Lessons in Life

Almost a decade ago, I visited St Joseph’s School, a premier residential school in Darjeeling, and talked to the students about ‘Secrets to Success’. Over the years, I realized how much I love talking to students. Simple as it may sound, telling others how to succeed also helps clarify our thought process. A few days ago, I gave a similar talk to the students of IIM Indore, and while comparing notes, I realized just how much I’ve evolved over the last ten years.

Back then, I was the District Magistrate of Darjeeling, and my talk was directed at school students who had the entire world in front of them and a lot to prove. At IIM, I spoke to students who already had significant work experience and had made it to this premier institute. Their challenge now was to achieve even more.

Despite this difference, we all evolve in life, and I now appreciate many things that did not matter as much to me in my youth. You can read what I told the school students here, but this is what I shared with the IIM students about growing in life:

We do not work with organizations or technologies; we work with human beings. They are emotional, sometimes eccentric, and have their own likes and dislikes. The most important skill one must have is the ability to work with people. We must invest in relationships. Human beings want to be heard and seen, and if you show respectful curiosity towards others, they will develop a liking for you.

Go out of your way to help others. Empathy is mandatory to be a good human being, and it also helps you gain influence in life. In our subconscious, we all keep a record of favours, and those who have always helped others will have more influence because of reciprocity.

Learning to accept rejection is essential. We all fail in life, but the world doesn't keep a record of that; you only need to succeed once. When I was young, failures deeply hurt me and cluttered my mind for days. It also made me wary of trying. As I grew up, I realized that closed mouths don't get fed. It is important to ask, important to go behind what we want in life. As it is said, it does not matter how many times one falls; what matters is getting up one more time than you fall.

We must learn to embrace ambiguity. No one can see how the future will evolve, and no one can have all the answers. What matters is that we keep walking, even in the fog, and make the best use of the opportunities. We are always looking for answers, but wisdom lies in realizing that many answers only come with time.

It is okay to have no definite passion in life. The motivational space is full of advice to find what you are passionate about and then put your full energy into it. It is great if you can do that, but I once read that if asked to dream, an average person can imagine 7.5 lives where they could be successful. The saying goes that it is important to marry the person you love, but it is more important to love the person you marry. It is not necessary to be able to imagine where you will be ten years from now; what matters is that you have a productive plan for next week.

In one of my earlier article (read here), I have already talked about how we believe what we tell ourselves and the hero within. It is important to write our story in our minds, how we are going to be a better version of ourselves, and firmly believe in it.

It is said that you will always get what you want in life, but you can only want one thing. We need to look deep down at what we truly want and then put all our efforts into it. This is different from finding passion and more about deciding our priorities and purpose in life. It is also said to find three hobbies in life: one to keep you fit, one to make you money, and one to keep you creative.

In the end, life often won’t be fair, even to the best of us. We will encounter people who treat us poorly, face circumstances that go awry, and see things not turn out as we expected. The world owes us nothing, and it's up to us to prove our worth and carve out our place.

Our time is limited in this world. As the saying goes, all of us have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we have only one. If you have a reason why, you can always manage anyhow.

Let me end this article with a poem, The Road Ahead or the Road Behind by G. Moriarty, that has always motivated me:

Sometimes I think the Fates must grin, as we denounce them and insist, the only reason we can’t win, is the Fates themselves that miss.

Yet there lives on the ancient claim: we win or lose within ourselves. The shining trophies on our shelves, can never win tomorrow’s game.

You and I know deeper down there’s always a chance to win the crown; but when we fail to give our best, we simply haven’t met the test, of giving all and saving none, until the game is really won.

Of showing what is meant by grit, of playing through when others quit; of playing through not letting up, it’s bearing down that wins the cup.

Of dreaming there’s a goal ahead, of hoping when our dreams are dead, of praying when our hopes have fled, yet losing, not afraid to fall, if bravely we have given all.

For who can ask more of a man, that giving all within his span. Giving all it seems to me, is not so far from victory.

And so the fates are seldom wrong, no matter how they twist and wind, it’s you and I who make our fates — we open up or close the gates, on the road ahead or the road behind.

#LeadershipLessons #LifeAdvice #PersonalGrowth #SuccessMindset #ReflectiveLeadership