Professional A vs Professional B – The Phone Call

    Two colleagues get the same task from the same boss on the same Monday morning. Five years later, one is a Director and the other has quietly disappeared. The difference was never talent or luck — it was the cycle running inside their heads.

    Professional A vs Professional B – The Phone Call

    Professional A vs Professional B – The Phone Call

    Two people started at exactly the same place — same company, same year, same boss, same opportunity. Five years later, one was a Director speaking at conferences. The other had quietly disappeared, telling friends over drinks that he was “just unlucky.” Luck was never the problem. A cycle was.

    In short

    Where this sits on your Winning Kite

    Before the story, place it on the map. In The Winning Kite (KITE Leadership Framework), the left side is your EQ — Emotional Intelligence. The very first trait on that side is Emotional Awareness: the ability to notice what is happening inside you before it hijacks your behaviour. The Focus-Meaning-Beliefs-Emotions-Actions-Results cycle is the engine underneath that trait. Strengthen it and the whole left edge of your kite grows taller — which is what lets your EQ, RQ (Relationship Intelligence) and PQ (Productivity) together carry you up to Success. You rise on balance, and balance begins with awareness.

    Day One: The Phone Call

    It’s Monday morning, 10:30 a.m. The boss’s secretary calls: “Sir is asking for you. Please come to his cabin.”

    Professional A gets the call first.

    His heart sinks. Why is the boss calling me? Did I make a mistake? Is this about last week’s report? He walks toward the cabin with tense shoulders and a restless mind. The boss looks up. “A, I have an important client presentation coming up on Thursday. I want you to prepare it.”

    And just like that, the cycle begins.

    A’s Inner World

    Focus: Why me? Is he testing me? Trying to expose my weaknesses?
    Meaning: He doesn’t trust me. This is a setup. He wants to see me fail.
    Beliefs: Old wounds resurface. Last time I did this, people criticised me. I’m not good at this. They’re always targeting me.
    Emotions: Fear. Hurt. Resentment.
    Actions: He nods politely, walks out, and stares at his screen for hours. Procrastinates. Opens the file, closes it. By Wednesday night, he throws together a half-hearted presentation.
    Results: Thursday morning, the client looks unimpressed. The boss sighs. The meeting ends awkwardly. A feels humiliated.

    That evening he goes home, heavy and silent. His wife is waiting for dinner. “Get fresh,” she says gently. “Let’s eat together.” Over dinner she asks, “How was your day?” A sighs. “Same story. The boss gave me this new task — I’m sure he’s targeting me. There’s some conspiracy against me.” She listens, concerned. “You’re too simple, that’s why people take advantage. Don’t let them use you. Tomorrow, just tell your boss you won’t do it — or take leave and stay away from the mess.”

    A nods slowly. He feels comforted — but not empowered. That dinner seals his focus for the next day: avoidance, not action. Notice how the cycle doesn’t just live at the office. It followed him home, and someone who loved him accidentally reinforced the exact belief that was sinking him.

    Two hours later, the same boss calls Professional B into his cabin. “B, I have an important client presentation on Thursday. I’d like you to prepare it.” Same boss. Same task. Same deadline. Same opportunity. But an entirely different outcome.

    B’s Inner World

    Focus: The boss is trusting me with something important. This is my chance.
    Meaning: He believes in my ability. I can show what I’m good at.
    Beliefs: I’ve done this before and succeeded. I can do it again.
    Emotions: Confidence. Gratitude. Excitement.
    Actions: She gets to work immediately — researches, drafts, refines, practises.

    That evening, when B reaches home, her family notices the excitement on her face. “You look happy today.” “Boss gave me an important presentation — big client meeting.” “Wow, that’s wonderful. I love how seriously you take your work. Do it sincerely — you’ll shine.” Those words strengthen her resolve. By next morning, she’s charged with purpose.

    Same trigger. Same phone call. Two completely different cycles — and the gap between them has only just started to open.

    Six Months Later

    Professional A has quietly slipped into the background. He still does his job, but only just enough. He’s convinced the company doesn’t value him. When new projects come, his boss hesitates. “He’s capable,” the boss thinks, “but something’s always off — he lacks spark.” A notices the hesitation and takes it personally. See? I was right. They’re biased. They only promote favourites. His negative focus strengthens his negative beliefs, which strengthen his negative emotions. The loop tightens.

    Meanwhile, Professional B is thriving. After her successful presentation, she’s trusted with bigger projects. Each success reinforces her confidence. Her reputation grows. Colleagues seek her advice. Her focus stays positive, her beliefs stronger, her emotions more energised. She’s building momentum — one good cycle at a time.

    Two Years Later

    Professional A is still in the same role, same desk, same salary band. He watches juniors get promoted. He watches B — who joined the same year — now leading a small team. In his mind, the story deepens: “This company is unfair. It’s all politics. They don’t care about real effort.” His focus is victimhood. His belief is that the system is rigged. His emotions are bitterness and fatigue. His actions shrink — he avoids initiative, complains, and disengages.

    Meanwhile, Professional B is now a Senior Manager. Her focus: growth. Her beliefs: effort pays off. Her emotions: purpose, gratitude. Her actions: consistent. Her results: undeniable. She’s not luckier. She’s just running a better cycle.

    Five Years Later

    Professional A no longer works there. After years of frustration, he quit — or maybe he was let go. It’s hard to say. He joins another company, hoping for a fresh start. But within months, the same cycle repeats. Same suspicion. Same resentment. Same story. Over drinks, he tells his friends, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I work hard but never get ahead. Maybe I’m just unlucky.”

    But luck was never the problem. He carried the same focus, the same meanings, the same beliefs — into every new office, every new opportunity. New company. Same mindset. Same results.

    Professional B, on the other hand, is now a Director. Five years after that first assignment, she’s leading a department. Her salary has tripled. She speaks at conferences, mentors others, and gets headhunted by competitors. Not because she was luckier or smarter, but because she mastered the cycle. Every challenge, she chose her focus. Every setback, she reframed the meaning. Every fear, she challenged her beliefs. She wasn’t perfect — she had bad days too — but she refused to live in a negative loop.

    Those small choices compounded over time: positive focus created empowering meaning; empowering meaning shaped stronger beliefs; stronger beliefs triggered better emotions; better emotions drove purposeful actions; purposeful actions produced outstanding results. That’s how stars are made. Not overnight. Not by luck. But through one conscious cycle, repeated a hundred times.

    The Difference, Side by Side

    Same company. Same starting point. Same opportunities. Completely different outcomes. When you lay their cycles next to each other, the pattern is impossible to miss.

    Stage of the cycleProfessional AProfessional B
    FocusNegative — “Why me?”Positive — “My chance”
    Meaning“It’s a setup”“He trusts me”
    BeliefsLimiting — “I’m targeted”Growth — “I’ve done this”
    EmotionsFear, hurt, resentmentConfidence, gratitude
    ActionsProcrastinate, do the minimumResearch, prepare, practise
    ResultsPoor — stagnationGreat — promotion

    A’s downward spiral reinforced defeat. B’s upward spiral multiplied success. This is not a personality difference — it is a cycle difference. And a cycle can be changed.

    The Truth About the Cycle

    Here’s what I want you to remember: this cycle is always running — right now, in your mind, in your workplace. Every task you’re assigned, every conversation you have, every email you read — you’re choosing your focus, assigning meaning, activating beliefs, feeling emotions, taking actions, and creating results. The question isn’t whether the cycle exists. The question is: which direction are you running it?

    Are you like A — stuck in a negative spiral, blaming circumstances, wondering why nothing changes? Or like B — consciously choosing your focus, creating empowering meanings, and building positive momentum that compounds over time? The good news is that you can change the cycle anytime. You can’t rewrite the last five years. But you can redefine the next five — by changing your focus today, questioning your meanings today, rewriting your beliefs today. One positive cycle won’t transform your life overnight. But a hundred positive cycles — over weeks, months, and years — will.

    This is the same insight the classics point at from another angle: Viktor Frankl wrote that between stimulus and response there is a space, and in that space lies our freedom to choose. Avinash’s FMBEAR cycle simply shows you the machinery inside that space — the six precise links you can actually interrupt.

    The Same Cycle on the Hockey Field: Chak De! India

    This cycle doesn’t only play out in cabins and cubicles — it plays out everywhere. Take a film every Indian recognises. In Chak De! India, Shah Rukh Khan plays Kabir Khan, a former national hockey player turned coach of the Indian women’s team. He doesn’t just train them on tactics or stamina; he changes their cycles.

    Consider Komal. She’s talented, but her family disapproves of her playing. Her focus: My family doesn’t support me. Her meaning: If they don’t believe in me, maybe I shouldn’t either. Her belief: I don’t deserve to be here. Her emotions: fear, insecurity, guilt. Her actions: she holds back. Her results: missed chances. Kabir sits her down, shares his own pain, and asks one question: “Are you playing for your family, or for yourself?” That single question flips her focus to I’m playing for myself — this is my dream, her belief to I deserve to be here, and suddenly she plays fearlessly and scores.

    Then there’s Balbir — the quiet, reliable defensive wall nobody notices. Her focus: No one values my contribution. Her meaning: I’m invisible. Her actions shrink to just enough. In a team meeting Kabir stops and says, “Balbir’s defence is what’s keeping us in this game. Without her, we wouldn’t have a chance.” One line. Her focus becomes I matter, her belief I belong here, and her play lifts — and the team’s morale with it. Kabir didn’t change their skills. He changed their cycles. That’s how the team won.

    How to Break Free from a Negative Cycle

    So how do you do this for yourself? How do you catch a spiral before it swallows you? It starts with awareness — you can’t fix what you can’t see. Three practical ways to begin:

    1. Self-realisation through stillness. You don’t need hours of meditation. Ten minutes a day of sitting quietly, breathing, observing your thoughts is enough to catch the moment your mind whispers, “What if I fail?” or “Why always me?” That whisper is your trigger — and your chance to pause. Stillness builds the gap between stimulus and response, giving you a few seconds to choose your focus before emotion hijacks you.

    2. Ask powerful questions. When you feel stuck, ask: What exactly triggered me right now? What meaning am I assigning to this? What old belief is being activated? Naming the links breaks their automatic power.

    3. Consciously choose a better focus. Once you see the meaning you’ve assigned, deliberately test a more empowering one. “He’s testing me to expose me” can become “He’s trusting me with something visible.” The facts don’t change. The cycle they trigger does.

    This is exactly the kind of shift I take teams through in my Signature Programs and across the emotional-intelligence modules in my corporate training topics — not as theory, but as a daily habit people can run at their own desks on Monday morning.

    So ask yourself the two questions that close this story: Which professional are you — and, more importantly, which professional do you want to become? To see how this trait connects to everything else, read the pillar on The Winning Kite (KITE Leadership Framework), then explore the wider chapter on the Focus-Meaning-Beliefs-Emotions-Actions-Results cycle.

    Bring These Ideas to Your Team

    Avinash Chate turns the traits in Stars at India Inc. into live leadership & emotional-intelligence workshops. TEDx speaker · 11+ yrs training Army, BRO, RBI, BARC, JSW & 1000+ leaders.

    ✅ Thanks! Avinash team will reach out within 24 hours.

    '}).catch(function(e){f.outerHTML='

    Something went wrong. WhatsApp +91 8793630001

    '});return false;">Select ServiceKeynote / Motivational SpeakingLeadership Development TrainingTeam Building WorkshopManager DevelopmentEmployee TrainingBook Avinash Now →

    Or WhatsApp directly: +91 87936 30001

    Work with Avinash Chate

    Avinash Chate

    TEDx Speaker · Founder, The Future Corporate · Author of Stars at India Inc.

    Avinash has trained the Indian Army, BRO, RBI, BARC, JSW Steel and 1000+ corporate leaders across India. His work focuses on leadership, emotional intelligence and behavioural training rooted in Indian values and modern business needs.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    What is the Focus-Meaning-Beliefs-Emotions-Actions-Results cycle?

    It is the chain reaction that runs in your mind every time something happens at work. What you focus on decides the meaning you assign, which activates old beliefs, which triggers emotions, which drive your actions, which produce your results. Run it in a positive direction and you build momentum; run it negatively and you spiral.

    Why did Professional A and Professional B end up so differently?

    They received the exact same task from the same boss. A focused on threat and read it as a setup; B focused on trust and read it as an opportunity. Those first interpretations set off opposite cycles that compounded over five years into a Director’s career for B and stagnation for A.

    How can I stop a negative cycle before it takes over?

    Start with awareness. Ten minutes of daily stillness builds the gap between stimulus and response. When you feel triggered, ask what exactly set you off, what meaning you are assigning, and what old belief is being activated — then consciously choose a more empowering focus.

    Where does this idea sit in the Winning Kite framework?

    Emotional Awareness is the very first trait on the EQ (left) side of the Winning Kite. Mastering the Focus-Meaning-Beliefs-Emotions-Actions-Results cycle is how you strengthen that side, so your EQ, RQ and PQ together lift you toward Success at the top.

    Related Articles by Avinash Chate

    Avinash Chate services

    Corporate Training · Leadership Development · Team Building · Motivational Speaking · All service locations

    ← Back to all articles · Book Avinash Chate

    By Avinash Chate — Maharashtra’s #1 Corporate Trainer & Motivational Speaker. .