Digital to Spiritual to Coaching & Everything in Between
Learning Journey & Mantra through the Pandemic- Amlesh Ranjan
Pandemic, a disastrous period for our world, is unfortunately still continuing. With lives and livelihoods being wiped away, these are truly the worst of the times that we have seen in our lives.
On the positive side, it was also an exceptional year for the world to come together in this unprecedented fight as One Global Community. And yes, we have had a blissfully extended together times with family.
Imposition of lockdown meant that I, like all other professionals, needed to work from home for a long period. It took a couple of weeks first to adjust to this new reality, and then I looked at my day with a fresh pair of eyes.
MY LEARNING GOT ACCELERATED
With no commute to the office, no newspapers, and no outdoor games or activities, it meant a few extra hours in hand every day.
Of course, remote work/management took its own course, and the days merged into evenings and weekdays into weekends. Initially, the pace felt very slow, but then days, weeks, months have gone zipping past us like crazy.
While this period was giving us new lessons on personal, social & professional fronts, for a lifelong learner like me, it also appeared as a wonderful time to re-ignite learning.
Luckily for us, our organization started an internal university. Through its tie up with the leading EdTech platform, we got access to valuable courses from almost all the leading universities and B-Schools in the world.
Learning is my first character strength and also a passion. Optimally using access and free hours, I went into hyper learn mode. Right from April 2020 to now, it has been such an enriching journey.
MY LEARNING WENT ABOVE AND BEYOND
Digital, Learning, Leadership
With Commercial Excellence background and knowing that Digital will play an even bigger role in this pandemic altered world, I started off with Digital Transformation, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Big Data… from Johns Hopkins, Duke Univ., Univ. of Virginia, and INSEAD.
Next areas were leadership and learning. Two high-value courses from the esteemed Harvard University followed a course each from Copenhagen Business School, McMaster Univ. and SUNY Univ. Next I did Science of Well-being, the most popular course at Yale.
Happy to share, I was declared one of the top learners within our worldwide organization. It was great to earn appreciation from the global CEO and the Chief Learning Officer. I was invited to join 3 of our global ExCom members and 2 fellow top learners on a globally webcasted panel discussion.
Yoga, Meditation, Prāṇāyāma, Kriyā
With a strong faith in the ancient wisdom of the world, I have done a Vipassana Meditation course by staying inside a Buddhist Pagoda.
22 days of a hermit’s life; sattvic food; no cellphone/iPad/laptop- completely disconnected from family, profession and outside world, just being me.
I learned meditation, possibly in its purest form, and gained so much in mindfulness and spirituality.
Lockdown gave me the opportunity to add to it. After months of rigorous training, I earned certification as a Yoga Teacher from the most revered and more than 100 years old, The Yoga Institute.
Apart from physical- Asana; cleansing- Kriyā and breathing- Prāṇāyāma, TYI imparted me also with the wisdom of Vedas, Vedanta, and Upanishad.
The Yoga course built further on my spirituality & mindfulness.
Individual, Team & Organization Coaching
Being a Coach Leader throughout, I then took up coaching by first learning Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), and got certified as a Leadership, Organizational Development, Executive, Life & Emotional Intelligence Coach.
On these foundations, I built further through an extensive course on Transformational Leadership Coaching covering the Leader as Coach, Positive Psychology, Emotional Intelligence, Change & Complexity Management.
After extensive coaching training and experience, I could eventually earn the coveted accreditation of Professional Certified Coach (PCC) from the world’s foremost coaching body- International Coaching Federation (ICF).
WHAT HAS BEEN MY LEARNING MANTRA
Above may look like an overload of learning, even overwhelming, but me being an early morning person; efficient utilization of my free time and early start of courses helped me first re-ignite and then speed up my learning.
My learning agility was indeed a key contributor, as it has always added to me as a person and a professional. And I truly love learning.
I follow 3 point mantra for learning-:
Stay always open to learn: We can keep adding to our learning if we are open. The opportunities are all around us, and they keep coming to us. It is entirely up to us to avail all those learning opportunities.
Learn something new: When we try to learn/do something new, we are lighting up our learning instincts. A new skill, even a new game or song, reignites our learning. Let us always choose something new to learn.
Share the learning: Someone rightly said, “To teach is to learn twice”. To me, this has been the biggest accelerator of learning. When we share, our own understanding is enhanced first. It is so very self-enriching.
While all of us, individually and collectively, keep going through our journeys and challenges, we always have some opportunities for learning. It is entirely up to us to stay open to avail those and keep learning something new. And yes, remember to share the learning because that is the best way to learn.
I believe learning is one of the best gifts that you can give to yourself.
It is the collective learning which is at the core of our evolution.
“Let us Re-ignite Our Learning Instincts, We Owe it to Ourselves, and to Our World.”
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