Nothing is Impossible – 7 Lessons from the World’s Oldest Marathon Runner – Fauja Singh

‘Anything worth doing is going to be difficult” - Fauja Singh

I’ve been following the developments in Fauja Singh’s life for quite a few years now and have often quoted him in my talks and presentations. He’s back in the news again due to his relentless efforts so what I’ve done is I’ve put together this blog post from his various interviews, news clips and videos to share the lessons I derive from his life. Please feel free to share your opinions and add to the lessons we all can learn from this great man. 

Best wishes- Simerjeet

7 Lessons from the World’s Oldest Marathon Runner – Fauja Singh 

1) The Importance of being Happy-

Our Emotional Health permeates every aspect of our life, so we are told from numerous research studies but Fauja Singh’s life is a testimony to this fact. Fauja Singh says in one of his interviews that the biggest reward in life is to make others happy. “The secret to a long and healthy life is to be stress-free. Be grateful for everything you have, stay away from people who are negative, stay smiling and keep running.”

Don’t sweat the small stuff says Mr. Singh –  “Why worry about these small, small things? I don’t stress. You never hear of anyone dying of happiness.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/19/secret-worlds-oldest-marathon-runner-100). Running gave Fauja Singh a purpose in life and a sense of peace. He moved to the UK after he lost his son and wife.

2) Keep your Inner Child Alive! - Don’t take life too seriously!-  ”If wrinkles must be written on our brows, let them not be written upon the heart. THE SPIRIT SHOULD NEVER GROW OLD.”  (James Garfield)  

In one of the video clips below you’ll see Fauja and his friends poking fun at each other like little kids. I think it’s this ability to not to take life too seriously that goes a long way in keeping us healthy and energetic. Fauja Singh took up serious running when he was 89! As the years roll by, the challenge with most people is that we keep on putting limitations on our own selves – I can’t do this, I can’t do that because I’m too old to be doing that… We must continuously learn to stretch beyond our comfort zones because that is where the adventure begins!

3) The Best is Yet to Come! – An Attitude of Positive Future Expectancy -

Fauja Singh reaffirms my belief in this affirmation that I’ve used for quite sometime now and many of the participants of my talks would probably remember my trademark affrimation – The Best is Yet to Come! It’s a positive emotional feeling believing that the journey is still going on and will continue to do so till my last breath and life still has many surpirses to offer. The attitude of Positive Expectancy creates a zest for life and is the perfect antidote to boredom. At 100 years, having achieved all the fame and glory, Fauja Singh is already visualizing his next feat – the Torch Relay for the London Olympic games in 2012. What I admire is the absence of doubt when he speaks of the future and a strong spiritual side that helps him finish his races.

4) Exercise - Get those Endorphins! - Fauja Singh says in comparison to other people of his age, he exercises everyday by walking for 4 hours. At the end of the day, says Mr. Singh, my legs also hurt and so do the legs of others who keep sitting all day long. The difference he says that his legs become stronger due to exercise and others suffer from all kinds of diseases.

5) Diet – Watch what you put into your stomach AND your mind-  A recent WHO study said that more people die today of overnutirion than undernutrition. Now, as far as I have observed, that’s certainly true. With rising incomes and a sedentary lifestyle, we are eating way more than our bodies can cope up with. The result – India has some of the world’s highest prevalence of Diabetes and Cardiovascular Diseases. Fauja Singh also says that he never takes pills for common ailments. He just changes his diet to eat simple stuff like porridge and returns back to normal!

Asked about the rest of his diet, he chuckles. “I could go on and on, but it’s not a new or magic thing, is it? Punjabi people know eating and drinking is important, but I just eat the minimum of what I need: some daal and roti, gobi and chai – I’d probably be dead if I was full all the time.” (speaking with Nosheen Iqbal of The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/19/secret-worlds-oldest-marathon-runner-100)

Now the same is also true of our mental diets ie the predominant thoughts and feelings that we hold in our awareness. Most of us suffer from an ‘information overload’. The media is bombarding us with all kinds of negative news and FEAR (False Evidence Appearing Real). We don’t get the opportunity to look within and get in touch with our real self.

6) Money is not everything - Money is important but it should not be the only driving force of life -

“I’m not really interested in all the rupees, I give it to charity,” he says of his sponsorship deal. “Money can be saved and spent and lost and made. At my age it’s nice just to do this. Come on, who wants to talk to this old man? Everyone now! And it’s because of the running that all these people keep showing me so much love. Look how blessed I am. What’s not to be happy about?” he says speaking with Nosheen Iqbal of The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/19/secret-worlds-oldest-marathon-runner-100)

7) Spirituality - Speaking about the marathon, he said: “The first 20 miles are not difficult. As for last six miles, I run while talking to God (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fauja_Singh#cite_note-express2004-1).

Having a strong spiritual connection can keep us going when everything around might be crumbling. I think in life, it’s easy to start things but very difficult to persevere and to see things through to fruition. But it’s this ability to finish what you start that distinguishes the Winners from the Whiners. In one of Fauja Singh’s Marathons, he finished more that 6 hours after Kenya’s Kenneth Mungara won the event!

Here are some videos that give us some insights into the psychology of this inspiring super achiever -

In this video, Fauja Singh shares his views on leading a healthy, happy and holy life. The video is originally in Punjabi but also has English subtitles.

Fauja Singh says in one of his interviews with BBC:

“The secret to a long and healthy life is to be stress-free.

Be grateful for everything you have, stay away from people who are negative, stay smiling and keep running.”

Acknowledgments  -

BBC - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15330421

Nosheen Iqbal – The Guardian - http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/19/secret-worlds-oldest-marathon-runner-100

Google – Images / YouTube Videos

Wikipedia

Kill Procrastination – Improve your personal effectiveness by conquering Procrastination – A presentation by Brady Gilchrist

Presentation Credits -

Brady Gilchrist http://www.slideshare.net/Bradygilchrist

What motivates creative professionals to do their best at work?

Seth Godin in his latest thought provoking and inspiring book – “Linchpin – Are you Indispensable?” (highly recommended reading btw) quotes Author Richard Florida who polled 20,000 Creative Professionals to answer one question

- What motivates you to do your best at work?

He  gave them a choice of 38 factors, here are the top 10, ranked in order :

1) Challenge and Responsibility (Not surprising, is it?)

2) Flexibility

3) A stable work environment

4) Money  

5) Professional Development

6) Peer Recognition

7) Stimulating Colleagues and Bosses

8) Exciting Job Content

9) Organizational Culture

10) Location and Community

It’s interesting to note that Money ranks only at number 4 on the list. Isn’t it ironic that to increase motivation and employee engagement, the usual approach is to offer monetary incentives or other means that involve financial expenditure.

The truth is that the implementation of many factors on this list does not require any financial approval or a budgetary increase! All we need to get the best out of our team is a strong desire from the Leaders to treat their people as individuals rather than dispensable and replaceable cogs.

Show your people that you care about them, that  you want to develop them, that you trust them and that you want them to achieve their highest potential and see the magic happen!

I think it would be helpful for every leader to do an honest self assessment on the list above and find out where they currently stand and then create an action plan to plug the gaps.

Would like to share any best practices in your organization? Do the factors listed above make sense to you from your organizational viewpoint? Please share your views in the follow up comments.

How Ritz-Carlton Maintains its Mystique – Article in Bloomberg Businessweek by Carmine Gallo

Bloomberg Businessweek

VIEWPOINT February 13, 2007, 2:15PM EST

How Ritz-Carlton Maintains its Mystique

The luxury hotel chain reinforces customer-service values among employees by investing in daily training that revolves around storytelling

by Carmine Gallo

When you think of luxury hotels, a few brands come to mind. Among them is the Ritz-Carlton (MAR). The hotel has established a worldwide reputation for treating guests like royalty. Walk into any Ritz-Carlton hotel in the world and you will be greeted by a staff that works at making customer service an art. Every employee, from the valet to the front desk attendant to the waiter to the housekeeper, is warm, friendly, gracious, courteous, and genuinely seems eager to make sure your stay is a memorable one.

As I learned recently during an interview with Ritz-Carlton president and chief operating officer Simon Cooper, the company’s mystique relies primarily on the Ritz-Carlton’s 35,000 employees who create “unique and memorable” experiences for their guests. According to Cooper, “It’s all about people. Nobody has an emotional experience with a thing. We’re appealing to emotions.” The goal, Cooper says, is to develop such a strong emotional engagement between the hotels’ staff and their guests that “a guest will not consider staying anywhere else, if they have an option.”

Living the Service Values

Every manager and front-line employee of the Ritz-Carlton carries a laminated card with 12 service values guidelines that are intended to help employees create the mystique that attracts luxury travelers. For example: I build strong relationships and create Ritz-Carlton guests for life (No. 1), or: I am proud of my professional appearance, language, and behavior (No. 10). The Ritz-Carlton is not alone in creating rules or guidelines to keep employees focused on the company’s values and mission, but the Ritz-Carlton does stand apart in how it reinforces those values with every employee, every day.

Each day at every Ritz-Carlton around the world, employees from every department gather for a 15-minute meeting, known as a “lineup,” to review guest experiences, resolve issues, and discuss ways to improve service. These lineups are unlike most meetings held on any given day in most corporations. Once basic housekeeping items are out of the way, most of the rest of the time is spent reinforcing one of the 12 service values. How is it done? By employing the most powerful communications technique available: storytelling.

Telling Wow Stories

Stories have the power to inspire, motivate, and reinforce a company’s culture, vision, and values. During the lineup, someone reads what is known as the “wow story” of the day. The same story is shared across hotels in 21 countries, so a waiter in Boston will hear the same story as a concierge in Bali; a housekeeper in Shanghai will hear the same story as a doorman in Hong Kong. The stories single out a staff person who went above and beyond—offering exemplary service to help create the mystique that turns luxury travelers into repeat guests.

The stories are amazing. One family staying at the Ritz-Carlton, Bali, had carried specialized eggs and milk for their son who suffered from food allergies. Upon arrival, they saw that the eggs had broken and the milk had soured. The Ritz-Carlton manager and dining staff searched the town but could not find the appropriate items. But the executive chef at this particular resort remembered a store in Singapore that sold them. He contacted his mother-in-law, and asked that she buy the products and fly to Bali to deliver them, which she agreed to do. Of course the family was delighted. After an experience like that, do you think this particular family would even consider staying somewhere else?

The stories have two purposes: First, to recognize an employee’s commitment in front of his or her peers and second, to reinforce a service value. In the above case, the Bali story was intended to reinforce service value No. 7: Use teamwork to meet the individual needs of our guests. According to Cooper, “It’s the best way to communicate what we expect from our ladies and gentlemen around the world. Every story reinforces the actions we are looking for and demonstrates how each and every person in our organization contributes to our service values.”

Experiencing a Lineup

After my interview with Cooper, I observed two lineups—a general one and a more specialized meeting for the housekeeping staff on the morning shift. What struck me about both was the enthusiasm. These men and women had far more energy and excitement than I have observed among employees at many other companies. Employees were eager to discuss the stories, the service values, and how they can do better at incorporating those service values in their roles. The stories were used as teaching tools.

Now do the math. Two 15-minute lineups across 61 hotels, 365 days a year. The hotel is literally offering thousands of hours of training to its employees. No amount of training would be effective, however, without making an emotional and memorable connection with the trainees. Sharing cultural stories is the best way to do it. The Ritz-Carlton does this each day.

In his book on leadership analysis, Leading Minds (HarperCollins, 1996), author Howard Gardner writes, “Stories speak to both parts of the human mind—its reason and emotion.” Stories, he says, “constitute the single most powerful weapon in the leader’s literary arsenal.”

Take a cue from the Ritz-Carlton and use stories to improve your service across all levels of your organization.

Carmine Gallo is a Pleasanton, Calif. communications coach and author of the book, Fire Them Up! (John Wiley & Sons; October, 2007

A presentation on Motivation Models

Motivation Models (by rmullenger)

Source – http://www.slideshare.net/rmullenger

Feedback – Video Testimonials by participants of Leading with Social Intelligence Workshop held at CII Gurgaon

Watch what the senior managers from the leading companies of Delhi NCR had to say about this 1 day Workshop on Social Intelligence and Leadership –

For more information, visit our website http://www.simerjeetsingh.com

Lessons from a Pencil by Paulo Coelho

A boy was watching his grandmother write a letter. At one point he asked:
‘Are you writing a story about what we’ve done? Is it a story about me?’

His grandmother stopped writing her letter and said to her grandson:
I am writing about you, actually, but more important than the words is the pencil I’m using. I hope you will be like this pencil when you grow up.’

Intrigued, the boy looked at the pencil. It didn’t seem very special.
‘But it’s just like any other pencil I’ve ever seen!’

‘That depends on how you look at things. It has five qualities which, if you manage to hang on them, will make you a person who is always at peace with the world.’

‘First quality: you are capable of great things, but you must never forget that there is a hand guiding your steps. We call that hand God, and He always guides us according to His will.’

‘Second quality: now and then, I have to stop writing and use a sharpner. That makes the pencil suffer a little, but afterwards, he’s much sharper. So you, too, must learn to bear certain pains and sorrows, because they will make you a better person.

‘Third quality: the pencil always allows us to use an eraser to rub out any mistakes. This means that correcting something we did is not necessarily a bad thing; it helps to keep us on the road to justice.’

‘Fourth quality: what really matters in a pencil is not its wooden exterior, but the graphite inside. So always pay attention to what is happening inside you.’

‘Finally, the pencil’s fifth quality: it always leaves a mark. in just the same way, you should know that everything you do in life will leave a mark, so try to be conscious of that in your every action’

Source: “Like the Flowing River” by Paulo Coelho

The Little Book of Leadership by Phil Dourado – Powerpoint Presentation

Powerpoint version of  The Little Book of Leadership, from www.TheLeadershipHub.com

Source - http://www.slideshare.net/PhilDourado/little-book-of-leadership-powerpoint

Author- Phil Dourado.

A presentation on the concepts and learning from the book ’Freakonomics’

A interesting presentation on the concepts and learning from the book ‘Freakonomics’ – with a few examples from daily life.

Credits – Vikas Shenoy

Source- http://www.slideshare.net/vikas.shenoy/freakonomics-concepts-and-application-presentation

‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling and Video featuring Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!

Rudyard Kipling

Watch this great video featuring Roger Federer & Rafael Nadal reciting the poem ‘If’

(Original Credits – BBC Sport) (YouTube Source – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is-JCJCUy18)