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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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