What could Meditate mean, if seen through the lens of English word families…
Meditate = Med-it-ate
MED = Mindful Effective Design (of the mind)
‘-it’ is a suffix that makes the word before it measurable, or better known (as in qual-it y, productiv-it y, etc.)
‘-ate’ is a suffix that means ‘create’ (as in duplic-ate, triplic-ate, replicate, etc.)
To sum it up, to Meditate implies to…
Create specific, better known, Mindful Effective Design(s)
Cheers!
That’s right! We’ve been used to hearing and reading about it the other way around. ‘Walk the talk!’ is the constant refrain for leadership. You should ‘do as you say, practice what you preach’.
I’ve found that while the (almost cliched) saying “Walk the Talk” works fine for those situations where we may benefit from it, there’s the flip saying also which is very effective in growing and spreading a greater understanding. Most people don’t give a second thought to whether what they are saying is true about themselves. This may be fine as long as you ascribe the authorship of what you say to someone else, someone greater than yourself, but why do we treat what we say as separate from our own behavior?
You may be very sincerely giving advice to another from the storehouse of quotations you carry in your mind. In such a scenario you are the medium through which someone (the author’s) else’s learning is finding new ears. It doesn’t make any difference to how you may be. Or at least it gives you the liberty of some time before people may expect you to follow what you have said, to demonstrate in action the same wise words. So let’s consider another approach. An approach to changing yourself for the better forever.
Let’s say you hold yourself very responsible for saying something that you do not practice. In such a case, out of a sense of integrity, you would diligently also mention that these words have been said by so and so. Lets also assume that you don’t want to have to keep remembering what other people have said simply to share them with others, but you use them more to make a difference to who you are. In such a scenario, one very simple thing to do is to only share what you do, and how you yourself are.
Choose to only share those aspects or facts that you have already worked upon, and the changes you have already caused with them. Make sure you always have something new to talk about. With this approach, it follows that you will first practice differently, analyze the results for yourself, and then talk about the successes, the lessons. If you are trying out new ways of doing things, of being yourself, you will always have many lessons to talk about.
When you talk from personal experience, and from the rewards that you yourself have reaped, it becomes something far more engaging and valuable. Such conversations have far reaching depths, and impact that may just be the change that was needed. It’s our integrity with ourselves. It’s living personal integrity as alignment between what we think, believe, say, and do.
— O —
Whenever people hear of having to know something they don’t know, the common reflexive response is – “I don’t have time to learn this now”. This is almost as if regretting the fact that they missed knowing this earlier, when they may have had the choice to spend time on this.
We only seem to have time to be more of what we are. Unfortunately so. We don’t ‘have’ the time to be different from what we are. Or at least to be different from what we think we are. We think we are bound to be the way we think we are. Think about it. And think about where to get the time from, to be different from what we think we are.
I’ve realized that making time begins in the mind, and fructifies in removing waste reducers. I just believe I have more time than my watch may tell me. My to-do list is always longer than my day, but never so long that I feel defeated. I always believe that if I’m doing something I’ve done before, I will take less time doing it again. That’s where I ‘make’ time.
— O —
We humans are a social animal. The structure of our needs has been shown by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs… from Biological up to Security, to Belonging, to Recognition, and finally of Self-Actualization.
Each one of these needs beyond the first two, from Belonging upwards, depends a lot on the meaning we build as our own from our community(ies), the recognition (appreciation) we gather, and the new (personal/original) meaning we are able to convey (add) to our community (the world we understand). What does meaning mean to us?
The book, “The Three Laws of Performance” makes the point so emphatically – “How things occur to us depends on the language we use”. What does this mean? Does language lead to meaning, or is it the other way around? Is its meaning important for us? And therefore to us?
Of course, language is a natural form of communication, and as such there will be varying degrees of ‘language’ used by different people, all of which we need to be accommodated in our understanding. That notwithstanding, does the widespread adoption of a wide vocabulary, clear, consistent, correct, and precise language have a direct correspondence with the growth and evolution of a community?
This is an invitation to a conversation on the meaning of language, and what it means to us, building from what it means to each one of us. You’re invited to be a part of this conversation right here… Click and post your thoughts and read what others are saying as well.
What does meaning mean to us?
What role does the (correctness of) language mean for all of us?
— O —
Do Trainers need training? Yes of course they need training, but they do not need to be trained. This is what makes them Trainers at the cutting edge.
Obviously, if they need to be trained, then they are the learner. If a trainer believes they have outgrown the learning stage, they are actually doomed as a trainer. All trainers worth their salt accept that they need to keep learning constantly, just to keep pace with the rapidly learning youngsters who will ask them questions during their training sessions. The better trainers learn faster than anyone else. It’s just that simple.
So how do Trainers learn so quickly? What do Trainers do to learn without being trained?
Trainers are experts at focusing on learning objectives and asking questions, assimilating answers, and practicing without inertia. This expertise of asking questions is the expertise knowing which questions to ask, how to ask which question, who or what to tap for the answers, and what questions need to be answered first. This expertise naturally gets them the answers before anyone else, and that is what creates the opportunity for them to be Trainers.
Trainers develop the ability to assess the purpose for every piece of information. While good learners need to know how to answer all the questions they are presented with, good teachers need to be able to reverse-engineer the questions from looking at all the information (‘answers’) that they perceive. Trainers have to be able to determine the objective from the response. And, the best trainers are able to ask new questions, questions they have never been faced with.
— O —
It is paradoxical and extremely unfortunate that there are elements among humanity who seek to take advantage of the heightened faith that we humans tend to have at times like this, when we don’t really know the cause of our suffering, or its remedy… the ‘fake news’ pandemic is what we see growing all around us, and we are likely victims of it with every other message we receive…
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/news/scamsters-make-hay-amid-pandemic-5165994
It is a very opportune time I feel, for each one of us to recall that the only Truth is what we believe in. Truth is what we give credibility to. Even the dictionary defines Truth as a Definite set of beliefs. So what is the truth? Lets talk a little more about what it is not.
Taking advantage of the faith and belief that we, the people repose in them, scamsters like Baba Ram Rahim (an example from some months ago), and thousands before and after him, grow in their influence and prosperity. Our faith also needs to evolve to keep pace with their increasingly ridiculous statements, until we can safely label our faith as ‘blind’, after which there seems no remedy to our future. I can recall many living ‘legends’ who may qualify in the category who we repose faith in as ‘lay’ people.. Heads of state the world over are joining this club.. Or have we been pushing them towards it ourselves?
So called ‘God-men’, and they abound in every part of the world where they have people to believe in them, were the founder-members of this club. In fact even in play, we realize that GOD actually stands for ‘Greater On Demand’… the one we demand to be greater becomes God! We just need to realize the ways we are demanding them to be greater, and we will get all the answers to the questions popping up in our heads. We, the herd, have been pushing forward the sheep who don the lion’s skin at the front, and make sure the herd always believes in their own ignorance (sheep-like). This ignorance of ours is what gives them their power over us.
Many years ago I had thought FAITH was the Feeling of Adoration Inspired by Trust and Hope. I do not discount for a minute, the possibility of hope arising out of helplessness, ignorant faith being confused for trust, and sycophancy being mistaken for adoration. Let’s us be mindful of the monsters we create ourselves.
So what is the Truth? What can we have Faith in? What must our behavior be like?
The answers lie within us, within every one of us. Discerning, meditative inquiry, and mindful behavior lead us to the manifestation of our Truths, while at the same time protecting us from what is not the truth.
Stay mindful, stay safe, stay enlightened… the ultimate responsibility is our own!
Meeting requirements does not grow an organization, meeting discerning demands does. As customers, we must have discerning demands. This is what causes our supplier organizations to grow. So many of us will be able to relate with the growth that our own organizations had, because we had some discerning, demanding customers. These are Premium customers to have, and every supplier is blessed when they have one.
“It’s not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It’s the customer who pays the wages.” – Henry Ford
Customers who have discerning standards, and demand their standards be met are the reason for learning and growth for their suppliers who (go through the ‘good’) struggle if they are committed to deliver quality. Unless there is something more and better being delivered, it isn’t growth for anyone – neither the individual, nor the supplier, nor the customer. As long as there is something good and better, the ‘more’ makes sense. If the quality isn’t what it could have been, more just means more of the same. This isn’t growth. So what is Quality then?
We’ve heard promotional claims from sales pitches about the quality of products and services that will be offered by a particular supplier – “the world’s best”, “most economical”, “in the shortest possible time”, “easy to work with”, “better than the competition”, “most comfortable”, etc. Of course there’s an asterisk(*) in every case, pointing to the fine print of the T&C (terms & conditions) that apply. In most cases however, we, the consumers (or the customers) convince ourselves to decide to buy those products and services despite some loopholes or risks we may observe in the promises. We take a chance. The suppliers depend on our gullibility to swallow that impossible promise along with the compromises and discounts we may make with our own values or standards. In a sellers’ market, goods are scarce and sellers can keep prices high. And there are enough of us customers in this world.
“Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.” – Ayn Rand
What do we do as consumers when we go through and experience the purchase? We cloak our disappointments in the rationalization we do to let the supplier go scot free, without even them knowing that they fell short. Suppliers couldn’t be happier. We’re lapping up whatever is meted out, maybe happy in the retail therapy it provides us. We compromise our demands for quality.
“I don’t pay good wages because I have a lot of money; I have a lot of money because I pay good wages.” – Robert Bosch
There’s always the balance between quality and price to think about. What people may be able to afford, may not be good enough in their opinion. In a buyers’ market, goods are plentiful and buyers can keep prices down. Both, the suppliers or the customers could make compromises in quality, and in their demands. Their wisdom and discernment defines the quality of their compromise at any given point in time.
“Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shuts down for ten years.” – Warren Buffett
This compromise is the beginning of the end, as far as economic growth goes, if it isn’t made with discernment. Quality Professionals will jump up to say, “But Quality is meeting the Customers’ Requirements!”. They will not take responsibility for the requirements being laissez-faire or their implied promise not being kept (they are covered by the T&C, you see, even if they started with the best intentions).
“Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
So we seem to be faced with the question – Does the replication and scaling up of laissez-faire goods in larger volumes have a positive impact on the economic growth? Or does the discerning refinement of product features and value propositions, and then each scaling up (albeit to a lower scale) have a bigger positive impact on economic growth.
“If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.” – Henry Ford
My own take is that as we go up the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, our discernment must increase, we must demand of ourselves to be more discerning, whether we are the customer or the supplier. The higher up we are in Maslow’s Hierarchy, the more discerning we must be. We must develop our own discernment to match the responsibility that we take at our position in life.
A mentor once told me that our wealth is defined not by how much money we have, but by how we spend it!!
— O —
Why is a Name important… and why is it’s spelling equally so!
Because you need to find it again…
…And you will later look for (or refer to) it by the name you remember. You will find the item only if it is tagged and stored in the system with the same name, spelt exactly the way you remember. The ‘system’ will not be able to help you find what you are looking for, if even one character is different. The system could be another person or a computer file storage system. And remember, even a blank space is a character for a computer system.
Unclear or uncertain names are the single most common cause for miscommunication between people – resulting in waste of time, conflicts, costly mistakes, and loss of brand value.
Which aspects of a Name make its use elegant and effective?
| Brevity | Not a mouthful, easy to pinpoint in a jiffy |
| Ease in spell | Phonetic, commonly known spelling, distinct and easy even to tell someone else on the phone |
| Relevance | Relevance to entity and its contents, indicative of meaning, associative, intuitive to search, easy to recall |
| Uniqueness | Makes it possible to identify accurately and precisely, usually forced if used on a computer system |
| Sort-ability | Gives the natural sequence in a list we might hold conceptually, easier to find and analyze |
| Structure | Indicates ontology, hierarchy (and therefore context), sets and subsets |
Which name-aspects can be most significant for various kinds of ‘things’?
Names have a purpose. Use them effectively as you engineer knowledge.
Happy Naming! 🙂
There’s a law of sailing in the high seas.
“When the paths of a big ship and a small ship cross at sea, it is always the smaller, more maneuverable ship that gives way.”
And the same is true of Life!
I read this many years ago. And as I read it and thought about it, I realized it applied to our relationships, our professions, most everything over time. But I also realized that giving in doesn’t always mean giving up or losing. It just means that you have to find a different route to where you wanted to reach, maybe at a different time which is more opportune.
It led me to a corollary of the law…
“Also, it is the smaller, more powerful, more aware pilot ship that tugs the big one safely into harbor.”
Sail happy, sail free!
We see so many people around us waiting to be told what they have to do, to be trained, to be educated, to be taught,… to be spoon-fed what they need to know. “If you tell me, I will know,” they say. Even for what they want to know they are waiting, expecting someone to feed them. But if everyone is waiting to be spoon-fed, who is going to feed them? There will have to be some people who learn by themselves!!
It is Trainers who learn by themselves, more, faster, and better than anyone else. By doing so, and only by doing so, they become trainers valued by learners.
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