Are you a good Parent?

Are you a good parent? The answer of this question would give your son or daughter when he or she becomes a parent himself or herself.

Recently, I was reading a post written by business consultant Peter Bragman.

He was on an old, rustic train at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Orlando, Florida when he noticed a majestic lion sitting on a rock on top of a hill, in perfect view.

“Aren’t we lucky the lion is out,” He mused to the “ranger” on the train with him.

“He’s always out there, sitting on that rock,” The Ranger responded.

“Really?” Peter said. “How do you get him to stay in that exact spot?”

The ranger smiled and answered “ The rock on top of which the lion is sitting royally, for all the park visitors to see is temperature controlled. It is warm on cold days,  and cool on hot days. No need to train the lion or tie him to the rock or hope he likes the view. They just make the rock a place the lion wants to sit.”

This triggered a bell in my head. Our parents played a similar role in our life. Just like that theme park, our parents made our study room the place we wanted to be in. Like a role model, our parents, proactively took care of all our day-to-day needs so that we only had to focus on our studies and overall development. Our parents also set reasonable and age-appropriate expectations with us. They empowered us to excel in each area whether studies, sports, engaging in social environment, and helped us reach our maximum potential. Rather than focusing on discipline, our parents created the right environment to get the results we needed to become competitive and successful.

It’s no secret that children can be cold or absolutely unresponsive to change, especially if the change comes from an external force. After all, “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.” In the case of parenting, we often see this adage put into practice when parents hire an external tutor to scrutinize their children’s way of learning, identify the problems and propose new ideas.

Leveraging an outside point of view is often a logical approach because children are too young to prefect their learning pattern; they tend to stuck in their own habits and can’t see the forest for the trees. However, this outside-in approach often leads to resentment among the children, resulting in increasing lack of cooperation and inevitably rendering new changes null and void.

This may sound like an odd analogy, but “save the children” an international organization that provides aid to impoverished children faced a problem in 1990 when it opened an office in Vietnam. Resentful of having a foreign entity on its soil, the Vietnamese ministry gave “Save the Children” representatives Jerry and Monique Sternin only six months to solve the problem of malnutrition among millions of children. Faced with a virtually impossible task, the Sternins decided to try something no one else had before: they asked the Vietnamese people themselves how to solve the problem.

The Sternins enlisted the help of the mothers at a local village to identify children who were bigger and healthier than average and discover what the families of these children were doing differently. Working together, they found that the parents of the healthy children were serving smaller meals more frequently and using different ingredients that had more proteins and vitamins. The Sternins and the village mothers used this knowledge to collaboratively design a program to combat malnutrition that, six months later, improved the health of 65% of that village’s children. The program eventually spread to other villages, and overall it helped more than 2 million Vietnamese children overcome the malnutrition problem.

So why were the Sternins so successful? Because they searched for the bright spots and cloned them. The mere existence of healthy children provided a ray of hope to the village mothers. The mothers then provided the momentum necessary to change their village’s cooking and eating habits. The Sternin’s role as ‘outside expert’ was to simply ensure that these women were able to conquer malnutrition on their own.

Why this analogy is so relevant and powerful. Our parents searched for bright spots in us ‘all the time’ and help us clone them. I remember I was very good in mathematics but not that good in many other subjects. Our parents worked with us, asked us ’how to solve a particular problem’ and took the benefit of inside-out approach.  Rather than focusing on what was wrong in our learning pattern, they focused more on what was right. The found what was working well in a particular area, and helped us duplicate the same pattern again and again. By cloning these small successes, our parents created a permanent change in our life right from our childhood.

I am so proud of my parents. Their efforts succeeded; I got admission in one of the best engineering college in India, got a good job, and happy a family. I have two loving daughters. Now the burning question is - Am I a good parent? The answer of this question would give my daughters when they become a parent themselves.

Malala: The True Hero!

Last week we read a lot about Malala Yousafzai. Malala was a strong contender for Nobel Peace Prize which she highly deserved. After all she was shot in the face at a close range, lived through it and all this did not dissuade her from spreading the message of peace.

I am amazed by the response this sixteen-year-old girl made to a question in a recent talk show. When Jon Stewart, the host of the Daily talk show asked her how she reacted when she learned that the Taliban wanted her dead.

I started thinking about that, and I used to think that the Talib would come, and he would just kill me. But then I said, 'If he comes, what would you do Malala?' then I would reply to myself, 'Malala, just take a shoe and hit him.'  But then I said, 'If you hit a Talib with your shoe, then there would be no difference between you and the Talib. You must not treat others with cruelty and that much harshly, you must fight others but through peace and through dialogue and through education.' Then I said I will tell him how important education is and that 'I even want education for your children as well.' And I will tell him, 'That's what I want to tell you, now do what you want.'

No doubt that Malala is brave. More than what she said, it is the conviction with which she spoke that matters. It is well understood why she is such a terror for Taliban. She is attacking Taliban’s fundamentals and its thought process; and by becoming an advocate of girl's education she is giving hope to millions of children; a hope that is about a better future and a better world.

I commend her courage and resolve. At such a tender age, she has more wisdom than vast majority of people on this globe. I wish I was 10% as brave and cool as Malala. In this world full of artificial heroes, she is the real hero!

I am looking forward to read more about about her in the book 'I am Malala'. 

When will you start your Retirement Planning?

It is an interesting topic. Is not it? I know you disagree with me. We all in thirties-to-forties believe that it is too early to think about retirement. It is many years away. True but is it really that away? I have a friend who wants to retire at 55, pursue a hobby and he is already 38 now. Last week, we met over dinner and suddenly topic turned to retirement planning. He was reluctant due to same old reason. Come on! It is too early! This time, we spent a little more than nanoseconds on the topic and he was quick to realize that is fast approaching. Another common friend who is elder of both of us was as if thunderstruck. We asked him, “Hey buddy, what happened?” He felt that he is left with too little time to plan for his retirement.

That is the hard reality! We wake up when it is too late.

I have recently learnt that it has become extremely difficult to do retirement planning, primarily due to following reasons:

Mortality Rates are low – Should that not be good news? Yes, the life expectancy is increasing with time, thanks to advancement in medical technology and increased general awareness toward healthcare. But that means more money is required to plan for additional years. Let me make it simple. Imagine retiring at 60 and expect to live till 90 years of age. For that, you need money to live 30 years without a regular source of income. Is not that a long period to plan for?

Low current interest rates – When I first realized this one, it acted like a bummer. I wish I would not have been that stupid. But I am. I always felt that low interest rates are good.  For example, low interest rates mean low monthly mortgage installment. Is not it? But Low interest rates also mean that low income on your investments including the ones that belong to retirement segment. You need much more money to save to maintain a similar living standard after retirement.

Do you agree?