As I saw it

Like they say in some corny ads, ‘Pehle main bohot pareshan thaa’. In school, I was frustrated because my note taking hand couldn’t keep pace with the limitless possibilities around things and ideas that were being taught. I used to ask lot of questions and conduct experiments on my own and therefore earned the derisive nickname of a scientist. Then something caught my attention in 1992 in a book on Mind Power Study Techniques by Raj Bapna where for the first time I came across 4 concepts - speed reading, NLP, Silva Mind Control and mind maps. About 20 years later, I finally got to learn it and it took me some practice to unlearn and undo the neural pathways created by decades of linear note-taking to unlock tremendous potential that radiant thinking, key word thinking, associational thinking, imagination (which expands into images-in-action) and more that a mind map helps you learn and bring out. Today, I apply mind maps to literally almost anything I do from note taking, to client ne...

On 8th and 9th January this year, I got to do an interesting session on Great People Manager by the Great Manager Institute at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Mayur Vihar Phase 1 Delhi for senior managers of Havells. It was bitterly bone chilling, cold and foggy through the two days and even the tall coil heaters inside the training room were struggling to keep us all warm. But there is an incident from the session that warms my heart each time I remember it. At the end of the session on 9th, one of the managers Vikas Singh Tiwari sought my permission to share something. While quite a few of the participants were in a hurry to catch their flights, I encouraged Vikas to go ahead. And I am glad that I did so. He introduced himself as a poet as well and showed a small book of his poems in Hindi which is titled “How can I accept defeat…” He told me that earlier that month, he had been transferred to the head office in NOIDA after he helped set up a plant in Rajasthan where he was posted for two ...