Success Is Within

The 21 Ways for Achieving Results, Prosperity, and Fulfillment by Changing Your Leadership Mindset

Payal Nanjiani

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000008579
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Commerce
• Subtopic: Leadership

"Payal has beautifully defined success as to 'reach where you want from where you are.' She emphasizes rightful karma or focused execution to keep you on the right path so that you are always walking in a direction that takes you toward your goal."

Dr. Arun Arora, CEO, EDVANCE

"This book is full of practical tips on how to become a successful leader and the best part is Payal has narrated it wonderfully with appropriate fables and relevant case studies…. Her entrepreneurial attitude and impactful wisdom are commendable and evident in the IPL series."

Swapna Hari, Director, Cognizant

"This book by Payal Nanjiani will join the best of business literature for emphasizing attitude as our biggest asset."

Swami Mukundananda of Jagadguru Kripaluji

Yog (JKYog) Institute

Gathering insights from 20 years of the author's executive coaching in the United States and abroad, this book presents 21 mindfulness strategies for business leaders, corporate heads, entrepreneurs, and professionals. During the author's coaching sessions for business and corporate leaders and her trainings at corporations, mid-sized businesses, small businesses, and start-up organizations, she discovered that there is a wide gap between those who achieve success and those who do not. This gap indicates that there is still something significant missing in the business world. Success Is Within fills this gap by encouraging business professionals to "mind the mind." Written in accessible, easy-to-digest language, and targeted towards busy US business professionals who long for thought-leadership to boost their success, the book argues that success depends on changing one's mindset in key ways. Each chapter focuses on one way to transform one's mindset to achieve success. The union of these 21 ways provides a uniquely comprehensive program for leadership success in business and corporate careers.

Drawing from a blend of Eastern and Western wisdom, the book blends true-life storytelling about the challenges of actual business professionals with insights drawn from traditional parables from classic "wisdom books" to inspire readers to think-through how to transform their mindsets. Ultimately, the book helps magnify one's inner power: the power of one's mind. The book calls on business professionals to unleash their "inner leader." When they recognize the power of their inner leader, they will become unstoppable.

KARMA 1

Mind the Mind

What did you have for breakfast this morning? I hope it was something healthy. There is a lot of research about the importance of starting your day with a healthy breakfast to boost your energy. But there is another kind of nourishing “breakfast” that you need every day. You also need to nourish the mind. You need to start your day off with healthy, optimistic, and constructive thoughts and feelings to produce great results in your career every day. Mind your mind: Fortify yourself internally for success.

When I say “mind,” I am referring to the internal condition that we are in every single day. If this condition is optimal, then we will be stress free and emotionally grounded. The goal is for our inner actions to control our outer behavior. For more than two decades of coaching, I have met many business professionals and corporate leaders, but only a few have a planned daily “diet” for the mind to help them achieve their goals each day. The mind is most often neglected. Its care and nourishment is pushed aside because we think that we are too busy in our careers.

Consequently, many professionals are stressed out and emotionally drained because they are working with a chaotic and disturbed mind. A mind that isn’t given proper attention will run wild and cause havoc in our lives. The uncontrolled mind is the sole source of fear, stress, and anger in our careers today. None of us knows what will transpire in our outer environment because we often have little or no control over it. But we can control our inner environment—we can control our minds. There are people who lose their job or their business becomes ruined, but, within themselves, they are still alive and well. Within their inner selves, they aren’t finished. Within their minds, they aren’t defeated.

I realized the importance of minding the mind when traveling to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates to deliver a 2-day corporate workshop. On the way to the session, I passed a shop that was burnt down, and there was nothing except debris. Above this debris, stood a small board with a big message. The board read, “My shop has been burnt down, but my commitment and dedication hasn’t. I will bounce back soon.” What a powerful message! Whatever happens in your career life, whether profit or loss, promotion or demotion, happiness or sadness, abundance or lack, prosperity or debt, you will always bounce back if you control your mind.

During the same trip to Dubai, I experienced another example of the importance of minding the mind. A client suddenly changed the location of our meeting to a hospital. After finalizing our work, I asked him why we met at a hospital. He told me that he had a mild heart attack because of the stress that he endured with a client of his own that had incurred many losses in his business. It was clear to me that my client’s mind was compromised. This incident proved to me once again that we create the destiny of our own careers by minding the mind.

During times of turmoil as well as peace, it’s the mind—our inner thoughts and feelings—that makes us or breaks us. It is very crucial to mind your mind. Chapter 6, Verses 5–6 of the Bhagavad Gita say the following: “A man must elevate himself by his own mind, not degrade himself. The mind is the friend of the conditioned soul, and his enemy as well. For him who has conquered the mind, the mind is the best of friends; but for one who has failed to do so his very mind will be the greatest enemy.”

In my seminars, I share with participants an acronym I invented called “EAT.” EAT stands for Events, Action, and Thoughts. Let me ask you, among these which one do you think is in your control? Is it events, action, or thoughts? Almost everyone tells me it’s our actions and thoughts that are within our control. Let’s delve deeper.

How are thoughts in your control? You may say “I choose which thoughts I want to entertain”—negative thoughts or positive thoughts. In this case “choosing” is an action, meaning action is within our control. We cannot control our thoughts because they are free flowing. But we can decide to reject or accept certain thoughts when they flow into our minds. When we do this, deciding becomes an action. We may not be able to stop all of the thoughts that are flowing through our minds, but we can certainly channel the ones that are the most beneficial in the right direction.

So when you think about “EAT,” realize that it is only action that is within our control. Events come and go, and you have no control over them. Thoughts are free flowing, and you have no control over them. But you can choose and decide your response, so action is completely within your control. Let’s understand this deeper with few examples that apply the EAT strategy here.

Case 1: It’s Friday evening and you’re excited to leave town for your friend’s 40th birthday party. You get an email from your boss about a presentation due Monday morning.

Event: A sudden demand from your boss comes in an email about the presentation on Monday.

Thoughts: Why did she not give me more time? I can’t do it in such a short notice. OR: Let me email her to request another deadline. What’s the best I can do in this situation?

Action: The type of thought you select is the first step before you actually take action. Each thought will bring with it its own energy.

Case 2: You have been working hard on a project for a client. You have to deliver a 3-day workshop to their accounts department. You just found out your project might be canceled due to significant budget cuts in the department.

Event: You just found out your project might be canceled due to significant budget cuts.

Thought: I wasted my time and money. Nothing goes well in my life. OR: What is the next best step for me. Can I help them boost their budget?

Action: The type of thought you select is the first step before you actually take action. Each thought will bring with it its own energy.

Case 3: You have been looking forward to a well-deserved promotion. A colleague got a promotion over you.

Event: A colleague got a promotion over you.

Thought: Whatever I do, I will always be stuck where I am. He is always in my way. OR: How can I prepare more next time? What could I have done better?

Action: The type of thought you select is the first step before you actually take action. Each thought will bring with it its own energy.

Do you see how EAT works in every situation? Whether you’re right or not is irrelevant. A month from now, the memory of your event will fade away. What you will remember is your action. This is when regret walks into your life. When you feel regret over something you always tell yourself, “I wish” I hadn’t or had done such and such a thing.

It boils down to actions—our karmas. We don’t blame the event as much as we blame our own karmas. We regret our actions. What we don’t realize is that our actions arise from and are influenced by our thoughts. So if we take care of the thoughts, then the actions will take care of themselves. You are in control of choosing your actions. There are five types of thoughts the mind generates:

1. Necessary thoughts: reflections about one’s experiences, responsibilities, finance, career, and family.
2. Wasteful thoughts: worrying about the past and future, being anxious, and feeling doubt.
3. Positive thoughts: goodness, happiness, joy, and peace.
4. Negative thoughts: jealousy, hatred, anger, and regret.
5. Sattvic (or energetic and nourishing) thoughts: purity of heart, a sense of self-discipline, and forgiveness.

Every thought is self-created. You can create consciously or unconsciously. Many generate unconscious thoughts that they are not aware they are creating. If you can create negative thoughts, you can create positive thoughts too. You can create thought, and you can create action. People in their career are successful or failing depending on the thoughts they have created and chosen to take pride of place within their minds. Our thoughts are linked with our karma. Well-chosen thoughts constitute action.

So if you feel burnt out, stressed, and overwhelmed at work, it may have more to do with your thought-creation than the work itself. You are the creator of the garden of your mind. What you plant and nourish within will be manifested in your outer environment. Your clients, boss, peers, teams, and the economy do not create the thoughts in your mind. These people and things are purely external individuals, events, and behaviors. The mind is a meaning-making machine. It creates thoughts with a certain meaning for every event that happens in your career. That is why I tell people that some of our problems can be illusions. They are opportunities to some and problems to others. Our mindset must precede our skillset.

A good technique to help move away from these negative thoughts is a simple technique I call, “Replace Please.” Minding the mind requires a replacement strategy. If you tell your mind not to worry or overthink about a particular person or event, then guess what? You are actually reminding your mind of that event or person and reinforcing it. Instead of pondering “Why did this happen to me,” and getting caught in a cobweb of negativity, simply tell yourself, “Replace Please” and substitute positive reflection for negative worrying.

I learned that our mind only successfully holds one thought at a time, just as we can only feel one emotion at a time. In your clearest and healthiest state, you can either be happy or sad; you can’t be both at the same time. Likewise, in your clearest and healthiest state, you can only think a positive or a negative thought at a time. When you think undesirable thoughts, say to yourself “Replace Please.” As soon as you say these words, you become aware of the quality of the thought and you consciously replace it with an uplifting thought.

You will be astounded as to how quickly it changes your state of mind and energy level. Your mind can progress or regress. The quality of your results depends on the quality of your mind. I tell my clients to go beyond positive and negative thoughts. Cultivate a sattvic mind—meaning, one with pure thoughts. A sattvic mind gives you the ability to visualize well, think right, do well, and act in accordance with the laws of nature. It creates equilibrium, balance, harmony, purity, and clarity. Whenever confronted with a situation that leads to undesirable thoughts, tell yourself immediately, “Replace Please.”

Buddha, Norman Vincent Peale, Gandhi, Albert Einstein, Marian Diamond, Alexa Canady, Oliver Sacks, Patricia Goldman-Rakic—all of this historical and present-day men and women leaders in science or religion recognized the power of mind. People talk about how the business world is in turmoil, and no one is able to do anything about it. What about the turmoil within you? The outer turmoil may not be in your control, but the inner turmoil sure is. In fact, the outer turmoil in the work environment is because of the inner turmoil.

The mind never stops thinking. It thinks too much. It is always filled with chatter. Most people don’t give any thought to the quality of their thoughts. And until we take some time to silence the chatter, we cannot go within and get the answers we want. It is very difficult to control the ever-moving mind. However, through sincere practice and dispassionate detachment, it can be achieved.

As a child, I often heard my teachers tell stories about heaven and hell. My father once told me that heaven and hell is a state of mind. When the mind falls victim to worries and anxieties, when the mind is disturbed, when it creates undesirable thoughts, when it does any of these things, we create hell in our lives. But when the mind thinks sattvic (pure) thoughts, we can be happy and full of peace, and we experience heaven. Both are within us in our daily life and conduct. Our workplace is heaven and hell because of each of us. We have the power to make our workplace blissful or sorrowful. We create negative and positive work environments. Each one of us can become the ambassador of positive environments. And as are you, so is your environment.

It helps to detox the mind everyday with the following inner actions:

1. Meditate for success.
2. Listen to inspirational talks.
3. Hear and repeat affirmations that uplift your spirit.
4. Be grateful.
5. Empty your mind of worries before you sleep.
6. Take couple of deep breaths every hour.
7. Sleep well.

The truth is, you become what your mind is. The mind does not possess you; you possess your mind. Stability of mind means remaining the same in all circumstances and under all conditions. This means that our mind should be in a state of equilibrium: success and failure should be on the same level and neither state should impact upon you.

Stop right now and repeat this mantra to yourself:

I am the creator of my thoughts.

It is said that a ship doesn’t sink because of the water around it; rather, it sinks because of the water that enters it. You do not drown because of the negativity around you; you asphyxiate because of the negativity that enters your mind. The choice is yours alone! Drown or float! Let your mind be an asset to you, not a liability. Remember that while nature is timeless, our own clocks are ticking and the more we reduce the turbulence of the mind, the more we will move toward success. When you keep moving toward your goals with speed and serenity, you become unstoppable.

KARMA 2

Draw Your Blueprint

A blueprint is what you create about your future. It is the story you tell yourself. The best resources, opportunities, and outer factors will do no good if your blueprint is not ready. To manifest your desired results, draw your blueprint.

After you finish reading this paragraph, take some time, close your eyes, and try this exercise. Take a few deep breaths and relax. Picture yourself. Do you see yourself with a prosperous mindset or a scarce mindset? Do you have an attitude of plenty or attitude of lack? In the next year, do you see yourself as financially stable or unstable? Do you see yourself flourishing and thriving, or struggling and straining? How would you want your professional life to be? What are some of the things you want to achieve in your professional life? What are some of the things people are saying about you? Complete picturing scene by scene, and take a few deep breaths and open your eyes.

The picture you saw is the blueprint you have created. It is a script you write before you play your role in your career. Each of us creates a different blueprint based on many elements both internal and external such as experience, knowledge, belief system, culture, regrets, guilt, and happiness. And each of us acts in accordance with our blueprint. Our blueprint may look like this: complete graduation, get a good job, work hard, earn money, and retire with a big 401k plan. Another person’s blueprint may be complete graduation, get a job in a Fortune 500 company, work hard, reach the top position, and earn a fortune. Someone’s blueprint may tell her to skip college, get into a business, and take up a part-time job to support business and make millions. Everyone around you has a blueprint. And everyone acts according to the blueprint they have created. That is why around you, you see people, whether they are your teams, clients, or boss, take different actions. Even if you and I feel the action is inappropriate, it is what their blueprint tells them to do.

Pause for a moment to check if you have created your blueprint? We all desire growth and success. Precisely creating a blueprint does the magic. Can you think about people you know who say they’re going to do something and then they never complete the task? Whereas a few people do something inside their head that gets them to follow th...