An amazing perforce that stunned the audience and judges at Britains Got Talent.
Reflection Guide:
As you watch this video, think of the times that you have pre-judged someone by your initial perception. How many time have they surprised you with the real substance in them. Reflect on times that you had been in the receiving end. What learnings do you take from the reflection and what steps would you take to change your attitude and help other change their attitude.
As you listen to this song, reflect on those who raised you up so that you can stand on mountains and walk on stormy seas, specially during times of troubles and heart burn with an attitude of gratitude.
Lyrics
When I am down, and, oh, my soul, so weary When troubles come, and my heart burdened be Then, I am still and wait here in the silence Until you come and sit awhile with me
You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains You raise me up to walk on stormy seas I am strong when I am on your shoulders You raise me up to more than I can be
You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains You raise me up to walk on stormy seas I am strong when I am on your shoulders You raise me up to more than I can be
You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains You raise me up to walk on stormy seas I am strong when I…
Can empathy be developed or Liberated? As you watch this video, reflect on this questions. Consider how important empathy is for leadership success. Is there an ideal amount of empathy? Could empathy be too much or two little? What steps would you take to liberate the ideal amount of empathy from within you for your leadership success.
The following process can be used to create a learning experience for your team using this video.
Step 1 – A moderator (an expert from your company) to open the session, explaining the importance of the session.
Step 2 – Show the video – let participants absorb, take notes and write down questions to ask later
Step 3 – Have a Q&A session and a discussion
Step 4 – Agree on actions to be taken based on the video
Step 5 – Participants to say how the session was useful.
Reflect on what you are seeking? Is it Love? Is so how True is that Love? Is it Money? If so how Truthfully can you earn it? Is it Fame? If so how do you know you truly deserve it? In all these three situation the question of Truth comes up. Therefore is it Truth that we ultimately seek?
Empathy & Perspective, an inspirational Speech By Simon Sinek
Everyone can be a leader. Everyone don’t want to be a leader. Everyone don’t have to be a leader. You need to love your people to be a leader. As you listen to this inspirational speech, reflect on if you love being a leader. If not why not? What steps would you do?
A collection of Ranjan De Silva’s favourite poems recited by him with short introductions and debrief of each poem at an online Rotary meeting between Rotary Club of Colombo Reconnections Sri Lanka and Rotary Club of Nanganallaur, India.
As you listen to these poems reflect on what inspire you. Is it the selection, a particular poem, the themes, the words, the way they are recited, relevance to you, your mindset or anything else?
Because you Loved me – song of gratitude by Celine Dion
As you listen to this song, reflect on those who helped you and are helping you grow to you your fullest potential. What kind of sacrifices did they make and are making? These could be your family, life partner, friends, teachers, colleagues. Is this person who helped you, your own self? Feel the emotions you experience as you listen to the song, each time with a different person in your life in mind, including yourself. Could you give a name to these actions ? Reflect on what you would do to pay forward?
The notion of Love is perhaps one of the most complex.
I like to define ‘love’ as the act of helping someone to grow to their fullest potential, even if it is inconvenient to me. Growing to our fullest potential starts with baby steps.
The potential of a seed is the fruit. The seed needs watering before it turn in to a plant. The plant needs water, air, sunlight and fertiliser to become the tree. The tree needs continuous nurturing to become the fruit. Converting the seed to a fruit requires help that is inconvenient to the nurturer. Continue reading “Loving is Purposeful Growth”→
How to Love and be loved – an inspirational Speech by Leo Buscaglia
As you listen to this multi-emotional speech, reflect on how you were loved and how you loved. What can you learn from Leo, the Doctor Love about love and living life to the fullest. What baby steps would you take today to Learn, Laugh, love and Leave a Legacy ?
As you listen to this short poem given to Leo Buscaglia by a Vietnamese Girl, think of the times you made a difference by understanding someone else and not reacting, even if the other person was responsible for it. Remember the pleasant surprise in the other person and the bond you created with each other. Or remember someone else who did this to you. My plea to you, make a promise to yourself to understand and respond with love, immediately it happens. The time is Now!
As we celebrate fathers day, let’s reflect on the greatest gift your father gave you.
My loving father taught me that no one is perfect and that I can be happy if I accept myself for who I am, improve areas that can be improved and give of my best to the world, starting from my own little world, my family, my team, my community and so on.
I love and respect my dad; Stephen Richard Francis De Silva, who left us 16 years ago to enjoy eternal happiness.
If You Want to Change the World, Start Off by Making Your Bed – William McRaven, US Navy Admiral
One little task leads to another and to another and to the big achievements. One little person can be the strongest link. One little hope leads to big hopes. One little bit of compassion leads to unlimited love.
As you listen to this inspirational speech, reflect on the little waves you can create now that will create ripples leading to waves that makes this world a better place.
Meditate on the poem and reflect how you make sense of the notion of Love. Does this prompt you to re-think the way you make sense of Love. Does the new way make you feel more peaceful internally. Reflect on baby steps you would like to take to test in reality your new way of making sense of love.
Enjoy Bette Midler’s song recited in a poetic manner, defining ‘Love’ by Ranjan De Silva
Reflect what Love is to you. Is it River that drowns, a razor that leaves the soul to bleed or an endless hunger? Or is it nurturing – like a seed in to a flower.
Enjoy Bette Midler’s song recited in a poetic manner, defining ‘Love’ by Ranjan De Silva
Reflect on the greater disease of humanity, the hunger for Love and hunger for God. Reflect on what we can do to show a little LOVE to those who need it so that we can ensure the greater disease is not forgotten in the pandemic. Reflect on how to protect your family, friends and self from the spiritual disease, in addition to the medical disease.
Love is Separateness is Soul Nourishing Poem by Khalil Gibran written by M. Scott Peck in his book The Road Less Travelled. Parents sometimes fail to appreciate the individuality of their children, and instead regard their children as an extension of themselves. It is a mild but nonetheless destructive forms of parental narcissism. These are perhaps the finest words ever written about child rearing,
I hope this could be useful in nourishing your soul with hope, aspiration, positivity and confidence to deal with the present and gear up for the future.
Please feel free to share this poem with others who can benefit and communicate with me if you would like to share your thoughts.
Today’s learning video is for anyone who is affected in someway by the crisis
Anxiety Releasing Meditation (17 mts) by Ranjan De Silva
Guided meditation, specially done to help release anxiety related to the Covid Pandemic. Follow it closed eyed or open eyed on a laptop watching the beautiful visuals of life. Do it in quiet place, using ear phones for best effect.
I hope this could be useful in providing online or in-room learning to your team members, family, friends and self during the current down time so that they would be kept positive, motivated and sharp so that all of you would be geared to perform with excellence during the crisis and after.
Today’s Soul Nourishing Poem is: Little Cloud – recited by Eric Carle
I am pleased to provide you a series of videos containing soul nourishing poems. There will be one every other day for the next few weeks.
I hope this could be useful in nourishing your soul with hope, aspiration, positivity and confidence to deal with the present and gear up for the future.
Please feel free to share this poem with others who can benefit and communicate with me if you would like to share your thoughts.
It was not an easy decision to take 10 days off my busy schedule and travel to the other side of the planet to be with my sister for one of her milestone birthdays. It was not easy because I had to allocate time to respond to time demanded by my clients and team.
However, I made the decision, went through many challenges getting the visa because my busy travel schedule provided me only a small window to obtain the visa, worked long hours to clear as much work as possible so that I can be with the families of my sister and brothers during this time.
I am so glad that I made this decision to see the joy in my sisters face when I arrived at her door at 7am a few days ago, with my brother who picked me up from the Toronto Airport. I am so glad that I can spend time with the families of my brother and sister, catching up on their lives, sharing nostalgic moments, visiting interesting places, and spending quality time together.
As I cherish the wonderful experiences on the day of love, peace, giving and forgiving, a profound message at the Christmas Mass last mid-night re-enters my mind. This message not only gave me a new perspective to the attitude and behaviour of the Inn keeper, it made me realise that peoples thinking and action can have a higher purpose that we may not understand, and therefore makes us misunderstand them.
We’ve grown up hearing the account that the “inn” in Bethlehem was full, with no “room” available, so Joseph and Mary ended up in a stable, with Jesus Christ born and laid in a manger there. This image has been used to promote the typical Christmas nativity scene for generations.
Have you ever had a situation where you have a purpose different to the purpose of a family member, such as a spouse, parent, sibling or child? Has this situation led to misunderstandings, arguments, anger, violence or estrangement? How did you handle the situation? Has it made you become disgruntled about the notion of ‘purposeful living’. I will try to address this issue in this blog post from the limited experience I have had in dealing with such situations.
Recently I had the opportunity of counselling a couple who were facing such a situation; the husband is a successful chief executive of a company and the wife is a senior manager in a bank. They have two adorable children. The family is financially sound with means of passive income. The husband was very caring to the family and they were always happy. The wife had always been supportive of the husband, specially in the early days of their marriage when he was struggling to move up the corporate ladder, while caring for the children. Continue reading “When Purposes Clash in Families – Purpose of Living – Part 24”→
It’s interesting that the month of January 2019 was a month where I did as much free work as paid work. The first free assignment was to provide a keynote address at the new year celebration of a leading organisation in the insurance industry to inspire the staff of over 1000, who were gathered for the celebration, on the 1st of January. The second free assignment was to continue to help the administrators, parents and past pupils of my alma mater, St Anthony’s Collage, to take forward the strategic plan that I facilitated in formulating one year ago. The third free assignment was to help an important arm of the government of Sri Lanka to develop the leadership of a very important category of officials in becoming better leaders and making a better contribution for the development of the country. Continue reading “Finding Purpose in giving – Purpose of Living – Part 23”→
I wish you a Merry Christmas. In this season of Love, let’s give our love and kindness to all living beings with the intention of adding value to the process of life.
As I write this blog post, the first instalment of phase 3 of this series, on Christmas day, I feel it is appropriate to explore how we find purpose at Christmas. We explored the notion of purpose from various viewpoints in the first phase (ten blog posts) and then we attempted to understand the process of purposeful living in the second phase (eleven blog posts) of this series. We now step in to the third phase of purposeful living that deals with practical aspects of living a purposeful life.
While a lot of effort goes in to dressing up for Christmas, in terms of our homes, our clothes, our social media pages and our websites, it would be appropriate to find out the purpose, reason or intention behind this dressing up? I believe purposeful living is being joyous, learning from our struggles, living with noble values and being of service to our world. Continue reading “Finding Purpose at Christmas – Purpose of Living – Part 22”→
Buddhist and Hindu Religious Leaders with Pope Francis at the inter-faith conference in Colombo Sri Lanka.
Pope Francis with the Sri Lankan muslims
Leader of Sri Lankan Hindu’s honoring Pope Francis at the inter-faith conference at Colombo Sri Lanka.
Religious leaders of various faiths at the inter-faith conference in Colombo Sri Lanka.
Pope Francis with Buddhist Monks at the inter-faith conference in Sri Lanka
Indian Prime Minister greeting the Pakistani Prime Minister at his inauguration citizen of a Buddhist country. The Mass by the pope was not only attended by the Buddhist but by members of other religions and many of them had mentioned to the media that this is one of the most significant days of their life. All this augurs well for inter-faith corporation and understanding that cam lead to peace, unity and reconciliation. The world has seen many efforts of unity by world leaders. citizen of a Buddhist country. The Mass by the pope was not only attended by the Buddhist but by members of other religions and many of them had mentioned to the media that this is one of the most significant days of their life. All this augurs well for inter-faith corporation and understanding that cam lead to peace, unity and reconciliation. The world has seen many efforts of unity by world leaders.
It was really heart warming to see the visions and hear the sound bites of the Inter-faith conference held in Colombo Sri Lanka as a part of the visit by His Holiness Pope Francis on the 1st day of his 3 day visit to Sri Lanka. The conference was led by some of the most senior leaders of Buddhism [followed by the majority of Sri Lankans], Hinduism, Islam and other Christian religions. It was attended by over 1000 members of the clergy of each of the religions. The ceremony included a welcome from a Catholic Bishop, a chant from a Buddhist Monk, blessings from Hindu and Muslim leaders, and an ecumenical Christian prayer led by the head of Sri Lanka’s Anglican church. Each speaker had a message that had peace, unity, reconciliation and respect for each other. Pope Francis said inter-faith work should not blur the lines between different religious convictions and he sought to reaffirm respect for each religion’s beliefs but to ground such respect in a full and forthright presentation of our respective convictions and that religion cannot be used for violent purposes. The Sri Lankan Muslim leader Ash-Sheikh M.F.M. Fazil said, “I will fail in my duties if I do not mention the attack, the killings, that took place in France, in Pakistan,” Fazil said; “Children were massacred and killed in the name of Islam. As we know very well, Islam has no relationship with regard to such practices and evil conduct and deeds,” he continued. “Islam promoted peace, love, and harmony.One of Sri Lanka’s senior Buddhist leaders Niyangoda Vijithasiri Thero who delivered a sermon mentioned all religions are important and used the metaphor of different treatment methods to cure the same disease.
Sri Lanka’s newly elected president, Maithripala Sirisena, was at the airport to welcome the pontiff and in his welcome speech mentioned that he is blessed to have the Holy father visit soon after his elections and requested for his prayers. This is significant coming from a Buddhist, the 1st citizen of a Buddhist country.
The Mass by the pope was not only attended by the Buddhist but by members of other religions and many of them had mentioned to the media that this is one of the most significant days of their life. All this augurs well for inter-faith corporation and understanding that can lead to peace, unity and reconciliation. The world has seen many efforts of unity by world leaders.
His Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians worldwide, with his brother Pope Francis together with Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
In December 2014 President Barack Obama went in to a peace deal with Cuba with a symbolic prisoner exchange and anticipated reforms by Cuba and lifting of embargos by the USA. In January 2015 all political parties in Sri Lanka united to appoint a President known for his virtues and to form a government that will reform the political culture in Sri Lanka. A few days ago most world leaders gathered in Paris to show solidarity after the attacks in Paris. It was significant that both the leaders of Israel and Palestine were a part of the world leaders who had locked hands together in solidarity. In the backdrop of the various conflicts, terrorism and armed conflicts going on around the world, these are efforts to find love, peace, truth, justice, reconciliation, unity, progress and happiness to make our efforts to finding love, peace, truth, justice, reconciliation, unity, progress and happiness to make our world a better place.
Leaders of the SAARC countries at the inauguration of the Indian Prime Minister.
US and Cuban Presidents – Historic Hand Shake.
Pope Francis with leaders of various faiths.
Leaders of Sri Lanka’s political parties that has joint together to create a positive political culture and successful nation.
Can you guess the Job that needs the most hours per week?
Can you guess the Job that requires staying on your feet most of the time?
Can you guess the Job that requires you to have meals late and sometimes even skip them on behalf of your customer?
Can you guess the job that requires staying up the whole night quite often and then starting early morning again and going on till late night?
Can you guess the Job that requires a good knowledge and skills in medicine, finance, banking, teaching, home science, networking, sales, negotiating, human resources, teamwork empathy and relationships all at the same time?
Can you guess the Job that needs the most amount of multi-tasking?
Can you guess the Job that requires sacrificing things you desire on behalf of the customers despite all the qualifications and responsibilities listed above?
Can you guess the Job that does not pay you despite all the qualifications and responsibilities listed above?
Can you guess the Job that does not earn gratitude despite all the qualifications and responsibilities listed above?
Can you guess the Job that sometimes results in humiliation and insult from the very people being served despite all the qualifications and responsibilities listed above?
Can you guess the job that requires unconditional and selfless love to their customers?
Yes the answers to the above questions are one and the same. MOTHERS. Let’s remember and pay respect and gratitude to our mothers and all the mothers we know. Lets start today as someone thankfully invented mother’s day to remind us of the most precious person in our life and make every day of our life mothers day.
I dedicate this blog post to my own mother Carmen, the mother of my children Jennifer, my sister Kishani, my sisters-in-laws Bashi and Mirani and all the other mothers in my family, all the mothers known to me and all the mothers in this universe. God bless you all.
Love is the act of extending ourselves to help others or ourselves become the best they/we can be even if it is inconvenient to us.
Love is helping ourselves or others understand the real potential, the purpose of life and to ignite the passion to live life to the fullest.
A mother feeding her child the best of food is performing an act of love as she is helping the child grow. A father working day and night to send the child to school is performing an act of love as he is helping the child grow. A young man maintaining a disciplined exercise regime is committing an act of love as he is helping himself grow in health. A man patiently listening to his lover when she is confused about life is performing an act of love as he is helping her reach clarity.
It is great to have Valentines Day, the same way we have mother’s day, father’s day etc. While many commercial enterprises have used these days to make money, it at least reminds us to express our love to our loved ones, at least once a year.
But why celebrate such important days once a year? Why not every day? Why not make every day Valentines day, Mother day, fathers day and perhaps a few new important days such as reach out to enemy’s day, make up with fallen out friends day, get in touch with old friends day etc.
While Valentines Day is about celebrating love by giving surprises such as gifts & visits and special dinners & cruises it is will be great not only to ‘give’ but also to ‘forgive’. After all, love is for giving and that’s why we should be forgiving.
Forgiving is tough if we hold on to the past hurt and pain. Sometimes it is our ego that won’t allow us to forgive. Holding on to the bitterness only creates negative energy in us as we carry those negative feelings in us. Accepting that we are all human, we are not perfect and we all make mistakes helps us in the forgiving process.
Forgiving helps us to repair relationships and therefore it is beneficial to fostering quality relationships, or closure so that we can rejuvenate relationships or move on with confidence.
When the almighty god always forgives us, why not we take a cue and follow suit.
It had been a lonely holy week for me this year in Dhaka away from my loving family. As I left my apartment for the Easter vigil in the beautiful church nearby, I remembered that I need to take a candle with me for the Easter blessing.
The previous year I went to church hoping to buy a candle there, but I could not find one. As I was following the mass and when the light was being shared from the Easter candle, a gentleman who was next to me offered me a candle. I did accept with gratitude, thanking god for the gift.
As I was pondering where I could buy one this time, I remembered I had a bundle of new candles in my apartment which I had purchased to use for the ‘point of light’ exercise I conduct during my ‘Mastery of Self’ playshops’ [We name our training workshop, playshops, due to the childlike atmosphere we create to speed up learning in a fun manner].
When I reached for the candles, something told me I need to take two candles, not just one and I know it was my inner need to pay back the favour I received last year.
As the light was been passed in church today I looked around but did not see anyone without a candle and a tinge of disappointment went through my soul. After receiving the light I turned to the gentleman standing to my right to pass on the light and low and behold he did not have a candle with him. I offered him the extra candle I had and the joy I felt is unexplainable.
