Confidence – One of the best examples – Taking food from Lions
You have heard many times that if you have confidence, you can achieve the impossible. Want proof?
Watch this video:
Harsha Bhogle: Lecture on ‘Excellence’ at IIMA
Harsha Bhogle – Lecture on Excellene at IIMA
Harsha Bhogle, an IIMA alumni, is one of my favorite cricket commentator. He is also a student of excellence and has given many lectures on the topic. His thoughts are inspiring.
Recently, I came across a lecture he gave at IIMA on Excellence. You can watch the first part of the video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugJhHsUfZFo
The remaining parts follow in the relevant videos on YouTube once you finish watching the first part.
Here are the notes I took down for myself while watching these videos:
Excellence is about having the confidence to share knowledge.
- No insecurity about sharing knowledge
Excellence is about stretching a little bit to find out how good you are or can be.
It is also about knowing what we can and cannot do (or should or should not do)
Excellence lives in the present.
- We must maximize what we are doing now.
- Don’t live in the past (glory of the past) or future (or promise for the future).
- Don’t live o your legend, live on your performance
Excellence is trying to know everything possible about your profession.
Luck is preparing to the best of your opportunity and recognizing when an opportunity presents itself.
Gary Player(a successful golf player) “The harder I practice, the luckier I get.”
Excellence is about humility.
- Be comfortable in being a non-striker [build partnership and make others look good].
Subjugate the self to achieve excellence.
Talent has insignificant role in achieving excellence. It is what you do with your talent matters the most [attitude and work ethic].
Talented people who only rely on the talent, don’t know what to do when they face an hurdle.
- Australian elite military force don’t pick people who have never failed, for they won’t know what to do when they fail or are facing failure.
Tendulkar: Played for 55 days in a row where he practices for 2 hours, played a game, practice for another 2 hours and invariably ended up sleeping on the dining table.
Excellence is about learning from mistakes. Mistake is not a crime and not a matter of shame.
- Because excellence is as much about knowing what to do as it is about what not to do.
- It is the second or third time making the same mistake that it not acceptable.
Give 100%, it is not possible to give more than a 100%.
If you seek excellence, you seek out people who are better than you, or even people in other profession who seek excellence as well.
Beware if you have started hating criticism or when you don’t have people around you who wont criticize you.
Arrogance comes in the way of excellence.
Allan Border: “Take care of the runs and the dollars will take care of themselves.”
Make the process of achievements supreme and make the results irrelevant.
Perfect the process of performance and don’t allow the pressure of result to choke your performance.
If you worry about what others /competitors are doing and what critics or people will say, you are not allowing you to perform to the best of your ability.
Karmanye wadhikaraste
Ma faleshu kadachana
Do your job as well as you can.
Dont put end before the means [ethics also come into picture here].
Excellence is not in result, it is in performance and even more so in preparation.
Set yourself performance goals and not result goals.
Give your best in the present moment. If you keep doing that, there is nothing more you can do.
- If you give 100% everytime and lose, you can still sleep peacefully. May be that time your opponent was better than you. Salute him/her and try to get better.
Excellence never seeks escuses. No “I would have been good but..”
Never grudge anyone his or her success.
Bill Cosby on parenting
Bill Cosby is one of my most favorite stand up comedian. He also had a great TV show, “The Bill Cosby Show”. It ran between 1969 and 1971. I happened to see a rerun many years ago and I was hooked immediately. I have since then admired his many standup shows. He is a very mature, educated person with a brilliant sense of humor. He has always done ‘clean’ comedy. Being an African-American, he takes on and comments on many issues affecting the African-American community. Recently, he was criticized by many African-Americans for saying that African-Americans are themselves to blame for the serious issues affecting the community like; teenage pregnancy, poverty, addictions, education(kids dropping out of schools/colleges) and income inequality.
Here is a one of his lectures on parenting. He is talking her to an audience of kids,parents and teachers. You will find his lecture refreshing, entertaining, relevant and educational regardless of whether you live in America or not.
The lecture is in 3 parts Here they are:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Karate – Life Skills
Aditya, our 5 year old was preparing for his Karate test today. After practicing his karate moves, he was reciting Student Creed, Life Skills, and Rules of concentration. I thought he just memorizing them without understanding the meaning. But when I probed a little, to my delight I found that his teacher talks to them about the meaning in a language the little kids can understand. Collectively these three sets of rules/things to remember are pretty complete and wholesome for these kids. They are also a great reference even for us grown ups.
Here they are for your reading and reference.
3 Rules of concentration
1. Focus your eyes
2. Focus your mind
3. Focus your body
Student Creed
1. I will develop myself in a positive manner and avoid anything that would reduce my mental growth or my physical health.
2. I will develop self-doscipline in order to bring out the best in myself and others.
3. I will use what I learn in the class constructively and defensively and never be abusive or offensive.
Life Skills
1. Focus: Pay attention
2. Discipline/Self-Discipline: To always do your best
3. Respect: Treat people the way you want to be treated
4. Family: A group of people who form a household, that are the most important part of our life
5. Academic: To Learn
6. Attitude: To act in a positive manner
7. Confidence: To believe in yourself
8. Choices: To make the right decisions
9. Goals: To achieve something
Reference: Shido-kan Karate Dojo
www.shidokankaratedojo.com
Here is a link to their Facebook Page:
Mizu no kokoro – Mind like Water
Mizu no Kokoro [mind like water] is a Japanese phrase which means “A state of mind similar to water: flowing, reflective and adaptive.”
I like this phrase.
When a mind is like water, you are ‘here and now’. You are still, calm and at peace with yourself. You are completely engrossed in what you are doing without thinking about the past or future or what is happening around you. You are working in your ‘Zone’. When there is a disturbance from outside, you react to it with the appropriate response. You neither over-react nor under-react. After your response ends, you go back to your calm state of mind. Since you have not over-reacted, you haven’t wasted your time and effort. Since you have not under-reacted, your response is complete; meaning the same disturbance won’t affect you again.
David Allen, author: Getting things done says:
“In karate there is an image that’s used to define the position of perfect readiness: “mind like water.” Imagine throwing a pebble into a still pond. How does the water respond? The answer is, totally appropriately to the force and mass of the input; then it returns to calm. It doesn’t overreact or underreact…Anything that causes you to overreact or underreact can control you, and often does.”
Sustained Excellence
Tendulkar on sustained Excellence:
Tendulkar spoke of the preparation that goes behind doing well for such a long time. “The journey has gone by very quickly, quicker than I expected,” he says. “Time flies. You just need to enjoy it, it’s a circle. You are not always on the top, sometimes there are rough patches, but the simple formula that I have followed is, whenever I have gone through tough phases, I have found a reason to work harder. And try and spend all my energy at something I have been wanting to get better at and trying to keep things simple. If you keep things simple, they are simple to manage.
Full article at: http://www.cricinfo.com/sri-lanka-v-india-2010/content/current/story/470658.html
Great minds discuss ideas
“Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt
Sachin – The Philosopher
In a recent interview to thewisdenCricketer, Sachin talks about his state of mind when he plays at his best. He says that he bats at his best when he is still in mind and body, when he clears his mind and doesn’t think about past or future and lets his natural instincts take over. I believe these are powerful lessons from the little master to all of us, regardless of our profession.
Here is the part in the interview that caught my attention:
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After two decades playing international cricket, how has he so ruthlessly accumulated these runs? “The secret to batting is to stay still and just react to what the bowler has done,” he says, making it all sound simple. “You have to be still both in your mind and physically. It is so important that your mind is not full of a lot of thoughts because your reaction time is not going to be good. You have to keep your mind blank.
”The toughest thing is to clear your mind. The mind always wants to be in the past or the future; it rarely wants to be in the present. My best batting comes when my mind is in the present, but it doesn’t happen naturally. You have to take yourself there. I am not able to get in that zone as often as I would like, but when you are there you don’t see anything except the bowler and the ball. You have to allow your instincts to take over. Trust me, your instincts are 99% right, but you know, the older I get the more I realise how important your breathing is to good batting. By that I mean, if you focus on breathing and relaxing, you can force yourself into a comfortable place to bat.”
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