How to lead a maximising life
i’ve been running organizations and
managing businesses for a long time
a very very long time indeed and the
issue when you are the
chief problem solver or the main
sorter out of messes or the significant
decision maker of significant decisions
is that everybody naturally assumes that
you have answers to
all the questions of the world but
that’s not the main problem
i’m okay with that the real actual
problem is
that you start believing in this
blatantly false narrative yourself
so you walk around thinking you are the
guru the buddha
the wise one jedi master yoda
albus dumbledore but the real truth is
that none of us know none of
us have solutions to all the problems of
the world
not the presidents of large nations
not the prime ministers of big
democracies
not the deans of colleges the college
professors the medical experts
no not even your mother the truth is we
all
meander through life
trying to figure out how to manage it as
we go along
sometimes making mindful choices more
often than not
making choices unmindfully sometimes
choices are thrust upon us by the world
sometimes we make choices with very
limited and partial information
and sometimes the fact is we really have
no choice at all there is only one way
and we just have to plow through it
i remember when i was trying to get into
business school many many years ago
and i had decided my list of priorities
and which is the institute that
i want to get into and i was very sure
that i would get into my preferred
institute of choice
and then i didn’t i got it and got into
my second
choice which was a distant number two by
far
of course subsequently things turned out
fine i did well in my career
i met my husband there and as we all
know
the person you marry is the single most
important career choice that you will
make
of course if he’s listening he’ll be
very pleased to hear that but
but i think things did turn out fine
we’ve been married for 32 years
but i remember at that moment i was
devastated that i hadn’t gotten to the
institute of choice
i was heartbroken i thought my world had
ended
it wasn’t worth living i hadn’t made it
into that marquee institute
it’s only 32 years later that i’m
standing here and saying
wow things did turn out fine finally
what happened
was really the best thing that could
have happened to me
so indeed if when we are in the moment
when we are actually experiencing life
we don’t know
which is a significant moment which is
not which is that moment when the grains
of time are passing through our fingers
which is that moment that we should hold
on to because that’s going to be the one
that’s going to be the life-altering one
the life-changing one then how do we
lead our life
how do we deal with it so that we
maximize every opportunity that comes
our way
or as they say we learn from every every
challenge
not waste any crisis how do we lead
a life that is a maximizing life
and my firm belief
my ardent belief is that there are
a certain set of house in which you can
lead your life
so that you make the best use of
that moment that is in front of you you
when life is standing in front of you
you interact
with it being the best possible version
of yourself and here are my three house
on leading a maximizing life and
extracting the best out of it
when i was in college i was part of our
college hockey team and
of course we were good at what we did
when we many of us got selected to be
part of
the state team and naturally the best
players got selected
so we always thought okay we are really
the queens of hockey we know how to play
this game
absolutely well and finally we went
as part of the state squad to play at
the nationals
the first day we go and play the match
very confident sure of ourselves
we lose the game 7-0
the second match that takes place the
late the day later
we we lose that 11-0
we are completely shattered what’s going
on this is the best hockey
team that has come from the state and
they’re losing
7-0 11-0 they’re not like hockey scores
they’re basketball scores
and for every ball that is coming
towards me i’m the goalkeeper for every
save i make
one goes in because the ball doesn’t
seem to leave our d
at all they’re just being hit one after
the other one after the other and
we’re really outclassed and completely
out maneuvered the final and last game
of the tournament
dawns and everybody’s got up early in
the morning
everybody’s warming up getting ready to
play that game
knowing fully well that we’re going to
lose that too
and i’m standing in the corner and i’m
moaning and you know
feeling very sorry for myself and um the
coach looks at me and says
why aren’t you getting ready why aren’t
you warming up so i’m in this
negative zone and saying you know
because of me i’m the goalkeeper we lost
the game because
i couldn’t save the uh save the
matches at all the fact is it’s just not
me
it’s the entire team who’s been being
outclassed but i’ve taken all the blame
on myself and i just don’t even want to
bother to warm up and go and play the
game
because i’m very sure we’re going to
lose this game too
so the squad gets elected to go in and
play the final match
and everybody else all the other players
remain the same i’m the only person who
gets
dropped out and gets replaced by the
second goalkeeper
of course we lost that game too the
coach came to me later on and she says
you know why i dropped you from the game
it’s not that i didn’t know we are going
to
lose it’s not that um
the other goalkeeper made a bit of a
difference we
as you saw we lost that game too the
fact is
i wanted all 11 players trying
not 10 players trying and the 11th
player who’s lost the game in her mind
that is the reason i dropped you and i’m
so glad i learned such a significant
lesson
so early on in life
you know a while back i talked about how
life doesn’t give you a practice match
a challenge just comes at you doesn’t
give you any practice
to sort of figure out how to play that
game
but what it does is gives you a mental
rehearsal
so anything that is happening in life
the reality is we first play it out in
our mind
whether it’s an exam whether it’s an
interview whether it’s an interaction
whether it is a a target that we have
to achieve we win or lose
that particular event game match
target in our minds first and i’ve
invariably seen this
that if you go with a positive attitude
if you go with having told that mind of
yours where the rehearsal is going on
that you know i’m going to do well i
think i can beat this
you will beat it you will try
hard enough but if your mind has already
told you that you know what’s the point
in playing this game i’m going to lose
you’re not going to even bother to try
if you don’t try
there’s no chance of you winning
the second
how to lead a maximizing life for me is
this whole concept of
personal accountability and this
particular trait
really separates out people who
deal with the same circumstances in very
different manners
and the people who have personal
accountability
more often than not are people who will
succeed
despite the circumstances being the same
for everybody
so what is this concept of personal
accountability
it is said that when you know a kid is
small and she is playing with a ball
and she loses the ball she comes back
and she’s smiling and then she tells her
tells her mom
mama the ball got lost the ball got lost
so mama goes and looks for the ball or
buys her a new ball and the baby is
perfectly happy
the ball has got lost now the ball has
got replaced and she’s
back to playing with it the same child
when she grows up to be around six or
seven
and this time when she loses the ball
she comes back and now she’s crying
and she says mama i lost the ball
it’s not any longer the ball got lost
i lost the ball and that
is our first transition to
adulthood the first acceptance
of responsibility that it’s something
wrong
i did which is why i lost the ball
and the moment the child is accepting
that responsibility
she’s taking that oneness of having
committed
a mistake onto herself which is why
she’s crying
now all of us have grown up we become
adults we are
in school and college and teachers and
management heads and business heads
but have truly become adults
because that’s the first sign of
adulthood accepting responsibility
and how often i see this play out
you know why didn’t you achieve your
target you know man what could i do
the economy is so difficult why
what’s wrong with your marriage you know
i couldn’t help it my parents got me
married off at a very young age
so we don’t accept responsibility for
the
circumstances around us for the messes
around us
and the difference between people who
succeed and people who do not
is the acceptance that this is my
mess and the moment you say this is my
mess
this is my marriage with its problems i
have to solve it this is my
target that i have to achieve this is my
country whose issues i have to solve
the moment you say that you
accept that it is your mess
to my mind it’s a very powerful message
that is going to to your brain
the message that is going to your brain
is
since it is my mess i have to solve it
and our brain immediately moves into a
solution mindset
and when we start thinking solutions
we will be able to find
answers to the problems around us
and therefore personal accountability
according to me is
yet another way that you can live
a maximizing life by accepting
responsibility for the things that are
happening around you
one of our most famous and respected
hindi
lyricists and poets golsar has said this
life is a series of flickering moments
he says
and sometimes out of this chain
of time one moment falls
and a story can get created an entire
tale of your lives can get
made in just such a moment
so finally my third lesson
ladies and gentlemen boys and girls is
this
that if you really have to draw out
the maximum out of every moment
when you don’t even know how important
or significant
or life altering the moment is the only
way to live life
is to always imagine that you are under
the spotlight
and thus on your best behavior
every interaction whether big or small
every person that you meet whether you
think is important
or not whether you are on your first day
at work or your last day
in your notice period we’re just waiting
to get rid of
that team and leave whether it is a
practice match
a small test or the final exam
you have to
come up to life interact with life
by always being the best version of
yourself
not as defined by what the world thinks
of you or how the
world measures you or what your parents
teachers spouses bosses have to say
but about by your own judgment of what
is right or wrong
by your own internal moral compass by
your own sense
of good or bad to each one of us
is given the choice of deciding
what gauge we will measure our life
against
and then evaluate how successful
happy joyful content kind
compassionate rich famous beaver
make sure that against that scale
which you have chosen you always and
invariably
give your best performance thank you you