The problem with all of us, the problem that I was having in my life was that I was looking for excellence everywhere outside, but my personal about my excellence and what I was doing was zero.
although I was an IIM Bangalore graduate, I started taking the CAT again and again, and that’s what built the record of actually cracking it 18 times every time with 99.99 percentile
My books on CAT are the bibles in that segment now, and everybody studies them.
Helping people do it, I can realize that anybody at any pick up these four things and change who he is
About my success
Today I am here to talk to you about success. It’s a word that draws a lot of reactions, And it draws two stories. If you look around yourself, You will see that two kinds of success stories are present around you.
The first story is when a student starts topping his class, right from the nursery, Kindergarten. First, Second, Third and remains a continuous topper, going into 10th become a board topper, going into 12th becomes a board topper.
He gives his first competitive exam, And he tops that exam and goes into a great college like an IIT or a top medical college in India or whatever he chooses And from there, his or her life takes off, And there is no stopping him.
The second story Is the one I’m going to talk about, And that’s much more relevant for all of us Because all of us do not belong to that category.
Hi, this is Arun Sharma here I am an IIM Bangalore graduate, And there’s a story behind that. The focus or the gist of the talk I want to give you Are about four takeaways
That creates the second success story And if you want to make it in your life And you do not belong to that first category of people Who took off right from their education, And you still want to take off in your life.
I’m going to give you four takeaways at the end of this Session to get specific essential tools.
Which you can use to change any dimension of your personal success story and create your own stories. So what is that second success story?
If the person is average.
That story is that the person is average. He doesn’t achieve much in his school.
His teacher doesn’t remember him, and they don’t know who he is. When he gives his 10th, he is an average student. There is no breakthrough throughout his life, And suddenly He turns himself at one point When I was in school and college.
I was a very ordinary student. I never topped my class section, forget about school, And yet today, I have sold close to 3 Billion books. My books on CAT are the Bibles in that segment now.
Everybody studies them. What are the components of this story? How do you turn yourself around? You are an ordinary individual Nothing special has happened in your life in the past 20 years.
How do you turn yourself around?
Like my story As a look back, I realized That there were four vacancies in my life For the first 20 years, And the moment I started learning these vacuums And I started filling them, my life started hanging around.
So much so that, today when I look at myself, Or I look at anybody around me, And I specialize as a teacher, my specialty is turning around people’s lives When I look at helping people do it I realize that anybody at any point of life can pick up.
These four things and change who he is?
The first one As I went through school and college, I realized in hindsight That the first vacuum in my life was the vacuum of a challenge, So if I look at my challenges, you can do this for your life as well.
My entire challenge history, till my whole academic career, till I was 21 years old Was that society told me that you should do well in 10th I got a target from my family That you have to get more than 80 % in 10th I got an 81 percent, and I succeeded.
When I reached standard 12th, I was given a target to score more than my 10th grade. I got 82 percent, I succeeded, But my life did not go anywhere, And the first time my life changed or started to change Was when I picked up a challenge to make it to the IIM’s Nobody from my college had ever made it.
Challenge for IIM’s
At that time, and when I decided that I’ll take up that challenge, My first vacuum started getting filled in my life, And I made sure that this vacuum of a challenge never came into my life from then on.
You see, the problem with the first two challenges I picked up Was that I was always focused or doing things that society was telling me to do the moment I started changing that and two characteristics define the moment I started putting myself behind doing something which would change what I was doing A challenge.
It should be audacious, And it should be close to impossible from where you think about it. Anything else is not a challenge.
So if you’re not picking up audacious challenges in your Life, that’s the first reason you’ve maybe not succeeded in your Life, And that’s what I realized. So once I reached IIM.
From there, I again started a journey as an entrepreneur. As I passed out because I did not want to work in the corporate world, Life was relaxing in the corporate world. Still, I decided I would be an entrepreneur, And then the knock started again Because when you begin entrepreneurship, it isn’t straightforward, Which is when I started realizing.
That there were 2-3 more thing that I was doing wrong Due to which I was not succeeding, And I see that happening across now as a success coach, as a person who helps other people succeed in whatever they do. These are the three things I advise everyone to do. The second vacuum that you see in people Is the vacuum of excellence.
Pick up challenges
People pick up challenges, but they don’t define the excellence they need to do to overcome those challenges. For instance, in my personal Life when I became a teacher when I decided to become a teacher, And I was struggling in my own Life, the issue did arise.
That how do I make it big from what I was doing And as I always tell people That how well you do your work is the only thing that counts So as a teacher when I was trying to train people for the CAT And other aptitude exams I realized that one of the things that I need to do is get inside these exams and need to know, because If I need to execute excellence in my classes in my classrooms and I defined one thing
At that time, I was teaching in Patna, And nobody had heard about CAT from Patna, And I took a decision in my Life. What if I’m teaching a topic or doing a session on personality or whatever I was doing staying there in Patna.
What if I’m training for the CAT?
I had to be the best in the country, And I had to be as good as I had to be. That decision forced me to start then deciding What if I’m training for the CAT? If I’m preparing these people to qualify for these exams, I need to understand them. Although I was an IIM Bangalore graduate, I started taking the CAT again and again, And that’s what built the record of actually cracking these 18 times.
Every time with a 99.99+ percentile, I’ve got everything from a 99.93 to a 99.99 every year. The problem with all of us is that I was having in my Life Was that I was looking for excellence everywhere outside. I wanted my Prime Minister to be excellent, and I enjoyed the hotel’s waiter to be perfect.
If he were not excellent in what he was doing, I would be very concerned about his excellence. Still, my concern about my best and what I was doing was zero, So invert this. This vacuum will get filled. Expect greatness from yourself And accept mediocrity from others. That’s the second vacuum, And that led me to understand the third and the fourth vacuum, and when I started working, towards doing things better or doing something to the best of my abilities.
when do you fail?
There are times when you fail, not because you have not executed excellence or not because you’ve not picked up a challenge, but there are times when you fail because you have not learned or improved your ability to the level where you need to be and in that context, your learning cycles in Life after your graduation or school, and college gets over become the essential take-off point for you, and this is one of the critical aspects, which in most people maximum people have the most extraordinary learning ability.
you looked at the video of Sachin Tendulkar batting when he was 18,28 and 38, and you’ll know what I mean by how that guy learned, or how any great person learns And in our life, the learning vacuum is one of the most immense vacuum’s which we don’t realize once we step out of school and college That every year what is it that I have to learn, how do I improve myself on a day to day basis
So we do not have a learning curriculum, But learning is the fine-tuning of things About how you do your work better So in the domain you decide, that this is the work I want to do What are the learnings required in that dimension If I want to be a mountaineer and I’m not good at climbing mountains, Or my physical abilities are not acceptable.
I have to change it. Just excellence and challenges suffice to be successful, So that’s the third vacuum you need to fill in your life. Be a lifelong learner. Keep learning, keep setting agendas for becoming a better version of yourself, And then once these three vacua are filled, you’ll see the 4th vacuum in people.
So you’ll find people who are significant in everything every person, who while noticing you will find that ‘wow’ this guy has such excellent skills. Still, if you see their profile, data, and achievements, you will feel they haven’t done anything, And that’s where the 4th vacuum comes in. If you fill this 4ht vacuum, you end up transforming yourself in whatever dimensions you want to be. The 4th vacuum is the vacuum of doing, And this is again a problem with most people.
They will take care of the first three without doing the requisite work, so I see many people come to me. I want to take up CAT. I want to do this in life, but the quality of the work and the quality of the doing is zero when it comes to doing that work.
So I want to build a bridge across the river, I take up the challenge, but I don’t do it It’s going to be ending up as useless outcome And I’m not going to get the outcomes, So these were the components of the second success story You’ve done nothing in your life.
Most critical part of the four dimensions
You’ve not achieved any excellent outcomes in your life. Yet, you can pick up your life from this point And change yourself, transform who you are By taking these four circular routes First, the vacuum of a challenge, fill that Second, the emptiness of excellence start looking for excellence inside yourself.
Only accept and expect excellence from yourself hate the mediocrity in yourself. Third, in the vacuum of learning, make sure you find out what you need to learn in the dimensions of what you define.
who you areas Because that’s the most critical aspect of becoming a better version of yourself And the Fourth and final is the doing, the circle closes by the doing of what you need to do.
please remember this is the most critical part of the four dimensions That is going to create the story for you the second story that we talked about the doing deep inside, you might be, the same great kid, you always were, but please remember it is not what you are underneath that counts What defines you is what you do, and that’s the only thing that matters.
Thank you so much
On a mission to help students find their Dream jobs, guidance and resonant work.