Does money spoil people? November 8, 2013

image by axinia

There is a common belief that money spoil people. Stories are being told of nice people who, after getting rich, become horrible. I tend not to belive in such transformation. Let me show you why.

Since several years I work very closely with bankers, particularly with private bankers, who deal only with so-called High-Net-Worth-Individuals. It means these bankers operate with million-dollar/euros accounts and enjoy various benefits from assisting their affluent clients. Also many have a chace of earning a lot with side-services, even illegally. So basically one is very much exposed to seeing big money and the chances to get rich too. My observations show that people who are good-natured and decent, honest and self-respecting remain the same. The ones who have had some “worm” of indecency, are getting worse and worse…Yes, money spoils but only whose who are already spoiled. 

I think even moeny can be the best litmus test ever: Give a person access to big moeny and see if and how he/she will change. I bet that truly grounded, stable personalities will remain within theri best qualities and will only show more generosity.

This is again my very personal observation. Have any of you got the feeling of the opposite being the truth?

Thanks for sharing your experiences!

LOVE
axinia

What about trust? June 16, 2013

image by axinia

Most of us would call trust is one of the basic human values. What’s the point of writing about it when it is anyway clear to everyone. My point here is to share my observations on how people relate to trust and what could be done about it if it is missing.

We all want others to trust us. But do we trust much? In my profession I have to get an idea of a person within one hour and to reach that I had to dig deep, taking straight to the values and desires. By doing so I can sense the level of trust in a person which is -alas! – often not that high. We are afraid of each other, afraid to open up and to trust. Afraid to get hurt and disappointed. I guess each of us had at least one case in life when our trust was misused. And this makes us cautious.

No need! Relax about it, my friends. Here is what my long-term observations on the trust matte show:

1.People who trust others, are more successful in life: they are more loved, more relaxed and successful in establishing long-term relationships which lead to better career chances and of course deeper and more stable friendships and families.

2.People who trust others are happier in life in general because they have less tension and fears of being misused.

One should not be too blue-eyed of course and if there are clear signs of someone’s criminal behavior one should be alert. However are many cases when even in criminal situation when approached with trust and friendliness, the negative situation could be neutralized. I once had a miraculous situation and know how amazing it could be.

Yogis are most desirable candidates for jobs July 25, 2012

Meditation makes you more balanced and joyous. People love to be around happy people, and will understandably enjoy your company. An inner magnetism will start to be expressed, and somehow, you may not know why, but you will find almost everyone eager to work with, or for you. 

Interestingly in the job world you become a desirable candidate for any recruiter because of your charisma and dynamism. The reason behind this is that regular meditations increase your energy level and you yourself will start emitting vibrations, or essentially everything positive. People can feel it and they actually love it, even if they do not understand the source of it.

This is what I’ve learned from several recent recruitment experiences: among many candidates people who meditated were selected as the best, although the recruiter or client knew nothing about the yogic background of a job candidate.

People practicing yoga and meditation are more luckily to be selected for a job.

So the new career rule says: MEDITATE and you will be successful!

🙂 axinia

Mastery: Why people like to get better at stuff May 28, 2010

Mastery seems to be a basic need. Each human being sooner or later likes to succeed in something: either it is one of the most useless and stupid record from the Guinness book or just a karaoke singing, obviously people just  like to get better at stuff! The point is that mostly they do not gain anything from it, and possibly nobody will even ever hear about their mastery or pay for that… And yet, people do it. Why?

The interesting answer I found in the video I posted earlier was: “getting better is satisfying”. Yes! As simple as that.

Speaking in term of yoga knowledge, I find the correlation between the Mastery and Satisfaction very interesting, because these two are inborn qualified from the two “neighbouring” chakras: Nabhi and Void (both in the stomach area of the body). Normally responsible for different qualities – Nabhi for satisfaction, Void -for Mastery, in this very case they came up as interconnected and there is  probably even a deeper meaning of this combination… something like that: if you feel unsatisfied in life, try to master something, and more contentment will come to you!

LOVE, axinia

The evolution of business: The PROFIT mode dies out, the PURPOSE mode comes in! May 18, 2010

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I think the most brilliant about this observation is that this is the NEW trend. I am sure that a couple of centuries or even decades away people have been indeed very well motivated by profit only. Now, as a clear advancement of mankind we can see the new motivation, the advanced motivation.

Let me back it up with one fo the most brilliant TED videos – “How great leaders inspire for action”, I guess it is nearly same idea, but from another view-point…

We live in a very interesting time when we can observe the transformation of the whole humanity at the highest speed!

LOVE, axinia

3 common misconceptions of work March 5, 2010

ILLUSION 1:  People tend to overestimate the role of work in their lives: the identification with a profession is often so strong that the whole personality gets squashed into that limited role.

ILLUSION 2: A job is the only mean of unfolding the beauty of personality. In reality there are so many other occupations that also do it: family, friends, hobbies…

ILLUSION 3: the greatest one – a job is the way of self-realization or so-called self-fulfillement.

These are the illusions I guess we all more or less dwell in, due to the strong conditioning of the society. However the opposite is true!

Here are some points I  gained from my observations:

• generally, most of the people have many talents/abilities, they can vary from art to technique, from language to mathematics within one and the same person.
• it is difficult to find a job where we can fulfill many of our talents at the same time.
• we often have to take one opportunity after another in order to be able to live all our talents in one life. And even one life may not be enough.
• we have to realize that there may not be ONE dream job!
• we have to realize that even getting the dream job is not reaching heaven, and finally it does not make us happy. It may contribute to our well-being, but it is not the ultimate happiness (as many people seem to believe). Neither a dream job nor a dream partner are responsible for our happiness.

And what are your observations?

P.S. In order just to add to the dream job issue: I myself have in mind several dream jobs which are totally different!  Despite the fact that I am already having the so-called dream job, I would love to do at least 3 other things later in my life:

1. life coach/job coach (helping people to find their mission and place in life)
2. director of my own private school (with a unique educational concept I worked out through years)
3. florist (flower design) or interior designer
   

I hope I will manage to live all them in this life  :)… At the same time I know that in the end of the day there is something else that matters much more for me, something which gives me the true self-fulfillment. And for you?

LOVE,

axinia

Never jobless: my “Whiskers, Paws and Tail” strategy October 28, 2009

This post is an outcome of my over 10 years work experience. The funny thing about it is that none of my employers have ever looked at my CV. And yet I was getting very good positions. The even funnier thing is that I ended up working as a Human Resources Manger myself. All that gives me the right to claim that there is a certain strategy that makes it work, and work successfully.

I call it “Whiskers,  Paws and Tail”  strategy. There is a popular Russian cartoon “Prostokvashino” with a cute cat Matroskin who, being asked about his documents replies: “Whiskers, paws and tail are my documents!”. And that is what I mean under no need of a CV presentation: you yourself at any moment of life should be the best CV to your personality, both inside and outside. Let me list some ideas on how I see it.

1. Reliability is the most precious and important quality for an employer, no matter in which sphere –  creative, business or industrial. You should not only look reliable but actually be that. Reliable people with determined attention emit this quality naturally, and this leads to trust which is so valuable for anyone.

2. Inner and Outer Beauty: It starts with the  inner work on oneself – the perpetual unfolding of your character is essential. Not getting “better” from day by day, no. You are already perfect. It is about discovering the true beauty of your personality. The most speedy method for it I found in my meditation practice. There are many other ways as well, but this one gives the fastest results. As soon as your true perfect being will be increasingly shining through, this will make you a desirable person. Many people will want to be with you, will seek your company for any thinkable reason. Among these people there will be also some potential job-givers!

3. Be The Best Product Yourself Having this full package of precious inner Qualities + their Manifestation + Reliability you become a  kind of a PRODUCT, a highly desirable  trade mark. How will you know it works? When any decision-maker/boss/HR Manager will want you to work for him/her after a couple of minutes you have talked. And  this is not a dream!

Agriculture enlightened: a modern Japanese sage brings “do-nothing farming” July 25, 2009

Another beautiful encounter with an enlightened soul of modern times: Masanobu Fukuoka (1914-2008) was a Japanese farmer who developed what many consider a revolutionary method of sustainable agriculture. The fascination about this method is that it is not only practical and efficient, but also very spiritual.

Fukuoka started as a microbiologist and worked for the Japanese customs until his transformation following an illness and an ecstatic illuminating self-realisation experience. His central insight was: “There is nothing, really nothing at all whether this be the mundane world or God’s world.” After that he gave up science and come back to his father’s farm where he developed his unusual method. In 1975, distressed by the effects of Japan’s post-war modernization, Fukuoka wrote The One-Straw Revolution. In his later years, Fukuoka was involved with several projects to reduce desertification throughout the world. He remained an active farmer until well into his eighties, and continued to give lectures until only a few years before his death at the age of ninety-five.

Today I’ve read The One-straw Revolution  -an extraordinary book that distills the deepest of philosophical and spiritual truths into a practical approach to farming that was called natural or do-nothing farming. Since its publication in 1978 in English, the book has shot up to cult status, mandatory reading among advocates of alternative living. I literally “swallowed ” the book, as it was so fresh and meditative…ultimately, it is about quieting our cleverness in a way that allows us to see how we really can do more with less.

I especially enjoyed the way Fukouka came to his conclusions on farming:

“The usual way to go about developing a method is to ask “How about trying this?” or “How about trying that?” bringing in a variety of techniques one upon the other. This is modern agriculture and it only results in making the farmer busier.

My way was opposite. I was aiming at a pleasant, natural way of farming [Farming as simply as possible within and in cooperation with the natural environment, rather than the modern approach of applying increasingly complex techniques to remake nature entirely for the benefit of human beings] which results in making the work easier instead of harder. “How about not doing this? How about not doing that?”- that was my way of thinking. I ultimately reached the conclusion that there was no need to plow, no need to apply fertilizer, no need to make compost, no need to use insecticide. When you get right down to it, there are few agricultural practices that are really necessary.”

(I wonder if this could be the brilliant hint for a modern man in general, in other spheres of of life? 🙂

So what is that special about his natural farming? What makes it that revolutionary?

Things in life I can never understand July 22, 2009

There are certain things in life my brain just strikes to understand.

Among the vast spectrum of human knowledge these things stay for me apart – as a clear invention of sophisticated brains, and not something natural.

These things are not representing the beautify of human nature, in fact they make life complicated.

These things are normally explained in an overblown, twisted manner for only a few to understand.

These things for me are:

Who wants money? July 18, 2009

“Me!” would be probably the first reaction of all most of the people.

Do you really want money? – if even now the answer is ” yes” then you are already a millionaire.

The truth is, only a tiny percent of mankind  really wants money and these are the same people who own great material riches. I talked to some people who know personally the so-called Russian oligarchs (people who became incredibly rich and influential  in a short time) – they say that it is the love for money as object that has driven them all to becoming so rich.

The truth is that an average citizen of any country is not really interested in money. Sure, no one would mind comforts and other benefits that money brings with. However it is a very seldom case that someone is interested in possessing huge sums of money as such. And the one who is obsessed with the idea usually gets it!

Why this?