Passionate Thinking, Passionate Listening, And Passionate Doing

Passionate Thinking, Passionate Listening, And Passionate Doing

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

Winston Churchill         

In all my seminars the first question that I ask is—how does change happen? By listening or by thinking or by doing? Most of the participants say by doing. Let us make one thing clear—just by taking actions or making efforts we cannot achieve the target. It will be like arocking chair. We will act but we will remain in the same place. If listening and thinking are not involved, then making all kinds of efforts will not
fetch any results. There are many people who think a lot but never take any action.

I have met many people in large cities who were aware of happenings of Russian and Chinese economies but were not aware of the basic needs of their own families. How does it help an individual and a country if this discussion has no impact on their decisions? Unless you keep on thinking, listening, and congruently taking actions, nothing will change. For shaping your destiny you have to think, listen, and act congruently. Many people spend years in thinking and do not take any actions. Even in the corporate world many companies waste a lot of time and money on meetings but they fail to translate their efforts into reality. In one of my seminars, a very senior executive came up to me and asked, “Can you get me a job where there will be some work to do rather than just attending meetings?” Such people really want to work rather than waste time in gossiping in the name of meeting.

 Now the question is, who will decide what is opportunity? My father used to say that every individual gets a chance at least once to show his strengths. An opportunity is a chance unless it is converted into luck by some kind of strategy. It never happens unless we start with massive action. At times we have to eliminate something to achieve and shape our destiny. Just look at this story:

Once upon a time a very famous king told a sculptor that he wanted to see how an idol was made from stone. The sculptor started cutting stone from all sides right in front of the king. After some time the king asked him why was he  destroying  the  stone? “I  had  asked  you  to  construct an idol and not to destroy the entire piece of stone”, he said. The sculptor replied politely, “Sir, I do not make idols. A beautiful idol is hidden inside this piece of stone. I just have to eliminate
the unwanted part of the stone and subsequently the idol will emerge.”