good afternoon all of you and thank you
for having me here my topic for today is
shortest beautiful just 20 words to a
better you it is said that life is short
and I’m sure you will agree let’s see
what else is short in today’s world
short spans I go to many colleges
universities I speak to young students
like the one sitting here and when I try
to address them I usually find that
their attention spans do not go beyond
10 to 15 minutes how many of you are
short of time in today’s world raise
your hands how many feel I don’t have
enough time to do the things I want to
do a fair number of hands have gone up
so that’s one thing we are all short off
also if you read the newspapers almost
every day you have news of road rage you
have people killing each other so we
have today short fuses we get angry very
quickly short tempers we also have short
breaths thanks to the sedentary
lifestyles that we have managed to
acquire short vacations I think the time
has gone where you could go off for
about 2 weeks with your family and enjoy
a nice relaxed vacation so can short be
beautiful is it possible all the things
I said are all negative see if we can
look at some things that could be
beautiful
what if short applies to commercial
breaks I’m sure we would love commercial
breaks that are short and don’t go on
and on for 7-8 minutes or 10 minutes
power naps if I could get time for short
power naps that would be great
great example would be TED talks they
are short there is a reason the reason
why these talks do not go
on and on they are not like sermons they
are contained within 18 minutes or less
so that would be beautiful right then I
thought what about advice
who wants long sermon on what to do in
life what if advice could be short so
that gave me the idea of coming up with
just 20 words no more of advice that
might help people at your stage in life
these are words that have been put
together and let’s see if these can make
life which is short also beautiful these
are all the advice that I have given
here in these 20 words are gleaned from
my own experiences of course those
experiences have come from teachers
parents my daughter’s all the people
that have influenced my life my wife so
there is no one source for what I am
going to say it’s really a combination
of many things and I am going to support
them by some meaningful quotations
there’s one thing about quotations that
I have loved ever since I started
collecting them as a 14 year old boy
they themselves are a great example of
how short can be beautiful because
ultimately every quotation is distill
wisdom it brings things together in a
very compact precise concise way and we
get the message almost immediately so
let’s get started the first two words of
advice walk lightly now you don’t have
to take this literally if you are a
heavy man you are not likely to walk
lightly in the physical sense but what I
mean here is if you can go through life
with fewer burdens and what could those
burdens be here is a quotation by piece
pilgrim she was a lady in the u.s. who
almost gave up her entire life to
walking and can there be anything
simpler than walking through life and
she said unnecessary positions are
necessary burdens you will agree we all
have so many positions in our life that
we barely use they just lie there they
are unnecessary unnecessary positions
are unnecessary burdens if you have them
you have to take care of them
there is great freedom in simplicity of
living it is those who have enough but
not too much who are the happiest if you
are pursuing happiness success is of
course one thing that you must pursue
but if you are pursuing happiness it is
said that if you have enough but not too
much you will be a happy man or a woman
what lightly means make sure you are not
burdened by things material many things
are material today we acquire shirts and
then they lie and we are to take care of
them we have to get them dry clean
sometimes we need maybe ten shirts to
get around you know our social calendar
but we have twenty-five we have thirty
five houses cars non-material baggage
non material baggage can come in terms
of relationships it can come in terms of
ego sometimes we carry huge egos and
they can really make our walk burdensome
spiritual baggage sometimes we think we
know everything and we know about God we
know religion and we are constantly
trying to prove to the others how more
much more spiritual we are than them
so these are the kinds of burdens that
can take us into a space where we are
not able to walk lightly first two words
consumed next two words of advice talk
nicely usually there is a tendency to
talk nicely to superiors teachers bosses
people in power but if you really are a
true human being you will make sure that
you talk nicely to the servant you talk
nicely to the guard anybody who is
around to serve you or to have any
transaction with you and if you are in
sales and ma
make sure you talk nicely to the
receptionist of the company you go to to
sell anything
so talking nicely is not just for
business ease it is for having a good
social interaction with anybody you come
in touch with please sorry and thank you
they say these are three friends we have
forgotten these are social lubricants
that make relationships survive the test
of time and this quotation by Sir Isaac
Newton no one else then Isaac Newton a
mathematician and a physicist who said
that act is the knack of making a point
without making an enemy and usually
engineers and scientists have this habit
of relying only on data and facts and
they say nice words really don’t mean
anything but if Newton could think of
this quotation and come up with it then
certainly we must respect the fact that
talking nicely and having tactfulness in
whatever we do is something to aspire to
I have gone with four words the next
fifth and sixth word travel widely and
the quotation that goes with it is from
a gentleman called Oliver Hereford not
very famous but he was a writer artist
and illustrator and he said a rolling
stone gathers no moss but it gains a
certain polish when you travel widely
you come across different cultures you
come across various people food cuisine
you come across ways and customs that
make you a well-rounded person you
acquire polish you acquire
sophistication you acquire the knowledge
of other cultures you become more
tolerant education does not include
enough travel usually we sit in
classrooms and we are expected to
educate ourselves without going outside
those boundaries so my advice to all
youngsters would be travel widely use
every opportunity you get to go out
there and experience the world in the
real terms it is the most cost
perfect away I have known on broadening
narrow minds so if you really are a good
traveler you will make sure that you
understand and you are in the shoes of
the other person and you will have a
broader mindset read wisely I’m on to my
fourth piece of advice again sticking to
two words per sentence reading is
something that the modern generation
seems to have not taken a great liking
to but my experience says that if you
really read wisely and by that I mean
you don’t stick to just one genre of
books or when I say read I also mean
view or see because today in the
internet world it’s not only about
reading it’s about experiencing and the
quotation that I want to support my
argument with is by a gentleman called
Ralph
Hockman he said the larger the island of
knowledge the longer the shoreline of
wonder and I’m going to explain this
through a visual on this slide you will
see two blue islands of knowledge one is
small right here and the other is a
bigger island of knowledge this one has
a shoreline that goes around it of
wonder which is about this size and when
I come to this one the shoreline of
wonder has gone up significantly because
this island of knowledge is more just to
give an example if you do not know about
anything beyond the solar system it is
unlikely that you will wonder about the
nature of the universe about stars that
are millions or billions of light-years
away from us so ultimately your island
of knowledge will remain fairly small it
is only when you grow your island of
knowledge that your shoreline of wonder
goes up when your shoreline of wonder
goes up you start thinking much more you
start groping around you start exploring
so I think the reading wisely is
something you must look
cat doing almost on a regular basis so
this actually leads us to this nice
corollary the more you know the more you
want to know
I have seen people and I have really
great regards for them though they know
a lot they don’t want to stop they want
to continue and there are people who
know a little but they want to stop at
that so it’s a you could say a conundrum
but the more you know the more you want
to do and you want to be in that space
rather than in the space where you don’t
know much and you don’t want to explore
beyond that let’s move on this is one
advice which I don’t follow myself it is
exercise regularly we are leading very
sedentary lifestyles we are living in a
digital world we really need to be
physically fit because there are cases
of youngsters in the age of 35 40
succumbing to lifestyle diseases so
exercising regularly is something very
pithy advice and those of you who play
sports I’m sure will identify with this
particular quotation by a gentleman
called Al Oerter and he said to exercise
at or near capacity is the best way I
know of reaching a true introspective
state imagine a physical fitness man is
talking about reaching a true
introspective state which is obviously a
mental thing if you do it right it can
open all kinds of inner doors so now if
you are really exercising regularly it
is quite likely that you will elevate
your mental thinking to a plane where it
will be complimentary it will not only
enjoy the fruits of physical exercise
but also you will do much better in
terms of mental abilities advice number
6 – words listen attentively which you
are doing but it’s often that we don’t
follow this listening is something that
doesn’t come
in today’s world again we are distracted
by so many things that it is difficult
to pay attention to one individual who
is speaking Ernest Hemingway a very
famous author said this I like to listen
I have learned a great deal from
listening carefully most people never
listen so if a man as accomplished as
him could talk about the importance of
listening well there is a certain amount
of humility required to listen well
often we are not able to listen because
we are full of ourselves so I’ll just go
on to this one experience that I have
had over a period of years it is strange
but it is true better listening by one
produces better speaking in the other
try this with your brother sister
parents if you are able to listen to
them with eye contact with complete
attention you will suddenly find that
their energy in speaking has gone up
their confidence has gone up they are
communicating better because you are
listening better on to the seventh piece
of advice laugh heartily I think this
was Maeda made out in some other
speeches today also the value of
laughter it is said that laughter is the
best medicine and there is a good reason
for that there is enough scientific
research to show that if you laugh a lot
you are likely to remain healthy for a
very long time healthy and happy and the
quotation I am going to use here is by
Gautam Buddha who needs no introduction
he said thousands of candles can be
lighted from a single candle and the
life of the candle will not be shortened
happiness never decreases by being
Sheikh very profound very true so I’m
going to do a small experiment here it’s
called the laughter challenge okay
I’ll need your full cooperation here you
will look at your neighbor whoever is
sitting next to you you will imagine him
or her to be a quirky clown okay then
you are going to point the finger at
that person and you’re going to laugh
out loud as hard as you can okay
when I say go you will go and do this
after some time when I say stop you will
stop laughing okay are you ready which
side you choose your side okay on your
okay stop one-two-three don’t laugh
again stop for five okay nobody laughed
so it wasn’t uncontrollable I asked you
to laugh uncontrollably I was able to
control you that’s bad laughs heartily
laughs uncontrollably please try to do
it because it releases all kinds of
positive energy in you I was trying to
use that in my experiment but I think I
was good at controlling you I thought in
the 15 seconds seconds that I gave you
to be quiet some of you would have not
been able to control your laughter and
there would have been a ripple effect
again to prove the point that laughter
is contagious and it’s the best kind of
epidemic you can ever carry moving on
give generously
two words again this is something I
learned from my dad my dad though not a
very rich man in fact he was from lower
middle-class he always gave and by
giving it doesn’t mean only money of
course he gave money but he gave time he
gave skills he taught he never ever
expected anything in return and that’s
where the generously part comes Samuel
Johnson said kindness is in our power
even when fondness is not when we are
fond of somebody it’s so easy to be kind
it is so easy to be generous to somebody
we are fond of but can you be kind to
somebody you are not fond of somebody
you have just met it said that when you
make two people happy one of them is apt
to be you this is a Hindi proverb which
I’m going to translate in English nakey
kur Maria my doll when I heard it in my
school days as any saying I just could
not make head or tail of it it took me
about 50 10 years or 15 years of living
life when I realized what it meant once
you have given once you have done a good
deed don’t remember it just dump it in
the lake you’ve done a good job if you
carry the feeling that you’ve done a
good job then you are really not
benefiting to the extent you could
it’s tough but if you start practicing
it after a while you will not even think
that you’ve really done something
sometimes you will come and say you did
this for me and you say really I don’t
remember and it becomes so natural it
becomes part of you moving on sleep
soundly again some of you probably say
yeah I am doing that always but you know
what it’s not about the length of sleep
the quotation here is also a very deep
one it is not ascribable to anybody
it’s a French proverb it says there is
no pillow as soft as a clear conscience
and if you really go to bed with a clear
conscience you are likely to have a very
deep sleep when you have a deep sleep
you don’t need too many hours and that’s
what I’m going to prove in the next
visual here the sleep quality rectangle
sleep quality is measured not by the
length of the sleep but also by the
depth of the sleep so there are two
rectangles here this length of sleep is
l1 this depth of sleep is d1 there’s a
certain area this area represents the
quality of sleep that you’ve got if you
have depth of sleep d2 which is much
smaller than depth of sleep d1 your
length of sleep will have to be more and
this is why some people who sleep for 10
hours still wake up not feeling fully
fresh and they say I could have wished I
could have had one more hour of sleep I
am now down to my last two words 19 and
20 think differently this is something
that Steve Jobs did very well this is
what some entrepreneurs do very well
winners think differently they are not
always following the crowd Oliver
Wendell Holmes said he was a famous
American jurist and he said man’s mind
stretched by a new idea never goes back
to its original dimensions great words
think about it if you’re always thinking
differently you are pushing your mind in
new directions if that expands across
all those dimensions if you’ll never go
back to its original
dimensions I’m done I’m going to just do
a quick recap here walk lightly talk
nicely travel widely read wisely
exercise regularly listen attentively
laugh heartily give generously sleep
soundly think differently so life as
they say short short I think I’ve proven
is beautiful therefore ladies and
gentlemen life is beautiful live it love
it learn through it and laugh with it
thank you so much [Applause]