Lessons from my leadership failure

Today I failed someone as a leader.

I was unaware of the difficulties and emotions going on for them in other parts of their life. When they shared a need that contradicted our prior agreement along with an ultimatum I told them they should feel free to utilize the ultimatum as the agreement cannot change.

The agreement was based on my needs and the needs of the business and thus came out of respect for myself and something larger than myself. I did not give them the choice of emotional closure as I felt the relationship did not have a chance of lasting as a long term one. This work relationship was 8 months. That is longer than any romantic relationship I have had and this person therefore had a special place in my heart.

My failure came in not realizing his emotional state and realities of his situation. It also came at being unable to motivate him through praise when he needed it most. While better than many people, I have a lot to learn about connecting with people emotionally and influencing them. I am thankful dear God for this lesson you have given me. Please help me as I strive to inculcate this in my life and learn better and better ways of being. Ameen.

Believing in myself when corporate world doesnt

Many of all the consulting offers I am getting from my outreach efforts are leaving me frustrated. The taking advantage--inadequate or no pay offers, demeaning what I offer, and the talks of how my past successes were low hanging fruit are jarring my awareness. BS u little good for nothings. I am amazing and great at what I do. I will reach heights of achievement. And then you will wonder what made you miss it. And even if you don't trust me I will get better results than you ever dreamed of in you puny little offices.

I believe in myself and my power. I value myself as higher than anything these guys could pay me.

Get network goal up in 3 months.

Emotions tearing you? Love yourself.

Just had a great morning of contrast and resultant expansion. About 40 mins ago I was not flowing with the expansion. Meditating did not help me flow either. Turns out my ego was pulling me apart. A part of me wanted to believe I was right in behaving a certain way while that another part of me was guilting me for. The thought process that allowed this conflict was that sometimes one has to take a hard and difficult stance for justice. And the emotional after tearing is just part of that decision.

But today I realized that it doesn't have to be. Emotions are a result of thoughts. An emotion of guilt should be examined for any teaching it gives regarding whether an action should have been avoided or been better in some way. Once that examination has been made. Love and trust yourself. You are not bad. You are simply learning. Tell yourself to remember to use that learning in the next situation and then enjoy all that you have in this moment and all that you are doing and planning to do in this moment.

Love yourself. There is never a need for suffering.

Three tips to more effectively dealing with criticism

Forgive the critic right away, even those who have bad intentions.

Not forgiving them hurts your own ability to feel good and focus on that which you want.

Think about the potential for truth

If you can find any use it as feedback to change your behavior positivity. Monitor your progress. They have given you a gift. Thank them and the universe for it.

Don’t dwell on the giver of criticism, his or her impression of you, or the possibility of future criticism

Dwelling simply makes one depressed. Instead think of the beauty in them and specifically the beauty in their criticism. Regardless of anything else a human being's ability to persist in using tactless methods to change behavior is just as amazing as their ability to change behavior tactfully by using kind words at the right moment.

Random beauty of the broken hearted

I had the randomest, most beautiful experience today. A conversation about green cards with Surinder, the owner of an Indian restaurant I frequent, turned towards his breakup and then mine. It is amazing how healing it is to see your pain reflected in someone else. The disbelief, the inner emptiness, the memories, the love, the pain… And despite all this a level of acceptance. The desire to share one’s story and one’s feelings with others. Many times this is not to get advice but simply to get sympathy for one’s feelings and sense someone’s desire to uplift you. I felt this was mutual for me and Surinder as we spoke about our heart breaks. It felt so good to be united in such a way with another human being.

It feels even better to see the commitment and tenderness some men have for the women in their lives. It reminds me of the reality I aspire to create in my life.

Learning from the old romance

As the days go by after your ending our romance I keep getting more lessons about my creations in the relationship. Last night I realized my need to control due to fear. Today I realized that fear is the fear of a sweet little girl, who is so afraid of being judged and not loved. Two days ago I was regretting that I wasn't able to show you all my love. And now I realize most of our time together was love. Lots of love. Deep deep love. I miss you my jaan. I pray that someday we are both able to find even more beautiful love with each other or with someone else.

May be loving means accepting someone warts and all. May be moments with a lover are like a that warm honey mixture whose warmth and love you can feel many days after leaving also. I wasn't very kind to you about the parts of you I did not like. Neither was I allowing of these. I for my part plan to work on this in the future.

I must remember to love the humanness of someone just as much as I love the strength of their spirit. This is especially true in times when I bring intense needs to the relationship as only so much can be fulfilled by the other person.

Powerfully changing how we learn

There is a part of our brain that filters various forms of stimulation and creates a subset of stimuli we pay attention to. What we pay attention to often determines our path towards successfully accomplishing our goals or not. Learning occurs when we choose to reorient out thinking to different kinds of stimuli than we were before.

Three things help reorient our filtering system:
1. the need you feel at a specific point in time. Ex. if you feel pain you usually try to attribute your pain to something that causes the pain
2. Your view of yourself and the world
3. Goals that are in our conscious awareness due to your thinking about them

The more we choose to clarify what we want the more we will notice what behavior and actions take us closer towards those wants and what detracts from them. We can then eliminate the behaviors that take us away from our goals and increase the behaviors that take us towards them. This is a much more powerful and fast way of learning than ignoring the score increases and decreases of our actions and waiting for large external indicators or an authority to tell us what works best.