Tag: personal excellence

How to Manifest Your Destiny

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn happiness, hope, Life, Personal Excellence, Quoates for Reflection, Spiritual, success, Values2 Comments

Reflection Guide

As your read Mahathma Gandhi’s quote above reflect on the destiny you intend manifesting and think in the reverse order. What values will help create that destiny? What Habit will help live those values? What actions will help create those habits? What words will lead you to those actions. What thoughts are needed to use those words? and what beliefs will help generate those thoughts?

Thereafter develop the required belief through reading, writing, affirmations, conversations, and teaching etc. As you keep moving forward towards destiny by converting beliefs to thoughts to, words, to actions, to habits to values to your destiny, reflect if this process has changed your sense of destiny. If so work backwards from any point in the process and start again.

While you may or may not find and/or reach your destiny in this life time, being in this process, holding it lightly, experiencing the messiness, savouring journey will give you contentment, happiness, and peace. You will feel that your life is purposeful, giving you meaning.

You might be searching for destiny your entire life, but being in this process, holding it lightly, moving forward and backwards will help you to live and happy, content, peaceful life. A Purposeful life.

Don’t Give Up – Soul Nourishing Poem

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn Communications, Leadership, Personal Excellence, psychology, purpose, Spiritual, Team ExcellenceLeave a comment

Don’t Give Up recited Tushar Das

Poem that reminds us never to give up and never to give in as there is an answer for everything. Live your life with an attitude of gratitude.

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.

Soul Nourishing Poems

Stress & Life Purpose – Purpose of Living – Part 31

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn Business, Health Care, Leadership, Personal Excellence, psychology, purpose, Relationships, Spiritual, Team Excellence1 Comment

Stress and Life Purpose
Image credits: lifealchemyblog.com

Managing stress was at the center of a coaching discussion I had with a CEO a few months ago. He was very successful and his success is attributed to the hard work he put in to his job. He gave his job first place and was willing to work late in to the evening, work on weekends and travel extensively for the success of his organization.

He had not adequately developed his team to take over responsibilities as he preferred to get things done on his own. While this worked for a while, it was taking its toll when the organization grew to a larger scale. He was also having issues at home as his two teenage sons had lost interest in studies and sports and preferred a lazy life engrossed in video’s and games using the expensive devises the father had purchased for them. His wife had given up trying to get him involved in family matters and was trying to manage on her own, but the absence of the father’s love, guidance and attention could not be compensated adequately by her. This is a source of stress when he returns home.

Continue reading “Stress & Life Purpose – Purpose of Living – Part 31” →

Purposeful Living – Part 2 – The Importance of Living Purposefully?

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn Health Care, Knowing, Leadership, learning, Personal Excellence, Relationships, Spiritual2 Comments

million dollars on the mountain
Image Credits: Elevated Christian Network

Let’s examine the question; why is it important to find our purpose? Some would say; we have lived all these years without a clear purpose or we know what it is in our mind and our life is moving on well, so why do we need a purpose? I have come across a very small percentage of people who have a clearly articulate purpose, but most of them would say; I think this is my purpose, but I am not sure if it is the right purpose. The following interactive story, titled the million dollars on the mountain, helps audiences of my workshop to start understanding the importance of a purpose;

Ranjan: Imagine a cheque for a million dollars drawn in your name on top o a mountain. Would you like to go get it?
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Universal Energy Sync – For Success and Happiness

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn Health Care, Knowing, Leadership, learning, Personal Excellence, Relationships, SpiritualLeave a comment

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Image captured by me at the Ashridge Business School in January 2017

This image is the sunrise at the ‘Ashridge Business School’ captured earlier this month during my quarterly stay there. I consider this my spiritual home that nourishes my soul as I pursue my doctoral studies. This is a place that helps me grow towards my fullest potential, giving me real inner happiness during the process.

 Perhaps you are one of those people who is always tasting success and living happily. Perhaps you are one who observes others in this way of living. Perhaps you are one who is searching for the ‘how’ to achieve such a state of life. This blog is designed to discuss how such a state of life can be achieved.

While there could be millions of ways of making sense of success and happiness, my personal belief is that success comes from improving in areas that are purposeful to me. I am refereeing to action that is driven by a higher purpose as I keep on my quest to make sense of what that higher purpose is. Happiness is what I experience when I am in the process of improving in areas important to me.

What is important to me is my purpose that helps me to be of service to the world and thereby helping me to provide a comfortable and purposeful life for my family and me. This requires me to improve my spirituality that gives me peace of mind, and improves my brain, which helps me learn and teach, improve my body, which helps me act effectively and efficiently, improve my relationships, which provides the love to live purposefully, improve my emotions to be in joy, improve my finances to help fund my purpose and improve the use of my time choosing to do purposeful work.
Continue reading “Universal Energy Sync – For Success and Happiness” →

Natural – Abilities: the new Success Mantra?

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn Business, Communications, Leadership, Personal Excellence, Relationships, Team Excellence, Teams1 Comment

Unique ability
Image Credits: http://www.buzzel.com

Let’s first try to understand what is ‘Natural-ability’ before trying to understand what your Natural-ability is and how to use this potent idea in improving your effectiveness individually and as a team.

Natural-Ability is a description for a level of ability. To simplify it let me offer four broad levels of ability. At the bottom is ‘Inability’, where we just can’t do a particular task. The next level is ‘Learnt-ability’, where we can do a particular task. The third level is, ‘Excellent’ where we not only can do a particular task, but we can do it well. We can get up to ‘Excellent’ level through training and developing our skills. But to get to the fourth level, ‘Natural-ability’ we would not only be really good at doing a particular task, but we are passionate about, it energizes us and it inspires others. It is simply something natural in us. Therefore I believe we cannot get to the level of Natural-ability by training ourselves, it should be within us. It is a word used to describe your natural strengths. It also highlights your responsibility to put your talents to work for the shared purposes of those with whom you make a commitment of this tremendous energy.

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The Right Answer

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn Uncategorized7 Comments

Image credits: www.princetontutoring.com
Image credits:www.princetontutoring.com

It is fascinating how we continue to look for the right answer. Perhaps it is because of schooling systems which expects us to know the ‘right answer’ in order to pass examinations. Perhaps it is because of interviews panels that expect us to know the right answers in order to qualify for a job. Perhaps it is because of management who expects us to make the right decisions to business problems.

But what is a ‘Right Answer’? Who decides its right? By what standards do we decide it is right? Who sets these standards? People come from different backgrounds, education, experiences, cultures, mind-sets etc. The variables are almost infinite. Therefore we are all unique and we see, hear, feel, smell and taste things differently. Furthermore each situation is different. Each situation is a collection of places, time of the year, people, infrastructure, concepts, brands, climate, culture etc. Again the variables are infinite.

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Engaging the Fickle Mind

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn Business, Communications, Conference learnings, Leadership, Personal Excellence, Team ExcellenceLeave a comment

Engaging the Fickle Mind - cover 17 June 2015 copyHow many times a week do we look at our smart phone? Do we look at it first thing in the morning? Do we look at it before 7.30 a.m.? Do we look at it during meetings? Do we feel lost without our devices? I am sure the answers to these questions might not only be interesting but it will start us thinking.

Study UK’s Daily mail (www.dailymail.com) surveyed 2,000 smartphone owners about their tech habits. They found the average user now picks up their device 1,500+ times a week, reaches for their phone at 7:31am in the morning, checks personal emails and Facebook before they get out of bed, use their phone for three hours and sixteen minutes a day and almost four in ten users admitted to feeling lost without their device. (see the 4 mts video below about these dangers)

 

Technology has given us so many options of interest that our mind keeps wondering from one to another at an alarming rate. We may be at a meeting and our smart phone alerts that it’s a friends’ birthday and we pick the phone to wish her. When we open Facebook to do it, we see a friend request from an old friend. As we start accepting it, we see a photo posted by another friend. Then we remember there is a customer meeting and we may be late to get home and we start messaging someone at home to pick up a child from school, and then she tells you to bring some extra cash as the plumber was coming to fix a leak the next day. All this happens in about one and half minutes. Therefore we live in a world where our mind gets more and more fickle.

Some feel this is beneficial as it helps us to do many things rapidly, become knowledgeable in many fields, be able to handle more things than ever before, be able to respond fast, be connected with more friends more often, find new opportunities be more efficient, smarter, successful etc.

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How credible are you?

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn Leadership, Personal Excellence, Relationships, Spiritual, Team Excellence3 Comments

One of the most valuable assets of a leader is personal credibility. Credibility is a perception and we are perceived as credible by our habits. A habit is formed when behaviours are repeated over a period of time.

Image
Image credits: http://www.warriorforum.com

Here is an opportunity for you to do a self-assessment of your credibility. Given below is a list of 8 credibility habits and a brief explanation of each. In order to know your current level of credibility, read each value and mark a score from 1 to 5 [Poor to Excellent] in front of each habit. You could also give this list to your team members and ask them to rate you to see the difference between your self-assessment and the perception of others.

 

 

  1. Show Up On Time: Rating: ____

Questions to ponder: Do I do things on time. Do I arrive at meetings on time? Am totally present, emotionally, mentally and spiritually in addition to just my physical self.

  1. Do What You Say: Rating: ____

Questions to ponder: Do I make promises I can definitely keep even under pressure? Do I keep the promises I make? Do I under promise and over deliver? Continue reading “How credible are you?” →

Turning Stress in to Success – A practical Illustration

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn Health Care, Leadership, Personal Excellence, Relationships, Spiritual, Team Excellence7 Comments

Image Credits: www.gvsu.edu
Image Credits: http://www.gvsu.edu

I had the fortune of helping out a person to overcome a highly stressful situation. Lets call him Frank.

He was quite a successful businessman and his success was partly due to a business partnership he forged with another individual who was more senior, who had more experience and who was more successful. Lets call him Robert. After awhile Robert had lost control of his lifestyle and had started to face some financial challenges too. Robert kept assuring Frank that it was a temporary cash flow issue that most companies go through.

After awhile Robert requested Frank for financial help and due to the gratitude he had for Robert, he responded. Frank was promised an early return of the loan. The loan amount was so big, it virtually wiped out all his savings; a part of it was reserved for his daughters’ higher education.

The promised day passed and Robert was not in a position to pay back. Many meetings with Robert and constant follow up did not help. Robert needed more financial help and mentioned that a new loan will help him seal a deal and get out of the financial mess, enabling him to pay back Frank. Frank gave the last bit of saving he had trusting his business partner who helped him to be successful.

Continue reading “Turning Stress in to Success – A practical Illustration” →