Why taking the risk is important
[Music]
hi everyone
so today you can see the slide so i’m
going to talk about
i’m going to talk about you know things
that are holding us back in our life and
can we do something to change that
a lot of us most of us right we spend
almost all our lives just saying this
one phrase
i wish i wish i could do a startup i
wish
i could leave this job that i had i wish
i could do this i could do that and
the one question that i’ve always
thought is
if we wish why don’t we do
what is stopping us
it turns out this is stopping us
not my dog right his name is simba
he’s a very sweet dog and he he will not
come in your way
right now here
you see he is tied to this chair
now like any dog what does he want to do
he wants to run around he wants to jump
but he’s stuck he’s held back he’s bound
he’s bound by what he’s bound by
that chair a small light plastic chair
right how much does a chair weigh
so in reality right that chair will be
probably a kilogram
but in his mind that chair
weighs a mountain right now this is not
just his reality this is
this is what is happening and what
happens to
it happens to me it happens to you it
happens to all of us
we are held back by that one chair
we are not we are not held back because
we don’t have money what is holding us
back is not the family we are born in it
is not our surname it’s not our height
not our weight not our skin color it’s
not our passport
it’s not even your college degree voting
is holding what is holding us back
is that one kg chair that’s it
now you may ask the question okay it
kind of sounds good but then
you know this is real life in real life
there are constraints
so i don’t deny that i’m not saying that
money does not matter or luck does not
play any role those things are important
for sure i’m not even i’m not even
saying that
you know if you if you decide to do
something
the whole world will conspire to make it
happen right
this is something you must have seen
turns out
the world is really bad at conspiring
right so what do you see here
this is this is nonsense right
it’s not going to happen but
but the fact remains that
even though we cannot do everything we
want even it’s not true that and if you
decide to do something
you can do it it’s not true that and if
you want to be somebody you can just be
that guy
but but we can do
a lot more than what we think we can do
my dog if he decides to fly can he fly
no he cannot do that but he can do a lot
better than being bound to a 1kg chair
so here’s the question why why does he
not break free
that chair that this my dog is very
strong if he decides to give it a push
the chair will go rolling on the floor
and yet
he never pulls or never pushes a chair
why is that
because he assumes that it is it is very
very heavy
this is not just simba story this is the
story
of all of us and if you are not careful
one day this could be your story
we just assume that the things that are
that are weighing us down they are
infinitely heavy
now today i want to share some stories
with you from my life
to show you how that 1kg chair
is weighing all of us down
many years back i was in a wedding
and this one guy i just happened to meet
he walked by he was a guest
and then he asked me what do you do so i
said
i said i was an ips officer and now i
have resigned and i run a startup
so this guy happened to be an is officer
and
so when he heard that he said wow
like that’s so amazing so many times i
wanted to quit the is but somehow i just
could not gather the courage
now just think about it this guy is most
likely a very talented
a smart guy he’s exactly the kind of
person
who should not be scared who should not
be worried about uncertainty and yet
he is very very scared
what is weighing him down that one kg
chair
and it’s not just him i know lots of
civil servants ias ips officers and a
lot of them trust me a lot of them are
not happy with their jobs
they won’t do something different but
every single time the same question
comes up
right uncertainty risk what can i do
i was uh i was in
i was in new york for some time after my
mba and uh
i used to i would come across a lot of
these people who work in
investment banking firms who work in
consulting firms
and i’m talking about these guys who are
who have
business degrees and law degrees from
the world’s top
universities harvard chicago wharton
stanford mitchell
you name it and yet
we were all united by just one thing
fear of what might happen
right now the jobs these guys were doing
as an example being an innocent banker
in a wall street firm
i think it is one of the most
soul-sucking jobs that you can imagine
and these are guys probably the smartest
in this world
and i am pretty sure many of them hate
their job
every single day and yet
yet they cannot break free
that is what is pulling them back now
you could say
yeah sure but then there is real world i
agree
i’m not saying that you know real world
constraints don’t matter
i’m not saying money doesn’t matter all
those things do matter but
compared to all those constraints the
biggest constraint
is in our head
i’ll give one more example
um there was a there was a friend of
mine
a mutual friend um from iit
i was talking to him a couple of years
back and
we were we were chatting and he was
telling me that he loves teaching
science
he used to teach science to his kids and
he said
very longingly you know one day one day
i would like to
start my own company and and teach
science so then i asked
him like why not do it now he said
yeah i want to but you know just risk
what will happen
dead like that now the question is
why is he scared and what is he waiting
for he’s waiting for
he’s waiting for that one magical day
when
there’ll be no fear there’ll be no
uncertainty when everything will be
safe and predictable and that day
will come when will that come
this is that day right now studies have
proven that
when you die your ability to do things
kind of goes down but
not this guy right so we are all
a lot of us are waiting for for that
magical moment and then we will start
doing things
now we know that’s not going gonna
happen right now let me share my own
story
i was uh an ips officer for about eight
years
and um then i decided to quit and do an
mba
now the funny thing is this whomever i
would tell my friends my relatives
anybody that i’m going to leave
so they would say yeah he’s just
blabbering you know he’s frustrated you
know
let him vent he’ll be fine nobody would
take me seriously
then one day i had gone to orissa and
uh my in-laws place and there was some
family wedding going on
so in between the wedding festivities
whenever there was some gap i would
i would sit and i’d be reading those
gmat prep guides
that’s when my father-in-law he asked my
wife is he serious
she said yeah now you can imagine his
shock
right she must be thinking like this guy
first he marries my daughter now he’s
gone totally nuts you know doing all
this stuff
right and and obviously everyone
dissuaded me in fact for many years i
did not even tell them that i’m leaving
the ips or that i have left
right now the question is these people
they don’t mean harm they mean well for
me
yet yet they don’t want you to
they didn’t want me to leave this job
now why is that let me let me explain
something about the indian police
service
if you join as an ips officer this is
your career progression
in four years time you become an sp 14
years dig
18 years igp 25 years
additional director general of police
another three to four years
djp and then i would have retired
at 5 pm on 31st august
2032
please don’t back calculate my age don’t
be a pest okay
now imagine a career where you know
exactly what will happen
30 years later and he quit the job
and you don’t know what will happen the
next day right
now think about the difference in the
uncertainty and that is why
people do not want to take the chance
and they tell you no no don’t don’t
leave the job don’t do that
but then i could ask a counter question
that
risk is not a bad thing risk is meant to
keep you safe from danger it makes you
make sure you don’t do stupid things
so the question is is there a problem
i think there is a problem and the
problem is not with avoiding does the
problem is that
as human beings we inherently hate risk
and
our intuition is unable to quantify risk
properly
and i’m going to now do a live
experiment with you
this is based on the research done by
a professor called daniel kahneman who
was a
who is a nobel prize winning nobel
laureate right
so here’s an experiment
okay i want to take a bet with you guys
okay we will toss a coin 50 50 chance 50
yuan
percent you lose if you win
if you win you get two lakhs
from me right now cash
cash is allowed okay don’t worry now if
you lose
you have to give me one lakh rupees so
here’s a question for the audience
how many of you will take that bet raise
your hand
not too many but a couple right i
expected more because this is like bits
goa you guys were thinking like
what man one lakh to like take 10 lakhs
you know don’t bother me right
but
but if you if you propose this bed to
like you know people in general
a vast majority of people will
not take the bet right the question is
why
the odds make sense in fact i would
argue if you
if you do this if you do this take this
by 10 times the probability of your
being out of pocket
is very very low and yet we are
not willing to take the bet and the
reason is that
people hate losing things we have
something called loss aversion
right if so gaining is important but
losing
what we have causes a lot more anxiety a
lot more pain
now the question is as professionals i
mean for you guys right
does it really matter i think it matters
this is why
now so there are two guys right
the one on the left he is loaded with
all these degrees you know
bits and i t i am whatever right and the
guy on the right he is from some
no-name university now here’s the
question
if both these guys start looking for a
job who has a better
chance of finding a job come on left the
left guy the right guy
left guy come on it’s you you have a
better chance
yet if you have to take a risk or fear
takers
who will have a higher capacity to take
risk
from my experience the guy on the left
is somebody like you and me
why is that because because of your
degree because of professional
qualification
you have a lot to lose versus a guy who
was
was nothing he has nothing to lose and
the guy who has nothing to lose is a
dangerous man
right that is that’s exactly what’s
happening and this
is what is holding us down
um in summary
right i would i would like to share with
you that you know when i
when i left the ips right people think
that it was a
it was a crazy risky step to be honest
that was not
that was not the step which was risky
right what is risky was when i left my
last job
to to become an entrepreneur that was
risky and
i’ll be candid with you i’ve gone
through ups i’ve gone through downs
i’ve gone through a lot more downs than
ups and financially and many other ways
i’ve been better off doing a job
but then it’s a choice i made and i’m
happy with the choice
today i run the startup concept out and
i teach science here
and and finally in this conference
the theme is eureka to discover yourself
right now how to discover yourself you
don’t discover yourself by
sitting on a couch and watching tv right
columbus discovered america what did he
do
he got on a ship and he sailed now he
wanted to get to india
right but he got to america and that’s
fine
if you want to discover yourself get it
from your couch
get on a ship and sail
you may not get to india but i can
assure you
you will get somewhere thank you
you