5 Musical lessons on embracing entropy

[Applause]

so i would share with you my five

thoughts

on the topic embracing the entropy

change chaos entropy is inevitable

we cannot fight it as they say one

should have the will

skill and the courage to change what we

can

and accept the things that we cannot

change

we may not be able to change certain

situations around us but we can

certainly change our attitude towards

those situations

and the best way to change our attitude

is to start enjoying

the new normal

take this ted talk for example i don’t

know if there have been many occasions

where a ted talk is done like this where

a speaker is

sitting in front of an iphone trying to

look all excited and energized

uh having a talk you cannot compare this

experience to

the one that you get when you’re

standing in a large auditorium

interacting with

the live audience but i’m going to make

my talk

fun and the way i’m going to do it is by

adding music

to my five messages so i’ve written some

original lines i’ve composed some

original music

for each of the messages that i’m going

to share with you today

so let me sing the first song that i

wrote for this message

accept and enjoy the entropy

[Music]

when life gives you a lemon you make a

laminate

then call all your best friends to drink

and celebrate

when life gives you a lemon you make a

lemonade

then call all your best friends to drink

and celebrate

there’s no need to worry why do you feel

sad enjoy the new normal be happy and be

glad and say

[Music]

so the second message is that every

change every chaos

every entropy is a transformation

opportunity

one of the most important lessons that

i’ve learned in my life is that

every time you’re going through an

external shock a change

one of the very important questions to

ask is so what is

good in it so what is nice about what is

happening

it may not be possible to ask this

question always when you are going

through a bad phase

but it is a very important question to

ask

and the reason it is an important

question to ask is that every change

is a transformation opportunity we make

some of the big bold choices we take

some big bold decisions

in the backdrop of a large change

or external chaos that we may be

experiencing

take kovitt for example i don’t have any

facts or data

but i very strongly believe that the

amount of digital adoption

and digital transformation that has

happened in the world in last

six to eight months is probably more

than what it was done in last six to

eight years

and i’ll give you a personal example of

my mother who’s 77 years old

my mother was extremely averse to

technology she

doesn’t even maintain an online banking

account or keeps a

a debit card because she feels someone

will steal her money

she doesn’t have trust in technology but

i’ve seen a huge

change in her orientation towards

technology in the last six months

she got a wi-fi installed at her home

two months back

she now uses an iphone and she just

asked me that she wants to get

zoom and some of the e-wallets installed

in our phone because all her friends in

our age group

are now using them yeah so this is a

real transformation

so every change is a transformation

opportunity

let me sing a few lines that i’ve

written about this message

in hindi

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[Music]

one more time

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[Music]

[Music]

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foreign

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so the third message is help others who

may be struggling in this chaos

in times like these we realize that

how fortunate and privileged we are

some of us have complete financial

security

some of us have great physical and

mental health

some of us has tremendous family support

but there are many people outside who

are not as fortunate as we are

we all know during covet so many people

have lost their jobs

the daily wagers they can’t even feed

their family

many people can’t send their kids to the

school

many people can’t get medical treatment

done

either for themselves or for their

families i feel it’s very important

to help those in trouble

in whatever possible way we can and

there are many ways in which we can help

people one of my coaches told me that he

and his wife

whenever they go out they put a little

bit of money in an envelope

and leave it with the street hawkers

without

them noticing it they not only put the

money they also put a little message

something like don’t worry i am there

for you

so that guy that street hawker one gets

the financial support second

that person also gets a feeling that

someone is taking care of them

my last organization the top leaders

took a pay cut

because they did not want the people

below to lose their jobs

one of my friends who runs his own

organization

gives complete flexibility to people

while they work from home

he wants to create what he calls a

calming work environment

when everything around is in chaos

i did a lot of balcony concerts during

the lockdown

to help my community have fun enjoy

because everyone was locked inside their

homes

so we all can make a difference in the

lives of those who may be struggling

with whatever we have and this is the

best way to change your own mental

health

if you help others your own mental

health

and your own well-being improve

significantly

[Music]

you’ve got a true friend

[Music]

when you

[Music]

together together we’ll rise up

you’ve got two friends

so my fourth message is that a change or

an entropy

always seems more challenging than

it actually is you know human mind is

trained to

think about the worst consequences i’ll

tell you a personal story so about three

years back

i developed tinnitus tinnitus is

constant ringing in the ears which can

happen

either because of you know you are if

you are exposed to

loud sounds or uh because of

stress so i have a constant ringing in

my left ear

which i got because of stress so i

consulted several doctors

and i think one thing that all doctors

told me is that there is no cure for

tinnitus and i will have to learn to

live with this

now this was an extremely scary thought

learned to live with this constant

drinking in the years

and i did some research and read about

it and what i read was that

there are people who are unable to sleep

because of this

ringing and and what they do is they

play some music before they go off to

sleep

to mask this ringing sound

and it wasn’t a very pleasant pleasant

thing to read

when i read it my biggest fear was that

whether i’ll be able to pursue music

which has been my passion

if there is constant ringing in my ear

my hearing would get impacted and

certainly my ability to sing

will also get impacted but as it turned

out all my fears were unfounded barring

the first four to five months

where i faced some challenges adjusting

to this new

unwanted change in my life things have

been absolutely fine thereafter

i have no challenges sleeping i have no

challenges doing anything in fact i am

now

creating original music and putting it

in all the streaming platforms

so change or entropy will always scare

you

the situations seem worse than they

actually

are so let me sing a few lines about

this message

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fade away

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okay so the last message is expect

change

chaos entropy every few years and be

prepared

for it in 2017 i got an opportunity to

visit leyla dark

and i can tell you it’s one of the best

travel destinations in the world

leila duck because it is right next to

our international borders

has a lot of these army camps and

outside each of these army camps

you read you see certain slogans written

by the army

now one such slogan that i read and

which stayed with me

said train hard and fight

easy train hard and fight easy

such a simple statement but such a

powerful message

you know army keeps creating newer and

newer scenarios

for practicing their drills so that they

are prepared for

any kind of situation that may arise at

our borders

and i think we have to do the same in

our own lives

my parents who were school teachers

taught the same subject for almost 30

years

of their life using more or less a

similar

methodology and this worked very well

for them

they created a great life for themselves

they created a great lives for us

uh the three kids but this is not at all

possible in today’s day and age

the pace of change is so fast that the

relevance of

our knowledge our domain knowledge the

relevance of our skill set

is changing very very fast

just like you get those software

upgrades for your phone

every two to three months and if you do

not install that

upgrade your phone’s performance

deteriorates

certain apps will not work the same

happens

with us unless we are able to constantly

upgrade our knowledge our skill set and

our mindset

we will struggle because change is bound

to come

so here are a few lines that i’ve

written about this last message

[Music]

and also remember this

[Music]

when life gives you a lemon you make a

laminate

then call all your best friends you can

celebrate

there’s no need to worry why do you feel

sad

[Music]

enjoy

[Music]

thank you

[Applause]

you