Powering Up For That All Important Interview !! - BY ROHIT MANOHARAN

Like it or not, there have to be efforts put in for ensuring that your interview goes off well and a lot of it is to do with preparing your mind and body rather than going through tons and tons of syllabus based text material, etc.

One of the most commonly made mistakes is the last minute reading up on the technical subjects which one is expected to face in the interview. We tend to completely or at least partially ignore the behavioral aspects which actually play a very important role in the way we deal with situations and pressures in the interview process. As a matter of fact, a lot of us forget that who we are is what plays a very important role rather than worrying about what we tend to show we are !!

A very famous saying goes like this : "Our financial condition is determined to the tune of 85% basis our ability to present, communicate, impress and command, just about 15% of it is determined by which college or school we attended and what our technical expertise might be."

However, due to our old school thought process of trying to prepare for interviews we tend to ignore the behavioral aspects for which we end up paying a heavy price in the interview. Here's what we can do for starters to ensure that we look and feel good and are aligned to the right thought processes during the interview :

* Know your personality type, enough of web sites available out there which can help you with that piece of information

* Understand how you react to various negative situations, do a quick SWOT Analysis of yourself. Friends and family can help you with that

* Ensure that all the features which are listed as your Weakness and Threats are well shadowed during the interview process, these things can impact your decision making and can weaken the interview to a large extent

* Learn to manage anger and frustration, this is important because each and every person has a different way to deal with these emotions basis their personality types

* Listen to yourself speak by recording your voice and try voice modulation basis what sounds or does not sound good to you

* Focus on mirror techniques to know your body language (refer to my previous articles on this)

* Take feedback positively and DO NOT try to justify your weak points

If you follow the pointers given above rigorously, there's a very high chance that you would be able to overcome your weak points and be able to deliver the results in a positive manner. Knowing yourself is the best way to ensure that you do what's required to be done rather than waiting for someone else to point out and improve you.

Go for this improvement drive and I'm sure you will emerge a changed and a highly improved person over a period of time !!

Continuously Challenge yourself!- By Shruti Nair

This is not a motivational article that pumps you up to do great things. This is written just to show you the mere benefits of consciously challenging oneself. Of course we take up challenging tasks in our day-to-day lives, it comes naturally as we are working and ‘growing’ constantly. I am talking about the planned, defined, out-of-comfort zone scenarios that we create for ourselves. For example, taking up that job that does not compliment your strengths, rather demands you develop your weaknesses; planning a trip alone to a random place or leaving your paid job to fulfill your dream of becoming an artist.

I took up one such challenge of going on a trip alone for a week to the mountains. As the person that I am, before leaving I researched all about the place, the safety measures, experiences of other travellers but in all this, I forgot to really sit and introspect (research) about myself. Now, when I reached my destination, on day one, I visited the places I had planned for the day, ate at the restaurants I’d read about and returned to my room before dark. Around midnight I decided to sleep but I couldn’t switch off from my alert zone. Around half past midnight, I realised I won’t be able to sleep at all. The silence that existed in the room was piercing, one such I have never heard before. The kind of silence that I experienced there, brings negative emotions in you, it engulfs you in it. The three nights i spent there, I didn’t sleep for a minute.

In this trip, i saw beautiful places and made great friends but the highlight of my trip was learning something about myself. I always had trouble sleeping alone in a room. It’s not that I’m scared of ghosts, I just feel really insecure in sleeping alone. But when I returned from the trip, I can sleep anywhere, peacefully. This trip solved a problem I had, I never realised I needed to work on.

Therefore I suggest, take up challenges! You never know what you learn about yourself! Taking up challenges have many benefits:

1) You will get out of your comfort zone.

We, as humans, are conditioned to seek out comfort. Therefore it is difficult to let go of things; but letting go of things mean taking up new things, which will always lead to growth. What is the point in living the same routine life day after day? On my trip, I was thrown completely out of my comfort zone. I had to meet and talk to people, which is not my dominant nature. This made me realise I am the way I am by choice and if needed, I can adapt.

2) You will become more creative

When you take up challenges, you are basically figuring out solutions to different problems. This will force you to think out of the box, broaden your perspectives on things. You will also become more confident with 

your decisions and views on things. When you travel alone, you have to figure out everything on your own, from simple directions to dealing with language barriers. This allows you to approach problems in various different ways.

3) You will increase your strengths and work on your weaknesses.

When is something challenging to you? When you can’t do something naturally, easily, it becomes a challenge. Continuously taking up challenging tasks mean you work on your weaknesses and increase the list of strengths you posses. I was never good with handling money or saving. Travelling alone requires me to save up for these trips and manage money during trips. I’m not great at it but I’m better than what I was!

4) You will never be bored.

Regardless to say, when you take up challenges, you start working on yourself. Challenges remove the mundane nature that life easily falls into. A person who takes up challenges will never complain of a boring 

routine life. My journeys are what I look forward to and they also account for great conversation starters with people meet!

For me, going solo travelling is the way of challenging myself. How are you going to continuously challenge yourself?

ANALYSING ROOT EMOTIONS - By Shohrat Shankar

Emotional Intelligence is based on the principle of Emotional Awareness, along with others.

Being aware of one’s own emotions is critical for just about everything. From your Self Esteem to relations with others and your success and progress. In fact your happiness depends on how aware you are of your emotions. On how much you know and truly understand why you feel the way you feel.

In this article I plan to illustrate how Emotional Awareness impacts your Self Regard, Self-Actualization and thus everything else in your life.

Over the years I have conducted numerous workshops on “Relationship Management” where I have a short section on Emotional Awareness and many of my observations are from there.

Positive & Negative Emotions

I normally start the session with asking people to list some emotions. Before they start I ask for some examples and in 8 cases out of 10 I hear ‘Anger’ or ‘Fear’ being said first.

Most people are not able to list beyond 8 emotions. The most common ones are: Anger, Sadness, Fear, Happiness, Love, Joy, Frustration, irritation and Jealousy.

One thing I notice every time is that we tend to list more negative emotions than positive, sadly often “Love” comes in way down on the list. I often wonder why it is so and on delving further and asking people I found that people tend to register the negative emotions they feel while mostly ignoring the positive feelings in the day. 

You might have noticed, when you asked somebody how their day went you will either hear a neutral response “OK” or if somebody had a bad day then they will say it. The percentage of people who say they’ve had a ‘great day’ is relatively smaller, in fact it takes a major positive event for most people to say they had a “Great Day”, on the other hand, it doesn’t take much for people to label the day “Bad”. Is it true that most of our days are either “Bad” or “OK” and very few “Great”? Or is it more likely that we tend not to register the small positive emotions that we feel in a day?

So 2 important factors to remember are:

• “Am I focusing on enough positive things around me or only the negative emotions?”

• “Do I register the small-small nice things or positives that people do or do I fixate on the few things that they did not do?”

The answer to these questions tells me whether I look for Happiness and positivity in whatever I do. It tells me whether I am a happiness magnet or not.

Root Emotions

The second thought I drive is the need to understand and analyse the real reason or cause for my emotion. Similar to doing a root cause analysis in, it is often important to do the same for our behaviour and emotions. Let me try and illustrate with an example.

Let’s say that in a meeting with my colleagues and boss a task is assigned to me and immediately a colleague of mine asks if I need any help. Citing an example where I had failed in a situation when I had done it on my own.

Now many people here would be happy and graciously accept or decline the offer. However, some people would get upset and feel there was an underlying reason for the colleague to offer support in front of the boss.

Some might feel he was doing it to appear like a good team player in front of the boss and others might think he wanted to put me down in front of the others. 

The important thing for me to analyse is “Why” or “What” is making me feel that way? What is the real reason for the reaction?

In order to understand my root or real reason for reacting I need to look at the following A-B-C-C model.

A – Activating event (Colleague offers to help)

B – Belief (He’s trying to put me down, He’s trying to show his competence over mine in front of the boss)

C – Consequence (I react and get upset either in the meeting room or later start to distance myself from the colleague)

C – Challenge 

In order for me to change the Consequence I need to Challenge & Understand my beliefs and the cause for my belief.

When challenging I need to ask myself, Am I sure he is trying to put me down? Does he do this often? Does he also sometimes just willingly offer his hand in assistance? Have I seen him doing this with others?

The answers to these questions will help one rationalise the beliefs and one might realise that probably he could really want to help.

Then it is important to understand the reason for your beliefs. Is it that you really feel scared of doing this task alone? Do you doubt your own competency in fulfilling this task? Do you feel that the colleague is really more competent than you? 

Often we are unwilling to accept the reality of the answers to the above questions and unless we dig deep to understand and accept the reality we might never be able to understand our real emotions and will never be able to challenge the beliefs that cause us to react.

So understand the real reason for the Belief to know why you feel the way you feel and thus react the way you react.

Scaling my Everest: Overcoming Stammering and Stage Fear

Though there are over 70 Million people who stammer and stutter and many million more who have stage fear, while growing up I felt I was the only one. Like so many others I felt lonely, ashamed, embarrassed, inferior and completely lacked Self-Esteem.

For as long as I can remember I stammered, sometimes slightly and at other times I would freeze and totally give up. I would want to hide and not speak to people at all. I avoided people in corridors and on the phone, because I was scared of stammering and stuttering when I spoke with them. In fact, I would walk the other way on seeing someone I need to wish. 

Saying “G..G…G…G…G…G…G..G….G…. good M..M..Morning” was no fun at all.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think, that one day, I would be a public speaker and make a living addressing many people.

Well, Let me tell you how I Scaled my Everest:

I was a shy, timid little kid who stammered whenever put in a spot or in the limelight. For years I wondered whether that shy, timid little kid who stammered, was shy and timid because he stammered or stammered because he was shy and timid??

Is it the problem that creates the mind-set or the mind-set that creates the problem?

While growing up I made myself believe the former and therein lay the problem; however, my life turned around the day I began to believe the latter.

 The 98-2% Principle

This is the Belief Principle that guides all the others. Without this belief no other holds ground. So what do I mean by this.

Well simply put….. 98% of all obstacles and problems are in the head, and the real problem is just 2%. 

It starts with your own belief in being able to overcome that mental obstacle in front of you. Once you truly believe, then 98% of the work is done and the rest remains in executing and following through on your belief.

Of course this is easier said than done, one needs to maintain the belief through all difficulties, failures and challenges one faces en route. 

Sometimes one can do everything right and still not see the light at the end of the tunnel, and here is where one needs to keep the faith and “bash on regardless”. 

Explore other ways of overcoming what’s in front, not because you have a ready-made solution to fix it, but as you believe it can be done.

Positive Self-Talk and Brainwashing

Once the first barrier of the mind is conquered one needs to build Self-confidence and belief in oneself. Many people say that confidence is the key to it all; however, very few talk about how to build it.

If I were to suddenly ask you the following questions:

• What makes you important

• What makes you competent

• What makes you likable

• What makes you successful

How long would it take you to answer these questions?

The trick is in making yourself aware of your strengths and also building on them by creating action plans to make oneself more Important, Competent, Likable & Successful.

Are they at the tip of your tongue? 

The fact is that most of us spend far too much time and energy focusing on the other end of the spectrum. 

We tend to ask ourselves 

“Why am I not important to them? 

Why am I not able to do……..? 

Why doesn’t he / she like me? 

Why don’t things go my way?”

The answers to these questions are normally de-motivating and demoralizing.

It is important for each one of us to remind ourselves and build on the following affirmation statements:

• I am important because……
• I am competent because…..
• I am likable because……..
• I am successful because…….

So how this work is, maintain a diary and every week write down what you did that made you more important, competent, likable or successful. If you don’t have anything to write, don’t lose hope instead create an action plan for how you will better answer these questions next week. Thus, building on strengths and finally confidence.

Now, whenever you are low on confidence or need a “Pick me up”, all you need to do is read your diary and I guarantee you will get a boost. 

This method of constantly reminding oneself of one’s strengths using affirmation statements is called Positive Self-talk and brainwashing yourself to look at the strengths in you.

Speaking slowly and pausing

The next step is to reduce your rate of speech and ensure that you have a slow and measured way of talking. 

• Start with some reading practice and bring your rate of speech down to at least 140 words per minute.

Some of the best orators like Narendra Modi, Barack Obama, Martin Luther King Jr, Adolf Hitler, Sushma Swaraj, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, etc are a perfect example of slow measured speech, using pausing and pace for effect.

While this helps with overall impact of the way a person speaks and sounds, it gives a person time to think ahead and plan what he or she is saying.

Most people who stammer and stutter are usually trying to say things in a hurry lest they forget. This way of speaking tends to become a habit and thus our words have a tendency to come out tumbling and stumbling over each other. 

Just imagine if all the students in a school decide to come charging out of a single door the moment the school bell rings. 

Can you envision a scenario where there are many kids stuck in a doorway? 

Well that’s exactly what happens to our speech when everything tries to come out at once.

The best ways to reduce the speed or Rate of Speech is 

• To practice reading children’s books. 
• Add the drama and expression in the story, as that reduces the speed even further
• Time yourself and be happy once you start reading consistently at about 120 words. 
• If you read at 120 you might bring speech down to about 140-150.
• To be able to effectively do this the last point plays a critical role.

Effective Breathing

The average person takes about 15-18 breaths in a minute. Try it without consciously slowing down.

• The aim is to be able to bring it down to 3-4 and average it out to about 7-8.
• Reducing your rate of speech is directly related with your breathing pattern. 
• Instead of trying to say all we can in a breath, we should use our pauses and punctuation for breathing; short breaths at comas and longer breaths at full stops.
• A stutter normally occurs when the vocal chords are stressed and stiff. Effective and regular breathing reduces stress in the body and vocal chords. 
• Whenever one gets stuck or feels a stammer or stutter coming, take a short pause, a deep breath and you will immediately feel the body and vocal chords relax, thus, freeing the voice.
• Good deep breaths also help in providing oxygen to the brain. When we are stiff and not breathing freely the mind tends to go blank due a lack of oxygen to the brain.
• Yoga breathing techniques are very helpful in creating a good breathing pattern and rhythm.

These points are not the only things that I did or feel are needed to overcome stammering and stage fear. 
However, I do feel these are the most important and critical, and were instrumental in me “Scaling my Everest”. In fact the first 2 points are universal to overcoming any obstacle or challenge in life.

So what is your Everest? What is holding you back? What do you want to achieve?

Do you need someone to talk you through it? 

Connect with me and I can share more insights on overcoming any challenges you might have.