From Hotel Room To Semi Finals Of The French Open
I recently read a news article how Timea Bacsinszky reached
the semi-finals of the French Open 2015.
The article can be read on:
As per the news reports, Timea entered the semi-finals
despite not being among the favorites and that too considering she used to work
in a hotel as a worker. The headlines
itself was so catchy that I couldn’t keep my eyes off it and read the entire
article.
Timea was a child prodigy in tennis and stopped playing
tennis when she was frustrated with injuries.
For the next two years she was working in a hotel only to come back to
the sport with vengeance.
When asked whether her stint with the hotel helped her in
tennis, she said:
“I don’t know if it really helps me for my forehand or backhand,
but it gives you a lot of humility because there are many people in this world
who are working in restaurants, hotels, in the kitchen, who are making our beds
in hotels”.
“I’m not only talking about tennis players. There are many, many
players who don’t realise maybe how lucky they are also to have enough money to
go to a restaurant. I learned what it was like to be on the other side. My colleagues
didn’t actually know that I played tennis.”
This statement shows the humbleness of
a great athlete and how working in different situations one gets to learn so
much. It is probably her humility
towards the life that helped her get back into action and reach to the
semi-final of a prestigious tennis tournament.
What I want to highlight through this
incidence is the aspect of ‘humility’ and its link with ‘success’. In the words of William Penn – “Humility
and knowledge in poor clothes excel pride and ignorance in costly attire”.
If we think very deeply, the truthiness
of this statement cannot be undermined.
Humility and knowledge generally go hand in hand and those who have both
are the masters of their subjects and experts in their fields. One of my seniors once said to me “Nimish, a
tree with fruits always bends, whereas a barren tree stands straight and
tall”. What he meant was a person filled
with knowledge is always humble vis-à-vis a person without knowledge who always
stand straight with pride and arrogance.
If we look at the top entrepreneurs
like Mr. Narayan Murthy or Mr. Ratan Tata and also look at some of the top
athletes like Sachin Tendulkar, the feeling of modesty and humility is
engrained in them to the core. They are
the masters of their field and but at the same time, extremely humble as well. So how do you reach a level when people will
start to recognize you and at the same time you ensure that success doesn’t go
in your head, rather you remain humble.
In my view the chain of transactions of
life go as follows:
1.
You work hard and
with perseverance start accumulating knowledge;
2.
Once the knowledge
base is available, you start to use it for your benefit and growth;
3.
With the correct
usage of knowledge, you start to grow and reach a level of success;
4.
With success comes
money, power and fame and then either you remain humble or reach a level of
arrogance.
I think this is typically how everyone
reach a particular level and then over a period of time and depending on the
circumstances, he/she either enjoy the success or takes it into his/her head
and get into the path of arrogance.
If we take an example of a student who
works extremely hard and with his hard work achieves super success in
examinations. He becomes a qualified CA
or lawyer or an engineer and then starts to work towards achieving his
goals. He works harder, starts to become
successful in career and gradually also starts to become successful in personal
and social life. He makes more friends, he probably makes rich
and successful friends and his/her acceptability increases in the social circles. From a simple boy/girl he/she becomes a
successful and famous personality. This
is how any person succeeds. Isn’t it?
But the reality is that not every
successful person takes success in the right spirit. One can be a Mahatma Gandhi and the other can
be an Adolf Hitler, both were highly successful in their own fields, but
completely opposite in their behavior and character.
In my personal opinion becoming
successful and thereafter remaining humble is difficult because success
generally drives everyone crazy. However,
if we take few steps in our daily life, there are chances that success might
not disturb our character and we continue to remain the way we started…
1.
Enjoy small wins
Make it a habit to start enjoying small
wins on a daily basis so that winning and enjoying become a habit to you. Since our childhood we have learnt to enjoy
only big wins of our life and never the smaller ones. For example, our parents would have been
extremely joyful only when we stood first in our class and obviously the levels
of joy they expressed drove your levels of joy. Rarely would have been the case when the
levels of joy in coming first in the class would have equaled the level of joy
of clearing that class itself. Are you
not supposed to have joy in your life on the fact that you achieved success in
clearing a class, is only coming first a driver to have more joy.
Start to enjoy even the small wins in
your life. Be happy when you finish your
day’s to-do list, celebrate finishing a chapter of your study course, derive
joy from holding someone’s hand and making him/her cross the road, celebrate your
win by finish writing your daily journal (http://nimishgoel.com/write-journal-or-diary-daily-why-how/).
Try and find happiness in all the
activities that you finish, because “finishing is winning”.
2.
Express Gratitude
Expressing gratitude in life is the
best way to receive happiness and consequently, humility. One of the verses in the Bible mentions that “Whoever
has gratitude will be given more and he or she will have it in abundance. Whoever does not have gratitude, even what he
or she has will be taken from him or her”.
Once you develop the habit of expressing
gratitude your thoughts and life moves from a feeling of scarcity to a feeling
of abundance. Thank everyone around you
to have been blessed with whatever you have. Thank your parents for a wonderful living they
gave you, thank your teachers for education they imparted, thank your guru for
guiding you and showing the path of success, thank your friends for being with
you always, thank your servants for being at your service when you need
them.
There are people who can’t even dream
of a life we have and gratitude is the best way to keep this life intact with
us.
3.
Be Superlative in your skills
Professionals, athletes
and entrepreneurs who are extremely good in their skills and jobs tend to be
more humble and that’s probably because the weight of knowledge makes them bend
and look more humble. The more you work
on your self, on your skills the less time you’ll have to criticize.
Be very good in
whatever you do be it serving your customers, working in your job, studying for
your examinations.
4.
Have Your Goals Planned Very Well
In the words of
Mahatma Gandhi “the two most important days of your life are when you were born and
the day when you realized the purpose of your birth”.
With a clear sense of
a purpose in your life you will be more focused on achieving success and the
fruits of success shall surely help you achieve humility.
5.
Enjoy Your Life
Whatever happens in our life, we should
try and be happy. In every incidence of our
life try and find the best even if it’s not the most pleasant of the
incidences. Think of the opportunity
that can be explored and work on it.
In the end I would like to end with a
beautiful quote from a book I read:
“Don’t sweat the
small stuff…and its all small stuff”
I hope this article motivates you,
inspires you and helps you achieve loads of success with even larger loads of
humility.
Stay Blessed…
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Authored by Nimish Goel (www.nimishgoel.com), a
qualified chartered accountant who’s passion is to coach young chartered
accountants and aspiring students achieve the best in their life. Nimish used to work with EY and PwC in India
and has also worked with KPMG in Europe.
He now runs his own consulting company and runs a blog www.nimishgoel.com. He
can be reached for any queries and issues on his blog.
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