Learnings from Impactful people in my life

As I think of three powerful people in my life, I am amazed by the impact that they have had on me.

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The first one is my mother. I think my relationship with my mother is different as my formative years were mostly away from her and the most time I spent with her, was during the last decade of her life. She was a teacher by profession and the first double degree holder in the family and she completed her second degree, B.Ed., when I was around 6. Due to her fading eyesight , she took voluntary retirement from teaching at school when I was around 10. The one thing that I could recall from those days after her retiring from school, ?was the immense energy that she used to demonstrate in being happy despite the situation around her. Fast forward to the last decade of her life when she was a senior citizen who couldn’t see anything.

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I have observed this interesting behavior in me, when someone asks me an unexpected question, an unexpected answer jumps out and I am also amazed with that answer sometimes. So I use the phrase “I found myself saying” often to describe that feeling.

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I remember a time when I walked into office cheerfully, two colleagues who were seated in the same area as me, asked me, “what gives you this energy, we have always found you cheerful and brimming with energy?” I found myself saying, “There is a powerhouse of energy at home and I get charged from that, that’s my mother”. I went on to share how she is the senior most member in the house, who couldn’t see anything, but was the most active person in the house, always doing something, playing some radio, music, singing, watching TV actively, yes, interacting with the TV too or calling folks to wish on their birthday, anniversary or any other milestone. Today, when I meet these folks, the first thing I hear them say is, how they miss those calls. One of her cousin’s told me with teared eyes, that he feels there is no one to check on him now.

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I have picked up three key learnings from her

1. Happiness is a state of mind and you can choose to be happy
2. A hurdle is a hurdle if you think it is a hurdle
3. There is no age limit to start learning something new or achieving something new

Let me give some examples of how she demonstrated this by

• Learning to recite (animatedly) Soundarya Lahari, a Sanskrit composition consisting of 100 shlokas, purely by listening, either to the tape recorder or one of us at home chanting it for her. She would record us chanting it and then would keep playing it and learning till she had mastered it.
• She went on to write (yes physically write though she could no longer see what she had written) an Acupressure exam and clear it.
• She managed to get featured on a Television Quiz program, making the anchor change the format and record a special episode for the people with visual disability and solving a complex math problem during the show and wowing the anchor.
• She had Asthma for decades and yet, she wanted to climb Shravanabelagola hill which has over 650 steps, which is a steep climb with slippery stone steps and she managed to do it, despite the fact that she got lots of free advice on the way up that it was impossible for someone like her to do that.

Now to reiterate the key learnings

1. Happiness is a state of mind and you can choose to be happy
2. A hurdle is a hurdle if you think it is a hurdle
3. There is no age limit to start learning something new or achieving something new

The second powerful person that has had a huge impact on me is my wife. Today I am known at work as a “people’s person” who is empathetic and listens to everyone and provides solutions to their problems. I am quoting one of my colleagues “I remember a day when I was very agitated and you took me into a room and after 30 minutes, I walked out with a feeling of achievement and yet, all you had said during that entire time was, I understand”.

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So the person in front of you 24 years ago, was not the same person. I remember a picture vividly where he was talking to a woman colleague, and she was crying and he was speaking to her harshly and yet, he didn’t have an iota of remorse over his behavior.

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My wife has hugely impacted me and helped me transform myself into what I am. She volunteers for an NGO that specializes on creating books for the people with visual disability.

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I have picked up three key learnings from her

1. There are two sides of any situation, try to see the other side, which is going to help you deal with the situation
2. You are stronger than you think you are
3. Try to understand the end user perspective and make your work meaningful and useful to them

Let me give some examples of how she has demonstrated this

• She helped me see the OTHER side of any argument, which I use effectively in my mentoring sessions today, when people come complaining about something, I make them see the positive in the situation and it almost always works.
• On multiple occasions, she has gone into a situation thinking that she doesn’t have it in her, yet wanting to face her demons and triumph, and she has come out victorious every time.
• She helped me see “an end user perspective” which has played a crucial role at workplace for me whether it is a client presentation or a partner meeting or difficult situation someone is going through at work that I need to help the person deal with.

The third powerful person that is helping me see the world better is my Son. He is an open critic, like his mother, and doesn’t shy away from pointing out hypocrisy when he sees it. He is a serious thinker who analyzes his own behavior and has helped me do that too. He once told me that “we all can talk about that other self of ours few years ago and be critical about that person, but real maturity is when you could analyze yourself in real time and critique yourself in real time and correct yourself”. He was the one who spoke of importance of mental health at home when he was a teenager. He told how our system doesn’t educate us about it and how people struggle to deal with it. He has been an agony aunt to a lot of young people around him and has understood their pain and helped them overcome their challenges. Few years ago, I was going through a rough patch mentally and was considering taking medical help. I spoke openly about it with colleagues and family. He talked me out of that thought of taking medical help and helped me overcome my situation.

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Here are my three key learnings from him

1. You would need someone in your life at home or work who can critique you and help you see your blind spots
2. It is important for us to analyze our own thoughts and it’s possible to correct ourselves even real time
3. It is important to acknowledge that we can have mental health problems and we need to be courageous about it and deal with it

To conclude, these 9 lessons have helped me become the person that I am today and have also shown the path to continuously learn and grow, in real time.