My notes from today’s Sadhguru Session for EO

These are my notes from the webinar that EO Coimbatore organised for today, 25th April. The livestream replay is at the bottom of this post.

“When you are in fog, you don’t need inspiration… you need clarity”
Sadhguru

Don’t seek inspiration, seek clarity.

Memory and Imagination – this is what we are suffering.

Right now you are home with family. Nothing is missing. Your memory can haunt you and your imagination can scare you. It is you who generates suffering.

Where is your intelligence working? For you? Or to scare you? Or to haunt you?

Family and Relationships

Every relationship we have formed, we have formed to fulfil our needs. We cannot control the other. Everything that happens outside of us (outside of our mind) will not happen our way.

Do you want control? Get a dog. Guaranteed 12 year love affair. No human being will give such love.

On Freedom…

Freedom in the USA = I want my freedom to not change, to not adapt, to have my haircut… even while people around me are dying

70% of US employees “hate their job”… and still go… what damage it does to oneself to spend time with people or things that you “hate”

Many are stuck in the rut… but it is a comfortable rut
If the virus lockdown is short… we will stay in our ruts
If the virus lockdown is long… we will be forced to leave our ruts

If the quarantine is less than 12 months… we’ll go back to our old ways. Growth, growth, growth… 2%, 5%, 8%… we will destroy this planet.

What is success without growth?

Either consciously we slow down… or an outside force will slow us down. If we don’t do this now, we will never make this change.

Thought experiment…

Everyone in India is walking around with the latest phone, the latest sneakers. It is like it is an embarrassment to have a 4 year old phone. Imagine:

If you buy a phone, you must use it for 4 years
If you buy a car, you must use it for 8 years

If we don’t do this now, 2050 or 2100 will be bring massive challenges for humanity.

Are we serious about sustainable development goals?

Investment is messed up

“Over 70% of global investment goes into 30-40 cities”
Sadhguru

No city can handle this level of inflow. Not New York, not Mumbai. Slums are a terrible place for women, for children. There is dignity on the land… but not in the slums.

How to create opportunities for human beings where they are?

If we saw our children without food for just one day, the food industry would change very rapidly. We would each highly value having some land.

Education – ripe for major change

Today: Teacher is someone who has read a book you haven’t read. Education as transmission of information is on the way out.

Teacher must become someone who helps you read books you haven’t read, and inspire you to create the works you can create.

Taking care of Oneself

“I have not given the privilege to anybody to make me happy or make me sad”
Sadhguru

What is being well? …to be Happy, to be healthy, to be functioning well. This can only happen if the controls are inside.

Are you joyful as your own nature, or triggered by outside? Once you leave it in the hands of other people, you are accidental in your existence.

If you are accidental, anxiety is guaranteed.

There was happiness before iPhone, car, home. The experience of being human doesn’t change. Only the outside changes. We get used to certain things, and we think this is life

What we gather should serve us. People have lost the distinction between what is me and what is mine.

There are two kinds of suffering – body, mind.

Today it is like the Animals/Plants are saying: “Let’s make the planet great again”.

It is Friday for 6 weeks…

The problem is not work
The problem is not family
The problem is your own mind

Education should focus on “the inner wellbeing of the human being”.

Your body and your mind should work for you, always. Anxiety is your own mind working against you

The science of inner wellness

Only to create pleasantness in our surroundings depends on many many factors. Pleasantness in mind, in health, in compassion… this is under my control

“The One Thing”

Be part of the solution. Inner audit – am I contributing to solution or to problem?

Be part of the solution. Do what you can do. Don’t make things worse.

If you liked this, you will also like Sadhguru: If you lose your laugh, you lose everything and Relationships: Build trust.

Livestream EO with Sadhguru

Business Leader: Why you should be in a Mastermind Group: EO, YPO, Vistage

Are you a Business Leader?

I’ve been part of Entrepreneurs’ Organisation for the last 10 years and for almost any significant decision I have taken in the last decade, there are 9 people in my forum group who have helped me take a better decision. I would share with them:

the background to the decision
the why of the decision
what I’m seeking to achieve in my life

There is no major decision I’ve taken in the last 10 years that has not had at least those other 9 wise brains also looking at it. They are also giving me different perspectives, helping me think through:

Who I am
What what my strengths are
What my company strengths are and
How I can better play into the opportunities that I have

My question to you: “how many brains do you get involved in the big decisions you have to make?”

If it is just one brain (your own) then you are really going to struggle over your life as a business leader. Join Vistage, join EO, join Young Presidents’ Organization… Get into a peer group where others can give you multiple different perspectives, different ideas, different experiences that have worked for them in the past.

Get as many brains as you can to help you take important decisions, to help you think through the problems you face, to see how to seize (or say no to) the opportunities coming into your life.

Get access to brains to share your problems. Ask lots of questions and get as much coming back from other’s life experiences as you can.

There is a saying: “if you’re the smartest person in the room, find another room.”

Are you the smartest in the room? If you find that you are often the smartest person in the room, you’ve got to expand your network. Get out of that room and get yourself onto a bigger playing field.

Peer Group Organisations

Vistage (requirements: CEO of €5M+ turnover business)
Entrepreneurs’ Organisation (requirements: founder of a €1M+ turnover business
Young President’s Organisation (requirement: President/Owner of a €10M+ turnover business)

Our Path to Growth is Always Through Difficulty

This is a guest post from April Abboud.

April Abboud is a successful American entrepreneur who has moved to the Middle East. She gave up the business she grew, the culture she knew and having family close by to start a family in a land thousands of miles away. She has chosen to challenge herself all through her life.

April was recently asked to be the Moderator and Welcoming Speaker for the regional Global Student Entrepreneur Awards. She shared a powerful story about the need for each of us to face difficulties in our lives:

The Man who Helped the Butterfly

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole.

It stopped moving. It seemed to have stopped making progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could, and it could go no further.

The man decided to help. He took a pair of scissors and cut off the remaining cocoon. The butterfly emerged easily.

The butterfly had a sluggish, swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly. He waited for the wings to grow and expand to be able to support the body. He waited for the body to shrink to the beautiful proportions of a butterfly.

He waited. Neither happened!

The butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings.

The butterfly never was able to fly.

The Universe is Wise

The man, in his kindness and haste, did not understand nature. The restricting cocoon and the struggle is necessary. As the butterfly squeezes through the tiny opening, fluid from the body is forced into its wings. This long, tiring, intense struggle for escape is necessary for the butterfly to fly once it fights its way to freedom from the closed cocoon.

This is not only the nature of butterflies. It is the nature of life. It is our nature. If we do not have adversity and strife on our journey we cannot carry the weight that our dreams require of us. Everyone has gone through something that has changed them in a way that they could never go back to the person they once were. Some understand this difficulty for what it really is: Growth.

As an entrepreneur, I have often made the choice to travel the road less taken, one filled with uncertainty and fear. I dare to make the world a better place and somehow along the way find the courage to believe in my wings and let myself fly.

We must give ourselves permission to accept the struggles, for in them we find our true original, authentic self.

To those who crawl around swollen with desire we become leaders. Fierce are those with restrictions, strengthened by their journey, that not only find their wings but take to flight.

Follow April…

You can follow April on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/aprilabboud/

Lessons from EO Leadership Academy 2016 – Washington DC

I was in Washington DC the last 6 days teaching on the Entrepreneurs’ Organisation Leadership Academy 2016. We had 28 leaders from all around the world – China, Nepal, Mexico, India, Pakistan, Canada, Germany, Australia, USA, UK. The White House was being prepared for the inauguration of the next US President.

Christophe Magnussen is an inspiring entrepreneur from Germany. We made a short video up on the roof of our hotel, overlooking the winter evening sky of Washington DC.

Interview with Christoph Magnussen

If you are seeing this by email, here is the video: Interview with Christoph Magnussen

Christoph has some great tips on entrepreneurship and productivity over on his youtube channel. I like the work he puts in to making the videos engaging and fast moving.

The Key to a Killer Keynote Talk

Here, Christoph took some time with another Leadership Academy attendee, Rich Mulholland from South Africa to discuss how to become a better keynote speaker:

If you are seeing this by email, here is the video: Interview Rich Mulholland

Don’t waste time in meetings

If you are seeing this by email, here is the video: Don’t waste time in meetings

If you can’t sell, you can’t lead

If you are seeing this by email, here is the video: If you can’t sell, you can’t lead

How to effective work Remotely

If you are seeing this by email, here is the video: How to effective work Remotely

[Infographic] 6 Simple Steps A CEO Can Take To Improve Employee Engagement

This week I attended an Entrepreneurs Organisation learning event led by long time EO member Ridgely Goldsborough on the subject of “Know your WHY“.

Here’s a picture of EO Barcelona Learning Chairman Toni Mascaro welcoming over 100 entrepreneurs to the event.

Disengagement: The “Quit and Stayed” Employee

I recently posted about the 4 paths of our working lives – and one path is Quit and Stayed. These category of people are those who have emotionally given up on their jobs, but they still keep sending their body in to sit at the desk and collect a salary.

Ridgely shared statistics on the impact of disengaged employees on a company.

An indifferent employee costs you $2,246 per year according to Gallup. An actively disengaged employee costs you more than $25,000.
33% of American employees change jobs every year. 90% leave jobs for reasons to do with “attitude“, not skills.
Recruiting expert Brad Smart (author of Topgrading) shares evidence that 1 bad hire costs a company 5 times their salary (and 10-15 times for senior hires)

Apart from the financial cost, there is a painful emotional cost for all those who must work in close proximity to this disengaged individual – they suck your passion. I know that the best way to increase team performance is to remove the disengaged team members.

Achieving Engagement

According to the AONHewitt definition, engaged employees want to:

Stay (intent to stay with the organisation)
Say (speak highly of the organisation to others) and
Strive (make an discretionary effort to deliver results)

Ridgely presenting the benefits of Engaged Employees

Ridgely shared that engaged employees deliver:

37% less absenteeism and turnover
48% fewer safety accidents
41% fewer safety defects
21% higher productivity
22% higher profitability

How do we Achieve a Culture of Engagement?

Ridgely explained that people are different and seek to express themselves in different ways. If we try to be everything for everybody, we end up frustrated and wasting our time.

Do you understand the different personalities of the people that you work with? I have done so many psychological tests that I assume that everyone knows these tools (I studied psychology at university…). When I was 14, my father brought home a Myers-Briggs test and did it on all of the family.

About me…

Myers Briggs? I am an ENTP.
Eneagram? Type 7.
DISC Profile? Green (D)
Belbin Team Role? Plant (PL)

What about you? What are you? What types do you get frustrated by?

The Why types

Ridgely worked through a short coaching process where each participant was able to identify their primary “why” from a list of 9 “Whys”. The 9 whys are:

Contribute
Trust
Make Sense
Better Way
Right Way
Challenge
Master
Clarify
Simplify

By the way, I came out as a 7 – Master. My “why” is to seek mastery and understanding above all else.

Infographic: Employee Engagement

One of the challenges of important life lessons is that we need to be reminded every day. Now that I have just written a blog post about how people are different, I am primed to not over-react when I meet someone who is a “5 – Right Way” and has a constant focus on what the precedent is, what is proven, what is low risk… all perspectives that I find tiring. However, tomorrow I will forget and will overreact again.

What can company leaders do to create a culture where we actively seek to empathise with each person’s primary purpose?

I found an infographic that describes the problem of employee disengagement and 6 things that CEOs can do to create engaged employees. Click on the infographic to get a large version. (Personally, I think that the yellow colour scheme is a bit aggressive):

Inspire employees through purpose
Align employees behind your strategy
Develop line managers
Be Fair (in process, in resource distribution, in relationships)
Role Model
Measure And Set Engagement Goals

Read in more detail at the business2business blog.

How Engaged are You?

What do you think? Is your workplace engaged? Are leaders actively creating engagement?

EO Global Leadership Conference in Athens, Greece

This was my first trip to the home of Aristotles and it was made special by the 1,300 other EO members who flew in from around the world to spend these last days in Athens. Hashtag #EOGLC.