Transition

Jun 08
2014

Two Perspectives on Transition

Dr. Amit Nagpal, New Delhi, India, and

Dr. Janet Smith Warfield, Florida, USA

Dr. Amit Nagpal’s Perspective

Amit Nagpal (new)(cropped)

A Parting Note

Tools for Transformation (Earlier known as ‘Two Perspectives’) series is coming to a close as both Janet and I have transitioned and have developed new focuses. We have been writing this column for the past 3 years, though frequency of publishing has changed in between.

Janet and I decided to write one last blog together and then refer our readers to our new focuses. Interestingly “Two Perspectives “ which we started in May 2011, was the idea of Dr Janet. Subsequently, I have written many twin series inspired by the success of Two Perspectives (Hug and Nudge with Jennifer Sertl, USA Japan and India with Peter Sterlacci , Japan, and Uncovering our inner greatness with Michael Thallium, Spain)

Background

In simple words transition is a significant change from one state/concept/stage to another.  Since the first blog on two perspectives, I have transitioned in many ways:

From Personal Branding to Digital Storytelling. Life coaching is part of personal branding and the focus in two perspectives has been personal development (life coaching). I have transitioned to Digital Storytelling (Inspirational Storytelling of people and brand storytelling of organisations). I have ventured into offline storytelling and during the next two years, I will be taking a deeper dive, especially into different areas of storytelling in a corporate context, besides my current focus on storytelling content development for clients.

From Blogger to LinkedIn Author. I am now publishing my more formal and serious work on LinkedIn. The blog has more semi-formal work including mini-stories on wisdom/love, musings etc. Publishing on LinkedIn adds credibility to your content, besides serving a larger audience. I also expect LinkedIn to become the third largest search engine soon (after Google and Twitter) especially for professional articles. The ‘Search articles’ function of LinkedIn is likely to become more and more popular and the high Searchability of LinkedIn on Google/search engines will make it even more influential.

Transitions are necessary, time-consuming and sometimes painful.

To evolve as a human being, transition is sometimes necessary yet it is often time consuming and painful. Sometimes it is like taking a U-turn and starting from scratch again. It becomes all the more important to do sufficient reflection and weigh the pros and cons before deciding on a significant transition.

Enlarge Excel Evolve reaches 500

500 posts are considered an important landmark for a blog and also demonstrates its long journey and credibility. As a mark of honor to the series and the successful collaboration, I am publishing this blog post as 500th post on my Blog and plan to celebrate and publicize this great partnership with Janet and maybe plan an eBook at the appropriate time.

Goodbye with a heavy heart

Sometimes the transition can be expansion and little bit of tweaking and twisting rather than taking a U-turn. In my case, transition from personal branding to digital storytelling is more of an expansion and tweaking.

The only painful part of this transition is not being able to devote time and do justice to the “Two Perspectives” column. I will miss Janet and the immense learning which has been happening in my writing (and word sculpting) journey in the companionship of Janet.

Sometimes life has to go on and we have to bid goodbye to the old story with a heavy heart. Yet it is the only option to welcome a new story into life or maybe for starting a new chapter in the life story.

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Dr Amit Nagpal is Chief Inspirational Storyteller at AL Services. He is a Social Media Influencer,  Author, Speaker/Trainer & Coach. To know more, visit www.dramitnagpal.com. (His special interest and expertise lies in inspirational storytelling, anecdotes and visual storytelling.) AL Services offers content development/story writing, consulting, training and other services in the area of brand storytelling. To know more, write to amit@dramitnagpal.com
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Dr. Janet Smith Warfield’s Perspective

Dr. Janet Smith WarfieldDr. Amit Nagpal and I have been co-blogging now for three years. Our procedure has always been to agree on a topic, write our own blog without reading the other’s blog, and then post the blogs simultaneously on both of our websites.

Two different perspectives, two different writing styles, and two different bases of experience have emerged. Our topics have ranged from Dark Nights of the Soul to Tools for Transformation, from Love to Conscious Mind, from Piercing the Veil of Word Illusions to Silence.

We both like to tell stories. We both offer diagrams to illustrate our points. It has been great fun! I have learned from Amit as I believe he has learned from me.

It is now time for both of us to move on. Amit is heavily focused on developing A.L. Services, an inspirational storytelling organization, coaching deeply passionate entrepreneurs and “intrapreneurs” to share their conscious and emotionally connecting stories. You can download Amit’s free ebook I Too Want to be “A Storyteller” here.

I am heavily focused on a doctoral dissertation in Wisdom Studies with Wisdom University, as a Circle Leader in Conscious Evolution Coaching Circles, developing Vistar Circles on the West Coast of Florida and in Flat Rock, NC, and developing a Membership Site, Expand Your Consciousness.

Amit has been a wonderful, accountable, collaborative co-blogger, with a charming sense of humor. I highly respect him and encourage you to follow him and his work as he moves along his new path. You can find him at his Company Website, LinkedIn Author, and Personal Website.

I also invite you to continue to play with words, play with wisdom, and Expand Your Consciousness at my new Membership Site. There are already many pages, videos, and images to explore, with many more to be added. Many are free.

If Going Deeper interests you or you want to get answers to Anything You Want to Know, there is a small monthly membership fee – simply enough to support my time and expenses.

I invite you to continue your own exploration, discovery, and consciousness-expansion in dialogue with other fascinating co-creators. There is plenty of opportunity to comment or add your own thoughts. Let’s get a spectacular, infinite, and unending dance of words and wisdom going at Expand Your Consciousness.

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Dr. Janet Smith Warfield serves wisdom-seekers who want understanding and clarity so they can live peaceful, powerful, prosperous lives. Through her unique combination of holistic, creative, right-brain transformational experiences and 22 years of rigorous, left-brain law practice, she has learned how to sculpt words in atypical ways to shift her listeners into experiences beyond words, transforming turmoil into inner peace. For more information, see www.wordsculptures.comwww.janetsmithwarfield.com, and www.wordsculpturespublishing.com.

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How, Together, Can We Co-Create a Peaceful, Prosperous Planet?

Oct 19
2011

Two Perspectives on Co-Creating a Peaceful, Prosperous Planet

Dr. Amit Nagpal, New Delhi, India, and

Janet Smith Warfield, J.D., Florida, USA

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Dr. Amit Nagpal’s Perspective

Internet and social media are bringing us together on a large scale. The spreading of protests (Occupy Wall Street) on an international scale shows that people all over the world are facing similar problems and true globalization is about to begin. The mass media can ignore things at its own peril.

The major challenges in creating a peaceful and prosperous planet are cross border conflicts, languages and cultural differences and limited interaction (to understand and appreciate other perspectives). In my opinion there are four major tools we can use to make the world a beautiful place to live in.

1)      Collaboration at individual and organization levels

People need to collaborate at individual levels using social media and internet. The collaboration between organizations (and countries of course) can also be encouraged. The three major focus areas should be world peace, education and culture (Soka Gakkai International, based in Japan works in these areas).

2)      Wisdom

Understanding the root causes of issues by increasing our wisdom levels will go a long way in creating a peaceful and prosperous world.  Knowledge puts us in the way of wisdom but wisdom is something experiential. Sandra Carey says, “Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living, the other helps you make a life.” Japanese have a nice proverb differentiating knowledge and wisdom, “Knowledge without wisdom is a load of books, on the back of an ass.”

Wisdom will help us in understanding the root causes behind international conflicts and eliminating them. It will also help us to respond rather than react to situations. Wisdom will also discourage the abuse of power.

3)      Compassion

Developing empathy and trying to understand another person’s (or race) perspective is very critical. According to the Latin roots of the word, compassion means co-suffering, suffering with others, feeling the pain of others as if it was your pain. As the saying goes, “Kindness gives to other. Compassion knows no other.” Empathetic Listening is very critical to develop compassion. Also, if you put yourself in another person’s shoes, you will be able to understand their problems better and may be able to help by suggesting solutions.

Compassion will make rich countries (and their people) more generous towards their poorer counterparts. A genuine effort will be made to uplift and the approach with focus on hard negotiations will change to a more win-win approach.

4)      Courage

People need to gather courage to stand up against injustice and vested interests that divide and create rift. Merriam Webster’s Dictionary defines courage as, “mental or moral strength to venture, persevere and withstand danger, fear or difficulty. It also implies firmness of mind or will.” Letting go of fear contributes to our sanity and expands our consciousness as fear tends to hold us back, distorts our perceptions and reduces our faith.

Some politicians may have a tendency to divide people due to vested interests. People need to stand up against such efforts and discourage any actions which create further divides in society.

Conclusion

With these four simple tools, I am sure we will be on our way to co-create a peaceful and prosperous planet. The journey would be long and challenging but it is a much needed journey.

The destination will be a peaceful and prosperous planet where we shall feel blessed to be living.

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Dr Amit Nagpal is a Personal Branding Consultant and specializes in Personal Branding with a holistic touch. He is based in New Delhi, India. His philosophy is “Take charge of your life and your brand.” To learn more about him, click here: http://www.dramitnagpal.co.in/p/about-us.html

Copyright © 2011 – Dr Amit Nagpal. All rights reserved

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Janet Smith Warfield’s Perspective

Patriarchal systems are breaking down. Top down Communism no longer works. Top down democracy, bought by top down corporations, no longer works. Monarchies and dictatorships are being challenged and overthrown.

Women are waking up and starting to think for themselves. Women are no longer willing to accept the roles into which men have placed them: sex object, subservient wife, mother, cook, housekeeper, babysitter. Women are no longer willing to sit idly by and watch their husbands and sons be slaughtered by other women’s husbands and sons.

As women take back their power, men are waking up, too. They are beginning to respect the awesome female collaborative and cooperative power that can lead our entire planet away from war and violence and into global peace and abundance.

Throughout the world, men and women are aligning to bring about reform. Occupy Wall Street has spread throughout the world, as the 99% challenge the 1% whose decisions have led us to the brink of destruction.

Together, we have allowed the major news media to shape our minds, thoughts and emotions. People are tired of a steady stream of violence, verbal abuse, and news about what’s wrong with the world. Good news media are springing up everywhere to replace the naysayers and spread good news about what is working. People everywhere are seeking a return to sanity, both in their personal worlds and their collective worlds. They are starting to think for themselves so they can release their fear and depression and start taking positive action to turn themselves and our world around.

There are two concepts that can help us understand what’s happening so that together, we can consciously co-create a world that works for all of us. One is holons. The other is Teilhard de Chardin’s Noosphere.

The first concept, that of a holon, can be represented by the image above. If energy is inherent within each circle, and each circle is its own complete system (whether an atom, a cell, a heart, a human being, a planet, etc.), we have a holarchy or perhaps pure democracy or pure communism. Alternatively, we have undivided wholeness, with power and creativity flowing in all directions, top down, bottom up, and all around. Each circle/system is connected to and nestled within other more encompassing circles/systems and all are involved in an energetic exchange that affects each and every part. The challenge is to align them and bring them into harmony and balance. For the past 2,000 years, this was done through patriarchy. How interesting that this image can also be viewed as a hierarchy when the underlying energy is flowing only from the top down.

The second concept is the Noosphere or Teihard de Chardin’s thinking layer of earth. If each miniscule part of a holon is complete in itself and yet connected to all other holons, then each is connected to every other holon at a thinking level beyond itself. The Noosphere might also be referred to as the Akashic Records or the Field.

If we use our words, not to judge and condemn, but simply to share information, there is no right or wrong. There are only creative perspectives. Some perspectives work better than others. Some perspectives are more encompassing and inclusive than others. No perspective is any more encompassing and inclusive than the perspective that everything is perspective.

The perspective that everything is perspective is freeing. The way we see the world is okay. It is also terrifying and humbling. The way others see the world is also okay. If we believe that everything is perspective, we have to listen to and respect others as well as ourselves. We also need to be very aware, conscious, and accountable for all our actions.

There’s a fine line between chaos and heaven on earth. That line is non-violence and awareness. It’s a choice – for each and every one of us.

If you want to be a conscious part of co-creating a planet that works for all, you can get more information or get actively involved here: https://shiftnetwork.infusionsoft.com/go/2012e/WSP/

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Janet Smith Warfield works with wisdom-seekers who want understanding and clarity so they can live peaceful, powerful, prosperous lives. Through her unique combination of holistic, creative, right-brain transformational experiences and 22 years of rigorous, left-brain law practice, she has learned how to sculpt words in atypical ways to shift her listeners into experiences beyond words, transforming turmoil into inner peace. For more information about Janet, go to www.janetsmithwarfield.com; www.wordsculpturespublishing.com; www.wordsculptures.com.

 

Copyright © 2011 – Janet Smith Warfield. All rights reserved.

 

 


Assertiveness – Why, When and How? – Two Perspectives

Jun 11
2011

Two Perspectives on Assertiveness

Two Perspectives is a monthly column with two different perspectives on the same topic from two different continents, cultures, and genders, viz., from

Dr. Amit Nagpal, New Delhi, India, and

Janet Smith Warfield, J.D., Florida, USA

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Dr. Amit Nagpal.
Dr. Amit Nagpal Dr. Amit Nagpal’s Perspective

First let us understand what assertiveness is after all. We can respond to situations and people in three ways viz. submissive, assertive and aggressive. When we are too gentle (or under-react), it is submissive behavior, when we are too loud/violent (or over-react), it is aggressive behavior and when we have a measured response (the right degree), it is assertive behavior.

The first question which comes to our mind is why we need to assert. Well we need to assert to defend our rights or to claim which is rightfully ours. As human beings we will very often under-react or over-react unless we are conscious and careful to give measured assertive responses. When we are submissive, we will be treated as doormats and our rights may be trampled upon. When we are aggressive, we will make people defensive or irritate them and create an undesirable reputation.

The second question is when we need to assert. We need to assert whenever we face situations or people with whom we need to demand our material rights, space in relationships, individual freedom, legal rights or simply to remind people of their duties. We need to assert in every relationship, be it family, workplace, society, friends, and government and so on. In fact, sometimes with the customers also, who start behaving like dictators rather than kings.

Now the most important question is how we assert. If you are a gentle soul, how can you practice asserting for what is rightfully yours. Here are some exercises you can use.

An assertive person asks, demands, insists and does not expect to get things without asking. Use ‘I’ rather than ‘We’ to show that you are in command.

Whenever you face criticism you don’t agree with, tell the person with conviction that you don’t agree with his views.

Positive self-talk (talking to one self about one’s achievements, past successes etc) can boost one’s confidence and body language resulting in more assertive behaviour.

Practice saying ‘No’ with firmness. Offer an explanation, if necessary but keep it short (to avoid getting defensive).

Just keep in mind that if you don’t learn to assert in life, you may have a feeling of being insecure and a fear that everyone is out to make a fool of you. You may also behave like a cry baby expecting people to understand you and feel bad when you don’t get things you deserve. Once I wrote on Facebook, “Even a mother feeds the baby when the baby cries. Even God comes to your rescue when you remember and remind him. Do not suffer in silence and learn to assert in life.”

Dr Amit Nagpal is a Personal Branding Consultant and specializes in Personal Branding with a holistic touch. He is based in New Delhi, India. His philosophy is, “Take charge of your life and your brand.” To know more about him, click here

http://www.dramitnagpal.co.in/p/about-us.html

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Janet Smith WarfieldJanet Smith Warfield Janet Smith Warfield’s Perspective

Assertiveness, yes. Aggressiveness, no. What is the difference?

Assertiveness is absolutely vital if we want to get our needs met. To be assertive means to express one’s needs to those who may be able to help with no attachment to the results.

Aggressiveness destroys relationships. To be aggressive means to pressure or manipulate someone else into doing what we want them to do, whether they want to or not.

Recently, I purchased a bag of manure at Wal-Mart. It was heavy – more than I could easily lift alone.

I asked one of the Wal-Mart employees if he could help. He said, “Sure. Just drive your car over here to the entrance and I’ll put it in the trunk for you.”

I went to my car and drove to the entrance. The employee had suddenly disappeared. My car was parked in a “No Parking” zone. I sure as heck didn’t want to lift that bag of manure by myself.

Twenty years before, I would either have lifted the bag of manure myself and thrown my back out or stewed and fumed and started thinking evil thoughts about the Wal-Mart employee who had promised to help and then disappeared. Twenty years later, with more maturity, I was willing to be assertive, ask for help, and get a different result.

Two young men, clearly customers, approached the entrance. Both were total strangers. I had never met either of them before in my life.

“Excuse me,” I said to the one with the biggest muscles, arms covered with tattoos. “Would you be able to lift this bag of manure into the trunk of my car for me?”

He pulled back, surprised, but then said “sure,” easily picking it up and depositing it in the trunk of my car.

“Thank you very much.”

“No problem,” he smiled. I could tell he felt good about himself.

By being assertive and asking for help, I avoided the aching back, anger and judgment I would otherwise have experienced. It was a triple win. The Wal-Mart employee won because his supervisor didn’t receive a complaint. The young man won because he’d been able to demonstrate his strength and kindness. I won because I didn’t have to lift the bag of manure.

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Janet Smith Warfield works with wisdom-seekers who want understanding and clarity so they can live peaceful, powerful, prosperous lives. Through her unique combination of holistic, creative, right-brain transformational experiences and 22 years of rigorous, left-brain law practice, she has learned how to sculpt words in atypical ways to shift her listeners into experiences beyond words, transforming turmoil into inner peace. For more information about Janet, go to www.wordsculpturespublishing.com; www.wordsculptures.com and www.janetsmithwarfield.com.

Copyright © 2011 – Janet Smith Warfield. All rights reserved. You have permission to copy and use any part or all of this blog provided you retain all credit and copyright information.