Ranchi, Jharkhand | January | 10, 2021 :: TEDxKanke, an independent TED event once again successfully conducted the 23rd session of its initiated webinar series, and the very first one of this new year.
With the same theme – “The Rise of a New World”, whose first part was conducted on the 2nd May of 2020, this part was named– “Is Happiness Our Birthright: Women’s Perspective”.
In this one-hour webinar session, held digitally on the zoom app and streamed live on Facebook, all the viewers across the globe were open to attend and interact with the speaker.
Speaker was Rashmi Watel, Public speaker and trainer Perth, Australia.
Moderated by Rajeev Gupta.
?Rashmi Watel is basically from India but moved to Australia in the year 2012 where she had to go through many hurdles in her struggle phase and had to face lots of challenges, yet she found the formula of happiness.
?She is an electronics engineer, and an MBA Graduate from Curtin Graduate School of Business, Australia.
?With great educational as well as work experience, she’s now a great mother as well as a public speaker and trainer.
?Being a social person, she loves talking to people with the idea of spreading happiness which has been covered in this webinar.
A Glance At Successful Life Journey of Rashmi Watel:
?India is my home where I’ve lived almost three decades of my life and now I’ve been living in Australia for the last 8-9 years.
?As everyone struggles in their life, I too had to go through it while changing the country. The entire environment and expectations of people were different.
?Things got completely different for me. When I used to work as an electronics engineer in India were way different from Perth.
?I believe education is very important and realized it is the key to make me happier.
?I was at a stage in my life, where I had a job, house, car, kids, and all essential aspects by society normas to be happy, still, I was not happy. Thus, in my pursuit of happiness,i.e the search for it, I began this journey two years ago. Hopefully, now I’ve found this secret which I share among people as an utmost pleasure and honor.
Happiness is Our Birthright: Women’s Perspective – By Rashmi Watel
?To stay happy for the rest of your life is to never worry about what is happiness to someone else. The definition of happiness varies from person to person. For eg, David Milan who is an author says that when his sixth book gets published and becomes the New York bestseller, it’s then when he’ll be happy. In the same way, Brie Walls, a spiritual advisor says her happiness is when she can meditate for a long time, and her clients experience the same as she feels. Michael Horton, a psychologist on the other side defines happiness for him as the ability to spend time with the family.
?Happiness for me as a mother is my kids be healthy and become a better version of themselves. Whereas, for my children, happiness is an extra ice-cream.
?A lot of us denote happiness as money. Though money is an essential resource for which we should all yearn to earn but even after having the entire money of the world you can’t be happy as money can’t buy happiness.
?Money can help you buy things which can give you happiness for a short time, but that gets faded away soon.
?The thump of coronavirus has shown that happiness and social connections have a direct relation.
•Social connection gives purpose in life.
•Having friends is good for the soul as we are not made to live alone.
•People enhance one’s quality of life.
?Take a step back and think about what happiness means to you. Figure out your passion and ways how you can help people to get along and become a better version of themselves.
?More often one will find these three traits of happy people in every region regardless of their language and place
-Hopefulness
-Approaching life with zest
-Being grateful for everything
?To stay happy, any individual can follow these traits
-Doing random acts of kindness
-Volunteering and helping others
-Keeping a gratitude journal
-Forgiving quickly with meaning
-Doing exercise with mindfulness
-Being the best version of oneself
?My secret to being happy follows along with the line that everyone must follow and take away
“ Happy people do not seek validation from anyone or anything outside of themselves.”
?I’ve figured out that although happiness is our birthright, no one actually teaches us to go within and find out what makes us happy. We are always taught to become a good partner, mother, mother, or individual but no one ever says to follow your passion, interest, or whatever makes you happy. Altogether, a women’s perspective is following this itself and a purpose to stay happy.
Interactive Question Session
Q. When you say exercise mindfully, people go to the gym and do many other activities but when they come back, they still come with lots of stress. What should be done about this? Or what message would like to give through your narration “exercise with mindfulness”?
(By Mr. Rajeev Gupta)
Answer by Rashmi – With this, I meant to say to be in the moment without any stress. Initially, one can start with small steps, 3-4 minutes of guided meditation as an example. My mantra to mindful is to meditate as that is the only time when one actually sits down and observes their thoughts in the third person. This helps to calm the thoughts and remove stress. Alongside, breathing too helps a lot which I do almost every hour at my work.
Q. In this present world, people deal with multiple sorts of problems at a personal and professional level. How to overcome these by adopting the activity of volunteerism as people say they have a scarcity of time? (By Mr. Rajeev Gupta)
Answer by Rashmi – This is the common issue across people of all age groups and countries as they say they don’t have time for which I calculate the simple maths that leaves them with at least 2 hours of leisure time each day even after giving sufficient time to work, sleep and doing all essential stuff. So, it’s all about understanding where your time is going. One should write it all in a notebook and figure out if they are actually investing time or is it just being wasted.
Q. How to manage our personal life? What do you mean by working constructively on yourself? (By Mr. Rajeev Gupta)
Answer by Rashmi – I meant to say, one should do personal development. People will find struggle in finding time but for this, but they can configure where their time is actually being utilized more. It is the mindset that helps to overcome as wherever there is a problem there is a solution too. Therefore, one should work on themselves to find out how to manage their time. Like, if one gets anxious, they should find out what is their trigger point and work on that. For time too, it works in the same way.
Q. Everyone wants to be happy but no one wants to give time to it and understand what is happiness? Happiness is an inward journey or feeling. How to inculcate those feelings in your life to understand happiness and see the world in a different way? (By Mr. Rajeev Gupta)
Answer by Rashmi – For this I would give my personal tip that I do for myself. Every week, I pick a day for me it’s Sunday, where I block time in the calendar and devote that day as “me-time” and I don’t do any other sort of work that day. On that day, I just sit down and think about what are those things that I need to do.
Q. There are people who are not connected with the modern world and have a primitive style of their lifestyle in the remotest area of any country or continent. Yet they are happy by living a full version of their life. So, would it be the right way to say that to become primitive is a better example to be happy? What message would you like to give? (By Mr. Rajeev Gupta)
Answer by Rashmi – I would like to suggest the best book with a learning perspective i.e “Bhagavadgita”. In the book, it is mentioned that this time will come where there will be so many sufferings and distractions but this will be the time where we have lots of amenities and access to information, which is today’s world where people who live in tribes follow their own rituals. I would say they are two different worlds, but whether you are in the world I or II, as long as you understand that you are seeking validation from anyone or anything outside of yourself, you are happy. You should accept the fact that happiness lies within us.
Q. People are aware of the beauty of happiness and love, it requires no cost. We understand this still we don’t act and work for it accordingly. How to drive for such things? (By Mr. Rajeev Gupta)
Answer by Rashmi – It’s all about the perspective and mindset. In my program, I train about the same. In a brain, 80% of the thoughts are negative and only 20% are positive. It’s just the change in mindset and perspective that is required to be happy and a better version of ourselves.
Q. How do you attain happiness in your corporate job? Was your mental state the same throughout, while you were working? (By Shivangi Choudhary)
Answer by Rashmi – Initially, while I was working I had lots of excitement and I was paid lots of money which meant a lot that time, for which I was happy. But then with time, I realized after a certain point I was getting bored, I didn’t like to do the repeated tasks. The moment I realized this, I started looking for internal vacancies and I got one and I also shifted within the organization. My message is when you find a spot where you are not happy, you should switch as you are not a tree that can’t move.
Q. How do you attain happiness in your corporate job? Was your mental state the same throughout, while you were working? (By Shivangi Choudhary)
Answer by Rashmi – Initially, while I was working I had lots of excitement and I was paid lots of money which meant a lot that time, for which I was happy. But then with time, I realized after a certain point I was getting bored, I didn’t like to do the repeated tasks. The moment I realized this, I started looking for internal vacancies and I got one and I also shifted within the organization. My message is when you find a spot where you are not happy, you should switch as you are not a tree that can’t move, unless you get a different source of income.
Q. How do you attain happiness in your corporate job? Was your mental state the same throughout, while you were working? (By Shivangi Choudhary)
Answer by Rashmi – Initially, while I was working I had lots of excitement and I was paid lots of money which meant a lot that time, for which I was happy. But then with time, I realized after a certain point I was getting bored, I didn’t like to do the repeated tasks. The moment I realized this, I started looking for internal vacancies and I got one and I also shifted within the organization. My message is when you find a spot where you are not happy, you should switch as you are not a tree that can’t move unless you get a different source of income. Upgrade yourself, and build more social connections.
Q. If one is suffering from the stages of 5 regrets i.e
1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
How to overcome and connect? How to have a little bit of confidence for all? Most of the youth and people of different ages too and corporate life are ready to give life. (By Satish Pandey)
Answer by Rashmi – If you find yourself in a situation where you do not know where to go, seek help, and find yourself a coach or mentor. There are lots of people who have gone through these and have come out of it, from whom you can take help. This will give you confidence.
TED is a non-profit organization devoted to “Ideas Worth Spreading”. It is an annual event that brings together the world’s leading thinkers and doers to share ideas that matter in a discipline like technology, entertainment, design, science, humanities, business, development.
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx Webinar is a program of local, self-organized online events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience.
The idea behind TEDxKanke Webinar Series is to bring people together to seek a deeper understanding of ourselves and our changing world, and to inspire ideas and action for a better future for us all from the comfort of our home. The lockdown and social distancing have inspired us to take the vent online and reach out to more and more people, keep them inspired, positive, and be ready for the new world post CoVID19. The goal of the TEDxKanke Webinar is to bring bright minds together to give talks that are idea-focused on a wide range of subjects to foster learning, inspiration, and wonder-and provoke conversations that matter.
The team behind who is keen to create Ranchi an Idea Hub is Kanishka Poddar, Kanika Malhotra, Bijendra Sharma, Rishabh Malik, Kailash Manjhi, and Pravin Rajgadhia. We have great support from TEDxKanke Patron, Atul Agarwal, Rohit Tripathy, and Shravan Jajodia.
