Never Say Die!

A few days back, I read the book "Its Not About The Bike", the autobiography of Lance Armstrong.



















For the uninitiated, Lance Armstrong is an American cyclist who won the Tour De France record 7 times in a row. When you consider that the race spans over the length and breadth of France, spanning more than 3000 grueling kilometers, in all kinds of weather and across all kinds of terrain, you'd feel that it's a great achievement indeed.
Now, just consider this.
Lance Armstrong achieved this feat after he had recovered a from a rare form of testicular cancer, where the doctors had given him just a 40% chance of survival(realistically speaking it was lesser than 2%).

The question that I had in my mind was, "What makes some people tick?"

It was the endless support given to him by his friends, coaches, agents, doctors and his sponsors during the times of his illness and recovery, that probably helped him rebuild his career.
Post tumor recovery, it was the much needed perspective about life that his wife gave him, otherwise he was well on course to a life of decadence to be just another person; forgotten forever.
His self belief was reinforced by his mother and nurse, who were always with him to give him confidence that he was capable of recovering from his illness.
I guess without them, he wouldn't have achieve all the glory that he did.

And since Tour De France is a team event, no victory would be possible without a great team effort. One interesting fact that I learnt from the book was about a typical team composition.
At the beginning of the race, one or two riders in a team would be designated as the lead riders, the ones who were most likely to win. And the rest, are chosen as workers around them. Together they form a peloton, shielding the lead riders from the wind and also from riders of the other teams.
So many riders perform a selfless job for the team, knowing fully well that they are not here for individual glory, but to win as a team.

In my opinion the biggest factor that made him tick was his Determination.
A lot of it came from his mother, who used to tell him, "You never ever Quit. You just go through it." even in the most adverse of situations.

I guess this was the biggest learning for me from the book.

In life, how many times do we give up on our dreams and our aspirations even before we have made an honest attempt?
How many times we choose to settle for something that we don't deserve just because we are not determined enough to get what we want?
How many times we run away from taking up a challenge, just because we fear the ghosts that haunt us if we fail?
How many times do we take a safer option, just because we are not prepared to endure the pain and difficulties that might arise in overcoming our challenges?

Once I read this, "If you think you can, then you can. If you think you can't,then you probably are right."

Most of the time, its the boundary that we set in our minds that makes us think we are not capable of doing something that we consider difficult.
There's no better satisfaction that proving everyone wrong about one's own capabilities. Somewhere in some corner of our mind, there's that cynic who creates that doubt about our own self belief. Why not start off with proving him wrong?
And once we've done that, the naysayers around us are automatically taken care of.

In essence, we should never forget that old proverb that we learnt in school, "Where there is a will, there is a way."

This was the first book that I have read in the last 10 years or so. There was this compelling urge to buy this book when I saw it on the shelf of a book store. A totally unintended buy, but it was more than worth it.
And if you wanted to know if I liked the book, and if it made a difference, I'd say that I am planning to buy the book, "Every Second Counts", an extension to this autobiography.

How things Work(Part II)

This is a story that I happened to read somewhere a few years ago. After seeing a lot of things happening around, I thought of sharing this story with all of you.
And in the process, I wanted to have some fun. So I modified the story accordingly.
So, here it goes.

Eight monkeys working in a large company were sent a mail and asked to go and assemble in the big board room. They were told to sit around a big circular table.
All of these monkeys were waiting in eager anticipation and wondering, "Next is What?"

All of a sudden, the light bulbs dimmed. A frenzy of laser lights flashed all over the room, giving the idea of a major product launch.
Just after that, a spotlight focused on the ceiling, right in the center of the room. There was this big bunch of ripe bananas suspended from the ceiling.
Monkeys, being monkeys were very keen to eat them. But they were clueless about how to reach the top and get them.

One of the monkeys was bold enough to climb up the table. It jumped as hard as it could, but only managed to touch the bunch with its fingertip. It tried again, and this time it caught one banana with its hand. And just when it was about to pull it down, a shower popped down from the ceiling and sprayed ice cold water on its face.
It quickly retreated back to its seat.

A second monkey took a few chairs from the room, stacked them one above the other on the table and climbed up. Now the bunch of bananas was within this monkey's arm reach. No sooner did the monkey draw out its hand towards the bananas, there was a loud thud. It turned out that this monkey was on the floor, apparently taken down by a football which was thrown from some dark corner of the room.
This second monkey also was smart enough to quietly get back to its seat.

A third one, which was a quiet spectator all the while, tried to play it smart. It found a thin wire in the corner of the room, from which it made a lasso. It threw the lasso around the bunch of bananas and tightened the noose around. The moment it gave the wire a tug, it was zapped by an electric shock.
It quickly gave up, after having such a hair raising experience.

Each of the monkeys tried to get to the bunch of bananas. Some tried it individually, and some tried it as a team. But all their attempts failed miserably. In doing so, one of them had its face sprayed with ice water, while one had its tail burnt.
Soon, all the monkeys realized that the bananas were not meant to be eaten.
And they all stopped trying.

Well, that was the story. And now if you were wondering what's the big deal about it, just give this a thought.

"Isn't this how Company Policy evolves?"

Aren't we all like monkeys who are shown bananas which are tied up in an unreachable place?
There's so much hype built up around it that we actually look forward to get them.
And when we try to get them in any way which we can, we are thrown more and more bizarre policies at us.
And ultimately, most of us just give up.

"Don't you think so?"