Have you experienced random incidents in life that, at a surface level seem not connected, but if you reflect upon them, you can suddenly see the connection between them?
Well, this happened to me, in the past few weeks.....
 |
I was at Mount Forte College Bangalore, for a meeting regarding my Doctoral studies. Waiting for my turn to meet the professors, my eyes fell on a wall poster in the conference hall. It said 'Lead without Title'. I thought in my mind, what a powerful lesson on Leadership. So many of us wait to exhibit leadership thinking it comes with age, higher education, or position and title in society or organization, or when responsibility is given to us by a higher authority. But the fact of the matter is Leadership is an inner attribute and those who exhibit leadership first eventually receive the titles and positions (not the other way round). I have this habit of capturing standout moments of the day with my camera. So I took out my phone and took a photo.
 |
| Book authored by Seth Godin |
Continuing to be seated and waiting, the message 'Lead without Title' reminded me about the book 'Tribes' written by Seth Godin, which I am reading now. The author Seth Godin argues through his book that today everyone has an opportunity to be a Leader - to bring together a tribe of like-minded people and do amazing things. And yet too many people ignore the opportunity to lead because they are 'sheep walking' their way through their lives and work. He says, if you don't want to be sheep and instead have the desire to do fresh and exciting work, if you have a passion for what you want to do and the drive to make it happen, there is a tribe of fellow employees, or customers, or investors, or readers, just waiting for you to connect with them and lead them where they want to go. The wall poster 'Lead without Title' was a call out of the book Tribes, I smiled in my mind upon stumbling on this random connection.
 |
| Poet Noor at BIC on 21-Jan-2023 |
The third incident was a lived experience of mine which happened yesterday at BIC (Bangalore International Centre). I follow BIC events and try to attend them because BIC curates such a wonderful diverse plethora of speakers, performers, and sessions. Yesterday evening, there was an Urdu Poetry session by Noor (Seema). I was intrigued reading her profile - an Engineer, an MBA, a finance professional who studied Spanish and Urdu. She is now a Poet and Urdu language trainer/instructor. I registered myself for the event and reached BIC half an hour before the start time. Thank God that I reached early, I hadn't imagined the combined space of Hall 1 and Hall 2 would run out of sitting capacity. People were standing at the back, and the full-packed hall, where listening to Noor a young artist (possibly in her mid-30s) in rapt attention, engaging with her with Irshad, Doobara, and Wah Wah! and raptors of clapping. For me, this was a living example, a perfect case study from the book 'Tribes' and 'Leading without Title'. A young lady, an Engineer turned Urdu Poet finds her Tribe of Urdu poetry fans and engages with them in a housefull capacity.
How amazing life is, if we pay attention, random events are connected. Isn't it? And how amazing life will be, if we all tune into our inner calling, find our Tribes, engage with them, and lead them without worrying about our titles. Think about it.
Links for references:
Tribes: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/3828382
BIC event: https://bangaloreinternationalcentre.org/event/kuch-urdu-kuch-noor-kuch-guftagu/
Noor's website: https://www.poetrynoor.com/
Noor's Instagram handle: https://www.instagram.com/poetry.noor/