Failing forward

I read this book entitled “Failing Forward” by John C. Maxwell. My best friend said the book is piece of crap and told me that this dude just compiled whatever other people have said – centuries ago. However, for me this book tends to aprovide some insights in overcoming failures and achieving success in life. Some of the extracts from the book:

“One of the greatest problems people have with failure is that they are too quick to judge isolated situations in their lives and label them as failures. Instead, they need to keep the bigger picture in mind.”

“Failure is simply a price we pay to achieve success.”

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up”

The author stressed that people become wiser through failures. He gave real life examples of individuals who initially go through tough times in life in order to achieve success. He wrote about Truett Cathy, the founder of the Chick-fil-A restaurant chain. Truett, as a second grader, bought six-pack of Cokes for a quarter and sold for a nickel a can and make a 20 percent profit. When the weather turned cold and drink sales lagged, he sold magazines. Together with his brother Ben, they opened a restaurant Dwarf House in Hapeville, Georgia. Truett then faced major setbacks in life. First, both of his brothers died in a small private plane crash. Losing a business partner is tough but losing both brothers was horrible. Then, his second restaurant was destroyed in a fire. Truett faced another debilitating setback. He had polyps in his colon and went for surgery. He was out of action for several months. While stuck in hospital bed, he came up with a million dollar idea – he loved chicken and so he thought how chicken breast, seasoned and fried just right and put in a bun with the right condiments would do wonders. The answer became the Chick-fil-A Sandwich, one of the largest privately owned restaurant chains in the world.

Individuals must have high ambition and not just be average in life for them to be successful later. Of course, courage and resilience as well as hard working should accompany ambitions.

Nurturing high quality individuals

Malaysia has just celebrated her 50th independence. Of course, there were many things that have changed over the years - some improved, while some remains the same and some are, no doubt, getting worse. Among positive improvements include robust economic development, provision of world class infrastructure and facilities, as well as better communication system and health services. On the other hand, other aspects that will need to be focused on include awareness towards the environment, increase in crime rate and lack of skilled manpower. One important aspect which requires serious attention would be the attitude of the people.

Malaysia needs to transform the attitude of its people. Attitude is something that cannot be changed overnight. The mindset and behavior of individuals need to be nurtured starting from nursery to the tertiary level. It's easier to instill positive values and good behavior among children. Thus, focus should be emphasized on children to mould the country’s future generation.

The country is facing all kinds of problems including increasing number of drug addicts, mat and minah rempit among locals. The crime rate is also rising including rape and murder cases. The most recent is the Nurin’s case. Not forgetting that some of these crimes are committed by immigrants, many are also the act of locals who otherwise could have been nurtured into high quality individuals. Some are lucky to be born in a good environment with good education and family life. Most of the criminals and those mat rempits are either from poor or broken families. Of course, no country can have zero-crime rate but crime can be minimized with appropriate development programs especially in lower income group areas and greater attention being given to young kids. The nation needs high quality individuals with open mindset, able to adapt quickly to the fast changing world and have high resilience towards challenges in life.

Why other things remain the same

In economics hypotheses and theories were developed with the assumptions that other things remain the same or ceteris paribus. For example the law of demand is normally depicted as an inverse relation of quantity demanded and price: the higher the price of the product, the less the consumer will demand, ceteris paribus. Everything else that could affect demand except price is held constant. But this is not true in all cases in real life. For example, some people will buy a luxury car or diamond because it is expensive. In this case the good demanded is actually prestige, and not a car, so when the price of the luxury car decreases, it is actually changing the amount of prestige so the demand is not decreasing since it is a different good. Even with downward-sloping demand curves, it is possible that an increase in income may lead to a decrease in demand for a particular good, probably due to the existence of more attractive alternatives which become affordable.

So in economics lots of assumptions being made by holding certain variables constant. However, in a fast changing world you just can't assume certain things won't change. Policy makers make blunders just making decisions based on certain past theories.

Thus, this blog which titled "other things remain same - or are they not" tend to ponder on things in a different perspective. Sometimes, even whatever we see with our own eyes, cannot be the truth. A person judging another person based on certain assumptions or perceived ideas which in actual may not be the truth. Never come to conclusions based on certain restricted information. One should always analyse the whole spectrum or people say "look at the bigger picture" before making any conclusion or decision.