Story Spark Day 13 Daily Observations

Awesome! Welcome everyone to day 13 of StorySpark session, and we are almost at the end of 2 weeks. So I am very, very excited, and today's session is also very interesting because today we are going to get into finding the real stories in our daily life. So in today's session, what we are going to do is we are going to go through our last 24 to 48 hours. We are going to dig deeper to find a story, a message out of it, and we are going to share it towards the end. And as usual, we are going to end with some positive affirmations to make our story journey even better. So let's get started. Daily observation. A lot of time people think that we need to have big moments, like we need to go to Everest, or we need to have big, big event that is happening, which is true. But what is also true is if we look at our journey, if we look at our life, every day there are a lot of stories happening everywhere. And if we just start observing, we can find some real moments. So this is what we are going to do right now, is get your pen and paper ready. We are going to get into the journaling mode. I'm going to give you certain prompts, and I want you to reflect and think about what happened, and then see if you can find a message The only criteria is it should have happened in the last 24 to 48 hours max. So let's get started. So close your eyes and take a deep breath and start thinking about last 48 hours. Start thinking about it as the, as a movie. What happened in last 24 to 48 hours? What were those small moments which caught your eyes, which caught your attention? Was there anything that made you smile, made you pause, made you feel something? Certain emotion? Was there any activity that you did differently that made you feel meaningful? Did you have any conversation with anyone? Maybe your known, maybe your friend, relatives, or maybe a stranger that is still with you? Was there any moment where you had a lot of chaos, a lot of stress, or an absolute, an absolute calm? Now you can open your eyes and start writing down whatever came to your What came to your mind? And even you can use a format, which would be, I noticed blank and it made me realize blank. So I noticed whatever was the event and it made me realize will be the carryout message. So I'll give you 1 minute to make quick notes and then we'll proceed with Story sharing. Start noting down if you haven't already started. Last 10 seconds. Alright, time's up. So let's go to Dinesh Ji. Would love to hear what is the story in the last 24 to 48 hours.

Yes. Well, we have weekly market over here, and yesterday I had been to that weekly market. There I saw a man, he was well dressed, white shirt with a black tie, and he was playing guitar in a corner. In front of him there was a small table where— and there was a note that, 'If you wish, you can donate any amount that you want to.' The best part of this man was— first I thought that he must be in need of money. But the way he was singing, the way he was expressing, It seemed that just he want— more requirement of his was not the money, but was the singing and showing to all people that yes, he can. So he was very contented, calm, relaxed, quiet with all mood that he was playing. That was the best part of him that I liked. If someone paid him, it's okay. If someone doesn't pay him, it's okay. But he was in his world. So that is the lesson that I learned, that wherever you are, in whatever situation you are, if you can be contented, happy, relaxed, calm, quiet, there are chances that if that is a bad phase, that will be over. And if it is a good phase, it's always welcome.

Continue.

Excellent, excellent, and amazing message as well. Uh, that's right, SPTY, Story Power To You. And absolutely, I think this is also a quality of a great leader, that no matter what chaos is happening outside You're able to stay calm and you're able to motivate your team. Awesome, thank you so much for sharing. And now let's go to Venkat. What happened in last 24 to 48 hours?

I had two incidents and that two are relevant. Yes, I would like to share that moment. Yesterday I attended a Toastmasters session. Nowadays in this generation people are— people expect self-respect and privacy. And because of the professional, we expect self-respect. We don't expect any negative feedback. And the evaluator also says in a polished manner, and it won't create that much impact. But in the old generation, people say directly negative, negative feedback and it create impact. But nowadays we are— the reason is we are professional, we think we need a self-respect, superiority. So that are the reason we say in the polished manner. In last, uh, the Toastmasters session, the speaker shared a speech, it like a workshop Q&A session. And starting stage, he said, he said 20 minutes speech. And after 20 minutes, next evaluator shared the feedback. In that, evaluator said, kindly forgive me, I don't provide feedback because that is not a speech, it is a workshop, and I cannot provide feedback. He directly said. And one more thing, he said that that speaker provided the script the last night. He didn't provide a time to read the script, so I cannot provide the feedback. He said directly to the meeting, directly said to them. It hurts all. I almost— that, that room was so silent and couldn't take anything. And that And it depends on the— how the perspective, how we take that message.

Yeah.

So if the speaker take it as a development, then it would be for their growth. Because that 20 minutes is completely waste because it's not a speech. They provided some teaching and some workshop, like workshop manner. We everyone accept, but the general evaluator said, evaluator provide some feedback even though the speaker provide invalid speech, have to provide. And if the same thing happened yesterday was StorySpark session, nobody come to attend the session, but that how our mentor take, take that situation. So the mentor took the situation and in the positive way and start the session even though nobody joined. So whatever the situation, negative situation comes or negative feedback comes, then we have to take that negative feedback to improve our growth. So it is necessary and that is also acceptable. But in the polished way we share the feedback, then it won't create any feedback any improvement to the speaker. That is, I learned that two more relevant to me.

Awesome, thank you so much for sharing that story, Power2U. And yes, feedback, as they say, is the breakfast of champions, and it has to be balanced. I always say that it doesn't have— it doesn't have to be a sugar-coated one. At the same time, it doesn't always have to be harsh criticism. There has to be a fine balance so that people are open to receive and they're getting some real values. An awesome sharing. And yes, you took one of my moments, but it's okay. I'll go ahead and share one of the moments that happened with me yesterday. And there were many moments, and one of them was again nobody turning up for the Story Spark session. So you already said, so I'm not gonna go into that. After a really, really long time, yesterday we were in a queue to take prasadam. Yesterday was Hanuman Jayanti and we were in a queue. And what I observed was, when you are in a queue which was quite long also, it took us about 45 minutes to get the prasad. And when you are there, when you start observing people, you will find different patterns. There are people who are taking it as a journey, as a ritual, as a privilege. But mostly what you will find is there are lot of people who are blamers and complainers. Even though they are getting free prasad, it's only they are spending few minutes, but there also they will have all sorts of complaints. Line is not moving fast, they are not giving properly, this is not adequate, that is not adequate. And that is, I think, reflects the life. In life, you'll find lot of blamers, complainers, cribbers, whatever you want to call them. But only a handful of positive people are there. And as humans, it is our duty to make sure that we are among those positive people and not become part of the complainer crowd. So that was a moment. Another moment which happened, which I think was, I was very fortunate. That yesterday I was given the opportunity to be a facilitator for a session in my mentor's community. My mentor is Siddhartha Sekhri. It's a huge community, and there was a special session yesterday where we talked about how they can go on their journey and take it to the next level. So that was a grand moment for me to be one of the facilitators there and help the community. So back to the session. Do you now realize that every day there are so many moments happening? There's so many learning that is happening, and if we can capture those gold, you don't need external stories. You have so many stories happening to you every single day. Agree? Awesome. So yes, Venkat, you want to say something?

Nothing, nothing. Awesome.

So now let's move on to the observation part. So when you were going through this exercise of noticing and also sharing, what did it make you feel? What was your takeaway from this exercise? Tenez-y. So when we were going through this exercise of recollecting our last 24 to 48 hours, you came up with the story of the person who was playing and passionate What did it make you feel during that time when you were noting down the stories?

For me, main thing is observation. Till now, till now, I never thought that one should observe wherever, even whether I'm in the market or in the bus or in the train. Yes, just I'm there, I will suffer with my mobile. But when you keep observing, yeah, then you see lot, lot, lot many things that, wow, it's like that.

Absolutely, 100%.

Perhaps your 2-week program has given me a total different shift.

Wow.

You need to, need to observe, that is number one. And then most important thing is, after Observing. If possible, try to write it down. So that I am not doing, but I want to start now soon. One thing I have done good is for about— out of today's 13th or 14th session?

13th.

So for 11th session, I have written all the affirmations.

Excellent.

Yes. And for this 13th, 14th Saturday, I was planning that I will go backward. Suppose 14th is the last session, then I will again listen to that 14th session. I will try to implement on it that, as you said, that what you did in 24 to 48 hours. Yes, so again I will repeat it. I will try to make something. So that is how, okay, when it is fresh, it is always better to Yes, when it is hot you hit. So I think perhaps that will work. And I had a suggestion for you also.

Yes, please.

On our platform, if we start with going backward or front from the beginning, whatever you say, one item, 3 points, 24 to 48 hours, any observation, write it give a speech for 30 seconds or 50 seconds or 1 minute or so.

Sure. I mean, that's a great suggestion. And thank you first of all for observing, because I think that is one skill we need. It keeps us human in this era of artificial intelligence and everything. The only thing that we— that cannot replace us is our observational skills. How we are observing our environment, how we are observing other humans and other elements, and that is what keeps us humane, as they say. And yes, so I know because your time zone is such different that you're not able to join the mastermind session, but if you go through the recording, what you'll find is we take it to the next level, and Venkat will also testify that. What we do is during the start of the session, when we are going through the mission, vision, values, etc., there is a section called celebration where I ask people to reflect on the whole week, what has happened in the whole week, and then share the moments of any big milestone, any small celebration, any failures, any lessons learned. So we take it to the next level where we are not talking about 24-48 hours, but Throughout, throughout the whole week, we try to find out and seek those moments, and I think that, that is beautiful. So once you get a chance, please go through. I think I shared yesterday the link of last mastermind session. So I make sure that everybody who's there live, they share their weekly achievements, weekly failures, weekly lessons learned, and that is next level of this what we are doing here. Awesome, thank you so much for sharing that. And let's go to Venkat now. Venkat, what did this activity made you feel?

Observation is experience and it's a joyful thing. Instead of speaking, it creates listening. And in the hurry life, it creates a peaceful. Yes. And In the observation, we'll learn a lot. When we discuss, we learn small things, but when we listen or observe, observing, we learn a lot. And as I said, as said Dinesh ji, we have to write, then we acknowledge that we, we did something, we learned something, we experienced something. We acknowledge that also I learned. A few months back, I, I, I, I couldn't find stories, but nowadays I am finding many stories.

I now—

I said two incidents and correlate that two incidents. So now I feel I have more stories because of the observation.

Exactly, absolutely correct. When you start observing, you, you get a lot of stories. Then you think, okay, yeah, these are small moments, but every moment has a message. For us. Awesome. So with that, let's go to the last part of this StorySpark session where I'm going to share the 3 affirmations. We are going— you're going to see it on screen. I'll say it once and then we'll repeat it together. So the first affirmation is, again in theme with today's observation, is: I notice, I reflect, I share.

I notice, I reflect, I share.

Yes. And let's go to the second one, very important with what we did today, and basically the crux of today's session. That is, every moment has a message.

Every moment, every moment has a message.

And the last one for today which is about building an identity for ourselves, and that is, I am a story seeker.

I am a story seeker.

Awesome. So with that, we have come to the end of the session. So thank you so much everyone for joining, and if you're watching it on video, please make sure that you go through the exercise share your observation in the WhatsApp group as an audio or video and do these affirmations. As we said earlier, every moment has a story, every moment has a message, and once you become a story seeker, you will never run out of stories. Thank you so much. Have a great rest of the Sunday, and we'll see tomorrow where we will be completing 2 weeks of the Story Spark session. Take care, and as I say, until next time, keep learning, keep growing, and keep going out of your comfort zone. See you tomorrow.

Thank you, thank you all. Have a good day.

Thank you.