Express and Impress!

At times, such beautiful and inspirational thoughts erupt in my mind which makes me feel good and I wonder was it me?? The credit goes to twitter. Seriously! I’ve been following exceptionally good people who post exceptionally good tweets. Dinesh Ghodke, Saleel Pulekar, Robin Sharma to name a few. I know many don’t like Robin Sharma’s style of writing but I find it simple and very connecting. It is crisp and directly creates an Aho! inside ( at least in me ;)

My TTC Teacher Rohit Sabharwal is of similar kind. He speaks less and to the point. He doesn’t beat around the bush and his answers are like tart: razor sharp. I wish he was a Delhi YES!+ teacher (he lives in Mumbai). Not to say that Delhi teachers aren’t good but I would have loved to work under/with him.

Off late, I’ve been taking GD, Interview / Personality Development Classes for XII^th pass who are preparing for entrance examinations. Teaching them is helping imbibe those qualities in me all the more. One of my key observations through the classes has been that if your focus is EXPRESSION (presenting yourself clearly), the IMPRESSION (on the Interviewer) automatically happens! Think about it, if one expresses clearly, is aware of his/her strengths and weaknesses, is lucid and natural, nothing can stop him/her! An interview, according to me, is a conversation in which they just want to know you better and assess how fit you are for their institute. If I’m natural and myself, I’ll be honest about things. Now this doesn’t mean one can be blunt and outright. You can put across your point, but in a certain way. I mean courteous, firm but not rude, assertive but not aggressive. I know it sounds easy to say all this than to do it. Not to say I’m a perfectionist in it, but I’ve gradually become a lot better at it. And it all has happened because I’ve accepted my shortcomings and made efforts to work on them.

Openness to feedback is crucial. Off late, I’ve started asking feedback from others. And believe me, I really had to keep my ego aside to ask feedback from certain people ‘coz in a feedback, one has to be open minded to listen to what the other has to say. Certain things may not sound sweet and this is the beauty of feedback – it is not sugar coated and states things as they have been perceived. And this is helping me grow better. One catch point - Feedback doesn’t mean that you accept whatever is said – you do listen with all ears, analyze it and then if you find worth in it, you take action. Please understand, the one who is giving feedback is also human! (Or so I suppose :P ) So there is subjectivity involved. There may be different feedback for the same thing. So you take some point and ignore the rest BUT ignoring should happen only after careful listening :)

I think I’ve spoken enough for the day ;) Time to shut off and go in the rest mode.

Keep Smiling :)