Akshay Deshpande

“With moist eyes, Rikshavi raised her bow and released an arrow towards the bird. But the arrow missed the bird. The bird simply flew away, shocked by the arrow which zipped past it. Rikshavi desperately shot another arrow in the direction of the flying bird, but in vain. “Hadn’t I told you to ensure that you do not miss the target, Rikshavi?” the Acharya sternly asked, “You purposely missed the target, didn’t you?” “No Acharya, I tried my best. Believe me; I did not do it purposely. Forgive me, Acharya,” Rikshavi tearily said and looked at her mother for validation. “She is not lying, Acharya. I know my daughter,” Bhairavi added. The Acharya suddenly broke into a smile. “I know that, Bhairavi. Rikshavi is not lying. But tell me child, if you had earnestly tried to target the bird, why did you miss it? I have not seen you missing a single target until now.” Rikshavi was confused. She had made up her mind to shoot the bird. Why couldn’t she still hit the target? The Acharya continued, “You are an intuitive archer, my child. Unless your subconscious mind accepts a target, your body will not align itself towards it. Though you had consciously decided to shoot the bird as per my order, your heart felt compassion for it. Hence your subconscious mind did not allow you to shoot it. Even if you try this again, you will not be successful.”
― Rashmi Chendvankar, The Rigveda Code

“People are the greatest multiplier in business and in the world around us. Our ability to leverage the power of people can either be the greatest bottleneck, or the greatest multiplier, to achieving desired outcomes—and to change the world around us for the better.”
― Stephanie Ackley Crowe, 10X Leader: How Great Leaders Multiply Outcomes through Transformational Learning

“metastases has become talk of a few months left. When I saw her in A&E, despite obvious suspicions, I didn’t say the word ‘cancer’ – I was taught that if you say the word even in passing, that’s all a patient remembers. Doesn’t matter what else you do, utter the C-word just once and you’ve basically walked into the cubicle and said nothing but ‘cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer’ for half an hour. And not that you’d ever want a patient to have cancer of course, I really really didn’t want her to. Friendly, funny, chatty – despite the litres of fluid in her abdomen splinting her breathing – we were like two long-lost pals finding themselves next to each other at a bus stop and catching up on all our years apart. Her son has a place at med school, her daughter is at the same school my sister went to, she recognized my socks were Duchamp. I stuck in a Bonanno catheter to take off the fluid and admitted her to the ward for the day team to investigate. And now she’s telling me what they found. She bursts into tears, and out come all the ‘will never’s, the crushing realization that ‘forever’ is just a word on the front of Valentine’s cards. Her son will qualify from medical school – she won’t be there. Her daughter will get married – she won’t be able to help with the table plan or throw confetti. She’ll never meet her grandchildren. Her husband will never get over it. ‘He doesn’t even know how to work the thermostat!’ She laughs, so I laugh. I really don’t know what to say. I want to lie and tell her everything’s going to be fine, but we both know that it won’t. I hug her. I’ve never hugged a patient before – in fact, I think I’ve only hugged a grand total of five people, and one of my parents isn’t on that list – but I don’t know what else to do. We talk about boring practical things, rational concerns, irrational concerns, and I can see from her eyes it’s helping her. It suddenly strikes me that I’m almost certainly the first person she’s opened up to about all this, the only one she’s been totally honest with. It’s a strange privilege, an honour I didn’t ask for. The other thing I realize is that none of her many, many concerns are about herself; it’s all about the kids, her husband, her sister, her friends. Maybe that’s the definition of a good person.”
― Adam Kay, This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor

“Collaborative leadership is one of the most difficult, yet most rewarding, forms of leadership. Teams and other leaders are motivated because they are involved and invested in the collective outcome, and there is little to no concern of “credit” or “control” because the whole team owns the result.”
― Alinka Rutkowska, Luminary Leadership: How Top Entrepreneurs Lead in Business and in Life