I have seen a great difference in views and understanding of people when they start defining Success. It not only relates to the variety of people I have interacted with, it's me too who has had different definitions of success at different stages of life. When I was young I saw the dreams my parents wanted me to see, being a topper in class, achieving great status in life and even the silliest being making big money in future by getting a good job. All those dreams in the childhood seemed to be the keys for happiness and prosperity for the future life. Success was always related to Winning, Achieving, Shining etc. Little had I known in those days the meaning of Failure. The fear of failing was so immense that I never had the guts to make any mistakes or to disobey any of my parents orders and when it came to my academics I was always afraid of getting low scores as my Dad was very strict then and never compromised with my percentile. Might be that was a reason I was 'successful' in achieving a good rank consistently in my school days.;-) The strictness of people around me had the power to crush me to the limits and force me to deliver the best. I never had the sense of comparing the happiness of receiving a gold medal with the happiness I had after winning an athletic race or the happiness I had in the vacations when I used to stay with my grandparents and other close relatives.
Success was always associated with studies, comparisons which today sound irritating were the tools used then on a regular basis to demoralize (give the sense of punishment) me every time I tried to act mischievous. The effects were easily seen, my report card always had very good remarks from my class teacher, but I went on becoming introvert, I hardly had a smile on my face, I never dared to move away from study table once Dad returned home in the evening, I never participated in any social events in my society, I never took interests in any extra curricular activities in school. I was known as a studious boy to all my teachers and friends. The definition of success was simple and straight forward - "
Achieving good scores in school!"
As I grew up, the pressure put on me by my parents went down.My younger sister took a part of that focus away from me. I started feeling the liberty. It didn't take me much time to turn this liberty into freedom of choice. I started getting social, hanging out with friends till late in the evening, playing sports, doing all wild things I was devoid of doing earlier in my life. And for a change I was smiling... :-) I was in my 10th class by then. The word 'future' was never taken so seriously before, we had some guest visitors and counselors in school to whom I would very enthusiastically listen to. They were all from different professions, trying hard to convince us that the life in their profession would be better for us if we opted to. I remember my class had many football crazy fans, I being one of them. We were always targeted by our class teacher and principal for not focusing on studies and giving more attention to playing football (a useless thing for them). Our class teacher once grabbed the opportunity and fired at us on the right time when we were attending a class by guest lecturer - counselor. She asked the counselor to make us aware of the reality around, her intentions were loud and clear. She treated football as a distraction which was affecting our acads at crucial point of our career. The counselor made a very interesting point later, he asked what if we became a very good football players, we showcased a great talent and won all interschool matches? What would we achieve at the end of a day? nothing!!! According to him in India football had no future, it won't pay us to even buy a single football jersey. He suggested that we rather focus more on studies and score good to become successful in future instead of screwing up with our careers by wasting time paying attention to unwanted things (football). I, for a change thought a lot on the statements made by him and started ignoring sports, although it took me some time to make the choice. I happened to score low in one of the subjects in mid term exams. I was very disappointed as I was out of the top 5 ranks. A very kind teacher of mine called me then and motivated me to work harder. She made me understand the mistakes I had been doing, she asked me to realize the hidden talent in me. I was understanding everything she intended to say. She ended up quoting a very fine thought "
Success is never ending and failure is never final!". This was the first time I had came across the word failure and it sounded very heavy to understand. It made me take up studies more seriously and learn to prioritize things according to their importance. I never took interest in playing football after I passed out from school, the fact that it had no future always prevailed on my mind. :P
After schooling I somehow lost focus and was very less interested in studies. The myth that I could manage good marks without studying hard as in school made me suffer. I was taken away by the bad scores in my highschool. It was high time when me and my friends started thinking of our future career plans. Some wanted to go for engineering, some for medicals and others to management and hospitality sector. I always associated my career with a high profile job and of course big salary. Moreover I always wanted to be different, I never imagined of joining the IT or the Mechanical field which was very common then and even today it is one of the major and common attraction. I was scared of being a part of competition in these fields. But what did I actually want to do to become successful? I never had the answer. Fortunately, I ended up joining a renowned institution in Pune in the field of Petroleum engineering. It was the only institute in my state to offer that course. I had achieved the dream of getting into something different and more over Petroleum sector ranked at the top when it came to pay scales. I was happy with what I had achieved till then. But after joining the college, I started hating the life in engineering at early stages. Initially I was finding it difficult to cope up with burden of studies. The people around, unlike me were all very good academically and most of them from strong family backgrounds. I started hating the competition around. The results were always disappointing, inspite of my sincere efforts I was not getting what I expected for. Later life started improving a bit. I started taking interest in extra curricular activities for a change. I got into a very good group of students who were involved in all sorts of activities on campus. I started enjoying my life ignoring the sorrows that I had. It was the time I looked on to my future and started experiencing life in a different way. The definitions of living life were different for everyone. I came across various ups and downs in those days of my life.
Success meant - keep moving forward, work patiently and never quit.
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| Audi A6 |
I used to see people drive BMW's and Merc's while traveling on the streets of Pune. I thought of them all as very successful people who had achieved great status in their life and in the society For me the luxury they had was an indication of their prosperity and success in their lives. I always had the urge of driving one of those 'dream machines', irrespective of the practicality, I thought I would make it one day for sure :-) Getting back to the reality, my college life was turning bitter and my colleagues were moving ahead of me or might be I wanted to stay away. I tried hard to motivate myself to keep moving ahead, it was tough though but not impossible. "
Tough times don't last, but tough people do". One day one of our professors went out of his subject while teaching and started bombarding some philosophy which was uncommon in engineering classes. Initially it all sounded very boring, but later he added some humor to grab our attention. He was making some very common statements - work harder every single day, we should be the best in whatever we do, develop the winning spirit blah blah blah... All true but not worthy enough to pay attention to. His definition of Success was different, he quoted it somewhat like - "
Success is that old A,B,C - Ability, Breaks and Courage". A few new words were added to my understanding of success.
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| Coach John Wooden Caring |
Later, one fine day I happened to see a video posted on Facebook profile of one of my friends. It read 'Motivational interview of Coach John Wooden Caring'. I easily get fascinated by motivational speakers. But this was something very special for me... one of the best that I have ever came across...
I am writing some very beautiful words said by him in that interview...
"I never like parents judging success of their kids on the basis of their grades. I can never say a child failed because he scored 'C' instead of a 'A' or 'B'. Everybody is different, everybody can't do that. Might be a child has given his best to score a 'B' or a 'C'. Success for some is temporary material possession or accumulation of prestige and power. I don't say they are wrong but my way of thinking is different. Everybody has a potential to do their best. There's no sense comparing a person with a 'A' with a person scoring a 'B'. Both are different and their potentials are different too. My understanding of success was different, then I came up with my own definition of success in 1952, it read -
Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to put the best efforts you are capable.
There's nothing that can give better joy than giving and sharing. Sharing, its a great joy, as long as does not mean material things as most people think it might mean material things, no!.. Mother Teresa is the greatest person for whom I have the greatest admiration and respect, she lived a worthy life, a life of giving and sharing. A beautiful and successful life."
A touching way to quote success indeed. Coach John Wooden has inspired many people in his life, I was added to that list of people the very same day. I am sharing the link of video for the readers. Hope it will definitely inspire you...
Coach John Wooden Caring Interview
A simple understanding I derived from his interview was that talent is not the only thing that is important, what you do with that talent is more important.
- Rohit
