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