You may face people interaction problem, if you do not have the right slack

When you are interacting with people - friends, shopkeeper, or colleague in the class -you have to follow certain coordination protocols to interact with each other seamlessly. Those protocols may be 'agreed'  explicitly or implicitly between you and the other person. If the other person is behaving differently than the protocol, you get confused like Manasi.

Manasi has been staying in mumbai for almost 15 years. She shifted to a big town near Mumbai, Nashik. She called up plumber to fit her Acqua guard at 4 pm. Despite promising, he did not turn up till 4 pm. Neither did he call to tell that he was getting delayed. She waited till 4.30 pm. The phone was 'out of reach'. She called at 5.30 pm. Same response. She called at 6.00 pm. Plumber replied " I am sorry. I got stuck up somewhere". Manasi ranted and raved. Ultimately she asked him if he can come the next day. He said he will come by 10 am. Same drama repeated next day.

Manasi is facing the problem of getting adjusted to the new coordination protocols of the town where she has not grown. For her friends in Nashik, this is not a problem at all. It is just a matter of 'adjusting'.

Manasi, for instance, could not adjust with the coordination protocols of the new town even afer a year.  Instead, she kept on getting 'proofs' of their unprofessionalism, the characteristics she said she wanted in people, in every interaction. For instance, according to her, people in Nashik never came at predetermined time, or when they did not come on time, they did not inform in advance. Or when she went shoppping for grocery, shopkeepers gave her oil  bags that were 'time expired'. Or  when she asked for something and it was not available, they never said so. Or when she moved with her scooter, she complained that they took left turn without showing the left indicator. They parked at wrong places, or they jumped signals. Or when she went to drama, the drama never started on 'time'. And so on and on. The evidence on 'unprofessionalism' kept on mounting with every encounter in her mind.

We seek consistency in our beliefs

What do you think is happening with Manasi? We all have beliefs about 'how people should behave'. Some of these beliefs become 'solid' as we meet people holding the same beliefs. However, we forget that they are still beliefs. They are not facts or truths. Until we find contrary evidence, we forget that they are only 'beliefs'.  Manasi forgot that it is her belief that 'people are professional only when they come in time' and this belief may not be true everywhere. Manasi forgot that beliefs depend on the country, caste, religion and status we are brought up.

Why is it difficult to change these beliefs? As psychologists tell us, to function well, we make our beliefs consistent with each other. Changing one belief forces us to change other 'related beliefs' and form 'new ones'. For instance, to change her belief of professionalism, Manasi has to rethink her definition of professionalism and define it 'newly'. She will also have to change her related belief on 'whom to trust', because she thinks that she can trust 'people who are professional'. And more she sticks to her beliefs, more strongly she 'associates' with her beliefs. When Manasi forgot this, she refused to change her beliefs, even though it hurt her for more than a year. Let us call this challenge of Consistency - we seek consistency in our beliefs and hold on to them too strongly - instead of letting them go.

Our desire to have consistent beliefs stops us from coordinating with others 

Strongly held beliefs also create unintended consequences, because they taint our eyes and attitude. As strong beliefs control our 'sight', we view everything with 'tainted eyes'. That is why, Manasi kept on finding evidence of unprofessionalism in everything she saw. Her 'eyes' were only seeing the behaviour that matched with her belief. As Manasi held on to her "consistent set of beliefs', she found more and more difficult to adjust to the coordination protocols of interacting with people. It started a vicious cycle. As her beliefs became more and more stronger,  she found it difficult to adjust with the coordination protocols of the new town. This is called Coordination versus Consistency mismatch. 

On the one hand, in order to interact easily with people, we need to be flexible in following the coordination protocols with different people. But, on the other hand, we also want to be consistent with our beliefs. We face these conflict all the time. For instance, should we interact with our neighbour with irrelevant banter or should we avoid communication with neighbour because we dislike making irrelevant talk? Or should we go to the birthdays of friends and give return gifts, or avoid birthdays because we do not believe in giving such calculated gifts? Or should we only engage with useful friends at the cost of being called opportunistic, or engage with all type of friends at the cost of wasting too much of time? Should we interact only with friends who agree with us, or should we interact with others who have strong views contrary to us? Or should we tell car mechanic the true extent of problem or should we tell 'part of the problem' to avoid being charged highly? And so on.

In other words, we face this trade off between consistency and coordination all the time. In order to remain friendly with others, we must hold our beliefs loosely so that we can change them quickly. When you hold your beliefs 'too loosely', you become a socialite whom others don't trust, because you may become a chamelon who changes its colours at the drop of hat, who sways to the wind's direction, and who will never have any conviction of your own. On the other hand, if you hold your consistent beliefs 'too strongly', you become like Manasi: difficult to relate with friends, always taking stands visavis others, and brings every issue to 'right or wrong'.  Both extremes make a person dysfunctional in having good people-interaction. Getting this balance of coordination versus consistency right is very important for every individual. Having too loose a belief set is equally detrimental in interacting with people as is too tight a belief set. Having the right slack in the belief set is important.

For individuals who automatically get this slack right , they never understand what right actions they took. But for those, who have the wrong mismatch of consistency and coordination, they have huge difficulty in interacting with people. You will either find them like Manasi: who views every situation as black and white, has very rigid views of what is right and wrong, and remain as loners even though it hurts them at a personal level. Even good communication ability does not help them. For instance, Manasi has acted in a drama and is a good communicator. But even that does not help. Or you will find some others like a socialite. No one trusts them. They have many 'relations' but of no depth. They are seen as opportunistic. Even when they want to be genuine, people do not believe their motive.

Conclusion

In other words, intra-personal problem ( lack of appropriate slack in belief set) causes inter-personal difficulty ( in interacting with people). Having a good communication ability is not enough to possess interpersonal ability; it requires having the appropriate slack in the belief-set. With the right amount of slack in the 'belief-set', even poor communication ability does not hinder you in interacting with people. But with too much slack in belief-set, even good communication ability is not enough. When someone adjusts to coordination protocols easily, it means he is having the right slack in his belief set.

In my coaching experience, i have found that more than 70% of the people interaction problems arise due to this inappropriate slack in belief set and not due to any 'communication-related difficulty'. Communication is just the tip of iceberg, the real cause lies somewhere. And once the problem is identified there are solutions. There are ways to 'loosen' the belief set as well as 'tighten' the belief set. But i have observed that it is more difficult to 'loosen' the belief set than tightening it. And it is more easier to 'alter' the belief set at a young age than altering it at later age.

Is your belief set slack enough to interact with people easily and gracefully? Or do you want to learn to develop the slack? 

Why are you unable to use the New Law of Achievement

Every student, to whom i talk, wishes to achieve in his study and life. But then, why don't they follow the the right principles of achievement. More often than not, they miss the bus because of the following three difficulties:

1.  Most of the students mistakenly believe that Work-achievement can be pursued by using the first law of Achievement (like the first law of motion!)

According to the first law of Achievement, advocated by all the self-help gurus and authors, if you have to achievement, you have to follow the ten rules of success such as Work hard, Set a goal, Prioritise properly, Use interdependence of people, Be creative and others.

This first law of Achievement is old and worked in past. These rules of success can be applied in your lives at a superficial level. For instance, if you have failed in a subject because you had not prepared well, the rule of work hard is easily applicable to you. But if you have scored 60% marks, and want to score 85% the rule of work hard is not useful. Now you have to become specific in your actions: you have to identify the difficult chapters that you ignore, you have to study the concepts that you have not understood. Further, if you have to increase your marks from 85% to 95%, the rules further change. Now you have to understand your 'style of making mistakes' in an exam, how you take stress and so on.

In other word, the first law of Achievement is useful in a very generic way, where cause>effect is clearly understood and easy to figure out. In other cases, the first law of Achievement is not only useless to provide you any guideline, but it creates a different side-effect. For instance, when you find that these basic rules of success - work hard, be creative, set a goal, use imagination, set priorities - do not work for you, you either conclude that something is wrong with these rules, or they are useless. You stop listening to any advice !

2. New law of Achievement is invisible like law of gravity. You require to wear glasses to use it. 

Until Newton found the theory of gravity, by seeing the falling apple, everyone sensed 'gravity', but no one could 'see' it. Once Newton gave us the 'glasses' to 'see' gravity in every moving and stationary object, we could use it for anything. We could even use it to understand the attraction of two planets.

Until now the New law of Achievement was invisible like theory of gravity. Now, as it has become visible through this research, we can use it. If you learn to wear this lens, you will then be able to use even the old rules of Achievement at their 'appropriate' situations and use them smartly instead of dumping them.

3. As the New law of Achievement is highly contextual ( situation-dependent), you have to apply the rules consciously and deliberately after understanding your situation. 

It is apparent to everyone that the rules of first law of Achievement are so universal that they are not useful. What is the first principle of New law of Achievement?

The first principle is : Without the 'context', do not use any  rules. It is like health framework. You are aware of the rules of keeping your weight low, but you still cannot keep your weight low, because you cannot apply those rules in your daily routine of eating, exercising and resting. To apply the general rule of weight control , you have to first understand your situational context. Only then you can apply the generic rules of weight control to yourself. Before applying any rules, you must consciously think of the conditions where the rule can be applied. For instance,

• The rule of 'Work hard'  or 'Persevere hard' is useful only when one has found the direction in life. For instance, when you are clear that of doing commerce course and the reasons for doing it. you can then apply the rule of 'work hard' easily. Until then, this rule will not produce any better results.  
• Or the rule of 'Set the goal' is useful only for single-dimensional children who excel in senses-based fields like sports and music. For other children, who excel in cognitive field, this rule is useless. 
• Or to excel in a corporate life, perception management is crucial because specialised experts in corporate force us to deal with each other on the basis of 'perceptions' and not 'facts' 
• Or to succeed as an entrepreneur, understanding the business model is the first step. The trait of risk-taking is not important to succeed. 
• Or the rules of achievement applicable in corporate life ( such as understand the metasystems etc) are different than the rules of excelling in student life. 

Conclusion

Applying the New Law of Achievement is not as straightforward as applying the first law of Achievement. It forces you to think. Like we discussed in the earlier blog, even to benefit from the successes of other achievers, you have to think like a detective. 

Results are not in our control despite our best efforts

"We are Formula 1 championship runners-up and not everybody can say that. And when you fight with all your heart and all your strength for so many months, without making a single mistake, neither the team or me, we have to be very proud."

This is what Alonso said when he lost the 2012 year-end title by three points at the end of last week's Brazilian's Grand Prix race.

Results, like winning the year end title, depend on many events. It is a result of numerous factors, some of them not in Alonso's hand. For instance, when Sebastian Vettel ( who was the final winner) only got reprimanded for his mistake in Japan, everyone was surprised. Because, if Sebestain Vettel was penalised with points at Japan race instead, Alonso would have won the year end title. Please remember that Alonso lost the title with 3 points. ( 278 versus 281)

Sometimes the factors are more specific, but still outside your control. For instance, Alonso's car was not the fastest car, and this was known to all. But despite the known hurdle, Alonso's team could not overcome that hurdle despite having the money and expertise. Alonsa, on the other hand, said 

Alonso said the Brazilian race was a good example of what his season has been like, with him charging through the field to finish on the podium despite his car having not been as strong as its rivals' in qualifying.

Please remember there are 20 races in a year which decides the championship title. 

On the other hand, Alonso managed to put forth his best despite all the difficulties. For instance, in the Brazilian's race, despite starting from the seventh position in the qualifying race, he still finished second.(Seventh places fetches 2 points while second position fetches 8 points)

Sustaining achievement is all about doing your best all the time, and hope the desired result will be favorable to you. But like in life, the results are dependent on too many external factors and therefore cannot be controlled. What can be controlled is one's effort and the desire to be better than yesterday.

Self-driven Learning enables students to fully compensate for insufficient reputation of Tier 3 MBA institute

Because of the proliferation of MBA institutes in the country, it has now become more and more difficult to get jobs. There are Tier 1 institutes which consist of IIMs, IBS and others where one gets job quite easily. In Tier 2 institutes like Symbiosis, PUMBA, JDBIMS and others, getting a job may be easy, although getting a desired job takes some focussed effort and planning. In Tier 3 institutes, even getting a job is difficult. Many students are not placed at these institutes. Students in Tier 2 and Tier 3 institutes therefore have to take extra effort to achieve their goal.

Getting desired job for students of Tier 2 MBA institutes and below

In Tier 2 MBA institutes, if a student has to find a desired job, he/she has to do some serious plannng and engaged in disciplined effort. If you have seen the figure in the earlier blog, you will undersand that this is the step 2 problem. The MBA student has to understand one's strengths, match with one's desire, and then determine the domain ( such as FMCG, Software or telecom) and function ( sales, marketing or servicing) in which one should pursue a job. Only after this thinking has been done, a MBA student should make a list of 'probable employers'. Because of the rigor of thinking that has been done in step 2, the student will be able to match the right employer ( which is step 4) and therefore be able to increase his chances of getting the 'desired job'.

Getting a job for students of Tier 3 institutes and below 

Students in Tier 3 institutes have a more difficult challenge if they have to get a good job after finishing MBA. I have also met some students from these institutes who not only manage to get a job, but even succeed in finding a job of their choice. What do they do differently?

Firstly, these successful students of Tier 3 MBA institutes are self-motivated and self-driven. They know why they are doing MBA and consciously know the risk they are taking which getting admitted in Tier 3 insitutes. So even if they have decided to get admitted in Tier 3 MBA institute due to monetary or other reasons, they are aware of the downsides and do not delude themselves in believing that 'jobs will come to them'.

Secondly, they therefore work out a plan that will help them compensate for their poor reputation of institute.  To make this plan. they take help of a mentor who is working in industry, or take help of a professor who is well aware of the challenges, or a senior student who has been successful in the industry. I have also coached many students in my coaching practice. They will make a Learning plan.

In the learning plan, they list down subjects they will learn till Stage 2( Please see this blog to understand three different stages of learning.).They will also list down subjects, such as Financial Management or Statistics, where they plan to deepen their level of understanding till stage 3. By understanding their own strengths, they will also clearly describe the reasons for learning a subject till the deeper stage 3.

In MBA, because the subjects are connected with the working in a company or organisation, it is easy to deepen the learning till stage 2/3 because you can see the actual functioning of these concepts in a company. For instance, if you are learning budgeting, you can actually go to a company and see how they 'budget' and if the 'academic principles of budgeting' are being followed or not? And if they are not followed, what are the practical reasons of not following it? Be it performance appraisal system in HR, or Branding in Marketing, or three stage calling of Sales, every course in MBA can be learned at a deeper level by seeing how it happens in a working company. This is one big advantage of doing MBA.

These successful MBA students use different tricks to facilitate this learning. As time is limited, they chose the subjects that they must learn in depth. These students also do projects in groups of 3-5 students so that limited time can be productively used for learning. They make full use of visiting faculty (who is working in a company) to increase the depth of their learning. They take help of their parents and friends of their parents to approach companies where they can do live summer projects, instead of doing projects done by last year students. They extensively use Harvard case studies ( available on net in free) to enhance their learning.

Because these students in Tier 3 MBA institutes are driving their own learning, they also look more confident and assured. In short, they not only compensate the disadvantages of Tier 3 institute, but also use it to learn a non-cognitive trait which is rare: confidence and grit. In short, they convert crisis into opportunity. Which company will not like to recruit these kind of students?

If you want to follow the practice of these successful MBA students in Tier 3 institute, find a mentor, senior, professor or a coach who can guide your learning.  

You are rarely rejected in interview due to inadequate English communication

Last week, I went to a MBA college for conducting a seminar on how to 'deliver an impactful interview'. These kind of  seminars are quite popular in MBA colleges. Mock interviews are planned in these seminars to help students get a sense of a live interview. Here is a case of a girl, that was interviewed, called Priyanka.

Priyanka had an excellent resume. She was a confident Arts student who had passed with distinction. Had participated in different kinds of activities like dramatics, elocution, debate and others. Had done a certificate course in German. It was a dream resume for a recruiter. 

However, when a question was asked 'Why have you done MBA?'.  She was unable to weave her background and present a 'convincing case' of what made her leave Arts and do MBA? Why did she take up MBA finance? She gave reasons that 'forced' us to ask more questions. With more and more questions, her lack of reflective thinking got exposed. Instead of emerging as a person with a strong profile, she emerged as a confused person with no sense of direction. Despite strong credentials, anyone would have rejected her in an interview. 

Then we interviewed another person, Sadanand. 

Sadanand had a working experience of 2 years in manufacturing companies of repute. He chose to do MBA in production. In the mock interview, he could not demonstrate that he is strong in concepts of Production, because he was unable to speak coherently about his 2 months summer project he did in a manufacturing company. Neither could he explain his 2 years of experience of production and the difference that MBA has made in his thinking. Surprisingly, he spoke about his experience in details which made us realise that his experience was good. But he was unable to explain how it increased his capabilities. Despite his excellent background experience, anyone would have rejected him in the interview. 

What went wrong in the interviews of Priyanka and Sadanand?

On the surface both examples look similar. Both seem to be having 'communication problem' of English. But, if you dig deeper, you will realise that ' inability to communicate' is just a symptom. Root cause lies elsewhere. To help you understand the root cause of the problem, please see the diagram below and pause for a while. You will realise that 'interview' is the last step in the process of getting a job.

If you have seen the above diagram, you will realise that Priyanka's rejection resulted because of the step 1, not because of lack of English communication. Because she did not understand her 'arts strengths' or the principles of 'excellence' to utilise arts in management, she never made a PLAN for herself. And because she never made a plan, she did not do consciously use the opportunities in MBA to channelise her arts background. Because she had not explained to herself why she was doing MBA in Finance, despite being good in Arts, how could she explain it in interview? Her problem of communication occurred because she had not thought about her strengths and constraints and made her 'Excellence Plan' consciously. Here problem of communication in the interview was just a symptom. Her root cause of Interview rejection was her inability to think through her strengths and excellence principles and make a plan that will help her strengths productively. In the interview, this lack of thinking only became visible. 

Sadanand's lack of communication, on the other hand, resulted due to step 3. He did not draft his resume properly. For instance, his resume explained his summer MBA project in 2 lines and his two years of production experience in 6 lines. Because he could not 're-articulate' his production experience and summer project, his mind could not 'connect' them together. And because his mind did not connect the two, he was not ready to weave together a coherent 'narrative' ( a consistent story) that will display his strengths in production. In other words, his problem of communication stemmed from his inability to integrate and connect his 'experience of 2 years' and his 'MBA project' with his MBA degree, not because of his lack of communication. I even requested Sadanand to explain his strength in his native language, Marathi. He could not still communicate this integration. Root cause of Sadanand's interview rejection was not communication, but his inability to integrate his experience with MBA. Because he had not 'connected' his production experience and summer project, he could not draft his experience in the resume properly. He merely drafted them in few lines. Many MBAs make this mistake. Unable to understand how resume can be utilised to 'lead' the interviewer to ask the 'desirable questions', they miss the opportunity and curse themselves later.

Sometimes, the root cause of the problem is in step 2. Unaware of one's strengths, one chooses wrong employers, or wrong jobs, and hope that one can get selected by chance. Sometimes the root cause may also lie in Step 4, but not in communication. For instance, even if you learn to present your credentials in the interview in an impactful manner, you may still not get selected because your 'skill sets did not match with what the employers required'. MBA's miss this 'matching step' because they are not aware of the skill market and therefore do not think in advance about the skill mismatch. They go unprepared for the interviews and get rejected because they are not prepared to answer the questions on 'mismatch of skill sets'.

Conclusion

As you will observe from the above diagram, the cause of 'Interview rejection' is rarely 'English communication'. The 'lack of english communication' is merely a symptom that is visible in the interview. The root cause of interview rejection lies in the earlier steps, either step 1,2 or 3. In my experience of coaching students of last 5 years, i have not observed a single student where the root cause of 'interview rejection' was due to difficulty in 'English communication'. 

In short, the problem symptom of getting a desired job in MBA may become visible in the interview, but its root cause lies in the earlier steps. If you plan to maximise your investment of time and efforts in MBA, you must think through right from step 1. That will help you gain maximum advantage of your opportunity of doing MBA. Step 1 of drafting an excellence plan is perhaps the most important step. I have observed some students fare excellent in an interview, despite their poor English communication, simply because they have undergone the Step 1 diligently. 

If you think for a while, the same principles of four steps are also applicable if you are doing engineering, commerce or any other graduation. 

Students fare poorly in the interview not because they cannot communicate, but because they have not made any plan that integrates their experience and skills. They just meander around in doing MBA (or their graduation) and waste multiple opportunities of excelling, thus robbing them of the self-respect. It kills their curiosity. It makes them sit as ducks waiting to be fed. It forces them to accept the 'instructions' of their teachers meekly without questioning their purpose; it makes them copy patch-up solutions for problems for which they must have dug deeply.   And then, is it surprising to find, that when they finish MBA( or graduation), they lack any confidence to take charge of their lives ( leave alone interview)? 

Do not pursue single skill in today's economy

In the blog on skill combinations, i had written that in aesthetic fields, indepth skills in one field - be it playing guitar, singing, drawing -  are more useful than combining two skills, say of music and drawing. When i heard the concert of Salil Kulkarni and Sandeep Khare last Sunday at Kalidas Natyagruh, i realised that i was mistaken.

Here are two diverse personalities who have created something unique by combining two different skills: Music and Poetry. Salil Kulkarni has been a musician. He learnt music at a very young age. He has composed music for many albums. On the other hand, Sandeep Khare has been a poet. His interest in music comes from his parental background in music. He calls himself a poet who can sing.These two met each other after hearing about others work, found a common 'passion' in presenting poetry with music, and started this concert where poems are recited and sung.

No one could have imagined the success of this concert. It was 880th show when i heard it last week. But after hearing the concert now, one can easily guess the reasons of success. In my view, the concert is successful because it fuses thought and emotion. When we hear poetry alone, we use intellect to understand the brilliant expression of a beautiful and sometimes complex thought in very few words. When we hear music alone, we have to use our senses, the sense of hearing. We would not go to poetry concert until we are a poetry lover, and we would not go to music concert until we are a music lover. But because of this combination of poetry and music in one concert, many of us like to go to this concert because we can hear our own thoughts presented in a nice way. The experience of concert is more 'complete' and  'fulfilling', because we are fusing our body ( senses) and mind ( intellect) together in one whole.

In today's world, you will observe an array of interesting jobs where skill combinations are more important than deep skill in one area. In some jobs, the skill combination is done by one person, while in some jobs the skill combination has to be done by two different persons, because the specialities are too deep to be learnt by one person.

Skill combinations in one person

Here is a sample list of skill combinations that an individual can combine in his work:

• Sports Combinations - Sports coach is a combination of enough knowledge of game, say football, and how the skill of game grows in a player. Jose Mourinho is an example of a football player who became coach. If you see back end jobs in sports - like sports commentators, sport umpires, sport administrators, sport event managers - you will see that the sports field  requires people many people who have combination skills, than one dimensional skill like football
• Music engineer: In this combination, the skill of music can be combined with the skill of engineering. Please check out this link and you will be surprised to observe the numerous ways in which music can be combined with other skills. Another example of music combination is film direction. Many directors like Raj Kapoor and Subhash Ghai have succeeded because they could combine 'music' in their film very seamlessly with their 'film story'. Music field requires many professionals with skill combinations, than just a single skill of music alone.  
• Manager - is a combination of one focused skill such as engineering Plus enough 'Mind growth' (mental growth that we discussed in an earlier blog ) that is required. That is why all doers cannot become managers. That is why all players cannot become good captains. One such example is Sachin Tendulkar. Skill combination of manager or supervisor is in high demand all the time. 
• Software combinations - Practically everything in software, the fastest growing sector in any economy, requires combination of two skills. For example, ERP analyst in SAP requires understanding the underlying business process ( of sales or production) along with the 'software' skill.

If you observe the increasing specialities in today's economy, it is obvious that the growing areas of excellence in today's economy are not the areas of excellence in one speciality, but those areas that require combination of two specialities. For instance, it is not surprising to observe that fastest growth in the last two decades has been in the field of MBA, the field that requires a combination of skills, not just sales alone, or production alone, or finance alone. 

Skill combinations done by two people

Growing specialisation in today's economy also makes it imperative that, to produce something unique, one should collaborate with someone else to combine the two skills. Salil Kulkarni's collaboration with Sandeep Khare is one such example. In other words, the skill of collaboration is not just a nice-to-have skill, but it is highly useful skill that can make a huge difference in one's career. However, in our academic education, where individual performance is encouraged, this skill of collaborating with others is not learnt unconsciously by graduates. Graduates have to learn this skill consciously and deliberately.

Another skill of great premium today therefore is a great combination skill called entrepreneurial skill. An entrepreneur, to be successful, has to be a master in combining two or more skills. After understanding the market  and discovering an unsolved problem, he must possess the skill of bringing diverse skills together to 'solve' the given problem. He must have the vision of solving the bigger issue and be able to 'sell' the vision  to others to bring them together on a common platform.

In short, it is far more prudent to pursue skill-combinations in a career, either alone or with some other person, because that is far more profitable and useful in today's economy.

How are you getting prepared to survive and flourish in today's specialised economy? Is it by developing one skill? Combining two skills within yourself? Or combining two skills of two different people? 

Taming the beast of Emotion is the first step towards mental growth

Mind adopts various practices to function effectively, but while doing so, it also creates a beast that tries to takeover every situation. It therefore has to be tamed. Because, as we have discussed earlier, without mental growth, even intellectual growth stops. And without taming emotions, we cannot grow mentally. Let us understand why emotion beast has to be tamed and how.

Minds need the power of Emotions

To take quick unconscious actions or decisions, mind uses emotions. When we, for instance, wear a black pant instead of grey, we are using our 'emotion'. Or when we decide that we are not going to ask for help from a friend, because he is condescending, we are using emotions to take a decision. When we are backing our friend in the fight with another person, we are using emotions to help us take the action. When we are using our friends to clarify doubts about the subject, our emotions are helping our learning. When we are studying late night for an exam, emotions are propping us to study even when we feel sleepy.

Emotions also misguide us

Many times emotions help us take the right decisions. However, they also misguide us. When we have to ask help from a condescending professor ( not a friend), our first emotional reaction is to ignore the professor. We have to avoid the emotional cue to seek help. When we are agreeing with the friend blindly to grease hands of a traffic police, ignoring our strong beliefs of right versus wrong, we are doing damage to our belief system.

In other words, sometimes you have to heed the emotion and flow with its direction, such as when we are using it to study at night even while feeling sleepy. But sometimes, like in case of asking help from a nasty professor, we have to avoid to flow with the emotional cue and manage to find a way to ask for help from the nasty professor. If we do not tame the beast of emotion, we take wrong actions.

Taming the beast therefore is important

Without taming the beast of emotion, we either flow with the emotion at wrong times ( such as when we are mad at anyone who has brushed our motorcycle in the traffic) or refuse to go against the flow even when it is right for us ( such as when we have to ask questions to a nasty professor despite the fear of embarrassment).

Without taming the beast of emotion, we continue to take make wrong choices, ignore important information, and simply create difficulties for ourselves. Without taming the beast of emotion, we react like Pratham who left  a good job because he flowed  with his emotional cue. Without taming the beast of emotions, we justify emotions to take wrong decisions. By taming emotions, we use the emotions as inputs to take right decisions.

Steps in taming the beast of emotion

Taming emotions means taking four steps to dissolve or resolve the emotion. Each step is critical. One cannot avoid a step and jump to the next.

Step 1 is to accept the emotion as-is. We often intellectualise emotions, assuming that we should not 'feel' an emotion. For instance, when we dislike the professor for forcing us to stand in the class for not answering a question, we must feel the 'down' emotion fully and completely without any ifs and buts. Or when we feel 'down' when our parents praise our brother, we should accept the emotion first. We should not rush to explain the kind of emotion we are feeling or why we are feeling. Neither we should intellectualise it by saying that the 'teacher was 'wrong' or my parents were 'right' in praising brother for the right incident.

Most of the emotions 'dissolve' when we feel them fully. For instance, if we are stressed because of the oncoming exam, we can dissolve the stress if we sit calmly and feel the emotion of stress fully. Or when we are anxious about the friend not calling on mobile, we can dissolve anxiety if we accept the feeling of anxiety fully. Sometimes, accepting emotions fully dissolves the emotion. No more processing is needed. On the contrary, if we damn the emotion inside and do not express it, it remains inside and expresses itself without any warning. If you are angry at your mother's constant 'reminders', and cannot express it, your anger will get provoked on a completely different incident with your mother.

Step 2: Only after the emotion is accepted as-is, we should try to name the emotion in order to resolve it.

For instance, can the emotion of being 'down' ( in the above case) named as the emotion of 'hurt' or 'frustration' or 'anger'? Are we angry because our professor insulted us infront of the class friends, or are we hurt because he exposed our ignorance?Or are we frustrated with ourselves that we could not answer the question despite knowing the answer? If you have learnt to accept your emotions uncritically (which is step 1) without any defense, you will know which of the three emotion is strong?

This stage is equally critical. Being able to name the emotion helps the resolution of emotion. In odd situations, you may experience a mix of two emotions that you cannot segregate easily. 

Step 3 is unravel the underling belief of emotion by peeling layers beneath the emotion. As we said, sometimes, this step of resolution may not be necessary if the emotion dissolves.

Continuing the above case further, if you conclude that you are feeling the emotion of 'hurt' when professor asked you the question, you must examine the underlying belief that is generating the emotion of 'hurt'. Do you believe that 'being seen as ignorant is a sign of incompetency' or 'not knowing something is a sign of stupidity' ? Your belief is generating the emotion. These beliefs act like unconscious thumb rules that generate the emotion. Some of these unconcious thumb rules ( or beliefs) have long term significance. For instance when you do not want to chose 'drawing as career', because your belief is that "drawing is just a hobby', then you need to dig deeper to find if your belief is standing on the legs of 'facts' or on the legs of 'assumptions or conclusions'.

Mind uses beliefs to help it take quick decisions. Mind keeps unproven and untested facts as assumptions or conclusions in the bucket to make this quick decisions. Daniel Kahneman calls this type 1 mind. We cannot hope to re-evaluate our every belief practically. But some beliefs need to be re-evaluated if we have to keep our winning habit intact. Especially the beliefs about creating outcomes, wealth , social structures, governance and career-success have to be re-checked early in life. Rechecking, and correcting the belief is a laborious process and becomes difficult to correct it later. That is why it is important to adopt the right 'winning' beliefs at an early age. How does one verify if the belief is right? Right beliefs are the beliefs that are closer to 'as-is reality'.

Step 4: is to verify the 'fact index' of belief. If the belief is based not on 'fact' ( as determined by scientist and researchers), we have to let go that belief, even if we strongly believe in that belief.

For instance, does small class-size benefit child education or not? Surprisingly, researchers have not been able to find strong correlation between class size and child education. So, even if we like to believe that small class size facilitates child education, it is not yet true. In social arena, we hold many such beliefs, despite their lack of evidence. Unlike physical sciences, social sciences are prone to many verification errors that slowly come to light. Our mind needs to remember this if it has to preserve its capacity to process rationally. If we forget this, mind mixes facts and assumptions together. Slowly and surely, it hampers intellectual growth, because instead of seeing as-is reality, we start seeing the reality through our biased eyes !

Summary

On the one hand, emotions affect our choices, decisions and conclusions instantaneously. They help us live our life on 'auto-pilot' and leave our conscious mind ( what Daniel Kahneman calls type 2 mind) to grapple with intellectual issues. On the other hand, wrong reliance on emotions have to be guarded because they prevent our mental growth ( which in turn impacts our intellectual growth sooner or later). Emotions affect our mental growth in two ways. One, because they color our feelings ( as good or bad), our type 1 mind cannot process an event accurately. And two, by influencing our beliefs, they unknowingly impact many decisions and choices taken by type 1.

Incorrect processing of emotions are the biggest source of blunders in a student's life. Even if you can take help on the third and fourth step from a mentor or coach ( like your parents), first two steps of resolving an emotion have to be learnt and practiced by you. Otherwise, like Pratham , you will be blind to your own actions ! Instead of using coach to understand yourself better, you start using mentor or coach to justify your actions or to control the damage that is resulting from the actions.

Source: Nathaniel Branden: Disowning Self and Daniel Kahneman: Thinking slow and fast