Category: Value Creation

When I am at home my elder daughter Alyssa always asks me to go for swimming. At the pool she pushes me to jump into water, always, every single time. The only reason my daughter wants me to go swimming is to make me comfortable in water especially in deep water. I tried swimming couple of times, but I failed miserably. I was sinking all the time, not floating on the water. And, at the same time my daughter was going like fish in water. I failed completely in my practice many times, but I became better and better gradually. I felt it, I was improving little bit at a time.
In the beginning, I didn’t realize how big psychological impact that my daughter has put in my mind because I was struggling to breathe while swimming.
Now I go swimming multiple times in a week. Not only that I am good at it, but I never realized that I could swim this well in sixteen feet deep swimming pool. After evaluating my success in swimming, I asked myself.
Is it essential to fail before to succeed in anything?
Jack ma had thirty different job rejections including KFC where twenty-three were accepted except him.
I have read the story of Milton Hershey who failed in three candy companies before he got a Hershey company.
Another person that comes in my mind is the most renowned and respected television personality Oprah Winfrey. She was fired from broadcast journalist saying that she is not appropriate for the television industry.
Stephen King failed multiple times before he became renowned author.
Walt Disney failed to secure the funding multiple times before he pioneered Disney World. Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton both had signs of Asperger’s as a young child (a disorder on the autism) but nothing stopped them from becoming the most brilliant scientists in history.
From these stories, the learning lesson I gathered is how to change, adapt and grow to defeat failures. If we want to overcome our failure and learn from it, we have to leverage the strength of the person next to us when we go up and down. The prime factor is family and people we associate as my daughter Alyssa showed me the ray of courage that I could be a good swimmer.
When I was kid, i failed multiple times in different sectors, and it didn’t affect me deeply to follow my dreams. But when I started to become little older; my rent, mortgage and responsibilities suppressed me, and I postponed my dreams for someday. In reality, that someday never came. After certain years, my inner desire and enthusiasm about my dreams became so thinner and thinner until it completely disappeared. Exactly the same thing happened in my singing dream. I used to sing songs in my high school and as an undergrad. Dream of becoming an aspiring singer vanished.
If I would have started that dream, I wouldn’t regret it now. The worst-case scenario I would get failure from that dream project. To be honest, regret is permanent, but failure is temporary. We just don’t spend our time searching successes, we have to spend time looking at ways to keep studying to the failures we already have.
Success and failure both are measurable in life. There are three components to measure success: health, wealth and progress. The importance of these three we realize only in later stages of life, after passing the actual time. And we start living the life of regret. If we are feeling healthy in each passing day, then it is a first sign of success. If we are feeling wealthy in each passing day, then it is a second sign of success. Wealth is different than rich. Rich is accumulation of money, but wealth is accumulation of positive mindset to create quality life for ourself as well as for the society. The third sign of success is to grow, each passing day by learning something new.
If we don’t fail, we don’t invest on us, therefore failure is inevitable because it teaches us to invest on us. I invested one hour each day for ninety days in my swimming to become ordinary swimmer.
Investment on us is far more powerful than investment on product or service.
Majority of failed people don’t differentiate between a job and a career. They do the job throughout their life, but they hate it every day.
They don’t do anything about it. If we really hate the job, then we should escape it as soon as possible.
A job is a simple way to pay our bills and obligations, but a career is a deeper system to move into quality life by creating value.
Failure forces us to seek competency and mutual relationship among the coworkers in the work field. Rare and valuable skills are result of deep focus, deliberate study and practice. These are tools for building any skills like swimming for me by ruthlessly devoting myself beyond my comfort zone.
The more I try to force to study failure, the more I learn how to succeed. The only requirement is patience.
By origin, human needs each other’s back to succeed, mostly not to repeat the same failure.
Alyssa, my daughter, needs me in her science experiment, and I need her for my swimming tips.
-Yam Timsina

How healthy are you?
Are you really living with your full potential, or you are just pretending to be healthy? By giving answer to this question, we clearly express our strength and limitation in life. Remember, the struggle behind the discovery of one normal drug for a disease still costs one billion dollar and 10 years of time.
Similarly, how educated are you?
I am not talking about Ivy League’s diploma and certificate. I am talking about the understanding of life. How well do you keep yourself aware about your profession, your health and new innovation in society? Education is not only knowing; it is understanding of the world and adding a new layer on top of your understanding to facilitate your life.
If our education system forces our kids to memorize the capital cities of Asia and Africa, then it doesn’t take long to be sidelined in today’s technologically sophisticated society. Education is to create value to other people to improve their lives; not to memorize capital cities unless to participate in quiz competition.

Clearly, education and healthcare business would be the fastest growing businesses. If we are not careful then majority of our money will go in these two sectors in coming days. Education and healthcare require more urgency and importance than we actually realize. Both areas heavily involve teaching, training and instructing people around us.

How well do we persuade, or influence others is the key in these areas? Probably far more important than technical knowledge or skills. Teachers and doctors both should convince others, both should care and support others.
One skill is far more important than ever for both teachers and doctors.
How to open both ears and close a single mouth. By opening mouth, nobody learns.
Listen more from your students, patients and family members. I have had experiences of doctor interrupting me as a patient in the first round of talk where I was detailing the cause of my visit.
Few years ago, I was teaching chemistry to sophomores. I was telling students to write about the topic I assigned. Almost ninety nine percent obeyed my topic, but two students did not. They choose their topic but not mine. During grading what I realized is the student who wrote his own topic exceled far well then those who wrote my assigned topic. To improve the understanding, only key is making the student centerpiece. The power of choice enhances the optimism, which is required in today’s education especially in digital age.

Another effective tool to get student’s inherent drive is teach to ask questions. Mostly ask uncommon and open-ended questions which force anybody to think. The skill of asking better questions is way productive and useful than finding the correct answers. This is in direct conflict with current teaching and learning technique. Most of us learned from our school, college and parent how to answer but not how to question. Questing is still considered unethical in many circumstances. This is equally important for doctors too. Encourage and teach students and patients how to ask questions especially open-ended questions which avoids yes or no answers.
My cousin was not studying even before the day of chemistry test. Rather than to ask direct command question like “study for chemistry test tomorrow”, I asked her some indirect questions.
“How much do you score in chemistry test tomorrow?”
She told me, “4 out of 10.”
I again said, “Why you are not picking 2?”
She said, “I deserve better than 2.”
This will amplify my cousin’s personal positive intrinsic motivation for study.
Imagine the consequences if doctors apply this strategy to their chronic patients.
Now a days, a sophomore student with internet excess can have more information on the mechanism of Diels-Alder reaction with 3D simulation model than his or her 1980’s PhD professor.
Doctors are really busy people; they have to see assigned number of patients in a day. Don’t instruct the patient what to do and not to do. Listen their details, habits, behaviors, and patterns then act accordingly. Now a day’s patients arrive in clinic and hospital after doing intense research and reading about their disease and problem. In conclusion, teaching and treating patient are same old concepts but we have to deal in a new way or a new approach. I would like to reinforce the idea that there are no new teachings or treatments, only new approaches to execute old and existing ideas. Teach every kid like you are teaching your own kid and treat every patient like you are treating your own dad. How does it feel?
-Yam Timsina