Time to say goodbye, to countries I never saw and shared with you,
Now, yes, I shall experience them.
I’ll go with you, on ships across seas which, I know, no, no, exist no longer.
It’s time to say goodbye.
As I launch on to my new journey, could not help but recall this song (Con te Partiro: Originally Italian song written by Francesco Sartori (music) and Lucio Quarantotto (lyrics) which is into its 22nd Year of its successful existence. You can listen to Andrea Brocelli’s rendition “Time to Say Good bye”
During those morning waits on the foyer of our front office, while clicking photographs for my Good morning Wishes, it was a wonderful conversation with myself as to how , in ancient paintings, light was depicted coming through trees in resplendent beams of rays. Japanese call it – Komorebi.”
The past 3 years has been an incessant supply of Komorebi not just from the skies above, but from my dearest team on the earth. While the not so lucky ones had to look upwards for their Komorebis, I just needed to look into the sparkling eyes of each and everyone in this wonderful bunch of people, without exception to experience it.
Dearest family
You were the biggest reason why I look forward every morning to get to the campus for the past 3 years. You were what made this journey such an exciting and enjoyable one – While others may think challenges (we never had a dearth of it) were a burden, “WE” as a family relied on it to put it out of our way, conquer them and bond ourselves even more.
I will miss being a part of this family like how we used to be, but the solace is I am still a part of this family.
All the very best! Let us continue soaring to greater heights 🙂
Starting this piece with one of my favorite stories – I used 2 of them today during a session with young bunch of 30 children in one of the famous residential complexes of Bengaluru
An amateur painter immediately upon completion of his lessons, paints a lovely scenery and decides to seek opinion about his newly acquired skills. He chooses a busy intersection in the town and displays the same with a note “I am a new artist around the town, since this is a newly acquired skills, I could have made a mistake. Please mark a “X” wherever you find a mistake in this piece”
While he came back to check after a few hours, he was devastated to find that whole painting was full of crosses. Totally disheartened he rushes to his teacher saying he is a complete failure as a painter and people have given up on him as a painter. He was so dejected that he even contemplated suicide.
Master smiles and says, “I believe you are a great painter and I can prove it to you too. Just do as I say without any asking me anything” Reluctantly the painter accepts and reproduces exact replica of the earlier painting. He then takes it to the same intersection and displays the same with the note, “I am a new artist around the town, since this is a newly acquired skills, I could have made a mistake. I have put some colors & brushes in the bucket here. Please use them and correct the same”
He returns after a few hours to find absolutely no change to his painting. He leaves it for a couple of days and finds that no correction was made on it.
As someone said, if you want to carry on painting, Take criticisms with a bag of Sugar! If you find any critic who don’t give you useful lessons, cut them out. They are the people who only see the speck of black dot on a huge canvas of white, that brings me to another often said story about the windshield washer (Credit : to the original author)
After servicing his car, the service advisor delivered the same to his customer, an elderly one. As it was being inspected upon delivery, the windshield was being washed and the elderly man bawls, “Windshield is still dirty and needs a redo” It was washed again and again but this man was not the one to give in. The washer repeats with utmost care, checks for any place that he might have missed out but could not find any dirt anywhere.
This elderly man was fuming now and asks for the manager. While the manager was coming down, his wife removes his glass and wipes them with a tissue and gives it back to him, only to find windshield as speck less as it can ever get.
Pic Courtesy: To the Owner (if in violation please inform, I will take it down)
Some people view others through their such dirty glasses only to see everything from an unclean perspective. They become angry at what they perceive to be dirt on other people, when in reality they are looking at others through the dirt on their glasses.
In my career of 28 years I have come across many subordinates, peers and superiors who have been examples of what not to be. Neither a dejected painter, nor this elderly car owner.
I showed the picture below to a bunch of 30 young kids during the session – Kids without an exception saw a square with huge area of white. After conclusion of the session, parents who came to pick the kids were asked the same – they saw the black dot and not the rest of the white canvas
We invariably end up driving performers especially when they are our subordinates into a point of no return when we only keep seeing the Black Dot.
“Criticism is a sandwich: Positive recognition on one side, discipline, and instruction in the middle, and positive reinforcement on the other.”
Identify positive behavior, discuss the item, and only the item at hand, and finally reinforce the positive. Talk to people, not down to people, and keep the conversation centered on the action, not the person. Don’t be commanding, or that will just put the person on the defensive, and they won’t hear you at all.
– From http://www.wikihow.com/Criticise
Don’t miss to watch both the video talks that I have shared above of Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar ji of The Art of Living where He talks about both aspects of Criticism – Giving and Taking; Positive and Negative Criticism
More often than not, I see many end up criticise people and not their actions. It invariably ends up or the recipient perceives it as a personal attack. As I keep telling my colleagues, you have every right to Love/Hate Suresh’ism but not Suresh. Love or hate the Act not the Actor.
Repeatedly looking only negatives sooner or later would become counter-productive, especially when the recipient has no other recourse. Elasticity of patience in any human is limited just like any other matter in the universe. It helps to talk about the White area of the canvas atleast once in a while – else you are the loser!
Caught up with an Alumni, who suddenly appeared too old and ragged, done and spent from being a highly energetic, vivacious creature when we met him in November 2016. After others left both of us alone, asked him if he got ditched by his love (or hitched by a wrong person) – the appearance simply was not him! He explained that his heart was no longer in it anymore. Work was taking a toll on his overall being, big time.
For some reason, it was last night’s Newsflash that came to mind right away. Many a times these results in some Flashes of random but very deep thoughts too… Like the one last evening related to MS Dhoni – seemingly no reason to do what he did.
Turning the Television on after I got home and it was speculation in the media related to yesterday’s new flash. Why MS Dhoni quit…
Myriads of thoughts danced around my head – do I relate to the situation that Dhoni or my friend referred in the opening lines (let us call him Mithun) felt? A state of mental and emotional fatigue – A captain pitchforked into this position despite not captaining even a club, that which got his juices flowing today suddenly boring drill and overwhelming, that which was his life became something that threatened his longevity in the game (one of the speculation), that which got him all the name and fame, the captain cool who could (and still doesn’t) do no wrong.
Yes, it was all about timing. Possibly, He lived by the adage that I followed many times in the span of my career in the past – Quit when people ask “Why” not “When”
For me, nothing describes this better than the picture above, on how he must be feeling today. He probably simply wants to reboot and find his happiness again. Considering that India is generally very cruel with Cricketers when they lose a match (even the contrary is true), he must have simply decided to enjoy being a batsman again.
Whatsapp’ed Mithun asked him about his job (it was not such a long career as yet, but for this Generation 3 years is pretty long) – all the things that he began posting over the next 20 minutes sounded so familiar. Call it experiential – mine and many of them around me today.
Has the time come? Yes when the signals are:
feeling of thanklessness,
you simply don’t want your Boss’s job,
you think this is not worth and
you don’t have time for pursuing your other passions.
you feel stagnated and see no signs of progress
you think – yaar it is time to head to work today and finally….
” The good life is a happy life. It does not mean that if you are good you will be happy, It mean that if you are happy you will be good”
Borrowed this from a friend’s FB timeline. In simpler words, Time to bid goodbye when you feel you are not good anymore. It maybe painful to let go, but many time holding on to may be more painful.
