Mind thoughts
Learning Emotional Intelligence …
Mar 15th
Friday was an interesting day for me at work …… a day in training !
Now, you would ask how could a full day training be interesting? Yes, it was interesting because the training was on “Emotional Intelligence at work place” and the topic itself was very engaging. It was all about taking a day off to know yourself, know how to deal with others, use your strengths to deal with emotions of yourself as well as others and build effective relationships.
The training involved a lecture from the trainer (details at the bottom) over the “emotional intelligence” of oneself, how to identify the various emotions you are going through and how to deal with its state. It also involved a quick self-evaluation using a question – answer technique.
As usual, I would like to put in here, on my blog, the gist of the training and what I learnt during the training.
So, to start with, do you know what is an “Emotion”? It seems so simple, but when asked this question during the training, probably none could give an exact answer. The answers were such as, ‘An emotion is a feeling.’ , ‘An emotion is a thought in one’s mind.’. The answer that the trainer gave was ‘An emotion is an energy within the body that creates an awareness of its state through feeling’, which probably was a sensible answer !
There are two kinds of emotions that one can experience. Simple enough to guess, they are Good emotions and Bad emotions. Good emotions (happiness etc) are the ones that the body likes to carry and the Bad emotions (fear etc) are the ones that the body does NOT like to carry.
The mind is an invisible force that resides within the human body and assists the human being to experience various states of emotions. The mind plays an important part in managing the emotional state of a person.
The equation is simple, Mind is a slate on which the external situation, understood by 5 senses (see, listen, hear, touch, taste) and governed by one’s intelligence, intellect, memory, beliefs & values create an emotion that is visible through the gesture of a human being.
Now, what does EI tells us?
EI has 5 basic competencies as follows,
Self awareness
Self awareness is all about being aware of the emotional state of oneself. It also extends to expressing the emotions at right time and not suppressing them within yourself. If you are getting angry, upset, disappointed or frustrated, then its essential to identify the state of emotion and take a corrective action immediately.
Self management
This is all about managing one’s emotions and how you appear to others.
For example, if in a meeting, due to some lengthy arguments and counter arguments you are feeling angry, then its better to announce that I am getting angry, and I suppose I need to take a break. than continuing with the meting, which is likely to affect your judgement and might end into something you might repent !
Self motivation
Self motivations tells you to have a passion in life. It tells you to discover your own passion and pursue it in order to keep you motivated in life. It suggest you to have a goal in life (personal & professional) so you can go all about pursuing the goal. Doing the job you love and loving the job you do is the mantra of keeping one highly motivated.
Empathy
Empathy is all about getting in someone else’s shoes and DO nothing ! Yes, do nothing !
It suggest you should empathize with others to understand what situation they are going through before taking any decision about anyone. It helps you to understand what pains or problems someone is going through and how it might affect someone’s performance at work.
It also suggest that one should empathize with oneself. It helps understand what emotional state you are going through and what situation you are under. Self empathy is all about giving time to yourself every day to ensure you are in a good emotional state to realize your situation control limits.
Effective relationships
Effective relationships is the relationship that is Goal Oriented. In the discussion, after much debate, it was convinced that all relationships you can think of are goal oriented. An effective relationship is also one the one that comes with expectations and the one where the expectations are met.
Its recommended that you have a clear understanding of emotions with whom you get into an effective relationship.
Finally, at the end of the training, it was asked of us to create our own definition of EI, in exact 40 words and I could come out as follows,
EI is all about knowing and motivating yourself, controlling your behaviour irrespective of situation type, understanding others better, relate to them for betterment of your social and work life that could translate into more happiness and help earn more money and growth.
As I said earlier, its been a very interesting day on Friday in training. More thoughts on various topics within the EI will hopefully follow soon on my blog.
As usual, let me know your comments 
Thoughts on retirement from work … of my dad !
Mar 4th
Recently, my father, (Prof. R. K. Deshpande) retired from long and distinguished service service as a Botany Lecturer in Science college and on the occasion of his retirement and I had a privilege to be part of his last day at his work and the small facilitation by his department in his honour.
It was a wonderful occasion of honouring a career that spanned over almost 3 decades and with various achievements, it was great to see his colleagues acknowledging his contribution to their career, work and the legacy he has been leaving behind.
His work life has taught few very important lessons especially to me which I would like to remember forever my life and practice the.
“Problems will always be there, you need to find a solution and move ahead.”
A career spanning over three decades, for sure, would have had its fair share of troubles and problems. However, he had always followed the principle of facing the problems and finding his way out rather than worrying over the problems and their impacts. He is of firm belief that every problem is mitigable and we must strive to solve the problems and ensure they do not arise later.
“Discipline, hard work & foresight are three pillars of success.”
Discipline, hard work & foresight are very important aspects for getting a success in life. He taught us the fact that all three must go together if you want to achieve greater success in life. If you leave one out, then you are in a danger of not fulfilling your potential.
“Have your own principles, thoughts and be firm with them.”
My father always encouraged us to take our own decisions in life then be it the choice of school. college, subjects or courses or even wife. He had given us a greater freedom of ensuring that we are responsible for making the decisions that affect our life. He had never enforced his opinion or rule on us which we simply had to abide by. He is a man of principles and has followed them all his life and had never compromised on them and so does he encourages us to do in our respective lives.
You would not believe the fact that although I was a student in the same college he was a lecturer in, he gave me a freedom NOT to choose his subject for my college education and go for other subjects !
“Do something that interests you, apart from your job !”
My dad has been a versatile personality. Although he had been a teaching professional all his life, his multi faceted personality had shades of being an excellent singer, a very good musician, a very capable stage actor and a very social person. He had composed many songs, given a voice to them and had his music shows at quite a few places across Maharashtra. He also had a keen interest in acting and had played various characters in various stage plays and again had toured across various places in Maharashtra. He still does have a passion for music and arts and that is something amazes me of his personality.
Hats off to his work in the creative field and I can only wish I could have so many talents in me !
Papa, You are a great human being, a humble man and source of inspiration for our family and we all love you !
I want to be a Project Leader .. in 2 years ..
Jan 9th
Guess what .. this was a response given to me by a non engineering fresher graduate in response to a question, “where do you want to see yourself in 2 years time if you join us?” !
Of course, the person was not selected. Moreover, this was not the first time I got such an answer from the fresher non-engineering graduate who is aspiring to be an IT professional.
Its such a shame and probably now has come in a highlight because of the wonderful movie 3 Idiots, that our education system promotes only competition of marks and not of knowledge.
I wrote an article last year about the lack of innovation in India (not Indians) and the root cause in education system and for some reason, it was evident that the education system also gives importance to role or status of a person rather than the knowledge he has got within.
Another thing that made me unhappy about the answers I received during the interviews was the fact that none of the candidates gave me an answer that In next 2-3 years I want to be more knowledgeable and seek expertise in a technology and domain.
Every one wanted to be A project leader .. in 2 years !
Recommended reading
Lack of innovation in India – Root cause in education system?
You have got a new year wish …. via BCC !
Jan 5th
I am sure in the flood of wishes over the new year, quite a few of you would have received the wishes in the form of “BCC” email. If yes, what was your reaction? Do you prefer receiving the wishes in the “BCC” ?
For some reason, I have not been a fan of either sending or receiving the wishes to your office colleagues in BCC. It just doesn’t feel right to me. I somehow feel it devaluates the wish and the person to whom you are wishing.
I know its more of the matter of convenience of sending everyone a wish in one single email without anyone knowing the final list of recipients. However, the convenience is for the sender than the recipient of the email.
There are some scenarios where you want to send email to a group of individuals where you do not want the recipients to see or know each other’s address or do a reply-all and start an email chain. Use of the BCC makes sense in such scenarios.
However, at times I have seen a manager using the team’s address in the BCC and sending wish emails to the team. This, to me, is utter silly and does not add value. If you are anyways sending the email to the team using the team’s distribution list, why don’t just put that in the TO list and send the email?
If someone creates an outlook template (2 mins job) and tries to send the personalized wishes to everyone in the team, it would make everyone feel a lot better and feel bit more valued than receiving an email wish through BCC. Also, there are tools available in the market that would allow you to do so .. so why don’t just use them?
Any comments?
Avatar, stunning .. but !
Jan 2nd
I watched Avatar today, although late, in the full 3D mode and I must say I loved the way the movie was made. Hats off to James Cameron and team for making Avatar one of the best movie experiences of all time!
![200px-Avatar-Teaser-Poster[1]](http://blog.thirdbuttonred.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/200pxavatarteaserposter1.jpg "200px-Avatar-Teaser-Poster[1]"){kind=avatar}
Its not the case that movies such as these have not been made in past. I have seen quite a few IMAX movies and all of them were made in an equal impressive way.
However, the biggest success of Avatar lies in making, the use of the technology to portray a story and a movie that can be shown outside the “IMAX” boundary with an equal effect !
This is really a great stuff !
The film is being touted as a breakthrough in terms of the way the movies are made and shown to the audiences. Its expected that the way the film was developed, using the stereoscopic cameras that were especially developed for this movie making, will change the way the movies are made in future. And, if this is going to be the future, them I am really up for it.
Probably this was the first alien and war movie that I was watching where I actually wanted humans to lose !
Few things I liked in Avatar are,
- Pandora is a beautiful place and if there is any place on earth which looks similar, I would want to visit it once in my lifetime !
- Na’vi’s are adorable characters, although huge they look great !
- The technology that were used by the humans in avatar to display information, was interesting and pretty much sums how the computer user interactions will happen in future
- The life ecosystem of Avatar is a great concept. I wish humans could have had this.
- The wildlife, flora & fauna shown in Avatar is simply stunning !
- Stunning computer visuals
Few things I want to comment on,
- The story of Avatar did not fascinate me much. Yes, it was novel to see Humans as aliens on another planet (in case of Avatar, moon), but still its usual intra-planetary warfare which is not a new concept.
- I am unsure how much effect the 2D version of the movie will have on its audience. I would have loved to buy a DVD of the movie when it would have been out, however, since it would not have same effect as 3D, I would hesitate to buy it. Until, the 3D TV becomes a reality (it exists today though) and is available for consumers to buy
- I also felt that Avatar is a movie that you leave behind you in the theatre than taking it in your mind. I have seen quite a few movies (Titanic including) that stays with you, in your mind, for a long time. For some reason, Avatar did not !
I am sure most of you have seen Avatar by now and must have liked it or would have had your own opinion on the movie. What you think, let me know, leave a comment ! Thanks