Motivation 2 comments

Prolific Power of Anger

By anbusivam on April 10th, 2009

>Hello Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam’s Blog Page.

In most of my counselling sessions I find people, either unable to identify or totally unaware of their own feelings and emotions. I wonder how will they be able to relate themselves with their family and friends, being ignorant of one’s own emotions. One of the key emotions that dominate us more than often is “Anger”. People say “I shouldn’t be getting angry at all”, once a young boy told me “My parents should suddenly forget that there is an emotion called anger”, one girl student said in a workshop “One thing I want to get rid off is, my anger”. Most of us strongly believe that anger is a negative emotion and is to be suppressed. We tend to hide it from others and from ourselves too. I remember my childhood when I was clearly told not to get angry when elders are there around. I was even told getting angry is a worst thing a child can do and for many years I believed that, neither it is good get angry nor it is good to express my anger..

Do you think anger is such a dangerous and unwanted emotion that is to be totally get ridden off…? Remember last time when you were angry…?

I surely don’t think so. Anger is one of the core emotions that is of most necessary to the man kind. All the problems we see around are not because of anger or getting angry, but only because of the way we express our anger.
Can you think of the ways you would choose to express your anger..? What do you do when you are really fired up…? what do say when you are fuming in anger on anyone or anything…? what would be the reaction of your friends and family around…?
Anger, not handled properly may lead to dangerous consequences like verbal/physical abuse, road rage, aggressive behaviours, threat to life, mental depression and so on. Yes, in some extreme cases anger could be totally destructive and irreversible, to the extent of murder. We all know that anger is such a powerful emotion that can reach its peak in spur of a moment within no time. Most often anger comes out with an outburst of enormous energy, which is generally expressed in a not very useful way either to us or others.

I think the best way to handle anger in a more efficient manner is to deeply understand the way it is triggered up in us and how do we express that. It’s important to divert that outburst of energy in to a more productive and useful one.
Here are a few steps to make the best use of the Prolific Power of Anger.
  1. First and foremost, accept and acknowledge that you are angry, when ever you are.

  2. Learn the truth that, anger is a most common human emotion and indeed its good to get angry being a normal human being.

  3. Introspect to identify you own anger spots (identifying everything that can trigger anger in you, by looking back into your own past when ever you were angry)

  4. Think from an objective point of view, what are the ways you’ve been expressing anger in all these years from your childhood till now.

  5. Evaluate them, are those ways of expressing anger is really useful or do you really feel sorry and regret for what you have done…?

  6. Think of what could be the alternate ways and means that your anger could be expressed with out any harm to you or others around…?

  7. Think of how can be the energy outburst diverted into a positive, more useful purpose of getting things done in a diplomatic way…?

  8. Learn to express your anger in a very calm, yet aggressive manner without loosing your temper, while holding the ability to stay with your rationale thinking.
Anger, is an excellent emotion nature has given to the man kind. It sometimes protects us, helps us in making decisions, it gets things done, comes handy to make our point and many more.

Anger is always a good emotion to have, if we know how to express it and handle it effectively. Go ahead, Get Angry.

Thanks for visiting my page.

With Love,
Anbusivam
Leadership No comments yet

Experience – The Best Teacher

By anbusivam on March 30th, 2009

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Hello Friends.

Welcome to Anbusivam’s Blog Page.

While I was travelling from my home town to Bangalore last night, numbers of thoughts were rambling in my mind due to couple of comings and goings in my life. I was thinking of my recent experiences and lessons I am taught by them…therefore got a thread for this post.

Yes, I am absolutely convinced that experience is the best teacher in our lives. First Person Experience in particular is the “Bestest” teacher. I agree that its always good learn lessons from others experience and not to burn our finger once again to learn things. Yes reading biographies, listening to experiences, seeking wisdom from our elders are all means of taking lessons for us to make our lives easier. What we learn through experience is more lasting than that acquired through reading. It is accurate, complete and permanent. It is first-hand knowledge. But, nothing can teach us as good as our own personal First Person Experience. I’ve learnt that, grueling experiences at some point of time will always be a great saviour at some later stage in life and I am sure it’s pretty much true for all of us. A child does not stop playing with fire till he burns his fingers. He learns from his own experience.

Moreover, involving as a first person brings in all the senses of ours into the situation and our brain precisely records that experiential learning so that, it would be readily available for us in future at the right moment when needed. Before crying out “Why Me…?” we should understand that the experiences we have had all through our life is not just to test our faiths in some unknown beliefs, but only to make us as strong as what we are today. We should be thanking the experience and feel blessed for having given this wonderful opportunity to learn. There is profound meaning and purpose to everything that happens to us. May be we are not aware of the purpose right when things are happening to us, but certainly looking back we can very well understand that, its all well connected to our present:


Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer said,
You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.


It’s also interesting to know that, two of us exactly experiencing a similar experience may feel entirely different based on so many factors. It may depend on our child hood, up bringing, society, family values and many more. Hence it is important to experience the experience personally in first person to get the best out of it.

Experience is the “bestest” teacher that always results in the most enduring lessons.

Thanks for visiting my page.

With love,
Anbusivam

Leadership 2 comments

Alcoholic Leadership

By anbusivam on March 22nd, 2009

>Hello Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam’s Blog Page.

I know you must be wondering, what’s this Alcoholic Leadership…???

Its all about taking leadership over alcohol and not letting that bottle take over us. We had an excellent session this morning in our counselling class by Mr.Vincent representing AA (Alcoholic Anonymous, a world wide organisation), Bangalore. He shared his personal life experiences on his 25yrs of addiction and how he poured alcohol completely out of his life 15yrs ago. Since then from 1995, he is very instrumental in working with AA, Bangalore reaching out to alcoholics and their families to get out of alcoholism.

AA defines alcoholism as “A physical allergy, coupled with mental obsession, leading to spiritual bankruptcy”.

Alcoholism by itself is a deadly disease that succumb mankind to a lowest level in life. I personally knew few of them in my family and friends, who are alcoholics leading a miserable life.
Image courtesy (http://images.inmagine.com)

Its not that they wish and happy to lead life in a miserable way, but they’ve no other choice as they are programmed to the core with the barrels of alcohol that have gone in all through these years. Even if they badly want to come out of that misery, they will not able to do so, as things have gone out of their hands and mind. Hands starts shaking and shivering without that peg in the morning, mind is out of control fantasizing that one day every thing will be alright. Most importantly they make a promise every day not to drink, though they very well knew that their day is going to end up drinking anyway.

AA is an excellent self help group that has made a remarkable change in thousands of lives all over the world. Here is their famous twelve step program to overcome addiction.

THE TWELVE STEPS PROGRAM OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

In these days of widely accepted social drinking, its very very important to be aware that, alcoholism starts with a very first drink in some point of time in our life. I am not here to say don’t drink, it is absolutely an individual’s choice to make. All I would like to request is


“Let us be the Leaders in this world and not allow those mere bottles to take over us”.

Thanks for visiting my page.

With Love,
Anbusivam

Note: If you are willing to help an alcoholic in Bangalore, please get in touch with me to know further details on AA, Bangalore fellowship. Thank You.

Leadership No comments yet

Great Indian Democracy..Where is it heading…?

By anbusivam on March 13th, 2009

>Hello Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam’s Blog Page.

Now, time has come for the Great Indian Democracy to reinvent itself. I strongly believe this is one of the best times that the younger generation of this wonderful nation can assertively make their voice heard to the country. These days we hardly see any politician who also works for this society and the people those elected him/her. One can clearly see every where from north to south, east to west, the inability of our Indian politicians to rise above their very narrow mentality and their own personal agendas.

Where are we heading….??? I am afraid, if this trend continues for next 10 years, our entire democratic system will collapse and people will take up law and order in their hands, which may lead to dire consequences. We very well know that, all we need is a Great Leader of all times, capable of taking the nation to next greater level.

It’s more than enough and we the people are badly badly sick of

dynasty politics,
ruthlessly selfish leaders,
ridiculous freebies,
undelivered promises,
criminal and unethical law makers,
corrupt minds,
opportunistic hearts,
money and muscle powerplays,
madly power greedy,
thoughtless actions,
useless statements,
absurd behaviours,
and on……and on………….,

I am seeing a number of so called leaders willing to become the top brass of our country, and I wonder if any of them even think truthfully if he/she deserves that……??? I can understand that in a democratic country like our’s anyone and everyone can have that wish, but as a common sense they should also think about their credentials and abilities to deliver on commitments.

Oh….I am sorry to talk in an alien language “deliver on commitments” what’s that….???

One of my friends asked how to choose a better politician….how do I know whom to vote for….?

I think we should not be having that dilemma at all. I know a simple rule. In fact that’s is pretty easy, all we need is to just choose between what we want, “worse” or “worst”……?

Let’s make our vote count.

Thanks for visiting my page.

With Love,
Anbusivam

Attitude, Inspiration 5 comments

Let’s Become Wiser Said Warren Buffet…!!!

By anbusivam on February 26th, 2009

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Hello Friends.

Welcome to Anbusivam’s Blog Page.

I talked about simplifying our lives in my previous post, Voluntary Simplicity.

One of my friends shared some wonderful thoughts from the great investor of our times Warren Buffet and I am sharing that with you all. I am sure this is nothing new, as he says its all the wisdom of our elders that will make us financially wiser.

Hard work: All hard work brings profit; but mere talk leads only to poverty.

Laziness: A sleeping lobster is carried away by the water current.

Earnings: Never depend on a single source of income.

Spending: If you buy things you don’t need, you’ll soon sell things you need.

Savings: Don’t save what is left after spending; Spend what is left after saving.

Borrowings: The borrower becomes the lender’s slave.

Accounting: It’s no use carrying an umbrella, if your shoes are leaking.

Auditing: Beware of little expenses; a small leak can sink a large ship.

Risk-taking: Never test the depth of the river with both feet.

Investment: Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

I’m sure that those who have been practicing these principles will remain in good financial health.

Let us become wiser and lead a happy, healthy, prosperous and peaceful life.

Thanks for visiting my page.

With Love,
Anbusivam

Leadership No comments yet

Life of Voluntary Simplicity

By anbusivam on February 20th, 2009

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Hello Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam’s blog page.

Phew…!!! Job loss every where. I am literally seeing frowning faces every where….and the questions they ask are “How is it going in your company…?, any lay offs …?”.

Organisations are into cost cutting mode. Managers are looking for reducing the operating costs in each and every corner, even to the extent of buying low cost toilet tissues. For individuals, I believe this is the right time to come out of consumerism. which many are blindly falling prey to. In this time of global economic melt down, leading a simple life means a lot for survival.

Only way we individuals can cope with these kinds of situations is with “Voluntary Simplicity”. Voluntary simplicity comes from within. It is the only way of more sustainable human existence in this world. Voluntary simplicity is a matter of personal responsibility and conscious awareness of how we live on the planet. It means identifying the difference between our needs and our wants. Needs are those things that are necessary for our survival – food, clothing, and shelter. Wants are all the other things we desire and to a large extent are driven by media advertising. Simplicity as a life-style is the identifiable difference between needs and wants, and the awareness.

We must live simply, so that others may simply live. – Gandhi

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak. – Hans Hofmann.


Practical Steps to Simplifying Our Life:

  1. Get yourself with what you really need and not what you want.

  1. Limit your buying habits. If we can escape materialism, we can easily get into the habit of buying less. And that will mean less stuff, less spending, less frustration.

  1. Limit your media consumption, media advertisements dominates most of our buying decisions. Simplify your life and your information consumption by limiting it.

  1. Learn to live frugally. Living frugally means buying less, wanting less, and leaving less of a footprint on the earth. It’s directly related to simplicity.

  1. Before you buy something, write the item down on a note and if you still want it after a month, purchase it then.

  1. Have a Buy Nothing Day.

  1. Walk down or take out your bicycle to round the corner shopping.

  1. Decide what is really working in your life and let go of that which no longer serves you.

  1. Brew your own coffee at home instead of spending time and money in that posh café corner.

  1. Find friends who know the glass is half-full or in other words, find friends who share the same value system as you do.

After all the above,

Always ask: Will this simplify my life? If the answer is no, reconsider.

Thanks for visiting my page.

With Love
Anbusivam

Happiness No comments yet

Counselor Chalisa…!!!

By anbusivam on February 4th, 2009

>Hello Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam’s Blog Page.

Hanuman Chalisa is a Hindi poem on Lord Hanuman written by Shri.Tulsidas, which is recited as a prayer by Hindus. The moment I came across an excellent poem on Counselors , I shared it with my DCS ( Diploma in Counseling Skills) classmates of Banjara Academy. I would say nothing else in this world can depict what counseling and counselors are all about as perfectly as this one poem does. I am really really grateful for the person who had written this wonderful poem. Its simply amazing combination of words together that makes a huge impact. And yes, we as counselors decided to recite this day in and day out. We named it “Counselor Chalisa”.

Here it goes:

“Counselor Chalisa”

I can’t give solutions to all of
life’s problems, doubts, or fears.
But I can listen to you and
together we will search for answers.


I can’t change your past with all it’s heartache and pain,
nor the future with it’s untold stories.
But I can be there now when you need me to care.

I can’t keep your
feet from stumbling.
I can only offer my hand
that you may grasp it
and not fall.

Your joys, triumphs, success,
and happiness are not mine;
Yet I can share in your laughter.

Your decisions in life are not mine to make, nor to judge;
I can only support you, encourage you,
and help you when you ask.

I can’t prevent you from

falling away from friendship,

from your values, from me.

I can only pray for you,

talk to you, and wait for you.

I can’t give you boundaries which I have determined for you,
But I can give you the room to change, room to grow,
room to be yourself.

I can’t keep your heart from breaking and hurting,
But I can cry with you and help you pick up the pieces
and put them back in place.

I can’t tell you who you are,

I can only love you and be your friend.

Thanks for visiting my page.

With Love,
Anbusivam

Leadership No comments yet

What is Leadership – an Art or a Science…?

By anbusivam on January 28th, 2009

>Hello Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam’s Blog Page.

Today in office at the lunch table, we were talking on Leadership in context with Satyam’s scam, I would say it’s indeed Ramalinga Raju’s fraud.

Then came a question: Leadership – is it an Art or a Science…???

One of my colleagues said, “Leadership is an art, not a science. It depends mostly on sensitivity to circumstances, courage to face reality and a continual willingness to do whatever it takes to bring others along with an artistic eye for the future”.

One another colleague said, “Leadership is a science, not an art. It purely depends on the ability to gather the data available around, gather tangible information and take appropriate decision on that for the future”.

I believe “Leadership is more of an art with some science. Its all about dealing with people and situations those would probably lead to a better future if led in the right way”.

What do you think on Leadership, is it an Art or a Science…???
Share your thoughts and comments.

Thanks for visiting my page.

With Love.
Anbusivam

Leadership 3 comments

Small Change Can Make Big Difference

By anbusivam on January 10th, 2009

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Hello Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam’s Blog Page.

Yes indeed its very true that, “A Small Change Can Make Big Difference” most of the time in many areas of our life.

A Better technical term that can well explain this idea is “Butterfly Effect” (or sometimes referred to a Chaos Theory). A butterfly’s soft tiny wings can make changes in the atmosphere, that may ultimately may alter the path of a Tornado, it may even create or prevent the occurrence of tornado at certain location. It doesn’t mean that flapping of a butterfly’s wings only can create tornado, but its a consecutive chain of effects whose initial conditions would be different if not because the flapping wings of a butterfly.

Does this Butterfly Effect play a role in our relationships….??? Yes to a great extent.

Small gestures and reciprocations could make a huge difference in the way our relationships take course. Most of the time we take things for granted in our close relations. We don’t even think of saying a Thank You to our parents, spouse or friends as we believe that they are obliged to do things for us, as after all we are there for them. Understanding some of the subtle feelings of our loved ones and supporting them the way they need (not the way we would need in a similar situation) would surely change the relationship into a stronger one. I’ve come across people who, feel pressure in their relationships now as they failed to address these small and subtle needs to nurture it into a stronger one.

Does this Butterfly Effect play a role in our work….??? Yes to a great extent.

Looking carefully to the smallest details while starting a project is very very critical in our work place too. A subtle mistake while getting our customer’s requirements would end up in a big trouble at the finishing of the product. This would definitely take a huge expense to correct at the final delivery stage.

Every morning, the time it takes for me to reach my office greatly depends on what time I start from my home. It usually takes 30mins if I start at 7.20am. It takes more than an hour if I start at 7.30am. I used to wonder how come just a 10mins difference in the initial condition makes a huge impact of more than 30mins at the destination. In fact the number of vehicles come out on the road increases more than twice in that 10mins delay and it literally looks like butterflies crowding on the road….:) Yes, this is nothing but a Butterfly effect.

Again, Yes indeed its very true that, “A Small Change Can Make Big Difference” most of the time in many areas of our life. We should be looking out for those subtle things, that can really make big difference.

Thank for visiting my page.

With Love,
Anbusivam

General 2 comments

New Year Afformations…!

By anbusivam on January 1st, 2009

>Hell0 Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam’s Blog Page.

Wishing you all a very prosperous New Year 2009.

Read it again….not Affirmations, its “Afformations“. Before we talk about Afformations, let me tell you something that happened last week. Last Friday after dinner we discussing on some movies and suddenly my sister brought in the topic of an old time singer who was my favorite in school days. Surprisingly I was not even remembering his name and tried all my best to recollect it by all means from my memory, but couldn’t. That night when I went to bed, I was unable to sleep without knowing the name of that singer. The question of What’s that singer’s name…? occupied my mind completely and it was a long night indeed.

Being a student of Human Mind, I just wondered how smart our mind is. It was literally stuck in a question, trying all means to find answer for that. Almost all of us are wired with this inherent curiosity to find/search answers for the questions posed to us in our lives. I was thinking how can this tendency of Human Mind to seek answers to the questions can be used in the field of self development.

After various searches in Google, I ended up with “Empowering Questions” which took me to this wonderful world of “Afformations” a word coined by Noha.St.John of The SuccessClinic. His wonderful book The Great Little Book of Afformations talks in detail about the power of Afformations.

Unlike affirmations, afformations are not just positive statements. Its all powerful positive questions. I’ve been using positive affirmations since my NLP days, but yes there is always a conflict between my conscious and subconscious mind each time I repeat my affirmation statements. As Noha says in his book, “I am rich” is indeed believed to be a positive affirmations. Important thing to notice here is do we sincerely believe this affirmation statement or do we doubt them..? Okie if I believe it and then, what’s next after this art of convincing ourselves with what we are not. Noha’s Afformations takes us to the next level, that is the new way of asking powerful questions to which our mind automatically try to find out the answers leading to greater results at the end.

According to Noha,

Affirmation –> “I am Rich”, this is a statement to which our mind says “Yeah, Right”. It all ends there most of the time.

Afformation –> “Why am I Rich?”, this is a powerful positive question to which our mind starts seeking/searching answers. In the process we find all possible means and ways to become rich actually.

In this New Year 2009, We can simply modify all our negative questions into positive, empowering questions which will cause our mind to focus on the positive possibilities.

Thanks for visiting my page.

With Love.
Anbusivam