Tag: Perceptions and Feedback

Knowing this will make you give less of a f*ck about what others think I worry too much about what other people think of me. sharing article from Medium.


Knowing this will make you give less of a f*ck about what others think
I worry too much about what other people think of me.

via Knowing this will make you give less of a f*ck about what others think

Mean machine or Meaning making Machine – who am I ?


Dealing with perceptions

in my mind’s eyes

hoping against hope

my presuppositions

my cognitive bias

my hyper criticism brutally

and honestly delivered

Reacted fiercely

Mean machine or Meaning making Machine – who am I ?

Interpreted differently

Forgetting all the time

There could be another way

May be it means something else

Meanings, judgements passed

Mean machine or Meaning making Machine – who am I ?

Forgetting our Being Human!

The tendencies to err

To become ruthless

Behave unnaturally with vengeance

Mean machine or Meaning making Machine – who am I ?

In the meaningless repetitive

Arguments to prove us Right

Leaving sanity, wisdom

Ignoring subtle visible facts

Getting self centred

Mean machine or Meaning making Machine – who am I ?

To prove I’m always right

No remorse, no feelings and

Emotions towards others

No empathy no sympathy

Mean machine or Meaning making Machine – who am I ?

Being mean before we know it

Mean machines we become

And wonder

Mean machine or

Meaning making Machine –

who am I ?

Is that me?

Who have I become

A Moron, a sadist

A masochist

Or just Mean machine or Meaning making Machine – who am I ?

(Writing poetry after many years! It needs a deep provocation, a shining up a mentors huge stick! And it just flowed)

RANDOM Phrases and my weekend


I believe in coincidence, Do you?

  1. Needle In a Haystack
    Meaning: 
    To keep going, pressing forward; never stopping.
  2. Fight Fire With Fire
    Meaning: 
    To retaliate with an attack that is similar to the attack used against you.
  3. Wake Up Call
    Meaning: 
    An occurrence of sorts that brings a problem to somebody’s attention and they realize it needs fixing.

Cool pic

 

Diamond is merely a Lump …


Today’s Inspirational Quote:

“A diamond is merely a lump of coal that did well under pressure.”

— Author Unknown

I was reading an article

From Ashes To Ashes To Diamonds: A Way To Treasure The Dead . It is very interesting ! It talks about “From Ashes To Ashes To Diamonds: A Way To Treasure The Dead””

Most of the diamonds synthesized from cremated remains come out blue, due to trace amounts of boron in the body. These diamonds, made from the ashes of animals, were created through the same process used to make diamonds from human remains.

I once said to a mentee that you are a Raw Diamond and a good mentor can turn you into a Masterpiece.  I mentioned 3 different cuts Indian Cut vs Belgium Cut vs Russian Cut which is given to the Raw Diamond. 
  1. Where a stone is cut has no more relation to the quality of the cut. At least not in what is observable in the finished product. There definitely still is a difference in yield, but that is only of concern for the manufacturer.
  2. The difference in cut-quality depends upon the goals and the organisation of the manufacturer. The cutting might be anywhere in the world for that matter. Therefore, you can still find very nicely cut Russian-cuts, a growing percentage of high quality Indian-cuts and in bigger stones, still more than Gary thinks, mostly Belgian-cut stones.
  • Pre Glasnost Russians cut by the text book with little regard for yield. Russian was the best cut.
  • Belgium has very little cutting today – some is very good – most is pre prepared and sent to Asia for finishing.
  • A few years back all Indian and most Israel diamonds were sold thru Belgium as Belgian Cut – or the better cut stones as Russian Cut.
  • Today it does not matter much as there are terrible and beautiful diamonds cut everywhere. Buy the diamond and not the location – that is the best advice.

Same things almost apply to the Mentor who becomes the Sculptor for the Masterpiece or the Diamond cutter improving the 4C Qualities of the Diamonds and bringing out their inner FIRE and increasing the yield by cuts so that the Weight gives the desired price to the seller.

Sometimes, though it gives me the feeling that the Mentees are not finally CARBON so essential for making of a Diamond but are made of a brittle, fragile sandstone which can only be crushed to make sand and used in the plinth of a building and NOT Diamond. The death wish of the mentee, in such cases to be a masterpiece can only be fulfilled if the building architect designs and makes it the world’s best – otherwise it remains another mundane structure.

To me personally, Mentoring is both art and science.  There are thousands of approaches and there would be million mentors in the world each monopolising their own tricks of the trade and techniques and approaches.  I just focused on 11 of them and practiced them for 20 years.  It does not make me a diamond ! or even diamond material ready for the cuts.  The mentor leaves behind the legacy of mentees who when they do well – the mentor becomes PUREST FORM OF CARBON and may not require any polish – just the basic things they do to be the Blue Diamond preserved by some as their Dead.  That would be my last wish! 

Dedicated to Mentees who quit or Cracked!


I wrote an article some time ago, about the 11 mentoring approaches I used and then found that there are many many more Mentoring approaches I do not know about. I was especially inspired by this video I found on YouTube that talks about 5 1/2 Mentors which this Basketball player found in his lifetime which are so precious and way better than my 11 approached.

I dedicate this article and urge especially the Mentees whom I dropped, who quit, or who Cracked under the KickAss Mentor’s pressures and Strict Coach Talk/ writings. They may still have a chance to move up in life as all is not lost. I loved this video. Sharing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quhcyPpCaSk

I read somewhere that Mentors appear when the Pupils are ready but as a Skeptic I believe that Mentors come for :

a. A Reason

b. A Season or

c. For Life as a life coach.

I know the amount of pressure, I exert on mentees is so unbearable that The Reason sometimes changes to Treason 🙂 and mentees begin Reverse Mentoring – as they believe Jay is such an inferior guy – we can coach and mentor him better !

The Season may last for a Quarter, Half year or 4-5 years and then as the Mentees learn to find mentors for their Augmented needs and Augmented wants of their businesses, their personal motivations – Jay Parkhe takes a back seat willing. That’s when the SEASONING and ripening of the Mentees begin. jay calls it WEAN to WIN approach.

Some Mentees keep in touch as they believe they have formed a bond which is life long and they keep in touch at their will and for them it is ATM – Any time mentoring where the phonelines, emails, whatsApp or SMS never shut. They reach you on Social media complimenting, commenting, sharing, agreeing, disagreeing, congratulating and sharing sad moments together.

Mentoring does all of this. It can display in a simple limp handshake with a sweaty but cold palm that the person is Selfish, will turn ungrateful, ingrate but the good mentors persist as they believe in the power to reform. No one can change and adult. Only adults can transform themselves and change. As you can see in this video as well. Jay has met several Ex-Cons who came for advice, Reformed, became part of this world by giving up all their bad deeds, negative influences, negative people surrounding them by building a strong fort in their minds to counter them and Jay takes pride in helping them build and reinforce every strong wall, trench and tunnel and their Big Guns!

Such is the pleasure of Mentoring. Enjoy the video. I found it very inspiring.

E.S.T.M. a sub-approach Of Jay Parkhe’s 11 Mentoring approaches Part 2


In this sub-Approach spread over two sessions Jay Parkhe takes the mentee through two other techniques using terms from totally different subject, speciality, Music, Poetry.

In 1st Part we discussed,

universal emotions, what they look like, and why we’re biologically hardwired to express them this way:
Anger. …
Fear. …
Disgust. …
Happiness. …
Sadness. …
Surprise. …
Contempt.

In this part, we discuss with the Mentee:

ragas

Hindustani Classical Music: Different Kinds of Ragas

Rāga (Sanskrit: राग), comes from a Sanskrit word for “the act of colouring or dyeing”, or simply a “colour, hue, tint, dye”. The term also connotes an emotional state referring to a “feeling, affection, desire, interest, joy or delight”, particularly related to passion, love, or sympathy for a subject or something.  In the context of ancient Indian music, the term refers to a harmonious note, melody, formula, building block of music available to a musician to construct a state of experience in the audience.

From a Mentor’s perspective these are important when I am using the ESTM sub technique as it is enriched by these emotions and testing their stability in the Mentee.

  1. Feeling 2. Affection 3. Desire, 4. Interest 5. Joy 6. Delight  Relating to

A. Passion – I call it Pass-I-On or Pass-It-On.

B. Love

C. Sympathy / Empathy

In ancient Indian Music Raga refers to

i. Harmonious Notesworld of Ragas.jpg

ii. Melody

iii. Formula

iv. Building block of music

to construct a state of Experience for the audience.

emot stab

I do not test each of them but once I have gathered and understood the Mentee’s interest, Passion, aptitude for one or more of the above I test them on the Musical level which is creating Harmony, Melody, Formula and Building Blocks of Success and their ability to do so.

This is not an easy exercise and the tough parts are : Feeling, Affection, Passion and Love.  Some mentees mask their Delight, Joy, Sympathy, Empathy while the Real Pseudo Mentees who are out to play spoilsport and waste the mentors’ and their own time and efforts get exposed and usually quit or asked to quit by the mentor.

Music is a very powerful communication medium and it helps us find balance and calm, peace within us. Music begins to live on us and in the same way, Jay tests his mentees on what really ‘LIves on them, what makes them tick or untick or cool off” .  This is a difficult exercise and Jay carefully chooses his mentees and whom to put to this test without announcing.

The third and final sub-set of this technique of S.T.E.M. is not from Music but another art form – Acting and it is called Rasa. It is said that Bharata Muni enunciated the eight Rasas in the Nātyasāstra, an ancient Sanskrit text of dramatic theory and other performance arts, written between 200 BC and 200 AD.

  1. In the Indian performing arts, a rasa is a sentiment or emotion evoked in each member of the audience by the art. The Natya (Acting) Shastra mentions six rasa in one section, but in the dedicated section on rasa it states and discusses eight primary rasa.

    1Raudram rasa of the destructive fury of goddess Durga in Bharatanatyam

  2. Related to love, eros (Śṛngāra, शृङ्गार)

  3. Humorous, comic (Hāsya, हास्य)

  4. Pathetic, disgust (Bībhatsa, बीभत्स)

  5. Fury, anger (Raudra, रौद्र)

  6. Compassion, sympathy (Kāruṇya, कारुण्य)

  7. Heroic (Vīra, वीर)

  8. Terrible, horrifying (Bhayānaka, भयानक)

  9. Marvellous, amazing (Adbhuta, अद्भुत)

As an Accomplished mentor Jay Parkhe Tests the ABLE Mentees thru this E.S.T.M. Test and try out 2 o 3 of these parallels as Emotional stability tests.  No mentee is ever ready to pass thru all 9 neiher is any mentor capable of conducting all without a sense of emotion, sadness at putting the mentee thru a grueling test,  Scolding, presurising, autocratically, dominating which sometimes cracks the Best of mentees too.

As I have said before, these are not tests of Go, No Go nature -although they give a deep insight into the minds of the mentees and helps the mentor to specifically focus on the important ones.

via HBR- Excellent article : What I Learned About Coaching After Losing the Ability to Speak


I knew I couldn’t keep facilitating team meetings and giving strategy presentations — staples of the consulting services I had provided for many years. But I still loved my work and needed to stay active, and my clients were open to trying a new approach, so I began managing my coaching relationships exclusively through written dialogue in instant messages, emails, and other electronic documents.

via What I Learned About Coaching After Losing the Ability to Speak

From HBR Newsletter – Feedback in Writing


Be Tactful When You Provide Feedback in Writing

In an ideal world, feedback would always happen face-to-face, so the other person could read your body language and hear your voice. But there are times when you have to provide input through email, text message, or even instant message, and in these cases it’s important to be careful about tone. Written criticism can easily lead to misunderstandings, since it’s missing the natural empathy that comes from talking to someone in person. And once it’s typed, it’s harder to take back than a spoken comment. Generally, your written feedback should stick to descriptive, rather than evaluative, language. People are usually more receptive to, for example, “This is what I see happening” than to “This is what I think you should do differently.” The latter can be read as harsh and uncaring, whereas the former is more objective. You’ll have more latitude if you have a strong relationship with the recipient, because the person is less likely to perceive the criticism as an attack. Still, the extra effort you put into thinking through what to say and how to say it will help the person hear your message (even if they’re reading it).

Adapted from “What I Learned About Coaching After Losing the Ability to Speak,” by Mark Rosen