ISSN 2277 – 5153 VOL IX ISSUE 02 DECEMBER 2014 `100
Winner of theMedscape India
award 2012
End the powerstrugglesp38
Heard of inverted gardens?p58
Sleep like a buddhap64
Claim your power to change things
IT’S TIME TOSTEP UP AND
TAKE CHARGEp24
infinitemanoj
ManojKhatri
Manoj [email protected]
Editor’s insights
02 DECEMBER 2014 VOL IX ISSUE 02 COMPLETE WELLBEING
O pen the newspaper and you fi nd it all over. Turn on the 9 o’clock
news, and there it is again. Log on to social networking sites and once
again you fi nd it in all its pervasive glory. The ‘it’ that I refer to is our
collective tendency of blaming and pointing fi ngers at others. From
politicians to journalists, to the common man on the street—we have
become experts at complaining about the state of our aff airs. All we do is react,
blame and wait for someone else to take the initiative. This is not just a social
phenomenon—passively blaming others is a disease that affl icts our workplaces,
our communities, our homes and our relationships. Wherever two or more
people assemble, there is high likelihood that sooner or later, you will also fi nd
blame being cast, unless someone takes responsibility.
The word ‘responsibility’ seems loaded and for many of us it has a negative
connotation, implying burden. Responsibility however, is only a burden for
passive people, who have lost their ability to respond to life—which is what the
word responsibility literally means: the ability to respond.
In his play Mrs. Warren’s Profession, George Bernard Shaw said, “People
are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in
circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up
and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t fi nd them, make
them.” Shaw is describing his ability to respond to his circumstances.
Like Shaw, we too can take responsibility of our lives and our world, and
helping us get started is bestselling author John Izzo in this month’s cover story,
Step Up and Take Charge.
Izzo tells us that when even one of us takes responsibility, stepping up to do
what we can, everything gets be er: our marriages, our careers, our lives, our
companies, and our world. Life becomes more fun and more rewarding. “Seeing
ourselves as responsible and powerful to change things is a game changer in the
deepest sense,” Izzo says. Using examples of real people in real situations, he
convinces us of the power of one individual to eff ect real change.
“With great power comes great responsibility,” says Peter Parker in
Spiderman. It’s a profound thought. But the reverse is also equally true: with
great responsibility comes great power—the power to change our lives and our
world and make it a li le bit be er.
Let’s begin with the one we see in the mirror.
Not a burden
When even one of us takes responsibility, stepping up to do what we can, everything gets be er
RESOLVE >>Relationships38 End the power struggles
By Marita Nazareth
Sleep64 Sleep like Buddha did
By Joseph Emet
Self-help66 Take that first step
By Nicole Paulie
EDITOR & PUBLISHER | Manoj Khatri
CONSULTING EDITOR | Dr Grazilia Almeida-Khatri
SR COPY EDITOR & FEATURES WRITER | Wynrica Gonsalves
EDITORIAL COORDINATOR | Joycelin Sequeira
ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR | Amit Amdekar
SR GRAPHIC DESIGNER | Mukesh Patel
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PRINTED AT | Rajhans Enterprises
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY | Manoj Khatri, on behalf of Complete Wellbeing Publishing Pvt Ltd., at Rajhans Enterprises, No. 134,4th Main Road, Industrial Town, Rajajinagar, Bangalore - 560044, and published from Complete Wellbeing Publishing Pvt. Ltd., 502, A wing, Sagar Tech Plaza,Saki Naka Junction, Andheri-Kurla Road, Mumbai 400072. Tel/Fax: 022-6742 0900 Editor: Manoj Khatri
© Complete Wellbeing Publishing Pvt Ltd.,All rights reserved. Reproduction, in part or in whole, in print, electronic or any other form, is strictly prohibited.
DISCLAIMER | Complete Wellbeing is dedicated to providing useful, well-researched information on holistic health/wellbeing, but its contents are not intended to provide medical advice/diagnosis for individual problems or circumstances, or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. Readers are advised to always consult their physician/healthcare professional/therapist, prior to starting any new remedy, therapy or treatment, or practice, or with any questions they may have regarding a medical/health condition.
The views expressed by writers are their own and do not necessarily refl ect the views of the editor, publisher, or Complete Wellbeing.
Using masculine pronouns ‘he’, ‘him’ or ‘his’ for subjects of unknown gender is considered prejudicial. We respect both genders and hence use feminine and masculine pronouns interchangeably.
Complete Wellbeing is not responsible foradvertising claims.
Vol IX Issue 02 DEC 2014www.completewellbeing.com
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SUMMARY/CompleteWellbeing /StayWell
O F C O N T E N T S
24
TRENDING THIS MONTH >>
Responsibility changes everythingBy John Izzo
Mind & emotions34 Compassion fatigue
By Susanne Babbel
Health & vitality82 Ear pain
By Ravikiran Vernekar
Personal care84 Care for your skin in winter
By Jaishree Sharad
MANAGE >>
COMPLETE WELLBEING VOL IX ISSUE 02 DECEMBER 2014 03
10 Talkback
12 Events
16 Write notes
18 Happy happenings
37 Month freshener
46 Culture club
52 CW Select
70 Confession booth
96 New kits on the block
98 Reflections
REGULARS >>
UNLEARN >>Money matters78 How emotions influence our
decisions about moneyBy Kate Levinson
UNWIND >>Humour74 The end of conversation
By Sahil Shah
TRANSFORM >>Consciousness88 What is holiness?
By OshoEXPLORE >>Food & nutrition42 Recipes for diabetics
By Michael Swamy
Living Spaces54 Feng Shui for children’s
bedroomsBy Anand Bhardwaj
Perspective76 Yoga in your work life
By Georg & Brenda Feuerstein
Travel92 Romancing in Hong Kong
By Sathya Saran
DECIDE >>Parenting48 Why you should encourage
your kids to have more friendsBy Gaurai Uddanwadikar
04 DECEMBER 2014 VOL IX ISSUE 02 COMPLETE WELLBEING
DISCOVER >>Living spaces58 The magic of inverted
gardeningBy Shaan Lalwani
Mind & emotions90 Access Bars
By Ashish Narayankar
76
48 88
December 2014
MY NOTE
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MONTH FRESHENERInfuse life into your days
ww
w.c
ompl
etew
ellb
eing
.com
International Anti-corruption Day Raise your voice if you spot anyone giving or accepting a bribe.
Make your own music—write a song and give it your own tune.
Pamper yourself—blend some oil, sugar and rose petals in a blender to create a homemade body scrub.
National Energy Conservation Day Switch off any electronic gadgets when they are not in use.
If you’re bored of the plain walls in your room, channel your inner artist and decorate them with your own paintings.
Take a few colourful paperclips and prepare Christmas-themed bookmarks for your friends.
Vegetable art is a great way to reuse vegetable scraps. Try it out and see how creative you can get!
Take your kids for mountain
climbing and watch the sunset
together.
Commemorate your life’s important occasions–create a zany, colourful scrapbook and fill it with photos and memorabilia.
Christmas Spread the joy of
Christmas—visit an orphanage with your family and distribute
gifts to the kids.
World Soil DayPlant a tree for the sake of your children’s future.
World Disability Day People with a disability aren’t different; treat them with respect and dignity.
WED
31New Year’s Eve Usher in the New Year with those that mean the most to you.
Get your friends and family to come together and create a food bank; share your meals with those that need it.
Use public transport for travelling—just a single day of fewer vehicles on the road can make a difference.
Recycle paper or stockings by making flowers out of them.
FRI
19
parentingDecide
06 DECEMBER 2014 VOL IX ISSUE 02 COMPLETE WELLBEING
FRIENDSHIP… the very word evokes
memories of our best pals, crazy times
in school, pranks in college, group
study sessions, bi er fi ghts, breaking
and making up and lessons learnt. That
is why friendships play such a vital
role in a child’s overall development as
a happy and healthy individual.
COMPLETE WELLBEING VOL IX ISSUE 02 DECEMBER 2014 07
Parents are sometimes over-protective of their children and don’t allow them to mingle with other kids. But these early friendships are integral to building relationships that we carry through life
By Gaurai Uddanwadikar
THEIR FIRST
FRIENDS
08 DECEMBER 2014 VOL IX ISSUE 02 COMPLETE WELLBEING
Types of playIt all begins in early childhood as we sit next
to another child in the sand pit or in the
park. We play alone, seemingly oblivious to
the child next to us, but in reality we mimic
the actions of that child. This is parallel
play, the fi rst step towards socialisation
and friendships. Then comes associative
play followed by cooperative play, which
slowly and surely pushes us towards more
complex interactions with other children and
eventually towards building the deep bonds
that aff ect us to the core.
Eff ective social skill trainers Friendships not only serve to provide chil-
dren with playmates but also teaches them
the larger purpose of social and emotional de-
velopment. Kids learn how to relate to diff er-
ent people through making friends. Interact-
ing with diverse people allows your child to
understand what socially acceptable behav-
iour is and isn’t. Solving problems, weighing
alternative solutions, implementing social
plans and making rules are all skills that a
child learns as he navigates his way through
friendships. He also learns about team spirit,
accountability, social reciprocity, responsibil-
ity towards self and others and loyalty. It is
through friendships and playmates that your
child understands that individuals react dif-
ferently to diff erent situations. He learns that
there are diverse perspectives to a situation
and that unusual situations call upon singu-
larly distinctive ways of dealing with them.
Friendships also encourage healthy com-
petition and foster high achievement goals.
Companionship a survival necessityA child’s self-esteem is inextricably linked
to his peer group. His playmates set the
standard for age appropriate performance
and it is against this standard that the child
measures himself. His friends help him cope
with diffi cult times like parents’ divorce,
illness, academic disappointments as well as
supporting him through the transition phases
of adolescence.
Research shows that children with friends
have a healthier sense of self, higher levels
of self-confi dence and greater feelings of
wellbeing. They fare be er academically
and have be er social skills when compared
to children with few or no friends. Lack
of friends or rejection by peers can cause
signifi cant amounts of distress and even lead
to childhood depression.
Friendships are an important factor for the
healthy psychological development of a child.
Friendships serve a purpose that is diff er-
ent and complementary to the one served by
family. Family gives one a sense of belonging,
satisfi es some of our biological needs and
gives us a sense of intimacy. On the other
hand, friendship is our training ground; it
provides us with the luxury of trial and error
and the cushion to make mistakes before we
venture out into the adult world.
Friendship at diff erent life stagesChildhood friendships are focussed on rudi-
mentary play behaviours and a preference for
certain playmates. Elementary school children
tend to focus on kids with similar likes and
dislikes and become part of groups with those
inherent hallmarks of inclusion/exclusion,
fear of rejection, conformity and independ-
ence. The focus here is on companionship.
But, it is tweens and adolescents that
spend almost a third of their day with friends.
Friendships now become more intimate and a
big part of their identity. Validation, accept-
ance, care and trust are the other features of
friendships at this age. It is at this life stage
that peer friendships infl uence an adolescent
at a deeper level. They can either lead him
towards delinquent behaviour or foster resil-
ience, higher adaptability, confl ict resolution
skills and collaborative learning.
Gaurai Uddanwadikar, is a Harvard Medical School certified counsellor. She heads Counselling India and spends the better part of her day in psychotherapy and counselling.
To subscribe to Complete Wellbeing,send ‘CW SUB’ to 07738387787
I remember seeing two children, Anil and
Pritam, both aged 10 years, going through
a tough time adjusting to their new school.
Both had relocated to India recently. Anil and
his parents lived in a retirement-haven neigh-
bourhood, where he had a limited opportuni-
ty to meet kids of his age. Pritam on the other
hand, stayed in an apartment complex and
had a lot of peers in the area. He would meet
them every evening to play.
At the end of six months, Pritam had
adjusted well to his new school and new
surroundings as a result of the friends he
made, while Anil continued to struggle for
a few more months before adapting to his
new routine. Pritam’s friends helped him to
feel at home in his new surroundings, they
had modelled the local lingo and shaped his
school behaviour, thus aiding the process of
Pritam’s se ling down.
Encouraging your childrento build friendshipsAs parents, it is important for us to
understand the value of friendships for our
kids and work towards providing them the
opportunities to socialise and form bonds
with peers. A visit to the neighbourhood
park, organised sport activities, play-dates
and sleepovers can provide your child with
occasions to develop peer a achments.
Se ing clear, acceptable rules for social
behaviours, teaching the child how to deal
with diff erent social situations, coaching
them to deal with negative emotions and
seeking resolution to peer confl icts will
encourage your child to seek out friends and
the essential support system.
Friendships are a handy play resource, an
avenue for fi nding help and trusting care to
your child.
Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your fi eld which you sow with love
and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fi reside.
For you come to him with your hunger,
and you seek him for peace.
—Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
The stages of play>> First is solitary play where the
child plays by himself and enjoys discovering new things around him. At this stage however, he does not play with other children.
>> Then comes parallel play, in which the child plays besides another child, sometimes imitating the other child’s actions, but never interacting with him/her.
>> This is followed by associative play where the child often imitates another child playing next to him with minimal interaction in the form of borrowing toys.
>> This is followed by cooperative play which involves interaction, formal organisation and is seen in older children.
COMPLETE WELLBEING VOL IX ISSUE 02 DECEMBER 2014 09
SLEEP LIKE THEBUDDHA
sleepResolve
Feel the comfort of your bed. Are you there to enjoy it? Or are you mentally somewhere else, stressing about something that happened during the day, or might happen tomorrow?
10 DECEMBER 2014 VOL IX ISSUE 02 COMPLETE WELLBEING
By Joseph Emet
WHAT IS THE USUAL WAY you contemplate
the future? Is it with some anxiety? As we
learn to look at tomorrow with a smile, sleep
also smiles at us. We have concerns about our
health, relationships, children and work. But
as we change our a itudes and relax our need
to control everything, those concerns lose their
grip on us, and we can sleep be er at night.
During the day, your mindfulness practice
can bring a sense of contentment, peace and
happiness. At night, these feelings translate
into a relaxed a itude and be er sleep.
As we train that mind to get in touch with
focussed breathing and calm down, restful
sleep becomes a possibility. Mindfulness prac-
tices promote being in our senses over being
in our thoughts, being in the ‘here and now’
over being in the past or the future. You may
be physically present when you are in bed,
but mentally you may be somewhere else.
Even if you lay your body down in a dark,
quiet and comfortable bed, in your mind you
may be going over an acrimonious argument
you had with your teenage son earlier in the
day. But your body does not know the diff er-
ence between an imaginary argument and a
real one; in both cases, it gets worked up and
soon you are more ready for shadow boxing
than for sleeping.
Thoughts don’t come with a switchPerhaps you’ve had nights like this, or know
somebody who does. It is frustrating, because
you want to live an eff ective life; but here
you are, hours are ticking by, and you cannot
bill them to anybody! For some of you, sleep
might be a waste of time, when you could be
doing something more productive.
It is in moments like these that we discover
what a busy place our mind is. This is also
one of the fi rst discoveries that people make
when they start to meditate. The heart beats,
the lungs breathe and the brain thinks—con-
stantly. Thinking goes on all the time; it does
not stop a er we hand in that brilliant re-
search paper, fi nish tutoring our kids, or mail
our income tax. Thinking does not stop when
we go to bed. There is no ‘off ’ bu on.
Some fi rst-timers become overwhelmed
with the sheer volume of their own thoughts.
They fi nd it disagreeable to sit with all that
confusion. Yet, there is no way to avoid or
ignore that initial confusion. Pushing it away
by seeking distractions is self-limiting: the
blockbuster movie is soon over, that gripping
novel ends and guests eventually leave.
Sooner or later we need to face it and fi nd a
way to deal with it.
Take charge of your life witha good night’s sleep onRecron® Certified pillows.
You cannot control sleepCalming the mind is the fi rst step in Vipassana
meditation. Mindfulness makes it possible to
let go, and to abandon yourself to sleep. This
is diff erent from trying to control sleep. There
are some things you can and do control—like
your skeletal muscles, or which way your
car is going when you are behind the wheel.
There are some other things you cannot
control consciously. Sleep is one of them. The
conscious mind may be good at creating the
conditions for sleep, like turning off the light,
pu ing on some so music and so on, but it
has no clue about how to ‘do’ sleep. The ‘doers’
among us may try to control every aspect
to a point where the habit backfi res. This is
where mindfulness helps; it makes us aware
of our habits of mind, our a itudes, and our
thoughts. And awareness is the fi rst step
towards change.
Train your brain to sleepChange happens slowly, but it does happen.
The ability of meditation practice to physi-
cally change the brain has been documented
by neuroscientists. The brain is like plastic
and will change to accommodate the chang-
ing demands that we make on it. In mindful-
ness meditation, we pay a ention intention-
ally—we do not allow ourselves to give in to
automatic thoughts.
In the iconic image of the meditating
Buddha, he was si ing and watering seeds
selectively—he was watering the seeds of
positive mental states. With time and practice,
weeding our thoughts becomes easier to do,
and pays off .
During the day, the people around us, our
work, or even leisure activities occupy our
minds. At night, when these stop, automatic
thinking takes over—unless we off er the
mind something else. This ‘something else’
is what we develop in meditation. It is the
ability to come home to our body… to the
soothing rhythm of our breath. Because we
have been shown the path, we can be certain
that the Buddha was peaceful not only during
the day, but also at night when he lay down
to sleep.
Here are a few suggestions that can help>> A daily period of meditation is important
for calming the mind. In meditation, we
become witnesses of our own thoughts
and feelings. This is diff erent from ‘drown-
ing’ in them. We stay with the breath, and
observe our thoughts.
>> Avoid watching the evening news on TV;
it is usually a run-down of what’s wrong
with the world. At night-time, you need to
contemplate what’s right with the world.
You may wish to mentally go over all the
good things that happened during the day
and give thanks for all the things that you
feel grateful for.
>> If you enjoy reading before going to sleep,
choose something nourishing, not a mys-
tery novel or a horror story.
>> Emails and text messages are best read in
the morning. At bedtime, bad news will
get you upset. Good news will get you
excited. Both these states of mind are not
conducive to sleep.
Meditation has many benefi ts, and be er
sleep is one of them. In most pictures of the
meditating Buddha, he sits on a seat of lotus
fl owers. This is a metaphor for his state of
mind. Without a peaceful mind, even the so -
est bed can sometimes feel like a bed of nails!
Joseph Emet is author of several
books on meditation including Sleep better
with Mindfulness Meditation. He was
invited by Thich Nhat Hanh to receive the
Lamp Transmission.His Dharma name is Dwelling in Peaceful
Concentration, which he has been trying
to live up to.
Ashish Narayankar tells us how he uses the Access Consciousness approach in conjunction with medicine to heal his patients
Accessing your
consciousness
health & vitalityDiscover
What can you expect from a session of Access Bars?Our head has 32 energy points
called ‘The Bars’, which connect to
various aspects of our life. When
we touch these points gently, old
energies stuck in the brain and body
are released, which allows easy and
tremendous change. This process is
known as ‘running your Bars’.
While running these Bars, all our
judgements, points of view, beliefs,
a itudes, thoughts, feelings, emo-
tions etc. about that particular area
in our life are released. This process
helps us to eff ortlessly erase years of
stored blockages and limitations in
just a few minutes.
There are separate Bars for mon-
ey, creativity, aging, body, sexuality,
AS A DOCTOR, I would o en
perceive the emotions of my patients
and realise that there is much more
to healing an individual than just
using orthodox medicine. I would
wonder why people get depressed
or fall sick and what I could do dif-
ferently to help them. I realised that
99 per cent of all illnesses are just
physical manifestations of mental
and emotional distress, and that it
was more important to work on the
individuals’ emotions than treat-
ing the symptoms of the disease in
order to cure it.
This awareness led me to explore
numerous healing modalities. One
thing led to another and I started
working on my clients in a holistic
way, treating the aspects of mind,
body and spirit.
What is Access Consciousness?When I came across Access Con-
sciousness and was introduced
to Bars, I resonated with its phi-
losophies. Access Consciousness
believes in empowering you with
pragmatic tools that enable you to
change anything in that area of life
you consider dysfunctional or where
you have given up. Access uses
hands-on body processes, as well as
hands-off [verbal] processes to help
you shi your life.
It teaches us that we are infi nite
beings with boundless choices
and possibilities. Life can be hard
when it seems that we have no
choice; but it is even harder when
we know we have a choice and
yet we are not taking that one
step to create something more for
ourselves. This is where Access Bars
works wonders.
12 DECEMBER 2014 VOL IX ISSUE 02 COMPLETE WELLBEING
To subscribe to Complete Wellbeing, send ‘CW SUB’ to 07738387787
Ashish Narayankar is a Body process and
Talk to The Entities facilitator. He is a Clinical
Hypnotherapist and works holistically using
medical science and energy medicine. He specialises in cancer healing. Write to him
The 10 commandments of Access Consciousness1 Would an infinite being truly
choose this?
2 Interesting point of view
3 10 second increments
4 Live in the question
5 No form, no structure, no significance
6 No judgement, no discrimination, no discernment
7 No drugs of any kind
8 No competition
9 Do not listen, tell or buy the story
10 No exclusion.
power and healing, to name a few.
When you touch these Bars, you not
only release unwanted thoughts,
but also open up opportunities for
change in your life.
A er running these Bars, some
people may experience a certain
awareness of the energy being run,
but rest assured that this feeling will
dissipate of its own accord, over a
period of time.
Can you run your own Bars?Yes, we can run our own bars; how-
ever, having someone else do it for
us would be much more eff ective.
This process can be learnt in a single
day’s class. A er you have learned
how to run your Bars, you can team
up with another person who has
learnt it and swap sessions. When
you give a Bars session to someone
else, every thought you have that
is the same as theirs, gets cleared at
the same time. So when you give a
session, you get a session too! You
can never go wrong with the Bars.
The only known side eff ect of Bars
is—happiness.
But this sounds similar to EFTMany times I have been asked
if Access Bars is similar to Emo-
tional Freedom Technique [EFT]
or Kinesiology. Well, EFT is about
unlocking emotions and traumas
from the body by tapping specifi c
energy points, which is also similar
to acupuncture. It is a treatment you
can perform on yourself to heal your
body. Running your Bars and using
access tools will accomplish all that
EFT sets out to do, and much more.
Access Consciousness has also
taught me an amazing concept of
‘receiving’ and reiterates its impor-
tance. Life is not only about giving
and doing, it is also about receiving
and being. Access helps you to get
you out of judgements and gives you
a totally diff erent perspective on life.
My experiences with Access Consciousness A lot of people complain about the
things that others do to them and
wonder why they are always being
targeted. When we are not empow-
ered, we end up blaming our situa-
tion, our family and everything else
around us for our present circum-
stances. This is simply a defensive
response, so that we are safe in our
mind, creating pseudo notions of ‘it’s
not me’, ‘someone else did it’ and ‘I
am just a victim of my situations’.
When I started implementing
Access Bars on my clients, my ses-
sions were faster, more eff ective
and be er, and my clients went
back not just aware of the mess
they’d created, but believing that
they have an option of undoing it.
So in turn they believed that they
could create a be er reality for
themselves.
There are no age restrictions and
Access Consciousness can also be
taught to kids.
When I facilitate a Bars Class or
any other Access class, I enjoy sow-
ing the seeds of awareness in my
participants. Through these sessions
I strive to enable them to be be er
individuals by helping them release
all the limitations and fi niteness that
they were operating with.
COMPLETE WELLBEING VOL IX ISSUE 02 DECEMBER 2014 13
14 DECEMBER 2014 VOL IX ISSUE 02 COMPLETE WELLBEING
Trending this month
Every problem, from personal diffi culties and business challenges to social issues, can be solved if all of us look to ourselves to create
change rather than by looking to others. By seeing ourselves as agents of change we feel happier, less stressed, and more powerful
By John Izzo
Claim your power to change things
IT’S TIME TOSTEP UP AND
TAKE CHARGE
COMPLETE WELLBEING VOL IX ISSUE 02 DECEMBER 2014 15
Well, you are ‘it’! You are responsible for
your own happiness, for the success of
your relationships, for the morale of your
workplace, for the success of the company
where you work, and for your life. What’s
more, you are responsible for poverty, for
global warming, for your neighbourhood,
for your school, and for homelessness. Be er
said, we are all ‘it’. That is, when each of
us takes responsibility, stepping up to do
what we can, everything gets be er. Not
only that, but when we step up and take
responsibility, the game of life and work is
more fun and more rewarding. We fi nd
more success.
This is not to say that there aren’t times
when our lives, our happiness, and our
success are signifi cantly infl uenced by outside
forces. Sometimes our manager is a tyrant,
sometimes parents aren’t able to give us a
good foundation, sometimes our spouse is
more to blame than we are, and sometimes
the problems we face [such as global
warming] seem so intractable that it is easy to
feel like we can’t make a diff erence. But when
we choose to focus on what WE can do and
how WE can act, we are suddenly powerful.
Victims simply don’t create change.
I am not talking about “the burden of
responsibility.” Many of us already feel too
responsible, taking on the blame and feeling
a need to fi x everything. The responsibility
I refer to is freeing. It is about choosing to
do what you can in your sphere of infl uence
without worrying about what anyone else is
or is not doing.
RESPONSIBILITY CHANGES EVERYTHING. The moment we decide that
we are the ones who are capable of and responsible for changing things,
everything shi s. Your marriage, your career, your life, your company, and
our world gets be er whenever one of us simply decides to step up and do
what we can do in our sphere of infl uence.
Seeing ourselves as responsible and powerful enough to change things is
a game changer in the deepest sense. The shi is akin to the childhood game
of tag. When I was a child in New York City, we played endless hours of
this game. One person was ‘it’ and had to run around trying to tag someone
else. The moment you were tagged, the whole game changed.
John Izzo, PhD is a business leadership
expert and community leader. He advises
some of the top companies and has
spoken to more than one million people
across the globe. He is the author of six books.
His most recent book Stepping Up, shows
the power of personal responsibility in life,
work and society.
16 DECEMBER 2014 VOL IX ISSUE 02 COMPLETE WELLBEING
The Five Rows of ResponsibilityOne of the simplest yet most profound
experiences of my life happened to me on an
airplane in January 2002. It was an icy, snowy
day in Cleveland, and I arrived just in time to
be the last one on the plane before they closed
the door. I quickly realised that everyone
around me was in a foul mood. No sooner
had I sat down than the stranger next to me
said, “My boss is such an idiot! He is sending
me up here to this godforsaken place. The
client never buys anything and never will buy
anything.
My boss is such an idiot.” Having over-
heard her diatribe, the man across the aisle
chimed in with his own commentary: “Not
only is your boss an idiot, lady, but the people
who run this airline are idiots too. We have
no leg room, we are late as always and look at
the ice on these wings—we’re probably going
to die on this thing.”
Once we took off , the mood continued,
and the negative virus spread. Soon everyone
around me was complaining about the world,
their companies, and their spouses, and it
just kept ge ing worse. Even I was calling
my boss an idiot, and I work for myself! It
was a veritable feast of negativity and victim
thinking. Like all feasts of junk food, the
feast felt good going down but le all of us
feeling worse.
About fi ve rows in front of me at the bulk-
head, a mother sat with her two-year-old son.
All through the fi rst half hour of the fl ight,
We have tremendous power to influence people around us
the kid kept trying without success to get his
head above the seat to look back. A few times
I saw his head, another time his eyebrows,
but it was not until about forty minutes into
the fl ight that he fi nally got his head above
the seat and rested his chin and hands on the
seat. He looked something like a chipmunk.
When he saw all of the passengers behind
him, he smiled the biggest, most natural smile
you’ve ever seen. Within moments that child
transformed the fi ve rows behind him. The
boss-is-an-idiot lady started talking to me
about her kids. The airline-is-run-by-idiots
guy stopped complaining and began mak-
ing faces as he tried to get the boy to smile
again. Someone said, “We should all be a li le
more positive like that kid,” and suggested
I go borrow him. When I off ered to take the
child off the mother’s hands for a li le bit,
his mother gladly accepted the break and
the boy’s visit to row six changed the mood
within minutes.
Si ing there at 30,000 feet ra ling across
the Midwest, I had an epiphany that I have
come to call The Five Rows Principle: most of
us have tremendous power to infl uence about
fi ve rows around us, but we spend most of
our time thinking and talking about what
someone else should do in some other plane
or row. What’s more, almost every problem
we face—from global warming and terrorism
to poor morale in a business and bullying in
schools—is a fi ve rows problem. That is, the
problem is merely the aggregate of what each
of us is doing in our fi ve rows.
Let’s take an example of a seemingly
intractable problem. Why is global warming
and a deteriorating environment such a vex-
ing problem? Because, the environment—like
most problems—is a fi ve rows problem. You
could say the government needs to step up,
but the problem is the aggregate result of
decisions each one of us [and our companies]
makes in our fi ve rows—the cars we drive,
the trips we take or don’t take, the food we
eat, the choices we make in terms of what we
buy, what we reuse or recycle, and so on. On
one hand, our fi ve rows don’t ma er very
much at all, but on the other hand the prob-
lem will be solved only when each of us does
what we can in our fi ve rows.
If you work hard, you will achieve. It is a message of self-responsibility in its purest form. If you are not succeeding, look in the mirror
Take a company where bad service and
low morale have become the norm. You could
say that the CEO needs to fi x it, but soon you
would realise that, for the most part, service
and morale are both fi ve rows problems.
Things will change only when individuals
step up in their fi ve rows and treat the
customer be er or do their part to improve
morale. What’s more, individuals need to
focus on what THEY can do in their fi ve rows
instead of what someone else should do. The
CEO should be worried about what she can
do in her sphere, the managers in theirs, and
the front-line people in their sphere. The more
people focus on taking action themselves,
the more likely we are to make progress. If
we focus on our fi ve rows, we can create
change. We can’t control what anyone else
does, only what we do.
This conclusion applies as easily to our
personal lives as to these larger landscapes.
Reeling from a quarrel with my wife that
day on my ride to the airport, I was focussed
on what my wife needed to do to fi x our
marriage instead of taking responsibility for
my ‘fi ve rows’. The more I focussed on what
she should do, the less powerful I felt, and
the less impact I could have. Whether it is in
our personal or our communal life, we must
always begin by asking what we can do, not
what others should do.
If we all begin in our fi ve rows, every
problem we face can be fi xed, every challenge
we have can be solved. Every time you are
tempted to think it does not ma er if you step
up, remember the fi ve rows principle: if each
of us begins where we are and does what
we can, anything is possible. Pointing to
someone else is easy and ultimately means no
one does anything.
COMPLETE WELLBEING VOL IX ISSUE 02 DECEMBER 2014 17
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