Powerful lessons for professional to learn from Holi – The festival of colours!

Growth, & Health from Green, Creativity, & Resourcefulness from Orange

Depth, & Stability from Blue, Energy, & Aggression from Red

Creativity, & Optimism from Yellow Charm, & Warmth from Pink

May this Holi add all colours in your profession and help you achieve desired goals & dreams!

From the lanes of Mathura and Vrindavan, the colours of Holi have spread all over the country. These colours also carry the message of love, brotherhood, and truth. So whenever you splash Holi colours on somebody, you give him a promise of being not only truthful towards him always, maintain brotherhood with him lifelong and shower him with all the possible love throughout your life but also promise the person a grand career success! by helping ech other in their profession.

Holi stands for everything positive in life. Rejuvenate your spirits and soar high with the colours of joy, success, love and fulfilment. Stay inspired through the year and all along your life.

Holi is a Sanskrit word which is also known as Spring Festival and sometimes, also referred to as the Festival of Love.

The most colorful and vibrant festival of India - Holi - is marked with much fun and fervor throughout the country and other parts of the world. Celebrating the triumph of ‘good’ over ‘bad’, this colorful festival falls at the end of February or in early March, as per the Georgian calendar. Songs, water balloons and bright colors are the major highlights of this vivid and lively festival. Bright colored powders, known as ‘Gulal’ are smeared on everyone’s faces accompanied by splashing of colored water. These bright colors are believed to signify energy, life and joy.

At this time, while everyone is indulged in intoxicating drinks and mouthwatering delicacies, why not augment the festivities by learning something out of the festival? In this blog let us understand the powerful leadership lessons which this vibrant festival of colors teaches us. Holi teaches us many things and above all, it brings out the “empathy” side of mankind which is so crucial in today’s rat-race times. Please feel free to add your insights, based on your unique perspectives and experiences. Do share and comment!!

1. Honor Ethics; Do the Right Thing Always!!

Holi marks the triumph of righteousness, of good over evil. It reminds us yet again that Integrity and Ethics are the most important assets of any leader .Any leader adopting “shortcuts” to achieve his goals is bound to fail .It warns us not to get distracted by glittering “temporary” gains at the cost of compliance and integrity.

2. Only Relationships Matter in the End!!!

Holi gives the perfect opportunity to appreciate, rejuvenate and celebrate all relationships that matter to us!! The celebrations bring the people together and bring out the collaborative spirit in them .They come out of the houses, clean their houses, collect firewood for “Holika” bonfire and smear each other with colors, leaving their worries behind. Smart leaders use this vibrant festival to clear the “cobwebs” and “rust” which would have accumulated within the team over the time and “bring the togetherness” back.

3. Love All, Forgive All, Start Afresh

 Holi gives us the perfect opportunity to resolve all pending conflicts and start a new journey on a clean slate. This is a special occasion which allows us to “play” with our enemies, celebrate along with them and wipe out all differences. There are numerous examples throughout history where bitter enemies had becomes bosom friends after Holi.

4. Ignite Everything, Clean the Muck Inside Out

Holika bonfire symbolizes an opportunity to burn all that is evil in us. People collect all the junk and put that into the bonfire that evening symbolizing that they are burning all that is evil in their lives. It gives Leaders the impetus to again retrospect all the drawbacks and showstoppers that exist within them and their teams and eliminate anything and everything which prevents their goals from getting realized. Our “Inner” muck is something which is the most “difficult” to clean. Holi teaches us to start with that.

5. Bringing It All Together

As we celebrate Holi on March 13th, let’s not just treat it as yet another day of holiday and fun. Let’s imbibe in some of the valuable, powerful lessons that Holi teaches us and enrich our lives with love, harmony and peace.

6. Colour here, colour there, colour everywhere… and colour in your vision too!

While you are seeing a colourful world around you, Holi is a good time to have a colourful vision for yourself too!

What is it that you really, really want for yourself in your career? – Reflect on this crucial question this Holi. Get a crystal clear clarity on what you want for yourself. Add colours to it. See it for real! By doing so, you are ticking your right brain which understands the world in the form of colours and creativity.

Once your right brain is tuned to the vision you have for yourself, it will give you creative ideas to turn it into a reality!

7. Everyone turns into a kid during Holi and so should you!

Colours on your face, braving the water balloons, the water gun fights and more… who wouldn’t turn into a kid while enjoying Holi? 

To have grand success in your career you need to turn yourself into a kid. Kids see the world in a different light, they are exceptionally curious, they have a lot of questions to ask and a tonnes of stories to share! All these are the keys to your career growth. Look at how you can do your existing work in a different way - what is the value add you can do? How does doing this work benefit the world, your clients, your organisation and finally you? What stories do you have to share about the work that you do?

Once the kid in you takes over, your work will suddenly make a lot of sense and then career breakthroughs won’t seem to be a distant dream!  

8. Better your relationships to better your career growth!

Bura na mano holi hai… Holi is the apt time to break the ice, renew relationships and link yourself with those that you wanted to with a bit of colour.

Rise above your inhibitions. Doing your work is important, but you are not being judged based on your work alone. The relationships you have at the workplace contribute in achieving the desired career growth in more ways than one. It will make the world at work a much better place to being with, thus improving your mood and improving the way you work. You would also be able to sway people with your ideas. Moreover, you could get help as and when required – the possibilities are endless!

So as a matter of fact, go ahead and make best friends at work – with your colleagues, your boss and with the world around you at work!

9. Get intoxicated and stay intoxicated to help everyone

On the day of Holi, drinks made with marijuana leaves (Bhang) are available almost EVERYWHERE. Everyone wants to drink! And when people get high, all conflicts are resolved in a jiffy. Differences get wiped out and people come together to celebrate!

Take this opportunity to wipe out the differences between you and your colleagues at work. Realize that they were never your competition, they are not and they never will be! If you have to have grand career breakthroughs you need to accept that you are your own competition. You need to strive to be better version of yourself than what you were yesterday. 

Yes, you have grown up learning it all wrong! And to accept that reverse it true, you need to be intoxicated and stay so throughout, right?

10. Party everywhere, at all times and even at the workplace!

On the day of Holi, it’s a big fat party on the streets. And if this is not enough, there are MANY parties everywhere on Holi.

Engage with your work. Instead of treating it as an everyday haul, find a reason to fall in love with you work. If you don’t like what you are doing, look for work that interests you. If you don’t like your what you are doing and still have to, find a way to make it interesting. Moreover, create your tribe at the workplace – a tribe that work together, stays together and grows together!

Simply find a reason to party every time at the work place. When you love the work you do, you do it well. When you do it well, it’s easy to get noticed. When you get noticed it is easy to get ahead!

So as you celebrate the festival of colours on March 29st, don’t just treat it as yet another day of holiday and fun. Instead, imbibe these 10 powerful lessons that Holi teaches and make 2021 the year of grand career breakthroughs.

Wishing you and your family a very bright, colorful and joyful HOLI.

Please feel free to add your insights, based on your unique perspectives and experiences about this festival. Do share and comment.