Living Powerfully in the New Age

Living Powerfully in the New Age

by Dexter Valles

We now live in radically different times than ever before.

Technology has transformed life as we have never known it to be. Barring the human being looking the same, there is nothing today that  looks like anything yesterday.

Every single aspect of life has changed. Much of it for the better. Yes it comes with its hazzards. Yes nostalgia is always an escape from the hazzards.

But lets face it. We cant really go back to where we came from without losing the tremendous advantages, ease of living, speed of living, upskilling of everyday human capability, massive explosion of knowledge.

Mind boggling leaps into creation supported by an incredible expansion of the mind to drive fearless participation in an ecosystem underpinned by volatility, uncertainty, chaos and ambiguity !!

Our challenge would be to adapt as quickly as we can to manage and master the monster of life before it devours us. Do we drag our feet objecting to the difficulty it poses, dig in our heels and resist the metamorphic demands of our times or do we learn to be nimble and agile ? And master this monster of life ?

Lets ask ourselves a few questions. Our answers will inform us how we are likely to negotiate and navigate the future. Which is already on our front porch. About to ring our bell !

What would happen ??

If we don't cope or manage technology at the everyday application - gadgets and devices to begin with.

If we don't vigourously seek and embrace alternate sources of energy to light our homes right through to drive our cars, fly our planes, explore space, clean up the choked environment our dying planet.

If we don't want progress because we cant finance the cost and find the price we pay overwhelming ?

If we don't quickly learn to make space to pause and clear the debris of the construction of our new world before we construct shining towers of life with rubble of the past choking every corridor. What would then become of the human being and human relationships which deliver our dreams

If in the speed of living we race to dying

If we insist on processes and habits of the past to manage the deliverables of future.

If we agree to growing older but not growing into the world being built.

What would happen if YOU dont care to answer these questions?

Your D-I-Y Kit for Life at the Leading Edge

Management gurus and their disciples, thinkers, strategists and business process re-engineers have been busy propelling the modern world into not only coping with, but also keeping in step with the rapid changes of an ever shrinking, increasingly competitive and exhaustingly demanding global market. From the beginning of time, as the world and life itself evolved, Mankind has constantly striven to push the pace of progress, leaving the weak to die, and the strong to live and thrive. We called it the process of Natural Selection. And so it is today too, with even greater ferocity and ruthlessness.
Anybody within reach of reality, must always recognize the compelling need –of discomfort, of constant change, of threat to survival, of creating and fostering change, of continually learning, of challenging the established norm. Only when you can catalyze change continuously, can you truly consider yourself to be leading on the edge.
The arithmetic is very simple. The size of the pie being constant, to eat more of it, somebody else has to go hungry. That is, unless somebody has the wisdom and the ability to make another pie and another. Business and Life strategies are increasingly pointed in this direction. How to make another pie!
Here is a Do It Yourself Kit that each individual would find useful in the marathon race for survival and growth especially in these times of uncertainty.

1) Believe in Yourself – You Count !
1.1 List your Strengths
1.2 List successful Moments of Truth in your life
1.3 List Positive Feedback you have received
1.4 Write an Appreciative Letter to yourself
1.5 Write One Thing you do well that others don’t or cannot do

2) Put Your Entire Energy into What You Do- It’s Your Signature !
2.1 Make every moment special
2.2 Check what you have done for excellence
2.3 Set standards for yourself
2.4 Sell your work to yourself
2.5 Make a Masterpiece of any work you do.

3) Value and Respect Others, No Matter Who They Are or What They Do – You Can Learn From Anyone !
3.1 List Your Everyday Advisors and their Key Advice
3.2 Write a positive note on How to Use each Key Advice
3.3 Make it important to Try each Key Advice and Record the Result
3.4 Write down Who You Discount or Discredit as Capable of Sound Advice and Why
3.5 Write down at least 2 Good Points about those you have put in the “Discredit List”

4) Experiment and Experience Life – Move Out of Your Shell !
4.1 Describe a Typical Day in your Life
4.2 Write what New Things you have done each day for the past Ten days
4.3 Write down Things that you Want to do in Life but Do Not Dare to
4.4 Write down Positive Outcomes and Negative outcomes for each
4.5 Write down How you will Handle each Negative Outcome successfully

5) Learn to Forgive Yourself and Others – But Do Not Encourage Incompetence !
5.1 Make a list of all the mistakes you can recall you have made in the past one year
5.2 Put down reasons for each mistake and classify them into 3 categories – PERSONAL ( identify whether Lack of Knowledge or Lack of Personal Competence / Skill / Ability ), CIRCUMSTANTIAL ( Due to Situations out of Your Control ), or PROVOKED ( because of Other People’s interference/ incorrect advice / involvement)
5.3 Write down consequences of each mistake
5.4 Decide how you will handle each consequence to produce a Positive Outcome
5.5 Examine each PERSONAL error and write down what you have to do to strengthen yourself in the areas of Knowledge, Skills and Capabilities to improve your overall Competence

6) Keep an Open Mind, Learn to Coexist with Differences- In People and their Opinions and Views
6.1 Make a list of people you do not like – people known to you personally or professionally
6.2 Write what you find wrong with each one of them
6.3 Put down honestly, at least one clear bias or prejudice you hold against each one
6.4 Examine the link between your bias or prejudice and your judgment about these people
6.5 Write down honestly any small agreement you may have with each view or opinion you have rejected or discarded

7) Take Charge of Your Life – Be Alert at the Wheel, Learn to Accelerate, Chart Your Course, Follow the Signs, Decide Your Breaks, Fill Your Tank and Turn On the Music too !
7.1 Write down One Dozen things you are trying to accomplish at the moment
7.2 Write down your progress against each one – use a scale of 0 to 10 where 10 is the maximum accomplishment score
7.3 Put down what is blocking you against each of these one dozen items
7.4 As a consultant , recommend to yourself, what you should do to overcome these obstacles
7.5 Write down how you will celebrate each success in overturning each obstacle, and make sure you do it

8) Make Sure You Have Passengers in Your Car too- Carry Others along with you, Create Wealth for Others too !
8.1 Make a list of the closest people you live with and those you work with.
8.2 Write down for each one what you think are their needs and concerns
8.3 Write down what you do well and what capabilities you possess to do those things well.
8.4 Put down against each thing you do well, how you can help each one of the people you have listed earlier
8.5 Make a silent promise to each one you have listed that you will help them in someway, no matter how small.

9) Be Humble Not Arrogant, but Market Yourself Vigourously and Honestly !
9.1 Write down a complete list of all your possible strengths and capabilities
9.2 Create affinity clusters of these and write down the results they can help produce or deliver, regardless whether you currently have the opportunity or not.
9.3 Write down who needs to know about each of these strengths and capabilities.
9.4 Make an appointment with at least 3 key people from your list.
9.5 Discuss your strengths and capabilities with these 3 key people and ask them how and when they can use your talents.

10) Keep revisiting Your Goals ( roadmap ) and Keep a Clear Eye on the Road too- Stay Focused on the Present while Working out the Future !
10.1 Write a list of everything you could possibly want in life
10.2 Qualify each one as Short Term, Medium Term and Long Term, using your own definition of the time frame for each
10.3 Put deadlines for all Short term goals and list at least 10 immediate activities or tasks you need to perform to achieve them.
10.4 Draw flexible time-lines for each Medium Term and Long Term goal and list at least 10 short term activities / tasks you must perform to achieve each one
10.5 Raise red flag check points on all time framed activities and tasks

Powerful Living

Making Life Deliver Delight !

Sunday morning caught me uncoiling lazily in my bed, stretching the sleep out of my body and squinting against the sunshine streaming on the pillow. Choices had to be made- should I leave the safe zone of my comfortable quilts or uncover myself to the sunny reality slowly invading all corners of my bedroom ? Snuggling down deeper into the soft eiderdown I chose not to choose and decided to let my stresses of the week drain away slowly, until I heard my conscience calling loud and clear.

My conscience ? What was that ? Years after being a corporate citizen in an overly competitive world, I thought I had rid myself of it a long time ago ! My nearly four year old daughter it was indeed, standing firmly in its place instead, tugging at my eyelids and admonishing me in the most mature parent like voice she could manage “ Common Daddy, why are your sleeping ? It’s a beautiful day outside !"

One of the great joys of being a father is to be greeted by an angel in the morning and I reached out with both arms pulling her down and buried my face in her tummy making her squeal with delight and propping her upon my knees, enquired “So what does my sweetheart want to do today ?” That did it. The litany commenced “ I want to go out, I want to ride in a bus, I want to go in that plane, I want to go to the beach, I want to go to Goa, I want to go shopping, I want to go and play, I want to go to my friend’s house, I want to go to dance-school, I want to see that movie…” And she meant them all ! So began a day that as it progressed promised to burst at the seams, remarkably with more vigour and fun ending in an energy high that almost could not be run down ! Amazed aren’t you ? Well so was I, but I recalled my own youth and how much we did and lived in one day, each day at a time. Powerful lives lived at full stretch. The cup really did run over.

So why do we live within the cup of our lives, why not let it run over any more. We seem to be happy with living contained lives, within the sanctuary of safety, responsibilities, focus, rationality, reasonableness, moderation and therefore Mediocrity ! Perhaps without realizing it, we have slid down the greasy pole of achievement and success to a level of happy mediocrity where life seems to be assured and the peril of striving to stay at the top is swapped with the comforting lull of “consolidation”. Something like hanging up the wanderer’s backpack and parking your high-roads bike, for a log-house in a meadow and a stately sedan to carry the growing midriff of a “settled” life.

Seems interesting and the right thing to do at first, until you realize what you give up. We give up the spirit to explore our world, to savour the thrill that risk brings, the ability to live with less and still feel like a king, to give freely from what we have because there’s nothing to miss when its gone, to delight with the discoveries of new avenues of living, the experience of experimenting, the savage need to conquer, the untamed cry of the rebel against institutionalizing and corralling an exuberant life into straight-jacketed mellowness, no longer daring to dream but dreaming to dare, no longer at the cutting edge of a razor sharp life, but on the blunted butt of balanced sensibility.

After 18 years of driving a car with the four wheels of balance, I decided to buy myself a bike once again. An Enfield 350cc Thunderbird. Why ? Because I needed to feel the wind whip my hair again, the rain splatter against my face, to bend and twist my thickened torso once again as I weave in and out of traffic, around sharp curves and the thrill of the balance between machine and man! And the almost orgasmic joy of straddling the roar and throb of the powerful engine, extending an almost phallic fantasy of machismo. Pure adrenaline indeed ! Brief moments of it are enough to energise my day beyond belief.

The ageing adult reliving the fantasies of an adolescent , one may say, but that was when all the undiluted fun and the raw power of life lay !

Mating the maturity and assuredness of the sober adult with the reckless and fiery spirit of the unfettered child can be one of the most rejuvenating experiences in living life powerfully again. Because this time around we have more options and are more capable of unlocking sensitive doors skillfully rather than battering them down with the brute fore of unbridled and brash youth. We can love without letting lust intervene too early, live with risk rather than risk life, learn to unlearn and relearn instead of learning by rote, plan and do, rather than “plan to do” or only “do and undo”, acquire and give away, rather than snatch and hide, succeed and support instead of fail and flail , aspire and acknowledge achievement rather than compete and crush the competition, conquer and democratize rather than capture and dictate, build shining towers of shared success rather than colonies of mediocrity walled within the confines of meagerness.

Making life count and making a difference is the way to making life deliver delight. Powerful living is not a dream. It is an aspiration in action. Inscribe your own shining life-epitaph by crossing every point on the bucket-list you write with the blood of buoyant youth, the will of the achieving adult and the wisdom of the old.