You Are Never Too Young To Change The World
[Music]
[Music]
over the years
the following questions have often
piqued my curiosity
what can i do to make the world a better
place
how can i make my brief existence on
this beautiful planet count
what can i do to alleviate poverty
hunger
injustice suffering where do i even
start
should i first earn wealth and fend for
my family
and then give back or can both go hand
in hand
there are so many people out there in
the world more experienced
and perhaps even more competent and
accomplished than i am
at serving humankind so should i even
try
the scale of global challenges global
warming
climate change terrorism poverty gender
inequality and so on
is so huge that anything i do
will barely scratch the surface so why
even try
we humans are so insignificant
relative to the vast expanse of time in
space
so does anything we do really matter
today as a lot of these questions still
remain unanswered for me
i will share with you my learnings and
experiences
in the hope to stir up faith confidence
and strength in anybody wishing to make
a positive change
in the world around them at the outset i
must admit
that i speak from a place of privilege
and freedom
as i speak there are millions out there
struggling to survive people
who are leading hand-to-mouth existence
who are grappling with curable disease
whose homes are ravaged by war
and for whom living to see the light of
day
is their greatest hope and wish
i’m lucky and i count my blessings every
day
and i speak for others like me who have
the privilege
to even think about and feel connected
something larger than ourselves
we have the freedom to defy social
convention
and truly follow our hearts and dreams
therefore we’re also duty-bound
to labor beyond meeting our immediate
needs
and to actively work towards something
even more
noble and meaningful the question then
is when and where do we start
the following five stage growth journey
has helped me find purpose and given
direction and consistent energy
to that purpose this journey is one
that has evolved over time and it’s
really helped me
i hope that you can connect with it too
stage one of my growth journey is
knowing your why your why
is a statement of purpose which
describes
why you do what you do and why you live
the way you do
it is your calling your conviction
your mission statement a vision for your
life and work
your why is what makes you wake up every
morning
and keeps you going especially when
times are hard
simon sinek in his ted talk in 2009
elucidates this idea with examples his
talk was followed by a book
called start with by which i highly
recommend
he talks of apple apple is so successful
today
because their why is not selling you
overpriced smartphones
but that why is challenging the status
quo
empowering the individual and building
community
this idea is the very core of apple’s
business
it connects with a customer customer
base
and this is the reason why apple is so
successful today
my why is being the best version of
myself
every single day so i can make my
parents proud
what’s yours
stage two of my growth journey is
championing a cause
now you may feel strongly about several
issues around you
climate change gender equality cyber
crime
the refugee crisis and so on and you may
want to do something
on each of these fronts however
in my experience if you truly want to
make
impact at scale it helps
to pick a single cause closest to your
heart
and make your life’s mission take any
leader
from world history mahatma gandhi
martin luther king jr mother teresa
abraham lincoln each of them
championed a single course closest to
the heart and some
even laid their lives down for it
now you may find your true calling so to
speak
sooner or later but what is important
is being conscious and informed of the
choices we make
there is no predefined age or
pre-ordained route to finding your true
calling or purpose
you may find it through meditation or
reading
during hardship or through a trigger
sometimes you just know and most often
it is serendipitous
but that moment will definitely come if
it hasn’t already
my moment of revelation came during
personal hardship
growing up i always dreamt of
representing india
in cricket and until my mid-teens
i was playing at a fairly high standard
one day
i suffered a severe back injury which
really threw me off
but this also came to become a turning
point in my life
as i lay incapacitated in bed
i reflected on the real suffering around
me
i read and i dialogued with my
grandfather and parents
to truly understand the scale of impact
that they were able to have
and others like them both within and
without the political
realm the year was 2008.
while on the one hand the world was
grappling with the aftermath of the
subprime mortgage crisis
felt deeply troubled by the way in which
we humans plundered resources and the
environment
to feed our greed this concern
gradually developed into conscious
action
when i founded bhajan global impact
foundation
as a non-profit to promote environmental
conservation
and plowpow as a company to promote
sustainable agriculture
my cause is to help humankind
reconnect with nature what’s yours
stage three of my growth journey is
making time
your partner in crime undoubtedly
time is our greatest asset but it can
also turn against us
if we lose sight of its true value in
our lives
we have access to a world of
distractions today that never existed in
the past for our ancestors
and so we often get carried away and
lose sight of the plane
we live in a digital world that moves at
the speed of light
and therefore it pays to slow down and
refocus energies towards things that
matter the most to us
in this context we should take up
high impact habits such as reading
writing storytelling
exercising meditating listening to
podcasts
or doing anything that pushes us farther
and faster
towards our purpose for me
once i figured my why and my cause it
was time to set things in motion
and the way i went about doing it is by
spreading time
across four horizons by having
a long-term vision by setting yearly
goals
determining weekly objectives and
setting daily targets
in doing so i’ve been able to maximize
my productivity
and minimize procrastination a different
process may work for you
so work with your rhythm but do make
time your partner in crime
last year i ran for parliament at age 26
and i lost i did everything right
ran the best campaign yet i lost
i was extremely disappointed
disheartened
and rejected especially as someone who
was so used to winning
my early plans for the next five years
have been thrown into complete disarray
so do i give up do i change course
or do i carry on with the same
conviction and energy
as i did in the past how you respond to
failure
is what truly defines you what really
fails
is the outcome match to your
expectations
and the learning that exists in this
mismatch is far greater than if we would
experience victory always
as you know good days give you happiness
bad days give experience and the worst
days
mould your soul