I was sitting with some friends last night and having a discussion in a ecstatic state about various emotions etc etc. And one of the things that was brought out was the phrase – ” I am LOVE”. A wonderful phrase and an expression – it is. It sounds like a vessel that is full of water and suddenly, it “appears’ that the water has taken the shape of the vessel – the earthern pot. This is the state that I also relate to the various phrases that I have heard by fello martial artists, dancers, artists- something to the tune of the dancer and the dance are the same, the art and the artist merging and also a stat where the body and the movement seem the same. I love the very thought of this intimate merging of the action and the doer yet it has often taken me down the thinking aisles whether there is anything that exists like this or whether it is a SENSATION and a FEELING that is so overwhelming that the brain stops comprehending the difference between the doer and the action and the emotion from the person.

When someone says “I am happy” , what may be referred to is that the person is experiencing the emotion of happiness at THAT given point of time. Likewise for sadness, jealousy, anger or any other emotion. Here the emoiton and the person become two different entities. Yes, like i mentioned in the pre para that, the sensation can be overwhelming enough to not being able to differentiate. But the love or happiness that one person may feel can and is also felt by the other person sitting thousands of miles away. So is there an external emotive “database”, if I may be allowed to call it so, where the emotions stay. I call the universe, the database for the emotions and when I am opening myself to the emotion, i am filled with the emotion which has been triggered by an external stimuli – an activity, a person, an event etc etc. So, I could be completely sad or completely happy or whatever.

Another point that was brought up was that Love as an emotion has the ability to corrode and corrupt. Maybe, if the properties are changed. In the ideal sense, the benevolence of universe’s love is boundary-less and hence there is love in the first place. The water takes the shape of the vessel because it doesnt fight it. But if I put salt or baking soda or any other substance into the water or tamper with the molecular structure of the water, without making sure that the vessel changes its properties to adapt to changed water, there will be corrosion. If love is left the way it is, and honoured for what it is, maybe it may remain unmoved and uncorrosive. There are a lot of maybe’s because I dont know of any definitive ways of talking about emotions. if the universe is vast and boundary-less, atleast to the common man’s understanding, and emotions are about openness, then how can words – which are structures to depict A SPECIFIC meaning – hence with boundaries describe something so vast as an emotion as Love or any other.

So here I invite all of us – the illiterate amongst the literate class to enjoy this handicap of words!

#warriorsjourney, #syngrity

Vikram Badhwar, CEO, Syngrity, is a communications coach, an experiential educator, and an artist trying to bridge the gap between the creative and the analytical side of our brain. He consults individuals and teams in the space of learning & development to enable transformations at a personal, professional and organizational level.

The post I am happy, Are you? – excerpts from an elevated chat! appeared first on Syngrity Transformation Solutions.

In the process of understanding Meta physics and how our culture functions, I realized that there is no difference between customer service attitude and personal attitude. What was being taught was not really valid in the Indian context. Because being nice to strangers is something we have never struggled with. “Atithi Devo Bhava, Guest is God”. We have always welcomed guests. Some of them stayed on for 250 years. Irrespective of the British invasion, the freedom struggle, the British’s creation of the middle class and the subsequent exploitation of the word, “democracy”, we still continue to extend the generous and pleasant us. It’s in our DNA. So if it is so much a part of us, then why don’t we use it to the fullest? Why do employees of MNC’s dealing globally get scared and intimidated by a non- Indian? Why haven’t we gotten out of the awe of “white skin”? Why do we stammer and stutter when dealing with customers over the phone? Why, inspite of being good and honest workers, barring a few, we are not exceeding expectations of our management all the time.

The truth lies in the oblivion that most Indians live in. The truth lies in the illiteracy among the urban educated class. The truth lies in the social stereotypical conditioning of the Indian mind. The truth lies in the fact that we refuse to look deeply in three qualities that govern a person’s attitude: Sexual preference, Political inclination and religious beliefs. When I was being trained to be a trainer, my mentor cautioned me saying that these topics should never be discussed in a training environment. I listened to him and never spoke about the forbidden fruits for a few years. Till I realized that until people didn’t speak openly or till an environment wasn’t created where individuals felt comfortable in talking brass tacks, they will never get or want to know their own reality. And their reality is “theirs” which they logically deduct while mapping themselves.

Customer service, in an Indian context, is an extension of who we are, how we behave, whom we interact with, what we believe – our personal attitude. Our space has been such where we, at times, have forgone our convenience to keep another happy. We have slept on the floor and given our bed to a guest. Our parents stayed hungry, at times again, to keep their children full. Our social circle has always invited us to follow a path – belonging to whichever religion – that makes our life worth living. We work better in groups, as a unit, as a team, as a collective. Our identity lies with us, in our space, in our environment not a few thousand miles away.
India has always encouraged diversity. If you look at an Indian currency note, you will find 15 languages on the back and Hindi and English in the front making that 17. Which country in the world uses as many languages on their currency? Which country speaks these many languages and many more? Only ours! We communicate with different cultures speaking different languages, celebrating different festivals, following different faiths, eating different foods all in one country. Realizing and respecting this fact immediately gets me to be a lot more comfortable when I am speaking to people beyond our borders.

The purpose of this note is to ensure that individuals who choose to be in the service industry need to look at the next level of professionalism – super professionalism which translates to normality. How normal can you be, with what ease can you deal with a customer is the main goal. This note also aims at looking at the next level of customer satisfaction after customer delight. Customer exuberance. This note allows individuals to take ownership and responsibility of every task they do thus increasing their entrepreneurship quotient – a product of the sum of emotional Quotient (EQ) and Intellectual quotient (IQ). The next level. Passion Quotient (PQ) is catching up soon.
 
Vikram Badhwar, CEO, Syngrity, is a communications coach, an experiential educator, and an artist trying to bridge the gap between the creative and the analytical side of our brain. He consults global teams in the space of learning behavioural patterns and implementing new techniques to reach Max Q potential.

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