Let it go

I sat in the audience when Tshering Tobgay, Bhutan's Prime Minister spoke about measuring his country's success according to Gross National Happiness (GNH), rather than solely gross domestic product, prioritizing well-being over financial growth.

Extensive research since 2000 has shown that people who are happier also have fewer strokes and heart attacks, have better work performance and more professional success, have more fulfilling and longer-lasting relationships and live longer.

It was stunning. An analysis of words people used on Twitter analyzed some 40,000 words in over 80 million tweets throughout the northeastern USA, and when the results were overlaid with a county-by-county analysis of heart attacks, it was a nearly exact correlation.

What kind of language patterns were so predictive of illness? Overall, they were expressions of anger, hostility and aggression, as well  disengagement including "mad, alone, annoying, can't, bored" and a slew of words that I can't repeat here.

That really made me stop and think.

How many times have I lay awake at night imagining the aggravation someone put me through during the day...thinking about what he said....what I should have said....what I'll say if you see him again? And of course, that person is sleeping peacefully without  any idea that I am awake, thinking about him! So, at that point, whose life is being ruined, consumed and wasted?

For us to forgive another person, it is not required that he deserves our forgiveness. It is not even required that he is aware he has been forgiven. Forgiveness, it turns out, is a gift that means more to the giver than it does to the receiver.

Wasn't it Buddha who said: "Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who get's burned."

In the same vein, it is important that we forgive ourselves. Most of us over thirty years of age have had plenty of time to get mad about things we've done or haven't done. We made promises that we didn't keep, or we had intentions that were never fulfilled. We set goals we didn't reach, and now, we'd disappointed ourselves. Forgive yourself and move on.

In the past 15 years, science has learned that happiness isn't the result of some big, out-of-reach event or attainment. It's not something you pursue, it's something you do.

I have long since realize that happiness is not by winning the lottery, not by buying a mansion or a Lamborghini, not by moving to Beverly Hills, not by becoming rich and famous or marrying Emma Stone. Not by gigantic achievements and accolades.

Imagine this: if you had $86,400 in your account and someone stole $10 from you, would you be upset and throw  all of the remaining $86,390 away in the hope of getting back at the person who took your $10? Or move on and live? See, we all have 86,400 seconds each day. Don't let someone's negative 10 seconds ruin the remaining 86,390.

Don't sweat the small stuff. Life is bigger than that.

On the one hand, we all want to be happy. On the other hand, we all know the things that make us happy. But we don't do those things? Why? Simple. We are too busy. Too busy doing what? Too busy trying to be happy.

 

Be Genuine

The sobering Oscar-nominated film Hidden Figures tells the story of a trio of African-American math whizzes who happened to be women, employed by NASA in the early 1960s to help put a US astronaut into orbit.

Entering an organization is like joining a party that has been going on without you for years. I remember how I felt on my first day on the job. Proud, excited, perhaps a little anxious...what I really wanted was to find a way to show my coworkers - and especially my manager - what a shrewd decision they had made by hiring me.

As leaders, the task of building and maintaining a team is never done. One aspect of team-building that often gets overlooked is the need for old-timers to have the necessary patience with newcomers. For the newcomer, everything is unfamiliar.

The members of my team could almost work together blindfolded. They trust each other's judgment and have a sense of fellowship which is the glue for any group of people who want to outperform competitors.

Transparency in teams = trust. The better the team members know one another's background, beliefs, ideals and other personal information, the more likely there is to be empathy and understanding within a group. 

A team is built on good people and good relationships.

Trust is a critical ingredient of a team's success. The members in a team who achieve extraordinary results are not arrogant or superficial, they don't play games and they are not powermongers. Instead, they are real, and that's how they come across to people.

People today are skeptical for good reasons. They hate insincerity. Don't be a fake. People want to know who and what is real and genuine. And if they find it, they trust it.

 

Judge with compassion

It's that time of the year for performance appraisal. For most of us, we would have one of these thoughts or feelings - Am I feeling supported or threatened? Is it a good use or a waste of my time? Am I participating because I want to or because I have to?

Motivation that comes from choosing to do something is different from motivation that comes from having to do it. Beating our people with carrots won't help too. Rewards and punishment can work at the moment but they buy only one thing: temporary compliance. What happens when the reward or pressure is gone or resources run dry? People should not be trained like pets.

Leadership is not something you do to people; it is something you do with people. After all, a team is not a group of people who work together.  A team is a group of people who trust each other

It has been said that there are always three sides to every story: mine, yours and the truth. Perception is a funny thing. Nearly all of us want to believe our perception of a situation or person are the most accurate and that if there are any discrepancies, it is a problem with the other person's perception. But are they? I understand this because I have felt the same way myself throughout my life.

Perception is also a huge factor how we relate interpersonally with other at work and in relationships. Consider this, if you and I were to look at the same apple, most people would assume we are both "seeing" the same thing. But are we? If we are both facing each other with the apple between us, what if there is a bruise or worm hole on my side but yours looks flawless? Aren't our perceptions of the deliciousness of that apple going to differ?

Our perceptions of people can also change over time. There are several people from my school days that I never associated with that now are some of my closest friends because I see them differently. As I look back forty years past, I see numerous situations differently than I did back then. My perceptions has changed though the situations have not.

The ability to show care, empathy, to "see the world through someone else's eyes" has an impact on the bottomline. After all, caring does lead to trust.

I am reminded of a story I heard recently:

Dr Stephen James entered the hospital in a hurry after being called in for an urgent surgery.

He found the boy's father pacing in the hall waiting for the doctor. On seeing him the father yelled, "why did you take all this time to come? Don't you know my son's life is in danger? Don't you have any sense of responsibility?"

Dr Stephen smiled and said, "I am sorry. I wasn't in the hospital and I came as fast as I could after receiving the call and now, I wish you'd calm down so that I can do my work."

"Calm down? What if your son was in this room right now, would you calm down? If your own son dies while waiting for the doctor, what would you do then?" said the father angrily.

The doctor smiled again and replied, "We will do our best by God's grace and you should also pray for your son's healthy life."

The surgery took some hours after which the doctor went out happy. "Thank goodness your son is saved!" And without waiting for the father's reply he carried on his way running by saying, "If you have any questions, ask the nurse."

The boy's father asked the nurse, "Why is he so arrogant? Couldn't he wait for a few minutes so that I could ask about my son's procedure?"

The nurse answered, tears coming down her face, "His son died yesterday in a road accident, he was at the burial when we called him for your son's surgery. And now that he saved your son's life, he left running to finish his son's burial."

Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. I try to remind myself judge with compassion because I never know what kind of battle they are fighting.