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The terms “Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, online sessions, Webinars, Meeting IDs, etc.” have become very familiar with me across the lockdown period. Wherever and whenever my eyes would see those terms, I would get overwhelmed and at least land up into the registration procedure. With the same overwhelming moment, I unexpectedly ended up attending an online webinar with Shiv Khera yesterday.
It had been a while that I went across the news feed on Facebook and my eyes fell into the post by Shiv Khera regarding the Online Webinar Session on the topic “Turn Setbacks into Comebacks”. I went through the post in more detail and got to know that the webinar was scheduled to begin after about an hour from the time I came to know. After knowing this, I was desperately waiting to be a part of the webinar. Without having any second thoughts, I immediately registered for the webinar and shared about the webinar with five of my other friends. Luckily, only three of them were able to attend the session.
The clock turned 20:45 NST and by the time, I had already been inside of the session whereby the informal discussions were going on between Mr. Khera and a few other participants from the organizing team.
Within a couple of minutes, Mr. Khera was asked to lead the session. There had been a maximum limit of the participants through Zoom so few of the other participants including my friends were unable to join the webinar. It was totally a pinch-me moment for me to believe that I was attending an interactive online session with the “Shiv Khera”.
Time passed by, the session got formally started. By the time session had kicked off, few of my friends tried entering into the session but weren’t able to do so due to the maximum limit of participants. Since the same online session had been live on YouTube as well, I shared the live streaming URL to them. I had been making a note of the things shared by Mr. Khera. The same note has been a wonderful tool, to sum up, the entire session. And here in this article, I have tried to compile the entire session by taking reference to the keynotes from myself as well as my other friends.
Screen capture from the webinar
Mr. Khera kickstarted the session mentioning each one of us must save at least the salary of 6 months as an emergency fund. Life is never the same. To tackle the worst scenarios, the emergency funds could be of use. The only thing that is certain about life is uncertainty. In life, we may come across various situations, some are considered to be urgent while the others are considered to be important. There may be situations that might be urgent but may not be important and on the other hand, important but may not be urgent. One needs to remain very alert between urgent and important to spend time effectively. This lockdown has been a wonderful time for each one of us to reflect back into our lives. The lockdown time has proven to us that “the direction is far more important than speed”. No matter how fast we are moving, if the destination isn’t well defined, being speedy is of no use. The lockdown has already provided us with enough time (more than a month; 34 days to be exact) to grow ourselves on being the better version than before. Yet, if one has not been able to upscale with the new knowledge and learnings then, the person has lacked self-discipline and commitment; not the time! So, it’s totally up to us what to choose and what not to.
Mr. Khera also mentioned; unemployment and self-employment go up at the same time. While there has been unemployment going on, people are trying to create opportunities on their own through various creative skills. The ones who survive from the worst situation are the ones who are also surrounded by optimism. Most of the industries have started to implement the Work From Home (WFH) module, yet the people haven’t understood WFH briefly. It’s definitely not a paid vacation. Rather, it’s an opportunity for one to perform the task independently without strict supervision. Everyone who is following WFH must reflect on the output they are getting through this module. Is the outcome the same or the different? The people who are emotionally strong are the ones who can handle any sort of crisis and can make a mature decision while making sure that the decision will be worthwhile.
Coping up with the crisis
It is very crucial for us to know how we are coping up with the crisis. According to Mr. Khera, he considers coping up with crisis needs to be following in the following ways.
Serenity prayer
The Serenity Prayer was written by the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr in 1951. People applied the simple principle in their life to lead their life. “God, give me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, correct the things that I can change and wisdom to know what I can and I cannot.” The problem is a sign of life. As long as we are alive, we will have it. The day when we don’t have any problems, we are dead.
It was such a beautiful thing in itself that if we apply this philosophy in life, the living could be far easier than people assume it to be. Throughout the ups and downs, we cannot solve all our problems but we can handle them effectively. It won’t be wrong to say, life is a miracle. But to make that miracle, blissful or miserable, is totally up to us. Learning to accept things for the way it is, correct the wrongs happening around, and wisdom to differentiate where you can or cannot make this miracle called life worthwhile to live.
Life is full of choices and life is full of compromises. For example; If I drink and drive, I have been invited to die, haven’t I? We are all free to the point of choice but after we choose the choice, choice controls the chooser. In the game of life, we can decide how we play the game. Repeating the same mistake, again and again, can lead us towards failure. Doing the same positive thing can lead us towards success., again and again. For Mr. Khera, the serenity prayer is powerful for the last 44 years.
Limit your exposure to the news every day
Due to the pandemic situation across the world, almost all of the news is negative which is directly creating a negative impact on our body. It’s a high time that people need to stay away from fake news and always reply to the reliable and genuine sources only. Going through the news updates on COVID-19 has subconsciously been a habit for most of the people. People are surrounded by the news regarding COVID-19 from dusk till dawn and as a result, they remain depressed.
Limit your TV time
According to the survey carried out in the US, an average American spends approximately 3–4 hours of their time per day watching TV. Mr. Khera explained it by presenting reference to an example.
How much has TV cost you? How much do you earn? How many hours do you watch? What’s the hourly rate for watching TV? Let’s assume, you earn $50 per hour and the TV costs you $1000. You watch it for 3 hours a day. If we think of it mathematically, the TV is costing, 3 hours * $50 = $150 per day, and
3 hours * $50 * 365 days = $ 54,750 per year.
The number speaks! How much loss you are in because you assumed the TV’s price was only $1000. TV is definitely costing you way more than you spend to buy the TV. It’s the best time when we need to re-evaluate what are we doing with our time.
Only boring people are bored
Mr. Khera focused on the difference between loneliness vs. solitude. Loneliness is a situation where people are forced to remain alone due to various circumstances while solitude is a situation where people enjoy remaining alone. Loneliness is the pain of being alone while solitude is the joy of being alone. He also emphasized on this fascinating trick while you feel depressed. Just lock your house, go outside, look for someone in trouble, help them! Doing so, you’ll be distracted from the depression and feel much better. After all, there isn’t any limit to happiness that you receive while helping others. People must take this opportunity of leisure time to start thinking beyond their potential.
Perfect time to build positive relationships
Spending time with the family and closed ones during the lockdown ensures that the emotionally strong people’s bonding has become even stronger. Mr. Khera also stated that there isn’t any better time than now to get emotionally strong. Every relationship in our life is so crucial. The real cost of strong relationship worths more than a million-dollar. Families and friends are our best and greatest asset. The lockdown is definitely a wonderful opportunity to grow one’s personal as well as professional relationships. Earlier, people might have been so busy into their own profession that you would hardly get a chance to connect with them and have a conversation. But now, the people aren’t much busy professionally and when someone approaches them for a conversation, they would happily have a conversation with you.
If you’re in a business and there had been a customer who was taking services from you for the last 5 years. Then, in a few months, the customer stopped taking service from you. Take out time and get back to your customers who have stopped taking service from you and them what mistake had happened? What went wrong that you had to stop taking our services? This applies even in personal life. If you’ve lost connection with a people, get back to them and ask for a reason with the for being disconnected.
Remember in life, an optimistic person find thousand of ways to do while the pessimistic person keeps finding a reason every time for not doing it. The leaders are always in seek of somebody who is solution-focused.
Become a proactive
Take out time for yourself and keep asking yourself the questions;
“Am I a good person?”
“What makes me a good person?”
He shared an amazing example of a good person with the conversation below.
Person A: “Are you a Gandhian?”
It was definitely a weird question. And sometimes the best answer to a question is another question.
Mr. Khera: “What makes a person Gandhian?”
Person A: “Well, Gandhian is the one who follows the path shown by Mahatma Gandhi and believes love can win anything, can tolerate anything, and is non-violent in nature.”
Mr. Khera: “Oh, so that’s what makes a person Gandhian! So, you tell me, Was Lord Ram a Gandhian?”
Person A: “non-violence, tolerance, love”
Mr. Khera: “How can a person like Ram be a Gandhian? Ram had to fight against Ravan, Sita had been kidnapped and Ram couldn’t tolerate and finally, Ram had to pick up the weapon for self-defense. All of the 3 characteristics for a Gandhian got violated here”
For a person to become good, you first have to do good. It is also important for a person, not to start answering the question until and unless you’ve understood the question clearly.
Often in the training conducted by Mr. Khera, self-esteem is something that has never been missed throughout the training sessions. In fact, self-esteem is one of the most important aspects whereby, a person reflects on the way they feel of themselves. Self-esteem is inversely proportional to the ego. People with low self-esteem are emotionally weak. On the other hand, people with high self-esteem have totally relied upon self-acceptance.
We are here in this world as a human, and it’s very uncertain for us to become perfect in everything. Each one of us must realize that we aren’t perfect. We make mistakes in life. We must have the guts to apologize for the mistakes, seek forgiveness, learn from the mistakes, and commit not to repeat the mistakes.
Upgrade your skillset
The Singapore government has allocated billions of dollars for upskilling people realizing that there won’t be time to upscale after lockdown. The best time to upscale oneself is during the lockdown. 85% of millionaires and billionaires today are first-generation.
When the great leaders are asked for the reason behind their success, you won’t find any answer like TV or something like that. The legit answer for the reason behind their success is undoubtedly self-help books. They do not have time to waste upon fiction books. On average, such a person reads 50–60 books a year; meaning finishing to read a book for within a week. Reading a book opens up our mind which ultimately leads us to think. And just a single good idea could be worth of few million dollars for sure. There is a core relationship between learning and earning. Serious readers don’t lend or borrow books-they underline, make side notes in their prized possessions. Reading a good book once is not enough. Just in case if they borrowed the books, they won’t return back it for sure!
Mr. Khera also emphasized staying aware of the blind faith which eventually is leading to superstition. The lockdown has been here as an opportunity to give back for the underprivileged and for the ones who are really in need of it. Though you might be safe and sound in your home but in the other part of the world, there are many people struggling for the next meal. The people from the Sikh community are caring a lot, feeding quarter million people per day. These are the caring and daring people. It is time for humanity. The time where people are ready to pay any higher cost they want for food, but people should consider humanity and offer food. There are two kinds of people; one is suffering from an inferiority complex and the other from a superiority complex who is making more money, not for their personal demands but to help people who really need it in the present scenario. Money, when fallen in good hand always does the good while the money when fallen in bad hand always, does the bad! So, somehow it’s an obligation for the good people to earn more to do more good.
Mr. Khera concluded the session with few questions where he mentioned “technology can never ever replace good people! Though, technology can replace people to make a task easier. But the task which can be done by an extraordinary people can’t ever be replaced by 100s of machines.” It has become hard to find good people; the ones with the faith that “I still give more to what I get”. People often make various strategies and plans but fail to implement them. Mr. Khera added, “an average plan well implemented is better than a great plan poorly implemented”. Making the mistake is not the end of the world, but not learning is the end! Therefore, make mistakes, but don’t stop learning.
The great leaders often go back and reflect on themselves, walk over the action plan, and implement. They don’t have a consensus but create consensus. They can see what others can’t see. They are the ones to bring the change and drive it. They are always considered the savior. Mr. Khera wrapped up the session mentioning “good leaders always create new leaders while the bad leaders look to create followers because of their insecurities.”
In a nutshell, it was indeed a productive session where I got to hear and learn from the legend himself. I am thankful to Mr. Basanta Kumar Dhakal for encouraging me to come up with the blog post at any cost and also grateful for my friends; Shristi Prajapati, and Albina Dahal for sharing their keynotes and assisting me to give a final touch to this article.
PS: The recording version of the Online Webinar Session on “Turn Setbacks into Comebacks” by Shiv Khera is available below.
