Friday Reflections

The Greatest Love of All (Learning to Love Yourself) .

"When a life ends we are left with memories. Long after flesh and bone recede back into the earth, we survive on with nothing more than the remembrance of how two lives can run parallel for a moment, however brief and seemingly unconnected. I never knew Whitney Houston but she touched my life and that of my family with a gift only time and our own death can take away - she gave us memories. This isn't so much a storyline as it is a simple remembrance to an entertainer who had touched a life, many lives, though she struggled deeply with her own." 

The following article "The Greatest Love of All (A Tribute to Whitney Houston)." was published on February 22, 2012.

POINT TO PONDER

Learning to love yourself
                    It is the greatest love of all.

 

STORYLINE by Rajiv Shah & Analisa Shah

The death of Whitney Houston saddened me this past week. I grew up listening to her music during the 80's while sitting in my father's car with my sister and mother while her sterling vocals filled our friday night drives. My sister and I would listen to Whiteny's songs everyday during the week, rehearsing privately in our room, preparing to take the stage in the backseat of our beat up, mustard yellow 1983 Volvo DL. Friday nights were our own personal show time and we wanted to be ready. 

    Those Friday night drives, the laughter, and the stories we shared are what would become the inspiration for Friday Reflections. Whitney's songs were the soundtrack to those nights - as much an inspiration as carefree entertainment - and we sang along with her, struggling to hit her high notes. 

    This isn't so much a storyline as it is a simple remembrance to an entertainer who had touched a life, many lives, though she struggled deeply with her own. Her battles with addiction were public, her meltdowns with Bobby Brown tabloid fodder, and the once pitch perfect voice now gone...

    But when a life ends we are left with memories. Long after flesh and bone recede back into the earth, we survive on with nothing more than the remembrance of how two lives can run parallel for a moment, however brief and seemingly unconnected. I never knew Whitney Houston but she touched my life and that of my family with a gift only time and our own death can take away - she gave us memories. 

    My fondest - I see myself, I'm nine years old at a party thrown by one of my parents' friends and I'm standing in the front of a strange living room with my sister, who's six and can't stop picking at her red polka dotted dress. Her eyes dart down and around, not sure what to look at because all my parents' friends eyes on us, waiting. A worn down tape with the lettering missing, the ink on its face scrubbed away from repeated flips in a tape recorder, is turning. They are waiting for this brother and sister to perform the duet my father has been telling them about, bragging about, and I get nervous. My sister finally looks to me and she grasps my hand. "The Greatest Love of All" begins, its slow electronic melody filling the room...

    And we inhale just like we do every Friday night on our family rides. The fear starts to melt away...

    We know this, we've done it so many times before. I smile at my sister. She nods. Our courage returns, we open our mouths, and we sing. We sing with everything we have - notes imperfect, our little bodies struggling, trying to catch a breath - just a brother sister duo without much singing ability but a whole lot of heart.

    Yes, it was cheesy. Yes, my parents loved it. And yes, I remember it as one of the best memories from my childhood.

    You didn't know us Whitney Houston but we knew you. Oh how we knew you... And we thank you.

 

REFLECTION     

                 I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone's shadows
                 If I fail, if I succeed
                 At least I'll live as I believe
                 No matter what they take from me
                 They can't take away my dignity
                 Because the greatest love of all
                 Is happening to me
                 I found the greatest love of all
                 Inside of me
                 The greatest love of all
                 Is easy to achieve
                 Learning to love yourself
                 It is the greatest love of all.

Valentine Week: Does My Company Love Me?

POINT TO PONDER: "It's just business, nothing personal" Mario Puzo (The Godfather 1972)

STORYLINE: Once upon a time (but as it happens many other times too) a friend of mine got laid off from a company he had worked for 30 years. For his dedicated service, he was granted an hour to pack up his belongings, say some rapid good byes and leave the company premises. He was technically sound and had served the company well during his time. Many people were surprised.

As soon as he left the company premises he called me. He was greatful to the company and still showed an unwavering loyalty but felt hurt at how he was treated at the end. Even today, many years later, he still loves that company and wonders about why breaking up was so hard.

He, like many others of that generation, believed in fierce loyalty and a kind of unconditional love for their employers. But in my 40 year career, I had observed and learned very early on that there is nothing such as unconditional love when it comes to businesses/employers. The relationships are based on need and value. It does not matter how capable, talented and dedicated one is; if the business has no use for one's talents or does not see value for their current needs, then one quickly becomes obsolete and a "disposable asset". No matter how much their ancillary departments ("I am here to help You" ones) talk or brag about their "people orientation" or caring for people/planet/etc-the bottom line is what must be in line with the best interest of the business. Everything else is secondary and only in the context of main business goals.

REFLECTION:

Very early one in my career, I had decided that I am not working for anyone day in my life. Any relationship I had with so called "employers" or "companies" were business relationships and were treated as such. They were paying me in exchange for certain services. My obligation was to treat them as customers of my business and deliver an "incredibly" high value. If they were delighted and also if I could continue to offer them things that they needed, I had more business with them. I needed to be on constant alert to look for new opportunities to provide value to, while at the same time keeping an eye on other possibilities in the external world by keeping up with new trends and relationships. This approach helped me in growing my business and also in having peace of mind because I did not feel any business relationship owed me anything further than what was in the terms of the current expectations/contracts.

So on this Valentine's week, my answer to "Does My Company Love Me? is... "Conditionally and as long as they have use for my talents." Beyond that it's all business, nothing personal. Don't let any posters, proclamations or ancillary departments' people fool you by telling otherwise.

A man with one watch knows what time it is; A man with two watches is never quite sure.

 

 

 

Points to Ponder:

 

"If you have a kid less than 10 and you have to keep a day planner; it is not healthy. Kids need unstructured time." Jim Mulready (in our coffee conversation this morning)

 

 

Story Line:

Many companies have training and development programs for their employees. In some places, they are crisp and targeted to specific needs, while in other places they are extensive. Some of these extensive programs consist of exposing new hires to many different types of training classes in a short time, while the others require employees to go through some massive training blasts that somebody has determined to be essential for revitalizing the company (or whatever).

Whenever I am exposed to massive training blasts, I recall an incidence from several years ago when I volunteered to take care of five kids during my sabbatical.

Trying to keep track of five kids and their activities was a massive planning and scheduling nightmare.  I would pick up kids from different schools between 2PM to 3PM.

Then the sequence was something like this;

If it was 3PM then it must be swimming for Charlie; 3:30 was Ballet for Gitanjali; but what about dropping Bobby to baseball at 4:15 while our kids were waiting after their swimming lessons?
Not to forget that Charlie went to Karate after swimming and Gitanjali went to Piano after Ballet, while Bobby had special math tutoring, and our children needed to go to music classes.

Well, the sequence did not end there but you get the idea. One day, as my luck would have it, I got some time to ask questions to the kids.

I asked Charlie, “What did you learn today”   “I don’t know”, came the reply from Charlie.   “And what about you, Gitanjali, what did you enjoy about the piano class?”   “You know, during the break we ran around sprinklers and got wet. That was fun,” said Gitanjali with a visible excitement on her face. 

Being aware of the conflict of interest, I did not want to dare ask such specific questions to our own children. They would have taken the Fifth* anyway.  However, my curiosity prevailed enough for me to ask a general question.

“Why do you go to these classes?”   Came the unanimous reply, “Because our parents want us to.”   I followed up with a question, “And what do you do with what you are taught in the classes?”   “When do we ever get the time to do something with what we have been taught?” said our boy, mustering up all his courage.  

 

Reflection: "To a hungry man give a piece of bread and not thirty one flavors, else he will throw up." Anand P Shah

Further investigation and introspection revealed that these children were occupied in so many activities during the day that they had no time to practice and perfect any of them well enough. This is what happens with giving an overdose of training to the new hires and delivering massive training blasts to all employees. The office shelves get full with training binders, checklists for “training completed” are in compliance ... but in most cases what was taught is not ever put into practice.

The cases where training has been highly effective is when it was targeted for specific needs, people were given enough time to absorb what was taught, and there was a follow up as to how the training was put into practice.

* For overseas readers: "The Fifth" is the reference to The Fifth Amendment (Amendment V) of the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, is related to legal procedure. One of the key part is that  no person shall be compelled in any  case to be a witness against himself. (Source: Wikipedia)

A Few From The Gipper (on his 106th Birth Anniversary)

 

POINT TO PONDER:

“Perhaps you and I have lived with this miracle too long to be properly appreciative. Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again.”  ― Ronald Reagan

STORYLINE: Remembering President Ronald Reagan on his 106th birth anniversary (February 6th) and his believes and views on Freedom, Religion, Race Relations, Gun Control and Negotiations.

“Let me speak plainly: The United States of America is and must remain a nation of openness to people of all beliefs. Our very unity has been strengthened by this pluralism. That's how we began; this is how we must always be. The ideals of our country leave no room whatsoever for intolerance, anti-Semitism, or bigotry of any kind -- none. The unique thing about America is a wall in our Constitution separating church and state. It guarantees there will never be a state religion in this land, but at the same time it makes sure that every single American is free to choose and practice his or her religious beliefs or to choose no religion at all. Their rights shall not be questioned or violated by the state. -- Remarks at the International Convention of B'nai B'rith, 6 September 1984” 

"I do not believe in taking away the right of the citizen for sporting, for hunting and so forth, or for home defense. But I do believe that an AK-47, a machine gun, is not a sporting weapon or needed for defense of a home.”

“I’d learned a few lessons about negotiating: You’re unlikely to ever get all you want; you’ll probably get more of what you want if you don’t issue ultimatums and leave your adversary room to maneuver; you shouldn’t back your adversary into a corner, embarrass him, or humiliate him; and sometimes the easiest way to get some things done is for the top people to do them alone and in private.” 

“My parents constantly drummed into me the importance of judging people as individuals. There was no more grievous sin at our household than a racial slur or other evidence of religious or racial intolerance. A lot of it, I think, was because my dad had learned what discrimination was like firsthand. He’d grown up in an era when some stores still had signs at their door saying, NO DOGS OR IRISHMEN ALLOWED. When my brother and I were growing up, there were still ugly tumors of racial bigotry in much of America, including the corner of Illinois where we lived. At our one local movie theater, blacks and whites had to sit apart—the blacks in the balcony. My mother and father urged my brother and me to bring home our black playmates, to consider them equals, and to respect the religious views of our friends, whatever they were. My brother’s best friend was black, and when they went to the movies, Neil sat with him in the balcony. My mother always taught us: “Treat thy neighbor as you would want your neighbor to treat you,” and “Judge everyone by how they act, not what they are.” Once my father checked into a hotel during a shoe-selling trip and a clerk told him: “You’ll like it here, Mr. Reagan, we don’t permit a Jew in the place.” My father, who told us the story later, said he looked at the clerk angrily and picked up his suitcase and left. “I’m a Catholic,” he said. “If it’s come to the point where you won’t take Jews, then some day you won’t take me either.” Because it was the only hotel in town, he spent the night in his car during a winter blizzard and I think it may have led to his first heart attack.” 

REFLECTION:

“I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandment’s would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress.” 

“The frustrating thing is that those who are attacking religion claim they are doing it in the name of tolerance, freedom and openmindedness. Question: Isn’t the real truth that they are intolerant of religion? They refuse to tolerate its importance in our lives.” 

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing”