Lessons a Clock in Zurich Taught Me

Today early after noon while standing at a small railway station just at outskirts of Zurich a traditional clock hanging at platform taught me a wonderful lesson. Swiss are famous for their watches and time keeping but the lesson this conventional hanging clock taught me was some what very remarkable. 

When I arrived in Zurich today, I was very calm to enjoy the re-experience. One tip I would like to share about travel is, don’t hesitate to pay a little more if that makes you reach any  place well in day time. At airport exit by chance I met a person Alberto who accompanied me to the train station mentioned above. We took tram, walked and talked. He seemed to be a warm blooded European and soon I discovered the reason, he was an Italian!. 

Any way coming back to the clock. Please watch the video embedded at the end of blog of that clock. All clocks work in same way but this clock was remarkable in sense it was clear and attracted my attention. It is story about continuous movement of second’s arm and movement by minute’s arm by one minute. I noticed that second’s arm start from 12 (our starting point for the case), passed towards the minute’s arm slowly, passed it and moved towards the place of 12. The minute’s arm only moved one minute ahead when the second’s arm passed the position of 12 and not when it passed the minute’s arm.

This was great lesson of the day and based upon that lesson I prepared following illustration. It presents a wall clock with Minute’s Arm and movement of Second’s arm in two colors, blue and red. Lets analyze this illustration starting from top right corner numbered as 1, and move in clock wise direction. 

In the top right corner the minute’s arm seems  to be at number 1 on clock. In second figure it is about at 5, in 3rd it is at 8 while in last one it is at 11, nearest to ultimate goal i.e. 12. I call the blue track of second’s arm’s movement as Asset while that in red color as Credit. The clock taught me following two lessons about success in life especially in career.

When you are in starting phase (like figure 1) you have very less amount of Assets and you have to put a lot of effort as Credit to move just one step ahead. As you build up your skills, the amount of credit required decreases with being minimum shown in figure 4. In this case you rely on your asset and need very small extra effort to move ahead.

The second and more important lesson was related to the instance when the minute’s arm move a step ahead with respect to the position of second’s arm. As you’ll notice from embedded video below, the minute’s arm did not move a step ahead when second’s arm reaches it or crosses it. The minute’s arm moved ahead only when a certain amount of extra effort was put in place beyond the existing level of existence of minute’s arm.

In simple words, you always need to build on assets to maintain your position, always need to invest (credit) to move ahead and finally in order to move ahead a single step you may need to apply an effort of few steps (depending upon your assets value).

Here is the mentioned video, please comment.

Professionally being in Quadrant IV

In my previous blog dated 15 August 2012, Professional Life, Where do you Stand? I introduced a simple Quadrant Tool to find your position in professional life. Following was the mentioned simple Quadrant.

One needed to assess him/herself on two scales i.e. Passion about what he/she is doing and his/her ability to do that certain work.  Scoring was done with 1 as least and 5 as the highest score for each category. Based upon this scoring one would be located in one of the quadrants shown in figure.

We have already discussed Quadrant I known as quadrant of Satisfied people and Quadrant III of struggling people. Today we'll discuss the Quadrant IV which is labeled as of Incompetent. 

It is easiest to understand but very difficult to diagnose & figure out. No one would like to call him/her incompetent and that is true. No one is incompetent but the most important issue for this tool is to make assessment against the work being done at the moment. You might landed in type of work you are currently doing due to one or another reason. You might have also developed some skills and passion for it. If this passion is natural or you developed it to limits above score of 2.6 with ability still below 2.5, you'll be in Quadrant IV.

People in this quadrant might be under great stress, much more than those in quadrant I of struggling people. People in Quadrant I are struggling both with ability and passion but they have less degree of frustration because they also don't have enough passion for the said work. However those in Quadrant IV have enough of passion but can not perform the job and this creates a lot of anxiety, stress and frustration.

There are two ways to get rid of this problem. The first one is to develop passion for something you are able to do, which seems less practical. The other way is to develop the skills in the work you are doing with great passion. Now-a-days as lot and lot of skills building tools are available like online learning the two most important issues are about selection of appropriate tool and devotion of time.

You must invest a good amount of time and may be financial resources also to find the most appropriate skill building forum. There are many free but in actual there is no free lunch. Quality level training and development needs financial investment to some degree. You must also be patient while developing your skill and follow the learning curve without trying to jump over to few stairs up in one go. This seems appropriate if you are experienced in the field you are studying but it will for sure leave some connections in the chain weaker. A chain is as much strong as its weakest link is!

In summary if you have passion for the work you are doing but lack the ability then you and your work both deserves improvement. Choose from simplest doable tools like free reading stuff, listening to gurus of your profession at Youtube, reading books, attending seminars and webinars and finally attending the paid on campus or online courses. If you find a master who is willing to teach also then you can also learn a lot but don't forget no matter what you learn you have to validate it through a certificate or diploma. There are only few professional branches in which you can move up based upon your work but that movement is also limited. CEO of Yahoo,  Scott Thompson was able to move to top but his work could not keep him there as he could not validate his skills through a legitimate source.

Happy Children and Stressed Adults

Concerning happy and somewhat careless behaviour of children, it is stated that their lack of full understanding of events is behind this cheerful behaviour. Unfortunately I have to disagree with this diagnosis. Children can be considered as miniature of adults. We are still not sure if the brain usage in children is above, equal or less than that done by an adult. Children of ages less than 7 have shown remarkable achievements in many fields. Although this has happened in selected children and not all, the idea can not be generalized in both ways. We can’t say that all children can be genius and we can’t say that they are not. It all depends upon what circumstances they face during their childhood.

As children grow we see more and more stressed adults coming out of them. Has it been related to use of brain or other capacities it should be the opposite. Now able to use brain they must have been happier. Taking responsibility and need to earn the bread and butter may make the adults less happy than their counterpart children. We don’t have all the adults stressed but most of them are stressed except one category of adults mentioned by Hazret Steve Jobs. In his speech of 2005 at Stanford University he finished by quoting, stay hungry stay foolish from Whole Earth Catalogue’s last edition.

This is the key to happiness of children and selected adults. 

Children are foolish as they don’t care for norms, conditions and customs and try to behave the way they consider right. They try to learn the things their way and mostly through experiments. On the other hand among them who face strict controlling mechanisms fade out either due to restrictions or forced guidance to behave in a certain manner. A child starts learning by exploring his/her bed and its surroundings in random way. A child is asked to paint in circle and if left alone he/she would paint the whole page without caring for the border of circle. On the other hand when he/she is forced to paint within circle, he/she may learn it but for sure the child would be less happy. In addition to this when a child understands that society wants him/her to behave and learn in a certain way, the learning process becomes that of disciplined mind. The child when grown up might be successfull but it would be only a small part of the original potential, most of which is destroyed during the disciplined process of teaching rather than learning. 

Coming to the first part of the statement i.e. stay hungry is simple to understand. It means that one should always create space for new food. This new food is learning. A famous quote in this regard is, ‘children are happy as they learn’. If as an adult one wants to stay happy he/she should stay hungry for new food (for thought). 

As a result it can be stated that a simple way for adults to remain happy and less stressed is to keep on learning and especially in unconventional way. 

I want to give a tip to adults in this regard. When you  want to learn something or try to do something new, stop thinking like an adult and go ahead in the way a child would have gone. This would demolish the barriers around your thoughts restricting the way you think and act. 

Don’t forget adults learn through acting (same true for children till age of 7-10, after which they are accustomed to learning through books). Therefore take a risk and go for learning under unknown environment and new situation. 

For many of the professionals who left their schools years ago, jumping back in to a session at their or any other school may recharge their thought process in a different way.

Those who can’t dare to jump this much (after passing years in the disciplined system), I suggest to take some casual courses to lower the barriers before a revolutionary step can be taken. A course on logic is going to be offered soon through Stanford University and its free, click for details!

Internal Perception and External Factors for Happiness

Some good 17 years ago I was reading a book on Psychology in which perception phenomenon was explained. It was explained so remarkably that I still remember it and would like to share it with all. It was like this.

You are coming back to home after a hectic day and very busy evening making you leave office at time to fetch the last metro to your home. Everyone in the compartment was tired like you, trying to rest with closed eyes. When the metro stops at a certain station, suddenly a person with two children of ages 5 and 3 enters the compartment. They sat on some vacant seats but just after a minute or so the children start playing, running and shouting in the compartment. The guy however did not take any notice and kept on sitting silently sleeping with open eyes. 

Question was asked what would be your and most of other passengers’ reaction? Most would consider the person irresponsible for not caring about other people and children as non-disciplined. Finally you stand up and ask the said person to control his children as every one was tired and upset due to the noises being made by children. 

The guy looks at you and says, ‘I am sorry, I can’t do any thing (you and all others re-assess him as irresponsible). Their mother was diagnosed with cancer some time ago and about an hour ago doctor told us that her body is not responding to any type of treatment. Tell me how I may tell this to these playing kids?’... the author of book asks about your and others’ reaction now to same event (noise making children).

This hypothetical story explains the link between our internal perception to external factors and our reaction very clearly. Students of Psychology know it very well that the cycle of behaviour runs through an event-our perception-our reaction to it. Let me try to further elaborate it with another hypothetical example.

You along with your family plan to go on a brief picnic. Packed in your car you drive towards city suburb for green fields.  Kids are happy, their mom is happy, you are happy to spend time with family. At the last traffic light you are forced to take the side lane due to rash driving of some youngsters driving their cars. They were about to hit your car, you become angry and upset. Now from here onward, it is your internal perception to this external factor shaping your reaction and life.

If you perceive that this event has ruined your mood, your reaction would be staying upset and angry resulting in a disastrous picnic for you, your kids and the partner. On the other hand if you perceive this event as one, not in your control, not due to you- you will perceive it as a non linked issue to your life and your reaction would be not caring for it and not allowing it to ruin your picnic. This can save your and yours’ day.

Now lets say that you were so upset that your reaction to the event ruined whole picnic program. Analyze what  you achieved, the event took place without your input but it destroyed your plan. So in other words you allowed an external factor to influence your own life. 

In cases where you really feel it impossible to control your mood, I suggest to do following. Try to be calm for few seconds and imagine yourself as not part of that specific situation. Tell yourself, yes this specific action has made my mood bad but if I also allow it to affect my picnic plan the situation would be much worse and not better.

One of the major issues is, if you consider yourself and your loved ones as ‘centre of gravity’ of your life or some external factor. Secondly if you allow some external event to destroy your life or any planned activity which will have double bad effect i.e. you allowed that event to make you feel bad and you missed your own planned activity and its happiness. Therefore be sure about who or what is centre of gravity for your life and never mind asking if you get stressed and mess up some planned good time, what was your gain? If you consider these two simple tips not to effect your life and its events you may feel happy under different circumstances.

Travel - another way to be happy

Travel has been a source of learning since centuries. It has brought great people together and great discoveries in human history. Being stationary and staying within a certain frame for long time becomes an handicap to seek new solutions. Travel and especially that involves visit to new cultures helps one to gain a new perspective necessary for improvement.

I am quite fond of travel more than all things except one. It not only makes me happy, able me to see new places and cultures but somehow also forces new ideas and new solutions to my queries.Travels brought remarkable turns in history most important of them in our recent history is that of Columbus. Ibn Khaldun mentioned in my previous blogs, was a great traveller and this entitled him honour as being the greatest analyzer of civilizations. 

I have been in a Mediterranean coastal city of Bodrum for last 8 months. In winter I really liked it but in summer its just full of tourists (not travelers). Today after work around 16:30 I thought of a sudden travel and went to bus terminal. Took a bus which was taking off for a 20 hours journey to a beautiful city of Gaziantep. Although I plan to get off after 12 hours at Konya, a city in Central Anatolia. 

Buses here are wonderful and provide life time experiences.  moving through Aegean with wonderful green fields, olives and figs- outside is dark with almost full moon. Bus is equipped with personal entertainment system, wireless internet and cold and hot drinks servings..

I was planning a blog on another topic related to mental happiness which I now conceal for next session. However I am hundred percent sure that travel has a direct link with happiness unless it is a forced travel due to some disaster. Even in those cases travels brought relief to people in history along with hardship.

While you travel there are two issues which make you happy but with one condition. These two issues are, ability to see new cultures and availability of time for your very own self. One can note numerous differences among people of different regions while traveling. During my travels I have noticed the rough and tough people of Erzurum where in winter minus 30 is a norm and easy going people of Aydin (a city I am falling in love with for some time by now) in Aegean region with warm and humid temperature. Ibn Khaldun in his book Muqadimmah wrote that climate has definite effect on the way people behave as well colour of their skin. I am sure that there is never a case in which one does not learn any thing from a new culture at a different place.  Small details may also bring new insights which helps to develop a new solutions perspective for the old problems. Travel brings this opportunity of learning. I will discuss the relationship between learning and happiness in detail in next blogs which would be a must read for those who are interested. 

Availability of time for your own thoughts is another vital benefit of travel. Travel lets you think in a move which is more productive than stationary thinking mode. Physical move or change of scene around you would trigger new hormonal activity in the brain useful for better working of the brain. That is evident from the simple example when people feel happy while on long drive and also are able to solve many problematic thoughts while in motion even during jogging or walking.

The only condition mentioned above to reap the fruits of travel is, you don’t behave in restrictive manner. It implies leave yourself free, become part of the place you are visiting but without letting it to be an extreme. If you continue to behave as an alien at a new place or during travel, you would neither be happy nor able to learn any thing new.

My suggestion.. leave all your problems at your office desk jump in to travel mode even if its a brief one, let it be unplanned and enjoy the unpredicted unexpected of the travel.
Some scholarships are also becoming available for travel! (sorry about quality of google translator, the original article is available at Seyahat)

Dealing with Mental Stress in Professional Life

Any stress or anxiety can be grouped under two broad categories. The first one is mental stress and other is physical stress. They are interlinked in both directions. It is said that peaceful mind leads to healthy body. However equally and might be more important is fact that only stress free physical condition can help brain to function. Physical stress should not however be confused with fatigue. In case body goes under physical stress like exercise or in broader terms we say ‘physical exertion’, the mind works much more efficiently. In fact physical exertion has been considered as a way to get rid of your thoughts (stressed problematic thoughts) for a long time.

While analyzing the living pattern of people 50 years ago one can see a lot of physical movement. This actually kept their brains in better shape with depression and anxiety at low levels in spite of harsh living conditions. 

Mental stress in a professional life is due to three main reasons, lack of ability, lack of passion and procrastination. The first two have been defined in previous blogs also i.e. lack of ability or lack of passion for the work you do. In both cases you’ll be under mental stress. The way out could be to increase your ability or develop the passion for work you do. 

Ability increase would need time and financial resources. You will need to invest time and money to improve your ability. You can start with small steps like learning from someone doing the very same work better than you, studying and learning to improve and later may go for some professional courses to improve your ability.

Increasing the passion for work is much more difficult, and there is only one tool for that. It is to do very same things in a different way, the way which is interesting and enjoyable for you. Again the process should be slow and gradual. No short cut or immediate fix is possible. Passion can also be increased for work you do by adding your favorite chunks to it. 

The third important reason for mental stress is procrastination. In simple words it is lack of ability to start working on a certain task. Procrastination is sometimes taken as equivalent to day dreaming. However day dreaming till a certain limit can be considered healthy while procrastination is never an healthy approach. 

What leads to procrastination? It is either lack of interest in a certain job (lack of passion?), fear that one is not able to do it (inability?) or simply postponing it for later stages. The first two reasons are same as explained earlier in this blog. The last reason i.e. postponing to a later stage has again a very simple solution. When you have a task, divide it in to smaller chunks and   start finishing them... never start doing them... start finishing them.You’ll see that when each small chunk is finished your mental stress level will drop down.

In next blogs I may share simple formula to get rid of physical fatigue which is also very crucial for professional success.

Education System - Are we completely lost Globally?

Modern education system of our time is producing educated people but with least knowledge of use. Students strive to learn a lot of subjects of which they excel in only limited and also only limited people are able to do. Putting an effort of almost 16 years to finish university and ending up as master of none is a real pity. Education system of past was concentrating on useful knowledge gain through student teacher interaction and without restriction of school boundary. It produced great people in every part of globe but our modern system failed to do so and we can count on fingers the number of people who left an impact during last 2 centuries.

Almost all great achievers of their times received minimum formal education or a combination of formal and informal education. Formal education as defined by current situation is simply a diploma generating mechanism. This formal system can be traced back only to 500 hundred years. West mainly developed it. Its a famous story that when British planned to take India, their Consultant told them that education system of India was producing people with useful knowledge and skills and this must be changed. Therefore they introduced disciplined education system where students were memorizing the logarithms that were of least practical use for them. This disciplined system is also mentioned in a great book ‘Disciplined Minds: A Critical Look at Salaried Professionals and The Soul-Battering System that Shapes Their Lives’ By Jeff Schmidtas. He wrote, ‘For understanding the professional, the concept of ideology will emerge as much more useful than that of skill.’ In short skill is missing from our disciplined minds!’

What exactly was the system and reasoning which produced greatest minds of their times? There were two major reasons behind the success of that system. First one was undisciplined education system. The system was not forcing one to become some one but it was facilitating him/her to become what he/she intended to become. It was a flow of knowledge from teacher rather than the books. Second reason was concentration on a single subject rather than trying to learn many.

Undisciplined education system implies that there was no boundary for place or content. One needed not to go to college or university to get the knowledge. It could have been achieved at any place. The greatest scholar of his time Avicenna   learned astrology from a grocer who happened to be an Indian with its knowledge. In old times we frequently heard that great journeys were made by students to reach some master of its time and gain knowledge from him/her. As a result of such journeys the student was not attending classes from the master but in fact was spending time with this great master. During that time he/she was able to learn the habit of education. Ibn Khaldun considers this habit of education more important than education itself. Famous British Historian Arnold J. Toynbee considers Ibn Khaldun, the founder of philosophy of Economics, some branches of Psychology and Study of Civilization as creator of the greatest valued work. This habit was neither achieved through spending a semester with the teacher nor with 40 minutes lecture a day. It was almost 24 hours in touch scenario. It is known that Avicenna was able to takeover his teachers by age of 14, this was the main reason! It also implies that content was not strictly dictated. Students were able to choose subject of their choice. We know it can be of great value as also mentioned by Hazret Steve Jobs in his lecture at Stanford in 2005.

In Islamic school of thought teacher has always been important. It is said that great Caliph and companion of Prophet Mohammad, Hazret Ali stated, ‘who ever taught me even a single word is my teacher’. Teacher student relationship has always been key to success. A student used to be proud of his famous teacher and vice versa. When a student was able to supersede his/her teacher, the teacher was more than happy. A teacher used to have thousands of students of a certain subject. Bahudin Zakeriya, a great scholar based in Multan is said to have more than 20,000 students attending his lectures on religious matters at same time. Today a similar approach is used using World Wide Web by ‘coursera’ a web site providing free online courses from leading University teachers from Stanford, Princeton, John Hopkins and many others.

The second reason was that minds were concentrating on a single subject. Modern science is telling us that human brain can learn almost anything it wants. A child can learn several languages before age of 5 and many other things. In fact it is the half-truth and half-truth is always more dangerous than a complete lie. Yes our brains can learn almost every thing, but not in the way modern formal and disciplined education system is promoting. Looking back at giants one can see whether it were Greek, Pagan, Roman, Muslim or Modern Age scientists, they worked on a particular issue for a very long time. This long-term interaction with a specific subject did not stop them from becoming master of other subjects also. Almost all great achievers were good at Philosophy and Logic, which are quite contradictory subjects. Therefore being an expert in one field does not hinder success in any other.

From Muslim achievers till 12th century one can see that most of them were equally good in many fields. It took only 2 years of Avicenna at age of 16 to become the Royal Physician. His statements about healthy body and combating with diabetes are same as used by modern age doctors. He is also considered as father of clinical treatment and diabetic diagnosis. (Ref: wikipedia, Avicenna) He acquired basics of all this in 2 years. Similarly he wrote few hundred treatises on Mathematics also. There are numerous such cases. Similarly Al Jazari, the father of Robotics spent his whole life working on mechanic systems. He was also inventor of world’s first automatic water extracting system and drink machines (Ref: History Channel, Al Jazari). Similar has been cases with Galileo, he was unfortunately enrolled in modern medical college but when he discovered his interest in mathematics, he shifted to it and later worked in that field, and this happened because he accidentally attended a geometry class! We all know that Darwin spent a good part of his life studying evolution although he was intended to become a doctor but ended up as a naturalist. Sir Isaac Newton worked extensively on selected fields. However unfortunately the gravitation theory proposed by him was exact copy of the theory explained by Ibn Khaldun in his famous book Muqadimmah (1378).

One can easily see that modern formal education starts with a bit of this and a bit of that approach. A student may end up spending 16 years of education to become Jack of All but Master of None. When we see the successful athletes or sports men we clearly see that most of them have concentrated on a single skill and succeeded. A similar approach is required while educating the children. Quoting Ibn Khaldun, the greatest evaluator of civilizations, one can see that he wrote in Muqadimmah’s part on education system that a child should start learning music, then astronomy, logic, philosophy etc. for 2-3 years each and religious education should not start before age of 7. Considering this suggestion of 2-3 years, one can see that great mathematician Omer Khayaam spent 3 years learning math, Avicenna spent 2 years to become a physician.

For a comparison reason let us calculate the time required to gain a good base of a certain subject as per modern education system. If a student in formal modern system studies on average 2 hours a day a certain subject making it 10 hours a week (of 5 days) or 40 hours a month. For any 1-year education system it is almost 10 months making it 400 hours. If continued for 16 years, it makes 6400 hours. Now taking another student who studies a certain specific subject in accordance with his aptitude and age for 8 hours a day will need 800 days to finish same material which is simply not too more than 2 years. Somewhere back in history some one was clever enough to play with the education system making it wasteful for students.

Lastly, let us see what Noam Chomsky who is considered as father of modern linguistic and most important intellectual of our century says about education system. ‘According to Chomsky there is an instrumental approach to education. It is characterized as mindless, meaningless drills and exercise given "in preparation for multiple choice exams". Chomsky suggests that society simply reduces education to the requirement of the market. Students are trained to be compliant workers (Ref: The Educational Theory of Noam Chomsky, 2011 New Foundations). Very last information about this great master of our time, Chomsky's primary education was undertaken at Oak Lane Country DaySchool, an independent institution that focused on allowing its pupils to pursue their own interests in a non-competitive atmosphere!