The 3 Part Play

With my last blog on storytelling many of you would have got access to your internal stories and you would have seen possibly some of them limiting or dis-empowering you. We can call those internal stories as our past (now when I say past, not just the past of 20 - 30 years but the past of day to day life meaning yesterday, day before yesterday, last week or even sometimes just the previous moment). This past can be termed as the Part 1 of the 3 part play.

The part 2 is the present and part 3 is the future.  Now I need you to spend some time reflecting on how are you playing the game in part 2 ? How much of part 1 is impacting your part 2 and how part 2 will impact part 3 ?

For most people part 2 is a reflection of part 1.  So one may say that I am not part of the top management of my company in part 2 because I did not do MBA from a top institute in part 1.  I am not happy in my married life in part 2 because I did not marry my first crush in part 1.  I am not progressing in my career in part 2 because the boss of part 1 is still sticking around in part 2.  I guess many such part 2 scripts must be coming in your mind as you read this. While most of the part 2 things that I mentioned may look real to most people but they are just a set of our internal storytelling.  If this continues you can very well guess how will part 3 look like. Exactly like part 2.  There is no possibility of one taking any new action to create a new part 3.

I want you to consider a new way of looking at part 3. Just imagine what would you like to see happening for you in part 3 and do a declaration of that.  So if you want to become part of top management then do a declaration that by end of 3 years from now I will be part of top management.  If you want to progress in your career do a declaration that you will move to the next position in next 2 years and so on.  Once you do the declaration of part 3 you will start seeing yourself in a completely new light. You will now start taking action on what it would take you to get there in part 3. You will no longer be the victim of part 1 and 2. There are high chances of you no longer blaming anybody for any parts of your life but taking complete responsibility and accountability of not only part 3 but also part 2 and 1. So you will now start talking to key members of your top management and understand their expectations, you will take up a course on any of the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) platforms like Coursera, EDX etc. on topics like Business Acumen, Strategy etc.  As you start knowing more about the top management you will realize and appreciate the pressure they go thru and understand why they did not approve your paid course last year.  Now with the declaration you took action to find out free courses and not kept cursing the top management.  The same spouse with whom you were unhappy will start giving you happiness as the issue was never with the spouse but the way you saw him or her in part 2 as a reflection of part 1.  In fact you will recall that in the first 3 marriage anniversaries you had celebrated each anniversary in a exotic location but after the first child was born you have been celebrating marriage anniversary as a ritual going to the nearby restaurant known for candle light dinners but the enthusiasm died as soon as the candle in the restaurant got over in most anniversaries because you were so caught thinking about top management and your boss.  You will start seeing that your wife takes the second child in her arms while going to drop the first child to the school bus stop so that you can go to Gym, does groceries on week days so that you can relax on weekends, takes your parents to doctors as you come in late every day and doctors are available only till 9:00 PM and this list can go on. In the light of all new possibilities you get your DISC psychometric assessment done that was always freely available in your training department and you realize that you are very low on “C - Compliance” (a attribute that indicates that you are not comfortable with too detailed reports with lot of numbers) and possibly that was a point of contention between you and your boss as he possibly was high on “C” and would always look for detailed report.  So now instead of blaming and becoming upset with the boss you now start adapting to his style. 

Now you start seeing many new possibilities and take actions but there is also a possibility that while reading this blog your internal story will still tell that “Yogesh does not know about the politics in the top management of my company so how can I declare” or “Yogesh does not know the way my spouse has treated me or let him spend a week with my boss to know how terrible he is and so on”. However if I was to think that you are going to think this way then what will happen to the declaration I have made for my part 3 of transforming every person who I touch in any type of interaction including my blog.  Hope you will join me in creating a new part 3 and do a declaration and keep taking actions in part 2.

Life is too short to not declare and take actions. Many of my earlier blogs can be a good read especially the “Inside Out or Outside In” while you declare part 3. I look forward to hearing about your declarations of part 3 and do let me know if I can be of any help in your journey of creating a beautiful part 3 for you and everybody around you..