In relation to the “professional kirtaniya” idea in the previous post - I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:

We need to have a professional attitude without having a professional mentality, and we should be careful to not confuse the two.

Yat karosi tat kurusva mad arpanam: “Whatever you do, do it as an offering to Me” means that we need to strive in all endeavours for the highest quality. Everything is Deity seva. Everything is Deity paraphenalia. Everything is Krishna’s and should be used for His service.

Everything should be done to the highest standard - a professional standard - but without the professional’s profiteering mentality.

Thought for the day:

I heard John Maxwell say once that “previously it was thought that if you could cast vision, you were a leader. But there is more than one thing to being a leader - in fact there are 21″ (a reference to his 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership).

I certainly know some people who can cast vision like anything, but I was left wondering - “why does this person sound like a leader, but have no-one following them, and not inspire me to follow them either?”

I realized that vision is not sufficient - it has to be credible vision to be effective. I wrote about that in a post on Effective Vision in May of last year.

Today’s thought is a re-expression of that.

Vision gains credibility as you execute on it and get results.

In the beginning perhaps no-one else “gets” your vision. No-one else pays it any heed, believes in it, or wants to contribute to it. But you don’t let that stop you (if you do you definitely don’t have a credible vision). You execute on it anyway, because your vision has at least enough credibility to have one person who believes in it (you), and as you execute on it and make it happen, it rises in credibility.

Here is an example:

My first job in the tech industry was assembling PCs in a small firm in Auckland, New Zealand, called Eclipse Technology. After about 6 months there the company went bankrupt. I remember bumping into the CEO, Carmel, in the hallway during the windup process. She asked me what I was going to do. I told her that I thought I’d be a sysadmin, maybe with Unix machines. Six months previously I’d come from a job I’d held for a year washing dishes in a cafe.

She looked at me and scoffed: “You’ll never do that - you’ve got no experience”.

I didn’t want to point out to her that as the CEO of a company that just went bankrupt she didn’t enjoy so much credibility with me. Obviously my vision of my employment future didn’t have so much credibility back then for people other than myself. Three years later, on the cusp of Y2K I was a sysadmin, albeit for Windows machines. Ten years later, I’m working administering Linux systems.

Ok, to round off this post - here’s another thought I’ve been having for a while:

Vision - if you can hold it, you can have it.

The bigger the vision, the more opportunities you’ll get to give it up, before you get it.

Three very inspirational stories for me from the sacred literature are the stories of Dhruva Maharaja as a child, and also his encounter with the mystical illusions of the Yaksas, and the life story of one of my personal heroes, Hiranyakasipu.

Leadership is the supply of clarity and direction in circumstances of confusion and indecision.

Soya milk is the drink of atheists, and constitutes avoidance of caturmasya.

;-)

Check out my comic book that I’m working on. To teach and to preach, that is my mission. It’s not finished yet, but I thought I’d share it with you anyway. There’s a lot more to do on it - it’s just a proof of concept.

I first had the idea of making a comic book when I was in Perú. I wanted to make one about Suci and Muci, two cartoon characters who demonstrated Vaisnava Etiquette and Culture through their adventures and misadventures. At the time it seemed like the best way to explain the concepts to a seldom reading public.

I’ve come to realize that actually practically no one reads what I write, so now I just do comics.

Anyway, Sita-pati is currently absorbing information on communication, so here is some regurgitation, as per my dharma.

You know you are successful when you can log on to Amazon and browse a category of books by your detractors…

We are not simply called upon to lead within our organization, but to create an organization to lead the world.

“Don’t pretend to be perfect - tend to become perfect.”

Being right is actually pretty easy. It’s being right in the right way and at the right time that’s the hard part…

“And that just proves that Krishna is God. Actually, it doesn’t… but it does prove that being a Hare Krishna is a whole lot of fun!”

- After last night’s program, while discussing the appearance of the new ashram

I added a new category called “Sita-pati sez” to capture and re-present some of the more memorable realizations that appear in my hearing range from time to time that are expressed in pithy form.

Sometimes things come out spontaneously, and sometimes they are the result of a process of refining an idea. Sometimes they are re-expressions of ideas of others. Ultimately they all have their source in the Supreme Personality of Godhead who is origin of everything and the source of the ability in man.

I put them all under the category of “Sita-pati sez” with the disclaimer: “Most of my good ideas were thought of by other people…”

I remember one memorable line that a friend of mine dropped once. He had missed what someone else had said (at least consciously), and had repeated the same idea. “That’s what I just said!” that person said. “Yeah,” he retorted, without blinking an eyelid, “but it didn’t mean anything until I said it.”

Everyone cracked up laughing. Such shameless self-promotion in New Zealand, where I was born, is recognised as a form of self-effacing humour. No one takes it seriously, from the person who says it, to the people who hear it.

The statements in the Sitapati sez category will be a mix of the things that appeal to me: profound truth, wit, and bravado. I hope you find something of value in it.

I’ve been inspired lately by a blog called Overheard in the Office, where people write in and recount exchanges they have witnessed in their workplaces. One of the funniest things about them for me are the titles that the editor gives them.