Why say yes? Disrupt yourself in 2021

Kids dont think. Adults do. We think. We analyze this and then we analyze that and end up in such tangles that the circuits in our brain may look like Friday night at Global Village, Dubai before the pandemic struck us. Or VT station (now known as CST) in Mumbai at 7 pm on a week day. Maybe, the Tomatina Festival too - from what I have seen in a movie. Except that, during the festival, people are having fun. But most adults are not. They are busy sitting through the meetings of life and smiling vacuously while the circuits in their brain tangle further and leave them with Analysis Paralysis.

When the pandemic crept up on us in 2020 and engulfed our lives, those who actually listened to the voices in their head had two choices. The first lot experienced what I call the "end of world is at hand" or the Why Me voice?

The other lot fell into the category of "Heck yes!!!""" followed by a "Why Not?" Despite the world saying oh no - they plunged into the murky depths of lockdown and made banana bread, chopped off their hair, made funny videos, hung out with old friends online and even explored aquaponics (I found something called the Kratky method and started growing green gram and coriander indoor).

There was a good reason. One day, we discovered that we had only one onion to stretch over four days till the online delivery guys made it home during lockdown.

I took this satirical photograph to document that moment of panic - only and only if you are Indian, you will know the significance of onions in Indian cuisine and why the Indian government dreads it when the onion prices go north. By now, you might have guessed that I fell into the Why Not gang...

Freeing moments

The trick to getting into the Why Not league starts with realizing that what feels like fear could be excitement. Think about it. That feeling when your giantwheel seat has reached the top and you see the whole park and then the giantwheel starts plunging down (been once on a rollercoaster and that went off my list same day). And that feeling before going on stage!!! To me, the second one has been my Achilles Heel for years and years.

Yes, I love writing, launched portals and magazines, interviewed the toughest of CEOs blah blah. But put me in front of a room full of people, shine the spotlight on me with darkness all around and hundreds of pairs of eyes staring at me - you get the picture. That has been the Kahuna moment....

Which I started kneeing into in 2020. I started to say Yes to speak. The first was a webinar to the Youth Chapter of the Confederation of Indian Industry.. Where I had a troll write on my presentation using the annotation - after the initial horror and sinking feeling of "Why Me", I thought "Why Not?" So I cracked some jokes on the troll and actually overcame my fear of public speaking. Akin to the feeling you get once you like the taste of caviar.. Binge...

So next I said yes to a podcast where I spoke about my journey in media, why I set up my company and why original content is always a good strategy and the case for Brand Journalism.. Next I said Yes when Dubai Silicon Oasis sent us a mail last month asking if we would like to speak at their first webinar in 2021 on the Challenges faced by businesses in 2020 and solutions found. I thought again Why Not? And wrote a reply before I could change my mind. That is on 31 March..

But the most unusual opportunity turned up two weeks ago when my friend Dr Mohamed Abdulzaher (ex-colleague from Thomson Reuters, my Rafeeq (comrade) and Akhi (brother) all rolled into one) asked me not just to moderate the 7th panel for the first-of-its-kind hybrid event - the "Artificial Intelligence Journalism World Forum , with the theme "Designing the Future of Media, Touching Human lives 2050 (March 29-30, 2021). But also choose a good subject.. Again I said Why Not?

The subject was an obvious choice - relevant, contemporary and contextual. Hence my panel discussion is entitled Future Leadership - The Ability To Lead Through Disruption. Am I nervous? Heck yes. Or am I excited? Obviously. But then this topic is a culmination of what I learned in my entire career in journalism. Agility. Resilience and Innovation. So why not speak about what is closest to my heart? What comes naturally to me while working all these years against stringent deadlines in a rollercoaster profession where no two days were alike...

And this is what everyone should be doing in 2021. Saying YESSSSSS!

Here are the full details....