Efficiency

Lessons living with Mohanji – Days 25 and 26

Posted on May 25, 2021 by Mohanji Testimonials

by Christopher Greenwood

Day 25 Lesson – Positioning and how to build a positive reputation

This morning I was speaking with Mohanji about the Bootcamp, which he ran yesterday. He was really interested to understand how it was received because we spoke about some really big subjects, the soul and spirit. This opened up a lot of questions from people. We were sharing how best to answer these and also formulating the next step of actions. Once this has finished in December, we’re ready to roll this out for more people to benefit from. It’s all about understanding yourself.

What we’ll be doing is working with the countries and offering it as a service to them. They can go out, bring in the audience, and run it with as many people as possible in each country. I was interested in how we can also translate this into the corporate world because spirit and soul are not the things spoken much about in the corporate world. But we won’t probably use those topics there. It will be more for the foundation.

When we got onto a topic, it was really interesting because Mohanji started to speak about his own experience from the business world, which I don’t know how many people have heard, so I thought I’d share this story.

We were speaking about the important things, anything in life, especially work, and it is about positioning. This is what generally a lot of people find hard. Like, where do we fit in society? Where do we fit within work?

He was talking and sharing that we develop many complexes from childhood: what’s okay, what’s not okay. As we grow, we take all those in from society too. Then the society places expectations on us. It’s the same if we join an organisation that will have a certain way, a certain culture, a certain expectation of being. So we’re never quite sure where we should place ourselves.

Then there are people who are overconfident and put people off and people who are underconfident, which affects their performance. So, sharing that the right positioning is important.

He said: “How do you know where to position yourself?” And that’s when you understand yourself, who you are. That’s part of what this program is about, taking people to an understanding of themselves. Then communication becomes easier because people aren’t trying to prove themselves. They’re not worried about what people think. They’ll adjust how they are, how they need to be in that situation. Whereas usually, we’re trying to always adjust ourselves to the society, where to fit in, and the idea of what we should be.

So I was asking as well how to position ourselves in work. So someone’s in a workplace, and it’s really quite maybe a toxic culture. I’ve worked in lots of these where people have many opinions on other people. There’s lots of criticism; there’s lots of politics, there’s lots of subtext and situations happening, which makes it difficult to get on with your work, especially if you are not interested in those things.

He said that the best thing to do in those situations is just to focus on the job. Do your best and focus on perfecting what you have. Because when you do that, people will notice you for the output that you do. Then naturally, the positioning happens by itself. So we don’t need to worry about where we are, what we’re doing, who’s who, who’s in contact with who, and what other people think. If you have the task, have something in front of you, do it to the best of your ability, and then the results speak for themselves. And naturally, from that, people will then reflect on the position that you have.

For example, Mohanji gave a really great one from his work life. For those who don’t know, in Mohanji’s previous work, he was really successful. People even today call him up from that work, his work colleagues. And he could just walk back into that job tomorrow because of the reputation that he had within the industry.

At 35, he had gone from starting as a sales executive and raising up through the ranks to become a CEO and the country head of five countries. This was in shipping. So this is handling big ships, handling oil tankers, car carriers, navy ships, cruise ships. These are the massive logistical operations of loading and unloading all that cargo into the ports on a fixed schedule, the timeline. You also have the unpredictability of the wild seas and the weather.

So when we spoke about positioning, he gave an example in his company where there wasn’t an overt praising or appreciation for what he was doing. But in the end, the Japanese Navy actually gave him an award for his work, for the excellence of what he was doing, which was unprecedented. Nobody gets that; only people actually in the Japanese navy get this. If you think of the Japanese, they are renowned for things like their efficiency, reliability and the navy was no exception.

When I asked how you managed to get this, he said it was very simple. You’re looking at the situation, looking at what needed to be done, finding that the Japanese navy had protocols for when a ship came into the port. He just looked at this, studied it, and just through logic, made sure everything was in order. Timelines and loading were kept making sure things were done ahead of time. Planning for it to be completed ahead of time so that it was still being delivered within the overall time if there was a delay.

They also had a protocol of reception. They have a really good culture of respect in Japan. If you’re an admiral or a certain level of office, then you should be received when you arrive with a corresponding rank of a person. So sometimes he would go as the country head. And other times, if it was more junior rank, he would send the operations manager. He stuck to that protocol well, and because of that, the expectations were completely exceeded. Although internally he wasn’t recognised, externally he was, for doing that job. He was well respected. He said that sometimes it could be like that.

So the message he reinforced, or what I took away, is that – applying yourself fully to the task that you have at hand, doing the job as much as possible, and forgetting what others may think because the efforts speak for themselves. I’ve taken that into my own work and practice, here especially, I can see that too, because I’ve heard that message before and thought: Okay, some things I’m good at, some things I’m not so good at, so I’ll just do my best as I can, knowing that sometimes it’s not perfect, sometimes there’ll be mistakes. But if at least I’m applying as much as I can, I can be content that I’ve done all I can.

Even in the end, Mohanji was sharing from this type of work ethic and way of being that people were even happy to pay his company more to do the work. Because they knew just from him being part of it that it would be done well, the job will be completed, and it will be hassle-free.

And how we develop that over time, that reputation, he distilled down into a very simple recipe. Just four bullet points, which I’ll share with you now, which is something you can take into the day.

1. Reliability

That was the first one that he came up with within that line of work and for anything. Reliability. Keeping our word at all times – it’s incredibly important. It is remembering that we don’t have to say or agree to anything which we can’t do or don’t want to do. But when we do, then it’s keeping that word.

2. Promptness

It is sticking to timelines. Making sure that whatever is needed to leave his desk was done promptly or within 24 hours. And this is definitely something which he trained us well within the office, this is how we should be effective, and we should be making sure that we’re clearing things within 24 hours. If it’s not possible, then at least we’re sharing a message to say that it’s been acknowledged and it’s in progress; it may take a little bit longer. But at least then, there’s a response within that time. So promptness is important.

3. Information flow

I think with shipping, it must have been incredibly important. It’s a continuous flow of information to people. If he had foreseen delays with the weather situation or anything that was out of his control, then the right people were always informed immediately. He would do the same if there were some complications where he was expected to incur a loss as well as the customer. So they would be in conversation to make sure that any deficit or balance was understood, even to the point where because of that, information flow was so consistent that they would be able to share in the losses. They both helped each other out and almost developed a companionship. So that any unprecedented losses in those situations, such as petrol price increase, were accommodated on both parts. So, keeping that information flow.

4. Companionship in work

He was not treating people like customers but treating them as if they were companions, same within the team as well. If he heard some information that was relevant for somebody else, he would pass it on. He would say, ‘Hey, I heard this, not so much of interest for me, and I don’t know whether it would be useful for you, but please have it; it could be interesting for you.’ So anytime some information was heard or there was an idea to be shared, keeping that companionship with the other.

He shares the four things as the recipe: reliability, promptness, the flow of information and companionship in work—doing it together rather than a customer-supplier relationship.

Day 26 Lesson – Mohanji as a friend and tips for increasing efficiency

I wanted to start today by sharing a different dimension to Mohanji, one that I haven’t really spoken about before, but something which I really appreciate a lot. And this is his friendliness and his approach to some really deep matters, which I approach with a lot of seriousness, but he makes it really a matter of fact and very casual, in fact, even bringing humour into it.

For me, I think this is what sets Mohanji apart really, that approachability, the fact that he is a friend. And if people approach him that way, regardless of what’s happening in their life, he is there; he can be trusted. He gives his perspective and the teachings with both humility and humour, too.

And he’s rarely very serious. Most of the time, he shares some of the most profound teachings in the lightest of ways. But again, as I’ve mentioned before, you have to keep an eye out sometimes because he will share it with such lightness and ease, but underneath, there’s always a deeper meaning. Even the jokes that he has, and the humour that he brings, it can be really funny.

Today, for example, in the morning, he was talking about a film or TV show that he had watched. I can’t remember which one of those two it was. But in this film, let’s say it’s a film, there’s one scene and it’s a very auspicious day, a religious day. What you’re meant to do at your first sight on opening your door, whatever you see sets the tone for the year ahead, whether it’s going to be an auspicious year. People will dress up as deities; there will be brightness etc. When you see that, that’s what you’re going to see for the year to come. There was a guy who was very angry with his boss; he didn’t say what happened. But essentially, he turned up at his boss’s house and rang the doorbell. When the door opened, he showed his boss his butt. His butt was the first thing that the boss saw on this auspicious day.

It was funny, and Mohanji was laughing; he was really laughing at this. But the message was there as well that some people will do anything for revenge. That was the subtle message. Humour is there as well when we meet in the mornings.

Today I was sharing with a person in the team working practices that I’ve learned from Mohanji.

And this comes from his efficiency, how he manages to address so many tasks in the day. I think he said before on the podcast that he has the same amount of hours in the day as anybody else. Practically, he’s just making the most of that time. When he’s involved in a task, he’s completely focused on that task, just that task. That means he’s minimising distractions.

He said people don’t progress with pace and efficiency because they are distracted most of the time with the tasks they’re trying to perform. So, when he’s doing something, he’s fully occupied. I’ve seen that as well; when he’s writing a message or having a conversation, his attention is fully there. Sometimes I’ll come in, and I’ll need to speak to him about something, and he says, “Just wait, I need to finish this first.” I’ll wait, and his attention is completely there.

No distractions – the key to efficiency.

Also, side by side with that is the focused attention, which can help us, and has helped me actually. One of the things I’ve learned is to move forward when you have many simultaneous activities taking place at the same time.

Now in the office, this is essentially what it is; we have many activities to handle, as you’ve probably seen from the dashboard. So the only way to be successful is to dedicate, set time each day to a task and stick to that. Say, for example, I have a lot to do in a day; maybe I have to look at Invest in Awareness. This is a big one at the moment because we’re running the Bootcamp. There’s the taking of questions, updating of slides, preparing for the next sessions as well. Alongside there is the Early Birds Club. Then Mohanji’s general activities, he has a lot going on too, also other office activities and some of my personal things as well.

So there’s a lot, and the only way that it’s possible to do all these is to structure the day in a way that I’m at least giving an hour to each of these within a day. I know if I’m fully concentrated within that hour, and I know what I want to achieve as the end goal, I can just fully come to that time and take the step. So one hour each day in a week. That’s seven hours. And you accomplish a lot like that.

At first, I didn’t quite catch on to that; it took me a while. But it’s been the only way really to make sure that when you have many things lined up for yourself, as long as it’s not an urgency that it has to be done that day or within 24 hours if it’s things that can just have progress, then set aside the time planning the day well, so that you just have the hour, you make sure that you’ve got everything you need for that hour’s time to be productive, and you give yourself fully to it and take away the distractions. That brings movement. What I’ve learned also brings self-esteem because this is an accomplishment.

Another one of Mohanji’s big things is improving efficiency, not stagnating. He says the only person that you should really compete with is yourself. What can you be doing better? Can you improve yourself? Can you do better today than yesterday? The only way you can do that is to measure and structure time in that way. Now, it might sound a bit over the top, but it actually brings freshness; there’s no stagnation. And it gives motivation too, like small challenges for yourself.

Now, the pace of Mohanji is increasing. People may have felt that there’s a definite mission that all these foundations are looking to achieve in the organisation. All these platforms are looking to achieve raising awareness, changing the frequency of the Earth.

In order to accommodate that speed, I now have to look at how we can grow and how my personal team can handle that. Because, once you reach a point where there’s only so much you can do in a day, and there’s only so much the team can do, then you have to look to start growing it.

At the moment, I’m really, really privileged to have a great team. I wouldn’t say everybody’s name because maybe they don’t want to be included. But they are fantastic. And the only reason why the office has been able to do so much work is because of all those contributing to it. And that’s for me; I think Mohanji’s grace of bringing the right people together.

Now we’ll bring in more people as well. People who really want to make a difference and push themselves to be working with that pace and efficiency grow and transform. This will be the next challenge for me, how to keep building out that team so that we keep that same efficiency to help Mohanji do more in the world.

That was the message for today. A little bit about Mohanji’s different dimension, his humorous side.

He really is friendly and approachable. I really appreciate this. And then the lesson that I was sharing with some other people which I’ve really valued, which is this concept of focusing all your attention on one activity for a set period of time each day so that each day you’re taking steps. If you want to really bring efficiency, then the only way to do that is to give focus to the task and reduce distractions, minimise them.

|| JAI BRAHMARISHI MOHANJI||

Edited & Published by – Testimonials Team, 25^thMay 2021

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Lessons living with Mohanji – Day 1

Posted on January 14, 2021January 17, 2021 by Mohanji Editorial Team

By Christopher Greenwood

Dear family,

Have you ever wondered what it’d be like to live with Mohanji?

Lessons Living with Mohanji

WhatsApp Group (https://chat.whatsapp.com/KHnbnLbUvHGK5YaVE81lg9)

Since April, I have had the opportunity to live and work side by side with Mohanji. It has been a real blessing. I’m incredibly thankful.

As I work to help arrange Mohanji’s time, appointments and schedule, I’m aware of the many people around the world who’d like to be with him physically but can’t because of the Covid situation.

As a humble and modest gesture to all those who would like to be with him but can’t, I will begin a daily recording of Lessons Living with Mohanji. These will be short recordings of my time spent living with Mohanji, the lessons I’ve learnt and my insights into the Grand Tradition of Liberation.

Day 1 Lesson – Do what needs to be done today, today. Don’t delay.

Today’s recording is a lesson from Mohanji’s practical way of working with high efficiency and doing what needs to be done today, today.

Mohanji never rests, he is always working, and today the lesson is about efficiency.

I hope you find it useful.

Hello everybody, my name is Christopher Greenwood, and I’m a Mohanji Acharya. Through blessings, grace, destiny and situations of life, I’ve had the fortunate opportunity to work with Mohanji in very close proximity as part of his office, and more recently spend very close time with him, living with him, working with him due to the restrictions of lockdown and the corona situation, which has been an incredible blessing that I’m extremely thankful for.

One of the things which Mohanji had said to me when I took up this position, and also where I am now, spending time with him at home in India, is that there are many people across the world, who would love and are craving for the opportunity to see him physically and be in his presence. So, never forget that. And do what you can to serve those people, so that you can, through some way of your own, share the experience and give people a feeling and a flavour of what it’s like to spend time with me.

So, this is the first in a series of recordings. It is probably some videos, which is my humble attempt to share some of the learnings and the teachings, which I’ve managed to be privileged to since staying with Mohanji.

Now, for anyone who’s spent some time in close proximity to Mohanji, they’ll probably tell you that his pace is incredibly quick and efficient. And in fact, he said to me, numerous times: “If you could all go faster, then I could be doing much, much more. I have to actually reduce my speed down to about 20%, just so that you can cope and keep up.” And even then, we still struggle. So, the potential is there for much much more. And I’m sure this will come in the future.

So along with that theme, the first insight that I wanted to share with all of you today, is something that I’ve really been thankful for, which is this idea of efficiency, productivity and doing tasks now, doing them today. Because this is how Mohanji operates, and it’s how he has trained us here to work. And I’m now personally finding a lot of benefit from it. I mean, I get much more self-esteem, because things are completed on time, there’s much less stress because the mountain of activities to complete is much less. And also, there’s movement, a momentum, which, again, creates more motivation.

So, I’ll give some examples soon. But generally, if I speak about Mohanji’s way of working, he has a purpose, without a doubt, and he is completely crystal clear on what outcome he wants to achieve. So, everything for him is driving towards that. And as quick as we can reach that, the better because it’s better for everybody within the family and better for the world.

So, one thing that he does not compromise on is efficiency. So, he is incredibly efficient in his own work. And all the work he’s tasked with within a day, I’m still astounded at what he completes. And he manages to make sure that everything that is pending with him is completed within 24 hours. There are some exceptions, but generally, that’s the rule, any request, any call, any conversation, any message, any activity is completed within 24 hours and moved from his desk, as he says. So, sometimes that might not mean that everything has to be completely finalized. But if you imagine the work that comes into you, the request that comes into you, you’ve at least done some consideration, you’ve done some activity, you’ve transformed it in a way, and moved on to somebody else. So it’s now on their desk. So the idea of creating that movement is something that I’ve observed and taken into my day to day work, which is really good.

And he also does not accept any delay; the delay is not something that exists within his vocabulary because he doesn’t understand why that would happen. Any time there is a delay or ‘I’ll do it tomorrow’, can’t be accepted; there’s no tomorrow for Mohanji, it’s always now. It’s always today. Do what you can now when you have the time and do it promptly because that brings auspiciousness to the activity, generating further movement and momentum. Mohanji does not accept delay or inertia.

From my perspective, the examples of what I’d sort of share is how I used to work would be: if there was a request for Mohanji’s time, a task which I needed to complete, something which had come in unexpectedly, I would begin writing my list, and I’d be like in my mind ‘Okay, I can do that tomorrow, or I can leave this for tomorrow’. I soon realized that the pace of work means that you’ve got a mountain for tomorrow if you leave it for tomorrow. And if you leave that for tomorrow, the mountain grows, and quickly you become under this absolute burden of tasks and activities.

So now, as an example, if somebody says or Mohanji tells me: “Someone would like to meet me, can you arrange a time?” As soon as he says this to me, I’ll be on my phone; I’ll contact that person. I’ll look in the calendar, suggest the time and then pass that on to them as a suggestion. So straight away, it’s come from Mohanji to me, and then it’s gone to the other person. So, it’s off my desk. The same if I need to make a phone call, or the same if I need to make just a general conversation with somebody, as soon as I can, it’s done. If possible, the same for tasks is completing a document or completing a draft, sending them to be reviewed and updated.

So this might be an insight which you may not consider as so spiritual. But I’ve started this first talk because Mohanji quite often says that he’s more practical, before being spiritual. And when we’ve got activities to complete, a whole variety of platforms, activities to progress and strengthen, build up what we’re doing in the world, this momentum, this efficiency, and being practical before being spiritual are incredibly important. And that’s a general theme, which we have day to day working here. There’s a morning routine where we come together. We’ll have a conversation about the activities that completed yesterday, what needs to be completed today, discuss what has to happen. I’ll take that away and work on it so that everything needed to move today has moved by midday or by afternoon, and there’s momentum.

So, I hope that was useful insight for you; there’ll be more to come. You can send me questions or comments. And if there’s anything I could orientate towards or any questions which anybody has about being with Mohanji, living with Mohanji, I’d be happy to answer them as well. Have a great day.

Answer to a question about the delay:

Today, I was asked to clarify what no delay and procrastinate means and how to overcome this. So, I’ll share my experience and also the original message from Mohanji. So, no delay. That means no postponement, no tomorrow. It’s now. As simple as that. And if we can take that teaching into our life, we can become incredibly powerful. And if we take it to another level and look at Mohanji’s larger work, which is to take people to liberation – What’s he liberating us from? It’s this cycle of birth and death in the world. This karmic cycle. And what is karma? Unfulfilled pending desires. So, if to be liberated, we have to exhaust our karma, then there is no postponement, no tomorrow, there’s only now. That’s how he sees it. If he is taking us to the highest, finish it now, complete what needs to be completed. And that’s another dimension to the message.

The second point about procrastination is that I also had to come out of it recently here. For me, I had a little bit more encouragement, because Mohanji is here, and he definitely doesn’t allow people to sit idle, you have to move, so there’s an extra motivating force. But if we think of ourselves as a bundle of habits and patterns, we have essentially trained ourselves to be lazy and procrastinate. And the most predominant force is gravitational, to pull us down into a comfort zone. Suppose you take exercise, for example, when you’re trying to work out, increase fitness, increase strength, or increase muscles while doing the activity and having the momentum. In that case, it’s very easy to maintain. But once you stop, you quickly slip back into poor, unhealthy eating, not much movement, and it’s very easy to do that—the same with procrastination. You have to combat it with the opposite, which is action, and the activity of just doing it—getting on, getting moving. And do it now. And that can be cultivated. And I find that once I start just putting myself into action, looking at the task, don’t let my mind think ‘okay I’ll do that later’ or ‘I can do something else’, I just push through it. It’s an effort to rebuild and retrain to start activities. Once you start the activities and keep moving, you generate some momentum, which then brings results, which then brings motivation, which then brings satisfaction. And so it’s almost like you’re starting, pushing a big, heavy boulder. But once you start moving it and it starts rolling it’s much easier. So, it really is just taking that effort to achieve a purpose. And if our purpose is liberation, as for many people connected to Mohanji, then it is that message of no postponement, no tomorrow. It’s now.