Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | NXg | Friday Review | Cinema Plus | Young World | Property Plus | Quest |

On a different note

Photo: K.R. Deepak

Changing lives Shiva Khera

His infectious smile and baritone voice can not only set your heart pulsating and mind racing, but also motivate you to take up tasks that you dread to do. His speeches are as mellifluous as the hum of the ‘pied-piper', and can mesmerise you to a trance. Well, that's Shiv Khera. The motivational speaker and author of best sellers such as ‘You Can Win', was here recently to talk on positive parenting.

The motivational expert, speaker, consultant and author has added this new area of positive parenting to his core expertise of guiding professionals into ‘win win' situation and helping companies to turn around their fortunes. In a candid interview with The Hindu Metro Plus, he shared his views on the new concept and future plans.

On positive parenting, he says, “Parents do not have the courage to say no to certain things that their children demand. They are rather scared of their children. Today, it is like a popularity contest among the parents. They do no understand what is good, and what is wrong for their children. The erosion of extended family concept and losing out on values are the two things that are primarily responsible for the growing mismatch in the parent-child relationship. Through the positive parenting concept, I try to instil back some of the values, to create a more positive environment. If a child goes the wrong way, it is not the child who is to be blamed; it is the parents who are responsible.”

He points out that happiness is important, but more important is the source of happiness. “And this is where the value system comes into existence. In our times, birthdays were celebrated with our parents taking us to a blind school or an orphanage. And we would spend our time by distributing some sweets and chocolates and playing with them. That concept is lost. Today, we are more interested in showing of our wealth by hosting birthday bashes in star hotels. Lot of things depend on the up bringing of a child,” he says.

On the herding concept and children taking up professional courses under parent and peer pressure, he says, “Do not look at it as pressure. Parents want to infuse the idea of financial security in the minds of the children. By taking up some professional course, the career of a child gets secured. It is the equation between possibility and probability. What is possible may not be probable and vis-à-vis.”

Shiv Khera has written four books: You Can Win, Living with Honour, Freedom Is Not Free and his latest is You Can Sell. He is currently working on a book on positive parenting. He is also the person who introduced the famous quote that took the corporate world by storm: “Winners don't do different things, they do things differently”.

Explaining the idea behind the quote, Shiv Khera narrates, “There is no basic difference between a winner and a loser. A winner does not like to get up early as is the case with a loser. And similarly in many other occasions, they have the same feelings, but what makes a winner different is that they think differently. They have the ability to convert a negative situation to a positive one.”

Shiv Khera also dabbled with Indian politics and even contested as a candidate for Bharatiya Rashtravadi Samanata Party from the South Delhi constituency. But right now he says that politics has taken a back seat. “I am not out of politics. It is only a temporary hibernation. But what pains me is the state of leadership in our country. The country is starved of good leaders,” he says.

On his organisation Country First Foundation, he says that it is a social organisation with focus on creating awareness on three concepts: ‘right to elect and right to reject', ‘witness protection programme', and ‘reservation on economic condition and not on caste basis'.

“When we have the right to elect, we should also have the right to reject. Most importantly, the country has no programme on witness protection. If that is there, many people would come forward to identify criminals. And I fervently believe that all reservations should be on economic basis and not on caste grounds,” he asserts.

On his future plans, Shiv Khera informs that he plans to start an institute on leadership management and take forward the positive parenting programme in a big way across the country.

From a car washer to life insurance seller in the US - Shiv Khera is today a world-renowned motivational speaker and it all happened after attending a lecture delivered by Norman Vincent Peale.

Shiv Khera signs off saying, “Attitudes change in three seconds, if you appeal to the head and heart. It happened to me at Peale's session and so it can happen to everyone else.”

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail