joe polish

Breathing – core to your health

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This pandemic made everyone look for various ways to build immunity.

I ended up watching a lot of yoga with Baba Ramdev teaching various Asanas and Pranayams and then I read one very good book by James Nester called “Breath”

James Nester has done such an amazing amount of research on the science of breathing which has been known to man kind for thousands of years. He’s done so much elaborate work on himself as well on various breathing techniques from across the world. I would highly recommend you read this book.

This book made me realise the massive amount of research which our ancestors in India had done over thousands of years and made me feel very proud of being an Indian. Before that I used to do the Pranayams that Baba Ramdev used to show without thinking too much about it.

The good thing about Baba Ramdev is that he explains very simply the reason behind each specific Pranayam and why you should do it. After I read Breath, the explanations given by Baba Ramdev on the meaning of the Pranayam’s which he suggests, became even more clear.

As you grow older health issues start cropping up and realising that breathing can reduce the impact of ageing has made me a big fan of doing various kind of pranayams daily once in the morning and then during the day if I am feeling low I do Anulom Vilom which is all about breathing alternatively through opposite nostrils.

When I have had a heavy meal to digest food I breathe concentratedly through only my right nostril which builds heat in my stomach .

One statement from Joe Poslish’s friend Christian Cotichini has had a major impact on me ” Those who have their health have 1000 dreams; those who do not have their health, have only one”. And as I have written multiple times in my blog earlier I have a massive bucket list which I have to achieve. So I have very seriously begun looking at breathing to keep my health stable.

Let me know your experiments on health in this lock down.

Till next time….

Carpe Diem

Leverage the WHO

Leverage

My initial posts have all been centered in some way on the magic of compounding with respect to our financial lives. There is another concept which has always made me wonder and that is Leverage. Aristotle once said – Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which it can be placed and I shall move the world.

I have been listening to Dan Sullivan on multiple podcasts, one with Joe Polish (100X) and another with Dan Jackson (Joy of Procrastination) over the last 2 weeks, since I came back from my vacation in Canada (more about that in a later post).

Dan has not been one of the people whom I have known or written about earlier. But now after reading his books and listening to his podcasts, I find some of the things that he talks about very simulating ideas which are worth implementing.

During one of the episodes, Dan spoke about how when he analysed his successes over 30 years, the key turning points were not where he acquired new knowledge/talent/skill but where he met someone “WHO” helped change the direction of his life.

That got me thinking about my own 30 years. I have always believed that because I utilised my so called “down years” to prepare myself for the “when my opportunity comes”, I have been able to grow to where I am today in my job.

However after listening to the podcast I started co-relating the inflexion points which I had, to see if there was a “WHO” that helped me leverage on my knowledge. Dan’s premise is that if you have to grow yourself exponentially, then rather than working on the “HOW”(which is growing my own abilities in various areas) you should always first find a “WHO” that has these capabilities available.

So there were some positive things that came up which have helped me reach where I am today. For example my technical abilities aligned with my ability to present solutions , was recognised by one leader within the company, who then got me moved into a different division. In this division, for the first time my manager -gave me the free hand to build out a relationship with IBM which helped me blossom. Seeing my capabilities I was transferred to manager who actually took this capability of mine to propel me in a different orbit. Then during that time a couple of relationships in IBM helped me grow the business so dramatically. Now in all these situations my managers and colleagues in IBM also grew dramatically while I was growing.

After analysing these time frames however also got me a little pensive. You get connected to people when you meet them. As you meet more people the possibility of being able to connect with someone who can become the “WHO” also increases. So as I grew in my job positions, with my internal interactions taking up more time, I actually reduced my external meetings and therefore the reason for not getting the next set of “WHOs”

However Dan also brought out another aspect about using the “WHO” (he’s actually written a book Who not How) to launch any new idea faster. His suggestion is that you should actually first break down any new idea you want to launch into small pieces and then deliberately find the “WHO” to partner with and get all the work done by them. One should only focus on the “Unique Ability” one has, because then one is the happiest which results in things getting executed faster.

While I think this is a perfect idea, having been brought up with the idea of always improving personal capability first, this seems hard to implement….Do you think you would ascribe to this idea

Carpe Diem!!!