REINVENT!

Of all the creations of God, human being alone is an evolving consciousness… Of all the creations of God… All other creations, once they attain a sense of physical maturity they stop…They cannot be anything else… They live that stagnant evolution for the rest of their life…  Except a human being, who even at 45 can wake up in the morning as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi…and can reinvent a Mahatma Gandhi within by the end of the day.

Only a human being can be an Agnes till that morning and by evening can be a Mother Teresa; Nobody else can do that!  Only a human being could have approached an aspect of life – with anger or frustration or negative emotion and can transform themselves into a level of emotional maturity where starting this moment, I can live my life with happiness and peace and joy and celebration! Only a human being can take a decision right now and drop jealousy… Jealousy from your life…and need not be a part of you! We can reinvent ourselves…it’s called renewing my perception!

Reinventing yourself is Renewing Your perception. First about you… Chances are there a lot of you sitting here where, you had a direction to your life which you had said when you were 22 and here you are at 45. And you’re not simply asking yourself this question – For all the potential that I have discovered about myself in last over two decades What else should be my expectation from life? What else should be the focus of my life? How do I expand the boundaries of what I can reach out for life? I need to re-invent myself and in the point of reinvention…  here this is one clarity which will help a lot of…  which I want you to understand…

A phenomenal shift has happened to human behavior in the last 20 years. The basis of relationship has shifted from emotions to information. The biggest shift that has happened… maybe because of social media, maybe because we live in an information age…The biggest shift that as happened to human behavior in the last two decades is … The basis of relationship has shifted from emotions to information. For example, when some of you sitting here who is 40 and above and you join the family business and if your father or mother told you, ‘This is how it has to be done.” That was enough for you; you will do it that way. If today you tell your son, who is joining your business at 22 ‘This is how we do it or this is how it has to be done:  he’ll ask you ‘Why?’ If your Dadi (g.mom) had told you, ‘This is our God and this is our Kula Deiv (family deity) and we all only worship this as the God, you would have been going there for the last 40 years to that temple and worshiping chanting… the thing…

Today you tell your grandson who is seven-years-old that, ‘This is our God! ‘He’s going to ask you, ‘How is this our God?’ ‘Why is this our God?’  This doesn’t mean…let’s not translate it into disobedience or you know, ‘I never asked my father those questions…’  You know these days these children… they need to I’ve seen this personally… 20 years ago when I do a Spiritual Retreat and I tell people, ‘Close your eyes.’ They will all close their eyes.

20 years later today when I tell in a Spiritual Retreat to people, ‘Close your eyes!’ next evening a question comes ‘What is the science behind closing the eyes, explain!’ You have to explain…

Now that doesn’t mean that the next generation has become disobedient but the basis of relationship has shifted from emotions to information which means This is what you need to reinvent yourself. This is not just with your family, this is not just within IMA the fraternity or the other social organization you’re part of…   In your parenting… in your marriage… in creating an organization…

Everywhere this is the basis. Which means the new system is this… That on which you invest time and communication grows;  that which you do not give your time and Communication to, will shrink and die. If today you feel, your son who used to be very very close to you till 12, he’s not feeling so close to you as much as he used to be…you feel there is a gap.

You don’t have to think too much. There’s only one reason…You are no more investing enough time and communication with your son. Now he is investing a lot of time and communication with a set of people his relationship with them will grow. Chances are…You’re feeling a gap with your own spouse It’s no more what it used to be… marriage coexistence is there but you no more feel the intimacy used to feel…the reason is very simple; you are investing enough time and communication in IMA but not on your family that’s it. Period. That is the only reason. So your best friends are an IMA not in your home. The gap will come…You know more…there was a sense of ownership, Mahatria… there are a lot of these people who have been working with me for 10 years, 12 years, 15 years, and they all continue to work as if, this is Apna organization. I don’t know why these new people…they all come, they ask for lakhs of salaries crores… C2C…  they all studied and they all come back but they work for one or two years they go away…There’s only one reason…All these people who feel sense of ownership towards your brand they used to invest a lot of time…You used to invest a lot of time and communication with them.

This relationships have been built…Right now your… you or somebody else in the organization maybe you cannot do it directly. You might have to create an HR which has to engage in investing a lot of time and communication, team-building, maybe debates, within the organization brainstorming sessions…  If you’ll have to get a set of new people to feel that sense of ownership towards the organization that’s not going to happen unless you invest… The point is simple… Purely based on emotion you don’t feel intimate, close, or a sense of ownership towards anybody any more. If you have to grow a relationship whether that is professional or in life, whether it is in business or in society, if you have to grow any relationship you have to reinvent yourself on one aspect: That on which you invest time and communication grows. That which you starve of time and communication…will shrink and eventually die.

If some of you are frustrated, I’ll tell you the reason. The amount of time you are investing on WhatsApp and Instagram…people who are far away from you feel close to you and people closest to you, your family are becoming far away from you because you’re no more investing enough time…

When did we last look into each other’s eyes I’m sorry to ask you such a simple question I want you to examine next time you have a dinner in the family I want you to ask yourself this question’ Are you even making eye contacts with each other? ‘I don’t want to create a problem in your marriage but if your wife walks up to you and asks you, ‘What is the color of my eyes?’

Some of you will have to hang your head in shame and I’m concerned about it because you know the color of Deepika’s eyes you know the color of Alia’s eyes but you don’t know the color of your own wife’s eyes because we don’t make eye contact anymore. So when it comes to reinvent I want you to reinvent every dimension of your life every dimension.

Mahatria, you know I feel very close to my dog.  That’s because you’re investing time and communication with your dog. I feel very close to my granddaughter because you’re investing time and communication with your granddaughter. My best friend these days does not even pick up my call. Because there’s no more time and communication invested in this. You have to apply this. Today, if you find the sales have dramatically gone up in your organization but so is customer complaints. That is very simple, the Senior Management is investing a lot of time and communication with the sales department but not investing enough time and communication with customer support. Period.  That is the issue. That is the issue. So with this one template, I am giving only 3 templates today… with this one template That on which I invest time and communication grows; That which I starve of my time and communication will shrink and die. There is also the converse application to this.

Those people whom you want to drift away from you, simply stop responding to every message they send. You don’t have to…After some time they on their own will delete your number and move away from you. You don’t want a few people in your life. I think you’ll have to just shrink this and you can take some of those toxic people from your life. They don’t have to be a part of your life.

Second thing: EVOLUTION!

This is something I discovered when I was 40 that’s about 18 years ago…

When I saw the first grey hair in my mustache shook me a lot and I took so much time and effort to pluck it especially before my wife see sit. I wanted her to feel, she aged faster than me and not the other way around but that day was a turning point in my life. I realized one blemish outside of you and it hurts you so much…there is so much blemish inside you and because it can be hidden from the world, it does not even affect you. You can be jealous; you can be envious; you can be lustful; you can lie to people who trust you the most; you can be ego involved with are relationship where, you should be bound by love and all this doesn’t affect you. One grey hair outside affects you so much!

Somehow that was a very very important day of self-contemplation in my life!

I asked myself this question, ill you drink water from a dirty tumbler? No! Will you eat out of a dirty plate? No! Will you piss in a dirty urinal?  In the airport, you go and you find this urinal is dirty… Will you piss there? Or you will shift to a cleaner urinal? If you the mortal human being will not use anything that is dirty, I’m asking myself this question and all of you this question…How do you expect divinity to descend into you if your inside is dirty? You can write donation cheques…You can ensure the temple is named after you…You can sing the bhajans…You can have the most decorated Puja room… You can be a regular to Haj… You don’t have to… You can send on Facebook Micchami Dukkadam to everybody else regularly…you can do everything…But if your inside is dirty… For me, spirituality is not Rudraksh; Spirituality is not, the rituals I practice; To me spirituality is not the threads I tie; Spirituality to me simply means the bottle has to be clean from inside!

Not just looking great from outside… It has to be clean from inside. So the simple question we need to ask, to give a direction to our evolution is, ‘Am I becoming a more beautiful human being from inside, every day of my life? Am I becoming a more beautiful human being from inside every day of my life? And we only need self-judgment and self-introspection! We don’t have to run to gurus; we don’t have to run to ashrams; we don’t have to go to the Himalayas; we don’t have to hide ourselves in the forest; we don’t have to do anything else… Simply ask yourself this question… Two questions every day…Wake up in the morning and simply ask yourself this question -‘Where can I become a better human being today? ‘Before going to sleep, ask yourself one more question, ‘Where did I become a better human being today?’ Even if you don’t find the answer, it is okay! But ask these two questions every day. How can I become a better human being today? And Where did I become a better human being today? Even if it means, I smiled at a fellow driver in a traffic signal… Let it be.

Even if it can be that today after having lunch tell one of those butlers, ‘Call the chef! ‘Normally in the world when we say, ‘Call the chef!’ means what…and tell the chef, ‘The food is outstanding! ‘If he doesn’t die of heart attack… it’ll be one of the most memorable days in his life! You can write a handwritten letter…Praise your dad! He is craving for that recognition! Even if you feel shy of directly talking to his eyes, send a message to him, telling that, ‘Dad, the greatest blessing in my life is that I am your daughter! ‘He’s not expecting a message from you from this. But there is so much that we can do…but experiently I’ve learned something in life… The only way to feel beautiful about yourself is by making other people feel beautiful about themselves… There’s no other way!

The only way! And I think in the entire process it becomes self-cleansing, self-purification…

So evolution is not just one dimensional! Don’t be a one-role wonder. You’re all a… See you’re not part of IMA if you’ve not already achieved a reasonable amount of success. So that is why you’re part of IMA So I know but a lot of you are a one-role wonder. So can I expand the definition of my life and have a much broader definition where I not only want to be successful but I want to be healthy, wealthy, loving, blissful, peaceful…

So can I expand this definition and simply go into a level of self-introspection within myself by asking myself a simple question, ‘Am I, a more beautiful human being today than I was yesterday? ‘is truly the evolutionary process from which the manifestation of all the other dimensions of life will automatically happen. People who are successful, we admire them in their lifetime; and forget them after their lifetime. People who are beautiful, we worship them for generations to come… This is what history is suggesting to us.

Who is talking about some of the success stories… We will talk about Steve Jobs for another 10 years and after that nobody will speak about him because that place will be taken but we will talk about Sri Ramakrishna Parama Hamsa even 10 generations later. We’ll talk about Adi Shankara even 10 generations…2500 years later we are still talking about those Thirthankaras because they were all beautiful people. So, can I be that beautiful person from within…who is able to manifest all the success in the world outside will be true justification to self-evolution.

The third was LEAD. On the heart of lead, that you have as a theme is a simple theme that we need to recognize…People do not follow leaders; they follow followers. This is at the heart of human psyche. People do not follow leaders, they follow followers.

Let’s dive a little deep into this. You want to introduce a new technology into your business. You are an organization of thousand people15 people believe, this will do good to the business and the remaining 985 resist change. Everybody resists change…When you all… Some of you should have also been a part of it, when you all went and said that, ‘Indore can be a spotlessly clean city…’People would have laughed at you. In India, you think that is possible?

They laughed at me… As of February 14th, I had been teaching for 28 years… so this is my… in that my 29th year first program…This is my first program in my 29th year. Now when I went and told on February 14 1995,to a small set of 29 people that if Mahatria tells you the program will start at 11 30 and at 11 30 if Mahatria does not start the program, please go and tell the world, Mahatria is already dead. There can only be one reason. Mahatria told he’ll start the program at this time and if he has not started the program on time he should have already died. Otherwise the program would have started on time… People laughed at me when I said that. With pride and humility, together I can tell you this – As of today, I’m standing, for 28 years all my programs all over the world with no cancellation have started on time… For 28 years… all my programs have started on time… which means, if you educate people, they’ll understand. But how do we educate people? Five people will appreciate you for your punctuality… 995 will laugh at you for that. Focus on the champions of change; that’s what leadership is about! Focus on the champions of change! Every moment you waste in life thinking about what you cannot control is an opportunity missed where you could have invested that moment on what you can control! I repeat… Every moment you waste in life focusing on what you cannot control, you missed an opportunity to focus on what you can control.

Now, 5 people believe in punctuality. 995 don’t.  Concentrate on the 5. Because these 5 are doing…

50 more will do. Not because you told… because people follow followers… Right now, you will realize… when some of you said that we can become, when Swatch Bharat was announced, when you felt that we can have the cleanest city in the country, 1% of Indore would have believed, it was possible… 99 would have made a mockery of that. Focus on the 1%.

That 1% will become 10%. 10% will become 20%.  20% will become 70%.  70% will one day… make this the No:1 city in the country, on that aspect.

People follow followers. In fact, with extensive research, Apple found out, getting the first two and a half percent of the market alone, you need marketing… If you can market a new product, to get the first two and a half percent of the market, these two and a half percent will bring the remaining market towards you you don’t have to… Apple does not have to market… Apple consumer will go and tell other People you should use Apple; they will go and bring everybody else… your focus has to be on this.

There is gross amount of leadership that is wasted, in fighting the people who resist change.

Even in organizational development, I am saying… You come and tell that we can grow at the rate of 100% for the next 3 years continuously… and 10 people believe that it’s possible the rest of them…

Focus on the ten. that is… Those are your champions of change. Looking at this 10, 100 more will come in; looking at that 100, 500 more will come in. If you have to learn something from Bhagavad-gita… you transform one Arjuna, generations to come will live by Bhagavad-gita because one Arjuna succeeded after…  If in Kurukshetra war, Arjuna had lost the war, nobody would have touched Bhagavad-gita. Because there is success after the transformation, everybody wants to read the entire thing. When Mahatma Gandhi told when he came back to this country that through non-violence, we can drive the Britishers out, there were only 4 people who listened to him… and today there is no country in the world, that does not have a Mahatma Gandhi statue.

People follow followers! Take this into the heart of your leadership. Create those few champions of change and leave it… They will get the rest of the society… the rest of the customers… the rest of the team…to come in.  Mahatria, I have told her to take care of her health so much times; she does not listen to me! You take care of your health long enough… she will follow the results that you have achieved in life.

So when it comes to lead at the heart of it you will have to remember, ‘People follow followers, not leaders!’ As a result, what you can do is, accelerate this. Create systems… Create a culture… Create a tradition… which is easier for people to follow. This is what followers think. Followers think, ‘What culture can I follow?’ ‘What tradition can I follow?’ ‘What systems can I live by?’ This is what everybody goes through. So if we can create that ecosystem in Indore… If we can create that culture in Indore that ‘Ye apna city’, we have a responsibility… You have seen the results. The rest of them will automatically follow whatever culture you have created, whatever system you have created, whatever tradition you have created.

So even organizational development since it’s a management association, I have to say this… Only 4% of Asian companies… family businesses sees the third generation. Only four percent of Asian companies survive three generations. You want to create a legacy, whatever business you have built, seven generations later, ten… like European companies, where 10 generations later… the brand should still live… then at the heart of it, you’ll have to remember this: People will follow culture, tradition, systems. What is IMA?  A system. Now some of them will leave their position… somebody else will take… next year, we will have an event even grander than this. after that there’ll be a…  why? Because people will follow systems people will follow tradition…  So,  if you create culture, tradition, and systems you will create a legacy,   If you will only work on a few people in your lifetime you’ll see a lot of success but when you die, the brand you have created will also slowly recede.

You will not be able to build a legacy. I want to conclude this entire program by sharing, all my programs end with the same last three minutes, it’s never changed. There was a father who was reading the newspaper, and a six-year-old child came and said ‘Papa, can you play with me?’ and the father still wanted to read the newspaper… the child was adamant, saying that ‘Papa, you should play with me’ Just then the father saw there was a full-page advertisement of an international courier company where the world map was printed and they had shown that they deliver goods all over the world… In a moment of situational brilliance, the father tore that sheet of paper, tore it into multiple pieces, scattered it all over the floor, and he told the child, ‘Beta, this is your jigsaw puzzle. Assemble the world map properly and once you are done Papa will play with you’ Thinking he has bought time, he continued to read the paper.

In less than 5 minutes, the child called out to him and said, ‘Dad, look…’ and the world map was already in place. He was stunned. How can a child solve this in such a short time? Immediately the child said, ‘Papa I have to confess… When you were tearing the newspaper, there was a face of a man on the other side. Papa, I don’t know where New Zealand should be… where Canada should be where India should be… But Papa, I know where nose should be where forehead should be where eyes should be…  where… and the child said, ‘Papa, I got the man right, the world became right!’ If enough of us, can continue to feel proud about being an Indian, and proud about being from your city, whatever your city is… whether it’s Indore or whatever it is If enough of us can say that, ‘I will be a role model that the next generation will be able to emulate’.

If enough of us, can understand that whatever I wanted to grow in my life on that I will invest time and communication and whatever I wanted to leave from my life I won’t give it my time and communication. If enough of us can understand the power of Atma Shakti by beautifying ourselves from within and truly living a spiritual life rather than religious identification and if enough of us can ensure that ‘I’m here to create a legacy, understanding people follow followers… I will create systems, tradition and culture and whatever I represent’ I can only tell you the future will be infinitely more beautiful than the entire past and thank you for giving me this opportunity to share my morning with all of you. I love you all so much.

Thank you.