Personal Mastery

Self Leadership is the price tag of our leadership

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My mentor John Maxwell says all the time that everything worthwhile in life is uphill. It’s uphill all the way. Our dreams, our relationships, our goals, and everything valuable in life are all uphill. That’s why you and I need to be super intentional because we only go uphill if we are intentional. The problem in today’s world is that people usually have uphill aspirations and downhill habits. You see, one can’t climb uphill with downhill habits. That is why most people don’t lead their lives; they accept life because they are not ready for an intentional upward journey, and they love to coast in their life.

The only way to go uphill is through self-leadership. Someone can’t have continuous success in life with downhill habits. It’s faster, easier, quicker downhill than it is uphill. If you have many uphill days and a few downhill days, they will cancel out all the uphill days. You will wipe out your 3 or 4 days of climbing with just one day of coasting. There is no such thing as accidental success in life. If I want to write a book, I should keep marching forward by writing one letter at a time.

Are you having uphill aspirations and downhill habits? It’s time for a reality check. You cannot become what you need by remaining who you are. It’s about time for you and me to stop waiting for the man or woman we want to become and start being the man or woman we want to be. No one ever improves by accident. Once you are done with your college education, you must take complete ownership of the personal development process since nobody else will do it for you.

Self-leadership is the bridge between intentions and actions. It makes habit your servant instead of your master. Let me tell you the strangest open secret of this world – either you pay now and play later or play now and pay later. No matter what life expects, you to pay. The question is whether you would like to pay on the front end or pay on the backend. The longer you wait to pay, the more you need to pay.

Uphill climbing Vs. Downhill sliding

  • Everything worthwhile is uphill climbing, and nothing worthwhile is downhill sliding. 
  • You get wins by uphill climbing, and you will get losses by downhill sliding.
  • You will be preparing by uphill climbing and repairing or fixing something by downhill sliding. 
  • High morale is uphill climbing, and low morale is downhill sliding. 
  • High self-respect is uphill climbing, and Low self-respect is downhill sliding. 
  • Self-improvement is uphill climbing, and no-improvement is downhill climbing. 
  • You are purposeful during uphill climbing, and you are aimless during downhill climbing. 
  • You are fulfilled during uphill climbing, and you are emptied during downhill climbing. 
  • You are making a difference during uphill climbing, and you are not making any difference during downhill climbing. 
  • Emotions without thinking are like downhill sliding, and emotions with right thinking are like uphill climbing. 

Consistency is the prerequisite of excellence. Therefore my first and foremost advice to you is never to underestimate the compounding impact of consistency. If we don’t grow, the most significant loss in life will be at the end because that’s when all the compounding takes place. Therefore our future, our growth, depends on what we do daily.

Fish that move in the same direction and speed as the river are the dead ones floating on top. Fish have a mission, and they swim in the direction necessary to achieve their goals. Life is like a river that always flows onward, and we must choose to either “go with the flow” or swim in the direction we decide to achieve our purpose and goal in life.

Before you go…

If you enjoyed this post, you would love my book, “Don’t Coast”

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Learn to trust the process

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We should learn to value or trust the process more than the event. Are you thinking that reading a book or listening to a motivational speaker would create miracles in your life? Of course, the answer is no. Never overestimate the importance of an event and underestimate the power of the process. You might get the inspiration to start the process by attending an event. But, the process is ongoing learning which takes consistent, deliberate effort to grow each day. In other words, the process is more important than the event for a growth-conscious mindset. Therefore, attending an event or motivational talk or reading a book should only be considered a triggering point to learn a new habit or skill. What you do daily to hone that skill is what matters ultimately.

I watched a construction activity on a site right next to our office many years ago for many months. Initially, the land was sealed off with iron sheets with an entrance to the site before the commencement of the construction activity. After a few days, the digging started, and it went deeper and deeper each day. From my office desk on the 4th floor, I would look down to see the work going on every now and then during the day. I watched the engineers begin the digging for the foundation using hydraulic diggers. Later every day for the next few weeks, I noticed trucks shifting the soil out of the site. We know that longevity, stability, and safety indeed depend on its deep and stable foundation. Since I have an aerial view of the construction site, I could see what was going on in the site. However, for those walking next to the site along the road, it would appear that nothing is going on in the site since they cannot see anything visible.

After a couple of months, the earthwork was completed. The team started working on anti-termite treatment since termite infestation can weaken the building structure and damage wooden materials. Later, using reinforced steel bars, the engineers began building the framework for the foundation, followed by concrete work. After many months the foundation could reach the ground level. After the base was established, engineers started to build the walls. Almost after six months, people on the outside began seeing the building going up. However, I understood how much effort had gone in from my office, and the time it took for the building to get to that level. For some of the people looking from the outside, it appears that the building had come up ‘overnight,’ which was quite surprising for them when noticed for the first time. It is quite analogous to the illusion of ‘overnight successes. There is nothing like an overnight success, and it is a myth. You have to work for months and years to become an overnight success.

Let me give you a few examples and situations when we totally and absolutely ‘trust’ the process because we are extremely sure about the end result. Some people follow a hard diet because they know that the outcome of weight loss or getting back in shape is worth it after a few months. I am sure some of you might have already had the experience of enduring a long drive by bus, car, train, or flight because you always reminded yourself about the beautiful destination waiting for you at the end of the journey. Sometimes we take a headache pill and instantly feel relieved because we are sure that the tablet would start working within no time.

Trusting the process is long-term insightful thinking. It merely means a robust, resilient, and almost unshakable faith that keeps us going through difficult times with little complaints. It is because we’ve been continuously reminding ourselves about the end destination. For an athlete, trusting the process might mean having faith in his training abilities and his dreams of attaining success. It might be studying hard for a student and believing in himself that to clear the year-end or admission test with an excellent grade or rank. For a building contractor or engineer, trusting the process means having enough patience and faith to imagine a beautiful building upon looking at an empty piece of land. Trusting the process will give you the power to keep marching forward instead of feeling agitated, nervous, angry, or impatient because you’ve not arrived yet.

If you trust the process, you will stop asking how long it will take and start thinking about how far you can go. You will accept both positives and negatives, rewards and pains, sweat and tears, darkness and light during your journey to become the person you wanted to be. It increases your patience levels; the more patient you are, the more likely that you’ll be able to achieve great things and make all your dreams come true.

When you invest in your growth daily, you will notice small but progressive changes. After a while, people will start noticing that you’re not the same person that you used to be. Tell them the process you followed and be a rainmaker to support their growth journey. We all get the same 168 hours a week. Eight hours per day work and eight hours per day for sleep. It means a total of 16 hours per day. Therefore we have a total of 56 hours to pursue our goals and grow.

I want to make every hour count pursue my growth journey. After two decades of completing post-graduation from SV University, Tirupati, India, in 2001, all the hustle has led me to something. Today, I am working as the Managing Director of an IT company in Hyderabad. I am also a certified Trainer, Coach, and Speaker with The John Maxwell Team, USA, and my bigger dream is still alive. I have tasted success, and I want more of it. I want to grow, help, build, impact, serve others, and leave a legacy before getting buried.

Before you go…

If you enjoyed this post, you would love my book, “Don’t Coast”

Grab your copy from the below links:

You can subscribe to my social media channels:

Reflective Thinking

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#LeadTip: Self-reflection is an important development tool. Reflection is the ability to think back, observe yourself in action, and learn from it. It allows you to hit the pause button and ensure that you are still on track and not pushing forward in a direction you shouldn’t be going. 

What you reflect on always determines what you will learn. There is no doubt that leaders should believe in the future more and move forward when things go wrong. It is also important for leaders to spend a short amount of time reflecting on past errors in a productive manner. I call it reflective thinking, and it’s a discipline I practice regularly. Reflective thinking helps me understand what worked well and what didn’t. Mining the best takeaways from both successes and failures will help you to get better every day. 

A ‘5R’ approach can be helpful for those who want to practice reflective thinking.

  1. Review – Knowing what you messed up yesterday will help you plan a better tomorrow.
  2. Reflect – Think deeply to prevent your tomorrow from falling into the same traps as your yesterday. 
  3. Recover – Letting yourself feel bad for a short time will motivate you to fix what can be fixed and move forward.
  4. Rearrange – Realign your priorities in line with your learnings as needed.
  5. Recharge – Dwelling on the past with an eye toward the future allows you to bounce back with double the vigor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before you go…

If you enjoyed this post, you would love my book, “Don’t Coast”

Grab your copy from the below links:

You can subscribe to my social media channels:

What’s Your Talent?

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One question that bothers everyone is how do I understand my natural abilities? Just because you fail to see your amazing qualities doesn’t mean that they are not there. Now the question is, how can you delve deeper into the awareness and understanding of your own strengths? Well, the below information given by Gallop Inc could be of great use for you to uncover your hidden talent and hone it further.

  • Rapid learning: Certain things, no matter how good the teacher is, you don’t learn well. However, few things you learn fast. You love the learning experience, and they make you feel like you are hard-wired for it. Keep an eye on such items.
  • Flow: As you are doing your work/activities, sometimes steps will come to you automatically as if it is programmed in your brain though you are not necessarily qualified for it. Make a record of such things.
  • Glimpses of Excellence: As you are doing something, do you suddenly get to feeling that you did something extraordinary that only a few people can do? This is fantastic and is an indication of who you are.
  • Satisfaction: These are signs of satisfaction. You may be really tired, but when you get involved in doing this particular activity, you get the energy and sense of joy. When you start experiencing such an energizing experience, it indicates one of your focus areas in life.
  • Yearnings: Have you ever watched someone perform an activity and found yourself saying, “I want to do that!” We will have these kinds of feelings during the very early stages of life. Yearning is much like a pull of magnetic force, leading you to do a particular activity repeatedly.

It would help if you start doing something every day that scares you, whether it is speaking in a different language like English, debating on a topic with a friend, talking to strangers, participating in social forums or book reading programs, etc. You should come out of your comfort zone and enter into your courage zone. According to various studies on successful people, 60% of your activities should be in your comfort zone, and 40% should be in your courage zone. Try things that you have not tried before. That’s the only way you will reinvent yourself Spiritually, Physically, and Intellectually.

Focusing on weaknesses instead of strengths is like having a bag of coins – some of them are made of pure gold, and the remaining were made of stained copper. Then imagine how foolish would it be to set aside the gold coins to spend all your time cleaning and shining the copper coins in the hopes of making them look more valuable? No matter how long you spend cleaning the copper coins, they will never be worth what the gold ones are. That is why YOU must go with your greatest assets; don’t waste your time. Don’t let your weaknesses get in the way of you reaching your full potential. Focus on what you do well, and capitalize on that.

If you want to grow and you want to be successful in any way in your career, your relationships, your life – you’ve got to focus on strengths and manage around your weaknesses. A strength is an activity that strengthens you. Before you do it, you lean into it. While you do it, you feel like time speeds up. When you are done with it, you are energized. You look forward to doing it time and again. It’s an activity that leaves you feeling energized rather than depleted. Strength is more appetite than ability, and it’s that appetite that drives us to do more; be more, and become more. Every one of us has unique strengths. And every one of us will contribute more when we take our strengths seriously.

Find out what your talent is? What is your strength?

—————–

Kishore Borra

Before you go…

If you enjoyed this post, you would love my book, “Don’t Coast: Accelerate Your Personal and Professional Growth.”

Grab your copy from the below links:

Please subscribe to my social media channels:

Eagle & Crow

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Eagle & Crow

The eagle is the king of the bird kingdom. The only bird that dares to peck an eagle is the crow. The crow sits on the eagle’s back & bites its neck. However, the eagle doesn’t respond or fight with the crow. It simply opens up its wings and begins to fly higher in the sky. The higher the eagle flies, the harder it is for the crow to breathe, and the crow eventually falls due to lack of oxygen.

We need to stop wasting our time with the crows of life. Not all battles we need to respond to. Not all arguments, comments, or critics need our attention. A lot of times, we need to keep raising our standards. The crow represents all the challenges in life and the people you don’t want to have in your life or team. You can choose to fight everything wasting your precious energy and getting nowhere, or you can soar higher like the eagle and watch all of your challenges fade away slowly.
    • When people criticize you, go higher.
    • When life challenges, you go higher.
    • When endless problems are pecking at you, then go higher.
    • Go higher by getting better – by learning more, doing more, being more, and becoming more.
If you do so, when the crows of life appear, they won’t be with you for so long because they can’t breathe at your level. Problems will only disturb you only when you are not good enough to handle them. When you improve, your life improves. So when life challenges you today, try to be an eagle and go higher.

#leadtip #dontcoast #borra #getleaderized #eagle #gohigher