Simple tips for Effortless Success

• Gain confidence, let go of your limiting doubts, and begin to achieve your goals.

• Changing yourself from the inside out will improve your relationships with those you value most.

• Letting go of all the fear, anger, anxiety and stress will result in a vastly improved health and quality of life.

• Learn to reclaim your decision-making ability from your limiting emotions

• Develop the ability to make stronger and clearer choices

• Achieve your goals and aspirations as opposed to sabotaging them

• Learn to change yourself from the inside out and make those changes permanent

• Learn techniques for dissolving resistance

• Experience peace, harmony and unqualified happiness

• Greater ease, effectiveness, and joy in daily activities

• Communicate more open and effectively

• Understand the nine emotional states and how to uncover and live as “peace”Recognize how resistance is slowing your progress and what to do about it

• Understand the most powerful goal crafting and creation process

Stood in front of a mirror and fixated on a flaw. A wrinkle here. A dimple there. And suddenly we’re hating ourselves. All because of a stupid wrinkle.

Make-up artists tell clients not to stand too close to the mirror. Why? Because no one else views you as decisively as you view yourself. No one else stares at the stain on your cheek, or the line on your forehead. Why should you fixate on it? Instead, they recommend that you step back a bit and admire the big picture, the total person. Mind, body and spirit.

People don’t usually see themselves this way — they generally look at some small part and stake everything on that. I got a letter once from a woman who felt her whole life was falling apart because her thighs were too fat.

I think that no matter who you are, you have to work with everything God has given you. Some of us are natural athletes; others are naturally gifted in very different areas. As we get more comfortable with ourselves, more sure of our priorities, it’s okay to say: “You know what? Not everything has to be perfect.” It’s okay to be just who I am. I’m not in competition with anyone. I’m going to focus on reaching my own highest level of vitality.

When you do that, you’ll feel great about yourself, you’ll feel great in your body — and you’ll be in good enough shape to experience the very best your life has to offer.

The next time you find yourself hating some part of your body, give one of these tricks a try:

Accentuate the Positive

You probably know what your least favorite features are — but which features are you really happy with? Maybe you have clear, supple skin. Or tapered fingers. Or shiny, healthy hair. When you’re down, lavish some attention on one of your favorite features. Apply your favorite vitamin-enriched face cream, get a manicure, give your hair a deep conditioning treatment. Or draw attention to your prettiest parts by adorning yourself with your favorite accessories.

Soft Focus

Whenever you stare in the mirror and fixate on a flaw, take a few steps back. Smile. Squint your eyes and peer through your eyelashes if you have to. See yourself in soft focus — the way the rest of the world does. Then, instead of focusing on your less-than-perfect parts, focus on the good things you do with the help of your body. Maybe it’s hugging your children or loving your spouse or planting your garden or making a great presentation at work. Remind yourself to put on this “soft-focus lens” whenever you start getting critical.

The Feel-Good Box

Find a pretty box or basket and every time you get a compliment, write it down on a piece of paper and drop it in. Every time you get a gift from a friend or family member — save the card in your Feel-Good Box. When you read a quote that touches you, add it to the collection. When you get flowers, dry a few and throw them in as well. This should be like a keepsake box, but only items that conjure up good feelings are allowed! When you’re blue, the Feel-Good Box should be the first place you turn.

The Enchantress of Florence, Salman Rushdie, 2008, Jonathan Cape, price not stated.

If you are the kind of reader who begins at the end, you will first bump into the six-page-long bibliography appended to The Enchantress of Florence. Despite this, Rushdie’s latest novel remains a rich re-imagining of history with hardly a trace of the scholarly heaviness that one has come to expect of fiction that grapples with historical and political themes. The enchantment, thankfully, is alive and kicking — at least for the most part, and the narrative retains a seductive lightness. But while readers escape the fate of having to plod their way through historical detail, there is another path, the path of mirrors and reflected story lines in Mughal India and Renaissance Florence, that they have to traverse. This then is the trade off, essentially.

While The Enchantress of Florence is a story about many things and a story about story-telling itself, it is anchored, if somewhat insecurely, around the visit of a yellow-haired European, Nicola Vespucci or Mogor dell’Amore, to the court of Akbar. Claiming that he is the son of Akbar’s grand-aunt, the European restores public memory of Qara Koz or the hidden princess who was cast out of Mughal history for choosing her conqueror over her family. The hidden princess becomes the ultimate traveller in this cross-cultural tale, a traveller who shifts allegiance with disloyal ease. When Akbar falls in love with her memory, moving his imagined queen Jodha out of the way, it is a love that smacks of incest and blasphemy.

Probing around the gaps of history, Rushdie delves into the minds of historical characters such as Akbar to string together a multi-themed narrative about time, travel, identity, power, desire and story-telling. The over-arching metaphor that binds these themes together is the mirror: the hidden princess has a slave girl who is her mirror, the Florentine Argalia is, to an extent, the mirror of Mogor dell’Amore, Jodha Akbar has a mirror in the hidden princess, the Mughal artist Dashwanth who paints Qara Koz and the Florentine artist Filipepi who paints the other enchantress in the novel, Simonetta, are mirrors of one another, and so on. On a larger scale, the Mughal empire and Renaissance Florence mirror each other as well. As Mogor dell’Amore tells Akbar, “This may be the curse of the human race…Not that we are so different from one another, but that we are so alike.” As the stories twist and turn in front of mirrors, reality becomes a mirage. The lake at Sikri is a mirror too, reflecting the shifting fortunes of the city.

His irreverent self with his usual irreverence, Rushdie transforms Akbar into a fictional character, exploring his psyche at leisurely length. There are insightful if somewhat tongue-in-cheek comments on Akbar’s attempt to switch to the democratic “I” from the royal “we” and the difficult issue of handling power, the ethical burden of being king. On the other hand, Qara Koz’s access to power is of a very different sort. She has to be enchantress in order to rule. The identity of women in the narrative is highly fluid and under constant threat.

There is a downside to reading The Enchantress of Florence which perhaps those who know Rushdie would in any case anticipate: it is overdone in parts and at times the story more than runs away with itself. There is also the curse of the long sentence: perfectly constructed and reasoned out no doubt, but still a bit over the top. Take, for instance, this one: “[Akbar learned] about the dignity of the lost, about losing, and how it cleansed the soul to accept defeat, and about letting go, avoiding the trap of holding on too tightly to what you wanted, and about abandonment in general, and in particular fatherlessness, the lessness of fathers, the lessness of the fatherless, and the best defences of those who are less against those who are more: inwardness, forethought, cunning, humility, and good peripheral vision.” The occasional lapse into hyphenated coinage is no less annoying: “‘He must have been mad to bring you,’ Argalia told her when blood-filthy and kill-sick he found her abandoned at the death-heavy end of the day.”

In Rushdie’s universe, there are two kinds of people: those who travel and those who prefer not to. Jodha as the queen who never leaves the palace thinks of travel as something that removes you “from the place in which you had a meaning, and to which you gave meaning in return by dedicating your life to it.” In this, she is like Ago Vespucci, the Florentine, who believes that it isn’t “necessary to go questing across the world and die among guttural strangers to find your heart’s desire.” Yet, stories travel only because people travel — people like Mogor dell’Amore, Argalia and Qara Koz herself. Connected to travel is the notion of time. Mogor dell’Amore tells Akbar that in the new world, “the ordinary laws of space and time did not apply”, that time had been introduced to this world by the European voyagers. The point of the novel, however, is not that one culture is superior to the other but that both are equally fantastic, that both abound in stories and that travellers ensure that these stories, which are really mirrors of one another, travel back and forth.

One can’t help feeling victimised at times by the mirror itself. Its many reflections, made possible by a Rushdiean cleverness, get a bit tedious and reading the novel begins to feel like work. Fortunately, Rushdie’s humour compensates for much of this. We smile when Rushdie describes Queen Gulbadan: “When Gulbadan started climbing the family tree like an agitated parrot there was no telling how many branches she would need to settle on briefly before she decided to rest.”

The Enchantress of Florence is a book that will work for readers who are okay with getting a bit lost. Like Dashwanth, the artist who disappears into his paintings of the hidden princess, Rushdie demands that we permit ourselves to be sucked into his magic world of mirrors.

Research has proven that employee satisfaction is directly associated to customer satisfaction, and, of course, customer satisfaction is directly associated to return on investment.

Human resources cannot be a function for hiring, firing and appraisals. They are the gatekeepers for employees and have to be concerned with the overall development of the individual.

HR managers need to work with marketing research and learn techniques to find employee needs, similar to the way marketers find customer needs. Then they should cluster employees with similar needs into groups and develop specific employee engagement programmes for each group. They should then market the programmes to employees through the marketing department.

Finally, HR should evaluate the results of these initiatives by thoroughly measuring employee satisfaction, looking at how it impacts productivity and return on investment.

Because employees should like the company more than customers do. That’s because the employee’s livelihood depends on the company. Customers always have a choice. How many customer satisfaction surveys do companies do in a year? And importantly, do they undertake the same number of employee satisfaction surveys?

Companies can definitely make good profits. But profits are better if they do it through employee marketing.

As economies get stronger and people have more choices, loyalty to companies is going to go down the tube. On the other hand, customers are going to demand more and more sophisticated services. That’s because with the kind of branding we see today, consumer expectations need to be matched with what the communication promises.

As a result, employee training becomes more expensive. Hence when you cannot retain employees, it’s a real drain of resources on the company. A new employee needs to be exactly the same, if not better, than the person before. If you do not take care of them, the company stands to lose.

By the time employees are 30-32 years old, they have changed jobs six-seven times. The new generation is not about “am I successful?” They are interested in “do I like it?”

It’s similar to marketing research. We go to customers and find their needs and identify barriers. Then we cluster customers according to the lowest price, best services and so on.

Similarly, when you segment your employee base you can develop programmes for each group and brand and deliver it differently. Some employees have weight-related problems, others have diabetes. Some have very good savings but don’t know how to invest. Others don’t know how to save.

Men think differently than women in terms of savings. For example, women don’t want to depend on children when they grow old and are too concerned about future health problems. Men feel they will never stop working. Sixty per cent of men covered in research had retired without planning for retirement.

Women are anxious about retirement and men are more emotional about retirement. When women are sad, they take more risks than men. When men are sad, they discount it and try to distract themselves from sadness. Since they manage emotions differently, you need completely different employee programmes.

Across the world, employees are all the same. Companies are going to realise that employees do not have just financial needs. They have spiritual, health and financial needs. They have long-term needs. People always want to be valued and respected for what they like to do.

In India, there’s always been this sense of the company being a family and that companies will take care of their family members. As companies grow rapidly, they will lose that family connection. The culture that the US and European companies are artificially trying to develop is naturally present in Indian companies.

But as they are growing, Indian companies have no option but to start focusing on customized programmes for employees. They should then test it by finding out what employees think about the programme and measure effectiveness like “did the programme change employee behaviour?” and so on. Over a 1-2 year timeframe companies should analyse if there was any change in employee attitude, teamwork and productivity. The data will make companies more interested in increasing investments on employee programmes.

Globally, among the Fortune 500 companies, we are analysing what employee programmes these companies run and co-relate that with their rankings. We want companies to realise that with better programmes they have better rankings.

Then companies can afford to pay lesser salaries because they have the reputation of being a big company to work for. So employees feel that in the long-term they are better off in this company even if they have to take a hit in the short term.

With most of us spending 10-14 hours at work everyday, our workplaces have become our second homes. Consequently, even the slightest of obstacles here tend to blow up into vexing issues, particularly if they are not tackled in time. Very often, these issues relate to our colleagues’ behaviour. It can get a little awkward when it come to addressing some of these directly, as a lot of them concern subtle aspects of behaviour that are difficult to articulate.

Let’s take a look at some of the most irritating aspects of workplace behaviour and what we can do about them.

Groupism

This is by far the most annoying aspect of a workplace.

“It can absolutely turn you off,” says Revathi M, assistant manager — sales, with an IT security company. “It takes a heavy toll on productivity because, if you don’t belong in a certain group, you tend to feel left out. Then, you don’t enjoy going to work anymore.”

The snide remarks and covert glances that result from groupism are not only thoroughly unprofessional, they can also result in emotional hurt which is often difficult to express. It eventually leads to frustration and may result in people leaving their jobs.

Casual chatter

“The most irritating thing at the workplace is groups of women chatting endlessly about clothes, cosmetics and jewellery. Some of them even trade in these items at work. I think it’s really unprofessional,” says Purnima Gupta, a teacher at a reputed Mumbai school.

While informal conversations are fine when one wants to make small talk, one needs to realise extended chatter at the workplace disturbs other people. It also looks unprofessional.

Hypocrisy

This is widely touted as being ubiquitous and is universally detested.

Sugary sweet behaviour in front of a person and backstabbing comments behind their back are known to prevail in virtually every kind of human interaction. The natural fallout of hypocrisy at the workplace is lack of trust, which greatly affects work relationships and productivity.

Discrimination

“When we are angry with something our boss does, we try hard to control our emotions and behave in a subdued manner. However, if a peon goofs up even slightly, a lot of us don’t think twice before yelling at him. Is this justified?” wonders Revathi.

Dignity of labour and respect for all kinds of work is a prerequisite for a healthy work environment. We must appreciate that people at all levels provide value with whatever work they do. It can be discouraging if they are not treated with dignity, considering they work to the best of their ability, given individual constraints.

Messy cubicle partners

Another attribute that can really upset people is chaotic surroundings. Eating at the workstation and dropping tidbits of food, or having heaps of papers and files that spill over to your neighbours’ desks can be very bothersome.

A lot of people are fussy about cleanliness and are used to a certain standard of hygiene around them. If those standards are not met at the workplace, it can be very demotivating.

Undue inquisitiveness

While it is common for colleagues to turn into good friends over time, a certain level of formality is expected while one is at work. When this formality is breached, not everyone may take it well.

“When colleagues are unduly concerned about where I went the previous evening, with whom, why, etc, I really feel like telling them it is none of their business. If I wish to share personal thoughts with someone at the workplace, I need to be comfortable with that person. It has to be voluntary. The concept of personal space and privacy is rather alien to our culture,” observes Purnima.

Taking credit

It is but normal that we want to be appreciated for the work we do. However, since most of the work we do in an organisation is team effort, it is important credit is accordingly shared.

“When it comes to getting work done, the higher-ups often give pep talks on how team work is important. However, when the results come in, each individual and department wants the credit. Typically, in any organisation, the frontline sales people take away the appreciation. The back-end operations group is conveniently forgotten, even though they contribute significantly to the success. This can be extremely frustrating for the people who have worked behind the scenes,” says Revathi.

Talking loudly

“I wish some people had silencers fitted into their throats!” says Purnima exasperatedly. “At work, one must realise formal, subdued behaviour is called for. Etiquette demands we keep our voice low so others are not disturbed. The most annoying bit is when people excitedly almost yell over their phones for no reason. I’m sure it’s equally annoying for the person at the other end of the line.”

Talking loudly is frequently associated with rustic behaviour that lacks sophistication. It is advisable we keep our tone and pitch low when we are around colleagues.

Tackling annoying behaviour

It is indeed hard to keep your cool and focus on productivity when behavioural factors affect performance at work. But it is necessary to be assertive if one has to solve the problem.

Of course, assertiveness is different from being accusatory. Assertiveness is all about talking in a factual manner without being judgmental. It involves conveying facts and their possible repercussions without getting emotional, or rude, in the process. Though it is easier said than done, professionalism demands one remain objective while dealing with such situations.

At the organisational level, the HR department — and managers and supervisors as welll — need to have a keen eye for observing team dynamics. Active intervention and counselling go a long way in smoothing ruffled feathers.

Avoiding annoying behaviour

As individuals, there are a few things that may help us avoid being in the bad books of our colleagues:

Avoid backbiting

At the workplace, never discuss a person in his/ her absence. This simple rule goes a long way in maintaining a healthy environment.

Seek feedback

If you think a colleague has been shying away from you for a while, casually enquire to find out if your behaviour has upset him/ her. If that is the case, patiently listen to your colleague’s feelings without getting defensive. Once the person has opened up, it can be easier to resolve the issue.

Respect everyone

Envision the situation if the entire housekeeping staff goes on strike. We often take a lot of people for granted simply because they may not demand attention. But that does not mean their work is any less important.

Observe formality

A lot of your colleagues may become good friends over time. However, work ethics say you remain sensitive to the feelings of everyone at the workplace. Hence, over-friendly behaviour ought to be avoided.