The Aspect of Change

a very good evening

to everyone maybe a short introduction

my name is jaskaran singh and i am an

esrm alumnus

as well as a student at the frankfurt

school of finance and management

so the topic of my ted talk today is

emancipating the mind the aspect

of change and challenge but before

i dive deep into my topic i have a

question

for all of you the question is as

follows

would you climb a mountain

given the following scenario you’ve

never climbed

a mountain before you have no idea

whatsoever

how to climb a mountain

you have no experience at all it’s going

to be cold up there

and there are significant risks to your

life

the question is would you climb this

mountain

well the same question was also asked

to jack now who’s jack so maybe i’ll

give you a bit of background about jack

jack is a rich management consultant

he lives with his awesome family in

berlin

a very comfortable life financially

secure i mean since he’s the founder of

a company

and he was asked the same question would

you climb the mountain

and he was in the same situation never

climbed a mountain before

answer of jack was a straight yes

so he simply said yes i would go to this

trip

what really surprised me was without

even thinking twice

he said yes what’s the reason

what did really drive jack to take such

a decision

i mean he’s a management consultant it’s

easy for him to see okay the risks are

quite high i am

an immature but still he said yes

so this question was always there and

i wondered why why why is it

and i wanted to find the root cause

so what we did and this question was

also asked to

jack why did he say yes so jack replied

in just two sentences a life without

challenges is a boring life

we need to emancipate ourselves

from our fears and worries this was all

what jack said

just two sentences but if you carefully

think

the two sentences actually entail quite

a very deep meaning

but i was still not satisfied with

jack’s reply

so what i did was i researched a bit

and then i found this quote so i

stumbled upon this quote from friedrich

nietzsche

so some of you might have already

discussed about nature before

in your philosophy classes i would like

to read it out

to live is to suffer to survive

is to find some meaning in the suffering

if you compare this quote to what jack

said in the beginning

you would obviously be able to find some

overlaps

even nietzsche says that these

challenges are important

these challenges add meaning to our life

without these challenges our life would

be meaningless

after understanding this philosophical

viewpoint

i also started getting a clearer view

what actually drove jack to take that

decision

suddenly all these words starting making

sense to me words like dreams aspiration

challenges difficulties

success all these words started making

sense to me

i started understanding what really

drove job

jack to take that particular decision

and what i understood as far as my

understanding is concerned

jack wanted to use these challenges

as an opportunity to learn grow

and develop

well there is another notion which you

can use in order to

understand why jack took that decision

and this notion is of the comfort zone

now what is this comfort zone so comfort

zone

is simply an imaginary bubble that all

of us have

all of us have this imaginary bubble in

our mind

and what does this comfort zone consist

of it consists

of all those things so all those tasks

which are easy to do

we’ve done them numerous times we have a

lot of experience with them

and we repeatedly do them as a result

they are not difficult for us

it’s an easy way out and this is what

the basic human instinct

is we would love to stay in that comfort

zone

but what jack did is coming out of that

comfort

zone he wanted to go beyond that comfort

zone and once you go beyond the comfort

zone

you reach the learn zone or the learning

zone

what is this learning zone in the

learning zone you start learning things

as simple as that i mean learn zone you

start learning things

and you start learning the new skills

and techniques

and as soon as you are in the learning

zone then you start going into the

growth zone

and in the growth zone you actually

start implementing or applying

these new skills that you’ve learned and

then

i found out what jack was aiming for

so he was aiming to go beyond this

comfort zone

into the learning zone and then go into

the growth zone

things started becoming clear things

started becoming clear

the most important aspect is that it is

not just humans

who are vulnerable to changes and

challenges it is also big firms and

corporates

who are vulnerable to such things

i will take an example from the

technology sector you know in technology

sector

new innovations new inventions coming

day in and day out

new changes happening society is

constantly evolving

and this example of this firm called

nokia

the pioneer in the mobile phone industry

first mover

also enjoyed the first movie advantage

but what happened to it right now

do we see it in the market somewhere

well yes we do but

at that level that it should be not

really

nokia lost to its competitors it was

just not able to adapt

to the changes happening in the society

to the changes and the trends that were

that were happening in the society as a

result

you don’t see it in the market anymore

now after some contemporary ideas

about the topic i would like to come to

my story

maybe you can find some overlaps between

my story and the story of jack

so what’s my story i came to germany

in 2015 that was for the very first time

i came to germany

i came here because my father was

working for a company and he was

transferred here for his job

and we decided i would go to a german

public school

good nice experience i went to a german

public school for a week

within this one week i realized

this is not really the place for me i

would not be able to grow and develop

here

it just did not work i left the school

in fact i left the country i went back

to new delhi

and continued my education there

so i completed my 10th grade s5 in delhi

and then after one year in 2016 i came

back

and during this period my father was

here in germany he did some more

research about the school system

and then we visited a couple of

international schools

and one of them was esrm

and esrm was indeed the right choice

then i started my schooling at european

school in 2016.

but there were some questions which were

always in my mind now what were these

questions i was constantly thinking

about them

the questions were why should i leave

the comfort

of my own country and come to a

completely new country

why should i leave my near and dear ones

back in new delhi

and come to germany where i basically

know no one

why should i do the hard work of

learning a completely new language

and then simultaneously also completing

or catching up with my academics i mean

s6 and s7 it’s not easy

and then if you have to learn another

language side by side

things become difficult these were some

questions which were always there

but at this time i was guided by my

parents

received quite a lot of guidance from

them and this quote

is actually from my father and this is

exactly what he said

change is the law of nature changes

are always there changes are always for

better

although i was quite young at that stage

but i still understood what my father

was trying to convey to me

this helped me to take a rational

a future oriented as well as a

well-informed decision

so i started at the european school

and things were going well but my

journey

at european school was also not easy so

not at european school but generally was

not easy

so s6 s7 grade 11th grade 12th

so you see these two photos here one is

of european school and the other one is

of a language school that i visited in

order to grasp the language

this was basically it this was basically

my life for two years

so in the morning i used to be at

european school 8 a.m to 4 p.m

and then in the evening used to be at

the language school

trying to learn the language went on for

two years

i will be honest with you no free time

but that hard work did not go in vain

that hard work did not go in vain at all

so i completed my european baccalaureate

in 2018

with an overall average of 8.5 german

grade 1.5

which i think is quite decent

considering my situation coming to

germany just

two years prior and then grasping the

language and then taking exams in that

language so

directly after i started my university

at the frankfurt school of finance and

management

last semester i was at the university of

edinburgh during my semester abroad

presently i’m doing online semester

abroad at university of amsterdam

i was awarded by frankfurt school of

finance and management with the student

with the with the student role model

title and also the frankfurt school

spirit award

for exemplary behavior

later on i was also rewarded by the city

of frankfurt

as the outstanding personality 2018 by

mr peter feldman who’s the mayor

of frankfurt

in between i was also awarded with

deutschland stependium which is the

german national scholarship

offered by the federal ministry of

education and research

germany and presently

i am a part of cass which is conrad

adenauer stephton

this would all not have been possible

without the hard work that i did at that

time

so that hard work did not go in vain at

all

and this equation you see on top hard

work equals growth and success

it’s true believe me it’s true and

speaking out of personal experience it’s

true

so all those two three four years that

i’ve been here in germany

i found some golden rules and i

summarized them into these three rules

first of them come out of your comfort

zone

from your comfort zone you need to move

into the learn zone

and then you need to move into the

growth zone had i not come out of my

comfort zone

i would not be standing here today

delivering this ted talk

second one believe in yourself

believe in your abilities

believe in your skills

and do not be impacted by what others

think of you believe in your potential

also quite important

last but not the least never fear

hard work hard work is important

doesn’t matter whether you’re a student

in the school student at university in

your professional career

you’re working doing business whatsoever

now to conclude i would like to leave

you all

with a question would you climb the

mountain

given the fact your amateur you have no

idea

how to do it no experience at all

it’s going to be cold up there there are

risks involved

but out of this experience

you would learn quite a lot you would

get out of your comfort zone

you would take up this challenge

and if you work hard enough you will

definitely succeed

the question is would you now climb the

mountain

thank you for being a lovely audience

this is just karen singh signing off for

today thank you