What are some ways to motivate yourself after a big failure, or loss of something very valuable in your life?

Depends on the kind of failure or loss.

The loss of someone you love, or the loss of your will to live (due to a depression, or major setback), are serious losses.

Having experienced both these things, and written about them in previous posts, I will share those pieces with you.

Losing someone you love -

I found that the important thing is to let yourself grieve, until you have fully recovered from the loss.

Try to look for unique and life-giving ways to do that.

Minoo Jha

 · 3y

What's the best decision you've ever made for your mental health?

Allowing myself to grieve my brother’s death fully. He died on August 7, 2021. I chose to do this by thinking about him, writing about him. and publishing his art on my blog. Here is a recent piece I wrote - which was inspired by him and dedicated to him. The Container We look at the container and see its color has faded. We look at the container and see it is misshapen. We look at the container and see it doesn't have a polished hue. We look at the container and see its lines are not symmetrical. We look at the container and see its bumps and dents. We look at the container and our eyes dart away from its less than wholesome appearance. We look at the container and our hands itch to get a paintbrush and touch it up. We look at the container and see that its best years are behind it. We look at the container and see its style is dated. And suddenly we stop seeing the container. And we see only the gold inside. As a loving heart was meant to see. <<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>> For my brother David. Who was gold inside. And only saw the gold inside.

The loss of interest in your will to live -

So much to say here.

My depression threw me a curve ball, coming as it did, at the most successful point in my life.

Minoo Jha

 · 4y

What was your big life reality check?

Realizing I was successful outside, but miserable inside. In fact, as I was soon to discover, I was not just miserable, I was in the throes of a clinical depression. I survived and came out stronger. Here’s the story, as written about on my blog: If Life is So Good, Why Do I Feel So Sad? When Depression Hits! In my thirties, I suffered a depression. Here's what I learned from going through the experience and coming out stronger and happier the other side... Depression can strike even when times are good! By good, I mean really, really good. The year leading up to my depression was my best ever. A seasoned Advertising Copywriter, my creative consultancy (appropriately called Purple Patch) was thriving. Octopus-like, I had my tentacles in several different agencies and clients in Chennai. From O&M to Sistas BSB and Everest to Goldwire on the agency side. From Apollo Hospitals to Hill Country Resorts and Equifax to Strawberry Stripes on the client side. There was so much work, that in addition to the freelance copywriters and art directors I had on call, I was able to hire a bunch of my students from Loyola College where I was guest lecturing on Copywriting and put them on my payroll. I was out and about a lot in those days. I remember speaking at events like the USIS Career Fair. To make a long story short, there was no shortage of money, time, challenge or professional prestige. Yet it was right in the middle of all this, that my depression took hold. Depression can strike even when you are taking really good care of yourself! At the time of my depression, you may think I was leading an unhealthy lifestyle. Eating too much. Or too little. Sleeping too much. Or too little. Stressed out, perhaps? And not getting enough exercise. Perish the thought. I had successfully turned vegetarian 2 years prior. And I worked out for an hour every single day of the week I did aerobics with Kamlesh 3 times a week. And strength training at a gym the other 4 days of the week. Plus I was doing well enough to pay for a masseuse to come to my house and give me a one-hour massage every 2 weeks. Unfortunately, this healthy lifestyle wasn't able to protect me. Depression is quite arbitrary in that sense. Depression can strike even with a supportive partner by your side! I had married a man whom I had known for years and years. He really appealed to my feminist side. He cooked, he was self-sufficient. He did not have any double standards. And he was calm, good-natured and cheerful at all times. It should have amounted to a kind of insurance against depression. But it didn't. Depression won't make you any less able to function! This was both a boon and a curse. I probably generated the most income I have ever generated in my life during my depression. I was able to meet clients, make calls, attend meetings, supervise my team, get work done, pay my bills, deal with my bank and my tax consultant. I was quite unimpaired in terms of being able to carry out the activities of life. What no one knew was that there was no joy and I was dying inside. No one ever guessed because... Depression is easy to hide! Like any socialized adult, I had successfully learned to mask my feelings long before the depression struck. So when it did, I was able to keep it completely secret. In fact, the only people who knew about it were the people I chose to tell. Thank heavens I did decide to tell them. Were it not for that, I wonder how much more protracted my suffering would have been. Thanks to one of my confidants (and believe me, it was really hard to reveal to her that there was all this numbness and emptiness and crying below the successful exterior), I was able to figure out I was going through a depression and then find a therapist. Finally, depression can strike even if there's meaning in your life! You might be tempted to think that it was all the focus on money-making that did me in. But when you learn the facts, you'll see how that wasn't it either. My needs being simple, I was a donor and participant in several different causes around the time of my depression. I sponsored a lunch at an orphanage. I sponsored the purchase of toiletries for the residents of an old age home. I sponsored 2 Blood Banks for Bank of Baroda, Alwarpet which was my bank at the time. I was also on call to donate blood and still remember the hemophiliac mother-to-be who was about to deliver a baby that I was called upon to donate blood to. I was a loving, dutiful daughter and also regularly visited my family in Bangalore. And for one of my mom's birthdays, I flew down with a really special gift. I had printed 200 copies of her book of poetry, "A Twig In a Torrent" in hardback. But you can't buy immunity from a depression in any currency, including soul currency. Is this tale depressing you? Don't let it... The good news is when a depression ends - it really ends. At the time I was depressed, I thought I may never smile again. But I got myself into therapy. And agreed to the treatment prescribed. In spite of not having much faith or respect for it. It included Psychotherapy. An Anti-depressant. A pill to sleep. B-Complex injections. And instructions to revisit all the decisions I had made in my life. I still remember this oft-repeated sentence of the therapist: - "Believe me, in a few years, you are going to be grateful for this depression. It is going to make you make a happier, more fulfilled person." She was right. Though there were casualties - my marriage, my copywriting career, my business, my vegetarianism, and my life in India were all impacted, I have lived more meaningfully and consciously with every passing year since. And I have never looked back! It took me great courage to write this post. But I decided to do it anyway. Because I want people to know that there is a rainbow at the end of the depression cloud. A rainbow with beautiful colors. Which only a person who has had a depression and comes out of it is able to perceive. If you suspect you are suffering from a depression...the important thing is to talk about it to somebody. To seek help. And to put one foot in front of the other until you are over it. Don't over analyze the gene theory, the childhood trauma theory, or other causative factors - focus on getting well with medicine and psychotherapy. May you Live Well and Thrive!

Moving on to less serious losses, which I have also experienced, and written about in previous posts.

I will share those with you as well.

Financial failures -

The important thing is to learn something from them, and move on from them.

Minoo Jha

 · 6y

What are some stories about failure that can teach us some valuable life lessons?

Hi, You asked, What failure was actually a great life lesson? Losing money by investing in Krispy Kreme Donuts. Here’s the story from my blog: How I Lost A Thousand Dollars On Donuts There comes a time in every novice investor's life when he or she thinks they've found the Holy Grail. The Holy Grail is an investment theory or investment method that seems devilishly clever and original to the novice investor. One which gets them as excited as an archaeologist unearthing the tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amen. And which they just can't wait to hang their hat on. This investment 'find' could be any of a number of ideas. From the Dogs of the Dow Theory authored by Michael O'Higgins. To the Elliott Wave Theory popularized by Robert Prechter. From Joel Blatt's Magic Formula. To the Price to Sales Ratio which made Ken Fisher's 1984 book Super Stocks a best-seller. The novice investor will suddenly come upon one of these ideas and allow it to agitate the gray cells for a while. Then there's Warren Buffett. For the novice investor, discovering Warren Buffett is something else altogether. After all, he is one of the richest men in America. And he is also recognized as one of the greatest investors of all time. So no surprise that investors, novice and professional alike, become instant Warren Buffett groupies - hanging on to his every word, worshiping at the Berkshire Hathaway Annual General Meeting in Omaha, and dreaming of being a future Buffett. This is where my sorry tale begins. The Buffett Make-over I was just as susceptible to the Buffett investing charisma as anyone else. And after finding Buffett, I set out to remake myself in his image. This meant reading books such as The New Buffettology. And The Warren Buffett Way. And then getting down to business by applying essential Buffett principles. Bottom-fishing was particularly appealing. It allowed me to consider dog-house stocks such as Revlon, Rite Aid and Six Flags, which were all under $2 a share, maybe even under $1. But not content with that, I searched for what I thought would be the quintessential Buffett pick - an out-of-favor and under-valued stock, the one that Mr. Market was idiotically shunning. Enter Krispy Kreme Donuts. I have never been much of a donuts fan. But at the time, I discovered Krispy Kreme, I had become a heat-seeking Buffett missile in search of a target. And Krispy Kreme Donuts (Ticker KKD) appeared to be the answer to my prayers. Firstly, their cream and jelly filled donuts had become the new "delish" in donuts. People were shunning their corner donut stores and trekking to Krispy Kreme stores instead. Just Like Starbucks In fact, they were even willing to stand in long lines to get their Krispy Kreme donuts. Much as they do for Starbucks Frappuchinos and Lattes today. And just like Starbucks, Krispy Kreme donuts were pricey. All this had a distinctly Buffetesque aroma to me. Reading Motley Fool articles like this one sealed the deal for me. So when Krispy Kreme stock, which had stratospherically climbed to $40 a share, dropped overnight by 50% to $20 a share on a car-wreck of a quarter, I decided to lock in. And bought 100 shares. There - I had bottom-fished. Just like my hero Warren Buffett. I couldn't have been more pleased with myself. Or so I thought. Fasten Your Seat-Belts I was to find out (the painful way) that Krispy Kreme's 50% decline was just the beginning of its Drop-Zone like descent. By the same time the next year, the stock had declined to $10 a share. Giving my investment a 50% haircut. $1,000 gone. Just like that. Chastened and humbled, I took the loss and got out. The Flight of The Bumblebee I read somewhere that according to the Laws of Aerodynamics, a bumblebee should not be able to fly. The bumblebee of course does not know this, so it flies anyway. In much the same way, novice stock-pickers do not know that they don't know how to pick stocks. So they pick stocks anyway. Sometimes the picks pan out, sometimes they fall with a thud. When that happens, some investors will never be able to psychologically recover from their mistakes and losses. Others, phoenix-like, will rise from the ashes. I am of the second kind. I was able to take my medicine and move on. Are there rewards for naivety in investing? Actually I was able to make lemonade out of this investing lemon. I took my Krispy Kreme misadventure and turned it into a speech. Which I used to compete in a Toastmasters International Speech contest at Adlibmasters Club in San Jose. I won first place. And took home a trophy. Yes the mysterious Oscar looking thing you see above is my Toastmasters International Speech trophy. Now if only there had been some bling to go with that thing. You know - Like maybe a 1000 dollars? Oh Well... If You Are Ever Stuck With a Lemon, See If You Can Make Some Lemonade Out of It :) May You Invest Well in 2019 and Thrive!

Failure to thrive in a job -

The most important thing to understand is that you have succeeded before, so you will succeed again.

You have to tell yourself that.

It is just a question of time.

Minoo Jha

 · 6y

What is best to practice how to be positive even when people criticize your work?

Hi, You asked, How do you remain positive when someone criticises your work? When someone criticizes my work, I have to remind myself I have an average level of performance that I will return to. This helps me get out of the dejection I feel. This story was the key to learning how not to let crash and burn times keep me down for too long. 2 famous psychologists Amos Tversky and Thomas Gilovich were giving a motivational psychology class to teachers and instructors from various walks of life. The class was about how to inspire better performance from the people they were training and instructing. Tversky and Giloch asked the class - should they praise someone’s performance to get them to perform better. Or should they criticize someone’s performance to get them to perform better. There were 2 Israeli aviation instructors among the students in the class. They were quick to answer “criticize”. Tversky and Gilovich told them they were wrong. Praise was more effective. The Israeli instructors said, “Sirs, we respectfully disagree. Back at the academy where we teach pilots to fly, we have found criticism to be more effective.” They said, in their experience, whenever a student pilot performed an excellent flight, and they praised the student for their excellent performance after that flight, the student’s performance on the next flight dropped. The praise seemed to cause the student to relax and slack off, rather than to be motivated to do even better. And whenever they criticized a student pilot for a poorly performed flight, the student would almost always perform better on the next flight. What else could this mean, but that the criticized students were stung by the criticism, and immediately improved their performance so they wouldn’t be criticized again? The psychologists told the aviation instructors their facts were right. But their interpretation of those facts was wrong. The psychologists agreed that a student who had performed excellently on a flight was likely to perform less well on the next flight, and the student who had performed poorly on a flight was likely to perform better on the next flight. However, they said the reason for the change in performance had nothing to do with criticism or praise. It was related to statistical regression. The students were just reverting to their natural level of performance. Everyone has a natural level of performance. We may perform above our natural level of performance at times, or below our natural level of performance at times, but we will return to our natural level of performance, which is the norm for us. Thus a drop after an excellent performance, and an improvement after a mediocre one, is to be expected. I find the concept of “a natural level of performance” very reassuring. Because, whatever the current state of affairs - for instance, nothing I do is right, I know I have a natural level of performance I will return to. If my performance is below par for a while, because I am going through a particularly tough time, or I am in the wrong environment, or I am still learning the ropes of a new skill-set, I know it’s just a question of time before my performance will return to my long term norm. Likewise, when I suddenly blow it out of the water, and do exceptionally well, I don’t have to fret about not being able to repeat it, because even if I can’t do that, I can depend on my long term natural level of performance to see me through.

You may need to remind yourself of your prior achievements and accomplishments.

So get out a pen and paper and do that.

List all your prior achievements and accomplishments

You can even make it a game of sorts…

Minoo Jha

 · 3y

How do you reassure yourself instead of relying on other’s reassurance?

It is very important, because reassurance from others is often not on the menu. I came up with something called The Judge and Jury game. This answer tells you how to play it:

Remember, whatever you are going through, people have gone through something like it, maybe even worse, and came out stronger at the end of it.

You are not alone, whatever sea your boat is stuck in.

Here's To The Bends In The Road

When life moves

in a straight line,

the future narrows—

a corridor of quiet predictions,

a road paved mostly

with probabilities.

We wake,

we follow the familiar route,

we recognize the scenery.

Everything is mapped,

bounded,

circumscribed.

But then—

a turn.

A detour we didn’t plan,

a bend in the road

that loosens the map from our hands.

And suddenly

the future opens.

Wide.

The boundaries fall away.

The routines dissolve.

The circles we once moved in

fade like chalk in the rain.

Even the old ideas

about who we are

and what we can be

begin to crumble.

In their place—

possibility.

- of meeting new people,

- of making unexpected friends.

 - of stepping into circles

we never imagined entering.

- seeing places

our old road would never have taken us.

New things await -

New hats—

- identities we never thought

would fit.

And in a movement,

we discover something profound:

We were built

to adapt.

Not just to survive, but ...

To stretch.

To grow.

To thrive.

So here’s to the bends in the road—

Here’s to possibilities

where once

there were only probabilities.

Here's to the bends in the road!