Cognitive revolution: Capitalise on your mindset that promises to profoundly alter our professional and personal lives.

Despite their best intentions, executives and aspiring professionals fall prey to cognitive dissonance of personal development, a bias that gets in the way of good decision making. Positive psychology teaches us that value is not always measurable. In this post, we highlight some approaches that offer a few effective ways to break through.

A classic dilemma is identifying and taking advantage of the best opportunities for ourselves. I'll give you an example. One morning as I watched the sun come up over the river Chittavarthi I could hear the wind whisper: “The root of your problem is your ambition and desire”.

Wait, stop there, I hear you say. Weren’t we taught that ambition was positive if we are to carve out our place in the sun?

The answer to today’s Zen koan is yes and no; You see someone in our head wants to be somebody and better still somebody significant. The masters however are prodding us to take a different approach. They are saying to cut the root and not the leaves or branches. They suggest to us not to be idealists but to be natural. What more respectability do you need than to be your Self?

You don't need to be unique. You are already unique. Who you are is not to be created; It already is. Tangible and vibrant. It just waits for your self-discovery. Our problem is that we became addicted to applause and adulation.

Yoka says, “The world is a complete illusion, yet nothing exists which might be called an illusion.”

He is referring to the world that you created. You will have your eureka moment when you put your world aside. This moment does not come from outside yourself. It is a golden opportunity for freedom. Your value proposition is that you finally recognise that you are not delivered by a teacher or anybody else. You are delivered by your own being, by your own nature. In this state, there can be no dissonance, just harmony, because everything is in balance.

Another bias to dissolve is that mindfulness practice is just for lotus leaf eaters. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mindfulness means you are “Just sitting doing nothing; The spring comes and the grass grows by itself”. What you have "done" is relax into your own being in total simplicity. “Drink and eat”, Yoka says, “according to your own nature”. Since this is such a natural process, why do we make things so difficult?

The problem is that no one can show you the way, even if you are willing. Only your true nature can show you the way. It is spontaneous, natural, and ordinary. This is the way of being extraordinary. Be ordinary but aware.

Since all things are impermanent don’t worry. Don’t hold on to pointless emotions. Impermanence loves to dance. Pleasure and pain are its favorite dance numbers. Other tunes it will download are Poverty and richness, success and Failure, and Birth and death. All is the flux and the DJ keeps playing the number one hits to drive you into madness.

The moment you cling to an idea or notions of personhood, you are hell-bent on misery. Don’t cling because it shows a misunderstanding. Rationalise the process. Nothing is permanent least of all our physical forms and the stories each soul spins about itself to give itself a semblance of meaning. The true meaning is only gleaned when you let go. Yes, you heard me right. Let go of it all. The pleasure. The pain. Even the idea of love is contrived and detrimental to your well-being. Real love is a state of consciousness. An emotion tied to another human being is just bondage and an illusion. Illusions of this sort are destructive, and dangerous, and lead to dreadful results should they remain unchecked.

Even the Buddha initially misjudged his domestic situation. He dropped his family, wealth, and prestige. He ran off to the jungle and starved himself. It wasn’t until he realised how ordinary he truly was did he see that he needn’t have run off to the jungle in the first place.

He could have achieved his ordinariness at home. He mistook his life situation as misery rather than as a tool to help him release everything that wasn’t him. Many of us have done likewise. And what did we learn in the end? We learned how unique and ordinary we truly are. We learned to be ourselves and to stay true to what is naturally free from imperfection. And when we do, pain can no longer touch us. It is a burnt seed. We rejoice in being ordinary and achieving exceptional things not for ourselves but for the communities that depend on us to make a difference.

About the author

Andrew Scharf is an Award-Winning MBA Admissions Consultant ?? Executive & Career Coach recognised for helping top performers, and aspiring professionals be all they can be. His?mission is to inspire, empower, and connect people to change their world at Whitefield Consulting .

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