Piggybacking on brand Success

If you talk to almost any average 'educated' person of this generation, and ask them if they want to 'succeed' in life, they will reply in the affirmitive. Have you met any person who has vociferously declared that he wants to fail in life? I hope not! The definition of success can take on one or a combination of several dimensions including but not limited to money, fame, power, and recognition. Its another matter that most people tend to confuse success to be synonymous with making money, so much so that they start declaring that their goal in life is not to succeed but to make money in life and lots of it. The first question is a no-brainer.

The second question is more difficult. Ask them how they plan to 'succeed' in life. It is not uncommon then to notice that 9/10 people do not know the answer to that since they have not yet succeeded in defining the meaning of the word 'Success' for themselves. Since many people fail in this first step, they then make the mistake of borrowing their neighbour's definition. And what do you know, that neighbour/peer probably borrowed that definition from his Uncle or whoever was an influential person in his life.

What is the point of the above paragraph. Simply that without discovering what success means to you, you will not be able to decide how to go about achieving it. The next step is predictable. The society at large has set accepted standards of defining success. As a school kid, good grades are synonymous with success. Why? But of course because it allows you to secure admission into a 'prestigious' college. From there, you use the brand name of your college to get into a 'reputed' employer. And the buck doesn't stop there. If this employer is big enough that it employs thousands of people which it usually is if it is already reputed, then the company possibly defines the guidelines to 'succeed' in the company which becomes every incumbent's mantra of success within the company. I call these the piggybacks of Brand success. A college earned its reputation because it possibly did some or many things right. By securing admission into that college, you have already been branded 'successful/or high potential to succeed' even before you start the first day of college. After that its just a rite of passage and onto the next 'successful' institution. The process continues.

Lets face it, why does every potential MBA candidate dream of a seat in the IIMs? I myself am no graduate of the IIMs, but how does 2 years spent in that institution result in such a profound change of the individual that he now qualifies from a 3-4 Lakh pa job to a 25+ Lakh pa job? The answer to that is again a no-brainer. It absolutely does not. It is a classic case of piggybacking on brand Success again.

It cannot be argued that the society approved paths of success more or less guarantee you to the portals of mediocrity and a reasonably good standard of living by assuring you of a good income. Does it open up the true portals of success. I think not. Maybe a guy who passed out of a mediocre MBA institute (or even better, without any MBA) and fought his way up the ladder in a organisation through his hard work and capabilities shows a greater capacity to achieve something big in his life than an equivalent candidate who earned his ticket to the same position by virtue of his Harvard MBA degree and not much else.

How many speakers that feature on TED talks are people who took the proven path? Work out the numbers for yourself.

Does this imply the obvious? Be a radical, revolutionary, or maverick who does not follow the norms and conventions of society. A corny example of the protagonist of Avatar comes to my mind at this juncture. When questioned by the Na'avi chief, he replies - 'Believe me, my plate is completely empty. ' Guess who went on to win the war for the Na'avis. Sometimes, an empty plate helps to pile on surprisingly fresh and enlightening perspectives rather than a plate filled with 'proven' second hand perspectives.

Disclaimer - As the author of this post, I don't claim to be a maverick myself but simply ask the questions that might help lead to the right answers.

The Logic of (Boolean) Philosophy

Ah, I get to talk about two things I like talking about in the same article. For the first (Boolean Logic), that is where I happen to spend most of my working life; formerly as a "Platform-Architect" and now as a Research Assistant in Computer Architecture. For the latter, I have a certain retinue of follower(s) (held under knife point) to whom I preach my philosophy.

Most people seem to think that philosophy is something lofty and unreachable. Others cast it away as unnecessary for day to day survival and completely disregard it. But I choose to argue otherwise. In my humble opinion, philosophy is just a way of life. Everybody has some principles and rules that they either voluntarily or involuntarily subscribe to. This is the very definition of being faithful to one's philosophy. One's philosophy is largely molded as a consequence of his upbringing, the society he lives in and the incidents which touch his life. In this sense, it is a continuously morphing living entity that lives as long as the person lives. Liken it to one's soul or whatever.

My philosophy subscribes to the principles of Boolean Maths. The rules to play the game are very simple. There are only two possibilities to any question or problem - yes or no, right or wrong, true or false. There are no in-betweens. Only black and white, no shades of grey. How can something as complicated as life be so simplistic?

My belief is that with regards to anything that you are doing, you must have made up your mind about whether you want to do it or not. If you don't want to do it, stop doing it. If there is a period when you have not yet made up your mind, that means that you are in the decision making process. This means that you are gathering all the data and parameters necessary to make the decision. In the meanwhile, you may choose to hazard a decision and proceed down a path in advance but you will have to retrace your steps if you find that you mis-predicted. In the world of computer architecture, this is known as speculation and branch prediction. :) The problem with speculation is that you often end up predicting based on history or the common case. While this is good in the field of processors, in life, it is not. It means that you are in danger of being stereotyped and leading the commoners life. Moreover, you cannot go on indefinitely speculating without arriving at a conclusion. Figuring out at a very late stage that your prediction is wrong is okay, (better late than sorry right?), but the question is whether you find the courage and self belief to retrace all the way back and start over again? Most people don't have that courage. They would rather carry down a path that they do not prefer just because they are cozy and familiar with it rather than risk changing their path and fail.

Another important thing that we often forget is that the process of decision making must be an objective process. While inputs may and should include concrete facts and figures, it must not involve spurious parameters like others' opinions, popular voice etc. In this respect, the decision made must be completely your own. In the worst case if you made the wrong choice, at least you have only yourself to blame. You have the solace of knowing the decision was ultimately yours. You end up learning a lot in the process of making the wrong choice which made a better person overall (certainly richer mentally if not monetarily). If you made a second hand choice based on third party advice, whom will you blame later on for screwing up your life? Since nobody cares about you more than yourself, you are the best judge of the situation

Lastly, one man's "right" need not necessarily map to the next man's "right". Ultimately, everyone's philosophy is different. That is why, philosophy is not an exact science though I liken it to Boolean Arithmetic. So choose wisely and happy living!

Coming up... (Which side are you on?)