It's Rishi

Recently, I watched James Lipton’s interview of Dave Chappelle on Inside the Actors Studio. It was great to learn more about Chappelle’s story and his attitudes towards life and Hollywood. While he didn’t go into a lot of detail about why he disappeared from the Chappelle Show and spent time in Africa, he did make a comment in reaction to those in the media that had said he had gone “crazy”:

The worst thing to call somebody is crazy. It’s dismissive. I don’t understand this person so they’re crazy. That’s bullshit.

The fact is that most people, including myself, are usually quick to judge others when they think or act in a way that’s not inline with our own expectations or rationales. Instead of taking the time to understand the other person, we often just label them as crazy and continue on our ignorant way.

This reminds me of a quote from Dale Carnegie in How to Win Friends and Influence People (read my review):

Instead of condemning people, let’s try to understand them. Let’s try to figure out why they do what they do. That’s a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness.

Carnegie is emphasizing that it’s easy to condemn people who you don’t agree with. However, by doing so, you miss out on an opportunity to improve your own self.

Even in the business world, I often say things in my mind like “Wow, that investor is crazy to invest in that startup.” or “CEO X is crazy for making that decision.” The reality is that in both cases, the CEO and the investor likely had arrived at their respective decisions only after it was justified by the result of an exhaustive analysis.

It is absolutely true that on the occasions when I’ve sat and thought further about someone’s decision that I initially thought to be crazy, the process of performing this analysis often broadens my own perspective. In fact, often times I realize that my initial reaction was influenced more by my emotion rather than logic. Sort of like this: “They did what?! Are they insane?! …. Hmmmm, I think I might understand why they did that.” Sometimes I change my mind and agree with the other person, other times not. No matter what though, I have a more complete comprehension of the situation having taken the time to understand the other person’s view.

As Carnegie also states, “Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – most fools do.” So next time you are about to call someone crazy, don’t be a fool. Stop and try to assess the situation from the other person’s view. I bet you’ll walk away a better person for doing so.

So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and covservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man, than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes froms our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.

– Christoper McCandless (click on the link and you’ll see that this man truly lived his words)

When I first heard that Michelle Kwan was officially withdrawing from the Olympic games, like most people I know, I was saddened by the news. I’m not going to even pretend like I understand what she’s feeling, but after learning more about her life and career, I really feel I’ve been engrained with a profound lesson from her story:

Everybody’s got dreams. They motivate us to try harder and inspire us to think bigger. Most people describe their dream in terms of a position or an award. Win a Super Bowl. Be CEO. Marry a supermodel. Be filthy rich. But if you think that you’ll only be happy if you achieve that dream, then you’re setting yourself up for major disappointment in the future. The reality is, most of us will not ever achieve our dreams. Let’s face it. There’s only a couple dozen Super Bowl rings given out every year, only 1 CEO per company and only 1 gold medal (per sport) every 4 years. Whether we fail to reach our dreams because of our own doing or because of factors beyond our control, the fact is that we have a very, very slim chance. It doesn’t have much to do with whether we’re worthy of it, it’s basically just probability.

Why do we place so much importance on these dreams? I think it’s because we associate dreams with immense happiness. Well, does your life so far support this association? Have you ever dreamt of something, got it, and lived an immensely happy life ever since. Probably not. My guess is that once the novelty wore off, you pretty much returned to the same emotional state you were before. Studies have shown repeatedly that lottery winners are not any happier and victims of serious, life-altering injuries are no sadder than the average person. It’s a really difficult (and counterintuitive) thing to accept , but the truth is that even if your dream does come true, it’s not going to bring you the immense happiness you expect. It really won’t change you much at all.

But before you get all depressed, let me talk about the lesson that I learned from Michelle. She said at the press conference:

I’ve learned that it’s not about the gold. It’s about the spirit of it and about the sport itself. I have no regrets, I tried my hardest and if I don’t win the gold, it’s okay. I’ve had a great career. I’ve been very lucky. This is a sport. It’s beautiful.

At first, when I heard that I was like “yeah right”. But, as I read more about her story, I started to realize that she was being absolutely honest. There is simply no other way to explain her die-hard dedication to her skating even after two heart-wrenching disappointments in the ‘98 and ‘02 Olympics. What totally blew me away was I watched an A&E Biography on her, where in an interview, she said she actually started to cry during her ‘02 Olympics Exhibition skating routine because she was just overwhelmed with the love and perfectness of what she was doing on the rink. Some say that this was one of her most memorable performances ever. Now keep in mind that just the night before this, she had made a small error which caused her dream for Olympic gold to be once again unfulfilled. I can’t even imagine how I would have handled myself in such a situation. Michelle has won more championships than any other skater ever has or (probably) will, yet ultimately it’s the act of skating itself that brings her immense happiness. That’s why she has continued to push (and dominate) in what has been a career of extreme peaks and valleys.

Everyone’s life will have peaks and valleys as well. Nobody knows what the future holds in each of our lives. The only thing we really know is what it is we love doing. So, I encourage you to take a step back and reflect about what it is you truly love doing. If you can figure it out, make a promise to yourself to work your ass off so that if you’re lucky, you will be able to spend as many of your waking hours doing that thing you love. Just like Michelle, pursuing what you love will bring peaks and valleys, but when your time is up, you won’t have any regrets because there’s nothing else you would have rather been doing in your precious time here on this planet. What more than that can you honestly ask from life?

UPDATE:
Some cool videos of her on YouTube.
A&E Biography from 2004
2002 Olympic Exhibition routine (I seriously do understand how someone musters up the strength to pull this off after what happened the night before)

2005 was an interesting year for me. I spent the majority of my time working on Revunity/Dontbuyjunk which has been some combination of stressful, rewarding, fun, tiring, and (most importantly) educational. While I’d be lying if I said that I’m perfectly content with my life, I have realized something. I’m pretty damn lucky. Why? Two simple reasons:

1) I’m alive.
2) I’m healthy.

With all the violence, disease, and poverty in the world, what else can I really ask for? Sure, wealth, success, love, etc. are all bonuses but compared to the two aforementioned items, they pale in importance.

I seem to meet a lot of people these days that are in such a rush to improve their situation whether it be their career or personal life. Yet what they probably don’t realize is that they’re pretty lucky to be in the situation they are in at present. Furthermore, most of the time, the problems we face or our percieved inadequacies are relatively trivial in the grand scheme of things, even though at the time they may seem dire.

My new year’s resolution is even in times when I feel stressed or unhappy, I’m going to take a step back from the situation and remember that as long as I’m alive and healthy, I’m blessed. Believe it or not, I’ve done this a few times already in the past couple of weeks and it really does lighten up my mood. Give it a shot!

For geeks only: another great New Year’s resolution.

While my intent for this blog is not to just syndicate other blog content, I will do so when I find items that are unique and thought-provoking. One such example is a post by Bob Parsons (founder of Parsons Technology and more recently Go Daddy). He wrote a really great piece on his attitude towards dealing with problems he faces in both his personal and business lives. If you’ve got problems (and I know you do), you owe it to yourself to read what Mr. Parsons has to say on the topic.

My favorite line:

The obstacles you face do not get in the way of you living your life – the obstacles you face are your life. So why not change your perspective and simply enjoy the process of dealing with them.

This is sort of reminiscent of the message that Nissan popularized “Life is a journey, enjoy the ride” but I think the way Parsons puts it is more pragmatic.

The link:
Problems. They can ruin your day if you don’t have the right perspective. Here’s a secret and a few mind tricks. Handle any problem. Make your business more successful.

If you find this interesting, I highly recommend you poke around his blog and read more of what he has to say. The first time I landed on his blog, I ended up spending a couple hours reading through his posts from the past several months.