Life | Transitions Intl - Part 4
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Transitions Intl / Life
6 September 2013 In Lead From Within, Leadership, Life, Personal & Professional Development By Lalita Raman

What Michael Jackson Teaches Us About Leadership and Life?

Last Sunday, I watched the Michael Jackson THE IMMORTAL World Tour show by Cirque Du Soleil. I’ve always been a big fan of Cirque Du Soleil. There is a lot to be learnt about life and leadership from their shows, which I shall cover in a later post. Watching the show, I couldn’t help think about the impact that Michael Jackson made through his music and his songs. His songs had and have a lot to offer on love, life, leadership, humanity, team spirit, togetherness, leaning in, and every little things that matters in life.  Despite several criticisms, if you look at the legend that this man was, you will realize that Michael Jackson expressed his charisma, hope, humanity, compassion, sincerity and love through his music. Some of my favorite Michael Jackson quotes are: “Hope is such a beautiful word, but it often seems very fragile. Life is still being needlessly hurt and destroyed.” ― Michael Jackson In a world filled with hate, we must still dare to hope. In a world filled with anger, we must still dare to comfort. In a world filled with despair, we must still dare to dream. And in a world filled with distrust, we must still dare to believe.”

3 September 2013 In Character, Emotions, Lead From Within, Leadership, Life, Personal & Professional Development By Lalita Raman

Does Your Behavior Reflect Who You Are or Desire To Be?

→ How often are you inspired by a person whom you meet or read or hear about? → What is it about them that makes you listen or to follow what they are doing or learn a lesson or two from them? A friend of mine, Carole called me last week saying she wanted to meet me. Carole is one of the most cheerful person I know and on that call she sounded hassled, frustrated and dejected. I know she had suffered a huge financial loss recently having trusted someone she thought was a friend. The trust that she had placed on this person was misused, mishandled and every aspect of her belief and friendship was broken. I had learnt from her that she was making efforts to get her money back and the process had been none too easy. When I met her that day, she shared with me her experience with a person whom she had met with regard to getting her money back. This person whom she met is wealthy, well-connected and this is a known fact among most people in the city we live. Now you would think, this person would have some class and it is not necessary for him to

2 September 2013 In Change, Coaching, Leadership, Life, Personal & Professional Development By Lalita Raman

Are You “A Wannabe” or “A Go Getter”?

You meet your friend Jane for a coffee and in the midst of her conversation with you, she remarks, you know I love writing and am planning to write a book. I want to finish writing at least four books before the end of 2013 and publish it over the course of the first quarter in 2014. You meet her after 3 months and ask her how she is progressing with her book. She says she has made little progress but she is going to focus and get it started with renewed vigor. You meet Jane again after two months and she has not made any significant progress on her book. It is already July and she is still procrastinating on her first book. You wonder how she is going to make her dream of finishing four books by the end of 2013 achievable. How often have you heard yourself and others wish similar things? Are these just dreams or wild wishes that cannot be translated to reality? I hear an overwhelming “no”, from you. So what makes dreams come into reality ? We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort

1 September 2013 In Coaching, Comfort Zone, Life, Personal & Professional Development By Lalita Raman

When The Going Gets Tough

“I’m stuck.” “I feel I’m running on a hamster wheel with no scope to get off. “ “I’ve no time to think or look at anything else because I’m always swamped with so many things I’ve to do.” How often have you felt this way or heard your friends, partners, colleagues say this at various points in your day or their day? Several of my coaching relationships start at this point. We all go through this at several points in our life or at specific points in our day. Is it a regular phenomena or something you feel at specific points in your day or specific periods of time at a stretch? If you look around you, you’ll realize many people are stressed out or at a breaking point. What are these stressors ? Is it with work? Is it with some transitions that you are going through at work or in life? Is it with overall life in general in terms of your dreams and priorities? What is the cause of these stressors?  Is it fear of being dispensable and losing your job or not being able to advance in your area of talent? Or being forced on account of lack of choices ? What about your day-to-day stressors? Is it because you are

1 September 2013 In Character, Coaching, Communication, Habits, Lead From Within, Leadership, Life, Personal & Professional Development By Lalita Raman

Live Life By “Letting Go”

Life is the best teacher, a friend, a soul mate. She teaches you what none others can teach and it is in living life through the challenges she throws at us is what makes life. There are things in life you can’t hold on for ever and life isn’t for ever either. Life from the day you are born, moment by moment, tells you to let go. Nothing lasts forever, you are at this stage in your life because you have let go of your childhood, your youth, some of your age-old habits and idiosyncrasies. Through the years of your life to date, you may have different ways of doing things, you may have changed your job, your career or possibly even some of your relationships that were not working for you. In the transitions in life be it natural, by accident or by choice, you have been able to move forward because you have let go of something. Yet, there are modes in your lives where you continue to grip on some things that you expect to last forever. You refuse to Let Go. This could apply to your relationships, projects that you have put your heart and soul and yet don’t

31 August 2013 In Coaching, Customer Service and Sales, Employee Engagement, Leadership, Life, Organizational Leadership, Personal & Professional Development By Lalita Raman

How Are You Connecting With People?

Businesses and organizations run because of the people, the relationships and the connections between people. When we network with people we look for common interests or topics to break the ice, strike a conversation and thereafter get into a discussion. In a business scenario, during interviews, a set of questions is asked by different people in an organization of a potential candidate. In each of these situations, be it at work (or in daily life), there is  judgment being made based on skills, qualifications, the ability to make an elevator speech, the way a person talks or present themselves, all of which are external factors.  Also, in today’s age of social media, there is an eagerness to strike a conversation with people who have large number of followers, or if they are famous. Again these are extrinsic factors. However, part of the judgment rests with our own gut feel or our intuition. In today’s world there seems to be a lot of communication and modes of communication but is real connection happening? Leaders connect because they are human and understand that trust and rapport can’t be built without real connection. Meaningful communication is possible only with real connection. How do you connect?

30 August 2013 In Coaching, Employee Engagement, Leadership, Life, Organizational Leadership, Personal & Professional Development By Lalita Raman

The Human Touch to Leadership

In today’s day and age we are bombarded by more stimuli than ever before. This stimuli can be from various sources like social media, emails, chats, demands from the real world and from every possible source. Amidst this stimuli, we are expected to be thoughtful and yet give responses in nano seconds or a fraction thereof. In this environment of keeping up to demands, not feeling left out or as if we missed the boat, we create feelings of vacuum and stress within ourselves and amongst others. Now let’s take the situation of Emily who is either looking to diversify her business or seeking to change her job or starting up a new business venture. She is excited, enthusiastic, is eager to make connections and engages with different people from various walks of life. She meets various types of personalities in this journey. Who are you among these personalities? FOR FULL POST REFER LINK For Coaching, Facilitating, Speaking and Conducting Workshops Connect

11 June 2013 In Change, Coaching, Leadership, Life, Personal & Professional Development By Lalita Raman

Do Your Habits Determine You ?

A friend of mine, Jane, a senior manager with a FMCG company, manages six direct reports who in turn manage four to five people each. Jane to us, is one of the most enthusiastic, authentic and a gregarious person. When she started leading a team, about 4 years back, she faced issues of underperformance from her team. She did not realize that this underperformance was mainly from her leadership skills or rather from one of her age-old habits. She initially attributed the reasons for underperformance to pressures of time and lack of resources. She decided to hire a coach after reflecting on the consistent underperformance of her team. It was only then that she realized that it was her habit of assuming that her team understood and bought into every change that was introduced, was the key reason for the disconnect. We are all creatures of habit, good or bad. Some of these habits we are unaware of just like Jane, till we start reflecting, and making ourselves aware and then looking at the consequences. We become what we repeatedly do. Did you know that our subconscious mind is much more powerful than our conscious mind? It is our subconscious mind - the habitual

4 June 2013 In Coaching, Comfort Zone, Leadership, Life, Organizational Leadership, Personal & Professional Development By Lalita Raman

How Are You Living Your Values?

It is Friday evening and you are looking forward to your long  overdue vacation. You are working on the final touches of your proposal to get a new line of business approved. The proposal is almost ready barring some details on some legal challenges that you are  awaiting from your legal department. You receive the legal opinion and when you read it, you realize that a key element is missing. Not considering this aspect might hurt the franchise of the business in the future. The only person aware about this is you and none else. What would you do? Would you rather let it go because you’ll never be found out or blamed or would you listen to your inner voice which tells you how important it is to highlight this specific legal risk. What is this inner voice that whispers to you at various moments in your day and life. A whisper to the effect “There is no way you can do that. it’s not right”. Each of us have core values whether we realize it or not. Core values is what is imbibed in us from the day we are born. Some values we instill in us as we are growing. Values sit within

20 May 2013 In Change, Coaching, Comfort Zone, Leadership, Life, Personal & Professional Development, Yoga By Lalita Raman

Top 5 Leadership Lessons From YOGA

Are you wondering what yoga has to do with leadership? I have done yoga for almost 10 years and I still continue to learn not only the yoga poses but what yoga can teach about myself, life and leadership. When I started yoga 10 years back, it was purely as an exercise and to improve my flexibility. Most of the yoga instructors will tell you that yoga is a connection between mind, body and soul and the common link is through your breath. I used to hear this but never quite understood the real essence. My journey with yoga in the first two-three years, was one of hate and love. However, where I stand today with yoga is one of love, where I have learnt to overcome some of my frustrations of inflexibility. This is where yoga is like leadership, in that a leader doesn’t take credit only when the going is good but stands through tough times and journeys through them. Leadership Lessons 1) Humility - most start-off with yoga with the aim to be able to do all the complicated poses. Some of us are able to do these poses easily whilst some others aren’t. If you are able to do almost all the