October 10, 2008 by Hitesh Parashar
Amidst the financial crisis that this world is going through, it was a great feeling to go out and spread some smiles at Stanford. Here are some stories from this exercise that we carried out at Stanford as a part of the 3rd Annual Giving Marketplace conference. It was a lot of fun and in the true spirit of CharityFocus, we created quite a stir at Stanford that evening. ☺
17 different organizations from all over the world (China, Spain, Germany, South Africa, Argentina, Colombia, India and the US) got together for four days to share and learn from each other and hear from the experts in the field of giving marketplaces, micro-investment and micro-finance. The organizations represented are the likes of Kiva, Wokai, GiveMeaning, HelpArgentina, GlobalGiving, GiveIndia, Rang De and DonorsChoose.
Pawan and Lloyd suggested a fun exercise, which would help this group bond with each other and also kick off this conference with the spirit of giving and service. They wanted me to organize this exercise CharityFocus style.
We carried out this “Kindness Challenge” during the first orientation evening where people just landed jet-lagged and tired. This was a spirited group of around 30 entrepreneurs - founders and key players working with these Giving Marketplaces. We divided them into random groups of 3 each. These people most likely did not know each other and some of them were new to the Stanford Campus. We gave them Smile Cards and a map of the Stanford campus. We then challenged them to go out, roam around in the campus and do small and anonymous acts of kindness.
They spent a couple of hours tagging people all around the campus with Smile Cards. At the end of the evening we sat together for a 2-minute silence. We then shared our experiences with each other. There were many interesting stories and deep realizations with this simple exercise. Here are some of them:
• One of the participants ended up singing a song to a newly wed couple and made their day in an unexpected way.
• Stanford was looking much cleaner last evening because a majority of the groups decided to pick trash and clean the campus.
• There was a formal dinner happening at the lawn of the Old Union building. A couple of the groups decided to help the waiters and served the people dining over there – KarmaKitchen style.
• One homeless person at the campus was so moved after talking to a participant that he proposed to marry her ☺.
• One participant from Spain said – “I did not know what to do with my 2 minutes of silence. It was the first time that I got 2 minutes to reflect on an exercise like this.”
• A group got some flowers and started searching for loving couples to share these flowers with. After a couple of false tries they finally found a couple that was very happy receiving those flowers.
• Some participants just decided to buy coffee for Stanford students.
They all shared the challenge that they faced with a deadline of a couple of hours and when they are “on a mission” to do good deeds with an awareness and consciousness. They mentioned the difficulty in finding “people in need” and not be intrusive in this seemingly all-happy part of the world. Some groups also shared how some people start looking at the act of kindness as something weird and strange but they quickly open up after getting a hang of what’s happening to them.
We then gave them a plenty of Smile Cards so they could keep this spirit alive during this conference. Also, the incentive at the end of this contest was a bunch of smile cards that these organizations could take with them to their respective countries and spread smiles wherever they go.
Posted in Balance, Giving | No Comments »
April 19, 2008 by Hitesh Parashar
What constitutes Gandhian Mindset. I found these words and had to capture them in a brief post. These summarize Gandhian Mindset very well -
- Keen observation
- Selflessness
- Patient Determination
- In-Sync Emotions
- Critical Thinking
- Decisive Persistence
Posted in Leadership, Life | Tagged Gandhi, Leadership | No Comments »
October 17, 2007 by Hitesh Parashar
This is an interesting short-story that gives a perspective for entrepreneurs’ risk taking abilities.
A long while ago, a great warrior faced a situation which made it necessary for him to make a decision which insured his success on the battlefield. He was about to send his armies against a powerful foe, whose men outnumbered his own. He loaded his soldiers into boats, sailed to the enemy’s country, unloaded soldiers and equipment, then gave the order to burn the ships that had carried them. Addressing his men before the first battle, he said, “You see the boats going up in smoke. That means that we cannot leave these shores alive unless we win! We now have no choice - we win - or we perish!“
They won. [From Napolean Hill's classic book]
Exceptional leaders (from the book “WHAT MAKES jack welch JACK WELCH”) had experienced exceptional personal growth in the following five critical areas:
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Appetite to lead
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Character
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The confidence to seek challenges
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Ability to engage and inspire others
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and most importantly CONFRONT RISK.
Posted in Balance, Book, Coaching, Decision Making, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Life, Perspective | 1 Comment »
June 20, 2007 by Hitesh Parashar
I interviewed Bill George, author of best-seller books “Authentic Leadership” and “True North”. Bill is not just a great author and a leader himself, he is a wonderful coach and a teacher too. Here are the excerpts of this brief interview -
Hitesh: What is “True North” and how does it apply in the context of a business student or a budding entrepreneur who is just starting on a leadership journey?
Bill George: “True North” refers to the deeply held beliefs, values and passions. It is how you see yourself as a human being at a fundamental level. As a business student, it is easy to get lured to the seductions of the job search. It is easy to follow the herd and live the expectations of someone else. At this stage it becomes all the more important for you to discover your real self and find your sweet spot.
The book “True North” provides a framework because that allows you to create your own direction. Instead of other cook-books on leadership that provide the “10 qualities that make a great leader”, “True North” provides an individual approach and a framework with exercises. YOU have to figure out yourself your own values and point of differentiation.
Hitesh: How does one “frame” or “reframe” one’s life story? Is framing not by definition twisting the truth and thus not authentic? How can you have flexible leadership styles and still be authentic? Please help explain these contradictions.
Bill George: Good questions and I wrestle with these myself all the time. If you start taking these recommendations from the book to an extreme, that could be a problem.
We all see this world through a certain lens. e.g. If one grew up in a fundamentalist religious family and later on got exposed to multi-religious or atheist view points, then that opens up the mind at a much deeper level. Oprah Winfrey came to a realization at the age of 36 that she is not a “bad girl” as she always viewed herself as. She reframed her childhood abuse experiences by tracing her actions there and came out a much stronger person.
The flexibility referred in the book is the tradeoffs in your values that sometimes you have to make. These are tough decision moments where you have to make decisions like layoffs and sometimes have to reprioritize your values. The leadership “style” is a different thing than your authentic self. e.g. If the situation demands quick decisions then a consensus leadership style will not fit and you will have to adapt.
Hitesh: Any words of wisdom for the younger budding leaders?
Bill George: Get into the game. Do not watch it from the sidelines. Don’t hold back. Take the risk of failing to learn a lot.
[Please note that Bill's comments are not verbatim and are based on the notes that I took. This was not a recorded interview]
Posted in Balance, Book, Coaching, Decision Making, Entrepreneurship, Interview, Leadership, Life, Professional, Spiritual, Venture Capital | 2 Comments »
June 12, 2007 by Hitesh Parashar
Here is a simple sketch of Buddha as I “see” it. Just looking at this sketch brings so many different emotions and thoughts. Sketching Buddha was very peaceful.
This is the fourth sketch in my series of simple “starter” sketches. The other three were Baby Hanuman, Flower Vase and A View from Up Here.
Posted in Art, Coaching, Creativity, Drawing, Fun, Happiness, Life, Personal, Perspective, Sketch, Spiritual | 5 Comments »
June 6, 2007 by Hitesh Parashar
I read Randy Komisar’s “The Monk and the Riddle“. I just could not stop when I started reading it. By the time I finished reading it, the clock struck 4 AM. I think it was a night well spent.
Randy Komisar is a Venture Capitalist with Kleiner Perkins. This book tells Randy’s evolution (thus the word Monkey in this post’s title) and search for his passion. Autobiographies are generally boring but Randy does a great job by weaving his life nuggets with a great story of an entrepreneur, Lenny.
“We will put the Fun back in FUNerals”, says Lenny. He is trying to sell an internet business called funerals.com to Randy. This story is set in year 2000, when the whole world was going online - from pets and groceries to well funerals and caskets. I could relate to this story since a number of my friends were pitching get-rich-quick-internet-business-plans those days (and with Web 2.0 they are doing it all over again).
Lenny is a vulnerable soul like many of us who go through life in two phases. In the first phase we do what we HAVE to do so that in the second phase we can do what we LOVE to do. Randy’s point is to start doing what we LOVE to do NOW. He asks us to not live a life plan which is always deferred till we pay our dues. How practical is it?
Randy does a good job explaining the importance of following our passion, but he lacks concrete steps and examples to find out what that passion is. That search for passion is a very individual matter and requires a lot of personal effort. Bill George’s “True North” does a great job providing a framework to search for that passion. “True North” picks up where “The Monk and the Riddle” ends.
This book is a must read for anybody who thinks business is all about the bottom-line and chasing money. It will convince you to look at business and your professional life through a new lens.
Posted in Balance, Book, Bottom of Pyramid, Coaching, Creativity, Decision Making, Entrepreneurship, Happiness, HoMe, Leadership, Life, Personal, Professional, Psychology, Review, Spiritual, Venture Capital | 4 Comments »
June 2, 2007 by Hitesh Parashar
Gates and Jobs shared a stage and it was quite a show (better than a Bollywood thriller).
One thing that is quickly evident from this – Jobs comes across as a person who still has a lot to prove while Gates looks deeply satisfied like a Sadhu. While Gates looks like entering Sanyas , Jobs is still in the prime of his Grahastha Ashram. Again, there are a number of personal reasons (I won’t go there - Read iCon) that one could highlight why Jobs is still so thirsty.
Jobs’ thirst is doing a lot of good for customers. Jobs has this beautiful left-brain-right-brain conflict going on that creates these stellar products. Go Jobs Go!
Another thing that came out from this was something that Jobs joked about: both of them being dinosaurs in this new Googly age. These guys will not be extinct anytime soon but their era is not what will define the next 20 years. iPhone is great but is that all? Surface Computing might not be the next killer device. This “Post-PC devices” era might not be dominated by Google either. Where is that next Google, Microsoft and Apple?
I think this picture says it all -
Posted in Balance, Creativity, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Life, Personal, Professional, Psychology, Spiritual | No Comments »
June 1, 2007 by Hitesh Parashar
Here is the third post in my series of sketches. The first one was the view from my patio and the second one was Baby Hanuman. This one is a flower vase that I sketched just before it was broken by accident. It was good that I captured it in some form before we lost it.
I really like this quote about giving - “Smell remains on the hands of someone who gives a rose”. It is in line with what Karma Kitchen is doing in Berkeley. I will write a separate detailed post about Karma Kitchen. I went there with my family last Saturday. It was an amazing experience and a great feast. The check total at the end of a tasty meal was $0.00. Amazing, isn’t it?
Posted in Art, Balance, Coaching, Creativity, Drawing, Fun, Happiness, HoMe, Leadership, Life, Personal, Perspective, Psychology, RandomThoughts, Sketch, Spiritual | 1 Comment »
May 29, 2007 by Hitesh Parashar
Here is the next sketch that I tried. This is the second one in my series of posted sketches - first one was a view from my patio. This one is a Baby Hauman sketch based on Indian animation film Hanuman. Pardon some of the shade which is because of scanner issues. More sketches to follow.
Posted in Art, Balance, Bottom of Pyramid, Creativity, Drawing, Entrepreneurship, Fun, Happiness, Leadership, Life, Personal, Perspective, Sketch, Spiritual | 3 Comments »
May 28, 2007 by Hitesh Parashar
I recently started sketching again (after 18 years). It had been a great experience.
Here is one of the first sketches that I came up with. It is a view from the patio of my townhouse in the University Village. I know it is far from perfect. It is a beginning (restart actually). I will post more of these sketches to show my evolution as a sketcher. I will appreciate any feedback from pros on blogosphere.
Posted in Art, Creativity, Drawing, Entrepreneurship, Fun, Happiness, Leadership, Life, Personal, Perspective, Sketch | 4 Comments »
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