Elephant thinking–Unlock your potential

If you have read my book, “Why Do Elephant's Have Big Ears”, you would know that I use two elephant stories to help you understand how we limit ourselves and fail to realize our full potential.

Over the weekend, I had been to the library (In spite of the fact that I had TWO kindles !! sometimes going to the library and reading a non digital book has its own charm!)and picked up a few books to read. I was very surprised to read a similar story in the book “Self Leadership and the One Minute Manager.


Here is the extract –“When they begin to train an elephant for the circus, they chain the baby elephants‘s leg to a pole in the ground. The baby elephants wants to get away. He pulls and tugs. but he can’t escape – the chain is too big and the pole too deep in the ground. So he stops trying. As he grows up, he just assumes he can’t get away. Today he’s a six ton elephant.he could sneeze and pull that chain – but he doesn't even try. Circus trainers say that they can put a piece of sting around the six – ton elephants' leg and he won’t break away”


Coming from a traditional Indian background, the Indian society is more interested in telling you what you CANNOT do rather than inspire you to try  out new things. I call it the the “society's train track”. They create one for you, lay it and expect you to follow it !


Coming to the USA has been an eye opener. No constraints and the fact that you could work hard in whatever you want to do and make money/be happy or just live. It is very liberating ! 
So friend, whether you have Elephant thinking or Large Elephant ears, it is time you unlock your potential !

Raghavan (Raj) Rajendran

Teaching people to fish around the world !

One of my favorite motivational concept is to not give people fish, but teach them to fish (The proverb “"Give a man a fish and he won't starve for a day. Teach a man how to fish and he won't starve for his entire life."  has been attributed to everybody from Chinese proverbs to Confucius and Jesus Christ !). So I spent a lot of time teaching my team members the actual understanding of the concepts to get things done rather than give them a list of instructions to follow.  This has been  very useful for me during my years working with teams of all shapes and sizes.


I wanted to have a similar concept for my charity too. It was then I found Kiva.org. They allow individuals to a lend a little as $25 to help people around the world. They difference is that you can choose the projects and these projects are folks trying to better themselves by building a business or doing something for the society. As a trial I decided to help a gentleman Mr. Joseph in Uganda put structures on his farm and to buy fertilizers to support new live stock. It was a pleasure to see that the loan was repaid and his farm prospered.  This was followed by supporting the Amistad Group in Guatemala. All with micro loans of less than $50. That too was successfully paid back

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This is a great way to help people not just by donating money to an large trust and hope that they spend it wisely. But actually get involved in the process of selecting how the money gets spent. Also, 100% of the money you lend goes to the person needing help (Kiva is funded by other sources and contributions)
The only limitation I can think of it that some countries like India are not represented here !

Do check it out today ! Join me in doing good.,.

 

Raghavan (Raj) Rajendran