“Why do we always choose the toughest path for doing some important work ? Maybe the simple way would also do that.” This is a dialogue from the movie Dear Zindagi. I was struck when I remembered Shah Rukh Khan’s dialogue from 22 years back which was just the opposite-try the difficult route rather than the easy route from the movie Dilwale Dulhaniya Leh Jayange. What has changed ?
In my view we are today very accustomed to doing things which gives us instant success. Question is how do we decide between a difficult route rather than the Easy route. I had come to the conclusion that (and i must thank Seth Godin here for his great perspective) Safe is the New risky. I am of the opinion that if we are comfortable doing the same thing again and again our brains tend to get into an autopilot and tries to settle for a safe path. On the other hand if you are going to challenge yourself and unsettle yourself, the brain unsettles and it leads to new behaviours and that is how we can develop ourselves.
Risky in this context means embracing this VUCA (Volatility , Uncertainity , Complexity , Ambiguity ) world. VUCA is the term coined by U.S. Army War College in the early 90’s and today it is becoming the new normal. Are we equipping ourselves to this new age world and deciding to be a VUCA ready leader? What are the attributes of a VUCA leader ? In my experience just one- to start with becoming Self Aware. This in my view is the most important aspect to embrace VUCA and I am sure we can lead a life that is risky.
In that case it is apt to say Being Risky is safe.
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