Entrepreneurs, professionals and entrefessional

I will digress here to explain my analysis of the difference between entreprenuers professionals & entrefessionals. 

I don't really care for the text book definations for these people , we could also call them type L, M & N respectively. Business acumen as seen in in entrepreneurs is when you know instinctively which is the right decision to take to maximise your returns for your efforts and inputs without endangering your short term or long term interests, mostly it is a gut feeling. 

Professional management is more like a structured way of working wherein there are guidelines fitted in a series of" if-then" situations based on information available. 

 Entreprenuers are like solo players who are frustrated with the slowness of the mind and actions of others. Their actions can result in amazing changes in pace, direction and quantum, acceleration and u turns are not unusual. It does not mean that they are indisciplined, they simply work best without a rigid system. Such people create an individual based organisation. Things change dramatically for better or for the worse when the individual changes. 

It is difficult for such people to build big organisations but Henery Ford is an example of how an entrepreneur can build one of the largest empires in his time. Entreprenuers are normally workaholics and work until one day they drop dead. Their work is their pleasure, they have no interest in socialising and participate to the bare minimum to get their spouses and families off their backs. 

Entreprenuers often entice spouses and family to particapate in their work, supposedly to involve them in their work, but in reality its more a justification to keep working 24 hours 7days a week. These people are exhausting and tire everyone around them. 

Such people are the best for starting a business, organisation or an initiative, but need to be reined in once they reach a particular stage or else they become the main problem in the organisation. They have wide knowledge on wide range of topics, and great depth in certain areas. Sometimes they also have great depth on wide range of subjects related to their work. 

 Professionals need to operate within guidelines, and involving very clear systems, roles and responsibilities etc. By its very nature professional management is slow and complex.  Data is key ingredient or input for a professional to work. Professionals keep their families away from their work and the two worlds hardly ever overlap. Professionals look forward to their hobbies, friends, weekends and retirement. They are averse to taking risks and prefer to hide behind systems, guidelines and officially sanctioned authority. They resent any discretionary authority granted to them, Decisions are slow and rarely reversed once made. CYA is preferred. They maintain empires and bureaucracies and are great in maintaining the trajectory of a business with stability. Like building blocks they ca build and build. They grow step by step. Examples are the Roman empire, Multi national companies, most modern governments. The organisation normally outlives the individual. 

The professional normally has great depth in his/her subject or vocation and often ignorant of other areas or vocations or subjects. 

 The third and most interesting type of leaders or people I call the entrefessional. They are the people who come in work with data and systems but give it an entreprenueral flair. These pople I call entrefessionals. 

They are the people who get an army and a buracracy of people to give effect to their vision without getting bogged down in details. When they are successful they are like nimble giants, and they are people who can provide quantum leaps to their organisations, technology and management base and can generate breakthoughs. 

Instinct combined with data is the most effective management style. 

Such leaders are mercurical and appear inconsistent, but they often have a manner in their madness.

Death of nobility

Growing up, closest in proximity to our being is our parents, siblings, grandparents and friends, then our relatives and grandparents, followed by our teachers, doctors, and priests, then so called political and community leaders, the various arms of our police force, the various government officers, and finally society at large. As a child we learnt to respect and cherish them all because we were taught that they were all noble people and deserving of our admiration, respect and our blind commitment.

Blind and stupid most of us are not, and as we grow our love and admiration begins to waver and we ask many questions which are disturbing not only to all these people but to ourselves. How can the people who brought us up be so wrong?

Depending on our experiences the heros fall down one by one and it is rare for us to have any of them that remain standing once we advance through adulthood. All our lives we look for people to inspire us, to draw from the vast pool of goodness that lies dormant in all of us some nobility, innocence and greatness.
Some are fortunate but many are condemned to bitterness and become both cynical and skeptical.

Man is a social creature and the vast majority of us are intimately meshed with others in our society.

At the very centre of our world we see ourselves surrounded by a social structure which is supposed to support and nourish us. Our heros normally come from near this core of our being but as we become disillusioned by our bitter experience we begin to look afar for heros. 

The first of the heros to die are most of our teachers. I had the good fortune to have a number of great teachers, they gave me so much, pushing and cajoling  and brought out the best in me. However a far greater number of teachers bored and confused me, traumatized me physically and emotionally transferring the frustrations and rage in their personal lives onto the lives of students like me. By the time I finished my schooling and college I was disgusted with many of the so called teachers.

The second set of heros to go down the drain were the priests. A secular education allowed me to learn about several religions and get a grasp of the message they all imparted. I loved prayer time but I grew wary of most of the men of God. They claimed to serve God and humanity but it was difficult to see how these men of greed, arrogance, and anger could bring me closer to God. The saddest part is that they do not do a service but a great disservice in turning particularly young minds away from God.

The third set of heros to evaporate were relatives. Early in life I discovered many politicking, mean, and destructive relatives. I began to question the belief that blood is thicker than water and gradually many of the relatives faded into the background, to be visible only at some occasional function or the other.

The fourth set of heros were the police, the government, organisations and people at large. This group of heros, our countrymen and women, our protectors, people that allow me to live and thrive by supporting and helping us but rarely do so. They often work against the people creating obstacles and mostly harassing innocent people. Though our intimacy with these people is less they so adversely impact our lives that they cause much anguish. These perceived angels rapidly plummet to the bowels of hell for we soon come to see them not as heros but devils.

 The fifth set of heros is our leaders in business, society, and our politics. From afar I dreamt and aspired to be like them for they represented power, statesmanship, care and charisma. However up close they often appeared mean, uncaring unscrupulous, and downright bullies.  Not only did these so called leaders conduct themselves badly they had infected their followers, their subordinates and most of their associates with the same disease.

The sixth set of heros to often fall were my siblings and worse even my parents. I came to judge them and find them to be less than perfect. I rarely forgive them for mistakes and flaws which I would so easily overlook in others and even ourselves. This is heart wrenching and very painful. The bonds were more severely tested and often failed maybe because all worked together in business.

The seventh set of heros that can be professional associates like doctors, financial advisors, the chartered accountant,  lawyers etc.

Many doctors now earn their money not from healing people but from kickbacks by misleading patients to go in for expensive and often unwarranted tests, and prescribing expensive and often unnecessary medicines. Worse they compel people to go in for expensive and unnecessary invasive surgeries which cause much pain and hardship again to collect kickbacks from hospitals. Fortunately I have had the good fortune of being healthy and further to be treated by honourable and good doctors.

Then in business I cam upon several financial advisors, chartered accountants who indulge in entrapment  and then negotiate a settlement or compromise.




Majority of the The first were about half of the teachers, as I realised that they were not really interested in our  education but merely passing time between managing their sad personal lives filled with rage and aggression which they took out conveniently on the hapless students. Corporal punishment was the rule. Often what they supposedly taught, the matter went from the book of the teacher to the book of the student without going through the heads of either. In this river of indifference merged many noble teachers who loved, cajoled and pushed us to perform to the best of our ability. They encouraged us to learn not merely to gather information but to transform lives.

I grew up believing that we are supported and assisted in our lives by teachers, doctors, political leaders, priests, family members and friends.

One by one the icons began to fall.
The first were about half of the teachers, as I realised that they were not really interested in our  education but merely passing time between managing their sad personal lives filled with rage and aggression which they took out conveniently on the hapless students. Corporal punishment was the rule. Often what they supposedly taught, the matter went from the book of the teacher to the book of the student without going through the heads of either. In this river of indifference merged many noble teachers who loved, cajoled and pushed us to perform to the best of our ability. They encouraged us to learn not merely to gather information but to transform lives.

The second set to fall were the priests;
Every time we went for prayers at school itself or to our various places of worship, the various priests and  religious leaders practicesed nothing of what they preached to us. At school should we even think of straying of the straight and narrow path they would beat the hell out of us. Unfortunately they planted more hell than heaven in us. They molested small children sexually and physically.

As we finished our education and started working for a living we had to get things done by ourselves the government , its officials and people like policemen went from the realm of heros to the depths of villains;
These folks taught us very quickly that they do not work for the people but they are in fact our masters. We are expected to grovel in front of them for everything and to accept shoddy responses and support whenever it was given. The image of the parental protection and coverage that we expect from our own government was nowhere to be seen.

Parents and relatives;
Depending on what stage you are and how families exist and integrate the greatest circus is at or near home . Everyone grows up with the idea that their parents are perfect. It is easier to accept great weaknesses in strangers and even tolerate it but we cannot accept even the minor shortcomings or transgressions in our parents and relatives.
The circus is even more colourful because Indian families are close knit and interact at rather high levels even in urban spaces.  I was lucky to wake up to the weakness in my family very late having spent most of time away from home in boarding schools and at hostels in college.

Doctors;
We grew up with the idea that doctors served humanity very nobly by healing the sick and saving lives. Unfortunately the image has changed very dramatically and doctors are now seen as bloodsucking money hungry people. They prescribe medicines simply because they get a hefty commission from pharmacutical companies. At a drop of the hat they send us for numerous tests at various facilities and laborotaries  not so much as to gather data or to rule out problems but to get a 50% kick back on tests done by these labs and centres.  Luckily for us our family has been blessed with being associated with good doctors who prescribe medicines with reluctance and rarely ask us to get tests done.

Iconic organisations;
While growing up I marveled at some organisations. I promised myself that when I grew up I wanted to be like some of them and their captains. I started interacting with many of them in business and in various trade bodies and my God! up close many were simply nothing like their publicly projected images. Many behaved cheap, petty and selfish and this trait was seen in that of their organisation and their officers.

As my brother Parvinder once told me on a rather depressing day, "Life is nothing but the death of your heros one by one"

To Abandon Society

 Alone we come into and alone we shall leave this world.

What we do in the intervening period is what we call, 'life'.

Individual life is our insignificant participation in this collective and glorious dance of the universe.

However, we who consider ourselves as an intellectually and philosophically evolved species, are unable to accept the reality, that in the larger scheme of things we are inconsequential. 

Biologically speaking, the instinct of every species is to survive, find mates, procreate and ensure the healthy survival of our offspring and hence our genes. This fundamental instinct drives all our behaviour, which leads us to seek to dominate others.

To satiate our ego we manufacture all sorts of ideas and undertake numerous quests, to appear to ourselves and to others, that we do matter. That we have taken birth for a special reason and therefore acquired the right to dominate others.

We enter into society at birth but progress through it by our actions. We are constantly seeking to rise in the hierarchy of our societies. The objectives being to survive, attract the best and most suitable of mates and ensure survival of our offspring.

The individual needs society and society thrives upon the individuals who populate it. Both of whom are also intertwined in a symbiotic relationship with nature and our environment. 

Cursed by modernity, we may have forgotten that we must not disrespect our symbiotic relationship with both society and nature. To respect meaning to take only what we need for our survival and needs, eventually returning back to society and nature all we have taken from them.

Eventually our spirit will abandon even our body and merge back into the ocean from which we have emerged. Before that we will consciously or unconsciously abandon all that defines us in society, our possessions, our status, our strengths, our relationships, etc. 

After a brief life, each individual will one day willingly or unwillingly abandon society, meaning we will abandon society or society will abandon us. 

The difference is in the former we choose, and in the latter society chooses.  No matter what the story of each individual is, this end chapter is common to every life.

If we abandon society consciously we will be content and peaceful. If we cling to society, life will one day agonisingly wrench it away from us. This is the nature of existence.

Often associates, friends and relatives complain about my lack of attachment to things and relationships. But it is not deliberate or even conscious, it just is the dropping out of society. I suppose this is good because it is the gradual embracing of the inevitable, my gradual abandonment of society as I have known it.

By sharing and not bothering about receiving, I feel that the more I abandon society and material things, the greater grows my spiritual wealth. It's a strange but peaceful phase of life, where I explore and examine my learning,  experiences and wonders that I have collected in my brief life.

We create our own 'realities'.

 During the war in 1948, American ambassador to the U.N. Warren Austin called upon the Arabs and Jews to settle their differences 'like good Christians'.

The ambassador was sincere but trapped within his own 'reality' that the only faith in the world was Christianity. As a result he was promptly ignored.

____________________

To survive we all create for ourselves a paradigm. Our paradigm of life being a set of references of how, where, when, why we should do and not do, what we like or dislike, who are our friends, enemies, what is healthy, toxic, safe, dangerous etc. This paradigm is our reality.

Unfortunately most people do not construct their own reality, it is handed over to us by others in society and most people simply accept and follow.

Reality, however is multi-dimensional, and includes aspects such as family, religion, country, community, race, gender, profession, social status, relationship, love, marriage, friendship, etc.

Typically to keep the flock together, leaders political, religious  etc. instil in followers the reality, that those who belong to another community, country,  religion or organisation are enemies. They are strictly forbidden from interacting with others, lest they influence their followers and give birth to other thoughts and ideas. So fearful and fragile is our reality that we blindly cling and defend it to the death or readily seek to destroy others.

That is why it is said by wise men through the ages that 'travelling makes smart people wise and fools worse'.

Those who are smart and travel with open minds and hearts discover other realities, they transcend their initial fears thus becoming wiser and stronger.

Foolish are those who are close minded and stone hearted and they are always insecure. Being fearful and feeling threatened they learn little or nothing because all they can do is seek reinforcement of their existing reality. They become fanatical with little or no tolerance for things that do not conform to their reality.  Fanaticism of any kind is unhealthy, threatening both, individuals and society.

Typically leaders fear change and change agents which can give rise to revolutions and threaten the grasp of leaders on their followers. They want one reality for everyone and will go to great extremes to impose their 'realities'. Awakened individuals discover other realities and can stir up  trouble and upset the status quo. Thus weak regimes and religions are fearful. They oppose education, experimentation (physical, emotional or intellectual) and always restrict access to information.

Leaders are expected to guide people and lead society towards achieving prosperity, well being, happiness, etc. However when leadership becomes corrupt etc. they build, mirrors their nature. Unless the society itself is rooted in strong, healthy values and traditions the leadership can easily conjure up harmful realities.

Sure, if there is no order than there will be chaos, there must be rules in society. Rules however should be born out of respect and understanding for the system and others rather than out of ignorance and fear.

When societies have made sudden and dramatic changes in their reality due to physical, intellectual and financial occupation of their societies, we observe great turmoil within society and individuals. The further and faster a society drifts from its roots and traditions, the more unsettling it is for both individuals and society. 

Individuals can adopt new realities much quicker than society. So we see this great conflict between modernity and tradition. This is the great responsibility of families and all pillars of society to find that balance.

The pillars of society are Gurus and Masters, teachers, healers, doctors, media, members of the legal, political, religious, business, financial, etc. communities. Then there is also the law and order machinery, government administration, the armed forces, etc. These pillars who are all charged with the care and welfare of society are now increasingly failing to discharge their responsibilities or manipulating them at great cost to society.

If these pillars of society responsible for the well being and prosperity of society maintain their integrity and subordinate their personal needs to the needs of society, these societies will flourish and the individuals will have a better chance of being happy and successful.

Without being anchored in values, opened eyed but with closed minds modern man today it seems is besieged from all sides, by corruption, and exploitation.

Complicated laws, rules and procedures, rituals are the order of the day. If the robber does not get you then the legal system will, if the trader does not then the professional will skin you. If the devil lets you escape the priest will capture you.

We humans can survive only if we can construct a better world. Alas it seems we have lost all will and ability to change ourselves or our world. This possibly explains why we are obsessed with the promise of a better existence in the next or after life.

Each individual has his or her own paradigm and therefore our realities are bound to be different.

It is futile to blame or force others, if we want change then it begins with changing ourselves and respecting the realities of others.

Explaining birds and bees to Western children nowadays.

 

A friend from  America wrote and in a humorous manner  complained about parenting challenges they were facing.

It seems that the only way we humans can handle the truth is if it is delivered with wit. Otherwise the public will attack the bearer of the truth. He said,

"It's tough for American parents nowadays. We have to be able to explain the birds and the bees…. The bees and the bees… The birds and the birds…. The birds that used to be bees…. The bees that used to be birds…. The birds that look like bees… Plus bees that look like birds but still got a stinger"

                                                              _______________

The world is following in the footsteps of Western democracies also known as 'mature democracies'. Here leaders in an attempt to get every vote possible rampantly indulge in identity politics. 

So instead of uniting the people behind great purpose and meaningful living. They keep on dividing the population into smaller and smaller segments and subsegments. The politicians promise to accept more and more demands even the absurd from each segment and then to appease them pass laws forcing the majority to accept these unjust, unequal, illogical, unnatural and morally repulsive laws catering to each segment.

The government in power may indulge in the fantasies and quirks etc. of most groups particularly  the noisy and aggressive ones and land up catering to the demands of each sub group. But the general population are not obliged to. Not the majority, not other societies, communities that hold differing belief and value systems.

Sexual deviancy and homosexuality exists in all living species. Yet in many societies particularly Christian and Muslim societies homosexuality is a sin and punishable by death. A movement started in the predominantly Christian West to prevent the persecution of Lesbians and Gays (homosexuals) in their societies by the majority and granting them protection and a legal right to openly practice their preferred sexual orientation. 

At first the move was lauded, now protection and privileges have been extended further to include bisexuals, transexuals, queers and ever other form of sexual deviation and now in an ever expanding list known as LGBTQ+. This is destroying the fabric of society.

The great Chinese master Lao Tzu taught rulers, "A wise ruler keeps the minds of his people empty and their bellies full."  This is the danger from affluence, for the people move to focus on the trivial, and the constant pursuit of entertainment and pleasures forgetting to work sincerely, maintain strong social and familial bonds, and contribute to a prosperous and harmonious world.  

One cannot but wonder that a society so dominated by, and fixated on gender and sexuality issues has got to be  a decadent society. Such a society is inherently weak and ripe for implosion and certain collapse.

Sexual deviancy is observed in all species of animals and plants, in creation. In civilisations like in India, usually deviancy is considered as natural and hence tolerated, even accepted. Deviants may be  sometimes mocked but rarely persecuted.

Take for example, 'transexuals' and 'transvestites', in India they have participated openly, actively and respectfully in Indian society for millennia. They hold public office and operate their own businesses. This is the evolution of a civilisation and not an imposition of 'minority groups', by governments upon the majority.

No two individuals are identical. Each one of us is unique, worthy of existing with dignity as long as they do not trouble or harm others. But do we have to worship the LGBTQ+ community or place them on pedestals? We can merely consider them as exceptions, but not special nor privileged. When they form part of the main stream they become relatively harmless people while retaining a high capacity to enrich and contribute both to themselves and to society.

The people of democratic societies in the West, can make their choices as they like and it is their prerogative.  However the obsession with gender and sexuality glorified under the banner of freedom, by the West is very unhealthy, retrograde and toxic. 

I ask, 'do other countries and societies with their own but differing history, unique culture and value systems, have to foolishly and blindly copy the West or have them imposed by the West on other countries and societies?'

Definitely not.

We can daily meet the Divine

 If we examine our modern and urban lives, we discover that we are surrounded by artificiality. Almost everything we use, consume or interact with is man made. Except for family, friends, and playtime almost all our interactions with others is transactional and hence dominated by a sense of artificiality.

The greater the pervasiveness of artificiality the less the possibility for us to realise happiness.

I spend considerable time in my small terrace garden and I realise that if look with awareness we can see nature and life pulsating and humming in all its glory and power. 

I observe the tender shoots emerging and the flower buds beginning to blossom right before my eyes. 

I see and hear the birds that chirp, the Sunbird's hover and the Myna's hop, the fluttering butterflies, the gecko shooting its long tongue out to ambush and gobble up an unsuspecting insect. The spider ceaselessly spinning its web. Those who have pets know the priceless emotion of their nuzzling upto us simply to love and be loved.

These experiences bring us closer to nature and touch pleasure chords deep within our being.

In those moments, of quiet solitude without phones and papers, where we just watch, listen to and breathe in absorbing life, we feel at peace and happy. These peaceful moments within our chaotic and tightly scheduled lives can and do have a powerful impact in rejuvenating us.

Just like sleep and physical rest refresh our body and mind, our meeting with nature rejuvenates our emotional being, our spirit.

The divine exists in every thing in nature, big and small. To acknowledge both our own and their existence, to respect their place and time in the greater scheme of life, is to be at peace and realise happiness.

We will discover that that this emotional rejuvenation will make achievement and success easier and its taste sweeter.

Not complexity but in simplicity lies success.

Not in the artificial but in nature we will find peace and happiness.

We do not have to offer bribes, go on pilgrimages or to perform penances to meet the Divine.

We can daily meet the Divine, wherever we may be.

God, Men, Women, Dogs and Cats

 "Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide dogs with food, water, shelter and affection, they will think you are God.

Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realise that, if you provide cats with food, water and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are God."

~ Christopher Hitchens

In that sense, the nature of men are like dogs, and women are similar to cats.

Men like dogs are easily manipulated and managed by those to whom they give their trust and love.

A man's needs are basic and pretty straightforward. He needs space, to be left alone to do his 'thing', whatever his 'thing' may be.

A man loves it when he is given space to pursue his hobbies, passions etc. well fed and preferably gets sex on a regular basis. Under such circumstances a man will think of the woman as a Goddess.

Most men find women too complex, unsuccessfully spending a lifetime trying to understand women.

Like a cat, a woman is difficult to understand and impossible to discipline. A woman just like a cat has a mind of her own, doing pretty much what she wants when she wants.

Women appear to behave irrationally and independently, but actually women are programmed biologically with one main rational motive, to ensure their own survival and that of their offspring.

A woman expects to be wooed, fussed over, loved, not only cared for but also protected, pampered etc. Never satisfied with her man's capabilities, achievements, looks, behaviour etc. a woman expects her man to keep on improving.

A woman almost always complains, how she has the most difficult job in the world, is discriminated against, how life, society and her family are all unfair to her. Inspite of the moaning she feels she is God.

I practice what Oscar Wilde once remarked,

"A woman is not to be understood, she only has to be loved."

So you men stop trying to understand your woman and go out there and simply love her.