The safe road can actually be the risky road. This is something I have tried to follow in my many years in advertising when marketers wanted to tread the trodden, be safe, do what has been tried and tested. My submission has always been that if you walk on someone else’s footsteps, you leave none of your own. If you travel the road less travelled, chances are that you might be on to something and someone, somewhere will stop, turn around and look at what you are doing. By making your own footsteps, you tend to stand apart from the crowd and often end up creating something new and unique.
Oftentimes, people disregard this dictum, and then weeks and months later wonder what went wrong. Why something that should have taken the world by storm, turned out to be little more than a storm in the proverbial tea cup ... if that. If only people had the guts to risk a little bit more. History is made by people who tread off into the unknown, with little more than a flicker of hope and a dream. Of course, I am not suggesting fanciful wishes with little in terms of an edifice. What is required is a solid foundation, a well thought out and articulated plan, a measured plan of action, with each step a concerted one, deliberated upon, with safety clauses in place. The world is full of people trying to make a better mousetrap. Even if you come up one (which is yet to happen) you will still remain number two.
How many things have really changed the world? Not many. The wheel, many centuries ago. Electricity. Now the internet and mobile telephony. The computer has not changed much from three decades or so ago. Sure, it has become faster, but what changed the way we use computers was Apple. The Macintosh and Desktop Publishing changed the world. DOS gave way to Windows. With all the advances in science and technology over the past hundred years, little path breaking inventions have happened.
Let us all try and be entrepreneurs and not traders.
Another analogy to the Safe/Risky story is Cheap/Expensive. Save a penny to lose a pound. Compromises. Cost cutting. Finding the cheaper alternative. For many of us this is how we live our lives. And I not talking about those who believe in conspicuous consumption, that is different story. I am talking about our professional lives ... and sometimes the choices we make in our personal lives. A shirt worth Rs 100 will not look as good or last as long as a short that costs Rs 500. The latter will make you look better and last more than five times the duration. Not a good idea.
I have been filming lately for a television series and given budget constraints have had to be ‘creative’ in spending. And I have just accepted (I realised some time ago) that a lot of what I have already shot is just not good enough and I have to re-shoot. Expensive. Time and money. Both that could have been better spent. If only one had invested a little more time and money in the initial stages all this heartache could have been avoided. Lesson learned. Cheap can actually turn out to be quite expensive. One might get over extended in the short run, by in the long haul, it is money well spent, it ends up showing in the final product and ultimately it pays back. German engineering versus third world assembly lines. And the end consumer gladly forks out a premium for better quality. Quality that is ensured by not being cheap in the first place.
Being cheap, more often than not, turns out to be more expensive in the long run. Like being safe actually becomes risky as you travel down the road. So be aware of the pitfalls and make the right choices, take the correct decisions, even if it means going off the beaten path, even if it means scraping the bottom of the barrel. There is no shortcut to any place worth going, but then the road to a friend’s place is never too long. There is a friend waiting at the end of the road, do not short change him!
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Outside the comfort zone...
Over the past many years that I have been travelling, often I have travelled in a group. Though my personal preference is to ride off on my own, often that situation turns into a group trip with friends and acquaintances joining me for the trip. And in all these trips the group is outside of their comfort zones. While in the city, we know what the day will bring. If there are speedbreakers or potholes on the way, we know how to handle them. We have friends and family to call on. We have our peer group to tell us what to do. We can pick up the phone and ask for help or advice or suggestions or just cry our heart out. But very often when we travel, we are outside the relatively cushioned existence of every day life, away from friends and family, away from ‘Friends’, with no one to call for help or support or succour.
I have faced this many times. Group dynamics has a life of its own and individual idiosyncrasies come out like never before. The facade comes off, the inner self surfaces and misunderstandings emerge, friendships are called to question and sometimes, unfortunately, relationships break down. All because we cannot deal with the environment to the best of our ability.
I am as much to blame since often, as the Shepherd of the team, I cannot keep my own emotions in check. I am human too and I have my own thoughts, prejudices and opinions. Opinions that take on an aggressive tone due to fatigue, hunger, thirst, lethargy, anticipation, exultation and all of them combined. I, who should know better about being outside of our comfort zones and the tricks it plays on our minds, have to be able to cope better. Yet, I do not, and often I become the centre of controversy. What can be a meaningful discussion while waiting for the food to be served, soon turns into an argument for no reason and the atmosphere gets vitiated for no good reason at all. Not that I do not stand by my opinions, but the way they are expressed leave a lot to be desired. After spending almost half a century on this planet, almost a majority of those years travelling, I should certainly know better.
Travelling is about understanding, about camaraderie, about companionship. It is about spending 24 hours a days looking at the private selves of each team member. In the city we are mostly exposed to what others want us to see. In the wilderness, it is all out in the open ... bare, naked, exposed. For those who are venturing out for the first time, it is expected, but I should know better. Every one has the right to have an opinion, as do I, and we need to respect that. If experience has taught us something and the recipient of that thought is not absorbent enough to grasp it, we need to learn to let go. After all, even I did not listen to my parents when I was younger. I made my mistakes and have learned from many of them. I continue to make mistakes and I suspect will continue to make them well into the future. Every person has a right to make mistakes and to learn from them. What we old fogies do not realise is that we cannot expect to expect others to do what we did not at their age. Let them make their mistakes and learn from them. All we can do is share a guiding light. It is others who have to take the torch and light their own paths ... if they so wish.
Some mistakes can be costly, but those are not what I am talking about. I am talking about opinions, what seems right and what seems wrong, what could be considered ill mannered by some but perfectly legitimate action by others. All these are very subjective and change with age, environment, generation, circumstances, etc. Let people be. Every generation has changed the world in some way or the other. Some would say for the better, some would disagree. But change is inevitable. And when the change becomes destructive, revolution happens. When change is positive, history is written. In my opinion more destruction has happened in the last hundred years than in all of previous history. In my opinion, a revolution is in the offing. Many will disagree, as is their right. But when we are outside of our comfort zones, these debates or arguments or discussions should not turn into animosity between individuals.
Something I am still learning.
I have faced this many times. Group dynamics has a life of its own and individual idiosyncrasies come out like never before. The facade comes off, the inner self surfaces and misunderstandings emerge, friendships are called to question and sometimes, unfortunately, relationships break down. All because we cannot deal with the environment to the best of our ability.
I am as much to blame since often, as the Shepherd of the team, I cannot keep my own emotions in check. I am human too and I have my own thoughts, prejudices and opinions. Opinions that take on an aggressive tone due to fatigue, hunger, thirst, lethargy, anticipation, exultation and all of them combined. I, who should know better about being outside of our comfort zones and the tricks it plays on our minds, have to be able to cope better. Yet, I do not, and often I become the centre of controversy. What can be a meaningful discussion while waiting for the food to be served, soon turns into an argument for no reason and the atmosphere gets vitiated for no good reason at all. Not that I do not stand by my opinions, but the way they are expressed leave a lot to be desired. After spending almost half a century on this planet, almost a majority of those years travelling, I should certainly know better.
Travelling is about understanding, about camaraderie, about companionship. It is about spending 24 hours a days looking at the private selves of each team member. In the city we are mostly exposed to what others want us to see. In the wilderness, it is all out in the open ... bare, naked, exposed. For those who are venturing out for the first time, it is expected, but I should know better. Every one has the right to have an opinion, as do I, and we need to respect that. If experience has taught us something and the recipient of that thought is not absorbent enough to grasp it, we need to learn to let go. After all, even I did not listen to my parents when I was younger. I made my mistakes and have learned from many of them. I continue to make mistakes and I suspect will continue to make them well into the future. Every person has a right to make mistakes and to learn from them. What we old fogies do not realise is that we cannot expect to expect others to do what we did not at their age. Let them make their mistakes and learn from them. All we can do is share a guiding light. It is others who have to take the torch and light their own paths ... if they so wish.
Some mistakes can be costly, but those are not what I am talking about. I am talking about opinions, what seems right and what seems wrong, what could be considered ill mannered by some but perfectly legitimate action by others. All these are very subjective and change with age, environment, generation, circumstances, etc. Let people be. Every generation has changed the world in some way or the other. Some would say for the better, some would disagree. But change is inevitable. And when the change becomes destructive, revolution happens. When change is positive, history is written. In my opinion more destruction has happened in the last hundred years than in all of previous history. In my opinion, a revolution is in the offing. Many will disagree, as is their right. But when we are outside of our comfort zones, these debates or arguments or discussions should not turn into animosity between individuals.
Something I am still learning.
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