Importance of Story Telling

A person can have the greatest idea in the world - completely different & novel - but if that person can't convince enough other people, it doesn't matter - Gregory Berns


Steve Jobs once said that the future belonged to the great story tellers - The story tellers set the vision, values and agenda for an entire generation that is to come. To me the greatest achievement of a Mahatma Gandhi or a Nelson Mandela was just this! The story that they sold to an entire generation. A story that would have been ridiculed by many... A story that a majority would have thought was just not possible... A story that would take years to take shape. Yet, the greatness of these two story tellers was to plant this seed of thought that united their respective nations to dream of something that was unthinkable.


There were many freedom fighters who took part in the freedom struggle that lasted close to 100 years before India finally gained independence and it would not be right to say that one mans contribution was more than the others - for each one of them played a very important role at various stages. However, no leader could bring the masses together the way Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi did! To me, it was his ability to connect with the masses and influence their thought process through his story telling that was his greatest contribution.

There are two aspects to story telling - One is the story that we tell the others and the other is the story that we constantly keep telling ourselves. The latter is as important, if not more. For, it is this story that helps us sail through the hard times. What is the story that Steve Jobs would have told himself when he was thrown out of the very company that he founded? What was the story that Arunima Sinha told herself when she was thrown out a moving train and 49 trains passed over her train through the night? Did they feel sorry for themselves? Did they accept it as their destiny? Did they curse those who were responsible for it and give up?

May be what separates such great achievers and the others is the stories that they constantly keep telling themselves. I find it most intriguing that Arunima Sinha - while at the hospital bed having lost her leg was thinking of how to scale the Everest! Any other person in her place would have taken close to two years just to come to terms with what had happened, may be few more months to start walking at a normal pace. But Arunima scaled the Everest in 13 months and she is not done yet. And as I write this piece, Arunima conquers Mount Aconcagua in Argentina!

Arunima's journey started when she planted an impossible thought in her mind - which was to scale the Everest! At times, when we set ourselves such goals, the very thought of it is so overwhelming that we end up in giving up those goals. It is in the pursuit of such dreams that the stories keep us going. I would like to reach that stage in my life when I can tell myself the same kind of stories that motivate me regardless of the situation I am in.

When we reach that stage - there is no goal that cannot be achieved.

So what makes one a great story teller? Is it the content? Is it the language? Is it the conviction? What are the aspects needed to become a great story teller? When you tell a story to your employees, how do they receive it? Are we all not in the business of selling stories - Teacher to a student, Employer to an employee, Team lead to a colleague, sales person to a prospect. It is the story telling and the stories that will help each one of us scale greater heights! 

Modern political supporters - Low on understanding, High on emotions!

I have been guilty of the same and after much deliberation realized that I was no different from those on the other side of the ideology. Both the sides choose to highlight the negatives and worse, look for negatives even in a news that is positive. Both sides look for flaws where none exist. Both sides blame the other side without realizing that they are pretty much the same.

I see people posting about how supporters of BJP (Bhakts) are aggressive and often blinded by their bhakti towards the individual, Narenda Modi and cannot see things for what they are. How different are the AAP supporters themselves who stand behind an individual and blindly follow their leader. The former is blind, while the latter, they think is for good reason. 

Most of the posts clearly suggest that people on both the sides are naive and have no understanding of what is going on. We live in a world that does not care about anything beyond the headline and yet we blame those who seek to be in them. 

We neither have the inclination nor the time to analyze but are the first ones to jump to a conclusion and to deride the other person. 

In the week gone by, our 65 year old Prime Minister traveled Malaysia and Singapore. Attended the parliament session the very next day and made a very impressive and important speech. This was followed by a very important trip to Paris (Nov 30 - Dec 01) and he was back in the Parliament after a long and strenuous trip the very day he landed in New Delhi. I cannot think of any other political leader who is as hard working and as passionate as Mr Narendra Modi is and yet to some, all that they could see was a person who was making international trips. 

None of these voices were concerned when people were making these international trips with an entourage that included family/friends but one man who is hell bent on improving the image of the country and goes to one country after the other to sell the idea of India is a concern.  

An insignificant member of the party makes a controversial statement and that becomes the voice of the party but a voice of Arun Jaitley who makes a statement to throw his weight behind LGBT rights gets no mention either in the mainstream media or the social media. 

If my memory serves me correct, the attacks on our former prime minister started before the elections, and I think it was not right. Fast forward a few months, our current Prime Minister has been in the situation from the day he has taken oath. I don't think any other politician in our country has been so closely monitored as Mr Modi and yet, if the only allegations against him to surface are that he travels a lot, does not reign in some of his leaders and wears expensive clothes, I think he is doing a great job. 

Lastly, I wish people learnt to distinguish between criticizing an individual and criticizing the country. Feel free to criticize the PM and his party but not at the expense of shaming our nation! 

Iss Inflation ne acche accho ki phaad di!!!

The supporters of our very respected Prime Minister, Shri Manmohan Singh claim that though he does not have the charisma of a politician, he is a great economist and a man with great integrity. Look at the irony of the situation today, we have the biggest of the scams happening under his rule and looking at the inflation curve above, we can clearly see that it has been going skywards ever since the Congress came into power.

Instead of cleaning up the mess and controlling the damage, the new Telecom Minister, Kapil Sibal now blames the CAG for the leak and makes an audacious remark that there was no loss to the ex-chequer of this country. Where did the figure of 1,76,000 crore come from then and if there was indeed no loss to the country then why was the sincere and humble Mr A.Raja made a scapegoat.

Tennis at its Best!

Tennis


It was perhaps one of the best matches on grass in the recent years, reminiscent of the matches between the other two giants of Tennis, pistol Pete and Andre Agassi.

Tennis over the years had become very boring, with no one being able to offer any resistance to Federer, and the games being so one sided. Finally, we have a player who just doesn't have the potential to compete with the champ, but perhaps to beat him in his own backyard.

Watching the French Open final, when Nadal defeated Fedex, I was wondering if he would be able to do it on the Grass court, if there would be any competition at all, but boy did he play out of his skin and matched the champ till the very end.

The Intensity was very much apparent, and the kind of passing shots that kept coming from both the players, the volleys, the drop shots, this is what you pay to watch tennis.

In the recent years, we have seen other promising players like Roddick, Hewitt and a couple of others, throwing in the towel, even before the end of the first set and surrendering to the champ and not even making him sweat to win the Championship.

Rafa the Tarzan like boy, who is just 21 years old, and has already proved his mettle on Clay, perhaps one of the greatest of all time to play on the slower surface, is fast emerging as a very complete player, some one who now has all the shots to compete with the very best on all the surfaces.
This promises us a great year ahead, Now we can look forward to watch the Australian Open, the US Open and hope to see some hard fought matches as against tournaments where even before the beginning you knew who the winner was.

One can just wonder how the game would have been, had these two magnificent players played along side the other greats in the 90's, how amazing it would have been to watch a Federer taking on Sampras, Rafa taking on Agassi.

Dont know about the trophies and the Records, but the game surely would have gone to a completely different level. Dream on!! i hear that..