Lesson 1.

I am stubborn. You know what’s more dumb, being proud of being stubborn. That’s me as well. There are good things of being stubborn like tenacity, persistence etc. No one can convince you to do somethings that’s good for you or something that’s bad for you. No one can convince you to give up, No one can convince you to take something new. Very rigid.

There are few habits that I think serves you in a age, even then there are downsides, they are hidden by upsides. As we grow up we have to discard some of these habits or maybe just the downsides of these habits.

Some of the downsides of being stubborn which I am committed to discarding :-

Teachable - I am not teachable at all. At all. The problem with not being teachable, is you make every mistakes yourself. You reinvent the wheel and learn again. The upside of not being teachable, every mistake you do, every bruise you get, it’s on your body, it’s ingrained for life. It slows you down a lot. We don’t have enough time to make all the mistakes ourselves and learn. I think one of the way to have best of both worlds is to have mentors you can trust, whom you deeply respect, and every advice they give, don’t question if it matches your experience or not. Because your experience is very limited, It’s not enough, it’s our arrogance which says it’s enough, it’s not. Learn from experiences of other, dig in, why and how and what they went through, what are their beliefs, that makes them think that this is the right path. And that’s how I want to be, going further.

When to give up ? - Giving up is not normalized, you know why, because people give up too easily. But what if you are one of the person, who is willing to go the distance, what if you are the person, who is willing to keep a cancerous organ, even if the cancer is going to spread and kill the body, but you are blind of the body being killed, because you are blind on not giving up. I haven’t read the book, but I have came to know about a book called “The Dip” by Seth Godin. I haven’t read it yet, but I intend to. There is beautiful podcast called “Masters of Scale” in which some founder came and described his process of killing bad idea fast. So if I am stubborn and dumb how will I fail fast and learn faster. There is this blog which further rhymes with my feeling.

Know When to Pivot and When to Fold.

I am not there yet, I am learning.

Blind - Being stubborn makes you blind. Blind to opinions, which is a good thing, but also blind to facts, which is not. Being stubborn makes you think, you can go against anything, time, life, situation, event etc. Because you are stubborn, tough. But time and life can weather you down in such a way, that will make you remember your tough self with nostalgia. Even waking up can be difficult. There is song called Humble by Kendrick Lamar, snippet from the song

Be Humble,

Bitch, Sit Down

Facts and metrics is double edged sword though, people see the data how they want to see. You can use the same data to tell two different stories and state it as fact. So maybe a better statement is to not be indifferent to ground truth.

Perspective - Being stubborn makes you prone to confirmation bias. This is dangerous. This can cut you deep, fast. An alarm, “Am I wrong” and go to long distance to check the ground truths against what you are working for, and how fast can they be addressed. Recently I have found this quote, that I keep reminding myself

Obstacle is the way

I have been reading this book by Ryan holiday. This is helping me a lot, on how we can choose to respond, how having those obstacles and removing them can push your life in an entirely different path. I used to be frustrated whenever, something used came up, And now I am being more mindful, again Long way to go.

This is one of the few things I am addressing right now. I am actively putting efforts and sharing this journey. I am not ashamed of who I am or who I was. It brought me here, and I am glad where I am. But I want go further and far. I strongly believe that have I taken care of these downsides I would have been at a better place. But past is gone and today is all we have. Stubborn has it’s upsides as well and I am aware of it, and I want to keep it. It’s not all bad :)

Thanks for taking the time to read. I am genuinely glad you took the time out of your life, to read a small snippet out of my life. I wish your day goes well.

Peace.