HOW COME NO ONE TOLD ME THAT? Life Lessons, Practical Advice, and timeless Wisdom for Success

MMA‐KAS held an online discussion on the theme of the book, “How Come No One Told Me That? Life Lessons, Practical Advice and Timeless Wisdom for Success," authored by Mr Prakash Iyer, Author, Motivational Speaker & Leadership Coach

Even though we learn a lot from schools and colleges, there are many life lessons that we can pick up along the way interacting with our friends, colleagues and many others that we come across, ” said Mr Prakash Iyer, while sharing some of the insights covered in his book.

We always worry about what others will think when we try to do something. But others are fully occupied with their own work that they may not even notice what we do. Many of us compromise our own strengths, so that we look good to others. We try to do many things because others do that. What others do, may not be the right option for us. We need to ask: Will this option work for me?

A startup may be created with long-term or short-term objectives in mind. Even if it is intended for short-term, the fundamental values on which the business is created should not be compromised. A long-term today is a series of short-term efforts.

Need for Agility in Business

Big businesses have realised that they do not have the speed and agility which the startups have. Eric Yuan, the founder of Zoom, while working for WebEx (which was acquired by Cisco) proposed a mobile phone-friendly video conferencing app but it was rejected by Cisco. Eric Yuan left the company and started Zoom and became a billionaire.

Letting Go

We may have a toaster that we have not used for several years. If someone asks for it, we may be reluctant to part with it and try to find a use for the toaster. The question is: Do we really need it or have we found a use for the toaster because someone is asking for it. We need to develop the attitude of ‘Letting go.

Alteration Tailor

If a dress does not fit us perfectly, we give it to a tailor to alter it by making some small changes so that it becomes a right fit. Extending this analogy to life, we all have some areas for improvement. Like an alteration tailor, a coach, colleague or mentor can suggest to us the small changes that we need to make in us, so that we become very effective.

Drawbacks of Plan B

When we have many options available to us, it is likely that the best may not come out of us. For instance, if we have Plan A and Plan B, we try Plan A first, with the assurance that if Plan A fails, there is always Plan B to fall back upon. If there is no Plan B, then we will put 100% commitment towards Plan A and there are high chances that we will succeed in this attempt. People who are rich and comfortable in life may have many options, with the result that they may not try one thing with focus. Whereas those who are poor do not have choices. They work with single-mindedness and succeed.

The Short Clock

In basketball, in earlier days, if one team scored a shot, they would try to hold on to it just by dribbling the ball and wasting the time. This made the game very boring, until a new rule of ‘short clock’ was introduced. As per this new rule, within 22 seconds of scoring a shot, the team must aim for the next shot. This tells us that we should not sit back on our past achievements. We should keep on moving in life towards higher goals.

Quality vs. Quantity

We are always told that quality matters more than quantity. We need to challenge all such statements. In a pottery class, a professor divided the students into two batches. One batch would be graded based on their quality of output and the other based on their quantity of output. It turned out that the latter batch produced exquisite quality of pots than the other batch. The ‘quality’ batch was so fixated with quality that they tried to make very few pots. But the ‘quantity’ batch made many pots and by trial and error, they arrived at better quality of pots too. The moral is: Just keep doing. As you do, you will get better and better at it.

Enjoy the Ride

Enjoy the journey as you move towards a destination. When we go on a tiger safari, we may not see a tiger at all but on the way, we might have come across many animals like deer and rhino. Without enjoying them, we may just worry about not spotting a tiger, thus spoiling the experience of a tiger safari.

Stupidity, not Malice

Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity or ignorance. We may buy 12 bananas and come back home with 11. It could be because the vendor made an intentional slip. Instead, we start blaming the vendor for cheating and even try to avoid the market where he operates from.

As per this new rule, within 22 seconds of scoring a shot, the team must aim for the next shot. This tells us that we should not sit back on our past achievements.