'How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything': 'The Element' By Sir Ken Robinson

So I just finished reading The Element by Sir Ken Robinson, and ended up taking some notes, as usual. Thought I'd put them up here. Again, they are personal notes, focused on what I personally found relevant to myself- to get a full picture of the book, I'd encourage you to read it yourself. 

What is The Element?

The activity, passion or work that gets you 'in the zone'. 

Next up, Robinson talks about the 3 features of human intelligence:

1) It's extraordinarily diverse. You can be socially intelligent, spatial intelligent, emotionally intelligent, logically intelligent...the list goes on (I think there are a total of 12 such, but not too sure - Google it)

2)It is tremendously dynamic. Intellectual growth comes through embracing the dynamic nature of intelligence. 

3)Entirely distinctive: Every person's intelligence is as unique as their fingerprint. 

When we connect with our own energy we're more open to the energy of other people. The more alive we feel the more we can contribute to the lives of others. 

Disclaimer Number 1: People who have found their element are not 'in the zone' 24X7. They have their moments of 'down' time. 

Finding Your Tribe

Finding Your tribe means connecting with people who share their passion and a desire to make the most of themselves through it. 

It gives you validation, inspiration and the "alchemy of synergy".

Interaction with the field, in person, or through their work, is as vital to our development as time alone with our thoughts. 

It provides inspiration and provocation to raise the bar of your own achievements. 

When tribes gather in the same place, the opportunities for mutual inspiration can become intense. For example, in ancient Greece, philosophy emerged through a series of interlinked groups- Plato's friends, Aristotle's school, Socrates' circle.

"Do You Feel Lucky?"

1. Lucky people tend to maximize chance opportunities. They're especially adept at creating, noticing and acting upon these opportunities when they arise. 

2. They tend to be very effective at listening to their intuition and do work that is designed to boost their intuitive abilities. 

3. They tend to expect to be lucky, creating a series of self-fulfilling prophecies because they go into the world anticipating positive outcome. 

4. They have an attitude that allows them to turn bad luck into good. They don't allow ill-fortune to overwhelm them, and they move quickly to take control of the situation when it is not going well for them. 

Perhaps not appropriate for a summary, but here's an example Robinson gives in the book to illustrate the four points above: 

In a social experiment, a scientist by the name of Dr Wiseman arranged to meet two self-proclaimed “lucky” and “unlucky” people for separate interviews at a café, a venue which seemed neutral but was staged by Wiseman.  He arranged for the place to be so packed with customers, there was only one free chair, next to a wealthy businessman.   Wiseman also put a $5 bill on the front step of the coffee shop.  The “unlucky” interviewee arrived, and because his thoughts were anxiously focused on the interview, he walked right past the $5 bill.  He sat down at the café’s only free seat, next to the businessman, and did not speak a word to him, but simply waited nervously for the interview.  When Wiseman arrived, he asked the interviewee, “So, how was your morning?”  The reply was, “Oh, nothing special.  Same as usual…”

When the “lucky” subject arrived, he saw the $5 bill, picked it up, and pocketed it. After sitting down next to the businessman, he struck up a conversation and the two ended up exchanging business cards. When Wiseman arrived and asked him “So, how was your morning?” he responded, “I had a great morning! I found a five-spot on the step and met a promising new business acquaintance.  Lucky as usual!”

-> 'If we keep our focus too tight, we miss the rest of the world swirling around us.'. ...

^THIS.. Something I feel have learnt, to a certain extent, but need to more fully incorporate into my life. On another note, maybe I'll write my next blog post about this...

On The Role Of Mentors... 

Mentors are very important. Period. 

1. A mentors who has already found 'The Element' in a particular discipline can help you find your Element in that discipline, by recognizing the spark of interest.

2. Encouragement- mentors lead us to believe that we can achieve something that seemed improbable or impossible to us before we met them. 

3. Facilitating- Offering advice and techniques, paving the way for us, standing by us to help us recover from our mistakes. 

4. Stretching- They push us past what see as our limits. 

Final Points

- You don't necessarily have to be making a living from your passion to be in Your Element. You can do it for recreation. 

- It is not necessary to drop everything else. For some people, at some stages in their lives, leaving their current jobs or roles to pursue their passions simply isn't a practical proposition. 

Final Disclaimer: Discovering the Element doesn't promise to make your richer. Quite the opposite, actually, as exploring your passions might lead you to leave behind that career as an investment banker to follow your dream of opening a pizzeria. Nor does it promise to make you more famous, more popular or even a bigger hit with your family. 

However, for everyone, being in their Element, even for part of the time, can bring a new richness and balance to their lives. 

P.S. :

Started reading the sequel of this book, 'Finding Your Element', but realized one chapter in that it is something I'll be working with and getting back to over and over again, until I find 'it'.

What I'm Reading: The Element by Sir Ken Robinson

Reading Sir Ken Robinson's 'The Element': 

Here's an excerpt I really liked :

The teacher asked the girl what she was drawing. Without looking up, the girl said, 'I'm drawing a picture of God.' Surprised, the teacher said, 'But nobody knows what God looks like.' The girl replied, 'They will in a minute'.

On another note, his iconic talk 'Do Schools Kill Creativity' just completed ten years. If you haven't seen it yet, it's a must watch!:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY&w=320&h=266]

More to follow about this book- might post a personalized summary of what I learn from it... Stay tuned!

An 8 year old and his ‘Secret Treasure’

...On Practice — your Secret Treasure, and the Power of having a Growth Mindset

Circa 2004, my 8 year old self went up on stage and performed a bunch of monologues from Harry Potter, all by myself. I had never performed on stage alone before. I knew nothing about acting. The thought of going up on stage would give me chills. I would start shaking whenever I had to say something in front of an audience. I was introverted, shy, and didn’t like attention- clearly not the kind of kid who you’d imagine would get into acting. But I did…

There was a huge dramatics event in school where two students from every class would perform a character from a novel in front of the entire school. The performers would be selected through auditions. Being a curious child who loved to try everything new, I signed up. I worked hard on my audition. I made sure I had memorized each and every line such that I could repeat even in my sleep. I also practiced my delivery along with my Dad who had experience with acting. I did all this, not out of any desire to win, or to get to perform in front of the entire school (The thought of doing so actually scared me), but more out of fear of screwing up my audition really bad- I thought that since I had signed up to try something new, I should at least give it my best shot. It turned out that the teachers who took my audition liked my performance a lot, and somehow, I beat the other kids in my class and got selected. And ended up performing in front of the entire elementary school consisting of a 1000 kids and a 100 teachers. I wasn’t as good on stage as I had been while practicing at home- I was really nervous, and my legs were shaking, but they were well-hidden by the baggy pants that I was wearing, so that was convenient. It was still pretty good I guess, considering I received praise and appreciation from fellow students and teachers after the performance.

Fast- forward to 6th grade. I was taking a dramatics class. My teacher didn’t regard me as a good actor, and gave me a B- in the first term. Again, I was that shy, unassertive, introverted kid who’d sit in the corner, and never ask for bigger roles, always being content with whatever little roles that I got in class. That year, I took part in a dramatics competition. I was really not expecting to win. I knew there were better actors out there, especially now that I was competing against 7th graders and 8th graders. Even after my first successful performance a few years ago, I didn’t consider myself particularly good at acting- ‘that performance was just luck and practice, I’m not a natural actor’, I told myself. After the competition, when the second prize was announced, I was pleasantly surprised to hear my name. I later performed my act in my dramatics class and received immense praise from my teacher and fellow classmates. “He acts well”, they said and I was like “wow, I guess I do, now that I’ve done it twice.” At the same time, I felt a slight sense of guilt and embarrassment: I thought that I had tricked everyone into believing that I was a good actor, when all I had done was just practice really hard. I was certain that if anyone practiced that hard, they’d probably beat me. I was like a kid who has found a secret treasure.

I should let them think that I am a good actor, I’ll just practice really hard every time and win, and they’ll never know.

Next year again I took part in a dramatics competition. This time, determined to win again, and to keep everyone thinking that I was actually good, I put in hours and hours of practice, completely ignoring everything else, including my studies. I ended up winning the first prize. And again, everyone said, “Oh, he’s such a good actor”. I was really happy but also wanted to tell them: “hey I’m actually not, I just practiced really hard”. More than anything else, I realized that I loved acting, and I loved entertaining people. So I got involved with acting a lot more. I participated in workshops and competitions, and developed my skill.

My experience with public speaking was very similar. I had always shied away from public speaking before 9th grade. In 9th grade, I decided to go at it, and signed up for an event where I had to make a speech on a particular topic on stage- I worked hard at it: first, on preparing a good speech, and then on memorizing all my lines to perfection, and practicing my enunciation. I managed to deliver a decent speech- it wasn’t the best, but hey, it was the first time I had given a speech on stage, and I didn’t screw up, so I was happy. Gradually, as high school progressed, I got more involved in public speaking, and had become a much better speaker by the time I graduated. Today sometimes people tell me, “oh, you speak well on stage. I don’t.”, or “you have that talent”. Or, “Oh, it’s hard for me, but you can do it easily.” Fact is, that even today, I don’t consider myself a great public speaker. I have learnt the tricks and the techniques, sure. And I have becoming better at practicing, and I know the effective ways of practicing. But at the end of the day, it is still all about practice. Even now, whenever I speak on stage, no matter how small my part is, I still practice with the same amount of effort and dedication as I did when I gave my first speech on stage back in 9th grade.

Why did I just reflect on all of that?

Because there are certain things I felt I needed to remind myself of:

1. First, is the belief that just because you aren’t good at something right now, doesn’t mean that you can’t become great at it. In other words, having a growth mindset: (from a post by Ameet Ranadive)

2. The other thing is practice. When the world sees a great show, they see ‘natural talent’, they don’t see the practice.

Practice is your little secret treasure.

No matter how good the world thinks you have become. Dedicate yourself to it. Love it. And do it like you’re giving your first speech, or performing for the first time, or playing your first match, or writing your first big blog post, or your first side-project or whatever it is that you do. Do it like you did when you first started.

If you liked reading this post, do comment below. This will encourage me to write more :)

How to Understand People- Lessons from a College Psych Class

I’m currently reading The Art of People, by Dave Kerpen and I highly recommend it! There’s a section in the book which talks about how to ‘get’ people. ‘I just don’t get him’ — how often have we heard that?

But it’s important to ‘get’ people. ‘The first step in influencing people is understanding them’…

When I was reading this, I began to reflect on this course I had taken last semester, on motivational psychology. It was a very interesting course, which focused on a theory of human motivation called the Self-Determination Theory. According to this theory, humans have three basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness. Autonomy refers to feeling a sense of control over your own life, and feeling that you have the power to make your own choices about your life. Competence refers to feeling that you are capable, or competent, to achieve the goals that you have- essentially feeling good about your abilities and skills. Relatedness is essentially feeling close and connected to other people.

According to the Self-Determination Theory, our happiness and well-being are essentially a function of these three needs. When these three needs are satisfied, we feel happy and intrinsically motivated. When they’re not, we experience negative emotions of some kind and are not able to live to our complete potential. For instance, if your friend who lost the basketball game is feeling low and bad about himself, it’s because his need for competence is deprived. A little encouragement from you could really make him/her feel better. Remind them of the times when they won, of the times when they scored more points than anyone else, and tell them that it’s just a bad day, and that they will be better next time because they are capable.

Okay, so everyone has needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness…does that mean everyone is the same?..

Nope, it doesn’t mean that everyone is the same. The extent to which people feel the needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness is different in every person. Some people have a greater need for autonomy than others- they have a greater desire to feel in control of their life and their time and their choices. Such people may be easily angered or frustrated when someone tries to meddle into their life too much. Some may have a greater need for relatedness and would always want to feel connected and loved. Others may have a greater need for competence and would always strive to excel and win, and may get disappointed or angered when they don’t or when someone questions their ability to succeed.

If you’re able to understand the differences in people based on their needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness, then you’ll be better able to form friendships and long lasting connections with them, and even influence them in positive ways. For example, if you identify that this person has a greater need for autonomy, try to give them their space and try not to be too pushy with them. Or, if you meet someone who seems to have a greater need for competence, try to make them feel good about themselves, especially when they’re in doubt about their own competence.

What I’ve written in this post is certainly not everything you need to know about understanding people- if I knew everything, I’d probably have been the author of The Art of People. I’m still learning myself. But there are two things that I’ve learnt and would like to imbibe in my life:

1. If you can make an effort to see people’s behaviors and emotions as a result of their satisfaction or lack of satisfaction of any of the three psychological needs, then you’re in a position to better connect with them or help them if needed.
2. If you can identify what kind of a person they are based on whether they seek autonomy, competence or relatedness the most, it can help you understand them better, and you can (and should) direct your behaviors towards them in a manner which doesn’t hurt or deprive them of their autonomy, competence or relatedness.

I hope you learnt something from this post: If you did, please like, comment and share!

Life Lessons from a Street Food Vendor

*originally published on medium

I had falafel on rice for lunch today- it was amazing, as always. I go to this halal guy every weekend. He recognizes me now.

He is from Turkey- he and his brother came to the states and set up a small Halal cart chain with six carts in Upper West Side. I have been eating from a lot of Halal carts across the city during my stay in New York, but I have to say that this fellow is by far the best I’ve come across- not because his food is the best, but because of the love and respect with which he treats his customers, and the energy and passion with which he does his job.

Today, we got talking a little more than usual. He asked me if I go to Columbia. I said, ‘no, I’m in the city for an internship.’ And then I added, hopefully someday I will.
‘Of course you will’, he said. ‘If you work hard, you can get anything in life.’ He went on, sounding like an elder brother: ‘My father always used to tell me that no matter what you want in life, work hard. No matter it is- your studies, your fitness, your job…always work hard. Even if you’re the smartest person, if you don’t work hard you won’t get anything… and now I know, my father was right.’At this point, I almost wanted to tell him: ‘thanks for the motivation, man, but what about you though?… you’re here selling me falafel for a living — don’t you want a better life? Why don’t you work hard?..’
Then, after a short pause, he started again, almost as if he had read my mind: he told me that he’s studying architecture in college- he attends college and studies on weekdays, and helps his brother with his business on weekends. Despite having school five days a week, he comes to work on weekends with a happy face, and treats customers with utmost care and respect… And I thought my life was hard. Hats off to this guy for doing what he does.
He showed me today that there are no excuses in life and no one to blame. Every morning is a fresh challenge. Either you learn to pick yourself up and fight or learn to surrender to it.
As an old Indian poet once said, ‘So long as there is life, there is struggle’