VALUE BASED QUESTION
how did the abdul kalam turned into a big achiever in his life?
(Hint:write about his hardwork & lifestyle )
10 marks question
Answers
Answer:
Here is a man who rose to become a unanimously respected leader of our nation on the wings of a an indomitable spirit, a great education, a generosity of spirit and a passion to succeed, he had jazbah, as Sakirbhai from our office calls it. With all these wonderful qualities, how could he not be wildly successful?
But the thing that really strikes me is that a man who has already made it - who is successful beyond most of our wildest dreams - was out there working when he breathed his last. He literally worked till the minute he passed away, while giving a lecture to students of IIM Shillong.
His passion for hard work rings most significant as a lesson to me.
His last wish, apparently, was that the nation not take any days off to mourn him when he passes, but if we love him, we should work an extra day.
Why would he care that we worked an extra day? And how does one extra day of work really help?
Aren't we working enough already... we bust our brains all day and come home dead tired. And we finally get a day off at the end of the week, and here's our beloved former president telling us to work more.
And what about this new mantra of work-life balance - where all sorts of successful people, from Narayan Murthy to Arianna Huffington, are telling us to work less so we can focus on other areas of life?
So what should we do: work less or work more?
And the answer, in fact, lies in another question: what are you working for?
Are you working to achieve mastery?
There is a popular theory that you need to work 10,000 hours to become a master of your chosen field. If you wanted to be a genius musician for example, let's see how much you would need to practice that skill to master it ...
If you practiced for 4 hours a day x 5 days a week x 50 weeks (assuming two weeks off) = 1,000 hours, it would take you 10 years to get 10,000 hours.
However, if you practiced 8 hours a day x 6 days a week x 50 weeks = 2,400 hours, it would take you less than 5 years to get in the requisite 10,000 hours of practice.
While the world works for five days of the week, those who are masters work for seven. While the world works for eight hours a day, those who are experts work for twelve. While the world takes days off - the best take no days off.
Michael Phelps, the man who changed the Olympic sport of swimming forever, practiced swimming every single day, 365 days a year, for five years straight after he decided he wanted to swim in the Olympics.
When asked in an interview, did you ever feel like quitting?, he replied, 'Oh, oftentimes'.
No one finds achieving mastery easy - not even the masters. But masters become masters because they simply work that much more to get their success. If you are working to achieve mastery, you will work that extra day.