The Moral Foundation of Value

The importance of value for organisational and personal purpose came into my radar about 25 years ago when I was in the mid thirties in age. I have incorporated this notion in my leadership development practice in developing leaders and helping them transform organisations. As I started inquiring in to this notion as a part of my doctoral studies a few years ago, having learnt to look at things critically from different paradigms, I realised the complexity of the notion of ‘values’.

Values being propagated and used by organisations and people, may be gimmicks in disguise if they are not supported by a moral base. For example the value ‘caring’ can result in disempowering the person being cared for, resulting in that person becoming dependent and vulnerable to the person who espoused the value, ‘caring’. ‘Caring’ can become a noble value when it is based on moral laws and noble intention. This may require finding empowering ways of caring. Telling the truth, even if it hurts. Allowing to struggle with the intention of making them strong. All of these may look uncaring, but the moral intention makes it ‘caring.

Reflecting on the value we endeavour to live by in a critical manner, therefore can help us understand its dark side. If we can then attache the value to a noble intention and moral law and articulate required behaviours, then perhaps we can use the to shape our life to be in service of the process of life and purposeful living.

Wish you purposeful living.

The Pandemic and Temporal Aspect of Purposefulness

Image Credit: Nationalpost.com

In the last 8 blog posts in the ‘purpose quest series’, we explored how the pandemic impacted eight important pillars for purposeful living; spiritual, mental, emotional, relational, physical (health), financial, environmental and societal. Let’s explore the ninth pillar, the ‘temporal’ aspect in this blog post. As in the past eight blog posts let me attempt to describe my personal experience during the pandemic. 

The word ‘Temporal’ has two broad applications; relating to worldly as opposed to spiritual affairs (secular) and relating to time. I use the word in relation to the use of time. The temporal aspect of purposeful relates to the use of limited time. The purposeful person attempts to utilise most of the time for purposeful activity, which requires letting go of non-purposeful activity.

The last eight weekly blog posts in the ‘purposeful quest’ series illustrated how my time was allocated to purposeful activity in spiritual, mental, emotional, relational, physical (health), financial, ecological and temporal areas. These activities took most of my waking time and there was rarely any time remaining for non-purposeful activity during the approximately 16 hours of waking time.

The sense I make from this reflection is that the pandemic gave me so much opportunities to be purposeful, that it left me with almost no time for non-purposeful activities. This way of life has kept me occupied in meaningful and energising activity, giving me inner success, happiness and peace. My purpose is to inspire others to live a purposeful life and I hope this series of blog posts will inspire you too to live a purposeful life and find Success happiness and peace.

Something Inside So Strong – To Make You Rise Above the Odds …

Something Inside So Strong – Lewisham And Greenwich NHS Choir

As you listen to this powerful song, let the strength inside you awaken and fight against the odds so that your bright light will blind the darkness.

Lyrics

The higher you build your barriers
The taller I become
The further you take my rights away
The faster I will run
You can deny me, you can decide
To turn your face away
No matter ’cause there’sSomething inside so strong
I know that I can make it
Though you’re doing me wrong, so wrong
You thought that my pride was gone, oh no
There’s something inside so strong
Oh, something inside so strongThe more you refuse to hear my voice (ooh-weh ooh-weh ooh-weh ooh-weh)
The louder I will sing
You hide behind walls of Jericho (ooh-weh ooh-weh ooh-weh ooh-weh)
Your lies will come tumbling
Deny my place in time, you squander wealth that’s mine
My light will shine so brightly it will blind you
Because there’sSomething inside so strong, strong
I know that I can make it
Though…

The Pandemic and Societal Aspect of Purposefulness

Image Credits: shethe people.tv

In the last 7 blog posts in the ‘purpose quest series’, we explored how the pandemic impacted six important pillars for purposeful living; spiritual, mental, emotional, relational, physical (health), financial and environmental. Let’s explore the eight pillar, the societal aspect in this blog post. As in the past seven blog posts let me attempt to describe my personal experience during the pandemic. 

With lockdowns being imposed, offices closed, and people starting to work from home, my clients either took the assigned transformational work online or postponed them. This gave me the illusion that there will be a lot of free time. Since I was in Dhaka, while engaging with the foreign ministry and the high commission to arrange repatriation flights, I joined my friend I was staying with to distribute dry rations to people who were financially affected due to lockdowns. In addition I arranged some help for some relatives and friends who were looking for financial assistance and guidance.

To help with the psychological challenges faced by many, my team in Dhaka helped me to produce some videos with mental tips to deal with challenges and anxiety releasing meditation. While using social media to get these to people who needed it we started conducting free webinars to help people deal with the present and gear up for the future. After returning to Sri Lanka I had the opportunity to join my team to conduct psychological first aid for the medical staff of the Infectious Diseases Hospital (IDH), the command center fighting the pandemic in Sri Lanka.

I believe most of the above opportunities were provided to me to help be purposeful during the pandemic. My purpose to inspire others to live a purposeful life and these opportunities helped me share the idea of ‘purposefulness’ and show how it can help to make sense of the pandemic, deal with anxiety & stress and adjust their way of life to respond positively. While all these were related to giving, my time without any financial benefit, I enjoyed the happiness of giving, learning & building relationships in the process. I feel purposeful.

The Pandemic and the Environment

Image Credit: business west.co.uk

In the last 6 blog posts in the ‘purpose quest series’, we explored how the pandemic impacted six important pillars for purposeful living; spiritual, mental, emotional, relational, health and money. Let’s explore the seventh pillar, the ecological aspect in this blog post. As in the past six blog posts let me attempt to describe my personal experience during the pandemic. 

With lockdowns being imposed, offices closed, and people starting to work from home vehicles movement reduced drastically. With airports restricting flights there were less flights in the sky. With demand for non-essential products reducing factories were operating at lower capacity reducing environmental damage. All this made the air cleaner, water cleaner, skies bluer and grass greener.

Unlike in the earlier six aspects, there was not much for me to do, the earth was healing itself. I had to only participate by using the freshness for my well being and helping others to use this Knowladge to make sensei of the positive aspects of the pandemic. Therefore I used the webinars I was conducting and conversations I was having with people to show these benefits and to use this opportunity to adjust lifestyles, so that even after the pandemic, we live in a manner that is beneficial to the environment.

With life coming back to normal in Sri Lanka, I am concerned to see that the amount vehicles on the road have gone back to pre-pandemic levels. Our airways are still clean as the flights are still restricted, but with the envisaged opening up of the skies end of this month, the air pollution levels are likely to start increasing again. Work from home is getting lesser, and in person activities are increasing. I am attempting to keep at least half of my learning experience delivered online even when things are back to normal. I need the other half to interact with people as we cant be totally devoid of human interactions to help them in their learning, growth and transformation.

So lets continue to communicate and role model to help people at least adjust to a mid-way level between total lockdowns and total free movement with their free will so that we can bring this planet to liveable conditions. If not nature will hit back with a bigger pandemic and will keep doing it more regularly to save the planet.

The Pandemic & Money

Image Credits: gfmag.com

In the last 5 blog posts in the ‘purpose quest series’, we explored how the pandemic impacted five important pillars for purposeful living; spiritual, mental, emotional, relational and health. Let’s explore the sixth pillar, the financial aspect in this blog post. The financial pillar consist of four aspects earnings, expenses, savings and investments. As in the past five blog posts let me describe my personal experience during the pandemic. 

With the announcement of the pandemic, cases starting to rise and lockdowns getting implemented, many of my clients decided to postpone sessions that were scheduled. In addition some of the industries my clients were in, specially the apparel industry was having orders getting cancelled, resulting in impending reduction in their cashflows. In the past too, some companies first eliminated people development budgets when such challenges arose. All this made me realise that I need to focus on planning my finances. Continue reading “The Pandemic & Money”

Abundance Magnet

Abundance Magnet
Image Credits: Brainhackers.com

Last week I started this series,’Purpose Quest’ to illustrate with narratives of how we search for purpose. We explored the question, Are we Searching for Purpose or is Purpose Searching for us?   Today let me focus on one aspect of the story that I wrote last week, attracting abundance.

Once the various social distancing norms were coming in to place and clients started postponing the various sessions that were planned, I was concerned about its impact on cash flow for my organisation and family. Therefore  while starting to engage with government authorities in getting myself home and ensuring that my family back home in Sri Lanka was safe and comfortable, I started reflecting on the situation related to my practice.

While there was some anxiety with regard to the situation, I was able to release such emotions using Releasing Techniques that I was learning and teaching since October last year. I will write about how releasing helped in an upcoming post. After having released the anxiety, my reflections reminded me of three principles and beliefs that could help; ‘God does not give challenges we cannot handle’, ‘focus on the process and let the outcome take care of itself’ (the 3rd principle of Mastery we teach during our Mastery of Self – NLP learning sessions) and ‘give and you shall receive’.

So what steps did I take and how did it turnout? 

Continue reading “Abundance Magnet”

How to be the CEO of Your Life

How to be the CEO of your life?

Being a CEO of an organisation is the dream of many. A great first step is to be the CEO of your own life. Ranjan De Silva shares how to be purposeful and use your unlimited potential within you, to take control of your life and guide it to growth and prosperity, as a CEO of an organisation would.

In this powerful keynote at the Dhaka University, Business Faculty, Skill Hunt event – Road to CEO, Ranjan shares simple steps to success and happiness through purposeful living. See the poems ‘Plea of a graceful women’ and ‘Determination of an extraordinary man’ at the conclusion of the talk.

The following process can help you get good value from this video:

Step 1 – A moderator (an expert from your company) to open the session, explaining the importance of the session.

Continue reading “How to be the CEO of Your Life”

 A Mental Vacation

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A Mental Vacation through Alpha Meditation (35 mts) – by Ranjan De Silva

 A simple explanation of the benefits of meditation and a guided meditation session to help you take your brain to the alpha brainwave frequency, that provides you a deep mental relaxation at a conscious state. Take your mind away from the turbulence of the current world, improve health & well being , quality of sleep, focus, creativity, relationships, peace of mind and purposefulness. 

I hope this could be useful in providing online learning to your team 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.

The following process can help you get good value from this video:

Continue reading ” A Mental Vacation”

Take a JUMP in to your purpose – Purpose of Living – Part 36

Jump-blogI have learnt that we keep discovering our higher purpose as we live life once we discover the notion of purpose and is conscious of its existence. This had got me in to the habit of reflecting, reviewing, refreshing and re-writing my purpose every month.
The first part of my current purpose statement is;

Inspire others to live a purposeful life based on their own evolving beliefs, values and methods.

This is based on my discovery of how my beliefs, values and methods evolved during my first-person inquiry and my discovery of how different people have different beliefs, values and methods that evolve as they attempt to live purposefully, during my second-person inquiry. First- and second-person inquiry are methods of action research that I adopt in my doctoral research into the notion of ‘purposeful living’. Continue reading “Take a JUMP in to your purpose – Purpose of Living – Part 36”