Failure

The day that was supposed to be…

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

It was evening. Walking back from work, ‘he’ was thinking how could it have been him and how did it even happen.

Eventually tired of thinking and walking, he stopped near a lamp post and leaned against it. He couldn’t take it any more. The weight he was carrying in his mind made him slump down on the street and he landed with a thud.

There were no people nearby, only passing vehicles on the road. With each passing car, his shadow was elongating and running on the facade of the nearby building. He was oblivious to it.

They all assumed he was sitting there for some reason. No one bothered to check in. It was as if he was but a mannequin on the road, left by some disorganized owner.

The man sat there for what seemed like eternity. He kept on thinking about how the day he anticipated he will taste success, turned out to be a dud and a huge embarrassment. How things didn’t turn out as expected. And how will he face others now.

As the clock ticked on, his mind only went down the rabbit hole. It had convinced him that no one would be happy with the outcome he had managed and he had only himself to blame. At some point in time, as he reached the nadir, a speeding car whizzed by. The driver was probably drunk and honking the machine incessantly.

He looked up startled and realized that he had been sitting there on the pavement for long. Gathering his bag, he slowly walked the remaining couple of blocks to reach his home.

As soon as he rang the doorbell, his kids came running and his wife opened the door. They all smiled at him and hugged him. He hadn’t anticipated this and was slightly taken aback. Still trying to gather himself, he pushed along with the family into the living room and settled down with them. They were still holding tight on to him.

After a couple of minutes, as the heartbeats settled down and calm returned, he looked up. His wife was crying happily. His kids were still glued to him, not leaving his side. One of them spoke, “We missed you so much Papa, where were you? We thought you wouldn’t come home today.”

He looked at his wife puzzled. She pointed to the clock. It read midnight. She explained that as usual, they had been expecting him since dinner time and when they couldn’t reach him, had asked his colleagues. No one knew why he hadn’t reached home and no one could place him. They had all been worried and had been biding their time for the last few hours.

Looking askance, he asked “It isn’t the first time that I have returned home late. Why this strong a reaction from all of you?”. And then he remembered. It was the monthly family dinner. They had all been eagerly waiting for him to come back home and celebrate with them.

But he, foolishly had let a temporary setback at work affect him so much that he had forgotten his date with his family.

As they embraced each other once again, he realized that even if everything else fails, he has his family along. And what to make of the day is unto himself and only himself!

I am Quitting.

~ Rishi ~ 3 Comments

It’s been 2 years! Since I started writing this weekly blog every Sunday. Not an instalment missed over the last 104 such occasions.

There is a feeling that has come in sometimes though. Of what to write about and how to express it authentically. That sounds like me. Week after week. And that feeling sometimes also extends to questioning about what am I gaining by writing this weekly article.

It hasn’t helped me in my self-stated goal of writing a book. I have been writing something that may take shape of a book for these last couple of years but the story is still getting formed in my head. To make matters complicated, there are 3 or 4 stories that I keep grappling with and swing between which one to flesh out more. Or to make them sub-plots within a bigger one.

Then there are all those people (cannot count them on my fingers), who have told me to in fact channelize my thoughts into something concrete, rather than let them flow in to this weekly blog. Creativity is limited, is what I keep hearing too often.

More importantly, there are so many other things that I could be doing on a Sunday night instead of writing a blog which only manages to reach a few people but forces me to think and put into words all those thoughts that are running in my head that week into a short burst, exposing my inner self.

Worse, I have declared myself a “Budding Author” on Linkedin. The one lone social network that I actively use and where people who know me associate my being to who I am. Committing myself to be known for something that must happen sooner than later and justify the declaration in my profile’s title, lest I be known as an also-ran.

There are countless other things that I am not putting down here. Those, which have compelled me to re-think. And to quit doing what I have been doing on this forum since 2 years.

And therefore, as we enter the new year, I have come to a decision.

Of proving all of those things wrong! And to quit thinking about them!

Because, irrespective of if and when I do write my book or books, and whether I am able to publish them or not, these weekly blogs allow me to express myself. Not to others. But for myself.

This blabber does take effort and re-writing at times, which may perhaps be reducing my creativity, if at all, but is also helping me unshackle the chains and think about what I want to express and how.

And critically, by enforcing this schedule of every Sunday, helping me be disciplined about my writing effort. Without worrying about the end goal and how soon I prove myself to the outside world.

I don’t know if the bud I have planted in my Linkedin title will flower or not. I do know for sure thought that it has germinated. And sooner or later, without being bound for time, it will flourish if I continue tending to it.

The countless other things or even any important ones that may come up in the future, won’t matter even an ounce if I chose so.

So, as we close the books on 2021 and enter 2022, my resolution for the year ahead is to continue chipping at my craft, hone my skills, persevere with my efforts and not worry about proving myself all the time, nurture my dreams and let them blossom on their own, and be happy in the success I achieve, how so ever small they may be!

Now this could apply to so many things we do in our lives…

Risk!?

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

How much of it are you willing to take?

Is it an adventure or a danger?

Is it something to be cognisant of or to be weary of?

And is it really that important to consider or generally exaggerated?

As my father and I were having a conversation about the thought process required to start a new venture, all of these thoughts swirled in my mind.

I went back in time to check in on my own mindset when I started my venture. And the more I digged into, I realised that being a first time entrepreneur, I had not considered these questions in detail.

I had just heeded the call of my mind and heart and jumped right in. It was like jumping off the 10m board for the first time but thinking that the swimming pool is just a metre away.

Did I land with a thud? Oh, absolutely. I crashed and burned. The swimming pool I jumped into tested me in all possible ways before I could even learn to flap my hands and legs.

It was a great learning experience for me. But I didn’t plan it in advance. I didn’t do a risk analysis to figure out if I should proceed or not.

When I look back now, I realise that if I were to do this same thing again with my current outlook, I would probably do some risk analysis. Age has either corrupted me or made me much more thoughtful!

And the more I thought about this, it occurred to me that most of us weigh too much on things before deciding on the way forward. Is it a good thing to do this analysis? Yes, I believe so. It helps us become clearer in our mind.

But most of our life’s decisions need not be as thought through. While we can try and plan things in our life as much as it is possible, the best experiences happen in those moments which occur serendipitously.

In fact, those journeys that are unplanned always lend you more than you can ever gain from the planned ones.

So should we consider risk or not? Yes if it’s going to be a matter of life and death (and some of us still don’t do that). No, if it is anything smaller.

For after all, the worst thing that could happen to us if we fail, is a new experience that otherwise would have alluded us…

Win or Lose – what after the Games?

~ Rishi ~ 1 Comment

What is important? Is it even important to fuss over the result or is it sufficient to have just played? What to make of those who won? And those who lost? And what does all of this hold for us?

As the Olympic Games gala got over today, some of these questions floated into my mind…

These Olympic Games saw the best run ever by India, finishing with 7 medals. All of us Indians are ecstatic right now. After all, we won a Gold in a track and field event for the first time. Going with 2 silvers and 3 bronze medals, including one for Hockey which is our national sport, a lot of our champs proved their mettle.

It’s been an interesting last few weeks as I observed the commentary on the games and also had multiple chats at home and with friends on what to expect, how India is faring, good bad and ugly of Indian sports, and so on. I’m sure, for most of us, these last 2 weeks would have been in a similar zone – with sports dominating the conversations. And that too, not cricket for a change!

Depending on who you talked to, there would be different views – some focused on the personal aspects like what went behind the training of the sportsmen / women, who were they competing against, etc. And some focused on the collective aspects like is India really doing it’s best to provide facilities and infrastructure for fostering world-class sports stars, how is it that Chinese have started winning so many medals and their training regime, and so on.

You get it – most of these conversations we had were merely that. Talk of the town to berate or praise different aspects of sports without actually knowing what goes behind the scenes or what to attribute the outcome to. In fact, most of the conversations start with sports and then deviate into politics.

As with other seasonal topics, these will die down after a few days or weeks and will be replaced by other topical issues.

What I do hope remains though are the dreams that these games have given to the young ones in the country and how some of those dreams metamorphose into effort and training, leading to more glory in the coming years across different sporting disciplines.

What I also hope remains is the interest that has been generated in the other sports apart from cricket, which encourages many more kids to pick them up and many more parents to allow their children to pursue them seriously.

And what I certainly hope for is that all of us Indians start laying much more emphasis on sports as a medium of all round development for ourselves and our kids. For what is important is not to win or lose but to play well and gain from either of the experiences. Something that our kids generation definitely needs to imbibe whole-heartedly…

Only then, will the promise that we saw in these games will be translated into action not only in the sporting field but also in all aspects of our lives as a nation!

Resilience

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

The capacity to recover from difficulties; toughness. That’s how the word is described in the dictionary.

It is an internal force that makes it possible for us to move ahead. In life. At any given stage.

It is what fills us with hope. Of the possibilities that lay ahead. Even when the chips are down and the path seems to have come to a dead end.

It is what gives us the strength to continue in spite of what people around us say. To us or behind us.

It is what helps us believe in ourselves when others may not. Even though we may not have all the qualifications or the experience to do it.

But only when, there is love and purpose.

For otherwise, there is no incentive, even for the most hard nosed, to rekindle that spark and forge ahead.

Only when we have love around us and for what we want to do, can we feel the passion to make things happen. Else, what we are planning to do will anyways feel like drudgery soon…

And only when there is real purpose in what we want to achieve. Though we know there could be multiple thorns lying around. And the path is too wound up and convoluted. With a great chance of failure.

Yet, most of us dream of achieving things in a jiffy. Of landing up where we want to be without much struggle or pain. Without being prepared for the many surprises that the path may throw at us.

No doubt, most times we quit. Within a short span or in the middle, when the entire plan seems stuck.

This is true for things in our personal life or at work. Whether it is being healthy and fit, or pursuing a serious hobby. Whether it is a project at work or a business plan in our head. Whether it is for ourselves or for our teams.

So, the first thing that we should ask ourselves then – “Do I have love and purpose for what I am going to pursue? Genuinely?”.

That would be half the battle won. In our minds. And on the field.

Legacy…

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

It is something we leave behind and hand over to the next generation.

Something that inspires a lot of people and helps them identify a meaning in all they have done through the years.

Or something that in hindsight helps us judge what we did in that particular phase of our life or work.

Well, I have always viewed the term with some suspicion. Not because I think it is over-rated but because I think it carries a negative stress in the present.

There are a few people who leave impressive legacies behind. But not because they started with that intention. They just wanted to do their best in the moment. And whatever they leave behind happens as a natural result of that effort.

On the other side, there are those who don’t bother at all about these matters and live their life without worrying about what they are leaving behind. They do their work or live their life and pass into oblivion, which isn’t a bad option in the larger scheme of things.

And then there are those who always get bothered by whether what they are doing will be enough to leave behind that impression. Now, that’s precisely the kind of negative stress I am referring to. Trying to prove a point and do something with the future in mind, without focusing on ensuring the best possible in the present.

A lot of us these days, either due to the hype around the term ‘legacy’ or because of the added pressure we put on ourselves to excel in whatever we do, land up in the third category. For some of us in fact, sometimes it gets complicated because once we start looking out into the future with one eye, the view isn’t complete in the present. And due to that stress we sometimes end up trying too hard and not being our natural self, or worse, doing things the wrong way to reach where we want to be through a shortcut.

Not something that we would recommend to any of our friends, leave along to ourselves!

As I served my last day in a company I have been with for almost 5 years and had a lengthy conversation with a senior about some of these aspects, these thoughts came into my mind…

When I dug deeper, I realised that if we look at this issue from another perspective, it is actually not what we have done and the accolades that we have bought to the table that matter. What matters is the foundation we built or built upon, and the strength of the pillars we erected during that phase of our life or work. In the present.

Are they going to sustain after we are gone? Will those, who are left behind after us, be able to live with it? Is the structure going to soar higher from where we left it?

I think that is a more pertinent way of looking at any phase of our life or work and determining the impression that we leave behind. It also gives us the luxury of focusing on the present completely without worrying about or stressing about what happens to it after we leave.

While all of us are wishful about the impact we have or may have with our actions or work or life in the future, I guess living in the present and staying focused on what we are doing in the here and now are way more important.

At least, that gives us a chance of leaving behind a legacy, if at all!

Persistent Resilience

~ Rishi ~ 1 Comment

Sometimes, what happens in a matter of days or even hours, scars one for life. And while time heals and life adapts, some scars remain and are problematic to get rid of.

I have had some share of disappointments in life but one such situation has been quite problematic to dissipate from the annals of my mind. It was about what happened with my business venture and why I couldn’t succeed in it, in spite of putting in my best foot forward.

As I winded up my business in 2014, over that painstaking first half of the year, I often spent my days debating in the head what went wrong. I got into a shell and became reluctant to share my disappointment with others. And while life continued and physically and mentally I moved on after a few months, that scar remained.

It would later manifest and trouble me in unthinkable ways – reminding me of my failure and making me skeptical of my abilities, taking me down the what-if analysis road where the possibilities I had seen but not achieved stared at me and making me feel worse, making me question if I was indeed on the right path, and so on. And the more it dwelled in my mind, the stronger the devil became.

I tried to overpower it and got immersed in work to pull me out of it. I spent time with my family and on other things I liked to do, to move my mind out of those stray thoughts. And while I had some success, there were still times, though with reduced intensity, where those thoughts crossed my mind and tried pulling me down.

Until egged on by my wife, I decided to stop feeling sorry about what happened and accept that the mishap could have been worse and that it was a good life lesson for me. I took out the good things from that lesson and stopped blaming myself or anyone else. I made my peace. And then slowly, the scar started healing. It is still not gone, but it surely is not as visible as before.

Sure, I did lose out on some opportunities and fell back a bit. I could not live upto the promises I made to myself and to others. But then, I realised that there’s more to life than one failure. And if I apply myself persistently and be resilient, I would be able to achieve something better. Success delayed but not denied.

As I drove around with a good friend yesterday, we talked about our scars and how we are dealing with them. He had a huge setback in life but due to his resilience and the persistent efforts he has made, he has got out of that zone and is moving ahead. Another friend has had a disappointing 2020 but is now determined to start afresh and has pushed doubts out of his mind and resolutely started seeking new opportunities.

Talking about such dismal things at the beginning of a new year may not be the most appropriate time. But for a lot of us, this is perhaps the best time to move out of whatever disappointing zones we have around us and forge ahead resolutely with a clean mind. For a happy 2021 and beyond…

Upwards and onwards then!

Success!?

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

A conversation with a friend over the weekend, on what’s happening around with people, led to an interesting perspective when we ventured into the topic of how are people reacting to the situation…

We were discussing about how the pandemic has hit people and business. We talked about friends from the business side, who have been hit hard by the slowdown. And about people who have lost their jobs or are in companies which are asking employees to leave.

And as we discussed this gloomy scenario, as well as when I was brooding afterwards, there were a few examples of how some have weathered the storm well or adapted well to it. A professional who had always been very conscious of his expenses and continues to exercise that caution and manage work well; a business-man who has identified new opportunities and pivoted his business to suit ground-reality; a senior manager who has made peace with hitting the ceiling in the organization.

This made me think about how we should measure success…

Humans are naturally competitive. We have been blessed with the survival instinct since our ape days and what made us save ourselves back in those times, has also helped us evolve and grow in the modern age. And that keeps us ticking as a race.

However, as we have grown and prospered, so has our hunger to succeed in everything we do. Whether it is studies, sports, work, or life in general, we measure our success relative to others.

A student is fed about how his success in life depends on studies and goaded to try harder. A girl playing sport (if the parents allow it after all) is made to focus on how to succeed at the professional level. Everyone at work is seeking the summit. And all of us want the best house to live in, the best car to drive, and the best vacation.

While there is nothing wrong in seeking the best or aspiring for the same, it creates a lot of pressure on us as individuals. It forces us to forego certain charms of daily life and/or miss the moments that matter after all. And in that race, sometimes we lose ourselves also.

As I thought more about it, the question that was tops was – then how do we cushion ourselves? How do we be a part of the society and try our best but without driving ourselves to the edge? And how do we maintain peace with the way life has laid down the cards for us and go on with it in the best way possible?

One of the plausible ways is to define the ceiling or floor for oneself – the room that we can live in comfortably without feeling lost. Another possible approach is to decide on what’s the parameter for success at every milestone and go about it in a methodical manner, without worrying about what lies next. Maybe dissociate ourselves from what others think or talk about us and focus instead on what success means to us.

There is no single right answer here. All of us have our own thought process and background to contend with, which makes us approach this question in our own way. However, if ever there was a question that we need to answer for ourselves, to make our life less complicated and more enjoyable, it is perhaps this. By defining our metrics, aligned with our life’s purpose, we can do a world of good to ourselves and to the ones who we love.

Will perhaps save many a heart attacks. Will also perhaps make the world a better place to live in!

Risky Propositions.

~ Rishi ~ 1 Comment

I just finished reading the book ‘Startup Nation’ – a good read, with insights on how Israel has come to be known by this name. The more I read the book and the authors description of how Israel has embraced innovation and risk-taking, the more parallels I drew from it to be applied to life in general.

Starting up is exciting. For the promise of what can be achieved and from the excitement for the ‘new’. However, beyond this excitement lies a lot of hard work and persistence. And the ability to take risks and fail without worrying about what will people think!

‘New’ is a risky proposition. But our life moves forward only when we take some sort of a risk. Be it the first steps we take as a toddler without the knowledge that we may fall, or when we learn new things by doing stupid experiments at home, or the time we leave our homes to achieve something bigger in the outside world, or when we get into a new relationship. If not for such endeavours without a worry in the world, our life would be monotonous and uninteresting.

In fact, the more I read the book and re-applied that to our life, I realised that ‘do the new’ should be an important mantra for all of us to measure how much we are moving forward.

Because if we don’t, someone else will. There are enough intelligent people, willing to try out new things. And they will move the entire ground to a different coordinate. The same ground, where we were standing proudly just some time ago. And then re-starting will be even more difficult.

And this is true for each and every aspect of life. Be it personal aspects where for example, if we don’t try and build new relationships, we will be left alone and people will move on. Or in professional aspects, where carrying on with the notions and practices that succeeded for us earlier may not result in the same outcomes now.

Yet, we push back. We resist the new. We hate change. We look at excuses to not adapt. And by doing so, we pull ourselves back. We discard the risky proposition in favour of the one which is known/comfortable. What we forget is that comfort breeds complacency also. And that leads to obfuscation.

But how do we do something new regularly and continue to move forward? Rather than being focused on risks, how do we focus on making things happen and looking to succeed? In whatever we want to do.

I think the answers lie in practicing with small baby steps. Doing small things which aren’t as risky to do, as per our psyche. And as we go along, building our confidence to try out even more new things and progressing from there. And as we go along, we would have dug a new tunnel, where none existed.

And that would be our personal startup, focused on whatever we want it to be…

The Next Time…

~ Rishi ~ 1 Comment

It was a result I didn’t expect. After months of hard work, long nights, and countless hours of prep tests, this was surely not what I expected of myself.

This was the day when the Common Admission Test or CAT, as it is known in the Indian parlance, came out. I hadn’t scored in the 99th percentile I was wanting to. And in one of the most competitive exams in the country, that 2 percentile gap meant a sea of difference and practically killed my attempt to get into the best MBA colleges of the country.

I was dejected. I certainly didn’t deserve such a low score! I blamed my circumstances, my luck, and everything else. However, thankfully after a couple of days in that mode, I composed myself and carried on with my life, taking the failure in my stride.

The next few years in my life went by with lots of interesting things. I met my wife and fell in love with her. Gathered a lot of experience working in the corporate world. Made some very good friends and learnt tons of new stuff.

I did do my MBA from a good college afterwards. And have had some very interesting experiences post that, enjoyed my life and have done well in general.

This weekend, as we were spending time with our cousins and celebrating my daughter’s birthday, one of our discussions veered around the pulls and pushes that youngsters, specially those who are in the defining years of their life – 12th standard, final year of college, etc. are facing or going to go through due to the Covid-19 disruption to regular studies.

The main focal point of our discussion was – with the competitiveness only increasing every year, there are going to be countless students who wouldn’t be able to perform at the same levels as they expect to. And how they reconcile themselves to the unexpected results and carry on with life is going to be critical to their future.

Our discussion went on to other general things. But as I reflected on this track, I realised that it is going to be true for quite a good number of students – those who can’t concentrate because classes didn’t happen, or they weren’t taught well online, or worse still, couldn’t get access to the right education.

And I recollected from my experiences that life is not just about that one exam. One might fail or not perform once. But what determines character and a winner is someone who doesn’t get bogged down by the circumstances or the limitations and continues to plough along. Perhaps on the same track, perhaps on another.

Life gives all of us multiple chances. It is important that we don’t feel left out ever and continue our journey, the destination is waiting for us. If not this time, then the next time. Or the next time. Or the next time…