Food, Weight Loss, LOA and More

At some point in our life, most of us are in the phase of wanting to lose weight and even trying to do so.

OK, let me make this personal. I have been in this phase. In fact, I feel that I have always been in this phase.

As a child, I was chubby, and was  often teased for it. I probably didn’t realize it, but perhaps it was from there that a particular negative self image became part of my thought process. For the longest time, I was a very under confident and self conscious young adult who grew up to be a sensitive young woman, always on the defensive about her weight.

Well, this story does have a happy ending. As I grew older, became a mother and more importantly started paying attention my health and fitness, my definition ‘fitting in’ changed. Though I still want to lose weight, I am now more focused on building strength, being healthy and setting a good example for my children.

In my journey of life, one day, I randomly picked up ‘The Secret’ by Rhonda Byrne and read it. And boy!! Law of Attraction changed my life. The Universe out there is picking up your vibrations. Your deepest, most intense thoughts are what you attract. I have since started following the Law of Attraction and indeed make concentrated efforts to keep negative thoughts at bay. And I cannot count the number of times LOA has come through for me.

Now, coming to the crux of this post, I want to tie together LOA, our food habits and our desire to lose weight.

Diet, a Crucial Component of Weight Loss

Any expert will tell you that spending hours in the gym simply is not enough to lose weight.  Your work out needs to be complemented with the right diet so that you build a calorie deficit and start losing weight.

In this context, sometimes, we start to view food negatively.

We often tend to think that just because we ate dinner (perhaps a tad more than we should have), it will totally ruin all the hard work at the gym.

Well, NEWSFLASH

What you ate may not push you back as much as your negative thought process does.

Avoid Negative Food Connotations

The more negatively we start thinking about food, the more negativity we build towards food. And the Law of attraction kicks in.  If we keep thinking food will make us fat, these thoughts go out to the universe and that’s exactly what we attract. And as we see that we are putting on weight, our negative thoughts processes are further reinforced, and thus starts a vicious cycle.

STOP NOW. BREAK THAT CYCLE

Food Provides Energy and Gives us Strength

As human beings, we require energy to function. We require strength for our day to day activities. This energy and strength is provided by food. Without food, we will shrivel up and stay in a corner, not capable of performing even the simplest of tasks.

Food Always Benefits

How many times have we taken a break from some task with the words, “Let me get something in, I am too hungry, I cannot think properly”. How many times has a random headache been cured simply by the act of eating something.

Food Brings People Together

Think of parties, get-togethers- what binds people is the food. Think of simple home meals – what brings families together is food. It is not said for nothing that the family that eats together stays together. Think of neighbors sharing delicacies with each other at times of festivals or simply just like that. I remember my dad saying during my wedding preparations “Let’s focus on the food. People will always remember the food.” Pause a moment right now. Think back of a happy memory from your life. Chances are high that somewhere somehow, some food memory is associated with that memory. That’s the power of food, or I should say positive power of food.

Stop the Food Guilt

There is so much positivity with food. So from this moment on, stop all the negative associations with food. Yes, there are times, you may indulge a bit too much. That’s OK. Forgive yourself and move on. Do not, under any circumstances, begin the ‘food guilt’ trip where you start feeling guilty about what you ate. Be thankful that you had the opportunity, nay privilege to  overindulge. Look around you. Not everyone is so  lucky.

Respect  Food and Respect Your Body

Respect your body. Resolve to keep your body running at its very best providing it only the best fuel. That of course translates into nutritious energy providing, wholesome food. The moment you are mentally clear about this, everything else will fall in place.

Once you resolve that you want to give the best to your body, you automatically veer towards healthier, nutritious food choices. You find that you research more, talk to health experts and you end up making healthy food choices.

Thus the negativity around food decreases. You are happy with what you eat. You are sure that what you are eating is helping your body become healthy and strong. And of course again the Law of Attraction kicks in. The Universe hears you and naturally gives you what you are thinking about – a healthy and strong body.

And weight loss- well that’s just a by product, which happens.

So this festive season, enjoy your food guilt free. Lose weight happily and healthily and remember:

“Enjoy your Food, Guilt Free

Respect your Body, Remain Healthy”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Importance of Politeness For Bosses (to Become Leaders)

In today’s cut throat corporate culture,  I often observe a marked lack of polite behavior especially in bosses. Please note that I use the term bosses, and not leaders. I strongly believe that politeness is one of the key characteristics that contributes to transforming a boss to a leader. Let’s find out how, shall we?

While all of us growing up, were taught to be polite, somewhere along the way, we have lost this trait, particularly at work.

What is Politeness

The dictionary describes polite behavior as behavior that is respectful and considerate of others. Let’s be honest. Haven’t there been situations where we have behaved in a manner that might be an exact contradiction of the above definition.

Things Can and Will Go Wrong

As they say “Life Happens”. I remember one of my former bosses used to remark, “If there are no challenges in business, you are not needed”.  It is because things are not always smooth that people are needed to resolve issues to grow the business.

So given this, we can almost expect disruptions to occur in our work life on a daily basis. Your vendors will not deliver on time, the payments you expected may be delayed, you may not be satisfied with quality, your key team members will have a personal emergency and be away from work and so on and so forth.

As a boss,  how do you handle it?

Perhaps the stress gets to us. And maybe that’s why, we forget the ‘politeness” lesson. And our interactions across the board get tinged with impoliteness.

Signs that You are Being Impolite

Do you Raise your Voice?:

Do you sometimes raise your voice, when you want things done? Does your tone hitch just a little higher when things are not going your way?

Recognize that these are signs of impoliteness. Yelling will not magically produce results. If there is an issue, a raised voice will not resolve it. On contrary, a polite but firm tone aimed at identifying the problem and discussing possible solutions will work best.

Note the words- polite but firm.  You have to be firm in your expectations, i.e you want the problem resolved But when you are polite, things are more likely to happen in the right direction.

Are you Rude ?

“Of course that’s not me”, I am pretty sure that’s what you said to yourself when you read the above question. But guess what, sometimes, we are inadvertently rude to someone.

Maybe someone sent their presentation for review and there were such obvious errors that you made some overly critical remarks. Pause for a second. You are the expert with experience. What’s obvious to you may not have been that obvious to the other person.  A better approach is to offer constructive feedback, which is productive and (surprise, surpise!!) polite as well.

Are you Dismissive?

Oftentimes, we become dismissive of peoples’ ideas. And then we lament that our team does not think out of the box.

Do not discard an idea impolitely even though from experience you know that it may never work. Reframe the idea, reword it, and offer suggestions to the idea originator as to what other direction he could possibly consider for that idea.

This will definitely go a long way in motivating the team and soon you will be sitting on an explosive mountain of exciting ideas.

Are you Robot like?

What I intend to stress here is that a polite person is more likely to have better quality of human interactions. As a boss, a note of appreciation from you will likely sky rocket motivation levels.

Did you hear that someone’s child was sick? Maybe ask her the next time if the child is doing OK. This will barely take a few seconds of your time, but will make your team member feel valued appreciated and therefore motivated.

In conclusion, I’d like to state that politeness paves the path for increased productivity and thus increased profits.

Politeness is one of the key characteristics that can transform a boss into a leader – a leader with a loyal team that offers its 100% (and more) support. And after all, we are only as good as our teams.

So let’s pledge to me more polite in our interactions, not only because it’s a nice way to be, but also, because  being polite can and will positively affect our business.

 

 

 

 

 

 

CPHI WW 2019- How We Solved a Problem- Lessons Learned

CPHI WorldWide is one of the biggest shows in the Pharma Industry, and naturally requires investment of resources- monetary, time and others.

A lot of pre-exhibition preparation goes into the process and it is safe to say that our team arrived at Frankfurt on the eve of the show- exhilarated and excited, and maybe just a tad nervous (as is usual) that everything should go well. Little did we know!!

As we made our way to the venue, Messe, Frankfurt around noon to check on the progress of our stall construction, we seriously had no inkling that we would drive out of that blessed place only hours and hours later, bone tired and utterly exhausted.

Something Off….

As we made our way to our stall 90D02, we found it in eerie silence. Not visible was the hustle bustle of the contractors making the finishing touches to the stall. Nowhere in the picture was our Indian contractor who ideally should have been running the show and directing everyone.

“Hmm'”.. we thought it strange, but no alarm bells went off just then.  We were trying to get in touch with our Indian contact to get him to complete the stall.

The Eternal Half an Hour

Our contractor picked up the phone (one has to give him credit for that) and said hat he would be at our stall in half an hour. 30 minutes passed and no contractor materialized. Another call and again the same magical time frame of half an hour…and so it went on.  It seemed like the contractor was in another time-space continuum where the length of 30 minutes was apparently infinite.

And then those Alarm Bells Went Off..and How

As the clock tick-tocked tensions mounted and we realized “this is not looking good”. While the contractor representative on the floor  (let’s call him Mr. N) remained elusive, the counterpart back in India had no clue.  It was time to act. Couple of us remained at the (80% incomplete) stall and couple of us went in search of Mr. N. Constant calls and numerous ups and downs later, we were able to zero in on Mr. N.

And the Entire Story Unfolded

What a surprise that Mr. N wasn’t by himself, but was surrounded by a seemingly angry crowd. Apparently, all of these people has contracted with Mr. N’s company for the stall and there was NO stall in sight. It was barely hours before the show was to start. No wonder emotions ran high,  voices were running higher and most of all, our feet were running, as we kept pace with Mr. N trying to figure out what went wrong.  We literally didn’t want to let him out of our sight.

There was a longish story (Mr. N told us) as to what had happened and how we had landed at this point. But repeating the story is not the point of this post.

At the end our conversation with Mr. N and as a result of our sticking with him, following aspects became crystal clear:

1. There are no contractors available to finish our stall.
2. There is no furniture available at the stall.
3. Electricity connections are available, but there are no light bulbs available for the stall.
4. Our posters are printed and ready, but there is no manpower available to put these up.

And that’s what we were up against. It was 5:00 pm. We had about 14 hours with us before CPHI WW 2019 opened and those clients (we had painstakingly set up  meeting with) walked in.

The few hours that followed next, the decisions we made and the activities we undertook are honestly something that will remain deeply imprinted in my mind forever. These were the few hours where we rose from the ashes and soared like the phoenix. The time where we refused to give up and took decisions to completely change the scenario and emerge as winners.

What We Did

There was a whirlwind of activity as quick decisions were.

Some of us (the lighter of us) climbed atop stools and started the process affixing the posters. We had brought with double sided tape and other paraphernalia required for this…(thank God for that)

Couple of us had a quick look at Google maps and identified a nearby Ikea store and we were off to get tables and chairs and light bulbs. I clearly remember, it was 6.00 pm when we left for Ikea.

Another colleague made the rounds of the organizers’ desks and ensured that our badges were validated so that we could have a quick entry into the hall the next day.

We were fighting against time as the ‘build-up’period allocated was upto 9.00 pm. Post 9.00 pm, if you wanted to remain in the stall, there was an additional fee to pay.

We were back at the stall and then got on to the task of assembling the Ikea furniture. Whoa!! That is seriously one achievement I am personally proud of. Me a mom, who would never be bothered to assemble Lego blocks or Kinder Joy toys, actually put together tables that stood up (for 3 days) and didn’t collapse. So yaay me!!!

Simultaneously the lights were up. And there was a semblance of illumination. Serendipitiously, the stall opposite to us had illumination plans that would made a high profile Christmas tree look dull. And as light illuminates all directions fairly and without bias, we lucked out just that much more.

In the meantime, somebody came along helped us affix the shelves for our samples. Thank God for small mercies.

And finally at 10.00 pm, we looked around and were pretty much satisfied with what we had achieved.

Compared to where we were at 5.00 pm, we had completely turned around the situation. And all’s well that ends well. We had a great show.

Now I’d like spend a few minutes analyzing everything and sharing the valuable lessons learned, which would be useful to all.

Lessons Learned

1. Be Prepared for Any Eventuality

However well prepared you may be, things can turn an unpleasant turn and they sometimes do. I am not advocating a fatalistic attitude. My message is that we need to be mentally prepared for the chance things may not go as planned.

2. Take Quick Decisions

Once a problem has come to light and you know there is no way to resolve it by usual means (in our case, it was amply clear after a point that contractor will not be of any help), think out of the box. Do not focus on why things went wrong, instead change the focus to finding a solution.  This thinking helped us take quick decisions like affixing the posters ourselves and buying furniture and light.

3. Keep the Motivation Going

As team, if we had succumbed to negativity and hopelessness of the situation (and at one point, things looked very bleak indeed!!) the scenario would have been completely different. We banded together, came up with solutions and focused on implementing those. We told  ourselves that the aim of the show is to meet and greet customers and drum up business. The aim of the show is not to have a spectacular stall.  So long as our stall meets basic expectations, that’s all that we need.

4. Believe in Yourself

Yup, you can do everything and then some. For eg, the list of things we did that I wouldn’t have never imagined being able to do:

1. Rush off to an Ikea and shop for tables and chairs and lights in a language you don’t know.
2. Complete said shopping, in record time, literally racing against the clock.
3. Put together above tables by referring to a manual and using a tool kit (!!).
4. Put up posters like a professional.
5. Set up electrical fittings and lights

5. The Universe is on your Side

Growing up, I often heard this phrase “God helps those who help themselves”. Now the politically correct term is ‘universe’ especially in the context of Law of Attraction. I really have no other way to explain the generous illumination that came our way from the stall opposite to us.

So clearly the Universe was there, helping us along!!

In my  life, I have had several experiences and I can safely say this is one I am unlikely to forget for a long long time.