[Music]
I’m going to be speaking about something
that I’ve been very passionate about in
these last few years as an entrepreneur
the biggest thing that hits you every
day is what is the purpose for you to be
getting up every morning and doing
whatever you want to do and more
importantly it boils down to what does
success or failure truly mean who is
defining that and how do you influence
that in your own mind so let me start
with an anecdote I’ve shared this
several times but this remains one of my
favorite anecdotes to illustrate how
narrow our definition of success is I am
a visiting faculty at a school in
Gurgaon and for the last four five years
I’ve been taking this course and the
final exam of this course it’s a very
simple question it’s just a question no
written test no long essays nothing like
that and the question is list at least
three things that you have learnt in
this course list at least three things
that you have learnt during this course
it’s a six month course about 120 240
students over the last four or five
years have taken this course and in the
true definition of what I think success
means no more than six students have
passed this exam and the exam I do was
list at least three things that you have
learned in this course so you would
imagine how can anyone fail this exam
but the way that I call failure is
except for the six students everyone
else listed exactly three things that
they learnt in the course exactly three
things when my question was list at
least three things that you’ve learnt in
this course when you go through this
example you realize that every single
day all of us are being tricked to
believe that something that we do will
classify as success so as a faculty
member
I tricked my students to believe that if
they mentioned three things they would
pass the exam while I was looking and
this was a googly that I threw at them I
was looking for how many of them would
not stop at what I have asked them they
would not stop at the three things that
I have classified as success but they
would go beyond because of course there
are more than three things that people
have learned during this course and this
fascinates me because time and again we
realized that we are being boxed into a
definition of success and I’ve spent a
lot of time reading researching speaking
to people about understanding how the
success get established in our minds so
when we were cavemen and women there was
only one rule of success don’t die that
was it every single day we got up we had
to hunt and all that we have to do is
ensure that we got back home safe and
sound
we never got killed by an animal not got
killed by weather and definitely not got
murdered by our own fellow cave men or
women because that was the only way that
we would go ahead and reproduce that was
the only way that the race would go
forward that was the only definition of
success but what it did over yours is
conditioned our brains our minds to say
don’t take any risk
just follow the safe path the path is
laid in front of you and all you got to
do is just walk on that and you will be
safe you will be successful you are not
going to die and then there was this
Industrial Revolution that happened
about 200 years ago which amplified this
conditioning because now suddenly
schools were being taught this way and
people will be trained this way that
every day you get up and you go to a
factory and the manager will tell you
five things that you have to do and if
you do step one step two step three step
four and step five
they will love you
and they will make you great people they
will give you fancy titles you will
become vice president and CEO you will
earn great money you will be able to go
on that vacation that you wanted send
your kids to school
buy that house or car that you wanted
you will be successful and all these
years that conditioning has become don’t
question just take everything that the
world is telling you having you believe
is the definition of success follow that
and you will be successful in your
classrooms every single day your
professors are defining what you should
be doing to get a good grade and if you
get that good grade someone will tell
you you’ll be successful once you
graduate out of this university someone
will tell you that if you get this
minimum pay you’re successful and if you
get the job in that company you’re
successful and if you get a job in that
function is successful but if not you’re
not you’re a loser and suddenly it
becomes obvious that we have been
hardwired as humans to think that
success is external to us success is not
what happens to me success is what I
make of it success is what people think
of me how I am perceived is what we
think is success and in the last 15
years all has broken loose because
of something called social media where
suddenly our self-worth is attached to
the likes and comments we get every day
suddenly when we post something we wish
to be accepted to be successful so we
suddenly eating the best-looking food
that mankind has ever had we are wearing
the best-looking clothes that mankind
has ever worn we are visiting the
best-looking destinations that ever have
been visited and we think we have the
best looking self-esteem because of all
of that when the reality is none of us
have it figured out we will have the
world tell us that all of us are sorted
you
students when you go back into your own
Huddle’s you will think oh my god am I
the only idiot who has not figured what
I want to do in life because everyone
else just seems to know exactly what
they wish to do but the truth is that is
a lie
the truth is every single one of you
does not know what will get you where
you wish to go you do not know where you
wish to go all of this is part of a
journey but we are boxing ourselves
every single day because the world will
have us believe that we’ve got to play
it a certain way how many students in
India
will get above 90% in class tenth and
will have the audacity to not take up
science because suddenly that’s the only
thing you ought to be doing and it’s
crazy
if you imagine that in the 10th standard
when you’re about 15 or 16 the world is
telling you you have three choices in
life one of which is science which is
what the so called intelligent human
beings go for then there’s commerce
which are confused people or people who
didn’t get grades and then there arts
which somehow the world doesn’t want
more of and this notion is crept in so
strongly that now there are schools
which don’t even have art sections in
class 11th can you imagine a world like
that where no one is being trained to
study history geography music where no
one is being trained to think creatively
everyone is being told that a body in
motion if not stopped will continue to
be in motion
and that’s the only way that we look at
the world so what’s happening our best
business schools have all engineers and
they are trapped in that world so what I
hate most about today’s world is that
it’s so personalized that it’s not
giving us new information it’s just
amplify
our own beliefs I love reading the
newspaper in fact I think I’m an
aberration because I still love holding
the physical newspaper in my hand and
the biggest reason I love doing that is
because the newspaper has not been
written for me it’s not personalized to
my needs it’s not personalized to my
interests it’s everything that someone
else decides for the mass so I don’t
have a choice of what I read but when
you go on Facebook you are reading what
you wish to read you’re amplifying your
own beliefs so if you love a certain
thing you will see more of it and if you
don’t like something you will not see
any of it and when you enter these
clothes setups where everyone is almost
of the same tribe the same mentality the
same thought process you are not adding
anything more but just falling into the
trap of what that success/failure
definition is so I thought for the last
few years of what should be my mantra of
escaping this and I look back at my life
and try and draw a pattern around that
is there something that I’ve done which
I could help terrorize or create it into
your theory so that I could share it
with the world
possibly as a way of escaping this rut
of success and definition that places by
the world and what I figured was the
simple three word mantra that I’m going
to share with you today and close when I
looked around most successful people
that I admire people that I look up to I
figured that they’re not necessarily the
richest people on earth they’re not
necessarily the most successful people
in terms of Fame and popularity they’re
not necessarily the ones that everyone
knows off but they’re doing meaningful
work and more importantly they feel
fulfilled they feel happy they feel
content with what they do every day and
when I draw a patterns around how they
looked at their life and when I looked
at mine of what is it that I have done
right from getting into a great US
university and leaving all of that to
come back to India leaving a cushy
management consulting job and starting
up leaving all the
powers and benefits of a multinational
company and starting up all over again
all of these are choices that are made
which were not very obvious which were
not straight line which were not average
and I figured that that’s the same
pattern with most people that I look up
to it’s the same pattern with most
people that we all admire at a big level
and the three words are resist the
obvious resist the obvious every single
day when you’re faced with a choice
there will be an obvious part and there
will be a non-obvious part and 90%
people will go for the obvious part the
easy part the safe part because that’s
how our brain has been trained that’s
what our mind has been telling us all
these millions of years don’t take a
risk because you might die so we take
the obvious choice when we get 90
percent in class 10th we take the
obvious part of taking up science when
we finish in engineering we take the
obvious part of leaving all of that and
going for an MBA when we finish our MBA
irrespective of whether we liked it or
not we take the obvious part of setting
for placements when we sit for
appraisals in our companies and so on we
take the obvious part of just adhering
to what the company wants from us rather
than what we wish to do in life when we
think of people that we wish to spend
our lives with we take the obvious parts
of what the world will have us believe
the norms don’t cut it out but what you
recognize is people that we all look up
to are the ones who were the 10% the
unorthodox the ones who resisted the
obvious the ones who talked laterally
the ones who thought that no if I do
follow the obvious part I will end up
being average if I follow what the world
is following I will be no better than
what the world is and that means I’m not
going to settle for that people who are
successful and who drive the world not
in their defin
not in yours definition but
fundamentally objectively other ones
were constantly saying I choose not to
be average
I choose every single day consciously
not to be average and the easiest way
for me to not be the average is to
resist the obvious thank you
[Applause]
you
I’m going to be speaking about something
that I’ve been very passionate about in
these last few years as an entrepreneur
the biggest thing that hits you every
day is what is the purpose for you to be
getting up every morning and doing
whatever you want to do and more
importantly it boils down to what does
success or failure truly mean who is
defining that and how do you influence
that in your own mind so let me start
with an anecdote I’ve shared this
several times but this remains one of my
favorite anecdotes to illustrate how
narrow our definition of success is I am
a visiting faculty at a school in
Gurgaon and for the last four five years
I’ve been taking this course and the
final exam of this course it’s a very
simple question it’s just a question no
written test no long essays nothing like
that and the question is list at least
three things that you have learnt in
this course list at least three things
that you have learnt during this course
it’s a six month course about 120 240
students over the last four or five
years have taken this course and in the
true definition of what I think success
means no more than six students have
passed this exam and the exam I do was
list at least three things that you have
learned in this course so you would
imagine how can anyone fail this exam
but the way that I call failure is
except for the six students everyone
else listed exactly three things that
they learnt in the course exactly three
things when my question was list at
least three things that you’ve learnt in
this course when you go through this
example you realize that every single
day all of us are being tricked to
believe that something that we do will
classify as success so as a faculty
member
I tricked my students to believe that if
they mentioned three things they would
pass the exam while I was looking and
this was a googly that I threw at them I
was looking for how many of them would
not stop at what I have asked them they
would not stop at the three things that
I have classified as success but they
would go beyond because of course there
are more than three things that people
have learned during this course and this
fascinates me because time and again we
realized that we are being boxed into a
definition of success and I’ve spent a
lot of time reading researching speaking
to people about understanding how the
success get established in our minds so
when we were cavemen and women there was
only one rule of success don’t die that
was it every single day we got up we had
to hunt and all that we have to do is
ensure that we got back home safe and
sound
we never got killed by an animal not got
killed by weather and definitely not got
murdered by our own fellow cave men or
women because that was the only way that
we would go ahead and reproduce that was
the only way that the race would go
forward that was the only definition of
success but what it did over yours is
conditioned our brains our minds to say
don’t take any risk
just follow the safe path the path is
laid in front of you and all you got to
do is just walk on that and you will be
safe you will be successful you are not
going to die and then there was this
Industrial Revolution that happened
about 200 years ago which amplified this
conditioning because now suddenly
schools were being taught this way and
people will be trained this way that
every day you get up and you go to a
factory and the manager will tell you
five things that you have to do and if
you do step one step two step three step
four and step five
they will love you
and they will make you great people they
will give you fancy titles you will
become vice president and CEO you will
earn great money you will be able to go
on that vacation that you wanted send
your kids to school
buy that house or car that you wanted
you will be successful and all these
years that conditioning has become don’t
question just take everything that the
world is telling you having you believe
is the definition of success follow that
and you will be successful in your
classrooms every single day your
professors are defining what you should
be doing to get a good grade and if you
get that good grade someone will tell
you you’ll be successful once you
graduate out of this university someone
will tell you that if you get this
minimum pay you’re successful and if you
get the job in that company you’re
successful and if you get a job in that
function is successful but if not you’re
not you’re a loser and suddenly it
becomes obvious that we have been
hardwired as humans to think that
success is external to us success is not
what happens to me success is what I
make of it success is what people think
of me how I am perceived is what we
think is success and in the last 15
years all has broken loose because
of something called social media where
suddenly our self-worth is attached to
the likes and comments we get every day
suddenly when we post something we wish
to be accepted to be successful so we
suddenly eating the best-looking food
that mankind has ever had we are wearing
the best-looking clothes that mankind
has ever worn we are visiting the
best-looking destinations that ever have
been visited and we think we have the
best looking self-esteem because of all
of that when the reality is none of us
have it figured out we will have the
world tell us that all of us are sorted
you
students when you go back into your own
Huddle’s you will think oh my god am I
the only idiot who has not figured what
I want to do in life because everyone
else just seems to know exactly what
they wish to do but the truth is that is
a lie
the truth is every single one of you
does not know what will get you where
you wish to go you do not know where you
wish to go all of this is part of a
journey but we are boxing ourselves
every single day because the world will
have us believe that we’ve got to play
it a certain way how many students in
India
will get above 90% in class tenth and
will have the audacity to not take up
science because suddenly that’s the only
thing you ought to be doing and it’s
crazy
if you imagine that in the 10th standard
when you’re about 15 or 16 the world is
telling you you have three choices in
life one of which is science which is
what the so called intelligent human
beings go for then there’s commerce
which are confused people or people who
didn’t get grades and then there arts
which somehow the world doesn’t want
more of and this notion is crept in so
strongly that now there are schools
which don’t even have art sections in
class 11th can you imagine a world like
that where no one is being trained to
study history geography music where no
one is being trained to think creatively
everyone is being told that a body in
motion if not stopped will continue to
be in motion
and that’s the only way that we look at
the world so what’s happening our best
business schools have all engineers and
they are trapped in that world so what I
hate most about today’s world is that
it’s so personalized that it’s not
giving us new information it’s just
amplify
our own beliefs I love reading the
newspaper in fact I think I’m an
aberration because I still love holding
the physical newspaper in my hand and
the biggest reason I love doing that is
because the newspaper has not been
written for me it’s not personalized to
my needs it’s not personalized to my
interests it’s everything that someone
else decides for the mass so I don’t
have a choice of what I read but when
you go on Facebook you are reading what
you wish to read you’re amplifying your
own beliefs so if you love a certain
thing you will see more of it and if you
don’t like something you will not see
any of it and when you enter these
clothes setups where everyone is almost
of the same tribe the same mentality the
same thought process you are not adding
anything more but just falling into the
trap of what that success/failure
definition is so I thought for the last
few years of what should be my mantra of
escaping this and I look back at my life
and try and draw a pattern around that
is there something that I’ve done which
I could help terrorize or create it into
your theory so that I could share it
with the world
possibly as a way of escaping this rut
of success and definition that places by
the world and what I figured was the
simple three word mantra that I’m going
to share with you today and close when I
looked around most successful people
that I admire people that I look up to I
figured that they’re not necessarily the
richest people on earth they’re not
necessarily the most successful people
in terms of Fame and popularity they’re
not necessarily the ones that everyone
knows off but they’re doing meaningful
work and more importantly they feel
fulfilled they feel happy they feel
content with what they do every day and
when I draw a patterns around how they
looked at their life and when I looked
at mine of what is it that I have done
right from getting into a great US
university and leaving all of that to
come back to India leaving a cushy
management consulting job and starting
up leaving all the
powers and benefits of a multinational
company and starting up all over again
all of these are choices that are made
which were not very obvious which were
not straight line which were not average
and I figured that that’s the same
pattern with most people that I look up
to it’s the same pattern with most
people that we all admire at a big level
and the three words are resist the
obvious resist the obvious every single
day when you’re faced with a choice
there will be an obvious part and there
will be a non-obvious part and 90%
people will go for the obvious part the
easy part the safe part because that’s
how our brain has been trained that’s
what our mind has been telling us all
these millions of years don’t take a
risk because you might die so we take
the obvious choice when we get 90
percent in class 10th we take the
obvious part of taking up science when
we finish in engineering we take the
obvious part of leaving all of that and
going for an MBA when we finish our MBA
irrespective of whether we liked it or
not we take the obvious part of setting
for placements when we sit for
appraisals in our companies and so on we
take the obvious part of just adhering
to what the company wants from us rather
than what we wish to do in life when we
think of people that we wish to spend
our lives with we take the obvious parts
of what the world will have us believe
the norms don’t cut it out but what you
recognize is people that we all look up
to are the ones who were the 10% the
unorthodox the ones who resisted the
obvious the ones who talked laterally
the ones who thought that no if I do
follow the obvious part I will end up
being average if I follow what the world
is following I will be no better than
what the world is and that means I’m not
going to settle for that people who are
successful and who drive the world not
in their defin
not in yours definition but
fundamentally objectively other ones
were constantly saying I choose not to
be average
I choose every single day consciously
not to be average and the easiest way
for me to not be the average is to
resist the obvious thank you
[Applause]
you
Please follow and like us: