Cutting Edge.

Long Time. Sometimes, I get so busy that I dont even know what I'm so busy doing. But the fear of what if am busy with the wrong things always scares me. Few things are as disappointing as investing all your time, energy and potential climbing a mountain only to find-once at the top-that you climbed the wrong one. So I am getting back to the business of thinking and reflecting to ensure I am on the right mountain. There's something about being thoughtful and strategic that I love. You can keep things clear and simple. And clarity and simplicity precedes SUCCESS. I will get back to the caps-on word.

That apart, having a lovely time watching around, thinking around, strategizing to pinch someone, sleeping more, taking things to the next level etc.

Speaking business,
I was thinking about Sachin Tendulkar. I was thinking about Ricky Ponting. I was thinking about my Federer and was also thinking about Nadal. Likewise, about Nani Palkhivala and Harish Salve. And I am so confused.

Times are changing honey,
The Search for Excellence that once fired the imagination of the best and the most gifted among us has been edged out. What we now celebrate is the Search for Success, that amazing spirit which powers the dreams of soldiers of fortune, gold diggers and carpetbaggers. The other day, when I was in Gangarams digging for books, well thats one place am found if am not found anywhere else. Long hours, dissecting something in Gangarams, M.G.Road. I was however disheartened to see the shop stacked with books that teach you only to win. Winning is not just everything, they warn you, winning is all. If you don’t win, everything is in vain. What you have learnt. What you practise. What you strive for. They add up to nothing unless you win. Winning is no more a process. It’s the goal, the only goal. You can lead a race all the way but if you don’t breast the tape before the rest, you don’t even count for a footnote. Excellence, on the other hand, is what you spend a lifetime seeking. It’s an art form, a faith. It teaches you to align yourself with the best. While success teaches you that you get only one shot at winning. Blow it, you’re gone.

The distinction between the two is clear. Yet we are all confused. Excellence and success are treated as synonyms today. We forget that the winner is not always excellent. We also forget that excellence doesn’t always ensure a win.

I probably grew up listening to my mom's words that if I played my game really well, there was no need to fear defeat anywhere. Never has she told, go win your life. The focus was and is always on the process when it has got something to do with me, not the end.

But today, everything is a gladiator sport. Sachin is an artist of his game. Ponting is a statistics hunter. Style defines Federer, the sportsman. Winning or losing was part of the game. In fact, they were even taught how to lose well. After all, there were always more people rooting for the losers. The underdog was the hero. The cocky winner, today’s role model, was everyone’s pet hate.
That’s changed now. The winner is a hero today. The only hero. The word loser is loaded with shame. It symbolises not someone shouldering the heroism of loss but the ignominy of defeat. A batsman returning to pavilion with 99 rarely gets a spirited applause. There’s only space for one team on the field after the game, the winners. Even if that victory is but by a whisker, the losers go out shamed. As if they have let everyone down. Even where a win is merely the outcome of a popular poll, in all probability fixed, the winner takes it all. There’s instant amnesia about the other participants. The winner too is only remembered till the next season when another winner steps in and grabs the limelight. We forget past winners so easily that they even forget they were once winners.

We are slowly forgetting that a world without losers can be dreadfully boring. Strutting, boastful winners are not easy to live with. Look at our bollywood stars. They buy fame overnight and project themselves as a success. Look at the SC verdict in the Ambani gas row. The excellent businessmen all lining up to win. Look at Dhirubhai and Nusli Wadia. Look at Dr.Devi Shetty and any road end clinic-doctor. Look at Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

The Search for Success leaves the streets littered with corpses. Teen suicides, homicides, financial scams, white collar crimes, family break ups are the tragic consequences of the winner takes it all worldview. The pressures around us are too scary. No one’s allowed not to win. By making defeat so ignominious, we are forcing losers to lose sight of life. Courage, heroism, dignity in defeat, the power to learn from one’s mistakes are the ingredients in the making of a real man. Not quick fixes in the hope of victory. Not shady deals in the hope instant inflated accounts.

I wanna be an excellent employee, an excellent son, an excellent husband, an excellent father, an excellent friend, an excellent citizen, an excellent all..and an excellent death in the end.
SUCCESS? History is only sweet to the excellent. Never the successful.

Simple,
Jd.