Three mistakes of our Lives

Most of us seek more happiness, more growth, more acknowledgement, more fame and of course, more money than what we have at present.

Most of us have many reasons like situations, lack of opportunities, use of unethical means or misfortune as impediments that block our road to glory.

Ronald .A. Heifetz talks about ‘getting on the balcony.’ It refers to separating oneself from the thick of action while action is on and move to a balcony upwards to have a macro view of the situation. If I am playing a match, when I get on the balcony, I can see my whole life in the playground, without a bias. I can see myself playing with respect to other players. I can see others making a pass and calibrating a move. I can feel the reactions of the audience and see my own actions.

When I get on the balcony, I realize three major mistakes on my part:

1. I love stereotypes: Life is not a puzzle for us as we remember all the pieces and place them in the same way, again and again.

‘Men are from mars and love maps’, ‘Praying everyday makes us calm’, ‘Sharing the laundry makes me a good husband’ – are only the tip of our mental iceberg of stereotypes.

When I live my life by nursing some stereotypes, I don’t challenge anyone including myself and I contribute to maintaining the status quo.

Symbolic breaking of stereotypes through government plans and advertising is the biggest stereotype which creates 2 minutes iconoclasts and whistle blowers.

I love stereotypes because I love my comfort zone. I think of adaptive change, I hear about altering my perception and then, I chew eucalyptus leaves like a Kuala and enjoy my sleep.

2. I love everyone around: I think about many successful friends and acquaintances. I like and comment on different social media platforms about various issues and happenings because I love my network.

When I consume my time and energy in thinking and analyzing all these people, I ignore my very self. I don’t dwell deep into my own dreams and aspirations because I benchmark, myself against my set of friends, colleagues and influencers.

This pseudo closeness to plethora of people takes me away from myself but close to shadows of others.

3. I love hero worship: I love to gaze at all these super achievers who have made it big in sports, entertainment, business or academics. I am in awe of ace performers who top their lists.

We show respect to heads of institutions, stoop in front of leaders with formal authority. We worship charisma and power.

When we clap for heroes whose fame/power/formal authority wields control over us, we behave like fanatic fans. We ignore the unsung heroes who bring silent revolutions each day to make the heroic acts of the charismatic heroes possible.

When I am on the balcony, I realize that I love to make these mistakes over and over again because I resist change. I resist change because I resist loss. If I start rejecting stereotypes, I will lose comfort of my comfort zone. If I stop thinking about people and start focusing on adaptive change for myself, I will fear the loss of approving acquaintances and supportive friends.

If I will start valuing real unsung heroes, I will lose the larger than life feel that keeps my eyes wide open with admiration.

Do you resist change because you are scared of losing yourself with whom you have been living comfortably without getting on the balcony?

Think.

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Dr. Swati Lodha is an Author, Entrepreneur, Motivational Speaker, Parenting expert based in Mumbai. Having written Bestsellers like Come on get set go  &  Why Women are What they are, her book on Parenting will be published soon. Currently, she is running Life Lemonade which offers unique Training Programs on Life Transformation, High Performance Leadership, Women Issues and Parenting.

Connect with Dr. Swati Lodha on Linkedin, Twitter @drswatilodha & Facebook

Also read her best articles here!

Controlling Founders and Possessive Parents: Boon or Bane?

Sense of owning what one creates is most natural an emotion. The love, the passion and the consistent involvement makes the creator extremely connected to his/her creation. Feelings like ‘This is mine’, ‘You cannot imagine or realise what I have gone through to build this’ gush through their hearts very often.

As a result parents of children as well as organisations/startups have difficulty in letting others enter their bastions. The problem is double edged due to following reasons:

1. Trust: Every founder and parent is skeptical about the intention and ability of the new experts/relations that they need.

 

Forced by market needs or profitability, founders seek professional help, hire CEOs and Directors. Most of them are guilty of selecting professionals who they personally like or feel comfortable with.

 

If obeying the promoters or agreeing with founders becomes the basic selection criterion, no major breakthrough can be achieved for the business.

 

After some time, the promoters start feeling that it is difficult to get competent people and it strengthens their flawed mindset that no one knows their business better than them.

 

If they actually select competent people who can turnaround their businesses but continue to micromanage by seeking daily reports and consistent interference, the competent but hired leaders feel stifled. They fail to develop belongingness and controlling founders lose talent soon.

 

Similarly, parents become wary of new friends, new relationships that the children want to forge because they can’t allow themselves to trust them.

 

When children get married, tectonic shift seems to happen in the minds of Indian mothers. It takes a lot of time before she gets ready to let go of her possessive streak. If she continues to feel threatened by the competent, loving wife, there could be long term unhealed scars jeopardizing the relationship forever.

 

2. Jealousy: Founders & Parents love their creations dearly. At the same time they cannot fathom the fact that someone could outdo them in managing/developing their creation. There is a deep insecurity among founders about their stature within the organisation. Most of the promoters of family owned businesses become insecure as the popularity charts of professional leaders soar in their organisations.

 

If the workforce start singing praises for the new leadership, if vendors and partners get along very well with the professional leaders, the founders/promoters get into panic mode. It is sad to see that they do not shy away from harming their own businesses while nurturing their mammoth egos and grinding their own ship to a halt.

 

Parents tend to become insecure if their children are happy with spouses. Mothers clearly create havoc when the daughters in law are appreciated and acknowledged.

 

Control and possession is due to extreme attachment and ego.

 

Getting attached to excellence and happiness is far more important than getting attached to organisation or children.

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Dr. Swati Lodha is an Author, Entrepreneur, Motivational Speaker, Parenting expert based in Mumbai. Having written Bestsellers like Come on get set go  &  Why Women are What they are, her book on Parenting will be published soon. Currently, she is running Life Lemonade which offers unique Training Programs on Life Transformation, High Performance Leadership, Women Issues and Parenting.

Connect with Dr. Swati Lodha on Linkedin, Twitter @drswatilodha & Facebook

Also read her best articles here!

What Parenting is not

As we all believe in hands on learning and on the job way of experiencing, we have our own share of ups and down as Parents. The bumps hit us more when we think that we have innate skills of raising children and we can’t go wrong.

If we understand what Parenting is not, it helps us save ourselves from some obvious mistakes that we as Parents make.

1. Parenting is not a milestone, it is a journey: “The day she/he joins a pre-school, I can go back to work”, “The day he becomes 18, he’/she can be on his/her own” are some statements that we use to fool ourselves.

Children remain our topmost priority after entering our lives and remain unfazedly so for the rest of our lives.

We can never think of this relationship as one we can take our attention off from. It has a beginning but no end. It is an unending journey where journey in totality matters more than milestones.

My daughter is appearing for Xth grade exams this year. The night before one of her exams, she was a tad nervous. “Will you be upset if I don’t do well tomorrow” she asked.

“Not at all,” I said, “I can’t be upset with my daughter for her performance. I will be upset to see her upset.”

“That is what makes our relationship stronger,” she said.

Her performance is not a milestone that influences me, our journey together is an influencer.

2. It is not about instructions, Parenting is a Prayer: “Why didn’t you listen when I told you to keep a smile while singing?”

“You made silly mistakes because you did not check the answers at the end of exam”

“How can you forget to put an alarm?” are remarks – helpless, angry or matter of fact – which we are familiar with.

We want our children to sail smoothly and as a result, we try to make it easy for them. We foolishly think that our step by step guidance will equip them to face future challenges while the opposite is true.

We need to give them open ecosystem to explore, to think, to fail and to try again while we observe them with a consistent silent prayer on our lips.

This 24X7 prayer from the periphery has more power than any other zero defect instruction booklet of the world.

3. It is not an expectation, Parenting is a Surprise: “I have sacrificed all my comforts in order to provide for her sports training”, “My child has fulfilled my childhood dream” are very common success defining opening speeches.

 

Children can be molded into means of attaining pre defined achievement or success but setting them free to explore the possibilities of a unique life is far more enriching and enlightening. Micromanaging results into many wins but kids might lose their own stories in our repeated monologues.

 

It will always be refreshing and apt if we encourage our children to spin a surprise life for themselves while we pray from the periphery, being a consistent part of their journey.

 

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Dr. Swati Lodha is an Author, Entrepreneur, Motivational Speaker, Parenting expert based in Mumbai. Having written Bestsellers like Come on get set go  &  Why Women are What they are, her book on Parenting will be published soon. Currently, she is running Life Lemonade which offers unique Training Programs on Life Transformation, High Performance Leadership, Women Issues and Parenting.

Connect with Dr. Swati Lodha on Linkedin, Twitter @drswatilodha & Facebook

Also read her best articles here!

Do you hate me? Thanks

I remember her pretty face so well. She was my classmate and my neighbour. We were six and we were friends. When I topped my class, she pinched me real hard in the school bus and exclaimed, “You are so intelligent”. When we reached home, she rushed before me to tell my parents that I topped the class. While leaving, she pulled my cheeks so hard that I screamed. By the time next session started, many of my classmates didn’t speak to me. When I tried talking, they would make faces or drift away. The more teachers liked me, the more I felt aloof. I didn’t understand what was going on unless she left the school after a year.

One of the friends said, “She hated you because others loved you.”

I remember the feeling that I never wanted to feel. Thank You, I could never hate anyone.

While heading a B-school, a very senior guy joined as an advisor. As his office was being done up, he kept an all Dean’s meeting in my chamber without asking me. I conveyed my displeasure to the Board.

After the meeting, he called me for a one-to-one interaction.

“I am trying to figure out what do I dislike in your personality?” he said.

“Please take your time to figure it out.” I said with a smile.

I remember the feeling. It made me resilient enough to not get impacted by dislike or hatred or bullying.

People nurse hidden hate. People show it angrily in groups. People troll and show their insecurities. People agitate and intimidate. Hatred consumes them totally.

Feel sad to see these sadists. Ignore their outbursts. Don’t try to help because they can’t be helped. Show that it doesn’t matter. Thank you for showering your intense dislike and hatred….. I can never hate anyone.

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Dr. Swati Lodha is an Author, Entrepreneur, Motivational Speaker, Parenting expert based in Mumbai. Having written Bestsellers like Come on get set go  &  Why Women are What they are, her book on Parenting will be published soon. Currently, she is running Life Lemonade which offers unique Training Programs on Life Transformation, High Performance Leadership, Women Issues and Parenting.

Connect with Dr. Swati Lodha on Linkedin, Twitter @drswatilodha & Facebook

Also read her best articles here!

What is common between a Football team Coach, a CEO and a Parent?

A football team coach could be a successful player himself or he might have started coaching when his professional career didn’t scale great heights.  A successful player turned coach would have more difficulty shedding his ego than the one who is only a successful coach. A sports team coach needs to shed his ego completely in order to manage mammoth egos of players.

A CEO of today can’t retain talent if he throws his weight around. As hierarchical echelons are biting the dust in new shared spaces offices, team members expect their superiors to be guides, not bosses. Experience in terms of years has lost the importance it used to carry. More openness to be a constant learner and keeping haughtiness at bay would make a CEO successful today.

My mother-father could demand obedience and get yes as an answer from me without any question. My ego feels so embarrassed when my daughter tells me to stop fretting over exams. She asks me ‘why’ for so many things in a week that I wouldn’t have asked in my whole childhood. As a mother, I am as old as she is.

We need to shed our inflated egos as coaches, leaders or parents.

A coach is coach because of the team; a parent is a parent because of the children. We got a chance to learn before them as we were born before them which is hardly an achievement.

The more humble and giving we become as a coach, a CEO or a parent, the more are our chances of accomplishing great results.

All the three need to observe each of the player, team member or child closely before starting to deal with them. A continuous close observation, a few concrete instructions and unconditional support at all times are hallmarks of an effective Coach, CEO and a Parent.

Share your experience here or on Facebook if you feel that your parenting experience adds to your leadership / coaching role.

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Dr. Swati Lodha is an Author, Entrepreneur, Motivational Speaker, Parenting expert based in Mumbai. Having written Bestsellers like Come on get set go  &  Why Women are What they are, her book on Parenting will be published soon. Currently, she is running Life Lemonade which offers unique Training Programs on Life Transformation, High Performance Leadership, Women Issues and Parenting.

Connect with Dr. Swati Lodha on Linkedin, Twitter @drswatilodha & Facebook

Also read her best articles here!

Thank you for Changing my Life

As an entrepreneur, I started a company called SWASH (Skills, Wit and Attitude are shaped here) in 1997.

I designed a few courses to help children, adolescents and professionals to build confidence, ignite their motivation, and hone their public speaking skills. Apart from life skills and soft skills enhancement, I offered them my eyes to observe their heartfelt emotions, my ears to listen to their unsaid stories and my shoulder to lean on in distress.

Having trained thousands of participants in last fifteen years, I felt like asking them if SWASH still meant something to them. Three days ago, I closed my eyes and tried to remember as many names as I could from various years (from 1997 – 2007) .

I wrote around thirty names in under five minutes and posted a small note to them on Facebook. (I searched twenty of them on facebook, sent a friend request which was accepted within a minute. I was already connected to the rest)

In the note, I asked them:

1. When did you join Swash (at what age) / What were you doing at that time?
2. Do you remember how you felt at Swash? Do you still follow what you learnt?
3. Do you honestly believe that a guide/coach can influence you forever?
4. Did I touch your life, enrich it in some way or waves of time have wiped off all of it?

I wrote it because I missed my students so much. I wrote it because I wanted to know if life coaching really helps.

To my surprise, I received sixteen responses immediately which were all liners like

“I cannot forget you ever Ma’am”

“You are the best mentor I ever got, thank you for making me feel special once again.”

“A Pranam and a big hug to you, Madam”.

They all promised to send detailed answers (already got 5 this morning) but their immediate responses warmed my heart and nourished my soul.

Have you ever felt the same warmth and contentment?

It doesn’t hurt sometimes to ask your loved ones what you mean to them.

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Dr. Swati Lodha is an Author, Entrepreneur, Motivational Speaker, Parenting expert based in Mumbai. Having written Bestsellers like Come on get set go  &  Why Women are What they are, her book on Parenting will be published soon. Currently, she is running Life Lemonade which offers unique Training Programs on Life Transformation, High Performance Leadership, Women Issues and Parenting.

Connect with Dr. Swati Lodha on Linkedin, Twitter @drswatilodha & Facebook

Also read her best articles here!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Level 5 Leadership in Family

When Jim Collins researched 1435 Fortune 500 Companies on seven parameters to find ‘great’ companies from ‘good’ companies, he found 11 companies which showed elements of greatness.

Eleven out of 1435 companies is around 0.007%. Quality of Leadership cannot be judged at that time. It makes more sense historically when we look back after a decade or so to assess the impact of leadership on the wellness of an organisation.

Similarly, parenting cannot be assessed in the present. It makes more sense when we look back and ask our adult children about impact of our parenting skills on their wellness.

Can level 5 leadership practiced at home, turn good families to great families?

Can we create a level 5 hierarchy at home to make step by step growth as an individual, then a spouse and finally as a parent.

Level 5

Great Parents

Building enduring greatness and legacy as a family with humility and ferocious will

 Level 4

Effective Parents

Consistent upgradation for better performance as parents, stimulating each other for cohesion and achieving long term family goals

Level 3

Competent Family Managers

Organising resources and strengthening willingness to prepare for becoming parents. Aligning long term goals with a planned parental shift

Level 2

Contributing Spouse / Contributing to Home (If Single)

Developing competence to work as a team of two, forming a family vision, strengthening the bond, working on duo dynamics

Level 1

Highly Capable Individual

Who has talent, value system and discipline

Level 1 requires an individual to be capable before starting a new family. He/She should possess a personal value system, balanced attitude and behavior with ethical habits and professional skills.

At level 2, two people come together to form an alliance for life. They become a two member team contributing to matrimony. This level requires fine tuning of personal objectives to make place for shared objectives. This level requires a mental shift for the two people who plan to start a new life together.

At level 3, the duo prepares for another shift as they find out if they have an emotion called parenting. If they find this emotion, they prepare themselves for the next role by allocating resources and aligning their personalities for the same. It is utmost important to prepare beforehand.

Level 4 requires periodic assessment of parenting skills so that up-gradation of knowledge, soft skills can be done. Various stages of child development need various parenting styles and parentability skills. Good families evolve to reach this level. Parents raise themselves before raising their children.

Level 5 transforms good families into great families as parents exhibit paradoxical qualities of humility and fierce will power. Only a few families will reach to this level because it is very difficult to get a mother father team who manifest deep humility and strong will power.

If they exemplify these traits, families become legendary as they earn respect & admiration for their achievements. They inspire awe and follower-ship for creating a cohesive family unit comprising of affectionate and confident children.

We need to work on parameters that would classify great families or family leaders over a period of thirty to fifty years.

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Dr. Swati Lodha is an Author, Entrepreneur, Motivational Speaker, Parenting expert based in Mumbai. Having written Bestsellers like Come on get set go  &  Why Women are What they are, her book on Parenting will be published soon. Currently, she is running Life Lemonade which offers unique Training Programs on Life Transformation, High Performance Leadership, Women Issues and Parenting.

Connect with Dr. Swati Lodha on Linkedin, Twitter @drswatilodha & Facebook

Also read her best articles here!

Let’s Complicate

We have proudly created an online world parallel to our previous world to make our lives convenient and hassle free. With every new business striving to make everything available on our doorstep, our lives inside our homes must have become simpler.

We must be having a lot of time that we would have wasted in going out and buying all these electronic goods, books, groceries and gifts. We must be saving a lot of money by using coupon codes, referrals and never-before sales.

We must have become time and money rich, thanks to all apps which have gifted us options unlimited to live life apptually.

Life has become so simple. We can connect with anyone, anytime. We can order anything, anytime.

We don’t need to remember any phone numbers or ways to our favorite destinations.

We are tuned to every sound of our Smartphone, habitually checking our accounts on all important sites.

Our staple routine is to scout for new pictures, to share interesting forwards, to prove to the world that we are living an awesome life.

Do you want to know the recipe of this exclusive life which seems so simple, yet so complicated? (Could you have imagined people valuing selfies more than their lives?)

Here are the tips to attain such a complicated life:

1. Love Options: When we love options, we feel so blessed to have it all. More becomes less for us causing excess burden on our minds to decide petty stuff.

I have never seen someone better at this than my husband.

If we are making a travel plan, he will suggest two-three destinations. As we talk about one being better than other, he will suggest air travel choices and then book tickets for minimum two airways and to two destinations.

If he is going for a shoot or an event (he is an actor!), he will keep everything extra from shoes to shades in case he changes his mind.

Since he creates innumerable complications in travel and sartorial domain, he always has a one dish meal.

Though explosion of choices help us sometimes to get exactly what we want, most of the time, it overwhelms us so much that it induces stress.

Author of “The Paradox of Choice: Why more is less”, Barry Schwartz says that choice helps to a certain extent but after a point, choice starts to be not only unproductive but also counterproductive – a source of pain, regret, worry about missed opportunities and unrealistic high expectations.

Think for yourself: Less is more or more is less.

2. Pretend: To keep up the image of an awesome life, we pretend to others as well as to ourselves. To show a high coolness quotient, we create a persona who has best of experiences with celebrities in perfect locations. Being honest and straightforward is derogatory and uncool. Almost all my colleagues and friends tell me to color my hair as they find it so awkward that I have never thought of coloring my grey hair. There is nothing special in it but pretending to look young is a weird norm. Isn’t it beautiful to age gracefully?

Think for yourself: Will you admire a rainbow or apply make up to it?

3. Try to make everyone happy: For exponential networking and followers building, we can’t afford to say no. It is important for us to be a part of as many events as possible. Over commitment cannot be avoided as one ego bruise can wound you deeply. The more we stretch ourselves to keep everyone happy, the more they expect from us. The more they expect, the more pressurized we feel to perform.

Think for yourself: When you try to keep everyone happy, you certainly end up unhappy.

How about trying to actually simplify our lives by loving openly, communicating clearly, forgiving honestly and living freely?

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Dr. Swati Lodha is an Author, Entrepreneur, Motivational Speaker, Parenting expert based in Mumbai. Having written Bestsellers like Come on get set go  &  Why Women are What they are, her book on Parenting will be published soon. Currently, she is running Life Lemonade which offers unique Training Programs on Life Transformation, High Performance Leadership, Women Issues and Parenting.

Connect with Dr. Swati Lodha on Linkedin, Twitter @drswatilodha & Facebook 

Also read her best articles here!

 

5 Quickest ways to fail as human beings.

Margret Atwood in her latest novel says that human beings are turning into human things. She was hinting at technology for this shift.

Reasons for failing ourselves as human beings are those which stop us from understanding our unique possessions as human beings.

We are bound to fail when we

1. Agree: Each human being is wired differently to have a unique brain which he can genuinely use to THINK. We even have larger brains than most of our animal colleagues. That is why we have long childhoods spent under the care of our parents so that our brains grow completely.

But do we use our brains?

5% of the people think. 10% of the people think that they think and the other 85% would rather die than think.

Thomas Alva Edison

 We seek familiarity and love people who agree with us. As we also want to be termed nice, friendly, adaptable, we love to show our agreement even when we might differ.

If two people genuinely agree on everything, it simply means that only one person is doing the thinking.

Original thinking makes us human. We might get laughed at or punished for our thoughts but we should at least try to have our thoughts that we could call our own.

Borrowing thoughts, agreeing to others is the biggest disservice we could do to ourselves.

Don’t forget – You are all you have got. Let us make the most of it.

2. Blame: Blaming means to hold someone responsible or accountable for misdeed/failure. The people who have this art are really talented as they can find anything or anyone to be blamed for all that goes against their liking.

Blame a bad dream if you mess up your presentation; blame the dropping sensex for problems in your marriage or blame your genes for being risk averse.

We generally love to blame our society, our system, our country for almost every problem and thus remain a part of the problem.

One who blames will find faults in others, offers excuses all the time and thus will say a lot, do a little.

People who blame say and never act. They are nonperformers who are neither objective nor honest in their evaluation.

When we blame others for everything without logically analyzing the incident, it shows that we are not dependable and confident enough to take charge of the situation.

This doesn’t mean that self blame is the corrective measure. It causes immense emotional damage when we self blame out of pity and agony. Self-blame by victims of any abuse causes more harm to them then the abusive incident.

Mostly, we use blaming when it is not needed at all. Most of the failures cannot be blamed on a single entity as there are collective factors leading to it. It is merely paying negative lip service which worsens the situation. We need to come out of the blaming attitude as a nation.

3. Compare: We fail ourselves when we fail to respect our uniqueness & celebrate our distinctiveness.

Our parents compared us with our siblings, friends.

Our bosses compare us with our peers, ex-employee or themselves.

We secretly compare our looks, our cars, our bank balance, our online presence and many funny things.

Comparing oneself with others makes one feel inadequate and small because we tend to compare ourselves with those whom we consider better off than us.

It is a sure shot way to failure as it causes frustration and heartburn only.

It is better to be an unfinished version of ourselves rather than becoming a complete version of someone else.

4. Doubt: I come across many young girls and boys who are champions of thinking- ‘I can’t! They shy away from even talking about their dreams as they are so sure of not being able to make them a reality.

Self doubt kills more dreams than any other obstacle. Knocking the T of the villainous can’t is one of the biggest challenges I have faced as a coach.

While mentoring students who are keen on becoming entrepreneurs, I calm down many anxious minds that go three steps ahead and retreat by two steps. It is dis-heartening to see so many promising students not having enough self belief to fight their mental demons.

Twenty five years ago, my parents sent my elder sister to a boys’ school having eighteen hundred boys because she wanted to study commerce which wasn’t available for girls in my town. They gave my sister a belief that she could go to boys’ school fearlessly to study what she wanted.  After initial discomfort, fellow students understood her seriousness to study and teachers appreciated her commitment of being regular.

Self belief given by parents makes children fearless for life and self doubt given by them cripples children for life.

People not only doubt themselves but also excel at doubting others. They dislike trusting anyone. Every intention, every move, every action is doubted and they make lives of people around them miserable.

Many organisations celebrate 1st January as a holiday but my office was working on the first day of the year. My assistant told me that her mother in law grew suspicious that she was going somewhere else as offices don’t work on 1st Jan. I was shocked to hear that as my assistant is an employee whom we all praise for her commitment and integrity.

Doubt yourself and you fail to realize your potential.

Doubt others and you fail to gain respect.

5. Exaggerate: Most of us don’t realise how we magnify trivial stuff – positive as well as negative, which takes us away from reality

“This is the best employer I have worked with.”

“My Son has won a prize in every competition he participated in till date.”

“You missed the best celebration ever” are positive hyperboles that we use.

We exaggerate to build interest, to make people envious and to elevate ourselves. Have we ever thought it affects our credibility and our authenticity? People keep a proper tab on reality of the situation and youngsters surely don’t like this amplified stuff.

Not only this, we tend to exaggerate all negative happenings too by over generalizing or catastrophising general happenings.

“This always happens to me”

“It was such a nightmare” and

“You can never imagine what I went through” are reiterated by people who are obsessed with themselves.

Glorifying hardships, illustrating struggles and sensationalizing difficulties are hallmarks of a person who is under confident and unsure of himself.

Facebook envy is a new disease spreading up as friends and followers constantly compete for upmanship, oscillating between envy and exaggeration.

We never thought we could devise such new ways of failing as human beings.

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Dr. Swati Lodha is an Author, Entrepreneur, Motivational Speaker, Parenting expert based in Mumbai. Having written Bestsellers like Come on get set go  &  Why Women are What they are, her book on Parenting will be published soon. Currently, she is running Life Lemonade which offers unique Training Programs on Life Transformation, High Performance Leadership, Women Issues and Parenting.

Connect with Dr. Swati Lodha on Linkedin, Twitter @drswatilodha & Facebook

Also read her best articles here!

Are you a woman on top? – Say good bye to Glass Ceiling, Labyrinth and Goldberg Paradigm.

Various studies, numerous researches and several surveys over decades have concluded that gender discrimination exists at work places.

In 1986, the Wall Street Journal’s Carol Hymowitz and Timothy Schellhardt said that even those few women who rose steadily through the ranks eventually crashed into an invisible barrier. They named it a glass ceiling, which denied access to top positions to women.

In 1968, Philip Goldberg did a study where student participants evaluated identical essays except for the attached male or female name. The students did not know that other students had received identical essays ascribed to a writer of the other sex.

The study demonstrated that women received lower grades unless the topic was feminine one. The Goldberg paradigm holds good even now when female authors use masculine names like J.K. Rowling or E.L. James. I am not implying that they are read because of their names but I am surely implying that these women were not sure of their success with feminine names.

In 2007, Alice H. Eagly from Northwestern University and Linda L. Carli from Wellasley College likened the journey of women leaders to a labyrinth. As labyrinth is complex, but it is possible to strive and reach the centre, similarly women who aspire for top can reach after crossing twists and turns on the way.

When I see a Shikha Sharma or a Sheryl Sandberg, I don’t wish to believe in any ceiling or labyrinth. But all my confidence topples when I watch this video of acid attack victims. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2D8duxKFVig)

I keep sitting, brooding, crying for a few minutes after watching it. Then, I clench my fists, wipe my tears, nod and smile sternly. Women bounce back with fierce resolve. Women face it all but don’t give up.

Call us emotional or erratic (Thank You President Richard Nixon), give us less wages, delayed promotions or throw acid on us, we will lead ourselves.

We might be branded as too ambitious or too lenient, we will keep striving to figure out our authenticity.

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Dr. Swati Lodha is an Author, Entrepreneur, Motivational Speaker, Parenting expert based in Mumbai. Having written Bestsellers like Come on get set go  &  Why Women are What they are, her book on Parenting will be published soon. Currently, she is running Life Lemonade which offers unique Training Programs on Life Transformation, High Performance Leadership, Women Issues and Parenting.

Connect with Dr. Swati Lodha on Linkedin, Twitter @drswatilodha & Facebook

Also read her best articles here!