Three Learnings on surviving crisis: Life Lessons

There is no dearth of rich content in times of COVID 19 crisis, especially when everyone are locked down and everyone trying hard to reach out to their customers, colleagues, friends, acquaintances to spread a singular message: We're in it Together and Together we will overcome this. This too shall pass.

The idea of this article to give you my three key learnings on surviving and thriving in all circumstances.

Almost everyday we get invites to attend webinars, watch online videos of Industry Leaders, Stalwarts, Company Management giving us the re-assurance that we shall overcome this crisis together. The central theme of everyone is to convey a message of Hope, resilience, patience and optimism of better days lies ahead. While there is nothing wrong to be hopeful, be resilient, be patient and be optimist, somewhere we missed the practical aspects on surviving and thriving the crisis.

While I sincerely appreciate Industry Leaders taking time and giving us the all needed re-assurance, as an entrepreneur, professional and student, I seek practical insights on staying upbeat, refreshed and motivated during current times.

Delving deeper in the conversations, we hear Industry Leaders asking us to keep learning new things, become better in one's own game, up-skill and stay relevant to tide over crisis. While constant learning and upgrading oneself is extremely crucial to stay relevant, isn't that the case as well even when the things are hunky dory. To my mind, constant learning is like the bed-rock foundation of a skyscraper, without which one cannot imagine to lead a sustainable life and profession.

My three learnings on surviving and thriving a crisis:

Passion: Almost everyday as an entrepreneur, one is tested on how passionate and deep burning desire he/she has towards the problem statement he/she is trying to solve. I think passion comes naturally and it keeps fuelling the fire in the belly perpetually. Passion, as I call it, is the fuel in your car. More the fuel, farther you can travel, similarly, more the passion, farther you will go to solving the problem, pursuing the career, etc. People often ask how do I become passionate about something, and its a rhetoric question. You can get inspired by talking to or hearing to or meeting to a passionate individual, but no one can teach you to become a master passionate person. That's simply is not possible.

Purpose: To me Purpose is the higher objective or the Big Picture as they say. It makes sense to look at the bigger picture while solving the problem, pursuing a career. Think of it as the ultimate goal of the profession, career, academics. Purpose can be broken down into mini-goals or achievable small goals which lead upto the ultimate goal. I think all successful personalities have been very purposeful about their daily routines, work-life balance, careers they want to pursue, goals they want to achieve. If you are purposeful, you don't need to be taught to be disciplined or follow a set guidelines or rituals. You can create your own rituals, guidelines and add purposefulness to it, it will automatically be followed.

Attitude: Probably the most understated attribute of successful people is having the right Attitude. And yes, it's not just about having a positive attitude towards life and work. I think to draw an analogy from cricket, for a successful cricketers top 3 common traits would be skill, practice and temperament. Temperament is what I mean by having the right attitude. Its not about scoring centuries in every inning, its about enduring, its about mental strength and the right temperament to face adversary. The right attitude or temperament, I'm referring to, is a skill which no book or MBA can teach. It has to be learnt either by self-experience or by hearing from / watching the champions surviving the tough times.

To draw an analogy, while driving a vehicle to reach our destination, we need both direction and speed to reach our destination safely and quickly. While the Purpose is the final destination, Attitude is the Direction and Passion is the Speed. You need all three to reach the right destination in time.

Together with the passion, purpose and attitude, one can create their own frameworks, rituals, discipline, guidelines and achieve excellence in whatever one pursues.

The writer is an entrepreneur working in the areas of Fintech, Edutech and assisted services to the under-served population of India