Have Faith in your Children

On 12^th July 2007, a beautiful flower withered away from my family garden. I used to call this flower, Amma.  No matter what the age, what the health condition, a mother is always a mother and the loss of someone who has been with me right from my birth, is ofcourse painful. Though, it is true that anyone in this world is indispensable, yet there are a few relationships that are not replaceable and I think a mother is one.

I have a habit of trying to find and adopt atleast one good quality from my near and dear ones. When I think of my mother, I think the most important thing I wish to imbibe from her, is the faith she had in her children. I am sure this sharing of mine, will help other parents to get a perspective of this goodness of having faith in children

Right from my childhood, I have been a pride to her.  She delighted on the simplest of my achievements. She used to talk very proud of me to my relatives, her circle of friends and who ever she knows. She has never let me down on any occasion. Even when I failed in my 9^th Std examinations, due to my negligence in study, she did not scold me. She just told these words “Don’t lose heart”. To make sure that I am not mocked by others, she went about telling everybody that my son was detained, because he was having fever and he was  not able to write his exams. Why was there so much of protection? Why was I not punished?.  I used to think.

This unshakeable faith she had in me turned me a new leaf. I realized my fault. I felt so bad and guilty for having disappointed her. From then on, I concentrated well on my studies and made sure I was atleast in the top ten of my class, till I completed my post graduation. This was the magic of faith, she had on me. Faith turns aspirations to reality.

What I observe in many parent’s today is this lack of faith in their children.  We get easily upset over their children’s failures. We tend to lose confidence in their children’s ability.  We use wrong and negative words, thinking that we are correcting our children, without realizing that we are making things worse. I think it is time, we correct ourselves and behave as more responsible gardeners of our children.

Just like a plant needs good soil, water, and sunlight to grow, we have to nurture our children with the soil of positive thoughts, water them with abundant love, support them with the sunlight of  encouragement and appreciation.

 Happy Reading,

D. Senthil Kannan
Article dated Aug'07

CHILDREN COME IN ALL SHAPES AND COLOURS

I was reading a article in the last month issue of “Frozen Thoughts” and it spoke about the different types of employees working in an organisation. As I was contemplating on the content, I related the same to the different types of students, which gave me some valuable insights which I would like to share.

Of the many factors, that decide the academic success of a student, what we can identify as two predominant traits are his INTELLIGENCE level and ENERGY/ MOTIVATION level. So, this gives way to a matrix which can be something like this:

Type 1:  High Intelligence + High Energy

= Brilliant Student

Type 2:  Low Intelligence + Low Energy 

= Dull Student

Type 3:  High Intelligence + Low Energy

 = Average Student

Type 4:  Low Intelligence + High Energy

 = Aggressive/ Adamant Student

Though we tend to believe that God created all equally, it is not true. We see difference in colour, character, and also the intelligence level. Psychologists classify children as Gifted hildren, Special Child and Normal Child.

The “Gifted child”  is a  quick learner as he has the ability to grasp and understand  concepts effortlessly.

The “Special child” needs special care, from the teachers and students, because they find it difficult to understand what is being taught to them. It is only by repetitive teaching, can these children understand the subject.

In between these two classification comes the “Normal child”, which is of concern to us today. They are like the seed with potential to grow to a big tree, but because they do not get the special care that a special child gets or the appreciation that a gifted child gets, they get stranded on being a average child.

The responsibility of bringing out the best in a average child largely depends upon his/ her teachers and parents.

The general mentality of the parent, who has a average child is that they are comfortable with the performance of their children and they are indifferent towards their performance. For example, if the child has shown some small improvement in his marks, he is not appreciated. He is always compared with the brilliant students and made to feel that his small achievements are not praise worthy. Similarly, when his performance goes down, they do not take it seriously. They just tell him to do well next time. There is no special care given to make him improve on his weak subjects.

Similarly with the teachers, the reason why an average child is no ones child is because of the lack of involving them. Let as assume a class of 30. In this class the top ten performers are called the brilliant children and the last ten are called the dull students. The brilliant children are asked to take part in all the programmes and activities representing the school. The school is interested that it should win more prizes and awards to gain public honour, and therefore have the team consisting of the brilliant children. As far as the dull children, they are generally not interested in participating. But it is the average child who aspires to participate, but is not given a chance. This attitude of the teacher demotivates the child. He starts feeling inferior to others and he himself puts up a mental block, that he has not talents.

In a world of today, success is not defined by the academic performance of the student. What the corporate world is looking for today, is street smart executives who have a flair in communication and a indomitable spirit.

We have a role to play in shaping up the generation of tomorrow. Let us look with new eyes, to the average child and create a better world for him. This we can achieve only by involvement, motivation and appreciation.

Happy Reading,

D. Senthil Kannan

Article Dated July 2007

EMPATHY THROUGH EXPERIENCE

Empathy as easily defined is “the ability to look at a situation from another person’s point of view”. Though easily said, off late I came to realize that empathy does not come so easily. It is only by undergoing the experience does real empathy come.

I was in China, a few days ago. Being a vegetarian, I found it extremely difficult to manage my food. But somehow God seemed to remember my childhood prayer, which I used to say “Oh God, give me my daily bread” and was kind enough to help me find some bread, here and there which helped me to survive in this land where not only the language was foreign but also the concept of vegetarianism was foreign.

Having had my own share of trouble finding vegetarian food, I had to travel to some smaller towns of interior china to visit a few factories. Even before I started the trip, I was mentally prepared to fast, in case I don’t get any vegetarian food. But still, as a courtesy when my business associates took me for lunch to a typical Chinese restaurant, I did not refuse the invitation. I just informed that I don’t take meat and that I need only vegetables. They seemed to respect my sentiments and ordered some vegetarian dishes for me. They also ordered for themselves some dishes, and we were waiting for the food to arrive. After sometime, 10 to 12 big bowls of different food preparations arrived. As I was not aware which were vegetarian and which were non-vegetarian, I asked my host and he explained each dish. One of the dishes was Snake with green vegetables. The moment I heard that, I felt a shiver down my spine. I am dead scared of snakes and the very thought of snakes disturbs me, but here I was with a group of snake eaters. Though inside my mind, I was sending positive messages that I should act composed, I could not. I was not able to eat any food thereafter. I am sure my host must have felt offended, by my behaviour. For them eating snake is a very common thing, but to me it was an altogether an undesirable experience. Even after we left the restaurant that thought was haunting my mind, for quiet a long time.

I related this incident, to some of my own behaviour, during my college days.  I have a very close, friend, who is a Jain. Jains as you are aware are ardent vegetarians. Whenever we used to go to a Veg – Non Veg restaurant he would say, “I am not coming in; you go have food and come. I will wait outside”. I used to feel that he is acting too fussy. I used to feel what is wrong in him coming inside and sitting with us. He can just come in and give company, even if he does not eat anything. This incident made me realize how he must have felt, during such situations. Probably, he might have felt the same way; I felt when the people around me ate snake.  I always had the confidence, that I understood my friend very well, but now I realize that I did not understand his true feelings.

Just to stress my point, empathy would be more genuine when experienced than just saying these nice sounding words,    “I understand how you feel”.

Happy Reading,

D. Senthil Kannan

Article Dated Jun 2007

INDIA RISING

I sense a good feeling wherever I go about the booming Indian economy. India is in the spotlight in all international magazines. The Share market sensex has touch a all time high of 14800 points and economist forecast that the Indian Share market will touch the 50000 points mark by the year 2020.  The world is looking at India, with a big awe. Multinationals are rushing in to find a place into this big market before it gets too crowded.

What does all this mean?  Have you woken up to the secret, the world has discovered before we did. Yes, the secret is India is set to be the second largest market in the world after China in another 10 years. The entry of the multinationals into every type of business is a clear indication. Name any business and they are there. Right from insurance companies to retail chains, car factories to mobile phone manufacturing units, they are becoming omnipresent in the Indian economy. The world has got a pulse of India. They seem to understand and respect our language and cultural difference. They customize not only their advertisement campaigns but also their products to fit the regional market. You are aware, Nokia makes phones which facilitates SMS in Tamil, Hindi or any other regional language. The market is too big and they are finding it difficult to cope up with the market demand. People are willing to buy at any price, if the product catches their imagination. Something which was unheard of in the recent past.

The country which has been talking about 60% of the people living below poverty line all of a sudden has awakened to the fact that poverty cannot be prevented, but has to be replaced with abundance.

During my last visit to China, one local person told me, China too was once a very conservative country like India and there too the value systems were too strong to permit western influences in their lifestyle.  There were big debates on this at every parliamentary meetings. Then it boiled down to a matter of choice:  Whether China prefers to hold its cultural heritage and remain poor or compromise on its value systems and grow rich. The country chose the later. Today, if you go to any city in China you will find the night life bubbling with so much of entertainment. They are all set to please the foreign visitors. They want to focus an image of culturally friendly people.

India is in a similar crux. We have a strong value system embedded in our culture, which does not permit so many things, but we have to look at western preferences too. Few cities like to Mumbai and Bangalore, have geared up to the situation.

If India is feeling so rich today it is because of the amount of foreign exchange flowing into this country. The considerable amount of job opportunities and the earning potential created by foreign dependent IT companies, has made the nature of money fluid.

We are living in a age of cultural convergence. May be the days are not too far, that the countries will lose its cultural identities and have something called a “global culture”. 

In this issue of PALMS PLUS, I have included an interesting article on “Learning from the West”, by Infosys fame Naryana Murthy. A dynamic entrepreneur, who has reached great heights in the IT industry owing to his untiring hardwork. This article I hope would throw more light on the matter I have discussed.

Happy Reading,

D. Senthil Kannan

Article Dated May 2007

POWER OF NETWORKING

In the recent seminars, I have attended, I find a lot of stress being laid stress on the power of networking.  I would like to share some of my insights, on networking

In this competive world, the speed of your growth will be determined by your capacity to network with people.  We have always been apprehensive of initiating a talk with new people. The fear of doubt , when meeting a person for the first time far surpasses the fear of opportunity, that may arise out of talking with them. We are so very cautious, that we even think twice to stretch our hands to shake hands with a stranger or greet someone with a friendly smile. We fear that a relationship with a unknown person will let us in doldrums. This is often due to the fact that some of our previous experience with unknown people have been bad. This experience has deeply encroached upon our subconscious mind, a feeling of suspicion in dealing with strangers. What is more, the news paper and magazines flashes so much news about frauds and cheats. The railway public announcing system, keeps announcing do not take any food from co-passengers.  All this in totality has made us hostile to our surrounding. We like to be insulated from all dangers.

In doing so we have consciously let away opportunities that comes to us in the form of different people.  Day in and day out we are searching for new opportunities, but we fail to see the opportunity hidden behind each person we meet. Each person may have a hidden opportunity.

Just for a analogy, think of a typical situation like this: You come across a person with a  brilliant idea, but does not have the money to make it a successful venture. You take the idea and keep it with you. You then come across a millionaire in disguise, who has so much money and knows not where to invest and then you give this idea you have got from some one. The millionaire gets excited about the idea and offers to fund your venture. He is willing to make you a working partner.

Does it sound like fiction. It can happen!!! I believe so… This is what networking is all about. The secret lies in talking with people, all that is in your mind, know matter how they judge you.

How many of us sincerely beleive that our friend’s friend, is also our friend. If you believe so, you will start making more and more friends everyday because the chain keeps growing. This is how you can make your networking stronger.

What happens in real life situation is when one of your friend introduces you to his friend, you formally say hello, shake hands, know your names and that is it. You do not care to go any further. So, this unknown stranger has now become a known stranger. Nothing more… To put the power of networking to work for you , you have to be sincerely interested in people.

If we should make a honest introspective of how much we really know about our  friends, our relatiives, our colleagues, we will be sorry to find that we just know the periphery, because we are always afraid if exploring other inner territories, for the same fear of exposing our true self. If you really look into people, we will see that there is so much of potential within the person which is not brought to focus. We could be the miner, who could dig out the Gold, from within the person.

God will never give the bread in your basket. He will just show you where the dough is. It is upto you to make the bread. God shows you opportunities through people. It is upto you to capitalize upon the opportunity hidden within them.

Happy Reading,

D. Senthil Kannan

Article Dated Apr 2007

DUBAI - A LAND OF SUPERLATIVES

I had the opportunity to travel to Dubai, this month and I would like to share some of my learnings through this editorial. In addition to the other things that impressed me like the booming growth in infrastructure and the list of biggest and tallest structures coming up there, what striked me most was the astonishing fact that  the crime rate in this country was less than 1%. Well, the simple rule here is, if any one was caught robbing, his hands were chopped off and if someone was caught for eve teasing, he was given fifty lashes, which he will never be able to forget for fifty years. All this sounds like cruelty, but is it that the human mind can be disciplined only by fear. It sounds so!!!

This country has only 17% of the native population (the Arabs), and the rest being migrants across the world, mostly from India, who have come to make a living. Foreigners cannot get a citizenship neither own land in this country. This makes the rental income lucrative for the natives, who build huge commercial complexes and residential buildings.

Recently, they have built a island called the PALM Jumeira. Foreigners can buy property, in this island. The approx cost of a house here will be 1.5 million dhirams. 1 Dhiram=Rs. 12.25/-. Inspite of this exorbitant cost, this island was sold out in 72 hours from time of announcement.  That shows the amount of interest foreigner have in this country. One more interesting fact about this island is that this is considered as the 8^th world wonder, because, this is the only man made island that is visible from space. Adding to this astonishing news, I was informed two similar projects PALM Jebeleli (4 times bigger than the existing one) and PALMS Deira (8 times bigger than the existing one) is under construction and will be open for sale in 2008 and 2012, respectively.

Contrary to popular opinion that this country is rich, only because of its oil resources, I came to know that only 15% of Dubai’s  income comes from oil and the balance comes from a variety of trading activities, tourist income and most importantly visa income. As citizenship is not granted to foreigner, they work on work permit visa and this visa income is a major earner for this country. As the earning here are absolutely tax free, it makes it a haven for workers to work and save money here.

I had the opportunity to meet and have breakfast with the richest Indian in UAE, Mr.B.R.Shetty. This man went to UAE 40 years ago as a medical representative and today he owns the largest hospital there, named the New Medical Centre. His major business is the foreign currency exchange , in addition to the many other business he owns. The Indians working there, support the families back in India or make investments in India to the tune of US$ 20 billion/ year. This is the amount of money transferred by Indians living in UAE to India.

It is a proud moment to know that Indians flourish everywhere, and especially in UAE, they are well respected because of their sincerity and commitment to work. No matter where they live, they always the carry the spirit of India and try to do something for the home country.

There is a lot more to say about this country, which really enthralled me, by its vibrancy and the speed of growth. For limitation of space, I end here.

 

Happy Reading,

D. Senthil Kannan

Article Dated Mar 2007

 

 

 

 

Faith turns aspirations to reality

On 12^th July 2007, a beautiful flower withered away from my family garden. I used to call this flower, Amma.  No matter what the age, what the health condition, a mother is always a mother and the loss of someone who has been with me right from my birth, is ofcourse painful. Though, it is true that anyone in this world is indispensable, yet there are a few relationships that are not replaceable and I think a mother is one.

I have a habit of trying to find and adopt atleast one good quality from my near and dear ones. When I think of my mother, I think the most important thing I wish to imbibe from her, is the faith she had in her children. I am sure this sharing of mine, will help other parents to get a perspective of this goodness of having faith in children

Right from my childhood, I have been a pride to her.  She delighted on the simplest of my achievements. She used to talk very proud of me to my relatives, her circle of friends and who ever she knows. She has never let me down on any occasion. Even when I failed in my 9^th Std examinations, due to my negligence in study, she did not scold me. She just told these words “Don’t lose heart”. To make sure that I am not mocked by others, she went about telling everybody that my son was detained, because he was having fever and he was  not able to write his exams. Why was there so much of protection? Why was I not punished?.  I used to think.

This unshakeable faith she had in me turned me a new leaf. I realized my fault. I felt so bad and guilty for having disappointed her. From then on, I concentrated well on my studies and made sure I was atleast in the top ten of my class, till I completed my post graduation. This was the magic of faith, she had on me. Faith turns aspirations to reality.

What I observe in many parent’s today is this lack of faith in their children.  We get easily upset over their children’s failures. We tend to lose confidence in their children’s ability.  We use wrong and negative words, thinking that we are correcting our children, without realizing that we are making things worse. I think it is time, we correct ourselves and behave as more responsible gardeners of our children.

Just like a plant needs good soil, water, and sunlight to grow, we have to nurture our children with the soil of positive thoughts, water them with abundant love, support them with the sunlight of  encouragement and appreciation.

  

Happy Reading,

D. Senthil Kannan

Article Dated Feb 2007