The city is alive and the moment you set foot on its streets you can feel it throb. For someone from the still wild west the openness and approachability of New Yorkers, their in-your-face reputation notwithstanding, comes as a pleasant surprise.
...more to come
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Finding opportunities in a river of thought
Hundreds of opportunities suddenly become visible through the simple act of watching your thoughts. Thoughts need to connect the dots in your brain. Its just like star gazing; finding constellations in the maze of stars. As you connect the stars you see the wheel barrow, gemini and so on. What appeared to be simply a random collection of dots just a moment before, now suddenly takes on a recognizable shape and that shape has meaning to you. Such is the nature of ideas, breakthroughs, innovations. It sometimes takes that childlike innocence and wonderment to stumble into life changing ideas. A 3-year old girl was the inspiration for the invention of the polaroid. We all have been 3-year olds and have been with other 3-year olds. How many adults actually listen to them?
How many leaders actually listen to their employees. How many innovations must be dying infant deaths, never seeing the light of the day? Because the so called “leaders” were busy telling their people what to do. What would it take for leaders to listen? Leaders need to get out of their heads just like people get out of their homes at night and go on to the terrace to gaze at the stars. Surely they will not discover constellations sitting in their living rooms. Robin William’s character in the ‘Dead Poets Society’ says, “Whenever you feel that you know it all, look at it from a different spot and you will get a different perspective.” (something to that effect). The problem is they are too busy DOING. A few minutes of deep business meditation will do the leaders more good than several hours of simply DOING. So next time you get busy doing, stop, sit down and do nothing. Learn to be still.
One of my favorite Eagles songs goes:
There are so many contradictions
In all these messages we send
(we keep asking)
How do I get out of here
Where do I fit in?
Though the world is torn and shaken
Even if your heart is breakin'
It’s waiting for you to awaken
And someday you will-
Learn to be still
Learn to be still
-Original Mind
Hundreds of opportunities suddenly become visible through the simple act of watching your thoughts. Thoughts need to connect the dots in your brain. Its just like star gazing; finding constellations in the maze of stars. As you connect the stars you see the wheel barrow, gemini and so on. What appeared to be simply a random collection of dots just a moment before, now suddenly takes on a recognizable shape and that shape has meaning to you. Such is the nature of ideas, breakthroughs, innovations. It sometimes takes that childlike innocence and wonderment to stumble into life changing ideas. A 3-year old girl was the inspiration for the invention of the polaroid. We all have been 3-year olds and have been with other 3-year olds. How many adults actually listen to them?
How many leaders actually listen to their employees. How many innovations must be dying infant deaths, never seeing the light of the day? Because the so called “leaders” were busy telling their people what to do. What would it take for leaders to listen? Leaders need to get out of their heads just like people get out of their homes at night and go on to the terrace to gaze at the stars. Surely they will not discover constellations sitting in their living rooms. Robin William’s character in the ‘Dead Poets Society’ says, “Whenever you feel that you know it all, look at it from a different spot and you will get a different perspective.” (something to that effect). The problem is they are too busy DOING. A few minutes of deep business meditation will do the leaders more good than several hours of simply DOING. So next time you get busy doing, stop, sit down and do nothing. Learn to be still.
One of my favorite Eagles songs goes:
There are so many contradictions
In all these messages we send
(we keep asking)
How do I get out of here
Where do I fit in?
Though the world is torn and shaken
Even if your heart is breakin'
It’s waiting for you to awaken
And someday you will-
Learn to be still
Learn to be still
-Original Mind
Friday, June 27, 2008
We only SEE what we already KNOW
Pyschologists say you don't "see" anything until you are pyschologically at the point where you can receive that particular piece of information or insight. Joseph Campbell says, "The hero gets the Adventure he is ready for." The Indian gurus use the questions you put to them as a gauge of your stage of evolution on the spiritual path and provide an answer suitable to that stage of evolution. A bunch of pacific islanders could not "see" the spanish ship that had just landed on their shores as they did not know that things could float on water. Their medicine man who was the more intelligent of the lot focused on the point where the waters parted and was able to see the ship. T.S.Eliot said, "We shall never cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." As we climb the mountain, we see a little more of the mountain and when we reach the peak we are able to see the entire mountain below. As the story unfolds in a novel, we get a little closer to the denouement with each page turned. During my school years, the same topics kept repeating from grade to grade, only they got deeper with each passing year. From the scientific method, we know that we always start off with a little knowledge, then learn more through an iterative process of observation, hypothesis generation, experimentation, analysis and revision of the hypothesis.
Question to my readers: How can we accelerate this process of "seeing? "
Question to my readers: How can we accelerate this process of "seeing? "
Thursday, June 26, 2008
My Design Theory
As a systems and Industrial engineer, I realize that one can design a system that can do many things but not everything. Making tradeoffs is an integral part of any design process. The cheetah can run at lightning speeds during the chase but has to sit down to catch its breath immediately after the kill ..i.e., it cannot eat its kill right away. And while its catching its breath, a bunch of hyenas in the vicinity, those shameless scavengers of the wild, can make off with the cheetah's hard earned dinner!
So, it appears, every system has some inherent strengths and invariably some vulnerabilities or flaws. The lion is an awesome hunter on the ground, can climb trees and is a demolition machine in a fist fight, but it cannot fly, it cannot stay underwater like the crocodile and it cannot bring down trees like the elephant. The PC cannot do everything the MAC does and vice-versa.
One also cannot help noticing that there seems to be a certain logic to every natural system. The cheetah's body, hunting technique, habitat, choice of food, social life, parenting techniques...everything seems to fit together. So also in the case of the lion and the crocodile.
What if the cheetah hired a consultant to discover the best practices of the lion society, the croc society and the maybe even the human society? Would the cheetah then idolize, say the lion and become a lion?
My guess would be that the cheetah can adopt the best practices of all the societies on earth and become a better cheetah.
Thus, we need to find what our core is and hold on to that while we can incorporate the best aspects of the people we admire or the people we would like to be...only to grow into a better version of what we are.
After coaching presidents, owners and CEO's of high growth companies in the US, I have to the conclusion that the scientist CEO may never become the leader CEO and the pharmacist president may never become the leader president. Wisdom lies in first recognizing your core and then compare it with the needs of your organization and where there is a gap between what your organization needs and what you can provide individually, its time to make room for other people who can complement your core. In any case, no individual can single handedly provide everything that an organization needs. It appears that nature has mandated that human beings must work in teams and diversity is not a luxury but an absolute necessity - diversity in terms of personality type, education, experience, skills and ethnicity.
What do you think?
- Original Mind
So, it appears, every system has some inherent strengths and invariably some vulnerabilities or flaws. The lion is an awesome hunter on the ground, can climb trees and is a demolition machine in a fist fight, but it cannot fly, it cannot stay underwater like the crocodile and it cannot bring down trees like the elephant. The PC cannot do everything the MAC does and vice-versa.
One also cannot help noticing that there seems to be a certain logic to every natural system. The cheetah's body, hunting technique, habitat, choice of food, social life, parenting techniques...everything seems to fit together. So also in the case of the lion and the crocodile.
What if the cheetah hired a consultant to discover the best practices of the lion society, the croc society and the maybe even the human society? Would the cheetah then idolize, say the lion and become a lion?
My guess would be that the cheetah can adopt the best practices of all the societies on earth and become a better cheetah.
Thus, we need to find what our core is and hold on to that while we can incorporate the best aspects of the people we admire or the people we would like to be...only to grow into a better version of what we are.
After coaching presidents, owners and CEO's of high growth companies in the US, I have to the conclusion that the scientist CEO may never become the leader CEO and the pharmacist president may never become the leader president. Wisdom lies in first recognizing your core and then compare it with the needs of your organization and where there is a gap between what your organization needs and what you can provide individually, its time to make room for other people who can complement your core. In any case, no individual can single handedly provide everything that an organization needs. It appears that nature has mandated that human beings must work in teams and diversity is not a luxury but an absolute necessity - diversity in terms of personality type, education, experience, skills and ethnicity.
What do you think?
- Original Mind
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Creating the perfect childhood
I have long held this notion that most of us spend our adult lives trying to create the perfect childhood in retrospect.
We are born and we experience something called childhood. some of it is good, some of it is not. We then spend the our adult lives trying to relive or recreate the best parts and trying to undo the worst parts - trying to take a sad song and make it better.
When does this stop, or does it ever?
-Original Mind
We are born and we experience something called childhood. some of it is good, some of it is not. We then spend the our adult lives trying to relive or recreate the best parts and trying to undo the worst parts - trying to take a sad song and make it better.
When does this stop, or does it ever?
-Original Mind
My Original "Blackbox" theory
I have played with this idea in my head for more than 15 years. I guess it is finally time for it to be made public. I am calling it "My Original Blackbox" theory.
The human mind dislikes uncertainty of any kind. When it does not know what is happening or how something works, it uses its powerful imagination to come up with a theory that makes "sense" to it. What kind of theory would make sense to the average mind. Well, it has to be a theory that does not threaten the "ego", "feels" safe, and actually feeds the ego and helps the ego achieve some underlying, secret purpose that is so secret that even the mind does not know it.
Of course all faulty theories are not ego driven but certainly can be called "convenient."
Any system whose inner workings are not immediately obvious or visible is a blackbox. We know that something goes in and something comes out but we don't know what exactly happens inside. For instance, we eat food and process it in our bodies and we get an output of energy and some waste products. How many people realize or are aware that the body actually needs to do work on the food we eat in order to produce energy from it. Due to this lack of awareness, we consider everything on the restuarant menu to be food. Once we become aware that certain foods require the body to do more work on them and are not really very "efficient" in energy terms that concept then becomes a guide to choosing foods. Foods that have the highest moisture content require the least amount of work to be done by the body. Thus eat more of such foods.
More to come....
Original Mind
The human mind dislikes uncertainty of any kind. When it does not know what is happening or how something works, it uses its powerful imagination to come up with a theory that makes "sense" to it. What kind of theory would make sense to the average mind. Well, it has to be a theory that does not threaten the "ego", "feels" safe, and actually feeds the ego and helps the ego achieve some underlying, secret purpose that is so secret that even the mind does not know it.
Of course all faulty theories are not ego driven but certainly can be called "convenient."
Any system whose inner workings are not immediately obvious or visible is a blackbox. We know that something goes in and something comes out but we don't know what exactly happens inside. For instance, we eat food and process it in our bodies and we get an output of energy and some waste products. How many people realize or are aware that the body actually needs to do work on the food we eat in order to produce energy from it. Due to this lack of awareness, we consider everything on the restuarant menu to be food. Once we become aware that certain foods require the body to do more work on them and are not really very "efficient" in energy terms that concept then becomes a guide to choosing foods. Foods that have the highest moisture content require the least amount of work to be done by the body. Thus eat more of such foods.
More to come....
Original Mind
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