Losing self centeredness as you get older

You’re a kid. Everybody loves you and adores you. You feel like the universe revolves around you.

But then you get older and the adults don’t adore you anymore because you’re a grown up too now and they expect you to act like one – no matter your accomplishments.

No it is very much about – “What have you done for me lately?”

Aside from your immediate family, those who care for you and adore you only do so because of the way you make them feel and not because how awesome you are.

If you think about it, many of the characters that are portrayed as villains and films are very accomplished individuals who are smart, with grand ideas, and lots of money.

The one thing that all these villains have in common: selfishness.

They’re doing it all for themselves and their own ambitions and beliefs. Most of them don’t see themselves as villains either and have very strong beliefs that they feel are true.

So if you want to be accepted by society and acknowledged for who you are as you get older, remember that it’s not about you. It’s about the greater good and the society as a whole.

No one cares about you or your accomplishments.

They only care about how you make them feel with your words and actions.

Connect with the right frequency

Could you imagine if you were simultaneously able to hear the sounds of All the radio frequencies around you without having to tune into them? You would go crazy.

Thankfully, you only hear the sounds of the radio station when you tune into that frequency with which the station is broadcasting.

Just like radio station audio frequencies, the emotional frequencies of happiness, anxiety, loss, ecstasy, etc exist all around us. It’s up to us which frequency we tune into and which one we ignore.

The challenge for us humans is that tuning into one of these frequencies is not as easy as turning a dial on a radio. It usually takes an event that automatically gets us tuned to a specific emotional frequency. And most of the times, it’s difficult to turn the dial and get away from that frequency if it’s not a pleasant one.

That’s where Focus comes in. Sharpening our mind to focus on a specific emotional frequency takes practice. Lots and lots of practice. But it’s definitely possible.

Many of us are either not aware of this possibility or don’t want to spend the effort it will take to get there.

Those of us that do spend the time and effort to tune our mind and our heart in the direction that is favorable to us, definitely see the benefit. Always.

Are you an imposter?

Imposter syndrome is real. Many people go through this phase of feeling like an imposter especially if they are put in a position or have reached a status which they don’t feel they deserve.

I went through this feeling in 2005 when I was asked to teach a software class after having learned the material just a couple of months ago myself and having been using this product (Microsoft SharePoint) for only a couple of years before that.

The master trainer for this class was a guy named Jeff Cate. I was the secondary trainer and not very confident in my capabilities as a trainer. Jeff asked me to introduce myself to the class before we begin.

I said something to the effect of:

“Hi, my name is Asif Rehmani. This is the first time I’m teaching this class. I don’t know that much about SharePoint but I’ll do the best I can.”

And then we started the class.

During the first break we had for the class, Jeff pulled me aside and gave me some advice on the introduction I had given.

I can’t remember his exact words since it was so long ago but they went something like this:

“Do you think you know more about this topic then these people in the class? And if yes, and I know you do because that’s why I invited you to teach this class, why would you not want the students in the class to have confidence in you? The introduction you gave did not instill confidence in your capabilities. I think you should think about that next time you give an introduction.”

That lesson has stuck with me through time.

I have taught literally hundreds of classes since that day to hundreds of thousands of students through in-person or virtual single day, multi-day classes, webinars and presentations at conferences.

Every time I doubt my capabilities as a trainer/educator and feel like an imposter, I remind myself that I don’t have to be a genius, and an all knowing person in the subject that I’m talking about.

I just need to have the right intentions to be able to impart at least some knowledge that the receiver did not have before. If they benefit from having listened to what I’m teaching, I’ve done my job. That’s it.

That simple fact has helped me throughout decades now.

My advice to anyone feeling like an impostor is to dig deep inside and ask yourself:

Are you adding value to your audience?

If you are, then you are not an imposter. It’s as simple as that.

Mentor the receptive ones

Not everyone is going to be receptive to hearing your brilliant thoughts, your ideas or learning your skills. No matter how much you believe how beneficial it can be for them. If they’re not open to receiving it, nothing will get through no matter what. That’s just how it is.

In fact, many of us realize once our kids get to a certain age that they are not interested in our insights, learnings and thoughts that we thought we would be transferring to them so they don’t have to go through the same hardships and failures we went through. Many of the times they’re just not receptive or open to them.

It breaks your heart when you feel you have so much wisdom and skills you want to pass on to your next of kin but either they’re not ready yet or they just don’t have interest in learning from You specifically.

This happens to the rich folks as well as poor ones. Powerful businessmen and those working at a 9 to 5 job. Elite athletes as well as those who don’t have an athletic bone in their body. No matter where you fall in the spectrum and who you are, chances are this will happen to you also to some degree.

So what do you do? Do you force your insights, your wisdom, your skills and aptitude to those who are not receptive? You’re just going to end up pushing them away and waste your time in the process.

This is where we have to remember that there’s always someone out there who is ready to receive the wisdom and skills that you have to share. In fact, out of the almost 8 billion humans that exist on Earth right now, there will be many people out there who can benefit from what you have to share and are ready to receive your wisdom.

So share away. It can be as easy as answering people’s questions online – forums, blogs, social media, commenting on articles, etc. Or if you are really driven, join an organization or start your own.

Whatever you do, just try not to leave this earth without leaving your pearls of wisdom scattered behind you for others to pick up.

Exploring the inner self

We as humans are mesmerized by space and by the depth of the oceans.

Astronauts and aquanauts are constantly trying to push the boundaries to explore further and deeper than anyone else has done before them. To find what’s really out there that we have not explored yet.

What many of us lack is the motivation to explore our own inner self. And those that are motivated don’t know where to start since there is no spaceship or a submersible that you can take to dive inside yourself.

This is where self exploration and the concept of introspection comes in.

Understanding yourself by diving inwards.

You can refer to this as meditation, mindfulness, being in the moment, self-realization or any other word that sounds good to you.

At the end, it’s all the same thing. Exploring the inner self way beyond the body and the mind.

Going deep to the place where the energy center resides.

The cost for this introspection: our time and the willingness to give up control.

Both things that many of us have a hard time giving up for something that none of our senses can perceive.

But if we do, the reward is truly priceless.

Stop trying to control. Surrender

Many of us go through life trying to control everything and everyone around us. Trying to bend the universe to our will.

It never works and it is exhausting at the same time sucking up all of our energies.

So what is the alternative?

Not doing anything and letting people push you around? Of course not.

The answer is to enhance the only thing you can truly control: You!

Work on your body, mind and soul. Intentionally and not by chance.

Read, play, converse with people smarter than you, exercise, write, travel, reflect, explore, support others without expecting anything back, etc.

This is how you invest in yourself.

Surrendering control and letting the flow of life guide you is an art that has to be practiced.

The first time this happens when the universe is guiding you one way and you want to go the other way, it will not feel comfortable. You will want to push back. You will want to control. This is when practicing surrender and being open to opportunities comes into play.

Really listen and get in tune with what the universe has planned for you. Don’t resist.

Surrendering and letting go is the way to winning and peace.

Life’s too short to work with B personalities

In work and also in personal life, it’s always better to find and work/be with personalities that are smarter and better than you.

Of course, there are insecurities that come with it when you are working with or managing people who are smarter than you are, but at the same time, it’s very rewarding to lift and elevate these folks.

No need to really ‘manage’ people like that, lead them instead with proper metrics to keep them accountable to results.

Conversely, there’s a cost for working with B players that is not apparent immediately at first. As an entrepreneur or a CEO, you feel like you’re saving money, but in the long-term it will come back to bite you. It’s just not worth saving money in the short-term if in the long-term it can harm you and your business.

Let go of your ego. Work with people who specialize in specific areas and are preferably at least twice as better than you in their own discipline like marketing, sales, product management, operations.

In Summary:

Hire and work with only A players.
Don’t manage A players, lead them.
Set very specific metrics and keep them accountable.
Encourage and support them to do their best work!

Working hard is overrated

In Asian cultures, especially places like India and China, if you told somebody that you were hardly working, they would look at you with disrespect. In these countries, as well as many others, people pride themselves on working hard to make a living. The harder you work, the more you are held in honor.

Bullshit.

This type of perception has kept so many amazing people doing busy work instead of meaningful work.

Think about it. How did people feel when calculators first came to mass market? Were there purists who held the notion that we must continue to calculate things the hard way with pen and paper as opposed to the new calculator technology? You bet there were.

These are the people who got left behind, became irrelevant and no one remembers them.

The pragmatist smart folks knew that using the calculator was just a shortcut they could take to accomplish amazingly Big things and leave the rudimentary calculations to the calculator. Smart work and not hard work.

Same thing is going to happen with artificial intelligence. There will be people who will shun the technology and will insist that we use human intelligence for what artificial intelligence can do. Just a false ideology without any real merit behind it.

The smart folks will take advantage of artificial intelligence and all of its flavors as it becomes available to catapult their potential to the next level.

It’s too bad that many intelligent get left behind because they focus on working hard instead of meaningful impact. That has always happened when any new technology comes to market and will definitely happen with this new phase as well.

The Artificial Intelligence Revolution is Just Beginning

I’m writing this in April 2023. ChatGPT has taken the world by storm since November 2022. People are fascinated by the capabilities of artificial intelligence. So many people around the globe are just playing around with the technology. Everyone has ideas but no one knows for sure exactly where this is going to go.

Just the beginning

This is still very very early days of AI in mainstream. It reminds me of what I felt In the early 1990s when I first discovered the 9600 baud modem to get to this thing called the internet on a big bulky computer with 40 MB of storage space which I thought I would never fill up in my lifetime since that was So much space ☺️

If I remember correctly, I was going to a site called Lycos or maybe Yahoo was already born by that time. Regardless, it was just a bunch of links you go to that were pages on the internet. Basically a guide to various pieces of information that existed on the world wide web which was in its infancy. It was fascinating to be able to do that on the computer, to be connected to other people and other pieces of information all throughout the world.

I believe that’s the stage we are in currently with AI. It is very very early days when a bunch of us are playing around with generative AI by going to either chat.openai.com or various sites which have started adopting AI to do cool things like create images or even video by just prompting it in detail.

Mainstreaming of AI

This novelty will eventually subside within a decade and AI will just become a part of our life. Just like internet has become a part of our life.

We will conjure up our needs with gestures, voice or good old fashioned text. AI will just be there incorporated into every aspect of our life just like internet has become.

Like a virtual assistant, but a Very smart one who is always available, always looking to please, does not get sick, always becoming more intelligent and is much cheaper than a human assistant.

AI scenarios

Looking to just converse with another person because you’re lonely? AI will be there in whichever tonality you want: teenager, Einstein level savant or anywhere in between.

Want to order groceries? Converse with AI to talk about different ideas of what you want to cook this weekend and it will help you plan everything out and order for you and the order will arrive at your house within hours.

Need a ticket to go to Cancun? Start talking to your AI about different ideas and various places that would suit your needs in Cancun and it will show you the options right in front of you either through specialty glasses or holographic images that appear right in front of you. You gesture/swipe through the different ideas, digging deeper into a specific all-inclusive resort by using the same type of gestures we are used to on a smartphone to zoom in. You see what’s available there, even walk through it virtually in a completely immersive environment with sights and sounds (maybe eventually smells as well…). Once you’re satisfied with an all-inclusive resort that you like, you tell the AI the dates and times you want to go and it will take care of all the booking for you since it already has all the info for you, your family, and your credit card. A bit scary actually, but that’s exactly what human virtual assistants do around the world these days already.

Need a coach to motivate you? AI is always there. A holographic person appears right next to you like a coach standing next to you telling you to not give up and keep going. You are great. You matter. And all the other things that coaches currently say to validate your efforts and existence. Difference here will be that the AI will always be available to you, always learning more about You specifically and wouldn’t cost as much as a human coach.

Or how about a fitness coach? A holographic AI appearing in front of you taking your own form and showing you a more fit version of yourself with bulging muscles for guys and perfect curves for gals. You telling You – this is what you can look like so just follow and do what I say and I’ll get you there. I’ll be there with you throughout the day helping you make the right decisions towards your goal.

Need a new outfit? Your personal holographic AI will appear right in front of you showing you what you could look like in various outfits that you pick from other people’s existing designs or just design the whole thing yourself. You are showing yourself what it’s going to look like on you. In fact, you will be able to conjure up the designer herself in a holographic form in your own living room and she can help you decide the outfit on your hologram. All happening right in your own living room while you sip on chamomile tea and relax. Once you are satisfied with the design, it gets 3D printed and shipped to you within hours Or if you have a 3D printer yourself then it gets printed in your own house. Completely customized to your needs. It won’t be the Amazon of the world making money, but designers selling their designs either through a big retail merchant who has a broad reach or selling directly.

Artificial intelligence will be available in every aspect of your life and you will interact with it as seamlessly as you do today in 2023 with smartphones – having it do almost everything you need done.

Artificial intelligence vs human intelligence

The big difference from what we are used to is that AI will always be learning and getting better unlike our ‘smartphones’ which are a bit dumb in nature and are only as smart as the app designers and phone manufacturers who make them.

Thinking through all this is super exciting and uncomfortable at the same time. The revolutions we have had so far such as industrial, demographic, scientific, technology, etc… all of them have been something we as humans have controlled.

The artificial intelligence revolution is going to be the first one where it’s going to compete with our own human intelligence. Controlling this revolution so it serves us humans and doesn’t eventually replace us is going to be the real test for us. Good luck to us humans. May we make the right choices.

Don’t get used to losing

In life, you will have many disappointments. That’s just a fact. But please don’t get used to losing. While winning every external battle is not up to you, winning the internal ones is.

Once you get used to losing, you start blaming yourself for everything.

I’m not good enough.

I deserve this.

I knew this was going to happen.

None of these thoughts are productive and none of them will help you nor will they help anyone else.

So while you will experience losses in work and life, don’t get used to them. Always know, your biggest wins are ahead of you. Your job is to believe in yourself and not give up.