Awakening the Genie from Within: Discover and Develop the Hidden Potential in You

© 2015 Balaji Raghavan. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 05/01/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-0543-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-0761-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015906319

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgement

Preface

Part 1 — Why the genie is dormant?

Chapter 1 — The Golden Purpose of your life

Chapter 2 — Life begins at the end of comfort zone

Chapter 3 — Get out of the corporate rut

Part 2 — Awakening the genie

Chapter 4 — Decide to dream big

Chapter 5 — Power of Passion

Chapter 6 — Invest in your genius

Chapter 7 — Act first, Analyze later

Chapter 8 — Get more out of time

Chapter 9 — Quitters never win

Part 3 — Spreading the genie

Chapter 10 — Communicate your greatness

Chapter 11 — Lead to the top

Chapter 12 — The genie that is awake

References

Acknowledgement

I thank my loving wife Swathi for her support throughout the journey. Without her constant push, understanding and sacrifices this book would have just been a pipe dream. I thank my parents for giving me lot of encouragement. Whatever positive spirit I have towards life, I owe it to my father. He instilled me those thoughts by being a role model and staying positive during the toughest times in our lives. I also thank all my friends and well-wishers who were constantly encouraging me while writing this book.

All my career and professional development was a result of constant nurturing by my beloved uncle and mentor Prof.R.Venkataraman. He has always been a great source of inspiration to me, especially in writing this book.

The day I discovered my passion for speaking and writing was the biggest turning point in my life. It all started from listening to Les Brown videos. I owe him a big thanks for pushing me towards excellence. I also thank Brain Tracy, Jack Canfield, Antony Robins and Dr.Wayne Dyer and other amazing speakers, Authors and trainers who influenced my thought process time and again. Special thanks to Gerry Robert for an amazing seminar on book writing which helped me channel my thoughts into a book form. I also thank Success Gyan for bringing such speakers to my city.

I would like to thank Niklas Frisk and Pradnya Deshpande from Oriflame India for believing and motivating me to pursue speaking and training career.

The most important people in the creation of any book are the publisher and the editor. I am lucky to have chosen Authorhouse as my publishing support who were highly professional. Last but not the least, I owe it big time to Cameron Mckenzie and Stephen Weiner for their patience and sincerity in editing my book. The improvements and critique they offered were apt. It was amazing to have people like them as professional support in this wonderful journey.

Preface

Most of us live our life as if we are in a trance. We don’t realize where we are and where we are going? We don’t indulge in any introspection because we are too busy to think about anything. Life moves fast and keeps us occupied with one problem or another. We live life without any plan and wonder why we are not fortunate while others seem to be lucky. We wait for something to happen miraculously to move ahead faster.

When I was young, I heard a story about the Genie in a bottle. It is about a boy who accidently stepped on a bottle on his way home. The bottle broke and a genie came out of it. It was big and scary. It had a grunting voice and a weird appearance. The boy was startled seeing it and could not move or breathe. To his surprise, the genie was thankful of him for releasing it from the bottle and offered him a wish. The boy got excited and asked for its company and support whenever he wanted. The genie gave him a shiny lamp and told him to rub the lamp whenever he needed its help. The boy would rub the lamp to summon the genie whenever he was in need. It would show up and grant all his wishes.

This story is a fairy tale. I wonder whether such a genie would ever show up in reality. However, one thing that I know certainly is we all have a genie inside us. Your realization can make it come alive and help to create the things that you don’t have right now but always wanted.

I am not talking about any hidden magical power you have. This book is definitely not about magic. The genie here is nothing but a metaphor for your ‘potential’ trapped in misbeliefs, negative conditioning, false ideas and lack of inspiration. Awakening the genie from within will reveal the steps to set it free and live a renewed life filled with abundance and success. It is about hidden realities that you identify by exploring the perspectives discussed in the forthcoming pages.

The book is divided into three parts. The first part helps you understand why the genie is dormant. It illustrates the conditions that we normally go through which stops us from realizing the bigger and powerful person inside us; the kind of impact that people and environment have on our mindset and lifestyle. It also delineates the vicarious association we have with ourselves and the state that we are living in, not realizing how much more we can do. It explains the enablers of such a state and how to recognize and move away from them.

The second part is the most important part of the book. It takes you through a step by step method of unlocking your hidden potential and becoming the genie. A man without a dream is like a car without a GPS in an unknown territory. He doesn’t know where to go and whom to ask. Your journey starts from identifying your dreams and converting them to serious goals. While the dreams and goals are the motivation for you to work, your passion on the other hand is the means to get to your dreams. When you are passionate, you activate your higher self and race to become your best. What you do for a living is a vital factor in enabling your passion. Many people are not passionate about their job because it not perfect for them. The game changer is therefore to find the right one or to make the existing one right.

Once you get there, you must constantly work on getting the skillset and the mindset to excel in it. To do this, you must invest in your genius. Knowledge is great only when it is put into use. Without action, your knowledge is incomplete. You must also create a strong plan of action and act on it. Discipline in managing time is the thread that binds plan and action. You must use your time resourcefully and see it as the greatest tool you have. However, you may not be victorious even then. You might come across many challenges. A determined mind leaps over all the hurdles and gets ahead like a champion. It’s imperative that you have a positive outlook over whatever life throws at you and get over it. You will learn more about these factors in the second part and become more professional, get noticed and get ahead.

Part three is all about spreading the genie around. Success can never come to a person who is alone. You need people around you to co-operate. Two things that enable such associations are powerful communication and leadership skills. It gets you closer to the people and earns their respect. Life is not just about finding greatness; it is about spreading greatness and inspiring others.

Are you ready to awaken the genie from within? It all starts with willingness to explore this journey of excellence. Please keep in mind that this book is a work book. In order to maximize the results from this book, you need to reflect on what you read and apply the ideas and suggestions in your context of life or work. Keep your mind open and alert to identify a bigger spirit within you!

Part 1

Why the genie is dormant?

Chapter 1

The Golden Purpose of your life

Every man and woman in this world is born with a certain purpose. Only a few take time to wonder and to ponder about it. They truly spend quality time and energy to discover the hidden realities behind their life’s purpose. They go through new experiences, reach out to new people and go to new places. Many don’t. They live their life as it comes, a day at a time and fail to see the big picture. They live with a motto, Happiness today and are just caught up in their daily lives. They are not much of ‘Tomorrow thinkers’ while the former set of people think about the big purpose of life and are always trying to find ways to make the future more meaningful and worthy of living.

We clearly see there are two kinds of people here. They are distinctly different from each other and have their own characteristics. Each one of us fall in one of these two groups. We can also switch the groups just by changing the characteristics or our approach to life.

These groups are:

1. Directors &

2. Actors

Directors are the ‘tomorrow thinkers" while Actors are the ‘Happiness today’ set of people.

The table below shows the contrast between the two groups of people and their ideologies.

Figure: 1 – Directors vs. Actors

This table illustrates the difference between what we call as director personalities and actor personalities in the context of life. It is important to understand a little more about them

Directors – Creators of life

Directors engage in designing their future and taking control of their destiny. They are often leaders who believe that they have unlimited potential. They are visualizers and see the big picture in everything. They don’t settle for average. For them taking risk is an essential step. They believe in what Alfred De Musset said a long time ago, If you are weak, dependent upon others, inclined to allow yourself to be dominated by opinion, to take root wherever you see a little soil, make for yourself a shield that will resist everything, for if you yield to your weaker nature you will not grow, you will dry up like a dead plant, and you will bear neither fruit nor flowers. The sap of your life will dissipate into the formation of a useless bark; all your actions will be as colorless as the leaves of the willow; you will have no tears to water you, but those from your own eyes, to nourish you, no heart but your own. Yes they are inherently strong! They believe in taking charge of their lives and do not bother much about others’ opinion.

Their creativity and hunger to