Convincing Ourselves

Introduction The tragic and unforgivable killing of Shinzo Abe put a spotlight back on the defining characteristic of his time as Prime Minister i.e. Abenomics. The success of his economic policies is still debated due to mixed results over a number of years. Personally, I don't think judging an economic policy is that simple. A country like Japan does not operate in a vacuum and is affected by unforeseen events around the world. However, I still believe there is a lot we can learn from the shortcomings of his economic policy   Abenomics and why it couldn't fulfill the promise: The 1990s and the 2000s were a two-decade period of Japan essentially stalling. Its industry, once the envy of the world, stopped innovating, and its trade surpluses, once the biggest in the world, stopped being so big. On top of that Japan, started suffering from degrading living standards and demographic problems.  Abenomics was an attempt to use, easy monetary policy, loose fiscal policy, and structu...

      I have been reading about luck and probability and its part in the equation for success. We have all heard the age-old phrases of how ‘successful people create their own luck’, or ‘the harder you work, the luckier you get’ and even ‘luck favours the prepared’. But can luck actually be created? Well yes and no. There are two things overall involved in making ‘chance work for you’. One is about positive reframing so that you feel lucky and the other is to get the odds in your favour. In fact, both of these feed into each other as well. Lets break it down.     Reframing the past events Our past has lead us to our present. Many view their past as a series of events that were partly random and partly by design. When we reframe our past as ‘good luck’ that has brought us to today and recognize how our life is better than it was yesterday, you suddenly loose the cynicism and embrace a kind of gracious attitude towards life. Not only does it make one happier, but ...

This is part 2 of the Freedom series. Find part 1  here It is interesting how we often make decisions. Not only everyday decisions, such as what to wear or what to eat but even big life decisions. We analyze, study the pros and cons, do a cost-benefit analysis. Some take a long time to make important decisions, others intuitively move forward. During all of these decisions, we often believe that we are in charge of what we decide. After all, we have options, we have choices, what can be more freeing than making your decision? The problem is what we make those choices based on. There can be a number of factors dictating that. Long term plan, upbringing, values, and beliefs. However, in all of the cognitive and behavioral conditioning that might be obvious to us, we often forget the social aspect. I am not talking about social conditioning where we learn beliefs like religion and family values, but the fear of not fitting in. What will they say? What will they think? Th...

                                               Magic The legend of the magic lamp was very famous around the Baghdad bazaar. Tribesmen, tradesmen, women and children, everyone has heard about the magic lamp buried somewhere in  the desert. Anyone who possessed the magic lamp, would be able to command the genie to do anything they wanted.  It was rumored that the magnificent palace of Baghdad was built by the genie of the lamp when the Sultan possessed the lamp. The lamp was lost by the Sultan during a battle in Mosul. He searched for it for a 100 days and nights and returned empty handed from that battle. It is believed that the lamp is still buried somewhere in that desert.Many had tried to search for it themselves, wasting away time, money and energy, but never found it. Ali Shah was just another boy. He used to hawk oil lamps in the Baghdad ...

There is no magic formula to success. We need to work harder and smarter and then there is luck/chance/right place right time. We can not do much about luck but we can surely work on everything else. There are many people who want to be successful in a certain field, but for some reason cant get themselves to be the best. What can we do? Well, as always I believe it is all about convincing ourselves of various truths and realities that we usually ignore. Step 1-Know what you want The first step to being good at something is to know convince yourself that this is something you want to be good at. I once wanted to do a PhD, but my proposal was never accepted. After getting rejected several times I realized that as much as I wanted to be 'known' as a good academic, it is not something that I really wanted to do. I believe I might not have even finished my PhD as I probably would have gotten depressed in between.  To be good at something, we need to give a lot of effor...

Wish they were different Don't we just wish we could change some of the people around us. We wish for all sorts of things to happen. We wish our kid starts acting like a grown up, or our teacher treats us with a bit less harshness, or that neighbor we thought of saying hello to but looks so mean. Whatever the case, be it your friends, your boss or family, we would certainly like to change one thing or the other. However there is one, smart tool to get the change you want in the people around you. Start treating them as if they were already as you want! Another path to change You see, you do not have to wish for someone to change, you can actually make it happen. Now this does not mean that I am claiming this tool to be the 'end all be all' method of getting the girl of your dreams or tackling your problem teenage, however I think its a clever technique to have in your tool kit or skill set to use when required. You can start treating a subordinate as if they can h...

Overwhelmed! Convincing yourself to stay strong and positive through self talk, visualization etc is all great, but there are times in life we get overwhelmed. A surprise all nigher, a failure, a natural disaster, a death of a relative, even yourself getting hurt, are all realistic scenarios that can overwhelm us and leave us defenseless. Even though we may have remained strong, through eg a daily practice of praying to God, or self talk in general, it is these tough times when we have to be strong. So what to do? what to do when we feel nothing works? Despite our work with the therapists, or reading great self help books, and even taking assertion training, what to do when nothing seems to work!!!!? What to do? Once again, it varies from person to person, and I believe we sometimes cannot use the same tool again and again. However below are some of my suggestions. 1-Don't do anything! Sometimes one is overwhelmed with stress, work or the immediate need of the situation tha...

Just watched the Tony Robbins Documentary on Netflix called 'I am not your Guru' that chronicles Tony's legendary 'Date with Destiny' Seminar. At the end of the documentary Tony asked everyone that they need to ensure that whatever they take with them from here will stay with them for the rest of their lives and advocated a daily practice. As always, I do not recommend anything, but I do recommend trying an approach and seeing if it works for you. The Technique: The take away from the video was that once you know your values, beliefs, eg Love, passion, strength, fearlessness whatever you think is important, whatever quality or belief you want, you need to convince yourself of it. Tony believes that when we put emotion into something and focus on it, it gets embedded into our psychology more (Think surprises or trauma). In the same way, tony wants us to use all our sense and shout, scream, jump, whatever it takes, to make us believe that we are 'Strength' ...

I started this blog to convey my thoughts on getting through the struggle of everyday life, the challenges, opportunities and the threats that it throws at us. The life becomes simple, yet not easy, when one understands a basic truth ie we must live life, the way it is, good or bad, and deal with it. We can always pursue a better life, more money and try to improve our current conditions, but we can simply not say that 'we do not want life'. We simply cannot 'deny that we have a problem', we simply cannot look the other way when we are afraid to make a leap. Life is life, and things happen and we have to learn to be able to deal with the good, the bad and everything in between. As we go on this journey together, I will document my thoughts on how to go through the emotional, psychical, psychological and spiritual issues that everyone faces. I do not follow a self help program or a new age thought philosophy that I want others to believe in. I also do not believe ...