I can discern the underlying patterns from the swirling blue mists that surround us
And coalesce the Platonic ideas into droplets with the strength of inevitability
All I need to do stand my ground and wait for the Universe to burst forth from the bubble
Together we'll take care of everything

Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate but that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some; it is in everyone.
And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

- From 'A return to love' by Marianne Williamsom

I've been reading a lot of history lately and have been particularly impressed by the fact that it repeats itself. So after yet another seemingly arbitrary terrorist attack in Pakistan yesterday I had to answer the question for myself - is terrorism ever successful? What can the militants realistically hope to acheive and what does history have to say about this.

My answer to that was - Yes, terrorism has been succesful in achieving political aims but not often. The key determinants to whether the movement is successful or not is the strength of popular support (+ external support from foreign countries) vs the strength of the central authority. Popular support for a terrorist movement is heightened if there is violent suppression by the central authority.

The post below is a list of famous movements and my conclusions on what I believe is likely to happen in local movements.

Let's look first at resistance/terrorist movements that were successful:

Moses & God 1350BC
The first terrorist attacks were performed by the ultimate religious fundamentalist - God. The Hebrews were being oppressed by the Egyptian Pharaohs. God sent plagues on civilians in Egypt to convince the Pharaoh to set the Hebrews free... turned the rivers to blood, frogs rained down from the skies, followed by plagues of lice, wild animals, diseases, locusts, hail and darkness. When none of this worked God killed the first born son of every Egyptian.

Result - Success. The Israelites gained freedom
Reason - God on the side of rebels :)

Sons of liberty 1772
They resisted the taxes of the British and were known for beating up loyalist British supporters (covering them with tar and feathers, pouring hot tea down their throats, etc) but not as far as I know for killing anyone.

Result - Successful. America gained independence and SOL members won enough seats in the first assembly to enact punitive laws against loyalists.
Reason - Popular local support.

John Brown 1856
Advocated armed opposition to slavery. He was ultimately executed but his martyrdom was one of the origins of the American civil war and he became a hero to the Union soldiers. When the war was won slavery was abolished.

Result - Successful. Although he lost his life, slavery was ultimately abolished in America, which now has a black President
Reason - Increasingly liberal values in the world

Irish Republican Brotherhood 1867-1998
The IRB ultimately helped getting independence of 5/6ths of Ireland (the Catholic dominated part) from UK. However Northern Ireland (which had Protestant majority like UK) remained part of UK. The IRA tried to make Northern Ireland part of Ireland but failed and they ultimately made peace and entered mainstream politics.

The 'Real IRA' said that the IRA were traitors for giving up the cause and recently killed some policemen but this was roundly criticized by both Protestants and Catholics and peace looks stable in Northern Ireland now.

Result - Successful in liberating Catholic majority Ireland. Unsuccessful in incorporating Protestant majority Northern Ireland.
Reason - Popular support in Ireland. Lack of popular support in Northern Ireland

Irgun 1931-1948
The Zionist terrorist organization killed British and civilian Arabs in an attempt to get an Independent Jewish state when the British granted freedom to the Arab territories at the end of World War II.

Result - Successful. Israel was formed and the former leaders went into politics.
Reason - British wanted to get out of Arab lands. Cohesion among Jews and effective use of force

Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston 1955-1959
In a situation similar to that of India-Kashmir-Pakistan, Cypriots waged terrorist activities against the ruling British and were aided by the Greeks who provided money and guns. Ultimately Britain granted freedom to Cyprus but the agreement explicitly stated that Cyprus could not join Greece and had to remain an independent nation.

Result - Successful
Reason - Popular support

Front de Liberation National 1954-1962
Gained liberation of Algeria from French Imperial occupation after World War II when France was weakened.

Result - Successful
Reason - Popular support

Mujahideen in Afghanistan 1979-1989
This case is particularly interesting because it highlights how the Taleban came to power in Afghanistan and why Jehadis think they can do the same in Pakistan, Kashmir and ultimately India. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, American, Saudi and Pakistani money and arms were provided to the religious Mujahideen rebels which helped them fight back and eventually defeat the occupiers. After the war against communism was won nobody paid attention to the country which in the absence of educated elite (many of whom had fled) disintegrated into areas ruled by various victoriious Mujahideen generals who became increasingly corrupt. In this chaotic environment the 'religiously pure' Taleban scholars were able to get lots of support and take over power till the terrorist organization Al Qaeda enacted 9/11 and hid in Afghanistan.

In order for a similar rise to power in Pakistan the terrorists would have to make the country so unsafe through terrorist activities that most of the educated elite would feel the need to go abroad. The fundamentalists could then take over more and more uneducated villages and gain support till the final overthrow of the army with the help of Taleban sympathetic elements within the army.

Result - Mujahideen successful in driving out Soviet occupiers
Reason - Popular support and arms and money from abroad

Result - Taleban successful in taking over Afghanistan. Still be ruling if they hadn't protected Osama.
Reason - Power vacuum in the wake of war + popular support initially

Palestinian Liberation Organization Intifadas 1987-2005
The Israeli-Arab conflicts have been there since the formation of Israel. The Intifadas (uprisings) organized by the PLO took on terrorist hues during this period.

Result - Successful. Palestine is a semi-autonomous state within Israel recognised by around 90 countries. Over a period of time it's likely to become a full fledged state. The PLO is involved in mainstream politics and has largely given up violent methods (though Hamas, Hezbollah, etc have taken over that mantle in more recent times)
Reason - Popular support augmented by external support from Arab and Muslim sympathisers.


Umkhonto we Sizwe in South Africa 1961-1990
They were opposed to the racist policies and engaged in guerrila attacks against the government. It's first leader was Nelson Mandela who was imprisoned. However when he emerged he bore his prisoners no enmity and became a man of peace

Result - Successful. South Africa's apartheid policies ultimately were defeated and there were democratic elections in which Nelson Mandela became the first President
Reason - Popular support

Notable failures include:

Sicarii zealots 6AD
Jewish terrorists who stabbed Jewish leaders in crowded gatherings and then escaped in the following pandemonium. They did this because they believed their leaders were betraying their religion by collaborating with Roman overlords. Not too dissimilar from the assasination of Benazir Bhutto by the Al-Qaeda for being 'the most precious American asset'

Result - Failure. The uprising was defeated, Jews were slaughtered and sold into slavery throughout the Roman Empire in Europe and Israel disappeared as an entity for nearly 2000 years. Interestingly Jewish terrorists were successful ultimately for creating a separate state.
Reason - Central Roman power was at height of its power

Gunpowder plot 1605
Guy Fawkes tries to blow up Parliament and kill King James I and all members of parliament to create anarchy in the country. Guy Fawkes wanted to convert the protestant nation back to catholicism in the confused period that would follow. Again similar to the Taleban wanting to put in Islamic Sharia law after instigating a breakdown of democratic law and order

Result - Failure. GF was caught and killed. Guy Fawkes day is a holiday in UK where people burst firecrackers
Reason - Lack of popular support. UK is majority protestant.

Ku Klux Klan 1865-present
White supremacists who were opposed to the ending of slavery. The name of the organisation was drawn from the resemblance to the sound of a shotgun being reloaded.

Result - Unsuccessful. America now has a black President
Reason - Stong central authority with liberal values

Many other nationalistic terrorist movements were unsuccessful at the time when the ruling empire was strong but came about when the central authority weakened - Armenian, Macedonian, Serbian terrorists at the end of the 19th century were defeated but when central authority weakened or disintegrated (Soviets, Yugoslavia, Ottoman Turks and Austro Hungarian empire) they were able to get freedom. In many cases this happened a hundred years after the initial resistance. They people maintained their desire for freedom because they were linguistically, racially or religiously distinct from the central authority and because they were suppressed by the central authority.

Other nationalistic terrorist movements that died out were in Quebec (1963-1971) due to lack of support and Armenia (1975-1986) where the central authority (Russia) was too strong.

Communist terrorist movements that died out were in Italy (1970-1989), Japan (1971-2001) due to lack of popular support

Continuing movements are in Basque in Spain (1959-), FALN in Puerto Rico, USA (1974-), Kurdistan in Iraq, Iran & Turkey (1978-), Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka (1976-), Hezbollah in Lebanon vs Israel (1982-), Hamaz in Palestine Gaza vs Israel (1987-), Al Qaeda Worldwide against non-believers and collaborators (1988-), Lashkar e Taiba in Kasmir and India vs India (1991-), Chechen separatists vs Russians (1994-), etc.

My conclusions on our regional problems (wouldn't call Tibet a terrorist issue but there is a resistance movement so have included it anyway):

Pakistan
The terrorists will ultimately be defeated.

In Afghanistan the Mujahideen were able to defeat the Soviets with help from US, Pakistani and Saudi governments and the Taleban were able to take over in the power vacuum that existed after that war because all the rich educated Afghans had emigrated during those ten years.

In Pakistan today, the terrorists will not have such an easy access to money or arms despite pockets of rich sympathizers and some support in a handful of tribal villages. Also the law and order situation in Pakistan is not so bad that the educated elite will start leaving in droves creating a vacuum of leadership. Terrorist attacks are not the same as an all out war.

However there is a danger that if the law and order situation deteriorates and Army rule is enforced then Taleban sympathisers within the army could lead a coup and the imposition of Sharia. America is unlikely to allow this to happen, even if it comes at the cost of installing an alternative government by force.

Kashmir
Deprived slowly of Pakistan's support under American pressure the law and order situation will improve. As long as the situation in Pakistan is unstable most Kashmiris will be wary of wanting to join them in case they get infected with fundamentalism as well.

If India takes the opportunity to make sure the army and police behave and there are free and fair elections, this would be a good opportunity to return the area to normalcy. Hindutva politicians in Jammu and India could make Muslims in Kashmir want to break away.

Kashmir is likely to stay part of India as long as India remains secular and peaceful. There could be a renewed desire to break away if India gets Hindutva leaders which will probably be violently suppressed in the short term but in the long term will lead to an even greater determination to break away.

Sri Lanka
Again.. without any support from Indian Tamil sympathisers (India can ill afford to give up its moral high ground after accusing Pakistan of helping militants), they will slowly be defeated. There will be sporadic terrorist attacks for years but if the Sri Lanka government controls its armies and police, then like Kashmir the situation could be normalised.

Tibet
History shows that occupying forces can maintain their hold on regions when they are strong and only relinquish them when they are weak or disintegrating. China is going to get stronger rather than weaker and so Tibet is not going to get freedom for a long time. If China populates the place through encouraging mass immigration (tax subsidies, etc) which they might well do, then Tibet will never get independence.

If however the population remains largely local Tibetans then one day when China is in the middle of some internal crisis they might be able to break free. If there is a big slowdown of economic growth in China then the large discrepancies in income could destabilise the country. The inevitable pull towards democracy has been resisted so far by China but in our lifetimes it'll probably happen. It'll be interesting to see what happens then.

Naxals
This is created by poverty, income disparity, low levels of education and poor governance. This is going to persist in India in these areas for the next 50 years so we can expect Naxals to continue to operate for this period of time. I don't see that they'll ever get a separate state because the Indian army can counter them if they become a large scale movement. But the minority that indulges in these acts is unlikely to go away for a long time.

North East
Not strong enough to gain independence unless China militarily supports a group - they've been claiming Arunachal Pradesh as part of China for some time. China is capable of territorial aggression and would if it thought it could get away with it with minimal cost.

There's a space between where I am and and where I want to be
A distance between who I am and the person I ought to be
No matter how far I've traveled or how far I'll travel
Like the moon on a midnight drive or the horizon out at sea
It could be 3 miles, it could be eternity
Is it what keeps me from living
Or is that what it means to be alive

Nadal beat Federer again in the Australian Open and it's becoming clear that Federer has a huge mental block. On the surface level it's that he believes he can't beat Nadal but actually it probably goes deeper than that. Nadal wants to win. Federer needs to win. Winning has become so important to Federer and losing so catastrophic that he's unable to deal with the pressure that he's putting on himself when he plays Nadal.

And this is something all of us do to a certain extent. If we don't get a job interview or someone we're attracted to doesn't the same way about us or if we lose a bet - we take it personally. We think that who we are has been diminished, insulted, invalidated. We fail to make a distinction between the results we produce and who we are. 'Kanishka has moved the chair' is one thing but 'Kanishka is the chair' is bordering on nuts. But that is the mistake we make on a regular basis. We have results but we are not our results.

Nadal understands this well and this is why under the most intense examination (Verdasco in the semi-final and Federer in the final) he doesn't get tense. When asked after the Australian open whether he had now proved to everyone that he was the King of tennis he emphatically said no. He was no different from 5 hrs earlier.

"You have to know before the match who you are and after the match you have to know who you are, too. You are the same, no?"

Timothy Gallwey was the guy who gave us terms like 'mental toughness' and who set the foundations for Coaching with his book 'The Inner game of Tennis'. He found that when players had an internal dialogue in which they were critical of their poor shots their game suffered. But surprisingly he found that when they praised themselves... that also had a negative effect on their game. The reason was that it set up an expectation, a standard that all future shots had to live up to. When you define 'good' you can't help but at the same time define 'bad'. The answer was to observe the shot and accept it as it was without judging it or labeling it one way or another.

Federer has had so much success that anything short of being champion and No 1 has become a disaster. Anyone else who had reached the last four grand slam finals, won the US open and was No 2 in the world would have been happy but Federer sees it as a devastating blow to his self esteem, which is now inextricably tied up to his achievements.

"You have to know before the match who you are and after the match you have to know who you are, too. You are the same, no?"

Here's to hoping this wonderful champion gets to know who he is.

Barkha Dutt has not thought things through. You would have thought that people in the News business would have some idea of how public opinion is shaped but clearly not so. There is a law of internet that if you try to suppress any information or a point of view then it becomes stronger and more widely aired by orders of magnitude. This is so well understood by people in the social media that it even has a name - 'The Streisand effect'. In 2003 Barbara Streisand tried to suppress aerial pictures of her home being published on the internet. As a result everybody got curious and the pics were published everywhere. So if some blogger somewhere thinks you're an irresponsible journalist then you give your point of view once, ignore it, forget it, etc. Ummm... you don't bully the person to offer a public apology. Because then you really will be hated with a vengeance and by many more people.

Which brings us back to the old maxim 'What you resist persists'. If you invade Iraq or have your goons manhandle a bunch of women in a pub or deny that a Pakistani terrorist has anything to do with your country... your problems will persist and become bigger. Bad feelings are a signal of resistance - guilt, anger, sadness, disappointment, fear, shock, procrastination, etc. And what we're in resistance to externally is simply a reflection of a part of ourselves we refuse to accept or allow. I resist illiberalism in any form which is of course a manisfestation of things within me that I resist.

Illiberalism for me represents a form of control. I hate being controlled and getting annoyed is my refusal to accept that it's appropriate to be considerate of others sensibilities. I have the right to swear, curse God, sit during the national anthem and nobody's feelings has the right to sway me. I shouldn't have to go to family weddings, remember people's birthdays, make boring polite conversatino and be politically correct. What do illiberal folk say to justify their actions (burning MF Hussain paintings, clamping down on public displays of affection, etc). They will say that we should respect their feelings. And of course what I will refuse to see is the hurt that Barkha must feel from having strangers call her stupid, unethical, hateful, murderess, etc. What I will refuse to acknowledge is that I would be heartbroken if people talked about me like that. What I will refuse to accept is that there are more productive and considerate ways of communicating our opinions of her coverage.

And of course the illustration that started the post doesn't just represent Barkha Dutt ignoring the criticism of angry bloggers. It represents my choice to focus on the anger I feel towards her rather than look at the things in me that generate it.

This has been a fascinating Australian Open so far. The betting shows the sudden twists and turns that have been taking place.

It started with Muray being placed as the favourite by the bookies. However few punters believed it and the bookies started offering longer odds on him and when the tournament started good old Federer was given the highest probability of winning (30%). However Nadal rising with every opponent he despatched (one was dismissed in just 1hr 19mins!).

Then suddenly Murray fell and Nadal's path became easier (see his sudden jump to 41% likelihood). Tsonga's chances also improved since Murray was in his half of the draw. Not only that but Federer was looking fragile after escaping from 2-0 down against Berdych.

Then Djokovic fell to Roddick and Roddick's chances picked up (you can see Federer's chances go up as well since he was sheduled to meet Djokovic next).

The most recent action is Federer killing Del Petro the sixth seed 6-3, 6-0, 6-0 in 1hr 20mins. This was Federer at his best and so he has jumped up to above Nadal as the favourite. Also poor Roddick, who faces him next, his chances have dropped since FedEx is so red hot. Federer has a 15-2 head to head against Roddick so in this form it's hard to see Roddick beating him.

My guess is that it's Nadal vs Tsonga semi final with Nadal going on to play Federer in the final. Tsonga hammered Nadal in last year's semi final but Nadal is much much more consistent now and Tsonga would have to play as well as he did in last year's semi-final to get past him. He played unbelievable that day. Not sure if he can repeat that level of quality on a sustained basis again.

In a Federer vs Nadal I'd go for Federer to win it in 4. Nadal may have the better record against Federer but that's skewed by a 9-1 record on Clay. On other surfaces Federer has a better record against Nadal. Nadal may have beaten Fed 9-7 in the 5th set in one Wimbledon but that's not reflective of his overall record against Federer on non-clay surfaces. On an indoor hardcourt I think Federer might be able to clinch it.

Bated breath

"Shall we dance" is an ok movie. Watchable but not something I'd watch again.

But in the middle of it is a quote that I thought was truly stunning in it's insight.

Susan Sarandon asks a guy why he thinks people get married and he replies "passion". She disagrees and he puts the question back to her "Why?"

Because we need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things... all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness'.

In life no matter how good our relationships our with our family and friends, at some level, we are ultimately alone. The person who gets closest to knowing the full person and seeing our entire adult life play out is our spouse and therefore their experience of us is as close as we'll get to a final judgement on how we've lived it while we're still alive.

I used to think that the internet would solve the world's problems. I thought the problem with the world was that there were a lot of limiting ideologies and ideas that had taken root in the social market place in the absence of competition. For example women were not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia because the alternative worldview wasn't allowed. My understanding was that in the borderless world of the internet where all competing ideas were allowed to smash into each other the best ones would emerge in a survival of the fittest and the world would become a better place.

A suitable analogy to what I thought would happen would be the liberalisation of a closed economy. Initially the state run behemoths and local firms are inefficient but can operate because of lack of competition. When the market opens up to foreign companies, companies are forced to provide better service and the customer benefits. I thought that the internet would be a place where the cultural 'protectionism' of national borders would disappear and the best ideas would establish themselves.

Unfortunately this has not happened for two reasons. One is that the web has developed its own forms of national boundaries and the second is basic human nature - we only read the things we already believe in.

India is 80th (out of 139 countries) in the Press Freedom index. Pakistan is 119. Which means that the press of both countries is anyway severely restricted in what they can say. The reports about the recent Kashmir elections are so different in the two countries it's almost like they're talking about two different places. Indian newspapers say that there has been peacefull polling and huge turnouts. Pakistani newspapers reports speak about vicious repression of anti-voting protestors and low turnouts. No doubt the truth is somewhere in the middle but I'm frustrated that as an Indian that I can't believe my own press. Given my own experience of the corruption and coarseness of the Mumbai police officers it's not a big stretch to believe the reports of Amnesty International that says that the major cause of death in Indian prisons is due to Police torture and that this has been taken to an extreme level in Kashmir but I never read about it in the Indian press.

When I look at the press reportings from around the world it appears hat India has been unofficially arming and supporting Afghan militants who have been carrying out insurgent activities in Pakistan to destabilise it, a role that Pakistan has been doing with the Kashmir militants in India. However Indians are kept in the dark about these activities and would never believe that our country would do something like that. We would believe that Pakistanis are conspiracy theorists for suggesting such a thing. Pakistanis on the other hand seem to think it's impossible for their countrymen to be involved in helping Kashmiri militants.

I hoped that Google news would cut through this regional bias but even the news stories that appear on the Indian page and the Pakistani page are completely different most of the time and tailored to suit the readers of that country.

The other problem is something I discovered recently. When people are exposed to debate rather than become less sure about their point of view as I expected they would, they actually become even more rigid about their view points.

In 1979, Charles Lord, Lee Ross and Mark Lepper carried out an important piece of research on attitude polarization. The researchers selected two groups of people; one group was strongly in favour of capital punishment, the other group was strongly opposed to capital punishment. The researchers began by measuring the strength with which people held their particular position on the death penalty. Later, both the pro- and anti-capital punishment people were again divided into two groups.

One of the pro-capital punishment groups was shown a card that had a statement about the results of a research project that supported their beliefs.

Kroner and Phillips (1977) compared murder rates for the year before and the year after adoption of capital punishment in 14 states. In 11 of the 14 states, murder rates were lower after adoption of the death penalty. This research supports the deterrent effect of the death penalty.

The other pro-capital punishment group was shown a card in that had a statement about the results of another research project that contradicted their beliefs.

Palmer and Crandall (1977) compared murder rates in 10 pairs of neighboring states with different capital punishment laws. In 8 of the 10 pairs, murder rates were higher in the state with capital punishment. This research opposes the deterrent effect of the death penalty.

The same process was followed with the two anti-capital punishment groups with one group receiving the card in which the conclusions of the study supported their beliefs and the other receiving the other card in which the conclusions of the other study contradicted their beliefs.

In the next stage of the research, the participants were given more information about the study described on the card they received, including details of the research, critiques of the research, and the researchers' responses to those critiques. The participants were asked about their opinion on the quality of the research. As you can guess by now, participants gave much higher ratings to the quality of research of the study that supported their beliefs and much lower ratings to the quality of research of the study that contradicted their beliefs.

The participants were then shown the other card that talked about the other research project that supported the opposite position to that they had initially seen along with the details of the research, critiques of the research and the researchers’ responses to those critiques.

Finally the experimenters once again measured the strength with which the participants held their beliefs on capital punishment. The startling finding was that after reading both the research that supported their current views and the research that was conflicted with their views, the participants tended to hold their original attitudes more strongly than before.

This really puts a damp squib on my naive assumption that in the free space of the internet the best ideas would triumph. What it actually seems to suggest is that the Saudis will be exposed to debate for and against women drivers that will actually make them even more adamant that women should never be allowed to drive.

It's all quite depressing.

Heart disease.....................4030
Lung infections...................3072
Diarrhoeal infections.............1948
Pregnancy related deaths..........1676
Stroke............................1526
Tuberculosis......................1153
Measles............................520
HIV/AIDS...........................491
Tetanus............................450
Car, truck, 2 wheelers.............442
Genetic diseases...................420
Liver disease......................396
Drowning............................74
Railway accidents...................71
Poisoning...........................70
Fire................................57
Falling.............................29
Electrocution.......................22
Lightning strikes....................8
Firearms.............................6

Suicides due to family problems.....80
Suicides due to illness.............75
Suicides due to love affairs.........9
Suicides due to bankruptcy...........9
Suicides due to poverty..............8
Suicides due to employment...........7
Suicides due to failure in exams.....5

Terrorists...........................2

Summary: Preventable - 15000, Strokes, lightning, birth defects - 2000, Terrorists- 2

Conclusions?
If your friend suggests going to a movie then rather than talking about terrorists you should raise the statistically more valid threat of being struck by lightning on the way to the cinema (4 times as likely). Clearly by changing our lifestyle as a result of terrorists we are over reacting, driven by media sensationalism. In fact, rather than beaming live video of commandos dropping onto the roof of the Taj directly into the 500+ TVs that the terrorists had access to during their siege, the media should have more productively trained the camera and the attention of a breathless newscaster onto a fat guy eating a laddoo across the street - heart disease claims 2000 times as many deaths every day.

On a more serious note - the actual number of terrorists deaths are of course just the tip of the iceberg, the most visible symbol of much larger problems of inter-faith prejudice at the micro level. This is not generated by fundamentalist preachers, nor brutal police, nor the lack of inter-faith marriages. It's generated at the micro level by the fact that Hindus have fewer Muslim friends and Muslims have a much higher percentage of Muslim friends than their representative percentage. It's much more subtle and all pervasive than the fire and brimstone speeches of the Mullahs and VHP. I create this by not being open to other views. Not just tolerating views but being open to them.

Friends are a hundred times likelier to commit suicide than to be killed in a terrorist strike. I think all of us go through ups and downs but strong relationships stabilise us. So if this many people are killing themselves the real danger is not from Pakistan but from the fact that I haven't called so many of my old friends or from the fact that I didn't strike up a conversation with the guy next to me on the plane or the fact that I was hard on my subordinate when he didn’t do his number or the fact that I never asked my maid about her life and what’s going on with her. A positive action puts other people in a better mood which sets off more positive actions. Who knows what that ripple might create and what it might prevent.

You're 200 times likelier to die in a road accident today. What lies beneath the waterline is government corruption and citizen apathy. We certainly don't do candle light vigils for the victims of road accidents and demand action from our governments. We're much more likely to scorn the PM of India for not being more inspirational from the comforts of our arm chairs. And it starts with me not judging people (even politicians) but understanding them, working with them pushing them for their own good if required.

And as we go towards the lower income deaths - diarrhoea, tuberculosis, measles, pregnancy related, tetanus, etc, we become less and less aware of them and what lies beneath the waterline, the voicelessness and vulnerability of the poor. Even the smoking and alcohol related lung and liver deaths come mainly from the need of the poor to numb themselves from the reality of their existence.

And the number one killer - heart disease. A better representation of our psyche would be harder to find. We don't take care of our own bodies, how can we take care of our country. We let apathy and 'chalta hai' attitude rule out the need for exercise and tough action. We let short term gratification overpower us and make the wrong choices. Isn't this the same problems with our attitude to choosing politicians? If I don't even pressure my parents, whom I love, to exercise for their own health, then am I really going to change this nation? Highly unlikely!

Gandhi was right. The problem is not out there. It's not with them.

I have to be the change I want to see

Out of the 629 seats contested in the recent elections in Rajasthan, MP, Chattisgarh, Mizoram and Delhi 40% were won by Crorepatis. Fewer than 3% of the seats were won by candidates with assets less than Rs 5 Lakh.

Other findings by the ADR (Association for Democratic Reform) are that 12 Crorepati MLAs in MP do not have PAN cards and 12 Crorepati MLAs in Delhi said that they did not own a vehicle in their asset declarations. It is possible that even the MLAs who have low asset declarations may have understated their net worth. In Rajasthan an MLA with less than Rs 1 Lakh in declared assets owns a high end car.

The study also shows that assets of MLAs increase on average by Rs 1 Crore in five years of holding office. The official annual salary of MLAs is around Rs 2 Lakhs.

The final point to note - 125 (ie 20%) of the candidates elected have criminal charges against them including murder, attempted murder and kidnapping.

Which indicates that most of our elected politicians are making huge amounts of money from unofficial undeclared sources during their time in office and the only people who are likely to get a piece of this profitable action are rich criminals who can afford to invest in electioneering.

Since as a nation we keep voting these people into positions of power it means one or more of the following:
1. We don't know what they are doing
2. We don't have any other viable options to vote for
3. We don't care

1. We don't know what they are doing
We need to get independently audited Human Development Index figures down to the district level.
Media needs to get people into the habit of measuring performance of CMs based HDI related indices
Civics should be a compulsory subject in 10th and 12th Std as well
In order to get a job, bank account, SIM card, etc you need to have a valid voter id card
Televised debates between leaders of main parties like in the US Presidential debates
Quality vernacular newspapers that are more critical of populist politics
Make an educational yet entertaining documentary like 'An inconvenient truth' and really push it in cinemas

2. We don't have any other viable options to vote for
Rs 2 Lakhs is a ridiculously low salary for an MLA. It needs to go up to Rs 10-15 Lakhs
Only then will we get educated people even thinking of getting into politics
We can only do this affordably by cutting people.
Indian Railways has 7 times more people per km of rail line than developed countries!
Corporates should 'second' a selected person to a new political party paying his/her full salary as a CSR initiative
If 50 or so Corporates do that the party will have enough visibility to garner public votes and donations
Based on superior performance the party can grow and have tough selection criteria for membership to preserve quality

3. We don't care
Opinion leaders need to get more involved - Sachin Tendulkar, Leander Paes, Aamir Khan, media, bloggers, etc.
We need to care.


On the Human Development Index (GDP, Health, Education) India is placed 128 out of 177 countries.

THE recent death and destruction in Mumbai, India, brought to my mind the death and destruction in Karachi on Oct. 18, 2007, when terrorists attacked a festive homecoming rally for my wife, Benazir Bhutto. Nearly 150 Pakistanis were killed and more than 450 were injured. The terrorist attacks in Mumbai may be a news story for most of the world. For me it is a painful reality of shared experience. Having seen my wife escape death by a hairbreadth on that day in Karachi, I lost her in a second, unfortunately successful, attempt two months later.

The Mumbai attacks were directed not only at India but also at Pakistan’s new democratic government and the peace process with India that we have initiated. Supporters of authoritarianism in Pakistan and non-state actors with a vested interest in perpetuating conflict do not want change in Pakistan to take root.

To foil the designs of the terrorists, the two great nations of Pakistan and India, born together from the same revolution and mandate in 1947, must continue to move forward with the peace process. Pakistan is shocked at the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. We can identify with India’s pain. I am especially empathetic. I feel this pain every time I look into the eyes of my children.

Pakistan is committed to the pursuit, arrest, trial and punishment of anyone involved in these heinous attacks. But we caution against hasty judgments and inflammatory statements. As was demonstrated in Sunday’s raids, which resulted in the arrest of militants, Pakistan will take action against the non-state actors found within our territory, treating them as criminals, terrorists and murderers. Not only are the terrorists not linked to the government of Pakistan in any way, we are their targets and we continue to be their victims.

India is a mature nation and a stable democracy. Pakistanis appreciate India’s democratic contributions. But as rage fueled by the Mumbai attacks catches on, Indians must pause and take a breath. India and Pakistan — and the rest of the world — must work together to track down the terrorists who caused mayhem in Mumbai, attacked New York, London and Madrid in the past, and destroyed the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in September. The terrorists who killed my wife are connected by ideology to these enemies of civilization.

These militants did not arise from whole cloth. Pakistan was an ally of the West throughout the cold war. The world worked to exploit religion against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan by empowering the most fanatic extremists as an instrument of destruction of a superpower. The strategy worked, but its legacy was the creation of an extremist militia with its own dynamic.

Pakistan continues to pay the price: the legacy of dictatorship, the fatigue of fanaticism, the dismemberment of civil society and the destruction of our democratic infrastructure. The resulting poverty continues to fuel the extremists and has created a culture of grievance and victimhood.

The challenge of confronting terrorists who have a vast support network is huge; Pakistan’s fledgling democracy needs help from the rest of the world. We are on the frontlines of the war on terrorism. We have 150,000 soldiers fighting Al Qaeda, the Taliban and their extremist allies along the border with Afghanistan — far more troops than NATO has in Afghanistan.

Nearly 2,000 Pakistanis have lost their lives to terrorism in this year alone, including 1,400 civilians and 600 security personnel ranging in rank from ordinary soldier to three-star general. There have been more than 600 terrorism-related incidents in Pakistan this year. The terrorists have been set back by our aggressive war against them in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the Pashtun-majority areas bordering Afghanistan. Six hundred militants have been killed in recent attacks, hundreds by Pakistani F-16 jet strikes in the last two months.

Terrorism is a regional as well as a global threat, and it needs to be battled collectively. We understand the domestic political considerations in India in the aftermath of Mumbai. Nevertheless, accusations of complicity on Pakistan’s part only complicate the already complex situation.

For India, Pakistan and the United States, the best response to the Mumbai carnage is to coordinate in counteracting the scourge of terrorism. The world must act to strengthen Pakistan’s economy and democracy, help us build civil society and provide us with the law enforcement and counterterrorism capacities that will enable us to fight the terrorists effectively.

Benazir Bhutto once said that democracy is the best revenge against the abuses of dictatorship. In the current environment, reconciliation and rapprochement is the best revenge against the dark forces that are trying to provoke a confrontation between Pakistan and India, and ultimately a clash of civilizations.

After the terrorist attacks last week there has been a lot of outrage, blame, sadness and guilt flying around. Some of it seems productive (pressure on Pakistan internationally to outlaw terrorists, politicians keeping a low profile and avoiding inciting communal passions, a renewed feeling that something needs to be done about our politics and media, etc) and some seems counterproductive (alienating Pakistanis even more with talk of war, replacing one politician with another, unfocused criticism, etc). All of which set me thinking about where emotions come from and when they're useful and when they're harmful.

One of the theories about where emotions came about is as follows: About 200 million years ago the limbic brain evolved in mammals which gave them the ability to feel emotions. Positive emotions like love, empathy, helped us bond with each other and create win-win relationships. Negative emotions were activated when we perceived a 'win-lose' situation and gave us the ability to be more nuanced in our response to survival threats than the simple 'fight or flight' response we earlier used to operate. 'Negative' emotions therefore had and can have in the appropriate circumstances, huge utility. The main groups of negative emotions I can think of are fear, anger, disappointment, sadness and guilt.

Fear and mistrust have obvious survival benefits where there is a real danger. Shock is a derivative of fear in which an animal freezes when it sees a predator, an instinctive reaction that cuts off movement that the predator might notice. Panic is another derivative of fear when an animal is so threatened that is willing to try every single alternative to no matter how crazy it seems, in the hope that one of them might just work. Panic gets a lot of bad press but in situations where there is no time to think it can be better than doing nothing.

Anger - is a signal to others that we are capable of defending ourselves and will do so if attacked. It's also a signal that our boundaries have been transgressed. By responding in this way we stopped people and other animals from taking advantage of us (taking our food, etc). Punishment, revenge, rebelliousness, sarcasm, hate, frustration, the need for justice are all associated emotions.

Disappointment - might have evolved to signal to us that we had tried to achieve something that we were not capable of achieving and had wasted valuable energy (trying to catch a deer or hitting on the hottest cavegirl). The natural response to this emotion is to give up doing those things and concentrate on activities that give us a better chance of success. It would have strong links to feelings of pessimism and low self-esteem.

Sadness - this is an extreme form of disappointment. It was probably an emotion linked to loss of something more precious and long lasting that might significantly affect the daily activiities of the individual. Due to these changes the individual might be disoriented and so it was probably dangerous for him or her to go out (predators, etc). This emotion reduced the chance of that happening by strongly reducing the energy levels and thereby the inclination to undertake risky activities. It probably also served as a signal to others in the group that the individual needed support and sympathy (loneliness is therefore a derivative of sadness). Later as our cognitive abilities improved it might have had the additional benefit of creating a withdrawal from action and into introspection (maybe to figure out how to avoid that loss again)

Guilt - this is a warning signal to ourselves that we have done something against the societal norms and if someone finds out or if we repeat it we may be excluded from the group or the group may take retribution. It evolved to promote group cohesion.

Today man has mastered his environment and actual survival threats are almost non-existent. What we would expect therefore is for us to experience few sustained negative moods. If you shake a stick threateningly at a dog it will show fear or anger but after you back away it will calm down and revert to normal. We should theoretically only suffer negative emotions when there is real survival danger but, unlike the dog or cow, we experience them in mundane situations. The emotions don't help us in these situations because there is little danger to our survival.
Fear - You go for a job interview. Even if you don't get it - you're not going to starve. Even less likely to be shot by the interviewer if you give a wrong answer
Anger - Your girlfriend dumps you and calls you a jerk. You'll still find someone else one day and pass on your genes.
Disappointment - If you lose some energy by studying for an exam and fail you could try again and study harder this time and still not die due to the wasted energy
Sadness - You lose your house and you're slightly distracted when you go to work because you have to take a new route from your rented flat. It's unlikely that a sabre toothed tiger will take advantage of this by ambushing and eating you.
Guilt - If you do something wrong it's unlikely that you will get killed as a punishment or that your group will turn you out and you will not be able to survive by yourself.

The difference between us and other animals is that we have a highly developed Cerebullum - the thinking part of the brain. It evolved a few hundred thousand years ago to help us plan and co-ordinate in more complex ways but we are clearly still in the process of learning to use it effectively. Because it's not our emotions that lead us astray. It's our thinking.

Our thinking takes 'negative' emotions and sustains and magnifies them to the level that they become unproductive. Our thinking brain is a cause-effect linkage finding machine. Of course cognition and logic is hugely useful to us but the problem arises because when our brain cannot find a cause, it makes one up. Emotional reasoning is the result. The process is effectively
1. I feel an emotion for which I don't know the cause
2. I feel this way so there must be a valid reason for me to feel this way - Aha! Here is a reason
3. Now I know there is a 'valid' reason for me to feel this emotion I feel the emotion even more strongly

Our thoughts create feelings that justify the thoughts that therefore sustain the feelings. It's a vicious circle. For example - my boss tells me to work overtime. This violates my beliefs about how many hours it is appropriate for me to work and I feel angry. Logically I should say no, quit or get on with it. But I construct an entire argument in my head 'He's such a jerk. Who the hell does he think he is. He has no respect for me, etc, etc' and that thinking makes me feel even more angry and frustrated. That feeling makes me construct even more reasons for me to feel that way "I worked all night once last month and he didn't even acknowledge it"....

Negative emotions are useful because they signal something is wrong. We need to allow ourselves to experience the fear, anger, disappointment and sadness rather than try to suppresss them because we have been conditioned to believe that we should be confident, loving, optimistic and happy. But we need to couple that expression with consciousness so we can pick out the message. If we simply experience emotions with no observation then we will miss the message and be condemned to repeating the same mistakes. When we suppress our feelings then we also risk not hearing the message that our emotions are sending us and the negative emotions will continue to haunt us no matter how hard we try to deny their existence.

Alternatively if we experience our emotions and receive the message the emotion will subside, it's purpose having been served.

And that brings us to the final question - When are emotions harmful. I think the answer is that they are harmful in two situations
1. When we avoid them them because we believe it's immature to be emotional. They will express themselves in other ways (quite often in the body as psychosomatic disorders)
2. When we experience them but do not apply any awareness to what is going on. We will not learn from them and we will repeat the same mistakes.
3. When we hold onto them rather than taking effective action to diminish the causes that are generating them.

And that raises some more questions
1. How do we avoid our emotions?
2. How do suppresssed emotions manifest in the body?
3. How can we raise our level of awareness and why does meditation make people feel happier and more in control?
4. Why would we hold onto negative emotions for prolonged periods of time if it doesn't help us and makes us feel bad?

I will try to answer some of them in future posts

There is a choice point that will take us either on the cycle of escalating violence or on the path to peace.

Arun Shanbag got a vivid picture of the Taj dome on fire (below). The image I was reminded of was of the iconic picture of St Paul's Cathedral in London surrounded by smoke during the bombings of the 2nd World War at a time when people in England felt that they might well lose the war.

At a time when our politicians seem to be struggling for their authenticity I think of Churchill's words in 1941:

"We have had a great deal of bad news lately . . . and I think we shall have a great deal more. Wrapped up in all this bad news will be many tales of blunders and shortcomings, both in foresight and action. No one will pretend for a moment that disasters like these occur without there having been faults and shortcomings. I see all this rolling towards us like waves in a storm, and that is another reason why I require a formal, solemn Vote of Confidence . . .

"We are beginning to see our way through. It looks as if we were in for a very bad time; but provided we all stand together, and provided we throw in the last spasm of our strength, it also looks more than it ever did before as if we were going to win. . . ."

Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense.

Two months ago there was a massive truck bomb at the Marriot in Islamabad. 53 people died and over 200 injured. 6 British were injured including 2 children. The blast left a vast crater, some 30 feet deep in front of the main building. Flames poured from the windows and rescuers ferried a stream of bloodied bodies from the gutted building. Witnesses saw many people running out, some stained with blood. Others lay on the ground unconscious or dead. Ambulances ruhsed to the scene as smoke hovered and the carcasses of vehicles were scattered.

The parallels to the Mumbai Taj and Oberoi attacks are impossible to miss. This is a golden opportunity to bond India and Pakistan against a common problem.

There may be people who think that Pakistanis are tolerant of terrorists but little remarked in India is the petition that many Pakistani citizens have signed as part of a movement called "Yeh Hum Naheen" (This is not who we are) to mobilize Muslims from around the world to clarly state that they were completely against terrorism. The campaign asks these questions:
Are we the ones..... who turn hope into misery?
Are we the ones..... who deprive children of their father's affection?
Are we the ones..... who deprive mothers of their children.

The number of people who had signed up last time I checked - 62million. It's the largest petition in the world and the number (I'm sure there is some duplication) is mind boggling. The top Pakistani media personalities had all gotten together to boost awareness of the petition there in this amazing initiative.

There are many, many people in both our countries who want the same things - peace and harmony. Let's not let the acts of a bunch of misguided terrorists cleave us apart.

Can anybody help me get in touch with people in Media (TOI, BBC, CNN, etc) who can help link the similarities of the bomb blasts (I'm talking about front page pictures) and help unite our countries against a common problem

Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan was a childhood friend of mine - a brave commando who died today after getting injured yesterday fighting the terrorists in Mumbai.



I'm feeling depressed about it.

He was the guy I admired most in my class. I think I told him once and if I did I'm so glad today. He was such a friendly, fun, nice guy, straightforward, honest. Natural is the word that best describes him. A real team player.

He sent me a facebook entry a couple of days before the attacks reminding me of the days we used to play football. Whenever we used to miss the goal we would protest that we only missed by a few inches. If someone looked at us quizzically we would say our feet missed hitting the right space on the ball by a few inches. It was our private joke. As another ball flew 5 metres wide he would look at me and grin 'damn - just two inches away' and we would laugh.

I replied to his entry by saying that I don't remember him ever missing the target. I'm sure he laughed when he read it. And in a way I feel so much happier that I had that contact with him just before he left us. I wish I'd met him once more.

My thoughts are a little all over the place but the things that come to my mind are:

It's so easy to criticise the police and the army and the commandos. So easy to say that they should use do this or do that or do it faster or do it slower or whatever. It's only when something this tragic happens that we think - he was ready to give his life for his country. He stood for something. Sometimes people forget things like that when putting decisions under scrutiny. People do the best that they know how. I'm committed to never criticising things again whether it's the army or police or the politicians or terrorists or whatever. I'm going to live life from a responsible place. From now on I will react in a way that makes a difference and with understanding, empathy and positive intention.

And the second thing I'm thinking is that life is so fragile and temporary. Sometimes tomorrow doesn't come. My friends are blessings and somehow I've allowed myself to get caught up in my own life and lose that connection with so many people. I'm going to be with them in a way that they get that I cherish them.

Rest in peace Sandy. I was lucky to know you. You always inspired me. You always will.

One of the many hats I have in the company I work for is that of an Executive coach. But most people don't really know what an Executive coach does so let me shed some light and dispel a few myths.

Myth 1 - Other people might need coaches but I don't
Why do Roger Federer, Tiger Woods and Sachin Tendulkar have coaches. They are the best players in the world. If there are any players in the world who DON'T need a coach it would be these guys. What could Peter Lundgren, Hank Hanley and Gary Kirsten possibly teach THEM? What these coaches do is give them external objective feedback. Just as we need two eyes to give us depth and perspective, we need someone to give us feedback on what we are doing - is the way we look at things the same way that everyone looks at them or are there considerations that we might be missing by looking at it from our position.

The best players in the world know that they can do well without a coach but by having an extra perspective they can go to levels that they would not have been able to by themselves. If someone has the mental block that they don't need a coach - that very mental block - I can do this by myself - is probably stopping them from taking help, feedback, opinions, that would have helped them outperform.

Myth 2 - Only screwed up employees get sent to Executive Coaches
Coaches are expensive and smart companies do not invest big money in employees they do not see a future in. They give them low pay rises, don't promote them or sack them. Companies generally only invest in coaches for Senior management and 'High Pots' where a change in one or two limiting behaviours could really set these guys free.

To give an insight into why such successful people benefit from coaching let me tell you about a fascinating experiment conducted by the behavioural psychologist BF Skinner. He placed some pigeons in a cage and attached a food delivery mechanism which delivered grub to the cage at predetermined times. What he noticed was that whatever the pigeon was doing at the time the food came into the cage... it continued doing it to try to get more food. The pigeons associated their actions with the arrival food and assumed that the former caused the latter. They had become 'superstitious'. Some of the weird behaviours that the pigeons started repeating:

'One started turning counter-clockwise about the cage, Another started making two or three turns between reinforcements. Another repeatedly thrust its head into one of the upper corners of the cage. Yet another one developed a 'tossing' response, as if placing its head beneath an invisible bar and lifting it repeatedly. Two birds developed a pendulum motion of the head and body, in which the head was extended forward and swung from right to left with a sharp movement followed by a somewhat slower return'

The problem with successful employees is that they maintain some bad habits because they assume that they are succesful 'because' of those habits rather than 'inspite' of them. So an aggressive sales manager may say "I don't listen to ANY excuses. I tell people to give me results and not reasons". He assumes that he gets good results because he doesn't listen to people giving news about the market. It may be true in certain situations but the reason he is so good may actually for a whole host of other reasons - he's smart, follows up, works hard, is a direct communicator, etc. An Executive coach can help question these assumptions. And if the player responds and learns to listen to his staff then it accentuates all his other strengths and takes his game to the next level.

Myth 3 - Only someone specialised in my field could coach me on how to do my job
Although knowledge of your field helps, a coach with absolutely NO knowledge of your field WHATSOEVER could dramatically improve your performance. Most people are technically competent at the senior rungs. And technical knowledge is easily available in the market. What the coach actually works on are the psychological areas of commitment, motivation, beliefs, etc which are the real drivers of results. For example 'The marketing strategy was wrong' is an easy answer but at a deeper level the player might realise it was because 'I create an environment where the advertising guys don't feel they can push back' and the coach would work with the player to consciously develop the habit of being more open to differing opinions.

Myth 4 - A coach needs to be a Freud or a Buddha
Most of us have the ability to be coaches. You don't need to be a genius psychologist or enlightened to be able to give a different perspective and feedback. You need to be commited to your player, supporting, challenging, authentic in your communication and you need to be able to trust your intuition. Of course, experience of coaching, communication skills, self awareness and empathy go a long way but at the end of the day the coach asks questions and tells the player what he sees. The player makes the decisions and takes responsibility for the consequences.

Also as a point to note - all 'honest' coaches have their own coaches. They don't need someone to show them the light. That's a Guru (Sanskrit: Gu=towards Ru=light). They need someone to shine another torch from a different angle. If a coach doesn't have a coach then what he or she is essentially communicating is 'I can coach you because I'm smarter than you. I'm so smart, I don't need one'. That's not what coaching is. Players are often much smarter than their coaches!

Myth 5 - I don't need a coach. I have loads of friends I can bounce ideas off
The relationship between a coach and a player is very different from that between friends or between a husband and a wife or a boss and a subordinate or any other relationship. The coach has a commitment to being honest even if it means challenging the player or making him uncomfortable. If you told a friend "God! My boss is driving me nuts" and he responded with "So what subconscious payoff do you get from being frustrated?" then he would not be your friend for long! Coaches DO NOT coach their own family members or friends unless specifically requested to. They switch it on and then, after the conversation, switch it off. A coach is a coach. A friend is a friend.

Myth 6 - Well that's all very fine and well for other people but I know my own strengths and weaknesses pretty well and it works for me just fine
And maybe that belief... is exactly what is holding you back from playing at an even higher level :p

Do the course!

A postive psychology/philosophy course taught by Tal Ben Shahar is the most popular course at Harvard. In India unfortunately we're still stuck to the traditional college disciplines of Engineering, Medicine, Commerce/Accounts rounded off with an MBA and so we don't get exposed to this fascinating subject. So I invite all of you to attend the first Indiaworks course which familiarises folks with the fundamentals.

Dates:
22-26 April 2009. Wed, Thu, Fri evenings after work and full day Sat and Sun.

Price:
Rs 17,500 which may seem pricey but there is a money back guarantee. So if you don't think you got your money's worth you get it back (small cough Rs 2,000 non refundable to ward off those with very evil intentions)

Content
Every action, thought, feeling, habit is generated by a web of beliefs unique to us. These beliefs were set when we were young and some of them aren't very helpful but because the vast majority of them reside in our subconscious and we are unaware of them, we continue to be influenced by them. In this course through a series of simulations and exercises we see and begin to analyse our habitual responses to different kinds of situations and identify the beliefs that generate that behaviour. Once we see this we can consciously generate new habits and reduce the incidence of bad hair days where nothing goes right!

Trainers
The profile of the trainers is in the link below:
http://www.theworkspartnership.com/ourpeople.html

If you're interested psychology and feel that the course might be interesting give me a shout (+91 992072 7697) and I'll let you know more about it. Over the next few months I will be blogging on psychology to pique your interest.

A few years ago when I was asked the question when would I have most liked to live I used to think of
1. 500 BC with the ancient Greeks
2. The Renaissance
3. 50 years ago as a Scientist - to see the explosive impact of Quantum Mechanics and General relativity as it happened

I used to think of these times and the times when the biggest advances in human understanding took place. The victorious push of illumination over darkness.

But now I think if I were to be asked the same question I would have to answer now. This is the most exciting time ever. As a result of the internet the entire accumulated knowledge of mankind can be accessed by a significant percentage of the population of the planet through the click of a browser.

Just now I'm reading a book called 'Road to reality' by Roger Penrose - it's a treatise on the fundamental nature of the universe as explained by Physics. I can hardly understand 10% of what is said in the book but anytime I have a question I just go to the web and keep searching the key words of a sentence till I get what it means. It's slow going but it does mean that in a year I would have a understanding of the universe than even Newton didn't.

Sitting on my bog surfing the internet (I have wifi in my home now) I can read the English translation of the classic spiritual text - the Tao Te Ching. And compare it in the evening with the Upanishads. Two hundred years ago the number of people conversant with both the teachings of these ancient civilizations could have been counted on the fingers of two hands.

I can research 'Vertigo' and within a day have a better knowledge of the illness than 99% of doctors would have had 20 years ago.

I have access to the blogs and views of Pakistanis, Communists, Gays, etc and know that we all have the same hopes and fears and we all bleed in the same way.

With all the knowledge in the history of the world becoming accessible to more and more people and being synthesised - I foresee that a higher and higher percentage of people will start seeing the world the same way or at least being able to appreciate each other's points of views.

What is not possible now?

I think my Sony Vaio laptop is just not powerful enough for what I want to do. I've been trying to record a song on the mixing software but the system can't keep up! And as for adding video using 'movie maker' it was a non-starter.

It's really frustrating because I really want to start composing some songs after my one and only attempt 8 years ago (which I was pretty proud of).

I love this song - "Superman by Five For Fighting". It reminds me of how I struggle sometimes living up to the expectations I have of myself. I guess I need to apply the same understanding forgiveness to my 'only human' computer that I'm trying to give myself.

http://www.jukeboxalive.com/audio_play_offsite.php?mid=1949459

I'm obsessed by the American election race.

I caught myself the other day thinking that I know so much more about American politics than I do about Indian politics and whether that means that I'm more driven by whatever the media is feeding me than I am about the state of my own country. I finally managed to pin down why it's so important to me.

Obama vs McCain is a belwether (election) on the state of the world and has a great deal of significance to future Indian politics.

The thing is that in India with our low education levels the common man is easily manipulated by the politics of caste and religion. I cling to the hope that in 20 years time with increased media coverage and education the Indian electorate would make the right decisions.

And so I look to America - a developed nation with high media penetration where politicians are really put under the microscope for the public to judge. The gap between the right choice (Obama-Biden) and the wrong choice (McCain-Palin) is about as stark as is possible. On the one side you have the reasonable, educated and diplomatic Obama, which hopefully is the politician of the future in India.

And the other side you have McCain-Palin who are trying to incite supporters with baseless fears that Obama is Muslim (false and irrelevant) and a terrorist (ridiculous). They're using religion and nationalistic rhetoric to stir up the conservatives into a frenzy of fear and hate as a substitute for competence. This is the typical politician currently in India.

If McCain-Palin make it, it will be a disaster not just for America and the world at large but it'll signify that it's going to take us even longer to clear politics up in India.

But if Obama becomes the first Black man with a Muslim middle name to become the President of America then in the words of a poet - The times, they are a changin'. And that would give us all hope.

What an awesome song! It's the happiest song I've ever heard!

Just what I need

I think I'm about to enter a phase in my life where I look more deeply into meditation and present moment awareness. The books that I'm reading now all talk pretty persuasively about it - "The Power of Now", "The way of the Peaceful Warrior", "Urban Warrior". Also the 'Mastery' course I did recently as the first step of my training to become a self awareness trainer...

Most of the spiritual books I'm reading all speak about happiness/enlightenment happening when you give up your identification with your ego, personality, thoughts, emotions, opinions, possessions, habits, etc and start living in the present moment.

Which is all very well but.... I'm a blogger.



And bloggers are the very antithesis of all that is required for enlightenment. After all my blogs are NOTHING but my ego, personality, thoughts, emotions, opinions, possessions, habits, etc. And every time I blog I strengthen my identification with these things.

In fact... my blog almost is my ego/personality now!

And as for living in the present moment. Well... bloggers don't. If we have birthday parties we think "I must take photos to put on my blog", if we see a beautiful temple we start thinking about what we're going to write about it in our blog and if we're in a relationship we're disecting it and analysing it so we can write about it in an interesting manner.

Do I want to be a blogger? Or do I want to be a Buddha?

'Flow' is a state of total immersion in an activity. Any harder and you start getting overwhelmed. Any easier and you start getting bored. I think at work we find ourselves fluctuating from one extreme to another - very rarely do we find ourselves just at the biting point of our abilities connecting with our challenges.

Well at least I don't! I went from a job in an MNC where things were smooth sailing and then I got so far out of my comfort zone that I fell right off the edge.

And now I've come face to face with the current limits of my abilities in this whirling maelstorm. My ego has taken a real battering, my cash flow, tax submission, health insurance are all swirling around somewhere and it's pretty much all I can do to keep my eyes closed and hang on for dear life.

Relationships used to be like that - fluctuating between the boredom of no relationship, the flow of flirting and then being completely overwhelmed when I was actually in a relationship!

But then I met Tiku.

Once again - just as I'm about to clutch my forehead, my Baby Biwi peeps through the grille of the front door and I'm back in my safe harbour. And those old words come to my mind:

It's been a hard day's night and I've been working like a dog
But when I get home to you, I find the things that you do make me feel all right
When I'm home everything seems to be right
When I'm home feeling you holding me tight

I've sunk to my knees under the weight of the world
And am tired and alone on this cold stone perch
But my nameless fears have taken form - a cold flame eyed dragon I pretend not to notice
Who waits in silence for me to falter, fail and fall

I'm waiting and hoping and praying for a miracle
And holding on and holding on and holding on

Damned with the knowledge that the only God around is me

I do my thing and you do your thing.
I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,
And you are not in this world to live up to mine.
You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful.
If not, it can't be helped.

-Fritz Perls, 1969

This is really cool... nice to see Imperial ranked in the top 5 Universities of the World.

01 Harvard
02= University of Cambridge
02= Yale University
02= University of Oxford
05 Imperial College London



The link to the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THES_-_QS_World_University_Rankings

Read a great book called 'Changing for good' today. It helped me make the link between a lot of the coaching techniques that I have been taught (and those that I use unconciously) to a theoretical model and further to link that model back satisfyingly to the research of great psychotherapists of the past.

It's feels nice to have a line of sight to where the work originated from, it's like being connected to them and the future of this work. And it helps in understanding the broader context in which I'm living my life. Also it brings a sense of wholeness and unity to my grasp of subject matter that were earlier unconnected strands.

There are a bunch of major branches of psychotherapy - Psychoanalysis, Humanistic, Existential, Gestalt, Primal, Cognitive and Behavioural. I'm going to talk a little about the distinctions between them, principal techniques they use and at the end how to use those techniques for the practical purpose of changing a habit whether it's to lose weight or being more assertive at work.


( Read more... )

1. Baby sis (shivani_smith)sent me the dancing videos from wherethehellismatt.com because it reminded her of me (she thinks I dance like a nut). So I sent her proof that the dancing is not my fault... it's genetic. My parents dance the same way!


2. Inspired by my filmmaking abilities Baby sis collated some videos from our last holiday which captures the range of talents (singing, rapping, rocking and even dancing) my BIL (Brother in law) and his BIL (ie me) keep displaying in public places much to the embarrassment of the rest of the family. It's called the BIL & BIL show. We have not got a TV network deal yet.


3. This is a video of my Baby biwi avantika getting drunk on her surprise birthday party and trying to blow out some trick candles that can't be blown out - in her 'Tullu' state it caused her quite a lot of confusion.

I read a great book book "How to make love all the time" by Barbara de Angelis. One point I've been thinking about a lot is how so many relationships are screwed up by poor communication. People don't know how to express themselves or how to decode others.

For example a typical interaction might go:
Husband - I'm going to watch the tennis match tonight
Wife - You never spend any time with me
Husband - That's not true, I took you out for a candle light dinner just yesterday. It's impossible to make you happy!

Now the thing is that behind every angry thought are many other unexpressed emotions that if they were properly communicated would lead to a very different result:
1. Anger and blame
2. Hurt and sadness
3. Fear and insecurity
4. Remorse and responsibility
5. Intention and wishes
6. Love, forgiveness, understanding and appreciation

If the wife had said instead:
1. Anger - I feel like you never spend any time with me
2. Hurt - I'm hurt that you would rather spend time watching a match rather than talking to me
3. Fear - I'm worried that I'm not a very interesting person and that you'll get bored of me and stop loving me
4. Remorse - I'm sorry that I sometimes nag you and that I don't take more interest in things that are important to you and that I need so much attention
5. Intention - I'd like to spend more quality time with you and have a really comfortable deep relationship with you
6. Love - I love you and appreciate that you took me out yesterday for such a lovely evening. I also understand that you have a lot of hobbies that are important to you to unwind from the stresses of your work.

... then the guy would have probably reacted very differently. Of course, even if she hadn't he could have been the one to express himself fully instead of just expressing his surface level irritation.

I'm beginning to understand that all negative and obnoxious reactions are as a result of a positive intention expressed in a poor way. We need to learn to interpret other's language because it's the only language they know.

I used to get irritated when my dad would tell me to save more money or when my mother would keep asking me about my health and whether I was eating properly. That's how stupid I was!

And once again I have to ask .... why is all this not taught in schools?

I think I'm going to encode my blog to start every post automatically with "I read an interesting book called ___ by ___" because that's pretty much how all of them start. It'll save me time over the long term.

Anyway the book was 'The Happiness Hypothesis' by Jonathan Haidt. There is an interesting chapter on how disgust and divinity are opposite ends of the same scale.

Disgust has evolutionary origins and its purpose is to help us avoid things that will make us sick. Animals that routinely eat or crawl on corpses, excrement or garbage piles trigger disgust in us (rats, maggots, cockroaches, etc). We're also disgusted by body products of other people such as excrement, mucus and blood which are often carriers of disease. Disgust also gives us a queasy feeling when we see people with skin lesions, deformities, amputations. Disgust has also an important role in sexuality guiding us to the narrow class of culturally acceptable sexual partners and sexual acts.

Disgust turns off desire and motivates concerns about purification, separation and cleansing.

In fact most cultures use these disgust signals to demarcate humans from animals. Our bodies do all the things that animals do - eating, copulating, excreting, bleeding, dying and rotting. But culturally we reject our animality. If we see someone crapping or having sex doggie style in the middle of the road or eating a chunk of raw animal flesh we feel disgusted or 'degraded'.

So there is a dimension where man can be 'degraded' downwards to the level of animals. If we go in the other direction on this continuum then we feel 'uplifted' 'ennobled' 'inspired', etc. It is the feeling we get when we're in a holy temple or when we watch a beautiful sunrise or when we watch an act of great courage or generosity. It is a real experience and in our culture we extrapolate it upwards so that the full continuum is:

Animal - degraded man - man - ennobled man - angel - God

And I guess this is where religion is able to keep its hold on people. I don't think religious ideas could ever stand up to logical scrutiny. But religious people don't believe in God because they are just indoctrinated into it - it's also because they 'feel' God's presence. They feel uplifted in a temple, mosque, church. They feel moved, ennobled when they read religous texts. They feel uplifted in the presence of nature and the universe. And when they ask themselves 'What is this feeling due to?' they wrap it around the ideology that they have grown up with and it makes sense. In fact it makes so much sense that they 'know' it's true because of their direct experience of 'God'.

And this is the biggest misunderstading that atheists and religious folk have with each other. Atheist bang their heads against the wall screaming 'but it doesn't make any sense, how can anyone believe this stuff', not realising that people don't believe because of the logic in the holy books but because of their real experience of something 'higher'.

And religious folk pity atheists because they assume that atheists don't experience the 'uplifting, touching, reassuring' presence when of course in reality, many atheists they do - they just don't attribute those feelings to a higher power. Religious folk look at the universe and go - 'this is so beautiful only God could have created this' and atheists go 'this is so beautiful that it's impossible that anyone could have created this' - but the feelings and experience of awe and wonder and spirituality is the same for both.



Of course on a slightly different tangent this 'divinity continuun' explains something else - why dirt, blood, crap, pork are considered polluting in so many religions (in Islam I think the men are told not to go near their wives when they are menstruating). And also why bathing and purifying fire are considered such an intrinsic part of so many religious rites. If pollution is one end of the divinity spectrum it only makes sense that cleanliness is next to Godliness.

And it also explains why Sex and religion have such a tough time getting along together. Many religions see sex as the ultimate reminder that we are no different from animals. Hmm... it probably explains why humans are the only animals that do it 'missionary style' instead of 'doggie style' :)

I've been reading a lot on violence and genocide recently. It all started when I realised I didn't know a lot of the new countries that had sprung up since 1991 so I should update my Geography and History. But the more I read the more I realised that almost all of the new nations had had a violent birth. They were all different nations historically that had been artificially fused by imperialist forces. When the occupying forces left... sooner or later the cohesion unravelled and the countries split into their original constituent nation states.

And that reminded me of India - how India had been a bunch of different countries pulled forged into one by the British. We've already had our bloody wars of partition but what scared me is that there is still a long way to go. Will we ever get to a stage where after Pakistan, Kashmir, Some North Eastern states, we get more and more States demanding their own countries. Will the Shiv Sena take the route of demanding that all non Maharashtrians leave the state. Will the Tamilians ever fight a war of Independence. There are enough nutty politicians bent on inflaming local chauvanism for their own gains. Or is there something about India that is different from other countries like Yugoslavia and the Sovient Union? Is it as Jawaharlal Nehru said 'held together by strong but invisible threads ... a myth and an idea, a dream and a vision, and yet very real and present and pervasive'.

The conflicts that have happened in other parts of the world in the last 20 years are mainly due to Communist uprisings, Islamic fundamentalism, ethnocentric secessionism not to mention genocide all things that have happened in India before and could happen again if the politicians get out of hand.



75-on Angola: Marxist government backed by Cuba vs rebels. 350,000 dead.
92-95 Bosnia and Herzegovina: Muslim government vs Serb Orthodox insurgents supported by Yugoslavia. Ethnic cleansing took place. Over 200,000 dead.( Read more... )

My favourite music is just a singer with an acoustic guitar or piano. I don't play in a band so I guess it's sort of inspiration as to how I could sound one day if I practiced a lot.

Anyway my current top 8 sexiest young acoustic singers at the moment are below (for the ladies complaining about the sexism - I have included 2 guys at the end)

8. Miaa Rose
She's cute but no more. She's got an average voice and is nothing special on the guitar. So why is she in this list? Well, it's just because she looks like she's completely in love and that's kinda sweet. Although the start of the song is a little less than overwhelming bear until the chorus where she lights up. Sometimes she gets involved with the exertion/concentration of singing but take a gander at her face everytime she mentions Lawrence's name in the song. She has this infectous flirty bubbliness that spills over and make you hope that her romance lasts a long long time. Her smile as she blows the kiss at the end of the song is classic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C00pcghTm_o
( Read more... )

Baby sis sent me an email yesterday saying that this video reminded her of me. It's an awesome video in it's own right but as I watched it an I felt an eerie connection to the guy offering free hugs.

His story was that he was living in London when his life went upside down so he returned to Australia but as he stepped outside the airport he realised how alone he felt and how he wanted to get hugged by someone like the other people. So he took a cardboard sign saying 'Free Hugs' and walked around. Most people ignored him but the first person who hugged him was a lady whose dog had died that morning (the first anniversary of her daughter's death). That hug started the free hugs movement and the site documents it's rise (http://www.freehugscampaign.org/). The song by Sick Puppies (All the Same) is awesome!

But what I identified with was starting a business in which I'm likely to face a lot of cynicism (my bosses have already warned me of what they had to face when they started it in other countries). They've warned me to be prepared for people thinking I'm a nut.

I'm ready. I'm proud of what I'm doing.

Please LJ friends, I need to know - Where do you live?

I'm currently in Bandra West, Mumbai and will move to Chembur in a few months.

Also - feel free to add me on Facebook/ Orkut (I use Facebook more extensively). That way if I ever put an update saying "I'm going to LA" then you can message me "Kanishka... please don't stay in an expensive hotel. Stay with meeeeeeeeeeee!"

Would love to catch up with folk for coffee, etc when I'm in your town (esp if your town is Mumbai!)

(joining mid way through a bizzarre sms conversation. I wish I could say that the preceding messages were saner but honesty forbids)

Cheerfully cynical: I didn't know you smoked weed?
Rationally exuberant: Of course I do. In fact I smoke so much that I'm partly responsible for the rising grain prices
Cheerfully cynical: I hope you know that weed causes impotence
Rationally exuberant: : I guess so. People have always told me I have an inflated sense of my own impotence
Cheerfully cynical: Hmm... Omnipotence! Bad pun or Freudian slip?
Rationally exuberant: : Omnipotence is someone who gets aroused at anything (like omnivorous). Textbook definition of a guy
Cheerfully cynical: If being plenipotentiary is not enough
Rationally exuberant: : Or if it's not enough to subscribe to the philosophy of antidisestablishmentarianism
Cheerfully cynical: And when the need for floccinaucinihilpilification is upon them. Must be tough being a man
Rationally exuberant: : Yes but there are the occasional joys of supercalafragalisticexpialadociousing from time to time
Cheerfully cynical: But won't the pot smoking cause Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis? I think I'll stick to being a woman
Rationally exuberant: : Stop this. You know perfectly well I've got hippopotmonstrosesquippedalio!
Cheerfully cynical: Well that's just the quintoquadagintillionnth time you've told me that. Just be a man about it, k
Rationally exuberant: : You have no sympathy! Go to Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu!
Cheerfully cynical: No!
Rationally exuberant: : Fine! Then go to Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Buirrom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit!
Cheerfully cynical: (no reply)

I think you'll all agree that I won that one. (Bows low)

Ram, Shyam and kanishka_sinha were sitting together bragging about how they had set their new wives straight on their duties.

Ram bragged that he had told his wife she was going to do all the dishes and house cleaning that needed done at their house. He said that it took a couple days but on the third day he came home to a clean house and the dishes were all washed and put away.

Shyam bragged that he had given his wife orders that she was to do all the cleaning, dishes, and cooking. He told them that the first day he didn't see any results, but the next day it was better. By the third day, his house was clean, the dishes were done, and he had a huge dinner on the table.

kanishka_sinha boasted that he told avantika his house was to be cleaned, dishes washed, the cooking done and laundry washed. And this was all her responsibility. He said the first day he didn't see anything and the second day he didn't see anything but by the third day some of the swelling had gone down so he could see a little out of his left eye!

When you are being yourself you feel good and you are achieving the results you want to. Being yourself is a natural state of being unique to each person.

But we have a certain image of ourselves that we are subconsciously committed to and quite often, especially in stressful situations we revert to this image even if it is unhelpful because we say 'this is who I am'.

Let me illustrate with an example. Let's look at two people - one is naturally independent (Ram) and one is naturally relationship oriented (Sita). In the same situations they will react differently based on their unique personalities:

They have to find their way to a party.

Ram may decide to go by himself and find the location on a map before he sets off. Sita may ask some friends to pick her up because she has no clue where the place is. They're both comfortable with their choices and they both reach on time so they achieved the result they set out to achieve. They were both 'themselves' in their own unique way.

However let's assume that Ram can't find the place on the map. He decides to go to roughly where the neighbourhood is and ask around. He gets there but nobody knows the place. He doesn't want to call up and ask someone to pick him up because he's 'independent'. So he wanders around and gets to the party late. He makes an excuse about some work that had cropped up which delayed him or maybe blames the traffic but feels stupid inside - Here his 'image' has got in the way of being 'himself'.

Sita's friends cancel at the last minute so she decides not to go because she doesn't know how to get to the party. She really wanted to go and feels disappointed that she can't and also a little resentful of her friends who cancelled at the last minute. In that case she hasn't considered the option of going herself because her own self image is of someone who goes only if her friends go.

If instead of wandering around for hours Ram had called a friend or Sita had just decided to go find the place by herself they would have felt good and achieved their results. That would still have been 'being themselves' because 'being yourself' is a naturally flexible state. They got trapped in their image of themselves as 'independent' or 'relationship oriented' that limited them and made them feel bad needlessly.

Sometimes you don't get the results you want but you can still 'be yourself' if you react to the event with the frame of mind that you can learn from it. Failure is a natural part of life and can be accepted by the natural person. However if you feel bad about the failure then you're definitely not being yourself - you've got married to the image of yourself as competent and the failure threatens the self image. Just to make the point it's perfectly possible to be naturally competent and perceive yourself to be as such. It's only when that self image causes you bad feelings that it has become an 'image' or 'ego' or 'saving face' issue.

How can you spot when you're not being yourself? You feel unhappy, angry, disappointed, dislike, powerless, small, out of control, confused, wronged, etc.

Almost all the problems we face (relationships, work, health, etc) are as a result of limitations we place on ourselves because of our commitment to maintaining our 'self image'. But maturity is the process of losing our image and being free to be ourselves.

I've never really gone out of my way to stay upto date with my friends' blogs. Just too much effort to go and check each of the sites individually to see if anything has been updated. So I stick to just reading my friends page on Livejournal. But a lot of my Livejournal friends are scattered all over the world whereas my friends in Mumbai who are bloggers are on various other sites (wordpress, blogspot, their own custom blogs, etc).

Just found out about feeds but I'm not really sure how to use them optimally:
1. Should I use IE or Firefox? What are the advantages or disadvantages (I've always used IE till now)
2. Do the list of feed folders show which blogs have unread posts or do I have to check them all manually
3. Do I subscribe to atom or RSS when presented the choice
4. On firefox the options for feed are 'Live bookmarks', 'Outlook', 'Bloglines', 'Yahoo' and 'Google reader'. Which one is best or what are the advantages/disadvantages. Do the same options exist in IE?
5. What I'd really like is one page where all the recent posts from all my blog friends are collated in reverse chronological order so I can just scroll through all of them rather than hop from one blog to another. Is that possible?

Need help from my geek friends and blogging experts

Recently I got some shocking feedback - the Director of training felt I wasn't showing up in a way that would inspire confidence in me as a trainer and it was uncertain whether I could become a trainer or not.

And it's true - I've been a little nervous and hesitant in situations where I've had to deal with client presentations and with senior trainers and when addressing a large audience. But in the past most people who've known me have said that I'm very confident (won the best speech prize at an HLL annual conference, every one of the 32 study groups at ISB in my batch voted for me to be one of the 2 guys to represent ISB in debates, etc).

So I'm clearly going through a crisis of confidence. And this is the second time in my life. The first time was when I was at HLL and I was adapting from my academic life to the challenges of becoming a sales manager in chaotic India without knowing Hindi and taking over one of the worst performing areas in the country. There the crisis was because I was always at the bottom of the performance ratings. Once I turned the area around, got the Director's award, highest ratings, etc then I was far more confident even with the highest levels in the organisations. I was very direct and said exactly what I felt.

This time the crisis is because I'm setting up a new business and feel the pressure of getting the first few clients. Every client contact seems like the most important job interview. Since I'm the only person in India I have few interactions with my bosses in Singapore and the few times I see them I feel like I have to impress them in those few moments and that puts pressure on me. And when I'm in front of a classroom full of managers many years older than me I feel like I don't know enough to stand there and that I'm pretending to know more than I do.

My confidence comes from competence. It comes from knowledge. It comes from results. It comes from building a relationship over a longer period of time. It comes from demonstrating value. Throughout my academic life I was considered pretty smart, good at sports, funny (cute even) so confidence was always there. At HLL I was given time to demonstrate value so it eventually came through. But as a salesman and as a trainer it's vitally important to make an instant positive impression to get the required credibility. And being new to the field of self awareness trainings and coaching my familiar sources of confidence are not there. So I'm looking for new sources. Reliable sources

( How to always be confident - My understanding )

I sort of play three instruments - the guitar, the keyboard and the mouth harmonica in order of my playing ability

I can sort of strum along on the guitar ok on most tunes though I'm definitely no virtuoso.

On the keyboard I can memorise a piece of written music after playing it a number of times and actually make it sound that I know how to play but a few days later I'll completely forget the piece and won't be able to remember a note. For years I've been able to play piano music by reading but can't play anything by ear.

Then I found a pretty interesting youtube video which said that learning was of two types - one was like a baby learning to talk. He learned one word, then two and so on and he learned how to mix and match them as his vocabulary grew. The other type is to learn like a parrot - the parrot can speak even complex sentences by memorising them but doesn't really understand what he's saying.

I realised that the way I learned guitar was a lot more like a baby learning to talk and the way I learned keyboard was a lot like the parrot. I bought the course (it was a sales pitch) and found that the course taught how to play the piano by learning a few basic chords and singing over it (rather than playing harmonised notes of the melody). This technique is called pattern piano and is very similar to the way I learnt playing the guitar (ie play simple chords on the guitar while singing rather than picking the actual tune).

Much simpler. Wish somebody had shown me this before. I'd have been a pretty good piano player by now.

I read a very interesting book recently - "You are what you say". The author, Matt Budd is a Doctor who studied medicine at Harvard. Over the course of his career he started seeing connections between the ailments of his patients and their personalities. He realised that our personalities are an external manifestation of the thoughts we have internally. Our entire experience of life is in fact just a conversation, sometimes with others, in the form of spoken words but mainly with ourselves in the form of thoughts. Conversations are built using the building blocks of language and so the way we use language determines the reality we create.



But the thing is - language is remarkably easy to categorize. There are only 5 types of statements. They are:
1. Requests - A request for someone to fulfill an underlying need of yours
2. Promises - A promise to fulfill someone's request
3. Declarations - A statement of intent, it 'creates' something in the universe that actions will make exist in the material universe at a later point in time.
4. Assessments - An understanding of something that is the basis of choosing an appropriate action
5. Assertions - A statement that can be proved or disproved

By using these statements without skill we can completely screw up our happiness and even create disease in our body.
( The 9 most common mistakes we make in our conversations: )

I've been stretching for the sky but the inspiration from the sight of the sun ran out and I got tired. And as I ponder that at dusk realisation dawns. I can only go as high as my roots are deep. I let the moist cool earth nourish me again. And wait for the morning.

The bulb bathes me in squeaking fan cut intermittent yellow. Outside my room the city sleeps, a dog barks and the waves never tire.

And at a quarter past one I feel a violet peace return I hadn't realised I'd misplaced. It's because my friend is back and I have so much to tell. A fuller story.

So I climb out onto the roof with my guitar and I sing another story of mine quietly. The night listens like she always does.

This is another inspirational video about a guy who becomes blind and in defiance of his disability he decides to start painting. And his paintings are... awesome!!!



Reminded me of the guy with cerebral palsy who decided to become a stand up comedian
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/102527.html

My belief system
The game of life: http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/10421.html

My purpose
The vision: http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/100726.html





The mechanics
(Be) Lie - the secret of self transformation: http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/14562.html
(Do) Mastery: http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/104817.html
(Have) New Year's Resolution 2009: http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/119173.html (private entry)

Rainy day notes
Changing perceptions: http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/3335.html

A couple of days as I was on a flight I was reading a book on happiness. One of the questions was how happy I was on a scale of 1-10. For the first time ever in my life I gave the question a 10. I usually hover between 7 and 8. Almost never at 6 or 9. So 10 came as a bit of a shock but I have got various areas of my life pretty much in balance now.

- I was flying off for my ISB 5th year reunion to see some old friends at a place that means so much to me
- I was with my perfect wife on a long holiday alone after nearly a year and a half.
- After ISB I was taking her to a surprise destination with all the bookings, taxis, itinery worked out by one of my ex-subordinates who just told me that he wanted to do something for me because as he said he had no idea what he was doing in his career until he had worked for me.
- I had just got a call from a friend I'd helped with MBA applications who said she'd got in and wanted to take me out for dinner
- Two other friends had popped in on us and had dinner with us
- I had stayed with friends places (one old pal and another who I had just met twice in my life) when I had been to Singapore a few days earlier
- I had exercised every other day for the prior week
- I was going to come back from my holiday to get cracking on the biggest project for the year that should kickstart the Indian business I'm building in a job I love
- I had just had some coaching calls with people who really were excited about making a big difference in their lives
- My parents had been with us a few days earlier and I had sort of figured out a way to meet up with my sister and them on holiday in Indonesia and Singapore while on work so we could spend time together
- I was reading a book on positive psychology which I was now certain was my purpose in life

Things are going so well. Just need to keep pushing that flywheel.

Fats, High fat/Sugar Snacks, Food and Drinks
30g low fat spread or 15g butter/margerine. Use fats high in monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fats. Limit fried foods to 1-2 times a week. Only have small amounts of high fat/sugar snacks and drinks and not too often

Meat, Fish and Alternatives
1 serving = 60g lean meat or poultry; 90g cooked fish (eat oily fish); 2 eggs; 60g cheese; 90g nuts

Milk, Cheese and Yoghurt
1 serving = 150ml milk (have low fat); 1 carton yoghurt; Milk pudding made with 150ml milk; 30g cheese

Fruit and Vegetables
1 serving = 1 small glass of fresh juice; 1 medium sized fruit (apple, orange, banana); 2 small sized fruit (plums, mandarin, kiwi); 3-4 desertspoons of cooked vegetables and salads including beans and peas (have leafy green veg); 1 small bowl of homemade vegetable soup; 3 desertspoons of cooked or tinned fruit (not in syrup)

Breads, Cereals and Potatoes
Eat these foods at every serving. High fibre is best
1 serving = 1 bowl of cereal; 1 slice of bread; 3 desertspoons of cooked pasta or rice; 1 medium boiled or baked potato