The Power of 21 days Ritual!!

I believe many of us who read the title would have felt the above phrase reverberating in our ears which we would have heard quite a long back. Yes of course, this is one of the self-improvement tool that focuses on mastering the ability to cultivate a healthy habit to improve ourselves which was originally proposed by Or I heard it while I was watching the motivational speeches of Mr Robin Sharma.

This concept helps in mastering our ability to inculcate any good habits which we are passionate about as a daily ritual on a regular basis in the long run. The habits could range from getting up early in the morning at a specific time, going for walk, gym, playing sports, practicing music, thanks giving, sending morning wishes to the friends, journaling, helping in household work, the list goes on. Any of these activities when done on regular basis will have a profound effect on your personal and professional life.

Even after reading that concept, I was not focused enough to implement due to my busy schedule of working in multiple jobs. The saying goes, “When Student is ready the Teacher Arrives”, so I did encounter a situation where I felt the need to master one of the skills that would benefit my professional life. At that instance, I remembered this idea (this is one of the benefit if we are a good reader, the ideas pop out of our brain at the right time). So, it all started on 23^rd of September 2016. As every new habit offers the resistance in the beginning, I did encounter initial resistance in the beginning but after few days I just started to getting comfortable with the practice of the new ritual. After a consistent practice of the habit, i was able to recognize a sort of change, which will drove me further till the 21^st day.  When I look back today, the task that was challenging and strange is now a quite easy comparatively and familiar. Totally three different set of habits that I started have become a daily ritual of my life. Wishing you all a good luck in pursuit of such rituals as per your interest. 

Art and Style of Delivering Lectures!!!!!!!

Hi Friends, this blog is purely dedicated to some of my students who has recently started their academic journey and for all those who are in the same phase. The contents outlined below are the learning I have amassed during my 6+2 years (locally and globally) journey in this wonderful profession since 2008. Having delivered lectures for more than 12,000.00 students from various background right from schooling, Pre-University level, Undergraduates from engineering and non-engineering background and to an international students from both English speaking and non-English speaking countries, I feel to share my wisdom in delivering sound lectures which commands respect for you and students will adored you. Make sure you read the blog full, because neither the trailer nor the beginning or the conclusion of the blog will give you an overall pictures, it is the whole blog tailored step by step will show you the actual picture. The fact that you’re here, through the link on my fb wall, clearly shows that you are passionate about making your academic career vibrant. Here are the 7 tips that you could implement and make your lectures simple and awesome.

1.   Start Great: Remember a great start is all that catches the senses of your students. A great start is a result of great preparation, I meant the preparing the content you need to deliver. Once you have this ready, all you need is to plan the great start. A great start  could include a having a broad smile on your face, a commanding  body language, give an energetic introduction about the topics you will be dealing with, try connecting them with a previous class lectures and introduce the outcome at this instant, this will make them focus on being attentive.

2.  Use Visual Aids:  Remember well begin is half done but also you need to focus on remaining 50 % to make it complete. The following details will help you in establishing that 50% in your lectures. Using the technology in an optimum way is the key in this aspect. If your lectures involve modules which are more of pictorial form your work will be a cake walk, if not you need to search some forms where you can bring in some visual aids in your lecture presentation. It could be some funny pictures that resembles the theoretical concept, or any shapes and symbols that explains better than just those words. The prime reason behind this logic is to make you aware that, we remember what we see well than what we hear.

3.  Voice: Adding on to the visual aids you use to deliver lectures, your voice dictates much of your lecturing. If your voice is of low pitch, or high pitch throughout both spoils your lecture. Having a modulated pitch of voice is all I am sharing with you at this instant. Lectures delivered at a same pitch throughout the lecture will make the lecture monotonous thus making your lectures uninteresting. So you need to learn the art of modulating your voice. One simple tip to master this is to use your common sense to understand the points where you need to stress more and where you can stress less.

4.  Introduce Humor: None of us likes a monotonous environment, so it is quite natural that your students will get bored no matter how much you are good at delivering the lectures. It is also psychologically proven that, any human mind cannot focus one thing at a stretch for more than 15-20 mins. So in order to keep the students engaged in your lectures create a environment of humor for 1 or 2 mins, this will refresh their mind and keeps them happy and make them love your lectures. Creating a humor out of that particular situation will create a happiest environment   than having one prepared. Being a spontaneous is the key to bring out such humors.

5.  Power Packed conclusion: Remember whether it could be your students or any class or audience they might not remember what you say, but surely they remember how you deliver the lectures. As you started with energy so as the conclusion needs to be. Summarise the whole class, and asking for clarifications, giving a brief insight is the set of things you need deliver as a conclusion.

6.  LAW (Looks, Action, and Words):  I shall guarantee that your lectures will be much more attractive and impactful if you implement all the steps opined above. Adding on those tips, as a catalyst I would love to share this particular tip with you, remember, Students are just like a clients, friends, or audience you can never demand anything from them but your attire, your way of behaving and your words will surely help you command what you want from them. Nervousness is one that holds you back from feeling free to deliver lectures, so I have a wonderful tip to suggest you which I have always experimented and experienced to kill the nervousness during delivering the lectures, i.e. the best way is to Start delivering your lectures by keeping yourself in motion appropriately, because always remember, “Nobody can Hit a Moving Target”.  So on a concluding note, People will look at you before listening to you, hence SYNCHRONIZING your Looks, Actions, and Words plays a major role in delivering lectures.

7.    Practice: If you cannot win by talent you can always win by your hard work. If you are with a purpose of creating difference to the society, you need not to worry about your talent that you have in delivering lectures as of now. You can always master any talent if you lack, provided if you have felt the real need. Your patience to read this blog till the end clearly shows how determined you are. Practice your lectures couple of times before you deliver in front of the mirror. Remember, world never cares how you practice all they see is how you perform. Practice is the key, harder you practice, better will be your performance. Commitment to excellence is the essence to keep your practice going continuously. 

Always be open minded to learn from your teachers, friends who are willing to share their experience to empower you so that you could get on track at the faster pace without wasting much of your time in experimenting the same old mistakes what others have done. I always believe in this Quotation: “A Smarter is one who learns from his mistake and Smartest is one who learns from other’s mistake” Wish you a glorious journey!!!

A powerful Quote that fueled my passion to create a genuine difference to my students’ fraternity is:

A Bad Teacher Complains,

A Average Teacher Explains,

A Good Teacher Teaches,

A Great Teacher Inspires!!!

The First Day, First Class let it be the MASS HIT!!!!!!!!!!!!

This blog is purely dedicated to my fellow teachers around the world who will be witnessing the massive fresh energy in the students as they begin their academic journey (In most of the cities in the subcontinent India). It is our responsibility as a teacher to direct this fresh enthusiasm in the right direction. A channelized fresh energy (is like water with a high kinetic energy) can generate power.  Amidst of all the regular formalities that we will introduce to the students during the beginning of this academic year, like syllabus, attendance, internal marks, code of conduct, etc ,etc.. I would urge you to share the stuffs that will pull (the globally recognized as an efficient way of production concept used in Japan’s Toyota Motors) the students attention towards you. After all anyone can listen to us if we could tell them something differently that they would have never expected. The best way I have recognize, tested, implemented and mastered to command the respect from the students is to show that we can overshoot their expectations. I personally never used to tell anything related to their academics rather the stuffs I used to share a story with them that will open their eyes towards their responsibility as a good student, good children and above all a good citizen. This way encouragement not only bonds them to their responsibility but also makes them to trust you as a reliable person and follow you as a genuine teacher. As many of belong to the same generation as our students do, would we like to listen the same syllabus, marks outline from a teacher in a class room when it is available at their fingertips.  So think on the lines what our students actually need and give them. We could start with realizing their potential as youth for the nation, promote them to take part in sports (I am personally passionate to see more number of medals for our country in Olympics than ever before) and co-curricular activities during their free time, promote them to involve in social causes which is the best way I found to master the skills which helps them cracking the interview and the list can go on and on as broad as our vision for them.                               

                On a concluding note, I would like to share one real effect that I got updated a while ago before I compile this blog. Two of my students (Ravi and Sagar) from 2012-2016 batch who basically hails from the remote part of my state Karnataka, came approaching me when they were in their 3^rd year of engineering studies to seek guidance that can build their communication and leadership skills, I directed them to a platform that can give them what they are in need. Very soon they ventured into their own NGO, represented our institution in an Agricultural based Technological Exhibition held at Rashtrapati Bhavan (The Presidential House of Indian President), New Delhi, India. As I write this blog I got a thank you message after they successfully completed the visa interview with USA embassy, very soon they will be representing INDIA in global leadership forum WORLD MERIT 360, which selects and nurtures 360 youths around the globe to support the top 10 sustainable goals of UNO. Isn’t it crazy, 21 year kids talking something that we all would have never even thought of doing it so. Let me be very clear, I have done nothing in this aspect all I did is to give them little extra time to share my view about their career in class which pulled them to come to my cabin and seek that guidance. By this, If you could feel the impact, I wish you all the very best to impact your student fraternity. Watch out this space for my next blog related to the lecturing delivery skills, good luck J

“Let’s not Demand the Respect rather Command the Respect”

- Dr B R Lakshmikantha, (Principal, DSATM- Bangalore)!! 

Walking and Writing are the best ways to Burst out our Stress!!!!!!!!!!!

In these so called modern days, we are engaged in different activities right from the time we get up in the morning to till we go for bed. Each of these activities comes with its own complexities. We have been taking care to start our day with fresh energy, but as the day proceeds we will go crazy because of the complexities or challenges involved in our day to day tasks. By the end of the day we not only lose our energy but also the enthusiasm of working, there will be a drastic rise of stress upon our mind and body. Of course there are many remedies that come handy which could be healthy and unhealthy, when i said unhealthy many of us could empathize with the variety of stuffs. Equally acknowledgeable are the huge set of healthy stuffs also, it could be going for recreational and sports clubs, art and music classes and the list goes on. I wonder how many of us do all of these (by the way healthy way of bursting out the stress) regularly, i mean we get stressed regularly which everyone accepts it but when we question how many of us try to release it by engaging in healthy activities that too on a regular basis, you could imagine the number, i.e. not much. The prime reason is that we get resisted by our mind to involve it appears to more stressful due to multiple reasons. Hence through this blog I would like to suggest the two best ways which i find it as it can be performed easily with lesser time in a place available in and around where we are located. One is to go out for a walk connecting ourselves with the nature, doing self-talks, injecting positive affirmations and more over analyzing our day and think what we could have been done better so as to enhance the value towards our work. The one more idea is to write, writing is the best way to express it may not be necessarily a blog but even we could scribble something on our mind on a scribbling pad. We could scribble our daily thoughts, action plans, dreams which we plan to achieve, vision for our life, our next shopping plans, travel destinations, we could writing a situation which could end in being a short film story, a series of short articles which could be compiled as a book, what not the list goes on and on. By the by these two ideas does not demands any monetary investment unlike clubs and societies but it all asks us for our time, which we are responsible to make it available for our own goodness. If I would have not decided to write this blog I would have been to bed by this time but I chose to write some of my professional theories which expanded my knowledge base and just now I am going to complete this blog about the above subject, at this time almost as a day starts in India, Nightlife begins in USA and midnight in Ireland where i stay. With this I hope i have busted out my stress by blogging about the same now, which had got accumulated over last two days. Irrespective of the time zone we are in when we read this blog as symbol of fresh start of our stressless  day, i wish all of us a magnificent day ahead, Good Morning!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Heart of Encouraging!!

Human beings are designed to grow by encouragement. We grow physically because we encourage our organs to grow by feeding them with sufficient nutrition.  Every individual carves for Encouragement. Encouragement leads us to be better performers and better contributors to the society around us. The need for encouragement is everywhere may it be among family members, or it may be among the colleagues in work environment or may it be from our teachers during our education. If we look around there are millions of people who goes to sleep without food, worse than this condition is that billions of people go to bed every day without encouragement.

On a specific note, i would like to highlight the need for teachers developing the attitude of encouragement towards their students.  As teachers we come across many type of students, some of them are good at academics and some others are good at non-academics. Some teachers tend to encourage only students who are good at studies while neglecting the other students. Of course as a student their prime responsibility is their studies. But as a teacher when we start encouraging what is good in students the remaining aspects eventually turns to become good. Hence it is highly important as we are the architects of modern leaders of the world lets encourage all the good things in students and show them a way to develop the best in them and eventually developing the rest (Qualities of good Human being) in them. With my personal I believe, what we encourage gets the courage and courage creates what one needs to have. On concluding note: 

"Show Courage to Encourage"

To Be Countable is to Be Accountable!!

Dear friends, many of us carve to get recognition among our contact circle and also desire to be globally famous, but only few of us make it happen. When i did studied such people's stories who have gained enough recognition around us and also around the globe, the important factor that captured my attention is that those who are recognized or respected (COUNTABLE) were and are ACCOUNTABLE. Accountability in a simple sense is being responsible for the work that we need to do. Accountability earns us not only recognition but also helps earning respected recognition. Accountability breeds harmony and happiest life around us. 

If we look up to our parents, among millions of reasons to respect them their accountability in building a bright future for us is one of the reasons. In turn as children we are countable only when we are accountable for fulfilling our dreams as well as our parent’s expectation. As an employee we are countable among our colleagues only when we are accountable to meet the set targets for us. As an employer we are countable when we are accountable to cater our clients as well as our employee’s genuine expectations. As a spouse we will earn respect only when we are accountable to take care of our life partner wellbeing. When we look into the examples of great leaders they become what they are because they showed accountability in their work. 

Hence rather than desiring to be recognized let’s start being accountable in what we are today, rest is assured as the time passes on. Because,

Respect is meant to be commanded not demanded!!

Problems and Solutions are the two faces of a Coin!!

Hi friends, coming directly to the topic, let me ask you a simple question, How many of  us have felt that why all the problems comes only to me? Hope at one or the other point in our life we have felt this or shared this feeling it with our friends or have said it to our self. I am here to give a simple logical solution for the above question, which will be experienced commonly by all of us. 

Lets go back to our school or college days, let us relate the problems we face in life to the problems we encounter in Mathematics (of course maths it self is a big problem for many of us, jokes apart). Willingly or un-willingly, knowingly or un-knowingly we start working towards the solution for all the problems we come across eventually which leads to some solutions irrespective of whether it is right or wrong. If it is right we continue to tackle the next (level) one or else we fine tune our process of solving and will retry till with a different approach till we arrive at exact solutions. We even tend learn from some worked examples and arrive at the solution at any cost. The same concept of solving mathematical problems needs to be adopted in life as well. When ever we come across problems in life make sure we are marching forward rather staying strucked where we are. let us learn from others how they have over come the problem in their life and adopt it to suit our need. Keep trying till we get the solution is the only solution what we have to solve all the problems in our life.

The sign of growth in life is the Number of problems we face in the life. Welcome the problems, tackle it with good approach, when we arrive at the solution we will derive the meaning to our life. Never ever think of passing over the problems just like that, because a simple problem un attended today might grow into a complex problem again which takes more time to get solved. 

Remember one thing, that problems and solutions are just like two faces of a coin we get both when we opt for one, it is our responsibility to look into the other side without missing. On concluding not i would like add these "Difficult roles in cinemas are given only for the skilled actors/actress, hence god brings us problems in a cinema called Life to shape us and make us a best individual. 

PROBLEMS @ LIFE: JUST GO 4 IT!!