We all want to become successful. But how do you define success? To most of us success means becoming rich and famous. But wealth and fame are just few of the symbols of success. Whether you become rich and/or famous is not in your hands. This is not under your control. What is under your control is being able to do the best that you can or the best that you are capable of doing. To me success means that you have fully exploited your potential by tapping all your God given talent and capabilities including the hidden ones. In other words, you have achieved the best that you are capable of achieving.
According to my experience, there are two things that hold us back from becoming successful. First, we do not use or take advantage of the capabilities that we know we have. For a variety of reasons, we do not accept responsibility voluntarily and fail to use our capabilities to achieve success. (Discuss meeting scenario.)
Second, we actually do not know what all we are really capable of doing and as such we do not use our hidden or latent capabilities to our advantage. A human being is like an application software like Microsoft Word. Majority of us do not know what all a software like Microsoft Word is capable of. Most of us just use Microsoft Word for simply writing letters and memos whereas the software is capable of doing a lot more. For example, it can do a mail merge. We take the easy way out. We do not even try to find out what all the software can do for us. Similarly, most of us do not know what all we are capable of. There is latent or hidden talent in all of us just waiting to be exploited. However, we are not able to exploit our hidden talent.
My experience suggests that what differentiates successful people from the unsuccessful ones are just four words, that is, “I will do it.” The more you say “I will do it,” the more you will be successful. The more you say “I will do it,” the more you will learn. The more you say “I will do it,” the more you will learn what you are capable of. You will be surprised to find out what your hidden capabilities are as I was.
Let me explain what the four words “I will do it” can do for you with examples from my own life.
In 1984, I went to University of Houston, Houston, USA to study hotel management. As part of my degree, I had to take a software course. Now in 1984, not many people knew much about computers in India and I was no exception. So on the advice of my college academic advisor, I signed up for PL1 software programming as part of my degree requirement.
Taking the course turned out to be a big mistake for a number of reasons as I found out later. First, it was not a popular language and certainly not suitable for beginners like me. I should have actually signed up for Cobol software programming. Second, all the students in the class, except for a Pakistani student, were computer science majors and in their last semester. After doing all the different computer languages courses, these students thought why not also do PL1 programming. On top of this, the professor was a visiting professor from an oil company called Texaco. You can make out how unpopular this language was from the fact that the university didn’t have a full time professor to teach this software language.
If you think this was the end of my troubles you are mistaken. With two beginners and the rest of class filled with final semester computer science students, how do you think the professor would teach the course? You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out. He started teaching the course as if he was teaching final year computer science students.
I knew that I was in trouble. I could have dropped the course but somehow that didn’t seem like a good idea. It also meant giving up without trying. So I said to myself, “I will do it.”
The course was tough. On top of that the professor was not available for consultation as he was a working executive. Also, none of the teaching assistants in computer labs on the campus knew this language. Anyway, worked hard and I passed the course with Grade B.
Now I thank God that I didn’t drop the course and had the courage to say to myself “I will do it.” But the course was a tremendous learning experience for me. Can you imagine the first software program I wrote, I had to call sub-programs into my program. You don’t get to do this in your first software programming course. Also, this professor’s exams were just fantastic. They were very challenging. Till date, I have taken just one course in software programming but let me give you a couple of examples of what it did to my capability and understanding of software programming. Knowledge of software programming helped me in my career. It continues to help me even now when I am running my own business.
After I finished my MBA at the University of Illinois in 1988, I joined a subsidiary of Caterpillar in Peoria, Illinois. The company’s distributors in Canada wanted that they should get their invoices in Canadian dollars. When I approached our MIS department, they said it will cost an arm and a leg and that it will take quite some time to complete the project. They also told me that they were so bogged down with work that they didn’t have the time to carry out the project in the near future. Now I was in trouble. Improving the sales to the Canadian dealers was my responsibility. Whatever I had learned in my one and only software programming course somehow gave me a feeling that this project should not take as much time and money that our MIS department was suggesting. I didn’t think that this small change should be such a big deal as all we wanted was an invoice printed in Canadian dollars instead of US dollars.
Using whatever knowledge I had gained in my one and only software programming course, I came up with an easy solution that would take not more than 10 minutes of programming. My solution just required changing the print statement. Everybody was impressed with my simple cost effective solution. They could not believe that a person who had no experience in software programming could come up with a simple cost effective programming solution. Even I was impressed with myself. Why? Because even the computer language in which our company’s software was written in a different language than PL1 language. Everybody in the company started looking at me with respect.
I had a couple of other opportunities to say “I will do it” related to software while I was working for this company. I was also asked if I could take on a project to find out whether the company was using all the features of an service management application software called “Fieldwatch” in the best manner or not. I could have easily refused to accept the assignment saying that I had no experience in softwares. But I, a one-computer-course graduate, was smart enough to say “I will do it.” Why was I smart to say, “I will do it?” Because it helped me to understand how application softwares worked.
I accepted the assignment and set-up the software on a separate server and tested the same. I tried various ways to use the software as well as entered the data in different manner to see what the end result would be. I finally knew more about the software than some of people in the company that developed it. I realized a very important thing about applications software, that is, the way you enter the information in the beginning would make a lot of difference in the way you would get the end results as well as how you would be able to analyze the data. I was able to tell the company how best to use the software. This experience taught me how most of the application softwares with different modules worked.
All this experience has given me tremendous confidence in the understanding of softwares and what they can or cannot do. This knowledge comes in handy even now while running my advertising and web designing business.
But why an I talking about this to you. Well I think there a number of lessons to learn from this experience.
One, I think when we stretch ourselves by saying “I will do it” and do something a little beyond what we think our capabilities are, we always benefit. Also, when we do something extra, we always benefit from it. I could have dropped the computer course and taken the easy way out but didn’t and benefited from it. What were the benefits? I expanded my capabilities. I learnt how softwares worked which is very important in the current business environment. I was able to solve an important problem of billing and saved costs for the company. Also, I gained respect of my colleagues and seniors in the organization that I worked for.
Let me give you of another example. Sometime back, I was conducting a program on “values” in a software company. An interesting story was told to me about one of the participants in the seminar. The company had received a project for which a particular software programming capability was required. The company didn’t have anyone who knew the software language required to complete the project. So the management asked all its employees if anyone would be interested in first learning the language and then completing the project. Now whoever accepted the assignment knew that he would have to work hard, work late and read thick books. Now we are all smart people. Why would any one of us be so stupid as to say, “Yes, I will do it.” So no one raised their hand except one who said, “I will do it.” Now this guy learnt a new language and completed the project. Of course, he ended doing a lot of extra hard work. But, imagine the benefits he received by saying “I will do it.”
(a) He became the only guy in the company to know the software. Do you think his value to the company increased? I am certain it did.
(b) He became well-known in the company and gained the respect of his seniors and colleagues.
(c) His self-esteem and confidence went up.
(d) Would he have gained financially? I am certain that he will gain from this experience. If not today, then in the future.
(e) Can he use this success story to get better jobs? Certainly.
Today, I have been able to write five books, develop management case studies, write advertisement copy and even run a management blog because long time back I said “I will do it.” I have even achieved a little fame because of my books because I said “I will do it.”
The company that I was working in US asked me to come out with a newsletter. Now I had never developed a newsletter. I was not a writer or a creative person. However, the project sounded interesting and I said “I will do it.” You will not believe this but I ultimately developed the creative concept, came up with the name of the newsletter and even ended up writing all the articles. Everybody appreciated the work. I learnt a lot. I learnt that I am a pretty creative person. I developed the confidence to write. And the most important thing that I acquired from this experience was a very valuable tip on how to write good English. This tip was given to me by the lady who reviewed my articles for the newsletter. She told me, “If a sentence can be broken, break it.” You will not find this tip / suggestion in any book. Strictly following this rule has made me a better writer.
So according to me, all you need to say to succeed is, “I will do it.”
I want to take this opportunity to suggest that we need to distinguish between saying “I will do it” in adverse conditions versus normal conditions. I can give you examples of a number of people who have said “I will do it” in adverse conditions and come out with flying colors. They have achieved success, wealth and fame. Adverse conditions put tremendous pressure on you to say “I will do it” as there are not many viable alternatives. However, what I am talking about is saying “I will do it” not only in adverse conditions but saying it everyday under normal conditions.
You will learn something new whenever you say “I will do it.” You will learn what your real capabilities are whenever you say “I will do it.” Your hidden talent will come out whenever you say when you say “I will do it.” You will stretch your capabilities and achieve something extraordinary whenever you say “I will do it.” You will accomplish more whenever you say “I will do it.” Your chances of achieving success and even acquiring wealth and fame will increase when you say “I will do it.”
I have often been told that sometimes when you say “I will do it,” you will also fail. So what? I believe that even when you fail in an assignment, you will still learn from the experience. When you fail, you learn what not to do next time. When you succeed, you learn what to do next time. So don’t worry about failing when you say “I will do it.” Just say “I will do it” and you will be surprised as to what you can achieve.
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