It was business as usual in the team meeting that both Guru & Larry attended till the point when someone raised the controversial topic about competition getting aggressive and making several allegations against “Sarvottam Ltd.” (the company where Guru was CEO}. The competitor had gone unethical and made some serious allegations targeting Guru personally. The entire top team in the room was highly agitated and wanted to react very sharply. However, Guru himself was very calm and was not perturbed at all. He calmed all the members and steered the discussions to the agenda for which the meeting was called. He successfully guided the team and concluded the meeting with the desired outcome.
As Guru & Larry left the board room, Larry was very much impressed with Guru’s superlative calmness. They had barely reached Guru’s room when Larry opened up and asked Guru how could he manage such calmness. Here is what Guru responded. “ In the initial part of my professional career, I used to get carried away by emotions and consequently my reactions were very spontaneous, and most of the time I would regret it at a later date when I used to think about it. I was trying to avoid such situations but found it extremely difficult.”
“I tried meditation, yoga, and some other techniques to calm myself so that in such situations I would not overreact, though there were slight improvements I could not control myself. At that point, I met my first coach who helped me to master my emotions. A very powerful statement from him made a serious impact on me. The statement was YOU ARE IN CHARGE OF YOUR BRAIN AND NOT OTHER WAY. You can master your emotions by taking control of the way you process information. Everybody has a unique way to process the information as everyone is wired differently.”
“A human brain uses language and patterns to create meaning out of any situation. It is very similar to a computer which runs programs to process the data and give output. However the similarity ends there, human brain is far more powerful. We are aware of the program that we are running, maybe it is at the unconscious level, and we can reprogram ourselves. That’s the power that our brain possesses’. “
“Each one of us is responsible for our happiness, success, fulfillment, and of course destiny. We are constantly being bombarded with inputs and pieces of information. Our brain processes that information based on the program it has developed to process such inputs to create meaning out of it. We can control the processing of the incoming information. This is the most critical part of the entire process. In the input received in a situation, there is always a mix of data and noise. We train our brains to focus on data and eliminate the noise. Once we can segregate this then you can choose your thoughts. At this point, our brain has to decide what part of the input is critical and what to focus on.”
“What you think determines how you feel about the situation. Your feelings and your beliefs (maybe at an unconscious level) determine how you act or respond and the decisions that you make. This is not easy however with some practice, you can become aware of your internal thoughts and feelings and how your brain processes them. Slowly you can control the responses and you take charge of your destiny.”
“ Let me finally add that any event or situation is emotionally neutral. Neither it is good or bad. We give the meanings to them. So obviously what meaning to give to them is under our control. So we can consciously choose rather than just react with an emotional feeling which thus is less harmful to you.”
In the end, Guru said let me give you an example the Chinese word for crisis is Wei Ji, the word Ji means opportunity. So It is left to you how you look at a situation, someone could think it is a crisis but that may be an opportunity in itself. Larry was impressed with Guru, as always, and told him that he would explore further and try to understand this aspect. This he felt was very crucial for his professional career.