The YES that matters!!!
Your reflection is not always right
It’s 5 AM in the morning, I just woke up. I turned on the light, splashed some water on my face and looked in the mirror, into my eyes and said, “You will be 30 very soon”. I smiled, so he smiled. I winked, so he winked. After all, he’s what I am. But this time, I felt that he’s quite different from what I was a few years ago. It’s been 12 years since the day I joined college. More than a decade, pretty long time isn’t it?
I walked into the living room, pulled a chair on to the balcony, sat in it placing my feet on the railings and wondered, how amazing life’s been and how much I have changed since my college days.
Life was easy right after college, had a job, no responsibilities to take care of and lots of friends to enjoy. But then, everything changed one day. Dreams took over my comfortable life, I quit my job to see what I can do on my own, then mom was diagnosed with cancer, took odd jobs to support, tried few businesses and failed in everything for 2 years. Defeated by the market, beaten by the circumstances and scared about the future, but was never ready to fall. As time progressed, mom recovered, I found a job, worked hard and finally here I am writing to inspire you. Great experience for a lanky immature teenager in the process of becoming what I am today.
It’s wonderful to look back at life and think about how much we have changed in time but I don’t want to tell you about that, because my story about what made me change is a more interesting one.
One day while I was working in my office?(my first job), I thought, “What can I do on my own?” This thought started a new direction in my life. Next day, I resigned my job. Yes, I did that. I don’t know what I can do, but I just left my job and went home. After a few days, I approached one of my friends who was into marketing. I told him that I will join his marketing team to learn the art of selling, which he accepted. First day, I made about 5 sales. Next day, I could make few more. This continued for a week and then something strange happened. In the next 1 month, I couldn’t make a single sale. I was a little worried and told my friend about it.
“May be you are doing it wrong?” he said
“I could sell in the first week, I am doing the same thing now”, I replied.
“Okay, try hard”, he said with a smile.
In the next 15 days, I made only 2 sales. I was frustrated and met my friend again. “This product is not selling anymore, Can I sell something else?”, I asked
“Let’s discuss in the evening”, he replied.
We decided to meet at the beach. I went to the beach early, sat on a bench and started thinking about how to make more sales and how to improve the product. After a while, my friend arrived.
“Hey dude, you seem frustrated since morning”, he said as he sat beside me on the bench.
“Yeah a bit. I think, the product needs to be improved, it’s not selling anymore”, I said looking at him and then towards the vast ocean.
“I don’t think so, few guys made about 100 sales in the same time”, he said.
I just looked at him as if it’s impossible.
He continued, “Dude, as we know each other since long time, let me not beat behind the bush. The problem is not with the product, it’s with you. You always thought that you were right with your methods and analysis, so you never tried to find your mistakes, and why will you change when you think you are right? You continued with your wrong methods”
“But then, my methods worked for me initially”, I asked as if I did the right thing.
“There is nothing wrong with any method but you live in a world that’s beyond your control. You might prefer to remain as you are, because that’s comfortable, but then the world around you changes at its own pace. In time, you and your methods become outdated, so outdated that your knowledge, perspectives and even your habits that you wish not to change will no more give you results that you expect and then, circumstances will slowly build up to leave you with no choice other than to change.
“when the status quo is not sustainable change becomes inevitable”
The problem with this forced change is, you will not be in control of the outcomes. You will be forced to go ahead with the choice that circumstances picks for you and at the end of your life, when you turn back and look, you will realize that your life is a bunch of “forced decisions” that were necessitated by the circumstances rather than decisions that created circumstances to reach your goals”
After carefully listening to him, I asked, “So, what could have been done differently?”
“After every failure, we should first own it, owning it makes us realize that we can be wrong(toughest thing to do). Then, identify our mistakes that made us fail, correct them by talking to better people, reading on the subject and doing anything that helps us not to repeat them again. That’s what great organizations and successful people do. They devise strategies, put them into action, create a feedback system to know their mistakes, then readily accept them and change accordingly before they become outdated in the market. This culture of accepting and acting on their mistakes is what that differentiates a great organization with a simple one. Think about any failed organization, Why did they fail? It would be mostly because of their delay is finding their own mistakes. By the time they did, market has already beaten them. Nokia is one great example.”
It’s been 4 years since this conversation happened. Initially, it was hard for me to accept that “I am wrong” but since then, I developed what I call the “Attitude of Acceptance”. I understood that if I am stuck at one place, failing too often, then I am denying to accept my mistakes. So, whenever I failed, I “re-calibrated”. It’s very similar to getting a car or a bike serviced. Every now and then, we get our car serviced to make sure everything is alright. If something is wrong we get it fixed/change the part rather than wait for an accident to happen and are forced to change the faulty part.
Why can’t we do this in our life? Why can’t we find our own faults and fix them before the inevitable accident happens to change us forcibly? Is it because of the ego? May be we are worried about what people around us think if we are wrong? Is it because we were told not to be wrong by our parents? Whatever it is, it’s better being wrong today than to repent tomorrow.
Develop an attitude to accept your mistakes, act on them and soon you will bring better changes every time you fail and put yourself on the right track to move fast in life. All that you need to do is, whenever you fail, state it by putting an ‘I’ in the statement. “I am not up to the mark”, “I could have planned better”, “I could have worked harder”. Just do that, you will find a need to change. It all starts with a simple “yes” when you are wrong, an attitude to accept, because acceptance always precedes change.
“It’s always better to change when you can rather when you have to”
Feel free to “Recommend” if you feel this helps.
