Thursday, September 27, 2012

Osho- react from awareness


Osho : Every person is carrying such a mysterious being but the being is closed to you. Every person can become the door for the divine, any ordinary person is extraordinary. Just behind the surface the mysterious is hidden, but you need a key to open it.

And that key is moment-to-moment alert response. Not reaction –response. Reaction is always dead; you do something because he has done something. Response is totally different.

I will tell you one anecdote.

Buddha was passing through a village. The people of that village were against him, against his philosophy, so they gathered around him to insult him. They used ugly words, vulgar words. Buddha listened. Ananda, Buddha’s disciple who was with him, got very angry, but he couldn’t say anything because Buddha was listening so silently, so patiently, rather as if he was enjoying the whole thing.

Then even the crowd became a little frustrated because he was not getting irritated and it seemed he was enjoying. Buddha said, ”Now, if you are finished, I should move – because I have to reach the other village soon. They must be waiting just as you were waiting for me. If you have not told me all the things that you thought to tell me, I will be coming back within a few days, then you can finish it.”

Somebody from the crowd said, ”But we have been insulting you, we have insulted you. Won’t you react? Won’t you say something?”

Buddha said, ”That is difficult. If you want reaction from me, then you are too late. You should have come at least ten years ago, because then I used to react. But I am now no longer so foolish. I see that you are angry, that’s why you are insulting me. I see your anger, the fire burning in your mind. I feel compassion for you. This is my response – I feel compassion for you. Unnecessarily you are troubled.

”Even if I am wrong, why should you get so irritated? That is not your business. If I am wrong I am going to hell, you will not go with me. If I am wrong I will suffer for it, you will not suffer for it. But it seems you love me so much and you think about me and consider me so much that you are so angry, irritated. You have left your work in the fields and you have come just to say a few things to me. I am thankful.”

Just when he was leaving he said, ”One thing more I would like to say to you. In the other village I left behind, a great crowd just like you had come there and they had brought many sweets just as a present for me, a gift from the village. But I told them that I don’t take sweets. They took the sweets back. I ask you, what will they do with those sweets?”

So somebody from the crowd said, ”What will they do? It is easy, there is no need to answer. They will distribute them in the village and they will enjoy.”
So Buddha said, ”Now what will you do? You have brought only insults and I say I don’t take them. What will you do? I feel so sorry for you. You can insult me, that is up to you. But I don’t take it, that is up to me – whether I take it or not.” Buddha said, ”I don’t take unnecessary things, useless things. I don’t get unnecessarily burdened. I feel compassion for you.”
This is response. If a person is angry and you are present there, not with your past, you will feel always compassion. Reaction becomes anger, response always is compassion. You will see through the person. It will become transparent that he is angry, he is suffering, he is in misery, he is ill.

When someone is in fever you don’t start beating him and asking, ”Why are you having a fever? Why is your body hot? Why have you got a temperature?” You serve the man, you help him to come out of it.

And when somebody is angry he also is having a temperature, he is in a fever, he is feverish. Why get so angry about it? He is in a mental disease which is more dangerous than any bodily disease, more fatal. So if the wife is angry the husband will feel compassion, he will try in every way to help her to be out of it. This is just mad – that she is angry and you also get angry. This is just mad, insane. You will look at the person, you will feel the misery she is in or he is in, and you will help.

But if the past comes in then everything goes wrong. And it can happen only if you go deep in meditation, otherwise it cannot happen. Just intellectual understanding won’t help. If you go deep in meditation your wounds will be thrown, a catharsis will happen. You become more and more clear inside, clarity is attained, you become like a mirror. You don’t have any wounds really, so no one can hit them. Then you can look at the person, then you can respond.

Response is always good, reaction is always bad. Response is always beautiful, reaction is always ugly. Avoid reactions and allow responses.

Reaction is from the past, response is here and now. Enough for today.
Source: " Vedanta: Seven Steps to Samadhi " - Osho

ReTHINK : Build a positive energy organization

We look for simple thing that inspirational, small stuffs that most of us will simplly overlook and bring that to the TRIBES. Inspiration hunter is the effort taken and pursuit by us to influence, affect and involve the tribes.As what Mother Teresa said once "- "I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples"




Presenting Jon Gordon.
Jon Gordon is the one of the most sought after speakers today. His engaging talks and ideas have influenced many leaders and teams across the world.




Some takeaway : 
1. Positive energy trickles up and sideways through an organization but it flows powerfully from the top down.

2.Leadership is not just about what you do, but also what you can inspire, encourage and empower
others to do. To build a positive business, it’s not enough to just be a bus driver yourself. You
must also develop a fleet of bus drivers in your organization.

3.Yet, it’s like the elephant in the room. Everyone sees it but they ignore it—allowing negativity to
ruin far too many careers, teams and organizations. Not anymore. To build a positive winning culture,
you must deal with the cost of negativity head on. At work you’ll likely face organizational and
individual negativity. You’ll have to deal with processes and systems that create poor communication
and negative interactions.

4.From hiring practices to recognition programs to communication processes, you’ll want to
identify the people and the gaps in your processes that are contributing to negativity. You will
want to address these gaps and incorporate positive strategies and best practices that are
proven to hire, develop and fuel positive, engaged people and teams.

5.Good to Great, Jim Collins says to build a successful organization and team, you must get the right
people on the bus. His research shows that great companies and organizations do this. They get
the right people and put them in the right seats.

6.Consider it a company’s version of the football huddle. Google creates wide open work spaces and meeting rooms that foster better communication and idea collaboration. Southwest airlines communicates in many ways to their employees via daily intranet updates, newsletter, conference calls, and town hall meetings.

How long does it to become an expert.

The "10,000 hour theory" as explained by Malcolm Gladwell in his book, Outliers. Essentially the theory states that it takes 10,000 hours of dedicated practice to master anything.

For more : Click here


Are you really an expert? An infographic by udemy.com


Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Leadership training module : Stand By Your Quote

We share the roadmap for enhanced leadership through one of the training method that always used as part of the leadership training in my previous working place.

I adopted the same techniques for the "leadership training" as well. What is available in geniustribes library now is the 75 pages of "SPARK" training module complete with quotes that ready to be used in any organisation.

If you are a leader or manager trying to enhance the leadership value in your team, the "Stand By Your Quote" is an awesome idea to begin with. Make a different by getting on board.









 
 
 
 
 

ReTHINK : The anatomy of fear

 
Presenting to you "the anatomy of fear".
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Halloween Infographic


ReTHINK: Getz inspired

Mandela on Leadership: Inspire Others to Exceed Their Own Expectations





An excerpt from the Forbes.

Source : Mandela on Leadership

“What is your philosophy on leadership?” Mandela asks the sportsman. “How do you inspire your team to do their best?”
“By example,” Pienaar responds, a bit nervously. “I’ve always thought to lead by example, sir.”
“Well, that is right. That is exactly right,” Mandela says. “But how do we get them to be better than they think they can be? That is very difficult, I find.” With a slight grin, he continues, “Inspiration, perhaps. How do we inspire ourselves to greatness when nothing less will do? How do we inspire everyone around us? I sometimes think it is by using the work of others.”
And this is from Tribes to you... Getz inspired ;)


 
 

 

7 Leadership lessons from Yoda

 
 
 
 
 

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

ReTHINK : Don't let others to define you

Glimpse from the tribes e-book " ReTHINK- Be yourself"




Osho said once that we have been taught to believe, believe in god, believe in soul, believe in this and that. Now that belief has entered your bones and your blood, but it remains as a belief- you have not known. And unless you know, you can't be liberated.

All beliefs are borrowed; others have given to us, they are not our flowerings. And how can a borrowed thing lead us forward to truth.

Most of us have have been thinking the same thoughts for so long that our thinking feels like a deeply ingrained habit that we believe we have no control over. Why?

For a simple reason that we've been running the same old story and our historical mental programs for so many months or so many years, they had been become automatic and unconcious. We always believe that we can't change our thought, but we shoudl always remember that we can change them into habits of mind that serve our potential as we have absolute dominion over our thoughts.

The more personal responsibility we take for every one of our thoughts, the more powerful a thinker will become.Do you let other people define you? Do you let them tell you who you are -- or are supposed to be? Does your self-perception change according to who is around? If so, they may be impinging on your mission.

Thank God that there's a time delay, that all of your thoughts don't come true instantly. We'd be in trouble if they did. The element of time delay serves you. It allows you to reassess, to think about what you want, and to make a new choice....LISA NICHOLS (From the book, The Secret)

Do not sway. One thing that makes us fully human is our ability to think about of our thinking. Right now, in this very moment, you can always choose to sit quietly and inquire the belief that run and thought that fill our mind each day. And that matter most.





People label us. They put a tag on us. And too often, it sticks. We start to believe the way we're perceived. We let the judgment take hold on us. They perceive us based on assumptions, false first impressions, or old information. They categorise and  keep us in a box. They limit us. They seek their own comfort in trying to form us as they want us to be, in the way that makes them most comfortable and superior. And ironically we surrender and submit ourselves to other's thought without ReTHINK.
The only limits on your life are the ones that you set yourself....Robin Sharma
You can't let others project their emotions on you.They often want us to remain in the slot we were in when they first met us and just as often they define you on past historical mental pictures.
 
People categorize us. People cast us into a role, a mold. We're in a file in their "filing" cabinet. They have stereotyped us.
Fear is nothing more but a mental monster you have created, a negative stream of consiousness....Robin Sharma
 
Don't let negatives be spoken over you. When that occurs, it's like a curse. Shrug it off as soon as it tries to alight on your shoulder else we shall infected by it. Mahatma Gandhi said it so well when he wrote  : " I will not allow others to walk through my mind with their dirty feet." So any time your mind shifts to something negative, guide it back.hart Tolle wrote in his book in A New Earth that :
"Give up defining yourself -- to yourself or to others. You won't die. You will come to life. And don't be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it's their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don't be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are."
 
Even Oprah Winfrey said one that "You define your own life. Don’t let other people write your script."



 

Sunday, September 23, 2012

ReTHINK : Getz inspired

Words  have so much of power and yet most of us forgeth that important point. An inspired person can do better. Look at Martin  Luther King Jr, John F Kennedy, Mahatma Gandhi were able to do through the sheer power of their words.

Lets use the owrds to activate people's and break the barrier of limiting behaviour.



 







 




ReTHINK_Be an iconoclast






 



 

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

The calm within





Dewey Bozella was locked up for 26 years - a lifetime - for a crime he did not commit. This story is about the triumph of human spirit and living proof of the maxim: "never give up". One man's journey to reclaim his life, against all odds; a man fighting his biggest fight outside the boxing ring without any hatred or bitterness towards the system. Dewey Bozella - courageous, persistent, human and finally...free.

The Calm Within

Change for a dollar





This award-winning short film follows the journey of a homeless man looking for change, but not the kind of change you might think. The film gives expression to the idea that empathy and awareness of the needs of others are more important aspects of philanthropy than financial resources. It also celebrates the notion that even the most powerless among us have the capacity to be agents of goodness in the world. Could you be the change in somebody's life today?


Getz Inspired: Leader within you





Down Syndrome occurs in one out of every 750 births in the United States; while those with Down Syndrome may be physically challenged, they often serve deep lessons for society. Take the case of Johnny the Bagger--an unforgettable story about a young man who changes the culture of a grocery store by being creative and giving the customers more than they expect.

Reminds me of a senior manager who asked me today "Are leader born or made" ? Which I return leaders are made and everyone is a leader even the cleaner lady outside. He gave me a cynical smile as what I said totally contradict to what he believes in. He believes that leader are those with title and power.

I dedicate this video clip to him.

We are all too often become so wrapped in our titles, our position and lose sight the best in other people. You don't have to be a CEO to do that. Anyone and everyone is a leader .Here are references to "the 4 natural powers" by Robin Sharma.

Natural Power # 1 -   Every one of us alive in this moment has the power to go to work each day and express the Absolute Best within us.  And you need no title to do that.
Natural Power # 2   - Every one of us alive today has the power to inspire, influence and elevate each person we meet by the gift of a great example.  And you need no title to do that.
Natural Power # 3  -  Every one of us alive with life can passionately drive positive change in the face of negative conditions. And you need no title to do that.
Natural Power # 4 -    Every one of us alive to the truth about leadership can treat all stakeholders with respect, appreciation, and kindness – and in so doing raise the organisation’s culture to best breed.  And you need no title to do that.


Tuesday, September 18, 2012

ReTHINK : Tribal Leadership from Seth Godin

 
 

So sometimes I get invited to give weird talks. I got invited to speak to the people who dress up in big stuffed animal costumes to perform at sporting events. Unfortunately I couldn't go. But it got me thinking about the fact that these guys, at least most of them, know what it is that they do for a living. What they do is they dress up as stuffed animals and entertain people at sporting events.
Shortly after that I got invited to speak at the convention of the people who make balloon animals. And again, I couldn't go. But it's a fascinating group. They make balloon animals. There is a big schism between the ones who make gospel animals and porn animals, but --(Laughter)they do a lot of really cool stuff with balloons. Sometimes they get in trouble, but not often. And the other thing about these guys is, they also know what they do for a living. They make balloon animals.
But what do we do for a living? What exactly to the people watching this do every day? And I want to argue that what we do we try to change everything. That we try to find a piece of the status quo --something that bothers us, something that needs to be improved, something that is itching to be changed -- and we change it. We try to make big, permanent, important change. But we don't think about it that way. And we haven't spent a lot of time talking about what that process is like. And I've been studying it for a couple years. And I want to share a couple stories with you today.
First, about a guy named Nathan Winograd. Nathan was the number two person at the San Francisco SPCA. And what you may not know about the history of the SPCA is, it was founded to kill dogs and cats. Cities gave them a charter to get rid of the stray animals on the street and destroy them. In a typical year four million dogs and cats were killed, most of them within 24 hours of being scooped off of the street. Nathan and his boss saw this, and they could not tolerate it. So they set out to make San Francisco no-kill city: create an entire city where every dog and cat, unless it was ill or dangerous, would be adopted, not killed. And everyone said it was impossible. Nathan and his boss went to the city council to get a change in the ordinance. And people from SPCAs and humane shelters around the country flew to San Francisco to testify against them --to say it would hurt the movement and it was inhumane. They persisted. And Nathan went directly to the community. He connected with people who cared about this: non-professionals, people with passion. And within just a couple years, an Francisco became the first no-kill city, running no deficit, completely supported by the community. Nathan left and went to Tompkins County, New York --a place as different from San Francisco as you can be and still be in the United States. And he did it again. He went from being a glorified dogcatchers completely transforming the community. And then he went to North Carolina and did it again. And he went to Reno and he did it again.
 
And when I think about what Nathan did, and when I think about what people here do, I think about ideas. And I think about the idea that creating an idea, spreading an idea has a lot behind it. I don't know if you've ever been to a Jewish wedding, but what they do is, they take a light bulb and they smash it. Now there is a bunch of reasons for that, and stories about it. But one reason is because it indicates a change, from before to after. It is a moment in time. And I want to argue that we are living through and are right at the key moment of a change in the way ideas are created and spread and implemented.
We started with the factory idea: that you could change the whole world if you had an efficient factory that could churn out change. We then went to the TV idea, that said if you had a big enough mouthpiece, if you could get on TV enough times, if you could buy enough ads, you could win. And now we're in this new model of leadership, where the way we make change is not by using money or power to lever a system, but by leading.
So let me tell you about the three cycles. The first one is the factory cycle. Henry Ford comes up with a really cool idea. It enables him to hire men who used to get paid 50 cents a day and pay them five dollars a day. Because he's got an efficient enough factory. Well with that sort of advantage you can churn out a lot of cars. You can make a lot of change. You can get roads built. You can change the fabric of an entire country. That the essence of what you're doing is you need ever-cheaper labour, and ever-faster machines. And the problem we've run into is, we're running out of both. Ever-cheaper labour and ever-faster machines.(Laughter)
So we shift gears for a minute, and say, "I know: television;advertising. Push push.Take a good idea and push it on the world.I have a better mousetrap.And if I can just get enough money to tell enough people, I'll sell enough."And you can build an entire industry on that.If necessary you can put babies in your ads.If necessary you can use babies to sell other stuff. And if babies don't work, you can use doctors. But be careful. Because you don't want to get an unfortunate juxtaposition, where you're talking about one thing instead of the other.(Laughter)This model requires you to act like the kinglike the person in the front of the room throwing things to the peons in the back. That you are in charge, and you're going to tell people what to do next. The quick little diagram of it is, you're up here, and you are pushing it out to the world. This method -- mass marketing --requires average ideas, because you're going to the masses, and plenty of ads. What we've done as spammers is tried to hypnotize everyone into buying our idea, hypnotize everyone into donating to our cause, hypnotize everyone into voting for our candidate. And, unfortunately, it doesn't work so well anymore either.(Laughter)
But there is good news around the corner -- really good news. I call it the idea of tribes. What tribes are, is a very simple concept that goes back 50,000 years. It's about leading and connecting people and ideas. And it's something that people have wanted forever. Lots of people are used to having a spiritual tribe, or a church tribe, having a work tribe, having a community tribe. But now, thanks to the internet, thanks to the explosion of mass media, thanks to a lot of other things that are bubbling through our society around the world, tribes are everywhere.
The Internet was supposed to homogenize everyone by connecting us all. Instead what it's allowed is silos of interest. So you've got the red-hat ladies over here. You've got the red-hat triathletes over there. You've got the organized armies over here. You've got the disorganized rebels over here. You've got people in white hats making food. And people in white hats sailing boats. The point is that you can find Ukrainian folk dancers and connect with them, because you want to be connected. That people on the fringes can find each other, connect and go somewhere. Every town that has a volunteer fire department understands this way of thinking.(Laughter)
Now it turns out hits is a legitimate non-photo shopped photo. People I know who are firemen told me that this is not uncommon. And that what firemen do to train sometimes is they take a house that is going to be torn down, and they burn it down instead, and practice putting it out. But they always stop and take a picture.(Laughter)
You know the pirate tribe is a fascinating one. They've got their own flag. They've got the eye patches. You can tell when you're running into someone in a tribe. And it turns out that it's tribes --not money, not factories --that can change our world, that can change politics, that can align large numbers of people. Not because you force them to do something against their will, but because they wanted to connect.
That what we do for a living now, all of us, I think, is find something worth changing, and then assemble tribes that assemble tribes that spread the idea and spread the idea. And it becomes something far bigger than ourselves, it becomes a movement. So when Al Gore set outdo change the world again, he didn't do it by himself. And he didn't do it by buying a lot of ads. He did it by creating a movement. Thousands of people around the country who could give his presentation for him, because he can't be in 100 or 200 or 500 cities in each night.
You don't need everyone. What Kevin Kelley has taught us is you just need, I don't know, a thousand true fans --a thousand people who care enough that they will get you the next round and the next round and the next round. And that means that the idea you create, the product you create, the movement you create isn't for everyone, it's not a mass thing. That's not what this is about. What it's about instead is finding the true believers. It's easy to look at what I've said so far, and say, "Wait a minute, I don't have what it takes to be that kind of leader."
So here are two leaders. They don't have a lot in common. They're about the same age. But that's about it. What they did, though, is each in their own way, created a different way of navigating your way through technology. So some people will go out and get people to be on one team. And some people will get people to be on the other team.
It also informs the decisions you make when you make products or services. You know, this is one of my favourite devices. But what a shame that it's not organized to help authors create movements. What would happen if, when you're using your Kindle, you could see the comments and quotes and notes from all the other people reading the same book as you in that moment. Or from your book group. Or from your friends, or from the circle you want. What would happen if authors, or people with ideas could use version two, which comes out on Monday, and use it to organize people who want to talk about something. Now there is a million things I could share with you about the mechanics here. But let me just try a couple.
The Beatles did not invent teenagers. They merely decided to lead them. That most movements, most leadership that we're doings about finding a group that's disconnected but already has a yearning --not persuading people to want something they don't have yet.
When Diane Hatz worked on "The Meatrix," her video that spread all across the internet about the way farm animals are treated, she didn't invent the idea of being a vegan. She didn't invent the idea of caring about this issue. But she helped organize people, and helped turn it into a movement.
Hugo Chavez did not invent the disaffected middle and lower class of Venezuela. He merely led them.
Bob Marley did not invent Rastafarians. He just stepped up and said, "Follow me."
Derek Sivers invented CD Baby, which allowed independent musicians to have a place to sell their music without selling out to the man --to have place to take the mission they already wanted to go to, and connect with each other.
What all these people have in common is that they are heretics. That heretics look at the status quo and say, "This will not stand. I can't abide this status quo I am willing to stand up and be counted and move things forward. I see what the status quo is; I don't like it."That instead of looking at all the little rules and following each one of them, that instead of being what I call a sleepwalker --somebody who's half asleep, following instructions, keeping their head down, fitting in --every once in a while someone stands up and says, "Not me."Someone stands up and says, "This one is important. We need to organize around it."And not everyone will. But you don't need everyone. You just need a few people --(Laughter) --who will look at the rules, realize they make no sense, and realize how much they want to be connected.
So Tony Shea does not run a shoe store. Zappos isn't a shoe store. Zappos is the one, the only, the best-there-ever-was place for people who are into shoes to find each other, to talk about their passion, to connect with people who care more about customer service than making a nickel tomorrow. It can be something as prosaic as shoes, and something as complicated as overthrowing a government. It's exactly the same behaviour though.
What it requires, as Geraldine Carter has discovered, is to be able to say, "I can't do this by myself. But if I can get other people to join my Climb and Ride, then together we can get something that we all want. We're just waiting for someone to lead us."
Michelle Kaufman has pioneered new ways of thinking about environmental architecture. She doesn't do it by quietly building one house at a time. She does it by telling a story to people who want to hear it. By connecting a tribe of people who are desperate to be connected to each other. By leading a movement and making change. And around and around and around it goes.
So three questions I'd offer you. The first one is, who exactly are you upsetting? Because if you're not upsetting anyone, you're not changing the status quote second question is, who are you connecting? Because for a lot of people, that's what they're in it for: the connections that are being made, one to the other. And the third one is, who are you leading? Because focusing on that part of it --not the mechanics of what you're building, but the who, and the leading part -- is where change comes.
So Blake, at Tom's Shoes, had a very simple idea."What would happen if every time someone bought a pair of these shoes gave exactly the same pair to someone who doesn't even own a pair of shoes?"This is not the story of how you get shelf space at Neiman Marcus. It's a story of a product that tells a story. And as you walk around with this remarkable pair of shoes and someone says, "What are those?"You get to tell the story on Blake's behalf, on behalf of the people who got the shoes. And suddenly it's not one pair of shoes or 100 pairs of shoes. It's tens of thousands of pairs of shoes.
My friend Red Maxwell has spent the last 10 years fighting against juvenile diabetes. Not fighting the organization that's fighting it -- fighting with them, leading them, connecting them, challenging the status quo because it's important to him. And the people he surrounds himself with need the connection. They need the leadership. It makes a difference.
You don't need permission from people to lead them. But in case you do, here it is: they're waiting, we're waiting for you to show us where to go next. So here is what leaders have in common. The first thing is, they challenge the status quo. They challenge what's currently there. The second thing is, they build a culture. A secret language, a seven-second handshake, a way of knowing that you're in or out. They have curiosity. Curiosity about people in the tribe, curiosity about outsiders. They're asking questions. They connect people to one another. Do you know what people want more than anything? They want to be missed. They want to be missed the day they don't show up. They want to be missed when they're gone. And tribe leaders can do that. It's fascinating, because all tribe leaders have charisma, but you don't need charisma to become a leader. Being a leader gives you charisma. If you look and study the leaders who have succeeded, that's where charisma comes from -- from the leading. Finally, they commit. They commit to the cause. They commit to the tribe. They commit to the people who are there.
So I'd like you to do something for me. And I hope you'll think about it before you reject it out-of-hand. What I want you to do, it only takes 24 hours, is: create a movement. Something that matters. Start. Do it. We need it. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.(Applause)

Thanks to all...

Dear tribes,

Thanks for dropping by our page and we manage to make such a hit for just a week.




 

ReTHINK: Don't give up..Never


"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better."~ Samuel Beckett


As a young man, Abraham Lincoln went to war a captain and returned a private. Afterwards, he was a failure as a businessman. As a lawyer in Springfield, he was too impractical and temperamental to be a success. He turned to politics and was defeated in his first try for the legislature, again defeated in his first attempt to be nominated for congress, defeated in his application to be commissioner of the General Land Office, defeated in the senatorial election of 1854, defeated in his efforts for the vice-presidency in 1856, and defeated in the senatorial election of 1858. At about that time, he wrote in a letter to a friend, "I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth."

Winston Churchill failed sixth grade. He was subsequently defeated in every election for public office until he became Prime Minister at the age of 62. He later wrote, "Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never, Never, Never, Never give up." (his capitals, mind you)

Socrates was called "an immoral corrupter of youth" and continued to corrupt even after a sentence of death was imposed on him. He drank the hemlock and died corrupting.

Sigmund Freud was booed from the podium when he first presented his ideas to the scientific community of Europe. He returned to his office and kept on writing.

Robert Sternberg received a C in his first college introductory-psychology class. His teacher commented that "there was a famous Sternberg in psychology and it was obvious there would not be another." Three years later Sternberg graduated with honors from Stanford University with exceptional distinction in psychology, summa cum laude, and Phi Beta Kappa. In 2002, he became President of the American Psychological Association.

Charles Darwin gave up a medical career and was told by his father, "You care for nothing but shooting, dogs and rat catching." In his autobiography, Darwin wrote, "I was considered by all my masters and my father, a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard of intellect." Clearly, he evolved.

Thomas Edison's teachers said he was "too stupid to learn anything." He was fired from his first two jobs for being "non-productive." As an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, "How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?" Edison replied, "I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps."


"Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall."
~ Confucius
Albert Einstein did not speak until he was 4-years-old and did not read until he was 7. His parents thought he was "sub-normal," and one of his teachers described him as "mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in foolish dreams." He was expelled from school and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School. He did eventually learn to speak and read. Even to do a little math.

Louis Pasteur was only a mediocre pupil in undergraduate studies and ranked 15th out of 22 students in chemistry.

Henry Ford failed and went broke five times before he succeeded.

R. H. Macy failed seven times before his store in New York City caught on.

F. W. Woolworth was not allowed to wait on customers when he worked in a dry goods store because, his boss said, "he didn't have enough sense."

When Bell telephone was struggling to get started, its owners offered all their rights to Western Union for $100,000. The offer was disdainfully rejected with the pronouncement, "What use could this company make of an electrical toy."

John Garcia, who eventually was honored for his fundamental psychological discoveries, was once told by a reviewer of his often-rejected manuscripts that one is no more likely to find the phenomenon he discovered than to find bird droppings in a cuckoo clock. (sort of a cute critique actually)

Rocket scientist Robert Goddard found his ideas bitterly rejected by his scientific peers on the grounds that rocket propulsion would not work in the rarefied atmosphere of outer space.

Daniel Boone was once asked by a reporter if he had ever been lost in the wilderness. Boone thought for a moment and replied, "No, but I was once bewildered for about three days."


"Only those who dare to fail greatly can achieve greatly."
~ Robert F. Kennedy

An expert said of Vince Lombardi: "He possesses minimal football knowledge and lacks motivation." Lombardi would later write, "It's not whether you get knocked down; it's whether you get back up."

Michael Jordan and Bob Cousy were each cut from their high school basketball teams. Jordan once observed, "I've failed over and over again in my life. That is why I succeed."

Babe Ruth is famous for his past home run record, but for decades he also held the record for strikeouts. He hit 714 home runs and struck out 1,330 times in his career (about which he said, "Every strike brings me closer to the next home run."). And didn't Mark McGwire break that strikeout record? (John Wooden once explained that winners make the most errors.)

Hank Aaron went 0 for 5 his first time at bat with the Milwakee Braves.

Stan Smith was rejected as a ball boy for a Davis Cup tennis match because he was "too awkward and clumsy." He went on to clumsily win Wimbledon and the U. S. Open. And eight Davis Cups.

Tom Landry, Chuck Noll, Bill Walsh, and Jimmy Johnson accounted for 11 of the 19 Super Bowl victories from 1974 to 1993. They also share the distinction of having the worst records of first-season head coaches in NFL history - they didn't win a single game.

Johnny Unitas's first pass in the NFL was intercepted and returned for a touchdown. Joe Montana's first pass was also intercepted. And while we're on quarterbacks, during his first season Troy Aikman threw twice as many interceptions (18) as touchdowns (9) . . . oh, and he didn't win a single game. You think there's a lesson here?

After Carl Lewis won the gold medal for the long jump in the 1996 Olympic games, he was asked to what he attributed his longevity, having competed for almost 20 years. He said, "Remembering that you have both wins and losses along the way. I don't take either one too seriously."


"Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements, and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping. We see our past achievements as the end result of a clean forward thrust, and our present difficulties as signs of decline and decay."
~ Eric Hoffer

Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because "he lacked imagination and had no good ideas." He went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland. In fact, the proposed park was rejected by the city of Anaheim on the grounds that it would only attract riffraff.

Charles Schultz had every cartoon he submitted rejected by his high school yearbook staff. Oh, and Walt Disney wouldn't hire him.

After Fred Astaire's first screen test, the memo from the testing director of MGM, dated 1933, read, "Can't act. Can't sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little." He kept that memo over the fire place in his Beverly Hills home. Astaire once observed that "when you're experimenting, you have to try so many things before you choose what you want, that you may go days getting nothing but exhaustion." And here is the reward for perseverance: "The higher up you go, the more mistakes you are allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it's considered to be your style."

After his first audition, Sidney Poitier was told by the casting director, "Why don't you stop wasting people's time and go out and become a dishwasher or something?" It was at that moment, recalls Poitier, that he decided to devote his life to acting.

When Lucille Ball began studying to be actress in 1927, she was told by the head instructor of the John Murray Anderson Drama School, "Try any other profession."

The first time Jerry Seinfeld walked on-stage at a comedy club as a professional comic, he looked out at the audience, froze, and forgot the English language. He stumbled through "a minute-and a half" of material and was jeered offstage. He returned the following night and closed his set to wild applause.

In 1944, Emmeline Snively, director of the Blue Book Modeling Agency, told modeling hopeful Norma Jean Baker, "You'd better learn secretarial work or else get married." I'm sure you know that Norma Jean was Marilyn Monroe. Now . . . who was Emmeline Snively?

At the age of 21, French acting legend Jeanne Moreau was told by a casting director that her head was too crooked, she wasn't beautiful enough, and she wasn't photogenic enough to make it in films. She took a deep breath and said to herself, "Alright, then, I guess I will have to make it my own way." After making nearly 100 films her own way, in 1997 she received the European Film Academy Lifetime Achievement Award.


"Flops are a part of life's menu
and I've never been a girl to miss out on any of the courses."
~ Rosalind Russell

After Harrison Ford's first performance as a hotel bellhop in the film Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round, the studio vice-president called him in to his office. "Sit down kid," the studio head said, "I want to tell you a story. The first time Tony Curtis was ever in a movie he delivered a bag of groceries. We took one look at him and knew he was a movie star." Ford replied, "I thought you were spossed to think that he was a grocery delivery boy." The vice president dismissed Ford with "You ain't got it kid , you ain't got it ... now get out of here."

Michael Caine's headmaster told him, "You will be a laborer all your life."

Charlie Chaplin was initially rejected by Hollywood studio chiefs because his pantomime was considered "nonsense."

Enrico Caruso's music teacher said he had no voice at all and could not sing. His parents wanted him to become an engineer.

Decca Records turned down a recording contract with the Beatles with the unprophetic evaluation, "We don't like their sound. Groups of guitars are on their way out." After Decca rejected the Beatles, Columbia records followed suit.

In 1954, Jimmy Denny, manager of the Grand Ole Opry, fired Elvis Presley after one performance. He told Presley, "You ain't goin' nowhere, son. You ought to go back to drivin' a truck."

Beethoven handled the violin awkwardly and preferred playing his own compositions instead of improving his technique. His teacher called him "hopeless as a composer." And, of course, you know that he wrote five of his greatest symphonies while completely deaf.


"No matter how hard you work for success, if your thought is saturated with the fear of failure, it will kill your efforts, neutralize your endeavors and make success impossible."
~ Baudjuin
The Impressionists had to arrange their own art exhibitions because their works were routinely rejected by the Paris Salon. How many of you have heard of the Paris Salon?

A Paris art dealer refused Picasso shelter when he asked if he could bring in his paintings from out of the rain. One hopes that there is justice in this world and that the art dealer eventually went broke.

Van Gogh sold only one painting during his life. And this to the sister of one of his friends for 400 francs (approximately $50). This didn't stop him from completing over 800 paintings.

John Constable's luminous painting Watermeadows at Salisbury was dismissed in 1830 by a judge at the Royal Academy as "a nasty green thing." Name of the judge, anyone? Anyone?

Rodin's father once said, "I have an idiot for a son." Described as the worst pupil in the school, he was rejected three times admittance to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. His uncle called him uneducable. Perhaps this gave him food for thought.

Stravinsky was run out of town by an enraged audience and critics after the first performance of the Rite of Spring.

When Pablo Casals reached 95, a young reporter asked him "Mr. Casals, you are 95 and the greatest cellist that ever lived. Why do you still practice six hours a day?" Mr. Casals answered, "Because I think I'm making progress."

"Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune;
but great minds rise above them."
~ Washington Irving

"Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune;
but great minds rise above them."
~ Washington Irving
Leo Tolstoy flunked out of college. He was described as both "unable and unwilling to learn." No doubt a slow developer.

Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women, was encouraged to find work as a servant by her family.

Emily Dickinson had only seven poems published in her lifetime.

15 publishers rejected a manuscript by e. e. cummings. When he finally got it published by his mother, the dedication, printed in uppercase letters, read WITH NO THANKS TO . . . followed by the list of publishers who had rejected his prized offering. Nice going Eddie. Thanks for illustrating that nobody loses all the time.

18 publishers turned down Richard Bach's story about a "soaring eagle." Macmillan finally published Jonathan Livingston Seagull in 1970. By 1975 it had sold more than 7 million copies in the U.S. alone.

21 publishers rejected Richard Hooker's humorous war novel, M*A*S*H. He had worked on it for seven years.

22 publishers rejected James Joyce's The Dubliners.

27 publishers rejected Dr. Seuss's first book, To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.

Jack London received six hundred rejection slips before he sold his first story.

English crime novelist John Creasey got 753 rejection slips before he published 564 books.

William Saroyan accumulated more than a thousand rejections before he had his first literary piece published. Way to not take a hint, Bill!

Gertrude Stein submitted poems to editors for nearly 20 years before one was finally accepted. See . . . a rose is a rose.

I bet you didn't know that John Milton wrote Paradise Lost 16 years after losing his eyesight

One of Professor Pajares's first research efforts came back with a review that began, "There are so many things I don't like about this article I just don't know where to begin."

There is a professor at MIT who offers a course on failure. He does that, he says, because failure is a far more common experience than success. An interviewer once asked him if anybody ever failed the course on failure. He thought a moment and replied, "No, but there were two Incompletes."

Let's end with Woody Allen: "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying. Eighty percent of success is showing up."

"There is something to be said for keeping at a thing, isn't there?"
~ Frank Sinatra


Monday, September 17, 2012

Aung Suu Kyi Speech - Freedom From Fear


Freedom from Fear speech by Aung Sang Suu Kyi, 1990


It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it. Most Burmese are familiar with the four a-gati, the four kinds of corruption. Chanda-gati, corruption induced by desire, is deviation from the right path in pursuit of bribes or for the sake of those one loves.

Dosa-gati is taking the wrong path to spite those against whom one bears ill will, and moga-gati is aberration due to ignorance. But perhaps the worst of the four is bhaya-gati, for not only does bhaya, fear, stifle and slowly destroy all sense of right and wrong, it so often lies at the root of the other three kinds of corruption. Just as chanda-gati, when not the result of sheer avarice, can be caused by fear of want or fear of losing the goodwill of those one loves, so fear of being surpassed, humiliated or injured in some way can provide the impetus for ill will.

And it would be difficult to dispel ignorance unless there is freedom to pursue the truth unfettered by fear. With so close a relationship between fear and corruption it is little wonder that in any society where fear is rife corruption in all forms becomes deeply entrenched.

Public dissatisfaction with economic hardships has been seen as the chief cause of the movement for democracy in Burma, sparked off by the student demonstrations 1988. It is true that years of incoherent policies, inept official measures, burgeoning inflation and falling real income had turned the country into an economic shambles.

But it was more than the difficulties of eking out a barely acceptable standard of living that had eroded the patience of a traditionally good-natured, quiescent people - it was also the humiliation of a way of life disfigured by corruption and fear.

The students were protesting not just against the death of their comrades but against the denial of their right to life by a totalitarian regime which deprived the present of meaningfulness and held out no hope for the future. And because the students' protests articulated the frustrations of the people at large, the demonstrations quickly grew into a nationwide movement. Some of its keenest supporters were businessmen who had developed the skills and the contacts necessary not only to survive but to prosper within the system.

But their affluence offered them no genuine sense of security or fulfilment, and they could not but see that if they and their fellow citizens, regardless of economic status, were to achieve a worthwhile existence, an accountable administration was at least a necessary if not a sufficient condition. The people of Burma had wearied of a precarious state of passive apprehension where they were 'as water in the cupped hands' of the powers that be.
Emerald cool we may be_As water in cupped hands_But oh that we might be_As splinters of glass_In cupped hands.

Glass splinters, the smallest with its sharp, glinting power to defend itself against hands that try to crush, could be seen as a vivid symbol of the spark of courage that is an essential attribute of those who would free themselves from the grip of oppression. Bogyoke Aung San regarded himself as a revolutionary and searched tirelessly for answers to the problems that beset Burma during her times of trial. He exhorted the people to develop courage: 'Don't just depend on the courage and intrepidity of others. Each and every one of you must make sacrifices to become a hero possessed of courage and intrepidity. Then only shall we all be able to enjoy true freedom.'

The effort necessary to remain uncorrupted in an environment where fear is an integral part of everyday existence is not immediately apparent to those fortunate enough to live in states governed by the rule of law. Just laws do not merely prevent corruption by meting out impartial punishment to offenders. They also help to create a society in which people can fulfil the basic requirements necessary for the preservation of human dignity without recourse to corrupt practices. Where there are no such laws, the burden of upholding the principles of justice and common decency falls on the ordinary people. It is the cumulative effect on their sustained effort and steady endurance which will change a nation where reason and conscience are warped by fear into one where legal rules exist to promote man's desire for harmony and justice while restraining the less desirable destructive traits in his nature.

In an age when immense technological advances have created lethal weapons which could be, and are, used by the powefful and the unprincipled to dominate the weak and the helpless, there is a compelling need for a closer relationship between politics and ethics at both the national and international levels. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations proclaims that 'every individual and every organ of society' should strive to promote the basic rights and freedoms to which all human beings regardless of race, nationality or religion are entitled. But as long as there are governments whose authority is founded on coercion rather than on the mandate of the people, and interest groups which place short-term profits above long-term peace and prosperity, concerted international action to protect and promote human rights will remain at best a partially realized struggle. There willcontinue to be arenas of struggle where victims of oppression have to draw on their own inner resources to defend their inalienable rights as members of the human family.
The quintessential revolution is that of the spirit, born of an intellectual conviction of the need for change in those mental attitudes and values which shape the course of a nation's development. A revolution which aims merely at changing official policies and institutions with a view to an improvement in material conditions has little chance of genuine success. Without a revolution of the spirit, the forces which produced the iniquities of the old order would continue to be operative, posing a constant threat to the process of reform and regeneration. It is not enough merely to call for freedom, democracy and human rights. There has to be a united determination to persevere in the struggle, to make sacrifices in the name of enduring truths, to resist the corrupting influences ofdesire, ill will, ignorance and fear.

Saints, it has been said, are the sinners who go on trying. So free men are the oppressed who go on trying and who in the process make themselves fit to bear the responsibilities and to uphold the disciplines which will maintain a free society. Among the basic freedoms to which men aspire that their lives might be full and uncramped, freedom from fear stands out as both a means and an end. A people who would build a nation in which strong, democratic institutions are firmly established as a guarantee against state-induced power must first learn to liberate their own minds from apathy and fear.

Always one to practise what he preached, Aung San himself constantly demonstrated courage - not just the physical sort but the kind that enabled him to speak the truth, to stand by his word, to accept criticism, to admit his faults, to correct his mistakes, to respect the opposition, to parley with the enemy and to let people be the judge of his worthiness as a leader. It is for such moral courage that he will always be loved and respected in Burma - not merely as a warrior hero but as the inspiration and conscience of the nation. The words used by Jawaharlal Nehru to describe Mahatma Gandhi could well be applied to Aung San:

'The essence of his teaching was fearlessness and truth, and action allied to these, always keeping the welfare of the masses in view.'


Gandhi, that great apostle of non-violence, and Aung San, the founder of a national army, were very different personalities, but as there is an inevitable sameness about the challenges ofauthoritarian rule anywhere at any time, so there is a similarity in the intrinsic qualities of those who rise up to meet the challenge. Nehru, who considered the instillation of courage in the people of India one of Gandhi's greatest achievements, was a political modernist, but as he assessed the needs for a twentieth-century movement for independence, he found himself looking back to the philosophy of ancient India:

 'The greatest gift for an individual or a nation . .. was abhaya, fearlessness, not merely bodily courage but absence of fear from the mind.'

Fearlessness may be a gift but perhaps more precious is the courage acquired through endeavour, courage that comes from cultivating the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one's actions, courage that could be described as 'grace under pressure' - grace which is renewed repeatedly in the face of harsh, unremitting pressure.

Within a system which denies the existence of basic human rights, fear tends to be the order of the day. Fear of imprisonment, fear of torture, fear ofdeath, fear oflosing friends, family, property or means of livelihood, fear of poverty, fear of isolation, fear of failure. A most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom, condemning as foolish, reckless, insignificant or futile the small, daily acts of courage which help to preserve man's self-respect and inherent human dignity. It is not easy for a people conditioned by fear under the iron rule of the principle that might is right to free themselves from the enervating miasma of fear. Yet even under the most crushing state machinery courage rises up again and again, for fear is not the natural state of civilized man.

The wellspring of courage and endurance in the face of unbridled power is generally a firm belief in the sanctity of ethical principles combined with a historical sense that despite all setbacks the condition of man is set on an ultimate course for both spiritual and material advancement. It is his capacity for self-improvement and self-redemption which most distinguishes man from the mere brute. At the root of human responsibility is the concept of peffection, the urge to achieve it, the intelligence to find a path towards it, and the will to follow that path if not to the end at least the distance needed to rise above individual limitations and environmental impediments. It is man's vision of a world fit for rational, civilized humanity which leads him to dare and to suffer to build societies free from want and fear. Concepts such as truth, justice and compassion cannot be dismissed as trite when these are often the only bulwarks which stand against ruthless power.