The Beauty of Failing

Instant Inspiration, the weekly capsules of inspiration

Go on Failing. Go ON. Only next time, try to Fail better.  -  Samuel Beckett

In the Instant Inspiration series, this Sunday I share with you my insights on Failing. The word ‘Failing‘ often has negative connotations. We think of disappointments, sadness, anger, frustrations, embarrassments, depression, and all gloomy days that would come ahead if we FAIL. As an Indian, and I am sure this applies for most people worldwide, I have been groomed by my Family and Society saying “Narendra, Don’t you ever try to fail, Failure is a stigma, Failure is not an option”.  As a result, I tried to do things that would avoid me failing all together that is to say I kept myself within the confines of comfort zone. My friend, how will you grow when Failing is the only source for your growth?  When we expand our limits, that’s when we grow and how do we expand our limits, by taking risks. Risks implies Success or Failure. If you succeed, good enough, Celebrate! If failed, WAO!, now you know one way not to succeed.  Veteran Hollywood Actor, Woody Allen says “If you are not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you are not doing anything very innovative”.
 

Amazing Story of an ABAPer:

Last week during one of our tea-time chit-chats, Manish Kumar, the new ABAPer in my Team was mentioning about one of his fellow ABAPer friend, Vijay Sundaram in his previous organization. Special thing about Vijay was, at work whenever he got a dump in the system which means whenever he was failing in his coding, he used to get excited. A sense of happiness revealed from his expressions. He then used to be lost into digging further in his coding work and try different things before he could finally succeed. Whenever he heard of someone getting a ‘dump in the system’ he was attracted to helping his friends. The best thing was he shared all his learning with everyone. Upon being asked the reason behind such a perspective, Vijay used to say “If things are working as usual, there is nothing for us to learn. Only when things don’t work the usual way, we will learn. And by sharing, our knowledge multiplies.” His PASSION for the work is revealed from the said statement. No doubt he was a STAR Performer in his work. Hats off to you Vijay!
 

You need to have, rather I should say you must have positive attitude towards Failure. Positive perspective on Failing is critical in your path to success. Someone has rightly said “Life is like Photography. We develop from negatives.” Negatives are synonymous to Failures, adversities and setbacks.  John Maxwell in his book ‘Failing Forward’ has shared this perspective, a glimpse of which is the content of today’s letter that I wrote on Tuesday, April 08, 2014. I hope you will take away something good from today’s post. Thank you and Best Wishes :)

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The Beauty of Failing

Greetings to Each one of you,

My Special Thanks to the seven of you from Cardinal Testing Account who liked my email on the ‘Importance of your Work’. This evening I was listening to the audio book, Failing Forward by John C Maxwell, one of my favorite authors. Some of the ideas were so profound. Thought of sharing insights from the book.
 

A few years ago, I used to think, What If I will fail this exam? What will my Parents, my Neighbor, my Society think of me? I just cannot afford to fail? I am the Topper in school, college, how can I fail? And so on… J Many of you might have similar stories. In fact, Most of us are afraid of Failing. We see Failure as stigma and try to stay within the confines of safe zone, and not taking enough risks. Believe me, by doing this we are purely dodging ourselves.  John starts with “In Life, the question is not if you will have problems, but how you are going to deal with your problems. If the possibility of failure were erased what would you achieve?” Powerful! Isn’t it? How one responds to failure determines the difference between the average and the achievers (in Wipro terms, the HVCs vs. the EEs/OSs).

We must embrace failure as regular part of our life. If we are not failing, chances are, we are not really moving forward. John says “If you are succeeding in everything you do, then you are probably not pushing yourself hard enough. And that means you are not taking enough risks. You risk because you have something of value you want to achieve.” The simple rule is, the more you do, the more you fail. And the more you fail, the more you learn. The more you learn, the better you get. The last time you failed, did you stop trying because you failed, or did you fail because you stopped trying? Please think over.

What is Failing Forward? (Vs. Failing Backward)

Failing Backward: Blaming others, repeating the same mistakes, expecting never to fail again, expecting to continually fail, being limited by past mistakes, thinking I am Failure, Quitting.

Failing Forward:  Taking Responsibility, Learning from each mistake, knowing failure is a part of progress, maintaining a positive attitude, challenging outdated assumptions, taking new risks, believing something didn’t work, Persevering.

I would say, celebrate your Failures as much as you celebrate your successes. 20 years from now, you will be more disappointed by the risks which you didn’t take than the ones which you took. Take more risks. Are you trying? Is your enough, Good enough? Think about it.
 

Are you failing forward? I Love Failing (of course, forward). What about You?  Was this email helpful enough to change your thoughts on the concept of failing? Let me know your thoughts.

Have an Useful Week Ahead!

Best Wishes, and Regards,

Narendra Gupta

Failures cause some Men to Break, and Some to Break Records. All the Best. 

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A Whole New Mind

Instant Inspiration, the weekly capsules of inspiration

Brain is the most powerful organ in a human body. Every single idea and every single invention on earth has originated from the human mind. James Allen in his masterpiece ‘As a Man Thinketh’ has said   “Mind is the master power that molds and makes, and Man is mind, and ever more he takes the Tool of Thought, and shaping what he wills, brings forth a thousand joys,  thousand ills-He thinks in secret and it comes to pass; Environment is but his looking glass.”  Deeply profound. Just re-read his words if you didn’t feel the same in your first reading :)

Our mind has infinite potential. I was watching this YouTube video ‘The Amazing Power of Your Mind’ which says, an average computer can store over 250,000 pictures, 20,000 songs and hundreds of full length movies where as our mind can perform 10 Quadrillion (10 to the power 15) operations per second without we knowing it. Amazing! Albert Einstein, the Greatest Scientist of 20^th century is said to have used about 20% of his mind. It is a sad fact that most of us die without using even 1% of our mind.
 

Success in our personal and professional ventures depends a lot on how we train our mind and what we feed our mind with. Shifting gears, this Sunday, I share with you the correlation of our mind with the success in future. I wrote this letter to the Employees on Tuesday, May 13, 2014 I hope you will like it. :)

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A Whole New Mind

A very Good Morning to one and all,

 

I hope you have started your week most enthusiastically. In his book, the seven habits of highly effective people, Steven Covey writes “We see the world, not as it is, but as we are──or, as we are conditioned to see it.”  That is to say we perceive outer experiences through a filter made of our beliefs, rules, values and ways of being. For instance, whatever I write is my perception of the world. It may or may not be fully correct. While I never aim for perfection, Excellence is what I strive for. A feedback on how I can improve (as a team person, as a writer, importantly as a Leader) is most welcome. A treat guaranteed when we meet in person :)

Today, I want to share insights from Daniel Pink’s book ‘A whole new mind’. The book suggests the future belongs to the Right Brainers i.e. the people with Right handed mindset – viz the creators, artists, empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers. The left brainers who are more of a logical and linear thinker will be left behind. If I have to illustrate in terms of Profession,  in the new age the Artists will dominate over the MBAs, CAs, and Engineers for often these are the people who create new things which do not exist earlier than the heavy Degree holders who work as directed or who at most leverage the existing things. Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, and Oprah Winfrey are all said to be right brain dominant.

Before I dig further, Let me briefly explain the dynamics of the most important organ of our body, the Brain. Our brain has two parts: the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere. Each side of the brain controls different types of thinking. Additionally, people are said to prefer one type of thinking over the other. For example, a person who is "left-brained" is often said to be more logical, analytical, and objective, while a person who is "right-brained" is said to be more intuitive, thoughtful, and subjective. Some of the abilities that are popularly associated with the right side of the brain are Creativity, Imagination, Holistic thinking, intuition, arts, rhythm, feelings, visualization, tune of songs, and day dreaming While some of the abilities of left side of the brain are logical and analytical thinking, sequencing, linear, mathematics, language, facts, and so on. 

Good news is the right brain muscles can be built upon practice.  Daniel Pink believes that while we need to maintain out L-directed skills we should master six essential right directed aptitudes namely: Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play and Meaning. With the description of these six senses the writer has tapped into the subtle shifts that will shape our future. Let me present to you these six aptitudes briefly. The idea is to consider each of these ‘senses’ one at a time per day and think how you can improve in that particular area and try to apply it into your work and personal life. Further, remember having an idea but not implementing is as good as not having the idea as noted author and speaker Robin Sharma says ideation without execution leads to delusion. 

Design: Good design is essential to good products and R-directed thinking allows us to understand how people use products in order to make products better. As a Tester or Developer, How you can improve in your piece of design. It may be say designing architecture, presenting solutions, Test Planning, Report preparation, anything. Think about it.

Story: Pink describes story as “context enriched by emotion”. Story is how information has traditionally been passed from one generation to another. Even though facts are now available instantly and virtually for free, story will remain important because of the emotional Impact. It’s the emotional element that makes Information stick. Think of ways how you can present your story at work and in personal life. 

Symphony: As Pink says, “Symphony is largely about relationships.”  The Conceptual Age will reward those who can see connections between seemingly unrelated areas for example someone who applies their knowledge of say arts to business concepts.

Empathy: The concept of being able to enter someone else’s “shoes” has always been considered an essential leadership attribute, but this ability will be in even higher demand in the future. Empathy is simply Going beyond logic and engaging emotion and intuition.

Play: In simple terms I would say do you find fun in your work? If not, think of ways how you can make your work more interesting? Work on ways to bring humor and light-heartedness to your work.

Meaning: The purpose is the journey, give meaning to life from inside yourself. Ask yourself what am I here for, what is my Purpose on Earth? 

I hope this email has helped you to think of ways to strengthen your right-brain and there by prepare yourself for the Challenge of future. All the Best!

All of you have a Productive Week ahead!

1000 Thank you’s and Best Wishes,

Narendra Gupta

The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.     - Plutarch

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Oprah Winfrey's 3 Lessons

Instant Inspiration, the weekly capsules of inspiration

The Great American Tennis Player and Winner of three Grand slam titles, Arthur Ashe once said “Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome.” I just cannot agree more.  More than the destination we got to enjoy the journey. We must cherish and be thankful to every failure, every defeat, every heart-break, every pain, and every breakdown we have had during our journey to success for breakdowns lead to breakthroughs. The key to massive success is massive failure and I have started loving to fail all these days, how about you?

Today on this public platform, I share with you the letter I wrote to the Employees on Tuesday, April 29, 2014. I hope you will like it.

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Oprah Winfrey’s 3 Lessons

                

Greetings to Each one of you,

I hope you are in the best of your health doing wonderful at work.  Mark Twain had once said “I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” So true. To type these Tuesday mailers sometimes it takes more than two hours. I would love to know if these emails make sense to you. Further, your replies will inspire me to go the extra mile :) 

A few weeks ago I had shared Steve Job’s 3 powerful and transforming stories. Today I share with you, another living legend’s 3 lessons. She is an epitome of success, a highly regarded media proprietor, supremely charismatic talk show host, noted philanthropist, the lady with a staunch morale, also called the ‘Queen of all media’, Oprah Winfrey is one of the most influential woman in the world. This Tuesday I share her 3 lessons from her commencement speech at Stanford University Graduation ceremony in 2008. Oprah says the secret to getting ahead is being open to lessons, always willing and eager to learn something new, something useful. She insists to grow into more of ourselves. In order to move to the next level of our understanding, the next level of compassion and growth we must learn on a daily basis. Everything that we do, everything we experience, success or failure, has some lesson for us to move forward. And, this is how we enrich our spirit.

Lesson 1:  The first lesson is about Feelings. Oprah says ‘Feelings are the GPS system for our life’. What does a GPS do, it guides us which path we are supposed to take and which one we should leave, eventually takes us to the exact location we want to travel. Similarly, our Emotion Guidance System lets us know when we are supposed to do something or not supposed to do something. We must and must check our ego at the door (this is difficult, I myself am doing a lot of self-talking these days how can I improve on this attribute J) and believe in gut instincts. Well, for me, every decision I take is based on my guts, sometimes it may not be logical, it may not be reasonable. I do often fail, but I stand by my decisions and take lessons.  Oprah iterates, If you don’t do something right, don’t do it. Honor your calling. Everybody has one. Trust your hear and success will come to you. 

 

One thing I would like to add here, In IT world most often, I have heard people saying ‘don’t be emotional’, I have seen people mocking at the ‘ones who show/express emotions’. I have a different opinion. Feelings, Emotions have POWER. Work with emotions. Be Emotional. Use it in the right way. You will find yourself at a much higher position than the average.

Lesson 2: Second Lesson is about Failures. Oprah tells ‘this is what I do with every failure, every crisis, every difficult time—I say, what is this here to teach me? And as soon as you get the lesson, you get to move on.' Eckhart Tolle, author of ‘A New Earth’ says ‘don't react against a bad situation; merge with that situation instead. And the solution will arise from the challenge. Because surrendering yourself doesn't mean giving up; it means acting with responsibility.’ I cannot agree more. Past 2 weeks, I have failed on multiple things, I have been challenged by few but the best thing is I have started loving to fail (change in mindset), taking it as a Lesson which no success could teach me and for these failures will take me to the  grand success I wish to have.
 
Lesson 3: The third lesson is about Finding Happiness. Gwendolyn Brooks in a poem to her children has written "Live not for battles won. Live not for the-end-of-the-song. Live in the along." Powerful. Isn’t it. Ms Winfrey adds ‘Whatever has happened to you in your past has no power over this present moment, because life is now.’ Live in every moment because few years from now you will say ‘oh those were the days, 2014 was one of the best years’. As far as I am concerned, for me ‘the best way to be happy is to make others happy.’

Another quote which called for my attention was Dr. Martin Luther King (Jr.)’s words on being famous. He says "Not everybody can be famous. But everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service." Today I encourage you to be of service to the Organization, to your society, and ultimately to this humanity.  

My sincere apologies for making it longer than usual. My mission, my Goal through these mailers is to share my learning and add value to you. Please let me know if today’s email has helped at least one of you to change the way you think, you behave and you work.

With Tons of Gratitude and Best Wishes,

Narendra Gupta

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