The greatest strength?

Way back in history, when the master of all self-help books was one Dale Carnegie, I remember reading in one of his books that a successful industrialist attributed his own success to the fact that he surrounded himself with people who were more brilliant than himself. (Oh, yes, I did read self-help books in those long gone days. How else do you think I know that reading them is useless unless you diligently apply what you learnt from them? Of course it was because I never applied anything and thus...)

Even more way back in history, Tiru said this...

Thammir periyaar thamaraa ozhugudhal vanmaiyu lellaanth thalai - Tirukkural

To behave in such a manner that those who are greater than you stick with you is the greatest of strengths - Loose Translation

If you jump up with ideas like "Why would an Adani stick with a mere coder?" and things like that, you are quite unlikely to get much further in understanding Tiru. In fact, it is very likely that you'll never live by this lesson. Thinking of 'greatness' as a power game and assuming that he who is greater than you will show you up as inferior IS the way to push such people away from you.

Tell me, have you not seen CEOs who know lesser engineering than the production guys, less about finance than the finance guys, less about marketing than the marketing guys? So, when the CEO discusses production issues with the production guy, he knows less about it than the CTO; ditto with finance and the CFO; and marketing with the marketing head. The CEO who can keep those about him who are greater than him in their respective areas IS the chap who is likely to succeed. It is enough if the CEO understands the others when they proffer advice AND is respectful of their opinions and advice.

On the other hand, the leader who feels threatened by the abilities of those around him and tries to put them down will, sooner or later, push them all away. AND surround himself with those who know less about their own areas than he himself does. How well is THAT leader perform, then?

It IS the greatest strength to have the ability to keep capable people around you. It is not delegation that is the strength here though THAT is also a component of the leadership ability to keep people around you. It is the ability to listen and understand, the ability to take a different decision without making the other person feel disrespected, the ability to harmonise varying opinions from people with differing strengths...in short, it is EQ of the highest order.

THAT is what one should look for in your top leaders. Technical abilities are much more common; the ability to harness various technical abilities to achieve a common goal - that's rare and, indeed, that's probably the greatest strength.

Second Nature?

You know,  there is nothing new that anyone can teach about how to succeed, how to become a great person, yada yada. Between a self-improvement book of half a century back and a similar book now you'll probably find no significant difference except the metaphors used to explain the concept and the examples put up to substantiate it. Oh, yes, everyone will give you a different 'program' to ensure that you do as they say but that's about it.

AND, truth be told, that's about all that they can do. Tiru says here that

Kadanenba nallavai ellaam kadanarindhu saandraanmai merkol bavarkku - Tirukkural

Doing all the right things are duties to he who wishes to progress on the right path - Loose Translation

THAT, in short, is what differentiates those who only wish to succeed and those who actually succeed. The problem is not always the fact that the former receive the wrong advice. The problem is in how well that advice is imbibed and implemented.

It sort of reminds me of my attempts at morning exercise. Being the sort who hates this concept of waking up early, it has always been a chore to get up at 5.30 AM and do all that pranayam, yoga, walking and so on. Every day morning found me reluctantly getting out of bed, after a mental tussle about taking just that day off. After a couple of weeks of pushing myself to do it daily, I found that I was doing it every day just like I was brushing my teeth - almost unconsciously. AND then...well, I go out on a holiday, take a break from this routine, come back and...you know how it goes. Tomorrow always seems a better day to start exercise than today.

THAT intervening brief interregnum where it had almost become second nature to get up early and exercise...THAT is what Tiru is talking about. When you imbibe advice and live by it, as though it is second nature, you are most likely to succeed. AND when you do not let failure make you deviate from that path ('I have been doing this exercise routine for three weeks and lost no weight at all, so what's the bleeding point of doing it' syndrome) - what they say 'doing it as a duty' also means do it with the same diligence despite not getting the expected fruits thereof - then success IS the most probable result.

Which accounts for why good advice doesn't change from time to time (Except, of course, if someone is advising you to learn manual record-keeping. Advice as applied to character IS different from advice related to skill-development or career choices. To ask you to be determined is always good advice; good advice about what work you need to be determined about...THAT will change from time to time) and, yet, successful people are always only a few.

To preach, you see, is not quite as difficult as to practise.

Only listeners are soft-spoken?

These are days when the desirability of being soft-spoken is considered highly over-rated. So, the very idea that you need to put in effort in order to become soft-spoken is...risible. AND yet...consider who you would want to surround yourself with? A bunch of loudmouths OR...Therein lies the quandary. You think of yourself as the chap who decides who will be in your company and assess the qualities that you want in yourself. Think of yourself as the contender for being in someone else's company and THEN you see that the qualities you need to possess are totally different.

So, Tiru says this...

Nunangiya kelviya rallaar vanangiya vaayina raadhal aridhu - Tirukkural

He who is not a good listener is unlikely to be soft-spoken - Loose Translation

There are times when a pithy saying lends itself to multiple interpretations. First, one needs to understand that 'good listener' of itself is capable of interpretation. It is not enough that you hear people out without interruption. You need to be open-minded about what you are hearing and engage with the person without bias or confrontation. It would appear, then, that the qualities of good listening would incorporate elements of soft-spokenness else how would you engage without being confrontationist?

The fact that you listen to multiple people would mean that you are exposed to nuances of thought. Anything you read gets interpreted by you in some manner; to listen openly allows you to see that the same thing is open to other interpretations with varying degrees of correctness even by your own standards. If you think further on why that other person could see things that way, you will understand how differing lived experiences would lead to differing interpretations. THAT teaches you to assess what you are hearing instead of jumping to judging the people who are saying it. So, then, you tend to speak more politely than if you were unused to the practise of listening to people.

AND, of course, when listening has made you understand that what you think is not the only way to think, you automatically expect to learn something different from anyone you speak to...even, if at the end you totally disagree with him, you'll at least learn that there are those who can interpret this subject this way. THAT idea, that the other guy may have something to teach you, will keep you polite and soft-spoken.

At the end of it all, the chap who thinks that he and only he is right IS the guy who is most likely not to listen; and the guy most likely to be rude as well. So there!

Company makes for character?

There is no end to the trouble that comes with aiming for being a person of good character. It is difficult to shed the bad in you. If you strive to do that by keeping off temptation, there will always be people who will make fun of you for not having the strength of mind to kill temptation in the mind. If you do manage to become a person of good character by eventually shedding the temptation to do evil, it is still not enough to continue being good. You need to keep away those who can tempt you back into evil.

It is all very well to say that you need the strength of character to abjure evil. But to most of us, the easier way to avoid evil is to keep yourself away from the temptation to do it. Like Tiru says here...

Mananalam nangudaiyaa rayinum saandrorkku inanalam yemap pudaiththu - Tirukkural

Though they be of good character, the wise know the need for good companionship to maintain strength of mind - Loose Translation

As a one-time smoker, I know that it helps to keep away from fellow-smokers in the process of quitting smoking. The successful end-result is to not be tempted EVEN when others smoke around you but to expect yourself to fight off such temptation from the very first day you try to quit...suffice to say that there MAY be someone who finds it possible but I do not expect to come across any such person in real life.

And then you may have quit comprehensively but it may still be best not to surround yourself with smokers all the time...most smokers who quit and then get back to smoking will testify that getting back into the company of smokers is what made them back-slide. Your will-power can stand so much temptation and no more. You tend to succumb to it.

Yes, the longer you withstand the temptation, the less likely it is that you back-slide. The process is helped by keeping OFF temptation, the destination is where you cease to feel tempted. To mistake the fact that you are still ON THE WAY and have not yet ARRIVED will lead to failing in pursuing the journey itself.

AND the journey is where Tiru helps. (You see, ALL philosophical advice is handy ONLY for the process. It is not like a philosophical destination is like a tourism destination where you need oodles of advice about what to do in Melbourne, say, now that you have arrived there. A philosophical destination is, like, Nirvana...all advice is about how to reach there; you are either not really expected to reach there OR it is supposed to be such bliss that you'll have no more questions left. So, there's no advice about destination only about process.) Tiru's advice is that, even if you are of good character, if you are wise, you will live in the company of the good, so that your goodness is strengthened. Otherwise...you know how it can go. It is very seldom, "Look out for yourself, let the rest of the world go to the dogs" sort of advice that taints you. It is more the 'In this world, you cannot be good and succeed'; 'Unless you do this, you'll not ever get into a position where you can do good to others.' and so on.

So, there. Choose your company wisely, even when you only seek to be known as a good man. It is not just that you'll be judged by the company you keep; it's also that your own character will get molded to suit the company you keep.