Everything has been changing with the changes of time. Definition of success is changing. Ways of pursuing excellence is changing. What was pretty much impossible to achieve few years ago, is just very simple and easy and possible now. The world is now full of opportunity. Everything is connected. Opportunities are open. Almost anyone can do and get almost anything s/he wants. Excellence is no more defined by the tradition or by the boss you are working for. Success is no more confined within the national boundaries. A willing and dedicated mind can literally change the way of doing things, can change the perceptions and bring meaningful revolution.
Now it’s you who decide how many successes you need, how many achievements you want, and how many changes you wish to bring. The core challenge is just to build up the capacity and become stronger.
Isn’t it amazing….
to become a TED Fellow, meet all amazing people, share ideas, make meaningful as well as remarkable connections?
to become a Berkman Center Fellow, do all impressive research on internet, ideas and innovation, meet all technology geeks?
to become a Echoing Green Fellow and get million dollars funded for doing amazing work to change the world?
to get Front Line Full Scholarship from TEDMED, see how they are doing all impressive works for your healthy living and changing the future of medicine and medical for your good?
to do MBA from Harvard Business School, meet all impressive scholars, work with global companies?
to work a research assistant at MIT Media Lab, see the bottom and top most summit of innovations?
to do PhD at MIT, create actionable knowledge?
to implement your great ideas, become millionaire within couple of years, see the beauty of money?
to work winning astonishing team of Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook?
Yes! It’s indeed amazing.
Am I fool enough to talk about the all of these greatest ambitions of genius and super smart people? No I am not. In conscious mind, it really doesn’t matter whether you are from Bangladesh or Pakistan or Ghana or India or Iran or even nowhere with any root. No one actually care what does your father. People care about you, your ideas and your work. It’s only you.
The genius people (defined by you not by me) those who are doing and getting and achieving all those things are the most industrious people (they are industrious). They keep trying for years after years. They failed so many times (mostly we don’t get to know). What we know is just about their success (big things).
Read the story and see the programming of the success of Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. They are the superstars of innovation, business and technology. This is the one side. On the other side, they are the most industrious, honest, passionate and dedicated people. All of them started from zero. They have changed, learned, and grown a lot with changes of time. Now they are here, only because they wanted to. Yes! They really wanted to.
This post is not about motivation. It’s not about theory. Not even about my emotional appeal. It’s all about reality. It’s all about science. It’s all about facts.
How can you pursue EXCELLENCE:
- They need you. You don’t: First of all change your perceptions. Yes! Change your perceptions of getting anything from anywhere. Rather prepare yourself and let them give you, gift you the things you deserve. When a company runs business, it needs people to survive. It needs people with skills and knowledge. So you don’t have to worry about getting a job in Google, Apple, or Amazon. They are looking for genius people to take them to the upper most position and illuminate the world with sustainable innovations. Yes! Harvard Business School needs more super smart people to keep up the tradition of hundred years. So it’s time to stop waiting for getting something. It is best time to start giving them chances for offering you something, gifting you something that you deserve. It’s you and you’re important.
- Read. Read. Read: The former Harvard Business School Professor, Shawn Achor, cited on his amazing TED Talk (here): “If we study what is merely average, we will remain merely average.” It really matters what you study. All of you are smart enough to know about those successful people who had not any educational background. Let’s talk about Steve Jobs. He was school drop out. This is not great news. Great news is he red ‘The Innovator’s Dilemma’. What do I mean? Yes! I mean he was school dropout. But he had to study more than a Professor does. Because he had to educate himself with actionable knowledge that he needed to build Apple. So what do you read? Read. Read. Watch. Read. Write. Write. Watch. Watch. Read. Find out more from my blogroll (here)
- Connect: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter has changed the way we connect and communicate. These are all great tools. But have you learned to use these tools? I know, you may have 5000 friends over Facebook and 10,000 followers over Twitter …. those who like, comment and Retweet every single moment you update something. Does it matter? This is not really the right question to ask. The right question is: Do you have active/real connections with those people? If it is then you are really awesome. Otherwise it’s just waste of time. Surrounding yourself with like minded people from online to offline matters a lot. You are seriously not the Superman. You really need someone to hold your hand and open the door of opportunity. So why don’t you make real connections with real people?
- Be strong. Courageous: As you are reading this post, you are from somewhere. You have your own society and culture. Both of your culture and society have been dominated by dogma. Most of the leaders and bosses are waiting to make you followers and hide you from being excellent. They are in risk. They don’t want to let you do the things you want to do and loose their position, power and so called reputation. In addition to that, there are some other hundreds of people, those who are keenly waiting to break your confidence, push you to the blue river of frustration. This is not their fault. They didn’t get the opportunity to learn, grow and to open. So you have to be strong enough to survive fighting with them. At the end of the game they will welcome you and celebrate your success. Wait up to that.
- Don’t start. If start, don’t stop: Doing something is not always good. Most people start doing things and continuously change their mind and then start doing different things. Your time is limited. So you have to keep searching what you are best at, what is your passion, what are your natural talents, what you want to become. Your ideas, insight and knowledge will help you to find your path as well as shape you to go to your destination. Keep searching. Don’t fix until you get your thing that will keep you alive and illuminate us.
- Get all A’s until you die: It doesn’t actually matter that much if you get all A’s in your high school because it is just the beginning. You have to get all A’s in college, in university, in work, in your innovation, in satisfying customers, in convincing your stock holder and even convincing your life partner. I do not mean only academic result by A. A is the reflection of the result of your doings. If you are in school A is your academic result (extracurricular is important too). At work, A is your performance. At innovation, A reflects how many people you are serving, how many problems you are solving with your innovations.
- Work hard. Play hard: If you are someone who is a gifted a remarkable memory which can remember everything just after reading, you have to read the whole book to remember it. Getting some born talents means you are lucky. But it never ensures your success. In your life time, you have to try so many things, you have to do so many things, you have to learn so many things. The total integration of all of these is going to help you for your core job, duty and responsibility. There is no alternative of working hard. And don’t even for get to play. Try to enjoy your life too. Life is only for once. So why don’t you try to taste as much as you can. But again, work hard. And yes, play hard too.
Punch Lines: Now you should create the life you deserve. May be its time for you to grow up, take charge of your life and be all that you can be. Let start the journey of pursuing Excellence. Trust me, you will feel good.
