The most beautiful, challenging, yet thrilling dimension of my training career comes from my interaction with children. They are smart, creative, simple and honest. These four attributes are, however, quite rare in most modern workplaces. Although, we do invest a lot in making our employees creative, yet the environment we provide is simply contradictory. My belief that all human are born creative – and later are misguided by experience, education and environment… gets confirmed when I talk to these little wonders!
Let me share few observations, I’ve made, while training those whiz kids:
• They ask for every damn thing – no matter how expensive it is. They even don’t care about who have the actual possession of it… They just want it, and so they demand. We - the grown-up waste most of our lives, thinking whether to ask for it or not!
• They always want to win, without hurting someone else. They don’t create troubles for others in order to pursuit good for themselves… still they want to win. Are we still that eager, yet not greedy!
• They are happy, with no particular reason. Searching for reasons to be happy is an adult nonsense.
• They get bored quickly. They hate doing the same thing over and over again. This disenchantment gives them the hunger to find new things to do, or at least new ways of doing the same old thing.
• They forget grievances, and move on with building stronger relationship. They fight, they yell – yet they settle issues, 100 times faster then the adults. What a shame for us.
• Kids see the stuff it self – not the value! They are never concerned on how expensive the stuff is – they make their selection, solely based on their liking. Unlikely of us, they never think on return on investment, future profitability and commercial value – they just purely love it for what it is!
• They find their way out – To Play!... Believe it or not – kids have their own set of worries [Education, Parent’s Orders, friendship promises, learning more and more] – but despite all this, they find out reasonable time to play and be at their absolute best – as adults, we are just too bad at doing this.
• Meditating might be an art or skill, we adult wish to master – but if observed carefully… kids can meditate, anywhere and anytime. I’ve been amazed to observe how a kid gets lost with something he/she is playing or observing – and will not get distracted to even the worst of the distraction, provided by the outer world.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it. Now, may I request you to do something about it! Let your kids teach you the art of living.
Sohail Zindani is an International Speaker, Trainer, Consultant, Founder and Chief Learning Officer of Learning Minds! - A Corporate Learning Solution Company, based in Pakistan. Having served over a 110 clients, regionally, he now focuses on strategic learning and organizational development interventions.