Gerald D'Cunha

  “A winner is the one who recognizes his God-given talents, works his tail off to develop them into skills, and uses these skills to achieve his goals.” Larry Bird   A couple of days ago, I saw a missed call after one of my online sessions. I called back and found it was Gitanjali. Gitanjali is the wife of one of my dear old-student, Sunil. Apparently, as my students often do, Sunil, too, had spoken about his old teacher   so much, at home, that this woman who heads a sales team in her organization   – a mother of young son who pursues Engineering – wanted to get some help from me… “Sir, I am good at my work… both my seniors and juniors have been giving me excellent feedback… But, I find myself tongue-tied in many situations and struggling for words and how to convey whatever I want to… Can you help me to overcome this problem, Sir? I want to improve my English.” I haven’t changed anything in   the above dialogue of Gitanjali… She spoke fluently,...

“The things that make me different are the things that make me.” – Winnie The Pooh G od hasn’t made all five fingers alike… Nor has He made me and my four brothers, alike. We five are as different as our own five fingers. Some of us, including me, are very shy – very introvert. Maybe, it’s come from our mom’s genes. And, some of us are open - very extrovert. Yes, maybe, it’s come from our dad’s genes… Why five children of the same parents are as different as cheese and chalk, yes, it shall, always, remain a mystery to me! I remember my childhood. I, always, hid myself from the world… I did not take part in any social events like singing, dancing, acting, public-speaking etc. As I turned a teenager, I, also, turned more and more inward into my own shell… “The whole world is watching me… and judging me”… Yes, this was how my mind operated. Those thoughts – of self-doubts - were the seeds of my lack of self-confidence. But, along this ...

“Commitment leads to action; action brings your dreams closer.” – Marcia Wieder “I f wishes were horses, even beggars would ride them.” I used to, often, display this quote in my classroom. The message was loud and clear: “Don’t just ‘wish’ to succeed. ‘Dream.” A funnier version of this quote, which conveyed the same message, was, also, displayed, time to time: “Everybody wants to go to heaven; but, nobody wants to die.” W ishing is the pastime of the lazy lot… It’s daydreaming. Nothing changes unless you get up and do something about ‘the problem in hand’… And, that ‘getting up and doing something’ has a name. The name is ‘Commitment’. Just get up and do. Sign up! A friend of mine called me, the night before last. Her friend, a mother of 16-year-old son, wanted to meet me about her lack of self-confidence and English communication. I told my friend to get the lady call me the following morning. I got the call ...

“How you treat yourself is how you are inviting the world to treat you.” -           Anonymous S ome days ago, I was holding a training session in a reputed college in Mumbai. There were about 80 participants, all of them from S.Y. BMS. The subject was: ‘Self-confidence and Communication Skills.’ As I always do, I had shared with the young ones my own story. The reason why I do it is because, If I am expected to guide the in that area, then I need to tell them how I did it for myself… Was I self-confident and good in communication when I was their age or was I struggling with the same issues? If I have overcome my problems, then, there must be a road-map… I, always, share that with young kids, wherever and whenever I hold the programme on this subject. During the Q & A time, a young boy had a question. “Sir, I could really relate to your story,” he said, “I, too, was innocent and c...

A re we ‘originals’, or are we ‘duplicates’? One of the reasons, why we do not ‘express’ ourselves fully – and by ‘express’ I mean, in fullness… through our talents, skills, strengths and uniqueness and, yes, through our speech, too – is that we do not know who we really are… how good, how special and how valuable. And, because we have no idea about our own worth… we do not operate from our core – the source of our strength… we only operate from the shallow surface… Fear dissolves when we get hold of our inner source, the core… the depth of our specialness. Once, we begin to operate from our core, there is no stopping… the talents, skills, strengths will simply blossom, just the way everything else under the God’s sky does… from there, we express ourselves fully, fearlessly… just the way every original creation of God does under His sky… God hasn’t created us in a factory mass-production line… He has created each one of us individually… separately… and incre...

“Skill and confidence are an unconquered army.” - George Herbert T wo days ago, I had an occasion to re-affirm my belief, that there is much more to our self-confidence than our looks, size and academic qualification. A gentleman, who had a couple of post-graduate degrees, including an MBA and PhD, wanted to meet me to discuss about his self-doubts. Similarly, a young girl, a college student, too, wanted to meet me to discuss about her self-doubts: her color complexion and size… T he gentleman was a HOD in one of the premier educational institutions in Mumbai. He was very articulate and spoke with good body-language… Before getting into the academic field, he had spent more than six years in the field of selling and marketing.  “Why did you switch the field?” I asked the gentleman. “I, always, wanted to influence people,” he said, “teaching, I thought, would be the best way to go about it.” “Do you enjoy teaching? Do you feel you...

Pic.: Sheela Krishnamony T he old story of ‘Two Foxes’, once again, came before me, today… One day, a grandfather told his little-grandson, “Honey, inside you there are two foxes and they are constantly fighting with each other.” “Which one will win, grandpa?” the little-fellow was curious to know. “The one who you will feed the most, honey,” the grandpa said caressing the little-one’s head. A s a little child, and later, as a college-going boy, I was terribly shy and frightened. Self-doubts and anxiety had kept me subdued… Desires and dreams, I would, always, think belonged to some privileged kids… and not to me … And, as I have told this many, many times before, it all changed when Prof. B.S. Raman came to teach our class in F.Y. B’Com. Sitting there lost in the crowd of our all-boys class, I desired to become like my idol – a fine teacher. But, an interesting thing happened: As I became conscious of my burning desire to become a fine teac...