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