Mind Control

In my post on Unfinished Tasks – source of stress – I got a comment saying something to the context of ” I do write down things but thoughts still keep coming – what should I do”

My simple answer is I don’t know.

Mind control is something that humans have been trying to achieve for ages. Someone who can control the mind achieves nirvana. So I am nowhere even close to nirvana.

However as I had mentioned in my earlier post also if you can keep writing down the thoughts which come to you and do a mind dump then after sometime you will reach a stage where you will be able to concentrate on your work and get into the flow state.

I would highly recommend watching this 50 minute focus finder talk by Dean Jackson on Ilovemarketing.com. Watch it till the end. Its an amazing thing and I generally do it every Monday.

On the other hand I must confess that I am not able to do it everyday.

One of the good things – since I belong to the age when compute was very expensive – I have an ability to write with pen and paper and put my thoughts on paper. Most people today don’t have the inclination of using pencil/pen and paper. One of the advantages of using the pen and paper is that the hand and the brain are hardwired so when the hand moves to write a word it also gets mimicked to the brain sending a signal to the brain that the transfer has taken place.

See this video and let me know if it was of help. I look forward to hearing your comments

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

Irrational Confidence – II

Affirmative action, confidence, Habits

In my last post of the same title, I had referred about my own near death experiences.

I urge you also to keep an attitude of “things will work out fine” if God gives you even a 5% chance. These are depressing times with so many people falling sick to the pandemic and people being locked up in their homes. If my real life experiences can help one person become better then it would be a mission accomplished.

Let me give you another example where I stuck to a glimmer of hope for more than 8 weeks. In 2010 my mother-in-law had to be admitted to the hospital with very low Oxygen levels and was put on a ventilator and life support systems in the ICU. For first few days the doctors kept doing various tests to figure out the issues and kept changing the treatments. However after week two of being on the ventilator & life support systems, the doctors started to give up. After the third week on the ventilator they started telling my wife that they don’t expect any change to take place and so we should remove her from the ventilator and let her pass away. However I was steadfast in my view that till she is responding to our speaking we will not remove her from the ventilator & life support systems.

I told my wife and son that everyday we would go and speak in her ear positive ideas of how we were expecting her to comeback home and what we would do after that. To cut the long story short after 6 weeks she was “off” the ventilator and other life support systems and was moved to just a “bipapp” an air pushing machine. Another 2 weeks in the hospital and she was back home. She lived a full life for 3 more years after that. Even the doctors thought it was a miracle.

During those 6 weeks when the doctors would mention that there was no point in keeping her on the life support systems I would sometimes think if I was doing the right thing by giving her the pain of all the machines being attached to her. But on the other hand I also had the view that if God wanted to take her away He would. I was no one to pre-empt the decision. As far as I was concerned if she was willing to live then I needed to ensure she gets a chance to live.

Again the same 5% possibility thinking made me take the decision. You could again think of it as Irrational Confidence that I had. I would look at it more that God gave me the 5% chance and I worked to support and give the mental strength to make it happen,

In your life you will come across a lot of situations where you may think of giving up. But even if you have a 5% chance, my view would be that you should take it. If you get through you will grow yourself tremendously and also have a lot of stories to tell. After all life is all about the experiences you make.

Till next time

Carpe Diem!!!

Consistency

Affirmative action, Habits, Health, Human Brain

I have been crying hoarse over so many blog posts on the fact that if you invest even very small amounts on a consistent basis, the law of compounding will play its role and you will end up with very large sums of money over a long period of time. For compounding to work you need to things – a long runway and high frequency / rate of interest.

I have heard a lot of speakers talk about massive action, lots of action to move ahead in life, to change behaviors. Frankly for me to change my habits has been tough.

I have written earlier about this book by B. J. Fogg called Tiny Habits where he has this formula B=MAP for creating major behavioral changes.

If you are like me who cannot keep being motivated 36 hours after hearing a Motivational speaker, and you would like to bring about changes in your life, then this book is a must read for you.

I have used ideas in this book and after 3 + months of using the methods in the book, I have definitely been able to make a lot of changes in my behavior.

But the bigger thing I realised that this method which B.J.Fogg has devised actually works on the law of compounding with small changes being done over a period of time resulting in massive changes over a long period. And unlike the resistance your brain gives to doing one massive change, small changes fall below the radar of the resistance of your brain.

The key is consistency – every day trying to get the ball into the basket – one basket at a time

Read this book. Try out his ideas and let me know your views.

Till next time

Carpe Diem!!!

Irrational Confidence

Affirmative action, confidence, Human Brain

On July 18 2008, I was travelling from Bangalore to Delhi. I had boarded a flight in the evening at about 7 PM. I remember boarding the aircraft and sitting on my aisle seat while a young boy came on the window seat. The center seat was vacant. Subsequent to that the stewardess came with tetrapack juice and I took it. That’s the last I remember. After which I remember the hospital ICU and 4 days had passed.

I had 12 seizures within a matter of about 30 minutes with a average length of each seizure about 40 seconds long. As per doctors I was dead for about 4 odd minutes before they could revive me. As per doctors it was a miracle that I survived and that my brain was about 40% dead because of the lack of Oxygen during those 30 minutes.

Whenever I tell this story everyone gets emotional and there are whole lot of side stories related to how my family coped with the situation and how my office colleagues were so supportive during those times.

Today I was hearing Hal Elrod’s story – yes he’s the author of the Miracle Morning series – on the I Love Marketing podcast. And he spoke about how he was dead for about 6 minutes before they were able to revive him. That discussion brought my story back to me.

Now during that phase, I am sure my family and my friends and colleagues went through a lot of turmoil. For the next 6 months there was a lot of medical visits and admission in the hospitals , MRIs etc. which I had to go through. But through all of it I was clear that I am going to be fine inspite of the doctors and my wife being scared like hell.

I found the same emotion in Hal and the story immediately resonated with me. One of the things which came out in the discussion on the podcast, was a term which Dean Jackson mentioned “Irrational Confidence”. While I always have had the belief that even if you give me a 5% chance that things will turn out well, I will take that chance and run. But this term actually explained my beliefs so well. What most people think is irrational, I have the confidence that things will work out eventually and I believe God does everything for my good…..so there must be a learning and once I get the learning, I will be on my way.

Another incident – In 2015 a complete disk came out of my spine after an accident…..I was bedridden for more than 6 months…but I was not in the mode of why did this happen to me…..again I took that time to learn a lot of things especially on the investment side. I was determined to walk again and live life. So again “Irrational Confidence….”

So why these 2 stories. Life throws curve balls all the time sometimes it’s Covid, sometimes its accidents but instead of getting depressed or the typical “why me” .

Life is meant to be lived instead of sulking get up take affirmative action and move forward. Its not going to be easy. But once you come out of that phase, you will look back and be proud of yourself.

Till next time…

Carpe Diem