Climbing Heights

Climbing heights, achieving success and rising in the ladder of corporate world, these are quite a heard of words around us. Let us examine how to rate success or achievement? Is it material prosperity like lands and buildings, stocks and shares, ornaments and armaments, cars and convertibles or is it subtle aspirations like success and recognition, power and position, knowledge and skill, relationships? Or is it the-growth within, the self enrichment, the journey from darkness to light. Definitely it is a movement towards the defined objective.

In life, value and belief systems assist in carrying on in spite of the stress placed on the character as one moves toward greater heights of success. For living successfully life should be rich in a wide variety of areas rather than having depth in only one and shallowness or emptiness in others. Bringing life into greater balance energizes us, expand opportunities for success in all areas, and lead to many exceptionally interesting and beneficial unintended consequences! Having a successful career, maintaining a successful relationship with family, conducting in a manner deserving of people’s respect, becoming a productive member of the community, and feeling satisfied all require planning, hard work, and perseverance. Success is not a static event or single goal to be met.

There will always be a higher mountain to climb. Charting the course and scaling the mountain that is our Personal Pinnacle of Success, it is a life-long process. If definitions of success and successful living evolve throughout our lifetime, we will ultimately derive a sense of satisfaction with our achievements as well as a feeling of being successful.

This is actually the secret of climbing heights and then staying in the saddle. 'Karma', the work is the means of reaching the heights of achievement in life. And 'Shama', the tranquility, it is the composed mind, calm mind, untrapped mind, uncluttered mind!!This is the means of preserving the achievement so gained in life.

In today's fast paced world, being good at what we do is not good enough to rise in the corporate hierarchy. We are expected to be good; that's what we get paid for. Being excellent will not do it either. Being excellent only means that we are filling our present place. It's no reason to be promoted or to rise on the corporate ladder.

To be noticed, to be invited to fill a higher and more rewarding position, we must be outstanding. That is where the money is. That's where the train that leads to the top starts. That's where we get the wings that will allow us to soar above the crowd and reach the rarefied air of the mountaintop of success.

Jim Rohn said it best, "Formal education will make you a living; self education will make you a fortune." It is by working every day to improve ourselves that we can acquire the competence to become outstanding and in doing so, become a magnet for opportunities and advancement.

The self-education that Jim Rohn talks about is not restricted to our area of expertise. It also encompasses the entire gamut of the disciplines covered in the self-improvement world. It's about life's philosophy, character building, communication and relationships along with the multitude of subjects being covered in the self-help movement.

Self-education is about personal growth in all its facets. It's about learning how to make finer distinctions and about taking wiser decisions. It's about better self-control and about leadership abilities. In one word, it about becoming a better and more complete person, smarter and wiser.

Greater success is the natural result of inner growth and self-actualization. Just as the tree depends on quality soil to reach maximal growth, success depends on the abundance of the intellect to bloom and flourish.

There are plenty of opportunities out there just waiting for those who have the courage and wherewithal to spend some time every day on self-improvement. Victory belongs to those who have earned it – not to those waiting for some lucky star that won't ever show up.

Corporate Treadmill

Work pressure, expectations from the boss, market conditions and thus, the stressed goal sheets in office- all this leads to frustration that you cannot think of expressing at your workplace. Most of the time you carry it back home with you, and take it out on your loved ones, as they are easily available with listening ear. But that’s not fair!!!, thus creating further imbalance in your life both at home and work.

Let us examine the corporate life with a compassionate eye, many professionals locked in a room running on a treadmill for whole of their life, all the while give so much effort and determination yet not going anywhere? That is how most people end up living. We wake up and spend way too much time driving to work, once there we spend way too much time and energy working very hard for someone else, leaving our own self unfulfilled and empty!

Life waits for no one, and often we get hints of how we can waste away our most precious resource when we work 14 hour days, and our dinner is cold when we get home, our kids are already in bed, and our spouse is just getting ready to turn in for the night. We can miss out on so much! The workplace where we spend so much more time and end up reaching nowhere, if we actually get present to that time and place, make it more meaningful, richer, fuller, compatible and enjoyable, we shall be living a better life with more prosperity and abundance, not only at work but also at home.

Internationally renowned personalities known for their management concepts and practices, even our own Indian management gurus, have given wonderful gyan sessions on leadership and management. But is it not all leading to too much intramural competition creating high pressure and tension and stands in the way of collaboration. Each one wants to promote himself, and then even if it is at the expense of others their life and career.

I agree workplace competition is healthy — sometimes. When it leads to rivalry, the results can be toxic. Many employees today are dealing with backstabbing of colleagues and hostile work environments. Competition is healthy for people. It encourages each individual to work hard and strive to be the best. Too much competition within a group of people working together, however, can be detrimental to the harmony of the team, and thus to the overall progress of the organization.

Those who suggest that "a little healthy competition can’t hurt" are thinking only of offensive tactics and forget that even these efforts, if out of alignment with corporate goals or values, can hurt the organization. When the employee wins, the organization may lose, if not in the short term, then in the long term.

We all are still walking on this corporate treadmill and getting nowhere! Of course there is a solution, which needs to rework the basics, or rather go back to basics, because as a human nature, we all want bonding with others, love, peace and happiness around us, being honest and faithful to our co workers and get the same in return. And this can be done in corporate world also, with little extra effort.

If you are in command and leading the team then you have to facilitate and empower others, be a guide with a torch in your hands, leading them. At no point you should create fear and insecurity in their minds. Even if a feedback is to be given check the intention with which it is given is important, is it an intention to pull down or to pull up and empower. There is always a transfer of energy between two people while going through a conversation. If the intention is of hurt, anger, insecurity, there is a transfer of negative energy, while if you are giving a constructive, positive feedback, for the overall benefit then there is positive energy flow, which works for the benefit of the team and organization as a whole. Stress always brings down the performance and so does the flow of negative energy at the workplace. Even if you need to criticize someone, check your intention first, do it with acceptance towards the other person and see the difference.

Whenever you are throwing your anger on a poor soul, check your own insecurity first, there must be some hidden– Fear and Self- Doubt, which is to be overcome, and it is the most unhealthy emotion for yourself first and then anyone else. For your own benefit, you have to work with yourself, overcoming your own weakness and then anyone else.

We should replace the feeling of insecurity and fear to trust and belongingness in our peers and subordinates. People working in the same team, work in collaboration rather than competition, and then we shall start enjoying the different flavors and colors corporate life has to offer.

It shall be much easier to overcome your frustrations and maybe even turn them into inspirations. This will give you the power to succeed in any organization. This is the trick to overall success and happiness, striking the right balance at work and home.

Let us not forget that a treadmill shall not lead otherwise anywhere. Even if you win this rat race, you still remain a rat, come out of this be a human first and not a machine. Otherwise imagine yourself in an endless, self defeating and pointless pursuit of life. Like the futile effort of a lab rat trying to escape whilst running around a maze or in a wheel, in the modern city, many rats in a single maze expend a lot of effort running around, but ultimately achieve nothing (meaningful) either collectively or individually.

We spend a whole life and realize at the end of it where did I reach? What was that I wanted? We still have time; stop and check, where are you going? We can make the same place much more fulfilled and meaningful for us. The world around us can change and become much better if we are ready to change our-self, it is very simple. It starts from oneself and ends at oneself only.