Brace Yourself for More Power with Siji Varghese

Siji Varghese is the Founder of Leaders in Lipstick® and is a behavioral change & ROI consultant, global professional speaker, TEDx speaker, UN Karmaveer Chakra awardee.

This is an edited segment from the weekly live General Assembly meeting on April 25, 2022. This presentation is also available on Rumble and on Odysee. The full General Assembly Meeting is available in the Newsroom. A transcript of this presentation can be found below.

Here’s what WCH members, staff, and coalition partners are saying about Siji’s presentation:

“Thank you for this presentation, with your Explanation> just amazing.” – Dr. Maria Hubmer-Mogg:

Christof Plothe DO: Pictures reach unconsciousness…..the source of every actions is a thought they say..actually the source might be a picture ( ;

Shabnam Palesa Mohamed (South Africa): Fantastic presentation Sigi, thank you 🙂

Christof Plothe DO: Thank you so much for the inspiration Siji…

Karen McKenna: Thank you Siji!! Thanks for staying up so late to present to us!!

Zoe Strickland: Thank you so much Siji, you are such a bright light and it is an honour to have you speaking here.

[00:00:00] [00:00:30] Dr. Jennifer Hibberd: Now I would like to introduce Siji Varghese. She is a founder of Leaders in Lipstick. Her forte is in leadership training, people management skills and women’s centric programs. She has multiple hats as a corporate leader, facilitator, keynote speaker and coach in her rich experience spanning 23 years. She is impact driven facilitator and has been on the Ted platform three times as a TEDx speaker and on several other prestigious platforms. She’s won global awards, such as Karmaveer Chakra given to her through the UN. Global Women in Leadership awards and the international WEE Women Excellence Empowerment, Rising Women Award for her service to enable women to unleash their best version of themselves. [00:01:22] She is ICF certified life and master coach, mentor and volunteer. She is an international behavior. Facilitator. Siji is certified in so many varied areas that compliment her wisdom and knowledge. She’s certified in coaching and thought processing methodology, therapy and a business degree such as an MBA. I have 18 listed here, which I won’t go through all of them with you but I tell you they’re very prestigious and we’re very honored to have you here today Siji. [00:01:52] Siji with all of these qualifications as a mother of two teenagers, and is very community oriented, prioritizing community driven programs as a priority in her life. I know you will find her presentation today very engaging and inspiring. Siji’s topic today is ‘build your personal brand’. Siji, it’s an honor for me to introduce you here, please share your knowledge with us. [00:02:18] Siji Varghese: Thank you. Thank you so much, Jennifer, for this lovely introduction. And it’s such a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me here. So good morning, good afternoon, good evening from whichever part of the world we are today. It’s almost night out here in fact midnight. [00:02:36] So I’m just going to be sharing or talking more about brace yourself to more power. [00:02:42] So welcome everyone. Uh, very recently we did a small little survey and the study and the results were really astounding. And before I go about asking you or telling you about what the results are, I just quickly want to all to mentally visualize three horizontal lines. I want you to do this activity just requesting and inviting each one of you to do this activity along with me. [00:03:09] And there’s a reason why I want you to do this right away. So let me take you to the next slide and you just need to have these three lines out there, three horizontal lines. What I want you to do here with these three horizontal lines is on the first line, put in your name, on the second line. So you have the second slide. [00:03:29] You put on your name on the first line, you put on the name of your loved one on the second one and the relationship that you share with your loved one. I want to give you a couple of seconds out there, or little more than that. Just ask you who is the one you are going to put the name on as the loved one. And I would love to have those responses here, but since this is a program where I would not be able to connect and interact with you each one, but I just want you to all think about it. [00:03:59] Now, most of the people, 98% of the people would go ahead and say the name of their loved one to be either their spouse, their partner, a child, a parent, a sibling, or a good friend. Now that’s the most beautiful thing out here is that where I wanted to tell is most of us tend to write everyone else’s name other than ourselves. [00:04:22] So my question to you all here is why do we fail to take our own name when we have to put ourselves as a loved one? So here’s what it says, that we all put ourselves in terms of self-love and self-care as the last or the least priority. Now the next one. So it’s like, it’s very important as we travel in flights too, we know that when we get instructions is that if you want to be helping someone else in times of danger, you actually need to have your own oxygen mask ready. So a very beautiful thing that I have seen especially during the pandemic, is that most of us we had got so engaged and so much into many things that most of us forgot what self-love self-care is and we got caught up into so many things, probably giving ourselves the least attention that we deserved. So most of us tend to ask is self-love being more self-centric or selfish. The answer is ‘no’. You need to give yourself that love because you deserve it. That’s what you deserve. And you need to give that because if you don’t give that love to yourself, who can love you, right? [00:05:38] If you don’t have love inside you, how can you love others? You cannot pour from an empty cup, you need to take care of yourself. And what is more important is that it actually says that there’s no one else who stops yourself from loving you other than you. [00:05:56] So what I wanted to share with you all today is a beautiful Eureka construct. So when I say Eureka, it’s the word E U R E K A. And I want you to see how we are decoding Eureka as a beautiful mantra as to how we can brace ourselves to more power. So, as I take you through this, Eureka moment, let me go with the very first alphabet that’s E and this is the very first thing that we all talk about in the pandemic. [00:06:27] The ‘E’ stands for enhanced your adversity caution. Most of us would have observed that during the pandemic, most of us had several kinds of setbacks. It could be mental wellbeing. It could be something to do with the financial space, a setback at the financial space, maybe you lost or separation from a loved bar or relationship loss. [00:06:51] It could be multiple things. It could be a sickness, it could be a sickness or anything. So when we are talking about how you brace yourself to more power, the very first thing that we all need to understand in this very challenging times is that how do we develop ourselves to be more resiliant. So most of the studies that shows we all go through setbacks in our life, but the important part is that how quickly are we able to bounce back from a setback? In fact, they very likely say a setback is a setup for a strong comeback. So if you’re really looking at comebacks, we need to have more setbacks isn’t it. [00:07:34] So we all go through setbacks in our lives. And what’s most important is how you see yourself, nothing else matters. An adversity caution, just like your emotional quotient or your intelligence quotient is a muscle that we can all develop. How resilient, how quickly can you bounce back from the setback that you’ve had? [00:07:55] How can you get yourself more better? And this is something that we all love to develop for ourselves because that’s one way you can brace yourself to having more power, being more resilient, the adversity quotient as well. So there’s a way we can go to the next alphabet that’s ‘U’ in Eureka. [00:08:16] So we all have this, a lot of ‘unconscious bias’, you know, and many times we are not even aware about what’s that stopping us. We have a lot of those self limiting beliefs that we, we ourselves don’t know because our culture, our conditioning, our society makes us think that this is perfect, this is right, this is how it should be. And we just don’t challenge the status quo multiple times, many times. [00:08:41] Now here’s something that we all should know is that all the unconscious bias that we have, we need to be conscious about the unconscious bias that we have, because unless and until we are not conscious, we don’t go around challenging that. And when we don’t go around challenging that it becomes difficult for us to broaden or expand our boundaries. [00:09:05] Because as you expand your boundaries, you get more stronger, you will get more better, and it’s important that we need to become our own superhero. And as Sheryl Sandberg rightly says in the next slide, being confident in believing in your own self-worth is necessary to achieving your potential. [00:09:27] Now, as a human being, did you know that we just places 9% of our potential and the rest 91%, we take with us along to the grave. Imagine whenever we have reached today is by using 9% of our potential. If we were to use a little more of a potential, what all could we do? [00:09:48] So that’s the question and a reflection that I want you all to begin with. As we move on to the next alphabet of Eureka, which is ‘R’ and it’s all about reprogram and reaffirming your thoughts. So if I quickly ask you this question, how many thoughts do you think that we process in a single day? I’m sure we would all have numbers like countless, innumerable, limitless. We just can’t count how many thoughts. But here’s what psychologist say, that we process one thought every second, which means 86,400 seconds, which means we have 86,400 thoughts. Not exactly, but because since we spent some time sleeping, we process anywhere between 60 to 65,000 thoughts per day. Now that’s amazing isn’t it. [00:10:41] Now, these thoughts that we have; 78% of our thoughts, most of the time are negative thoughts. So now you may be asking what are negative thoughts? Of course, we have so many things that one of the most negative thought that most of us harbor, nurture, foster is something called as F E A R. [00:11:02] Fear is something that we all deal with. It could be fear of the unknown. It could be the fear of missing out. It could be the fear of dissociation, association, rejection. It could be a lot, many fears. So as they rightly say, where your focus goes, that’s where your energy flows and that’s where the results show. [00:11:27] Are we mindful as to what are we focusing throughout the day? Is it that we are focusing a lot on anxiety on worry or is it that we are focusing on, uh, on the right things in life? It’s important to know what are we focusing on? [00:11:43] Most of us, as I said, we do go through a lot of fear, but even fear has two choices. Either you forget everything and run, or you would face everything and rise. So there’s a choice. Either you rise by facing your field or you run by just forgetting everything and just run. There’s a beautiful question that we typically ask. So ask yourself, what would I do if I weren’t afraid and then go ahead and do it. [00:12:14] So as I move onto the next alphabet in Eureka, that’s ‘E’. E stands for evolving a growth mindset. What are we talking about with a growth mindset. Let me tell you a beautiful story. [00:12:26] There is the two rivers, that’s the sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. And as we all know that the source of water for both these water bodies are the river of Jordan. And the river of Jordan is the source of water for both these water bodies. Now, as you can see, the sea of Galilee has one of the best flora, fauna aqua-marine life and the Dead Sea as its name says, there’s not a single microorganism thriving as well. Now my question to each one of you is; if the source of the water is the river of Jordan, why is these two water bodies responding so differently? One has all the striving organisms and living beings, and one has zero microorganisms or any thriving living beings. [00:13:19] What do you think would be the reason why both these bodies respond so differently? I’m sure you have the answer to that question to the sea of Galilee and the dead sea. So as you know, in the dead sea it’s landlocked and if you can see the next one, and if you can see the sea of Galilee is a flowing water body. So when you are like a dead sea landlocked, it gets stagnant, it gets saturated, it gets highly locked up there and the water or the salinity in the water increases tremendously leading to no microorganisms or leading to absolutely not even micro organisms thriving and that, [00:14:05] Now this happens the same with all of us, with our thoughts. If we allow our thoughts to be accepted and to flowing, it’s so important to see what happens if we are not flowing, if you’re stuck, if you’re stagnant, if you’re saturated, we are fixed with our thoughts. And so it’s so important for each one of us to evolve with a growth mindset. [00:14:30] So many of us would love to say that I have a growth mindset, but the thing is we still have a lot of old schools thoughts, we still have a lot of fixed thoughts. And sometimes that comes in the way of us progressing or evolving. And growth mindset is beautiful, because, it tells you how to move from being victim, to being a victor. [00:14:53] So it’s like an aspire to inspire before you expire. It’s amazing to see that you always have that feeling, that the mindset to get it done, to know that you don’t have to call yourself a victim all the time, but you can come out of it as a victor too. So that’s the other one for, uh, being able to brace yourself at more power as we move onto the next alphabet of ‘K’, that’s keep improving that. [00:15:22] We all know that if you were to improve just 1% more than what we were from yesterday, 1% more kindness, 1% more perseverance, 1% more compassion, 1% of anything extra from what you were yesterday, it actually means that by the end of 365 days, you would be 38 times more, better with very small, consistent efforts. [00:15:51] So if you want to be looking at yourself, having more power, you need to be working on yourself. Let us be even small, but consistent efforts. 1% of work extra, 1% of being more mindful about your food habits. It could be anything under the sun, but just 1% can make a dramatic difference. [00:16:12] So as you rightly say that fortune does favor the bold and you will never know what you’re capable of if you don’t try. And without a move on to the last alphabet of EUREKA, that’s adaptability. [00:16:26] I’d like to share a beautiful story here again from our real life. And here is the story of the Choluteca bridge, which is in Honduras in central America. And as you know, it’s famous for all kinds of storms and floods. [00:16:42] In the year 1998, the engineers got together, they built a bridge to last, and it was like an engineering marvel and 1999, the hurricane Mitch came and destroyed a lot of property, a lot of human beings close to 7,000 people died, but nothing ever happened to the bridge, it just stayed there. [00:17:04] But another important aspect was immediately, as soon as the floods and the storm stopped, the bridge became a bridge to nowhere, because the river on which the bridge was located, the Choluteca river, it suddenly changed its course after the storms and after the flood. And suddenly the bridge became a bridge for nowhere. [00:17:30] Now, this is a question that we all need to reflect on. It’s more important to be adaptable than to be built to last. It’s not about built to be lasting, but it’s being built to be adaptable, to being flexible, to being able to connect with things, aligned with things, make those changes and be highly adaptable. [00:17:53] So the six points [inaudible] Eureka, which is Eureka is, enhance your adversity quotient, work on your unconscious bias, be aware about what you keep talking to yourself, reprogram your thoughts, because we all have choices. We know where the focus goes. That’s where the energy flows and results show. Be mindful of where you want to focus to be there. Evolve a growth mindset, keep improvising, even just 1% of everything. And last but not least, it’s about adaptability. [00:18:27] So as we move on, it’s important to remember that we all go through hardships. We all go through difficult times, but remember we get as much as we can handle. [00:18:39] And we all have an immense store of power, waiting to be just tapped. And it’s within us. And as JK Rowling rightly says, that we did not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already. And we have the power to imagine better. So friends, I want all of you to look into yourself and I’m sure the pandemic has made most of us to look inwards rather than outwards, work on ourselves and I want you to get the real world potential coming out, the power, coming out and shine the light with the people around you, with the lives that you touch upon every single day. Thank you so very much. And with that, I would like to move on to ask if there’s any questions that you would want to ask. [00:19:34] Dr. Tess Lawrie: Thank you so much. That’s so inspiring. And I hope all the people in the newsroom who are watching will, will feel really empowered to power up using the Eureka acronym. And especially given the change we’re all facing this exciting time where we’re giving birth to a new world. [00:19:54] So, yeah, and certainly the one thing you’ve got one can always be sure of in life has changed. And that’s this exciting time that we’re at. There are a couple of questions in the meeting from, let’s see this one from Shabnam Palesa Mohamed, she says you highlight that adversity is a catalyst for creativity. You also highlight the importance of emotional intelligence and innovation. How have these concepts and realities contributed to India’s we too campaign and book project. [00:20:27] Siji Varghese: Oh, lovely. Thank you. That, that means you have researched quite a bit. Thank you so much. I’m really honored and humbled. [00:20:35] All these concepts leads to just one thing; that’s getting more deeper insight, deep diving into your self, tapping into your own potential , so maybe let’s talk about emotional intelligence, talk about the book, talk about all the life experiences. I’ve always observed one thing; health, mental health, the way you are, very recently, due to some kind of personal tragedy or not tragedy, but some kind of personal turmoil, I should say. There was a patch that I was really feeling pretty low and feeling to the point that I’m getting this overwhelming emotions. So when I talk about having emotional maturity, it’s like getting into the space of where you’re talking about accepting whatever’s coming to you and knowing that there’s a bigger purpose for whatever’s happening in your life, because of all these scenes that whenever there’s a setback in life, And then I’m able to come back out of it, I come back stronger, I come back wiser, I come back more happier. So every time there’s a setback and sometimes I’m able to navigate it and other times there are sometimes where I find it too difficult to navigate and I ask for help. And for me, something that really works is go around, ask for help, and I need it and be more expressive about it, not suppressing it, but being more emotionally balanced by being able to express it in the right space. So all these concepts get you more better with the way you express yourself and all this helps you to, deal with a lot of things in a more positive manner. So that’s how I look at it. Thank you so much for the question. [00:22:17] Dr. Tess Lawrie: Thanks Siji, there’s a couple of questions from the newsroom. The one question asks about the setbacks that people are experiencing that have been created by the current totalitarian government approaches for example, loss of jobs and for not taking the experimental gene therapy and also loss of personal rights. Do you have any advice who people suffering in this way? [00:22:42] Siji Varghese: So, yes. I have always known one thing for sure that we all go through some or the other setbacks. So whatever experiences I have to stay positive and stay afloat is a very difficult task when you are in the midst of the turmoil. [00:22:58] The last two weeks back, I was in a similar situation where I was going through some kind of real, unexplainable, unimaginable grief, unimaginable turmoil. And I was just wondering what happened to me with all the understanding and all the positivity that I have, why am I not able to derive from that and stay afloat and stay positive? [00:23:22] That two weeks for me was very difficult. But what I realized is as we develop any muscles of our body, it’s also possible for us to keep working on ourselves every day, to build the muscles of resilience, build the muscles of being more accepting that whatever happens in our life, there’s a reason we do it. [00:23:45] Maybe if I lost my job, it also means that there is some avenue that I could look forward to. Maybe it could take up a new study or I could start up something on my own. It could be a reason which I don’t understand today, but in the hindsight, I wouldn’t say, oh yes, good. I lost my job then. Because of which I’m able to be doing what I’m doing today, and I’m loving what I’m doing. [00:24:07] That could be one way to look at things more positively because in the longer frame, everything is fabulous at the end. And if it is not fabulous at the end, it means it’s not the end, it’s just the bend. So while you’re at the bend of, you know, that the end comes only when everything falls in place. [00:24:28] So it’s difficult, but you can keep building or developing, navigating, asking for help, expressing. And this would be, and have like-minded people who are around with you to help you come out of that situation. At that point in time, I asked for help. I talked it out, so it helped me a lot. Thank you. [00:24:49] Dr. Tess Lawrie: Wonderful. Another question from the newsroom; when there’s so much that needs changing, have you any tips on how to choose one? [00:24:58] Siji Varghese: What I have seen is that we find it very difficult to change the one thing that we are the most resistant to is to changing. For a simple reason, like, you know, we would have a certain way that we comb our hair right from childhood and we would still keep doing that the same way, parting our hair in the same place. Now, when it’s so difficult for us to change our external, imagine how difficult it is for us to change inside, if I have to say that if I have to develop my space of not being too resistant to change, but accepting because I, and every one of us knows changes, the only constant thing and it’s the most cliche thing. Is there simple tips in our life where it communicates to the universe that we are ready for change. [00:25:45] So simple tips like this. I brushed with my right hand everyday, and that’s a routine that I’ve been following it from last five decades. And all that I need to do is like when I’m doing it with my right hand, consciously start rushing from my left hand. And you know, that I’m breaking a pattern. When I break the pattern, I’m actually giving the message to the universe that I am accepting or wanting the changes or not resisting the changes and I’m open to change myself. So simple things, simple tips where you break your patterns which are easier for you to break and you keep up the message to the universe that you are ready for change. It helps. So it’s like the small things that you do every single day, one step at a time, you would actually be a part of that change that’s happening. And some of the changes are so fast that we just don’t know where and how we are going to navigate or deal or manage with it. [00:26:43] Dr. Tess Lawrie: Thank you so much Siji and thanks so much for reminding us of the resilience of the human spirit and how we all grow and thrive through adversity. And we will all get through this together, we just, we just need to step into our power and remember that. Thanks for sharing that acronym. It’s going to be so helpful to me and I’m sure to everybody who’s heard you today. [00:27:06] Siji Varghese: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me here. Thank you. [00:27:10] Dr. Jennifer Hibberd: Thank you so much. That was so inspiring. And yes, Eureka. I love that. Thank you for taking us on this important journey to the within. So wonderfully inspiring and presented in a way that makes it all possible. You really walked us through it so nicely. Thank you. Where your focus is, is where your energy goes. Step out of your fear was really a strong message and being a victor by improving our mindset, keep improving, be adaptable, such a wonderful story about the bridge that was built to last, but it doesn’t have the adaptability to move, unfortunately. So something we’ll all work on. [00:27:49] Thanks very much. [00:27:50]