Excellence is about making numerous choices daily

Many self-help popular books and counsellors advocate that excellence is about getting big macro choices right, such as choice of right discipline after 10th, or the right college to graduate, or right job after graduation, or even the right partner to marry. Because of this mistaken belief, students and their parents spend considerable time in deciding what to do after 10th class ! But excellence is not about doing one thing right; it is about doing things right daily ( at least most of them).

In other words, Excellence is a habit. It is not a mindset, or a one-time skill. Taking one decision right does not guarantee excellence. Taking the decision to do 'engineering', for instance, does not guarantee any excellence in engineering, until you do numerous small things right while finishing your high school till 10th class. For instance, if you have decided that your potential strength is physics, one of a critical subject in Engineering, you have to find methods and ideas that will daily help you increase your strength in physics. Your strength is not going to increase by understanding one chapter right, or passing one exam of physics with good marks. Your strength in physics will increase only if you make most of your micro choices - of doing well in physics -  right.To excel in life, one has to practice the habit of excellence consistently with conscious effort.

Because excelling is a habit, you have to practice it again and again consciously. Like driving habit, excelling habit has three characteristics. Firstly, even though you have learnt driving, you still have to drive the car every time with focus and attention. You cannot just put down your guard and hope the car will be driven automatically. Once you learn driving till a threshold level, you may require less conscious effort, but you still require some effort. Similarly, excelling habit, even if you learnt it once, has to be practiced again and again in every situation. Secondly, when the situation changes, you have to re-learn the habit again. For instance, if you have to drive in Ghats, you have to learn driving again. Thirdly, a contextual situation may  require a very different kind of similar skill. In such situation relearning the same habit takes lot of practice and time. For instance, if you want to enter the competition of car-racing, you may have to unlearn some of the practices useful in city driving, and practice new way of driving. Excelling habits, even when they look similar, require quite an amount of relearning for each situation.

So how can you develop this excelling habit to achieve anything meaningful?

1. Excelling is making micro choices daily (again and again) to gain knowledge

Many students assume that excelling is about making one right choice - Engineering, medical, arts, or any other discipline - after 10th class. Unfortunately, it is just the first step. If you do not do the micro-work, nothing will save you.

When you, for instance, choose to use Physics Olympiad to deepen your knowledge of engineering, you have to make numerous micro choices consequently : how to study every day for olympiad despite the school schedule, where to find other students who are also working for physics olympiad, how to locate teachers who will teach you the depth of physics, how to find websites that will help you learn some concept of physics faster, and where to meet older students who had gone to Olympiad and so on. These micro choices ultimately determine if your macro decision of doing engineering will help you excel or not.

2. Excelling is using the 'forced situations' in your life to grow mentally

We do not have choices in many situations. We are, on the contrary, forced into situations. Forced situations push us back into the corner and make us take a stand that primarily determine our mental growth. Remember the definition of mental growth: Mental growth is our ability to see as-is reality without any bias.  For instance,  we are born into a particular type of family, a specific kind of town or city, and in a specific culture or community. All these forced 'situations' bias us unknowingly. Our ability to be aware of these biases and utilise them in our life ( either as crisis or as opportunities) determine our mental growth.With mental growth, we develop qualities like patience, concentration, persistence and courage which are necessary to complement your intelligence.

3. Excelling is about using every situation to tame the mind beast so that you can take the above two actions with commitment 

Mind has features which are good and ugly. Despite knowing 0.001% of the world ( or even less), it still has to function in this world and help us find our place to grow. This is the power of our mind. But to use this power, Mind is forced to adopt certain practices. For instance, it has to use 'fast and instantaneous'** emotion to take quick decisions without enough information. But one cannot always rely on these 'emotions'. For instance, when we are going to stage to deliver a speech, we have to learn to ignore the discomforting signals of emotion. In short, we have to learn to tame the mind beast : sometimes consciously go against its orders and sometimes follow its powerful orders.

When we use stress, that mind generates to keep us wary of danger signals, to channelise our efforts in studying more, we are taming the mind beast. When we use self-doubt to prepare for the next exam, despite doing well in the current exam, we are taming the mind beast. When we ignore the belief ( mind unconsciously adopts beliefs to help it take decisions with less information) that 'drawing is just a hobby', and decide to pursue career in drawing, we are taming the mind beast. Some self-help gurus advocate the opposite: instead of taming mind beast they tell us to believe that our mind can do anything and everything. But mind, because it is always functioning with very little knowledge about the world, cannot be all-powerful! This strategy therefore fails.

Summary

In short excelling, first of all, is a habit. Excellence is not a mantra or rule that can be practiced once in a while. Excelling is habit that has to be practiced daily. You will not learn to excel always. Sometimes you may not succeed in excelling. Excelling is about using daily situations in life to guide your actions and behaviour that slowly and surely enhances your knowledge( strengths) step by step, help you grow mentally by tackling forced situations differently, and above all use every situation to become aware of the mind's beast so that you can tame it . Taming the mind beast is necessary if one has to use the power of mind without falling prey to the mind's unpredictable demons of emotion, stress, belief and self doubt. We may not get right all these choices and decisions. But overall, our averages will improve and help us lay the solid foundation of any excellence.

Do you practice the habit of excellence consistently?

** To know more about mind's fast and instantaneous process, read Noble Prize Winner Daniel Kahnemann's book ' Thinking slow and fast'.

Excelling in life is Not about winning the battle against external odds

Excelling in life is generally seen as winning the battle against external circumstances like poverty, or against competitors, or even against tough situations. But it is none of this; it is about Winning one's battle against oneself. We cannot win the battle against oneself in one go, we have to win this battle one step at a time.

For instance, we make multiple choices in our lives to develop our strengths slowly and steadily. Excelling is about making most of those choices right. But in life, we also encounter 'forced' situations that we cannot choose. We need to use these forced situations and not be at their mercy. And, more than anything else, winning the battle against oneself is winning the battle of mind. It is battling the fear of carrying one's mashal (flag) alone despite others telling us that we could be carrying a wrong flag. Let us explore this further.

Excelling in life is about winning the many 'micro' choices that we take every day to focus on something (or defocus on something else) to develop knowledge in our areas of strengths. When we decide to play, and not study, we are making a choice of which strength to focus. When we decide to study on English, and not maths, we are making a choice of English versus maths. When we decide to see a movie, we are choosing to focus on arts and find meaning in life. When we decide not to ask a question to teacher, even when we have not understood anything about the subject, we are making a choice that directly influences our progress. When we decide to drop from the essay competition, we are making a choice of not choosing the path of writing. When we decide to break away from a studious friend who speaks English well, we are making a choice of learning English in a difficult way.

But excelling in life is not only making choices in 'unforced' situations. Excelling in life is also about using every forced situation (good or bad) that comes in our life in a way that will help us win. We do not always have the liberty to choose situations in life, many a times we are forced into a situation. Winning in forced situations enables us to use these situations to complement our strengths ( be it in English, Maths or Art). Mental growth is using situations to develop qualities such as patience, motivation, confidence, tolerance of different views - that will help you complement your strengths. For instance, excelling in life is about using the forced 'poverty' to motivate yourself , it is about using forced TV/Internet culture to hasten learning instead of just entertainment. Sometimes excelling is about tolerating incompetent teachers to discover your own learning difficulties, while sometimes it is about using difficult social environment to learn the qualities of patience and waiting. Sometimes excelling in life is about encountering death of close family member and learning to use it appreciate the fickleness of life.

Lastly, but more importantly, winning against oneself is winning the battle against mind's hidden demons.  When , despite our knowledge of physics, we fail to score poorly in physics exam, we have to tolerate the mind getting swamped by failure.Winning the battle of mind is learning to battle stress ( that accompanies any uncertain task) even when stress threatens to derail performance. Winning the battle of mind is about avoiding the distractions of environment that threaten to defocus our mind.  Winning the battle of mind is about conserving mental energy during 3 hours of exams so that one can answer all the questions to the best of one's ability. And more importantly, winning the battle of mind is reminding oneself again and again that it is OK to lose a point or even game ( or even match) to win the ultimate battle: the battle of excelling in Life.

In short, excelling in life is about making the right choices in unforced situations to gain knowledge in your strength area as well as using forced situations to grow mentally while battling with the mind's demons that we have not deciphered. As you would realise, this whole battle happens in one's mind and cannot be monitored from outside. It is therefore battle against oneself. For better understanding, see how Andy Murray won his battle to win the US Open.

Surprisingly, we need only one key to win this battle against oneself. We will learn about that key in the next blog.

Seminar on 5 August 'How to choose your career after 10th class'

A free seminar was organised on the above subject at Nashik in collaboration with Yeshwantrao Pratishtan, at their Hall at Gangapur Road office, Nashik.

Harish Nair ( in the chair) and Sanjiv Bhamre ( who is on the mic) in the seminar 

Harish Nair, Founder and CEO of a Executive Search Firm which finds CEO's and seniormost managers  for corporate world was a key speaker. He spoke about the emerging trends in the corporate sector and its impact on the careers of today's students. He urged students to specifically focus on three careers : Careers in High technology segment, Careers as Entrepreneurs and Careers in Social Sector.

Sanjiv Bhamre, Career designer, on the other hand, talked about the issues that a student should address while choosing his career. Career is about unfolding one's potential to excel. Therefore, decision of 'which career to choose after 10th' is really a decision of choosing 'Which potential should I decide to unfold and why'. 

Sanjiv Bhamre highlighted the key differences between the unfolding of potential of sportsman and musicians ( who are engaged in senses-based careers) and those who are engaged in knowledge field such as Engineers, Doctors, Accountants, Consultants and Researchers.

For instance, Sportsman and musicians identify their potential only once in their life and then continue to strengthen that chosen potential area throughout their lives. Be it Sachin Tendulkar or Lata Mangeshkar, they continue to unfold one chosen potential ( be it cricket, golf or singing) throughout their lives. On the other hand, knowledge workers have to constantly 'identify and chose' their potential strength at different stages.

At every stage, a student has to choose a potential strength from his available choices to proceed further. At 10th, he has to decide which potential path to chose - Science, Commerce or Arts- from the available choices. At the stage of 12th, the science student has to chose which potential strength to unfold further " Engineering, Science, Mathematics  or something else'. At graduation, he again faces another choice of potential unfolding path  "Post graduation in his earlier field of graduation, diversify in MBA, or do a job in some specific skill." In other words, a student in knowledge field cannot just identify and chose his potential strength once, but instead has to learn to 'identify and chose the potential strength again and again"

This difference compels students ( who are engaged in knowledge field) to learn three skills that are required to master the process of Excellence cycle ( CTS) of potential Unfolding: 

1. Choosing the Potential strength: To be able to identify and chose a potential strength from the available choices, a student must learn basic skill of converting data to knowledge. Without understanding this conversion process, a student does not understand which of his potential area ( history, maths or literature) has got better 'chance' of unfolding into 'knowledge'. Only when he can do this, he can chose a career at 10th/12th stage !

2. Tapping all the opportunities to enhance the chosen strength: Choosing the potential strength to unfold is however not enough, he also has to learn to 'tap all the opportunities to enhance it constantly't. Without tapping the opportunities, the first step of choosing will not produce any fruits.

For instance, if a student decides to take up 'Arts' at 10th, he has to initiate and take certain actions in the field of Arts to tap opportunities in Literature, Psychology or Journalism, the three paths available in Arts. Only if he 'taps' opportunities in these fields, he will know if he has the 'capability' of  converting his potential strength of Arts. Tapping the opportunities means engaging in the chosen field and using all the options to practice in the chosen area.

To tap the opportunities, a student has to learn to spot and use the available interconnections around him. For instance, he  has to find group of students who have similar interest in English Literature to talk and discuss topics in English, or write short stories after attending 'Story writing' workshop, or appreciate different aspects of English Literature by reading English Novels. The more he is interconnected with the world around him, more easily he can utilise all the opportunities. This is the skill of understanding and exploiting interconnections.

3. Sticking and choosing the potential area of strength for sufficiently long time: "Strenthening a chosen area of potential strength" requires focused attention in a specific direction without getting distracted from it. Our emotions, for instance, distract us. Gaining emotional intelligence is therefore critical in helping the student gain focus. A student also has to learn to train his Willpower to focus his energies on one subject or area. This skill of Regulating  Self is critical for the student in sticking to a chosen potential strength for a sufficient time and then deciding to continue with it or let it go.

Summary

In short, choosing the career after 10th is not a simple decision of finding colleges, courses and matching with our interest. It is understanding the Excellence cycle process of unfolding one's potential and taking actions after  choosing the career for sufficiently long time to excel in it.

As we have seen above, a student not only has to choose the unfolding path of science or arts after 10th, but also has to tap all the available opportunities to enhance the chosen potential in a given field after 10th, stick to it for a sufficient time so that he is once more ready to take a more informed decision at the stage of 12th. This sequence of identifying and choosing a potential (C) > tapping it (T) > and sticking ( S) with it and again choosing the next potential path is repeated again and again in a student's life. For instance, this is repeated again after graduation.

Infact, this sequence of steps are repeated again and again in one's life till the age of retirement. For instance Manmohan Singh ( a professor in economics) had to chose his potential in 'Policy making' when he decided to become a RBI Governor at the age of 52. Nandan Nilekani  also had to choose his potential after the age of 50 when he moved away from corporate sector to join Governmental arena.

Oversimplifying the decision of 'which career to choose after 10th' does not help a student to identify and fulfill his potential. Instead a student will benefit more if he understands the CTS cycle of excellence and use it for his own benefit. 

How to actualise your potential

Ideal time to commence actualising one's potential (i.e identifying and converting your invisible potential into a talent) is when a student is in 8th class.

At this age, the landscape is open and unlimited. At this age the slate is clean with no baggage and therefore  is open to take any view. At this age, a student has lots of energy and curiosity to question the established tradition and even take a course that is uncharted, if it is needed. But the student is unable to do so because he has several disempowering beliefs that prevent him in actualising his potential.

For example, a student assumes that the most important step in actualising one's potential is choosing the 'right ideal discipline' (science, commerce or arts) after 10th class. This notion is unrealistic and imaginary. Finding one's 'right ideal potential' is not practical because researchers have found that one cannot predict one's potential early in life.  Even sportsmen, who are forced to start early in life, do not show 'extraordinary potential' at an early age. On the contrary, they have a small difference of 'above-average' abilities visavis other students of comparable age.

However, what distinguishes the successful from the rest is the way they spot and capitalise on their unfolding potential ! Researchers have found out that potential unfolds over a long time. It is not a one-shot method. It is a long duration process. The student must therefore possess the necessary skills to watch this invisible process of unfolding of their potential and smartly utilise this understanding for their own benefit. 

Specifically, converting the unfolding potential into a talent requires three foundation skills to be built in a student at early age: ( If you fail to develop these three skills, three possible scenarios emerge. Also read about them)

Foundation skill 1. Regulate his/her Self:  Because future can never be predicted, this foundation skill will help a student to become adapt and flexible to the opportunities that come his way. By knowing the functioning of his emotions, stress points, and willpower, the student learns to regulate his Self ( not control his Self). He also understand his strengths and vulnerabilities. This provides a 'stable and confident mental state' that is necessary to guide one's actions amidst the various distractions. 

Foundation skill 2. Chose a potential area in academic area to focus: The second foundation skill required to actualise one's potential is the skill to chose a potential area to focus.  Most of the students possess an average IQ of about 110-130. Einstein had an IQ of 160. To use his available IQ tactfully, a student has to focus on few areas of strength to gain in-depth knowledge in few areas that is required later to sustain excellence later in the life. He has to utilise his academic life productively to gain the most from his long academic life. 

Foundation skill 3. Understand and exploit interdependence of skill markets, people, knowledge and domains to deepen his academic skill : Because the world is getting more and more interconnected, a student has to understand these interconnections to find opportunities ( or negotiate bottlenecks) to actualise his potential. For instance, by understanding these interconnections, a student can use interdependence of people to gain more knowledge of a specific subject, say a language like French, by joining learning community of 'French-learning' groups. Or use interconnections between domains to learn English language to develop his 'right brain' which is as useful as his 'left brain' that is being developed with the subjects like physics and maths. Or use interdependence of markets, to monetise his skill of 'teaching' through internet.

On the other hand, if a student fails to understand this chaotic interconnected environment, he suffers on both counts. Not only he misses the opportunities, but like a man who is unable to make sense of what is happening around him, he is paralysed into inaction and waits for others to guide him. We feel he lacks initiative; but what he lacks is the ability to make sense of this chaotic interconnected environment ! 

Once the foundation is properly built, a student will identify and realise his fullest potential even at a late age!

Seminar on Careers in Software Industry

First of the series on career-seminar was held in Nashik on the 'Careers in Software". Mr N.C. Gosavi, Training and Competency Head, Manufacturing Vertical, TCS and Sanjiv Bhamre, Career Designer at Nashik presented  views of software career.  While N.C.Gosavi presented the view of 'careers' from Industry point, Sanjiv Bhamre presented the view of careers from individual's angle.

From left to right : Vinayak Ranade, Sanjiv Bhamre, Vishwas Thakur and N.C. Gosavi

Many misunderstandings of software careers were clarified in this seminar. For instance, Software career is not just one career: Career of developer. There is also a career of 'Enterprise and Industry Expert' who works with Ready made Package products like SAP, or Qualcom in Telecom, or Banking softwares. There is also career of 'Tester' and 'Engineering and Industrial Solutions' engineer as well as high end BPO career in knowledge based services like Legal ( where LLB and LLM graduates work) as well as  Analytics ( where CAs work).

Some of the notable characteristics of software careers identified in the seminar were as follows: 

Pros (positive points) about Software careers

• Software careers are both in customer facing functions ( where extroverts thrive) as well in internal facing functions ( where introverts are more likely to succeed). Luckily software companies also have jobs which are a mixture of customer facing and internal facing function.
• Unlike in other industries, but similar to music and sports, career growth in Software industry is both vertical ( up the hierarchy) and horizontal ( across functions and technologies)
• Like in the field of acting and cooking, Developers in this industry do not need any professional qualification.
• Software career can be initiated at the young age of 22 as well as after the age 30. I know professionals shifting to Software at the age of 45. 
• In Software, careers can be done part time as well as from home. This flexibility is very useful for girls.
• Because software careers have various options, even after joining a software company, one has to be keep eyes and ears open to search for the 'Next Direction'. Joining a software company is not the end act.

Cons (negative points) about Software careers 

• Software career is a one way entry: Many students join a software company because software jobs are easy to get. However, it is very very difficult to shift the career back to one's domain after joining software( say from software to electronics or accountancy)  if one does not like software job. Due to this difficulty, students with some interest in their domain ( be it mechanical, civil, electronics or domain) should never join software company in their first job. 
• Software careers are very stressful for two reasons. Working hours are too long. One has to work after 11 pm because US client day starts at that time. Secondly, because of the desk bound nature of the job, the stress accumulates in the body constantly.
• Software careers demand constant learning and upgradation of knowledge. There is no plateau. One cannot stop one's learning. 

More importantly, many careers will continue to be discovered as software is spreading to more and more functions. For instance, careers in retail shopping, or careers in tourism, or careers in training and teaching can be done from any town in India today without a help of big software company. Today one can find an Indian teacher in Nashik teaching mathematics to a child in Chicago if he can use software expertly. Or an tour operator organising tours of US sitting in Nashik. Or an astrologer catering to international clients. As software impacts various day to day activities of a common man, familiarity and mastery of software has become a must for everyone. 

Learn to use the feedback of your child's marks properly

During 1995-2000 and 2001-2012, Gujarat increased its annual rate of growth from 8.01% to 8.68%. During 2001-2004, the rate of industrial growth for Gujarat was 3.95% and during 2005-2009, it was 12.65%.

If someone shows you this kind of data, you will think that Gujarat is growing at a rapid rate. But this is data. Data, by itself, does not help. It helps only when sees it in relation with the proper context. When you see data in context, data becomes useful information.


For instance, if you compare this data with other states, you will find that states such as Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh have grown as fast as Gujarat. For instance, between 2001-2012, Uttarakhand grew by 11.81%, while Haryana grew by 8.95%. What is remarkable, Bihar and Orissa, the two most backward and poverty-stricken states, also had a growth rate of 8.02% and 8.13% during this period. Even smaller states like Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh grew by 11.01% and 8.96%, respectively. The same is true about industrial growth. For instance, you will find out that industrial growth for Orissa was 17.53% or Chattisgarh was 13.3%. 

Data, in isolation, often distorts the real picture. To make it speak the truth, one has to see it, in its proper context. Sometimes the ready context is available, as in the above picture. Sometimes it is not.

See what happens when you see the data of your child's marks in a test without context. For instance, if your child gets low marks in physics test, what does it mean? Is it low because the test was tough? Or is it low because your child was not prepared for the test that day? Or is it low because your child cannot manage the 'last minute anxiety' of test despite knowing everything? Or is it low because the child did not understand the 'chapters' involved in physics test?


Sometimes the marks are also low, not because of your child's inability. It is low because of inadequate teacher or teaching method, such as Mathew's teacher.

Mathew had been scoring poorly in physics till VIIth class. He found a teacher in VIIIth class who made it so easy to learn physics, that Mathew's learning disability of physics changed by 180 degrees. His marks in physics jumped up considerably in VIIIth. 

Sometimes the marks are low, because the 'teaching method' was not suitable for your child's learning style. For instance, did Mathew learn physics from his new teacher, because the teacher was using a 'working model route' to teach physics instead of 'conceptual route' as is the usual method followed by schools.? Or did Mathew learn faster because the teacher managed to teach 'concepts' in a lucid manner? 


In other words, the 'low marks' of your child may show your child's inability to learn something through the teaching method, or the teacher's incorrect use of teaching method? Both possibilities exist. But we often tend to use 'data' without it's proper context. We need to take effort to understand the context and take the action, and not jump to the first 'conclusion' that comes to our mind. Only after finding the 'right cause', we can 'correct' it. Otherwise we will be spending effort on useless activities.


Worse still, we convert data into knowledge and misuse the data.Data becomes knowledge, when we use data to convert it into action. For instance, when we conclude that our child is 'dumb because he is getting low marks in 'mathematics', we misuse data. When data is used for such purpose in a hasty manner, we do grave injustice to our child. We 'brand' the child as 'poor'. That prophecy becomes self-fulfilling. As the child loses more and more confidence, he starts believing that he is not really 'good enough'. And then it causes unintended consequences in his other life too. 


How do you use your child's data of marks? 

Early to bed and early to rise is not always good

I read this interesting article in TOI. Please read this if your child's bioclock is different than normal.

More than anything sleep dictate our hormonal balance. Michael Breus is one of the leading figure in sleep medicine. In his book, Good Night, he describes in detail the key function of sleep in our lives.

Melatonin, also called sleep hormone, actually helps regulate our entire 24-hour rhythm as well. Once released after the sun sets, it slows body function, lowers blood pressure and body temperature. That is why it is important to fall into a specific sleep habit, instead of changing it. Not all of us can change our sleeping habits easily because of this.

For more information about sleep disorders, visit www.sleepfoundation.org. It provides different kind of information on sleep related disorders like snoring and inability to sleep properly.More than the hours of sleep, it is important to ensure the regularity of sleep. For instance, shifting sleeping habits for weekends is not a good idea, because it disrupts our circadian rhythm ( our internal body clock)