Breaking Free – Realise Your Potential

Very often, when you go to the fuel station, you see a young man who is checking the pressure of your car’s tyre.  In another instance, you find a poor old man repairing car batteries and you have seen him doing the same thing every since your childhood.  You know because you belong to that locality or have been passing through the location day in and day out. Over a period of years, you will still see the young man at the fuel station, but now looking old, frustrated, uninterested, not responding to the random conversation that you try to strike with him.

You see a hand cart puller who has migrated from a rural country side and he spends his entire life time doing the same thing.  Finally, he gets worn out.  Gets completely disillusioned with life.  The same is the story with millions of people, not only in India, but about around the world.  After all the toil and hardwork, he is not able to make ends meet.  He is not able to save money to provide for a better future for his children and family.  They continue to exist in poverty and will die in poverty.  He sees people enjoying the luxuries of life but he cannot afford them.  He can only think about them.  Dreaming is beyond his capacity.

What is the problem?

Why could they not succeed in life? 

Here by the use of the word “success”, I mean being able to make a modest living, being able to enjoy the fruits of life, being able to create a future better than the existing one.  It means that elevating one’s status in life – from the one that we are born into to a better one.

There are umpteen examples of people who have transformed their lives completely.  They are living a life which they had never imagined in their wildest of dreams.  They have not only uplifted themselves but they have been able to uplift the lives of their family members, relatives and create employment for a couple of others.

A huge percentage of such people start liking what they do. They get into the comfort zone.  Over a period of years, they become seniors and become their bosses favourites.  The boss starts trusting them with the business, who in turn is looking for more greener pastures, growing his business.  The employee feels that he has a huge responsibility.  He thinks that the boss or owner will not be able to survive without him.  The boss is also revered in the family as their benefactor.

How wrong he is? He lives in an illusory work, where he thinks that every aspect of business revolves around him.  The boss marginally increases his salary every year and he is full of gratitude, and feels that his talent has been recognised. 

Suddenly there is a financial crisis in the worker’s family and he needs huge financial assistance. He approaches his boss who refuses to entertain any such request.  All earlier assurances of financial support in the event of an emergency are forgotten.  The boss has been spending money lavishly buy every luxury item but denies having any spare money to pay for his small financial need.  This leads to an argument and finally he is shown in place.  He feels humiliated and is shattered to pieces.  On an impulse, he quits because the realisation has now sunk in.  Now instead of one, there are not one but two critical situations.  The one that already exists in the family and the new that has been created because of it.

By the time he realises that all his loyalty, his trust has gone in vain, it is too late in life.  He has withered, aged, demoralised, disillusioned and left with no hope. 

Had the person realised that it is not wise to stick to one employer, had he changed jobs frequently for a reason on good terms, had he benefited by an increase in salary or compensation every time he changed a job, he would have been better off in life now than he is.  This is because he did not take a risk, he did not move out of his comfort zone.  He felt that this was the world for him and no other world existing outside it.  He has seen the world move past by him but he failed to recognise or notice it.  He was blinded by his inaction.  He became stuck to his job.  He became egoistic.  He felt like he was the King.

There are innumerable instance of people falling in this category.

My advice to you, and which management experts and management sages have already said before me:

• You need to get out of your comfort zone every now and then.  Even water, when it settles down, stagnates and starts to breed mosquitoes and soon begins stinking.
• Life-Long employment is now a myth.  It may assure you of guaranteed work and compensation but your future growth will be stifled.  I am not saying that you should change jobs very frequently, i.e. of very short term durations but when you grow out of your job, think of changing to a new job – learn new tasks, new business, acquire new skills.  What is now being circulated in social media is that 15 years of experience (probably in the same job) means 1 years experience multiplied by 14 years.
• There is a lot of creativity that is waiting to be applied.  Do not kill it.  You do not know the potential of your idea.  The popular punch line of a popular Telecom company in India goes by “An idea can change your life”.
• Hidden somewhere in every person is an entrepreneur.  You have to move out of the “employee” mentality to an “entrepreneurial” mentality.  But who said it is easy? It’s not at all easy but it’s not impossible either.  The important thing is – have you even thought about it? Have you even attempted to prepare for it?

• Why did you not have a dream? Or, if you had a dream, why didn’t you pursue it?  Did you even speak to anyone about it? Did you even share your ideas? Who knows, someone in a similar situation as yours would have offered you the support in the area of your weakness and the problem could have been solved.

Zig Ziglar has very beautifully said and I quote “Those who won’t take a chance, don’t have a chance”.  Robin Sharma says and I quote “Cash off your chains, cut the shackles and shatter your limits”.

Explore and realise the potential that has been gifted to you.  We are here to make the world a better place then when we were born.  Our world begins with our parents, our family, our children, our neighbours.  When you have accomplished bettering all these, then you can think of focusing on better things.

Best Wishes.

Sarfaraz Lakhani

Calibre Creators

www.calibrecreators.com