Rotarians inspired by a talk on missing links

Dr. Swapna Patker

2014-12-09-The_Gateway_December_9_to_15_final

2014-12-09-The_Gateway_December_9_to_15_final

Dr. Swapna Patker is a training professional with more than 12 years of experience in cross-functional training and development, having worked with reputed organisations and in a personal capacity. Mindworks Training Systems is spearheaded by Patker, an MBA with a postgraduate degree in psychotherapy and counselling.
She also holds a Ph.D in Business Administration and Corporate Human Relationships (Spirituality in Business) and a Diploma in Business Training from the Dale Carnegie Institute.
At last week’s meeting, Patker spoke about her unusual choice of study — spirituality in business. “I went to all possible Indian universities and was rejected because my topic was not convincing enough and professors told me I was pursuing something frivolous. I had a thesis ready and no one wanted to consider it or even read it! I then sent it to Harvard and it was selected and I completed my Ph.D in five years. After the degree, I decided to spread this knowledge in India and that’s how my programme, the golden pass to success, came into existence,” she explained.

Patker also spoke about the smaller, simpler things that make up the missing links in one’s life, as mentioned in her programme. She said, “I see people completely absorbed by their cell phones all the time, no matter what they are doing. When someone makes you wait for five minutes or if you are standing at a bus stop with nothing to do, you will either talk to someone around or reach for your phone. Why are we so restless? Why can we not sit quietly for a minute? When you are idle, your mind wanders to events from your past you do not wish to recall and as a result of that, you do all of these things to distract yourself. All your bad choices come to your mind in these idle minutes, and you want to avoid facing yourself. People do not want to spend any time with themselves anymore. I understand that one has to lie in every business and a certain amount of dishonesty has become acceptable but our conscience never allows us to forget it.”

She explained the significance of the kinds of life one leads and how ‘self life’ is the most important one. “Self life is the life that will give you most happiness because it is the time you spend with yourself. Everybody has a self life and although it is the only life that can make you truly happy, it gives you so much guilt for not making enough time for yourself that you rarely get to enjoy it.

“We forgive so many people for so many things and yet, we forget to forgive ourselves. We keep carrying the baggage of all the bad things we have done throughout our lives.Your personality starts rotting when you are restless with the guilt of not letting go. I recommend that every night, you forgive yourself for what you have done through the day and not carry that burden over to the next day,” she said.