Go Kiss the World

That is the title of a book I am presently reading. Its sub title is "Life lessons for the Young Professional." Its one of the first autobiograhical book that I am reading but it has been a fascinating read. I had read Subroto Bagchi's first book, The High Performance Entrepreneur and I was able to completely connect with everything that was said in that book. The same goes for this one. Although the initial phase of the book where he speaks about his struggles in a buearocratic economy and his child hood in small town orissa is rather difficult for me to connect with, I think he makes a lot of sense..or rather talked a lot of sense into my headm when he talks about that latter part of his life in Wipro and how he founded MindTree. Here is an excerpt that I particularly liked, it has put into words those same thoughts that have always simmered in my mind. Wonderfully put.

"One frequent theme for high achievers is frustration. High Achievers set high standards for themselves and expect everyone else to follow them. This is a legitimate but sometimes unreasonable positions. As a result they tend to get frustrated easily, especially with the system. Frustration without the capability to change things is like a radioactive material buring inside you. Your frustration is the difference between your ambition and your capability. Either improve your capability or lower your ambition. Do not just sit there with the radioactivity turned inward.

Not everything around you can be changed by you. The world's job is not to follow you just because you have figured out things before others. You should only be pained to change things that you can take chare of and create a sustainable impact. This is where Stephen Covey's concept of zone of concern and zone of influence comes in. Focus on those issues that fall in the overal of your zone of concern and zone of influence. Concern without influence is of no use. "

Beautifully put....