efforts to rise above expectations?

However, sometimes we are not able to keep our promises, even if we want to. After all we are humans. Things do go wrong and mistakes happen. It is important to remember that mistakes are allowed provided we accept and don’t repeat the same.

What to do if we could not keep our promise?

Instead of hiding, ignoring or lying about it, if we just communicate and accept it openly, we can still maintain the relationship and not lose the trust.

- Accept it. Tell the truth. Move on.

- Learn from your mistake or keep your mouth shut next time.

[Update]

Also Read:

• The brand formula – Seth Godin
• Ego – Seth Godin
• Who says we need our logo on every slide? – Garr Reynolds
• Overdeliver – Yuri Filimonov

Earlier I couldn’t understand why people, especially some of my friends, are not able to comprehend things that are simple and quite obvious in my understanding.

I believed that a person in any given situation would act/react based on logical thinking by default. But it doesn’t work exactly like that.

I believed in existence of common sense and it led me to confusion and frustration. But not any more.

I have learned that actions and reactions that are obvious to me are not necessarily obvious to others and vice-versa.

Every individual has different origin, experiences, and way of interpreting the situation. Based on which we feel that we have acquired the knowledge to act/react in a particular situation in the best possible way. In fact right now I am assuming that this is common sense by saying ‘we’ on your behalf. But of course, you might disagree with me. So it is not common sense.

Belief in existence of common sense doesn’t lead anywhere, definitely not to happiness. When we believe in common sense, we are disrespecting people who don’t ‘get it’ according to us. This is not a healthy attitude and eventually it leads to clashes in relationships.

Instead, now I believe in existence of responsibility. Responsibility to become a better person, an educated being. Responsibility to understand the world around us and our actions/reactions. Responsibility to respect others’ views and opinions. Responsibility to make relationships work.

I have stayed in many different cities over the years changing schools and making new friends every time I moved. Fortunately, I have been blessed with great friends everywhere. Like others, I have seen and experienced the making and breaking of relationships. A group of friends disintegrates on petty arguments while another sustains through disagreements. Common sense has no role in it. Obvious is not obvious. Each individual has to become responsible to maintain relationships.

I have come to the conclusion that only those relationships survive in which each individual takes responsibility to accommodate both differential and integral aspects of the relationship. Yes, you read it right – differential and integral aspects of a relationship.

You might be thinking that I have lost my mind to talk about mathematical concepts. Not exactly. Let me explain what I mean by the differential and integral aspects of a relationship.

In differential approach an individual takes responsibility to keep and develop his own identity, and pursue individual goals. It helps in preserving who you are as an individual. It is a must-have feature. Flexibility and freedom play important role in it.

Whereas in integral approach each individual takes responsibility to respect each others’ identity and invest in each others’ goals. This too is a must-have feature. It helps in preserving who you are together. Cooperation and compromise play important role in this.

(Sounds simple but there is more to it. I will save it for another post.)

The presence of both differential and integral aspects is important to make and maintain good relationships. In absence of the differential aspect, an individual might feel suffocated where as in absence of the integral aspect, one might feel alone and disconnected. In either case, the relationship disintegrates.

I am not a relationships expert. But I am learning. Even if there exists something like common sense, I prefer to believe in responsibility, responsibility to become an educated being.

So the key is to identify different kinds of barriers. Based on my experiences and readings, I consider mainly two kinds of barriers.

1. Primary barriers

First type of barriers are those which hamper your progress. These barriers interfere with your strengths and that’s why you are not able to reach your full potential. These are the primary barriers.

2. Secondary barriers

Second type of barriers are those which do not block your progress. These barriers do not prevent you from exercising your strengths to full extent. These are the secondary barriers.

For example, in cricket fastest bowlers are not the best bowlers. So, lack of speed in my bowling is not the real cause of my average performance. Speed is the secondary barrier. My primary barrier is the lack of good length and tight line. So, instead of practicing for fastest delivery, I should be practicing for good line and length.

What to do?

The trick is to distinguish between these types of barriers and work only on the primary barriers. Working on secondary barriers is a waste of time unless you have already overcome your primary barriers and overcoming the secondary barriers will help you perform better. Overcoming primary barriers will allow you to play to your strengths with full potential. Do understand that this will improve your effectiveness but not necessarily your efficiency. In essence, to become a great performer what you have to answer is – how to be more effective (in practice sessions).

To be able to distinguish between these two types of barriers requires clear understanding of what you want to achieve. If your goals are not clear to you, you will never be able to identify and focus on your primary barriers. Another important thing to remember is to keep your mind open to suggestions. Sometimes, when you can’t see the primary barriers, external sources, like your teachers, parents, siblings, or friends, might help.

For example

When I was in 7th standard, we were learning how to balance chemical equations in our chemistry class. Every one was practicing hard on it because that was the only topic that was supposed to be in our midterms. Like everyone, I was also practicing a lot to solve the equations using mathematical concepts. But maths alone was not enough to make it work. I was not getting the right answers, no matter how much I practiced.

Thanks to my mother, she saw me in frustration and came to help.

The first thing she made me to do was to memorize the periodic table and learn the atomicity of all the elements in the table. Knowing whether the element is diatomic, triatomic, etc. helped me deciding what multiplication factors can be used to balance the equations. Then we set up some rules, e.g., tackle the complex molecules first and the independent elements last.

So, this time I practiced with the knowledge of atomicity of the elements keeping the rules in my mind. The result – I was the only student in my batch to get all the answers correct in the midterms. That definitely made me popular in the school but the important thing was the lesson I learned.

Finale

Lesson learned was: know what is obstructing your progress and work only on it.

What really matters is your ability to recognize what really matters. You cannot run blindly for one thing today and for another tomorrow. Identify the limiting factors, differentiate them into primary and secondary barriers, and focus completely on the primary barriers.

Practice with a plan and the knowledge of the primary barriers. Some people are able to do it subconsciously, while others, including me, need to be explicit about it.

Read also: Bend it like Beckham. But how? Part 1

OK. Back to the topic. Why I say that beggars are choosers? For that, you have to understand that there are two kinds of beggars – those who beg by choice, and those who are forced to beg because of inconvenient circumstances.

Beggars by choice

This kind of people have made begging their profession. They just love it. They don’t want to do any other kind of work. They earn enough from begging and are happy with that. These are the people who choose to be beggars.

Beggars by circumstances

This kind of people are those who if given opportunities would change their ‘profession’ willingly. These are the people who need help. Unfortunately, I don’t see them doing anything different to differentiate themselves from the beggars of the first kind. They also ask for money same as the beggars of the first kind. Why don’t they have a sign saying “Homeless. Will work for $$.“? I am sure with this sign, they will get more donors and it’s also possible that someone might arrange a job for them. But they choose to ask for money.

So, what’s the point? Attitude. Second kind of beggars need to change their attitude. And so do we. We are all begging in one way or another. What’s important is to know whether we are committed to provide value in return of what we ask for. No one likes the beggars of the first kind. They are not providing any value to the society directly or indirectly. Don’t be one. Everyone has a choice to make. What is yours?

Be the change that you want to see in the world. – Mahatma Gandhi

How David Beckham is able to bend football so much? Watch this video that demonstrates his talent. Did you see the turn football makes before entering the goal post? People still wonder how he did what he did.

Some researchers studied Beckham’s game and came up with this explanation,

The wind tunnel technique we’ve developed at the University of Sheffield enabled us to analyse in detail, for example, David Beckham’s sensational goal against Greece in the World Cup qualifiers. We know that the shot left his foot at 80mph from 27 metres out, moved laterally over two metres during its flight due to the amount of spin applied and during the last half of its flight suddenly slowed to 42mph, dipping into the top corner of the goal.

This does explain the physics but doesn’t really tell how Beckham managed to pull it. He didn’t study physics to compute the acceleration, projectile motion, or wind effect for his kicks. But his brain was surely computing such factors based on his experiences, practice and instincts.

How Tiger Woods is able to swing the golf ball into the pocket? Watch this video that shows his master shot. What was he exactly thinking before playing his shot?

Was he computing all the physics factor with his brain? Well, yes in a sense. He was using his experience, practice and instincts to figure out the best way to play this shot.

Why more than 1 billion people are die-hard fans of Sachin Tendulkar ? Watch the master blaster in action in this video. How he is able to play such classy shots with such ease?

If you look into their past, you’ll be surprised to find how much hard work they put in to become the best of the best. As reported in a Fortune article,

Research now shows that the lack of natural talent is irrelevant to great success. The secret? Painful and demanding practice and hard work.

It is evident that only those people who have worked hard for thousands of hours with proper mindset achieve greatness. Every great person has failed number of times in his life, but it is after such learning experiences they beat the odds and shine. But most of us are so blinded by their shine that we only see their present and fail to remember their past. What differentiate an average from a great are dedication and persistence.

However, we should not forget that any two persons working equally hard might not reap the same fruit of their labor. This can be attributed to their different mindset. Attitude plays a key role in one’s success. If you want to get out of your comfort zone and become an expert in something that you enjoy doing then you are in right mindset. And long hours won’t bother you. All great achievers like Beckham, Woods, and Tendulkar enjoy what they do. That’s why they can put in so many hours of practice without any complaints. But they are not practicing same shot again and again. Instead they keep trying new and difficult shots. They take one step forward with each moment and become comfortable with uncomfortable drives.

So, basically to achieve greatness,

• we need to have a suitable mental attitude to be able to enjoy the things we do.
• we should be willing to put long hours with dedication and persistence.
• we should be willing to overcome the barriers and take one step at a time towards the unknown.

In conclusion, I would like to quote what Kathy pointed out from the book The New Brain:

For the superior performer the goal isn’t just repeating the same thing again and again but achieving higher levels of control over every aspect of their performance. That’s why they don’t find practice boring. Each practice session they are working on doing something better than they did the last time.

Read also: Bend it like Beckham. But how? Part 2.

So, I looked around to find some information that could help my friend. And I found a wonderful ebook ‘When you can’t earn an MBA’ by Rajesh Setty that talks about getting ahead in your career without MBA. According to him, if for some reasons you cannot do MBA, you can still get ahead of others following an alternate plan. I’ll list down his suggestions with my two cents in addition.

• Check your attitude: Greatest of human freedom is to be able to choose one’s attitude. You can choose either to feel as a victim of the circumstances for not being able to do MBA or to take positive actions to do something about it. Your choice will either let you be where you are or allow you to move forward towards your goal.
• Design an alternate plan: While the formal MBA provides you with a structured plan, learning by yourself will take you to develop your own plan to check your progress. This requires you to come up with metric to measure your growth from time to time.
• Acquire knowledge at a breathtaking speed: Learn as much as you can from books, blogs, magazines, newsletters, websites etc. Today knowledge is accessible very easily but to avoid information overload you have to create a long term structured plan of knowledge-acquisition.
• Belong to powerful networks: As Rajesh puts it, “It’s not what you know but who you know. And it’s just not who you know, but how you know who you know”. You can join professional organizations in your field, non-profits, alumni associations, etc. Building a network will always help you in long run. But it is a two-way road. Be ready to offer something valuable to others. Networks rely on trust, so be trustworthy.
• Build great long term relationships: From your networks, you will know many influential and powerful people. Build good one-to-one relationships with some of them. But as for networks, this relationship is also a two-way road. You should be giving something of value to them and receiving something valuable in return.
• Volunteer for engagements of higher value: Other than just doing your work efficiently, try to look for opportunities to participate in higher value enagagements. People do notice people who add higher value to the organization.
• Lead a volunteer effort: Create opportunities to develop and demonstrate your leadership skills by taking initiative in volunteer efforts. Start on small scale in your group, department or organization. Do something where others can join you volunteerily.
• Work with a startup for free: Identify a startup company and offer your services that are of interest to that startup. Use your networks to find such startups. Startup size is generally small, so they are always looking for people who can take more responsibilities and are well-experienced in one or two areas.
• Make others win: Help others to achieve their goals, and you will find yourself moving forward towards your goals. If you help others, you will find no troubles in getting help from others.
• Get a good mentor: Finding a good mentor is not that easy. You need to find someone who cares for you and your goals and is able to provide answers to your questions. But again, it is a two-way road. You won’t get a mentor unless you are of some value to him/her, because they would be investing their time and expertise in you.

Rajesh also lists 10 things that you have but the people doing MBA won’t have. In essence, you’ll have more time, money and experience than others to build on your strengths. Download the complete ebook.

Sleep well:

Most of us fail to realize the importance of a good sleep. It is not just a form of rest. It helps our body to perform critical physiological functions. But it is difficult to determine how much sleep your body requires. Every individual has different needs. It doesn’t matter how many hours you sleep. What matters is whether your body is happy with that much amount of sleep or not. If I wake up by myself feeling energetic and enthusiastic for the day, I can say I had a good quality sleep.

Meditate:

Meditation is not a religious practice. It is important to be able to focus on only one thing at a time and meditation helps in doing that. It has spiritual relevance too but let’s not go into that now. I don’t meditate in traditional sense. For me, meditation means to focus on my body and my inner self without thinking of anything else. So, when I exercise all I concentrate on is my body rythm and breathing pattern and that’s meditation for me. Swimming is also an excellent option in which you have to concentrate on your body movements and breathing in order to swim well.

Healthy breakfast:

I read somewhere that the most brain damaging habit is not to have a breakfast. After the overnight fast and lack of glucose in the body, it is imperative to consume some protein and fiber rich food products. When I used to stay with my parents, there was not a single day that I missed my breakfast and all credit goes to my mother. But since I have been staying on my own, I have become more and more negligent. Running our body on low fuel till noon is not good. So, start having a healthy breakfast and get a good start for the day.

Limit TV:

Control your TV watching. If you observe your TV watching habits, you will realize that mostly it is waste of time. But that is not the only problem. All the programmes on TV show ads in every 15 minutes, so it breaks the continuity. Also, most likely you have a TV with a remote controller and your fingers are always playing with it skipping channels and surfing back-n-forth. This increases fidgetiness in your behaviour and it affects other aspects of your life too. I have reduced TV watching by restricting myself to 2 hours of TV per week. And when I want to watch more, I just rent a movie and watch it without a break.

Limit internet use:

This is easy to say but difficult to do. It depends on how much necessary it is for you to be online to get your work done. Most of the time, either I am searching for articles for my research or looking for some solution to software bugs. But now, I have made it a habit to print the article of my interest, leave my cubicle and read it somewhere where I don’t have access to net. But still many times I see myself using refresh button unnecessarily in the middle of some task. I am still looking for efficient ways to reduce the effect of this distraction.

Take time-outs:

Not just simple breaks but rewarding breaks. I reward myself with sunshine by going out for a walk after getting a task done in the lab. Breaks are generally distracting unless they are for a purpose. So, give a purpose to every break even if it is just talking to a colleague or checking your emails. You need to figure out what you need to do in your time-out to get a fulfilling break.

Read books:

Reading definitely increases your attention span. Read what interests you but try to avoid short stories. If I find some interesting novel/book to read, I find myself sitting for 5-6 hours straight without any breaks even if the TV is on.

Get close to nature:

This I accomplish by taking walks during my breaks, or taking a weekend off for some outdoor activity like camping. Attention span is mostly affected by stress, most of which comes from external sources. When you are with nature, you tend to go back into your natural state which is free from any kind of stress, worries or/and anxiety because that’s the way you were born.

Obviously, you can see how the same activities can help in other aspects of your life. We all already know these things but still don’t follow them. Why? Because we don’t assign a goal to them. Without a goal, we cannot measure our development. Here I am targeting to increase the attention span. You will notice the difference if you follow even some of the steps and it will motivate you further. Moreover, you will observe positive effects in other aspects of your personal development.

Becoming an educated being means more than simply knowing things. It relates more to how you apply what you know in your daily life even in mundane activities. It means to be able to deal with changes in life and sometimes become the cause of the change. It means to get out of the closed box thinking and open your mind to things not common to you.

Education never stops. In everything we do there is a lesson, it is upto us to recognize and learn it.

Schooling is not necessary to become an educated being. But it definitely provides (or used to) a rich environment to facilitate it. If you go to school just to attend classes, do assignments, and get grades then you are wasting your time. I did. School is not just about grades and degrees. It is a place where you get an opportunity to interact with all sorts of people. You can learn a lot from the experienced ones and shape your personal growth. The other advantage of going to school is that you learn to handle yourself even in unpleasant situations and trust me there can be many. The reward is not the degree, but the person you become at the end of it. The purpose is to learn how to learn.

You are becoming an educated being if you have a desire to learn new things. You are constantly looking to improve yourself in all possible ways. You are always burning with curiosity. You have high self esteem. You don’t have the fear of not being smart enough. You know that you are worth in this world and have the ability to learn anything that is needed to fulfill your purpose.

Being educated means that you can think. You have a mind of your own. You don’t follow the crowd. You look at the problems and ideas differently. You know that there is more to life than job and money, and that’s you. It is all about who you are and what you become.
So, are you one of the well-trained, highly skilled labors or an educated being?

Realization: Do you realize that you are procrastinating? Most of the people I have seen do acknowledge that they know that they procrastinate (a lot). That’s good (not the procrastination part), atleast you are aware of what’s happening. But it adds to another problem. It is frustrating when you know about it but are not able to stop it.

Like one of my friends, let’s call him D, who wanted to quit smoking but even after trying for 2-3 years he was just not able to quit it. Though he realized that smoking is injurious to health (physical and mental), he couldn’t control it. It seems that cigarettes controlled him. Same was the case with me. Procrastination was controlling me, my time, and my productivity. I was like a prisoner who desired freedom but was compelled to follow the orders. But atleast I (and D) realized that there is something wrong with it and something needs to be done.

Practical solutions: I tried to overcome procrastination by employing some practical solutions. I used to spend most of my weekends watching TV. Also almost every evening of mine was spent watching Friends, Everybody loves Raymond, Seinfield etc. Finally one day I just shut down that box for good. I am also an addictive web surfer. I used to spend hours infront of the screen googling and browsing through webpages. It was an easily available natural distractor. So, I stopped casual surfing too in an effort to reduce my distraction time. But nothing worked. After some time I was back on the same routine (though I could reduce some TV watching).

Similarly, D also tried different things but in vain. He would quit every other week and start again after couple of days. Reasons varied but everytime he knew he shouldn’t be starting it again.

The reason for such failures can be attributed to the lack of a strong motivation to be able to give it up. We did realize that we have a problem but were not determined enough to solve it. In other words, we didn’t fully realize the negative effects of our habits, may be because there are no short term negative effects. If it doesn’t hurt you in short term, it is less likely you’ll quit it. We tend to be more reactive to things that have short term effects (gain or loss doesn’t matter) than that have long term effects.

Eye opening moment: Finally, there was one weekend when a number things happenned. I won’t go in detail but in that weekend I realized that if I don’t work towards my Ph.D. any harder in order to graduate soon, my (and my close one’s) life would be doomed. I could see myself failing professionally. I visualized how it would affect me and my close ones and believe me, I didn’t like what I saw. That time I knew I want to overcome procrastination no matter what. And since then I have considerably reduced the time killing activities. What helped me most was that image in my mind of what would happen if I don’t control it. Also, I posted a quote by Viktor Frankl on my desk saying, “To life he can only respond by being responsible.” This quote always reminds me of my responsibilities as a human being and I tend to work more aggressively towards my goal.

D could also quit smoking, completely. One day there was an ad asking for student volunteers for some study on effects of smoking and each volunteer was being paid something over $100.00. This caught D’s eyes and he volunteered (for the money of course). Those people took some tests and showed him what healthy lungs look like and how his lungs have deteriorated in comparison. They also gave him an estimate of how many more years he would live if he continued with the same frequency of smoking. That number and the picture of his lungs were engraved in his mind that day. After that whenever he smoked, that number and the picture would haunt him. He even started the reverse countdown. So, finally he decided to quit it completely for good (of course, with the help of some of the practical solutions he had used earlier but this time there was stronger motivation and he was more determined).

From all this, I find that there is nothing impossible but we cannot make it possible till we really, really, really care. A person can be successful in whatever he attempts if he is sincere to the cause. We find things difficult because either we are not sincere in our efforts or we don’t realize the after-effects (long/short term and positive/negative effects).

Life is too short to be wasted in doing things that you don’t want to. Unless you realize how much damage (personal, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual) it is causing you, you won’t quit. So one of the way to overcome such negative habits is to:

1. Visualize what will happen if you continue with it.
2. Visualize what will happen if you quit it.
3. Try to draw a picture bringing in contrast between the two situations.
4. If there is a drastic and positive difference, you will be able to quit.
5. Else re-work on your visualization abilities and go back to step 1.

I said I gained some control over procrastination but not full control because there are many more things that I need to re-organize to overcome it completely (that would be a topic for some other post). I still do put-off things, like right now instead of working on my project I am writing this post but I am glad that it is some-what constructive procrastination.