A few days back, I was winding up a workshop – doing the concluding discussion of the day (what we call as the “Final Debrief”). This was in the beautiful hill station of Darjeeling.The client was a team fromone of our leading newspapers.
The activity we just concluded was an interesting, customized activity called, “The Incredible Race”, which involved teams travelling to different places within Darjeeling city, cracking clues and negotiating challenges.For each clue & challenge successfully done – the team could earn points. It was pitched as a competition between the different smaller teams we had divided them into. So, imagine our surprise when one of the teams came to me with a blank answer sheet! This was a first – I have seen low performing teams but never a team that has come with a blank answer sheet! Presuming it was some sort of mistake, I asked the team leader if they wanted some extra time to fill the sheet up, so that they could be a part of the competition too. To my complete amazement, she added – with a warm smile, “It is not a mistake, we have left the sheet blank intentionally”.
“But why so?”, I asked her, quite bemused myself.
“Because”, she said, “We were not running for scores.We were out there for fun and we had a lot of it. We went to all the places, spent some quality time out there, we got great snaps, ate what we liked. And here we are as a team which had the most fun today”
This was quite in contrast to the kind of teams we happen to meet.Most of the times,the competitive streak in people ensures that it’s a fierce competition between all the teams and everybody wants to win, quite desperately. However, as I thought about it, I realized that she had made a fine point. When we briefed the teams before setting them off on the city race, there were 3 objectives that we had shared with the teams.
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To score as many points as possible
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To have as much fun as possible
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To come back safe and healthy
Though this team missed on the first one, they definitely scored full marks in the remaining two parameters. Ironically, the truth wasthat for all the other teams, while we checked on the points they scored, we really did not have any objective criteria to measure how they did on the second and third parameter. Why?
Because it is difficult to measure happiness and sometimes also difficult to measure health and safety. They are subjective criteria.
A smile crossed my face, as I thought about it. This team had knowingly or unknowingly, touched upon a very important question of our lives: “What are we running for?” While the rest of the teams were running for points to win the race – this team ran a different race – for maximizing fun and their experience of Darjeeling!
Before we move ahead I ask you to close your eyes and ask yourself the same question: What are YOU running for? (Take a Minute)
You will find that most of the time the answer comes in quite a visible, objective and measurable format. Like:
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A Great pay package/Financial Freedom
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A bigger and better house
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That luxurious car that you always dreamt of
It’s not bad to have this dream; in fact it’s a great way to live life by getting what we want. However if you are only running behind such material possessions, you may get rich but you possibly may not be “wealthy”. Does that puzzle you?
I recently heard ‘Robin Sharma’ (one of the worlds highly respected leadership experts) defining wealth in 5 forms. I would like to steal this idea from him and share it here:
Wealth (as against riches) is a healthy combination of Economic Abundance, Relationship, Health, Adventure and Impact. Now lets look at them individually.
Economic Abundance is definitely meeting the financial objectives of life. Yes, there is no doubt that this is important – afterall, it’s a great feeling to live our dreams and life where we don’t need to worry too much about the cash flow everyday. However, most of us end up placing too much of importance on this one parameter – often at the cost of the other parameters. Being proactive is the best approach when it comes to money. You need to plan for it, you need to work for it – but at the end of the day you need to always remember, it is just a means to an end.
Relationship and community is one of the most desiring human needs. You don’t want to reach the top – alone. Our family and the loved ones are the ones we share our success with and we should never underestimate their importance in our lives. We should make time for family everyday. I read this recently at a Domino Pizza store, “Time spent with your Family and Friends doing nothing is a time well spent”. Do something special for them; give them a surprise on their birthday. Share a laugh every now and then. Show gratitude and say thank you for making yourlife so special by their presence.
Health is a most essential form of wealth. What’s the point of getting rich and unwell? I heard this somewhere, “Health is a crown on the head of a person, which only a sick person can see”. Which is so true! We never care for it, till we fall ill. Most of us struggle to find time for exercise. We need to look it like this: If we run our car 100 km everyday at top speed for 3 months, what will happen? It will wear out, it will need service. In the same manner, we cannot keep running our daily routines till we find time to service ourselves. Only the healthy mind can get great ideas and only a healthy person can go out and make that difference. We should eat ultra well – Eat like an athlete, because what we eat defines our energy levels. I want to end this with a famous quotation form the ‘Earl of Derby’ –
“Those who don’t find time for exercise, sooner or later will have to find time for illness”
Adventure is important to keep that spark alive in our lives. Adventure in that sense is not only about physical experiences like climbing mountains or white water rafting or bungee jumping. It is about moving out of our comfort zones, taking the risk of letting go of our age-old beliefs, changing our thought paradigms and daring to look at things differently, to explore possibilities and in the process grow as individuals, teams and organizations. Go and try out something today that you were resistant to last time. Go out and try some new dishes, or even cook them. Learn a new art. Take little risks, as it really feels awesome when you win and will give you great lessons if you don’t. A sense of Adventure will make you feel alive every day!
Contribution & Impact is the difference we make in the world we live in. Though we find ourselves surrounded with so many responsibilities, what gives real meaning to our lives is the good we do to others. There is nothing as big as leaving behind a legacy of being remembered as a generous person, a person who was kind and elevated the lives of people who came in touch with him. All great leaders have left the world a little better than they found them. It’s important to think about what impact we can bring in the society we live in – and work on this wealth a little bit everyday. As it is said, “All that goes with you when you die is the good you have done and blessings you have received”
Now I ask you to spend some time to ask yourself: Where do you stand on this wealth matrix? Are you working on all the different types or are you too busy with some individual scores? Nobody but YOU will know which areas you need to work on. Don’t wait for tomorrow, as we don’t realize when tomorrow slips to weeks and weeks slip to months.
Get wealthy and do share your feedback and comments.
Article written by:
Alok Verma is a Corporate Training Facilitator at FOCUS Adventure India who carries excellent interpersonal, communication and organizational skills with proven abilities in team management and planning.
