Paradigm Shift

I had a not-so-good opinion/experience of salesmen, credit card sellers etc. I usually consider most of what they say to be untrue, said just so they can make the sale. I had one experience years ago which I can say resulted into a "Paradigm Shift" (to quote from 7 habits book). Paradigm shift is a fundamental change in the way we see things, a fundamental shift in our perception of the world around us or the people we interact with.


This happened when I bought my car from Maruti's Mandovi Motors Lavelle road. After almost a month and a half from the time I took delivery of the car, I got a call from the car salesman @ Mandovi who processed my papers.

I think his name is Sachin. After exchanging the usual greetings, he said "Sir, I have a surprise for you. Can I come to your place and meet you?". I asked him what it is. But he insisted on meeting me in person. So I called him home.

He came home and handed me a cheque of 10,000 Rs. I asked in surprise what it is for. He said that I being a Wipro employee am eligible for a corporate discount while buying a car from Maruti. I didn't avail it while buying the car. When he realized this while filing my papers to be sent to Maruti, (I had given my Wipro ID card for Id proof), he spoke to his boss and arranged for the money to be returned to me.

Now, I am not sure if this was an initiative in honesty from his side or it is a part of Maruti's process. Maybe when my documents were being sent to Maruti, there must have been a check-list or something to be filled up. And one of the items might have been whether the customer has been given the corporate discount. And if not maybe Maruti will penalize the dealer for it.

Whatever the case, this experience made me realize that I was judging all salesmen alike based on my "image" of them based on my past experience. I also remembered this same guy had driven my car to my house on the evening of the delivery since I didn't know driving then. And he even refused to take a tip from my dad. I was unexpectedly impressed.

I engaged him in a conversation to get to know him better. He turned out to be a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from RV college of Engineering, Bangalore. I was stunned. "You are a B.E Mechanical from RV?? Why the hell are you wasting your career selling cars?". He mentioned that he is a fresher, didn't get a job in campus, is looking for a better job and will quit once he gets it. He is as qualified as I was when I finished Engg. And here I was treating him like a not-so-educated, not-so-honest salesman !!

So much for my preconceived ideas about people.

Triple Filter Test

Someone sent this on Blore Vipassana mailing list. Worth reading and following ....
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In ancient Greece, Socrates was reputed to hold knowledge in high esteem. One day an acquaintance met the great philosopher and said, " Do you know what I just heard about your friend ?" " Hold on a minute," Socrates replied. " Before telling me anything, I'd like you to pass a little test. It's called the Triple Filter Test."

" Triple filter ?"

" That's right," Socrates continued. " Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you're going to say. That's why I call it the Triple filter test.

The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true ?"

" No," the man said, " Actually I just heard about it and…" "All right," said Socrates. " So you don't really know if it's true or not. Now let's try the second filter, the filter of goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good ?" " No, on the contrary…" " So," Socrates continued, " You want to tell me something bad about him, but you're not certain it's true. You may still pass the test though, because there's one filter left : the filter of usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me? " " No, not really." " Well," concluded Socrates, " If what you want to tell me is neither true nor good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all ?"

Silence Is Golden

The traffic jams in Bangalore are a favorite tea-time topic of discussion. But hardly do we hear people talk about the noise levels in Bangalore. Except for a few passing remarks here and there in the media about "Noise Pollution".

A few months ago, I had given my car for servicing and ended up taking the auto to office. And what happened during this auto-ride to office made me realize that we are living in a highly noise-polluted environment. We don't notice it simply because we have got used to it.

I got into the auto from near Sony World signal in Koramangala. Just out of boredom, I pulled out my Ipod and plugged in the Shure earphones. Now the Shures are unique in that they are noise-isolating earphones. Noise isolating earphones fit tightly into your ear canal and effectively cut out all the outside noise so you can hear only music. This gives you a better listening experience and also you can listen at a much lower volume since you don't have to raise the sound level of the music higher than the surrounding noise to hear it clearly.

It was a good 30 mins, "noise-less" ride to my office. When I reached near my office building in Shanthi Nagar, I pulled out the earphones. The very next moment, I was startled at the surrounding noise. For a few moments I felt as if something went wrong around me.. as if I have been dumped into a battlefield with loud guns firing from all sides. I even thought engine of the auto I was in was unusually loud.

After having sat in relative silence for 30 mins, the ordinary traffic noise was almost unbearable for a few moments. Made me realize for the first time how noise polluted Bangalore is or any other crowded city for that matter.

Makes me wonder is Bangalore traffic jam a bigger menace or the resulting Bangalore traffic noise?

Maybe we ought to take a few days off once in a while and run off to a nearby jungle or a village and bask in one of the simplest and greatest pleasures of life : the experience of silence. And give some rest to our over-burdened ears !

Landmark Education -- Part 2

Earlier I blogged about "Landmark Education". Now that I have completed the entire "Landmark Curriculum For Living" which took me almost a year, another blog is due.

Coming soon.....

Thought For The Day...

Chanced upon this "Thought For The Day" entry on easwaran.org
Considering the events "eventing" in my life...timing seems to be just right for me to happen to read this ....
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Where there is injury, let me sow pardon.
– Saint Francis of Assisi

Once, in wintertime, it is said that Francis and his disciple Brother Leo were making a hard journey on foot through the snowy countryside of Italy. They had been walking along in silence for a long time when Brother Leo turned to Francis and asked him, “How can we find perfect joy?” Francis stopped and replied, “Even if all our friars were perfect in their holiness and could work all kinds of miracles for others, we still would not have perfect joy.”

He turned and walked on, and Brother Leo ran after him. “Then what is perfect joy?” Francis stopped again, “Even if we could speak with the birds of the air and the beasts of the field and know all the secrets of nature, we still would not have perfect joy. Even if we could cure all the ills on the face of the earth, we would still not have found perfect joy.”

Brother Leo was practically shouting: “Then please, Father Francis, what is the secret of perfect joy?”

“Brother, suppose we go to that monastery across the field and tell the gatekeeper how weary and cold we are, and he calls us tramps and beats us and throws us out into the winter night. Then, Brother, if we can say with love in our hearts, Bless you in the name of Jesus,’ then we shall have found perfect joy.”

Happy New Year 2008

A brand new year is here. 2008. Time for new years resolutions, dreaming, goal setting, noisy drunken parties, and all the other things we do on 31st December.

And yeah time to wish the people in your life "Happy New Year".

As I write this, I am sitting in my room working up my goals for 2008 (Goals, not new year resolutions J ) with yet again the firm resolve that "This year I will do it". I just had this "instinct" to pull out one of my favourite books and give it another read. "SuperSelf by Charles Givens". This book is supposedly out of print. Not available in bookstores. I don't know why.

The very first chapter talks about this principle. "To design and control your future effectively, you must first let go of your past". And that gave me the idea for this blog entry: "What better time to put this into practise but on 31st Dec 2007."

So, before we step into 2008, there's one more important thing to be done. "Let go of 2007". I don't mean to be disrespectful to and disregard all the good things and the tragedies of 2007 (like T20 World Cup and terrorism).

But I mean ...well, yeah, I know, you know what I mean.

So, lets begin with a clean slate...

And a Happy New Year 2008!

Landmark Education

Participating in the Landmark Forum and Landmark Advanced course has been one of the most life changing days I have ever spent ( next only to Vipassana meditation).

I first heard about Landmark I think 4 - 5 years ago from a collegue when I used to Work with Wipro. Landmark was conducting some courses for Wipro employees. He attended something which now having been through Landmark I guess was the Introduction program. He came back and told us something like "They make you come on stage and tell your personal problems in front of everyone". I was immediately put off. "Why in the world would anyone want to do that ??". I decided Landmark does something weird and it was not for me.

5 years later, sometime in Aug/Sept '06 one of my very trusted friends from Mysore, Nimmoo spoke about Landmark. I parroted the same opinion that I formed during Wipro days. I was surprised to hear something different about Landmark from her. She recommended me to talk to another friend of hers Rachana in Bangalore, who had done the entire Landmark "Curriculum for living"(the core set of programs of Landmark education). When I spoke to Rachana I was immediately struck by the power in her language. She wasn't speaking like yet another "you can do it" motivational speaker. Her language really was powerful and hit me real hard. Moreever, this was the first time I was talking to her. And I felt as if I knew her since ages. I realized that maybe there is something about Landmark that I have missed. I immediately decided to do the program. The very next day I met Rachana and did the registration for the next Landmark Forum in Dec 06.

During the Landmark Forum, I really understood what my collegue was talking about 5 years ago. Firstly, I realized, when my collegue was talking, I was not listening. I was busy making my own "interpretations". Secondly, he was talking about these awe-inspiring "sharings" people do during the Landmark Forum. (IMO, One of the most powerful aspects of the Landmark Education) They share the breakthroughs and immense benefits they get out of participation in the Landmark forum. They share what they were going through in their lives and how participating in the Landmark forum helped
them overcome it. And now that they have won over the problem what great possibilities have opened up for themselves and for the people in their lives. This not only is a remarkable display of courage on the part of the participants but also acts as an example and inspiration for others. "If he can do it within the Landmark Forum, I can do it to".

So, looking back, participating in Landmark has been a very very good decision, one of the best investments I ever made in myself. I wish I had done it 5 years back itself.

I also made another decision afer talking to Rachana. Now on I will never close my eyes to a new idea that comes my way based on first impression. I will be ever grateful to Rachana and Nimmoo for bringing Landmark into my life.

Stay tuned .. more to come....