Being Honest

While it’s obvious we need to exhibit a certain amount of self-control while choosing what we put in our bodies, that is not the whole story.

If we educate our bodies and learn about nutrition, longevity and how our individual bodies function, we could be eating a lot healthier.

There is a lot of stuff available for us to do that makes us feel better instantly. Watching TV, going to the beach, drinking alcohol, smoking, and almost every other activity that seems pleasurable to us, giving us temporary pleasure in a jiffy. When we keep doing that, the long term effects are bad, and we feel older, weaker, sicker, while not having any achievement in our lives.

This is a natural process of a slow movement towards disorder, is also the second law of thermodynamics, called Entropy.

There is no such thing as the key to success.

However, being ambitious, lucky and persistent can really work. While nothing guarantees success, finding what you like and trying to become good at it are definitely important steps in that direction.

There is a certain temptation we all feel when it comes to other people's success: check out exactly how they made it u to this level.

Nevertheless, this is not really the appropriate approach, as each individual has its own path in life: so better focus on your goal and how you plan to achieve it.

Psychological resilience is not about fake positivity and takes its power from our negative feelings. It makes our anger, sadness, failure and self-loathing into something useful and productive.

When we become sufficiently resilient, we are unstoppable and limitless.

Our focus on the self has made us fearful and overwhelmed, especially in times of crisis. Part of our anxiety is the constant focus on oneself. Even if we do focus on others, it is only to judge them about how they feel about us, and what they think about us.

If instead of our inner selfishness, we find a greater cause to endure the crisis or risk, some deeper purpose or mission that eclipses our ego, then the crisis is taken care of.

If one is too busy, the gates of curiosity, wonder and serendipity become forever closed. We have to take time out to do something new, exploring life, and what all it has to offer.

Our desk job followed by our home responsibilities will rob us of a good life if we are too busy to be curious.

Life is about the new, and curiosity keeps life novel. Doing new things, learning new stuff and innovating in your field of interest.

Doing things that you are curious about will make your life full of joy, giving you a long, satisfying life experience.

There are five core concepts to keep in mind as you think about the second half of your career:

• The entrepreneurial mindset : Your life is not to be sold to a person who can give you a monthly paycheck (however large it is) but has to be moulded and perfected so that it becomes your business.
• Self-confidence: It may seem like everything related to management, digital transformation, marketing and sales has been told already, and sharing your own experience would not be something new. What is to be understood is that your own experience has a unique value, which no one has or can steal from you.
• Continuous learning: Staying curious and well informed will help you to shape your brand.
• Continuous improvement: Being enthusiastically skeptical is a great strategy for a constant endeavour to improve oneself, and finding a better way to do one’s task.
• Reinvention: Being forever employable means that you have to reinvent the core aspects of yourself.

• The first task for a manager is to be transparent, explaining to the team exactly what is known, and what isn’t known, and not to keep any team member in the dark.

• The second task is to provide hope and a sense of possibility to the employees facing an uncertain future ahead.

Before any word is uttered to the employees, you need to understand your role and channel your leader 'avatar' in a time of crisis, as if preparing for a battle. Your steel nerves will be contagious(!) to your team members. You need to sound convincing, and it’s a good idea to follow the basics, like eating well, plenty of sleep and regular exercise.

People with high hope have a good number of difficult, challenging goals, and a good scorecard of achievement.

They have lower rates of anxiety and depression and greater happiness. They cope well with problems that consume the rest of the world.

Instead of wishful thinking, we need to know what we want (specific goals), and have the drive and passion to go towards it (agency) and should be able to generate methods and devices to achieve what we want (pathways).

When we do a sum total of these three, we get hope: Hope= Goals + Agency + Pathways

Ego, generally considered an enemy, surprisingly can also be defined as a measure to handle setbacks, criticism and rejection.

When our ego-strength is embraced and utilized positively, we genuinely believe in ourselves no matter what the circumstances. No rejection, loss or failure can destroy our will to keep going.

Mental toughness is about keeping calm and level-headed while in situations that can make one emotional or make one’s heart pound.

It is almost like a superpower if you are composed and ‘cool’ instead of giving a knee-jerk, emotional reaction.

For most people, self-discipline is hard labor. It’s something to despise. But if you approach self-discipline with that attitude, it’s pretty hard to develop it.

Self-discipline is not hard at all. The lack of self-discipline is hard. 

When you are not disciplined, you know only one part of the equation: immediate gratification (our desire to experience pleasure or fulfillment without delay).

But delayed gratification (resistance to the temptation of an immediate reward in preference for a later reward) is so much better in the long turn. 

• The morning hours are usually the best hours of your day, and what you do at that time has the power to change your life.
• Keep yourself away from distractions and just focus on your morning goals, like meditating, reading, writing or exercising.
• Checking e-mail, watching the news, or consuming useless (junk) content is the worst thing you can do in the morning.

Taking a cue from Bruce Lee’s famous quote ‘Be Water’, we must adopt a water mindset and adapt to our body and physiology: our best hour of the day could be any hour of the day, as long as it is according to you. Give yourself the best hour of the day.

All of us cannot wake up and join the 5 AM Club as our bodies are different and each morning isn’t the same.