My Writings
Reflections on Life and LeadershipGet Started
Emotional Intelligence
- How to Deal with Your Emotions In The Workplace And Make Them Work?
- Why Our Emotions Can Be Overwhelming? Learn 5 Steps to Deal with Them Effectively
- How To (and not to) Deal with an Emotional Employee?
- The Role and Importance of Emotions in Our Professional and Personal Lives
- Discover 10 Myths and Realities about Emotions, And Change Your Life?
- Do You Know Your Emotional Triggers? And What To Do When You Are Triggered?
- How Can We Overcome Negative Emotions And Create Joy And Fulfilment?
Conflict Resolution
- Understanding Conflicts Better – The First Step to Conflict Resolution
- What Not To Do When Conflicts Happen?
- How to Prepare for a Conflict Resolution Conversation?
- Eight Practical Tips for Making A Conflict Resolution Conversation More Effective
- Focus on Interests, Not on Positions – And Make Every Conversation More Productive
- What To Do If You Can’t Achieve Consensus in a Conflict?
- There Are Only Perspectives, No Truth. And Five Perspectives You Can Use Anytime
Most Recent Articles
The 7 Most Powerful Investments You Can Make. They Are Not What You Think
What comes to your mind when you are asked about the most powerful investments you should make? Is it stocks? Is it bonds? Or a new house? Real estate is the safest investment, you might have heard. If you ask me, I would say, neither! Over the course of my life, with its few successes and numerous failures, I have come to see another type of...
Why Unreasonable Goals Are Better For Your Growth And Success?
Have you ever achieved something you aimed for still felt like "meh"? Do you feel "empty" on the inside despite being successful by usual standards? Here is how to achieve meaningful success by overcoming our deep psychological need to play it safe. If you have ever done any writing on a computer, you would have relied on copy and paste. It's...
51 Powerful Questions to Ask in Different Situations, and The Art of Asking Powerful Questions
After leading teams for the last decade and a half, if there is one skill that has made the biggest difference in my ability to improve individual and team performance, it has been my ability to Ask Powerful Questions. This is not to say that other skills like listening, emotional intelligence, and conflict resolution are not important - they...
Why Anger Is The Most Compassionate Human Emotion? And 3 Ways to Use it Productively?
“Anger is the deepest form of compassion,” poet and philosopher David Whyte wrote. Most people do not associate anger with compassion. In fact, at first glance, it looks and feels like the exact opposite of compassion. But as with most emotions, the more attention we pay, the more aware we can be of what our anger is trying to tell us. In this...
Why Our Emotions Can Be Overwhelming? Learn the Neuroscience behind Emotions, and 5 Steps to Deal with Them Effectively
We all have been in situations where our emotions have overwhelmed us. We all have done something in the heat of the moment that we regretted later. In such situations, our emotions can affect our ability to think and act rationally. We find ourselves unable to think clearly in such a state, and every passing second feels like an added burden....
Discover 10 Myths and Realities about Emotions, and How That Will Turbo Charge Your Emotional Intelligence And Change Your Life?
Improve your communication skills by discovering how science has busted these 10 myths about emotions. Tap into the deep psyche of human emotions and stop them from holding you back in life. Read this article and understand how it can help you become a more empathetic colleague or leader. Emotions can be a touchy topic to talk about. Because of...
Do You Know the People Behind Your Colleagues? And 5 Reasons Why It Matters
I stood next to my car door, stunned and frozen in place. I had just walked out of my workplace to leave when a stranger walked up to me and casually handed me a large, white envelope. Divorce papers. My children were waiting at a friend’s house for me to fetch them. My mother was in the hospital, and I’d promised to visit that day. I also had a...
Give Yourself Permission To Focus on the Journey Instead of the Destination. Here’s How It Can Fill Your Days With Joy and Satisfaction?
During a 3200 meter race in 2012, Arden McMath collapsed due to exhaustion. Instead of continuing past her and finishing one spot ahead, fellow runner Meghan Vogel stopped to give Arden a hand. Meghan draped Arden's arm over her shoulders, and supported her the last 50 meters to the finish line. When they crossed, Meghan ensured Arden finished...
15 Timeless and Valuable Lessons Learned After 15 Years of Working Professionally
I started to work professionally in 2005, and very soon it will be 15 years. Over this decade and a half, it has been a wild journey working in over 8 different companies across 2 continents, including 2 companies that I started. I have seen ups and downs and worked with people and teams from all over the world. I also dabbled in social activism...
Why We Must Be Careful Not To Choke On Your Thoughts? And How Our Thoughts Are Different From Deliberate Thinking?
"It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?” — Henry David Thoreau Have you ever found yourself lying awake at night trying to get some sleep, only to discover that you are caught in a seemingly endless loop of random thoughts? “I've got that big presentation so I should probably leave early...
Can We Walk in Another Person’s Shoes? Why Empathy Might Be The Most Important Human Ability?
On a recent archaeological dig in Man Bac in what is now northern Vietnam, a team of researchers made a remarkable discovery. While unearthing the remains of some Stone Age people who were buried 4,000 years ago, they discovered one young man who had been placed in his grave differently from the others: he was curled in the fetal position. It...
The Ultimate Guide To Interpersonal Communication & Difficult Conversations
This guide contains everything you need to know about dealing with interpersonal communication - conflict, disagreements, and other difficult conversations - be it at work or outside it. How to listen well. Why conflicts are natural? What to do, and what not to do when dealing with conflicts? And what to do if nothing else works? With that, here...
How to Communicate When the Going Gets Tough, and Things Get Messy?
The world is unpredictable and full of chaos and change. Many things can cause worry and tension in an organization. Mergers & acquisitions, leadership wrangles, controversies, and pandemics such as Covid-19 are just some of the many things that can cause a crisis within the organization. The true test of leadership occurs when the...
How To Get Rid of Impostor Syndrome and Make Confidence a Habit
Bryan, an 18-year-old, graduated high school at the top of his class. He then headed off to attend Columbia University. Now, Bryan feels petrified. He is convinced that the admissions department at Columbia has made a terrible mistake. He feels he does not deserve to be in such a prestigious university. Bryan is one of the many among us who is...
Nonverbal Communication – How To Listen To What Is Not Being Said?
“When the eyes say one thing, and the tongue another, a practiced man relies on the language of the first.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson In recent years, technology has brought in a big change in our ways of communication. With the best tech devices and the most vibrant social media platforms around us, there is so much to watch and listen to. Still, we...
5 Lessons From Simon Sinek’s Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action
Simon Sinek, the author of this book is a motivational speaker and someone who looks at the world with great optimism. His Ted-talk is the third most viewed talk. Through this book and interactions with the public, he actively encourages you to think beyond the obvious, to go back to the root cause of starting your business or joining a job. He...
Daniel Goleman Reveals in Social Intelligence The Deep Impact Of Relationships On Everything
We are all social beings. The quality of our interactions in society affects our quality of life. The stronger social connections one forms, the happier they seem to be. Social Intelligence can lead to a socially stronger and less stressful society. Intelligence is of many types. However, unlike IQ (that measures mainly cognitive...
How to Have Career Development Conversations With Your Employees? or How to Care for Your People?
One of the most fundamental human needs we all share is to make meaningful progress in what we are doing. At the workplace this means knowing how does the road ahead looks, and how can we learn and grow to the next milestone on that road. If you lead people, you can coach and guide your people on the path of future success by having what I term...
How to be Emotionally Intelligent with Written Communication at the Workplace
Emotions play a big part in our communication in the workplace, either face-to-face or written. The way we express our emotions requires us to be sensitive to others’ emotions. In the same way, we also need to be sensitive to our own emotions and values and respond accordingly. The mastery of our own emotions is a skill that can help us become...
Do You Know your Emotional Triggers? And What To Do When You Are Emotionally Triggered?
“Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power” - Lao Tzu I am sure we’ve all experienced a sudden emotional reaction. It happens when our thinking starts to become clouded, and feelings (of fear, anger, or sadness) overwhelm us. While it’s not always possible to avoid emotional outbursts, there are always better ways of...