60 seconds with Co-author – Jatinder Singh Palaha

Name: Jatinder Singh Palaha

Business Owner

Location: West London

Topic: Personal development in Living Life

How do you define personal development (PD)?

For me personal development is the study of the human mind and human potential, to understand how one’s brain works and then be able to identify ones own strengths and weakness to harness the best of your abilities. It like an umbrella name given to a combination of things like? soft skills, emotional intelligence, NLP, hypnosis, psychology, religious/spiritual studies, personal growth etc? allowing you to understand human behaviour, behaviour traits , ways of thinking in one self and others.

I like a definition given by Daniel Goldman for emotional intelligence (EQ). “EQ is the ability to monitor feelings and emotions in one self and others and then being able to use those feeling and emotions to pursue and attain goals”

What got you interested in this field?

?What do you think?? is what my university lecturer used to say when I had a problem or question. At first I thought she was crazy. She must be, after all she is supposed to have the answers, right?

I remember going to her office with a problem and asking her a particular question and the first thing she said was, ?What do you think?? My natural reaction was, ?I don?t know!?.She looked at me with a blank expression and asked again, ?What do you think?, again, ?I don?t know? was my response. This went on for a while. Then I thought, ?hold on, why does she keep asking me the same question? what does she mean?? It was at this point that I started to think about it and in the process ended up answering my own question. EUREKA! I finally understood her. What she had been doing all this time is coaching me into finding my own answers. I began to realise that I did not have to ask her anymore.? Instead I started to run through the process in my own mind and would find the answer to my question. I had the answer.

Soon after this I started to wonder. What other potential do we have hidden away, deep within our minds, our conscious and subconscious mind. This started my journey into studying the human mind. I became curious. I wanted to know what it was that makes us great, why we behave the way we do. I started to study human potential, read books on the subject, attend events and network with people.

How has personal development served you?

I can say it’s the biggest gift the universe has given me. In the process of attending events and seminars I’ve come across many people in this field. People who are considered to be at the top of their game or a leading authority in this field. Paul Mckenna, Richard Bandler, Tony Robins, Dr Demartini, Neal Donal Welsh, Les Brown, Ron G Holland are just to name a few. In the process I met Jonnhy Whimbrey a hollywood Life coach and was honoured to be a co-author on his book Multiple Streams of Inspiration 2 & 3.

But the main thing is that it’s now so incorporated into my everyday life that I end up helping people in conversation, its like stealth coaching. It’s a part of all things I do, from business to? social to personal relationships. Its allowed me to be a better human and serve my fellow human with, let’s say, more tools in my tool bag for better results.

How does personal development relate to Sikhi?

Sikhi encourages personal growth, it’s in the title. If you are not growing then you are static or shrinking. We have become very lazy in that we want people to spoon feed us information so we don’t have to do any work. You can only truly understand something if you make the effort to find out for your self and then you EXPERIENCE it, otherwise it’s just borrowed from someone else, based on their interpretation, experience and understanding and you would simply be regurgitating it back. I’m not saying don’t listen to people, but don’t take it as gospel truth either. Be open minded, find out about things as much as you can your self. Don’t be lazy and take something at face value. This is one of the main messages for me from Sikhi on my personal journey. Being born a Sikh means its at the root of what I am.

Guru Ji Says, “Jo Prabh Ko Milbo Chahe Khoj Sabad Mein Leh (Those that seek to meet with Vaaheguru, delve into the Shabad )”

delve = To dig the ground, To search thoroughly and carefully for information; To dig, to excavate (google)… get it??

You will find many references to personal growth in gurbani. It talks about the subconscious and conscious mind, its talks about the psychology of people behaviours to (perhaps a subject to be talked about at another time).

How have you made the connection with PD and sikhi?

My roots lie in Sikhi and personal development is just a process of who I am. When I was younger I use to read books on Sikhi, I wanted to know what it was all about so read what I could. One of the biggest things that struck me were the words “mann jeet jug jeet”, from my understanding this is the essence of psychology or human behaviour in Sikhi. My personal development journey has made my understanding of Sikhi even deeper. To me “Sikh” means “understand yourself or discover oneself”, because when you start to understand how you work i.e. how your brain works, you soon realise how others work too.

I heard Richard Bandler (creator of NLP) once say, “WE ARE THE UNIVERSE, together”. Gurbani talks about how we are not separate from the creator. So this statement made perfect senesce to me, in fact it strengthened my Sikhi in living life everyday.

Thank you, any last words?

Living Life? is the essence of what we do on this planet we call Mother Earth. We live our days with the good and the bad, the positive and the negative, the high and the low, the happy and the sad. Its a dualistic paradigm with opposite forces at play, they both exist side by side inseparable from one another, a bondage/marriage since the beginning of time, in motion of the cycle of life and death.

Things happen, or we make them happen and then we give meaning to what happens as our logical and illogical brain tries to figure it out.. We see it as positive and negatives, and define our lives by these events which end up shaping our character and who we think we are today.

Then one day you think, ?is this who I really am??, ?what am I?? , ?how did I get here, what am I doing here??, ?Whats this all about?? ,?can I control this??,?do I have any control?? ,?is it destiny or do I make my own??, QUESTIONS everyone seem to be asking?.

But you know what? Does it matter? Perhaps? and maybe not???..uncertain?

But one thing I am certain about?? whatever it is?? we?re living life! So make the most of it.