Personal Branding Guru, William Arruda

Be yourself!

Pumping the irons

Pumping the iron in the weekends really help me de-stress.  I was too thin and feeble during my school and initial days of work.  Gradually gained weight due to lifestyle and workstyle. The little secret that I learned during my workouts are to say something motivational and some power statement.Physiology is the foundation of the strong and stable mind.  One should gain strength through sports, workout and some form of physical exercise. My morning routine includes the kettlebell exercises which keep me feel loaded on my arms and shoulder.  On the days  I dont pump irons, I try burpees and wide pushups which get me lung full breathing.  On the days I am drowsy due to late night sleep, I do a simple meditation in the morning along with Green Tea and sometimes combine the exercises from EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques).  Picture credits (c) Diya Ganesh.

Violations of Mind

 Look at these pictures. They have been clicked in the past 2 weeks or so across locations in Bangalore.  Traffic violation, dumping of garbage, jumping the signal, riding on the footpath, illegal hoardings.  Every day scene it is!

I have reported enough to the civic authorities and they get addressed. But there is no permanent prevention to all these problems - either authorities change or people find new ways of violating it.

Did I say violation?!

To me this seems to be more of a violation of mind rather than of the city rules. 

We pollute our mind every day. We violate our own rules for health everyday.

The result is some form of sickness.  Do we go to the doctor to permanently fix the problem?  No, we go to the doctor to temporarily heal the symptoms.

But about the mind?  Why are we not cleaning our mind everyday?  Why are we not checking our own rules if they are enabling or not enabling? Why are we looking at others always to feed us?

Why do we wakeup late? Just to see, if we are still alive?  Many of us have not seen what 5 am looks like?  Whats the pride in being awake on birthday till 2 am because your dears ones pampered you or wake up on the day at 4 am because you have to catch the flight at 7 am?  And boast around 'I was awake till 2 am' or 'I wokeup at 4 am'.  Were you doing some service for India? Your own fun, right?

Laziness, lethargy, lack of accountability, living with false pride, - all these leading to several violations.

Before you ask to clean your city, please clean your mind.

Workshop for school teachers

I continued to do the workshop for school teachers.  This week, I did the workshop for St.Pauls English School, JP Nagar 3rd Phase.

Teachers are one section of the society, whom we need to equip them with a lot of resources - knowledge, psychology, tools and techniques for handling school and personal life.

I did my bit. I provided them a framework and skills that are required to become a role model teacher.  The teachers received the session well and the management was very supportive of it.

We agreed to take this to next level by identifying key actions by each one of the teachers that will be prioritized by the management and teachers jointly.

Glad to make a small difference to the teaching community.

தேவை ஒரு சக பயணி

பேருந்தில் ஒன்று உறங்கி விடுகிறார்கள்
அல்லது candyஐ crush செய்கிறார்கள்!

ஒரு குளிர் பயணத்தில்
உறையலாம்
உறங்கலாம்
ஏன் பேச கூட செய்யலாம்!

ஒன்று பேருந்து நிரம்பி வழிகிறது
அல்லது தூங்கி வழிகிறது!

எனக்கு பகிர்ந்து கொள்ள
சக பயணி வேண்டும்.

எல்லோரும் சுக பயணிகளாக
இருகிறார்கள்.
 

Countdown to 2016 - Deaddiction

In a way new year is just a logical barrier.  But it helps us to reset and restart few things.
From where I am, I see the new year to be a very long, strong road.  Its empty throughout December. It looks like a manless national highway. 
Generally I start working on new year resolutions 2 months before only so that I know what works and what does not work.
These are the things I did "just like that":
1. Arrest coffee addiction
2. Arrest newspaper addiction
3. Arrest TV watching tendency

What's the significance?

1. Coffee addiction:  This is significant because my teeth were getting yellow.  Just kidding. I started http://Gcoffee.blogspot.com and named it so because I loved Coffee.  Coffee meant a lot of things to me: a great start, a good companion, a celebration of success.  Drinking coffee was a great ritual to me. I wanted to break this, because it became an addiction. I derived a new value for myself that I should never allow anything to bind me.  I instantly declared to my family (who mocked me for having done similar attempts in the past) and am sticking to not-having-coffee.  I replaced coffee with Green Tea. I started becoming obsessed with different flavours of Green Tea. But never an addiction.  At office, I take randomly coffee (yes!), tea and green tea. Because winter is here! But there were days, I don't take any of these.

What did I do next?  I carried this momentum to the next one.

2. Newspaper addiction:  TOI is biggest addiction. I have tried few times to stop getting TOI (I think I would have blogged about it in the past) but I love their format.  Its so addictive, you get glued to the news, even if its not important. It reached a threshold when they give too much importance on the page 1 on a Bangalore adultery-cum-murder story and one more murder story. They were a very detailed coverage that I felt enough is enough.  I applied the stop-coffee-addiction momentum to TOI and replaced it with The Hindu.   Hindu also covers bad news on pg 1, but with their basic format, who cares? Sometimes, I try to recollect what I read as a headline! 

Having got 2 de-addictions, I sometimes felt my limbs were removed (ha..ha). But it helped!

3. TV watching:  This is just a light one.  I don't watch TV generally so much. But that I return home late and start watching the music shows for an hour.  Kids don't get my time and attention. Though its a 30 minute time, I sacrificed it.  Weekends, sometimes I don't even turn off the TV.

De-addiction is almost like de-toxification.  I am feeling free.

Now I know, my mind is templatized for de-addicting anything:

• Toxic relationships
• Tech distractions (did you visualize WhatsApp?)
• Unwanted worries and habits

Weeds are automatic!  They need to be removed first, before you plant anything new. 

I am glad I made good progress and commitment in the last 2 months or so.

Friedrich Nietzsche on Music

Visited Veena Musicals to replace the strings of my Guitar. Like the way the bookstores impress me, I have become a fan of this musical instrument store for its vast collection.


Reminded of Friedrich Nietzsche saying Without music, Life would be a mistake.