Of Hope, Right Mindsets and Winning

I recently finished reading the book "The Winning Way 2.0" by Anita Bhogle and Harsha Bhogle. One of the things they talk about in the book is hope as an essential ingredient of winning. It says that "One of the strongest weapon a team has on the field is hope. Till such time as hope is alive, they believe that they can win. Once hope dies, the end is swift".How true is this!

How many times you felt a task was insurmountable but somewhere your heart said you could do it, and you actually did it. Imagine the reverse. A seemingly simple task but due to some reason you didn't get result initially and lost hope. More likely than not , you might have not succeeded in that task.

In my personal experience, I didn't succeed in CAT ( MBA entrance) in my first attempt. But I continued to prepare with full zeal and finally in my future attempts made it to IIM Bangalore. In this journey , I had my own self-belief plus an amazing group of teachers , family and friends who made me believe it was possible.

Now imagine the reverse, what if someone tries to kill your hope? Is it possible? In my opinion, success has many enemies. So if you are on a winning streak, one of ways to get you down, is to play with your psyche, "mind-games" you may call it as well. "Mind-Games" are a powerful tool to manipulate a person and get what is desired from him. So lets say you are doing very well professionally, one "mind-game" that can be played is reminding you how you have failed to contribute to the family. You might be contributing as well, but since this can't be quantified its very easy to pin-point on this topic. The main thing with mind-games is that they try to affect you emotionally , so once your opponent realizes that your psyche gets controlled by what he/she says, you are the target for manipulation.

I remember in my student phase, sometimes friends would remark that there is no use studying, paper is anyways tough. Now since I come from a family of teachers , my family always told me to focus on work and get unaffected by what others say. Now when I remember this , I find this remaining "unaffected " as a very important thing. I can also link it to the fact that "no use studying" might have also been a mind-game to divert my attention. Since the competitor can't directly tell you to stop studying/doing things, using indirect speech to do so acts as a powerful tool.

So hope and right mindset is a very important thing. There's one simple way to keep hope and mind within your control. Keep an eye on the goal and every single moment, focus on how you can achieve it. If you feel somewhere some event/person dampens your psyche or makes you feel worse, ignore them immediately. Because if you don't ignore. your goal gets ignored. We live in a "FOMO" world, where constantly there are enough avenues to give you the feeling of "Fear of Missing Out". The skill is to focus, to know the most important people and tasks and never lose hope. Our mind and our attention is the most powerful resource we have, hence we should be aware of who controls it and we should be controlling it predominantly.

Let me conclude by Edward Bernay's quote from Propoganda,

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. ......... ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”

So let our heart and mind be the "government" controlling our actions.

-Dhanashree

You missed it man!

Oh man, you missed it. It was awesome. You should have come. We all enjoyed " statements like these represent this age, this generation. I am sure all of us hear something like this on a regular basis. We are all plagued by the FOMO epidemic. FOMO stands for Fear of Missing Out. It's like if you go to a movie, you will miss a party. If you go to parents meeting, you might miss out on some concert at the same time.

Let's come to the very basics. Why do you choose to do one thing over the other? That is because in your opinion, the thing you chose to do is more important, holds more priority.

Let's take a small example. You decide to take care of your sick grandma and miss a music concert that you booked tickets for. Your friend tells you "Hey D, you missed it! " What your friend says is totally true, you missed the concert. But think further , what did you miss it for? You missed it for your dear grandma. How much is your grandma important to you? Is she more important than the concert? In this case, your answer will be yes since you chose to be with your grandma . As one person cannot be at two places at the same time, you stayed with grandma and missed the concert. In any case, you would have had to make a choice.

This is the basic stuff. Life presents us with many choices at any given point. It is up to us whether we choose to be home, in university, in office, care for our loved one, watch movie or travel. The choices we make have their own consequences. Any choice will have its own "opportunity cost"-the cost incurred by not enjoying the benefit that would have been had by taking the second best available choice. No matter what alternative you choose, you will have opportunity cost.

So what do you do in the "FOMO" era? First , set your priorities right. Be aware that you cannot have it all. Be aware that all what is said about "you missed out" is sometimes said more to make you feel miserable than anything else. Never ever set your eyes off your goal, no matter what. Let your mind not be manipulated by FOMO feelings.

Remember that a person who is seen vacationing on Facebook might have a sick mom at home who wouldn't be seen on Facebook. He too has the opportunity cost of not being with his mom. Whether he chose to vacation or was forced to travel for work we don't know. Hence do not judge people by their social media appearances. Let's get back to school and remember " All that glitters is not gold" .