As I start this new year of 2025, there's just one word that's ringing in my mind and that's bold. Haha did you just see how well I did a bold :D Yesterday, I was at a new year event and somehow when I was looking at people there, I did not find any courage to make new friends or for that matter even talk to people from a different race. I am not disappointed or disgusted with that, but when I came back home, I thought only one thing, it's all about taking the opportunity at hand. Sometimes we become so consumed by our own thoughts, how people judge us, etc. we fail to take the opportunity at hand and convert it into massive success. Yesterday, I have a friend who stays somewhat close to my house and he was talking rubbish and being was trying to justify how cool he is by saying what things are morally correct. It honestly did rattle me, but one thing I understood during that point, is the best revenge is massive success. I thought let's not talk right now, let's succeed at whatever we are doing. The best revenge truly is massive success. Now, let's come back to the topic of being bold and taking the opportunities at hand.
What is bold?
Now, google defines bold as follows: "showing an ability to take risks; confident and courageous" . Okay so bold is an ability to take risks, confident and courageous. That's a very interesting thought to being bold. I am going to give you my perspective on what being bold really means. Yes it does mean we need to take risks, confident and courageous. By confident we mean we need to trust our abilities and our skills. So let's break down what it really means by being bold:
1. Take risks but calculated ones: If you read the first sentence it says, an ability to take risks. Risk is when you have something to lose when you do something. For an example, if you are in stocks and you put a lot of money in one stock, that's risk, because you have a chance of losing all that money. The risk is less if the company is like Amazon, Google, Microsoft or Netflix but the risk is very high if it's a start up because there's a possibility that the start up won't work and the odds of the start up not working are much higher than a startup working. So the point here is that there's some calculation of risk taking. The risk is higher if the odds are not in your favor and the risk is lower when the odds are in your favour. That's why understanding the probability is very important. A lot of us have a perception that more the risk, more the reward. Now the question is it really true, maybe or maybe not. I don't know if it's completely true or not. For an example, people who invested a lot of money with knowledge on Bitcoin, they became extremely rich and for them it was not risky as it seemed. Some people invested their money on penny stocks and they became rich, well that risk paid off. However, there's a possibility that the risk does not pay off as well. So knowledge and understanding of the risk must be there but calculated ones. Even when it comes to sport, for an example hitting a six on fine leg or on a 3rd man is a difficult shot that comes with the risk of the ball being hit and not connecting, however the reward is a boundary. So riskier shots also give its own benefit.
2. Confidence in your abilities : Taking risks becomes easier when you have the confidence within yourself. When you have the knowledge of what it is that you are doing and you trust yourself to do those things. Confidence does not come by saying I am confident but it comes from preparation and understanding. Confidence will empower you to do those risky things without second guessing yourself.
3. Courageous: Being courageous does not mean we don't have the fear. But we act despite of the fear. Being courageous is embracing the uncertainty of life and living life through those uncertainties. One has to embrace failure if you want to be courageous. Sometimes things might not go your way but that's what uncertainty is all about.
Quotes:
Robert frost over here says that freedom lies in being bold. Think about it, when you are bold, you wouldn't worry about what the world says about you, or what will happen if you fail a particular task or opportunity but you just go ahead and do it. Once you are free of your stigmas in your mind you do what is required of you to do and go out there and be bold about every single situation. You trust your mind, you prepare yourself well according to the situation and you go ahead and do it. For an example, let's say you want to start a YouTube channel, or let's say you want to build a business, there's a possibility that the YouTube channel wouldn't work or you will fail your business but that's when you need the courage to be bold and do it. DON'T CARE IF YOU WOULD FAIL, JUST CARE ABOUT THE REGRET OF NOT HAVING TRIED.
By being bold you will also be able to have initiate a conversation with the girl you like, you will also be able to go out and not care about what the world will think of you. Imagine the pressure that's removed from your shoulders when you stop caring what the world will think of you and just do it. I love nike's quote of Just Do It. You will take failure as an opportunity to learn new things and get yourself outside of your comfort zone. So go ahead and just do it. Whatever it is, whether it's talking to your crush, imagine that even if you get rejected you would be fine, whether it's talking to your boss for a promotion, imagine if even if you are removed from your job you will be fine, whether it's leading an authentic life, imagine the problems you will have when you regret living an inauthentic life. FEAR IS TEMPORARY, REGRET IS FOREVER. So go ahead and play your game fearlessly. Just remember the small line between recklessness and courage.
Not every time you are bold you will be accepted. For an example, very recently, the India cricketer played a shot near third man, got a top edge and got caught. This was a very risky shot that would have given him six runs if that would have worked. However, since the situation of the game was so tight, the situation demanded not to play that shot but he still did. He got a lot of backlash from the Commentators like Sunil Gavaskar who thought that it was stupid to play that shot in that situation. Although, I agree that it was a bit reckless to play that shot but Rishabh Pant is Rishabh Pant, he's got his own sense of understanding the game and when he plays he wants to win either one sided or lose one sided nothing in between. So be it, I tend to understand and would have played out a few overs but to each it's own. However, what we understand out here is originality is about being bold enough to go beyond accepted norms. You would not be accepted all the time for who you are, what type of shots you play and it wouldn't pay off every time but when it pay's off, the same commentator sitting in the tv box will say that was a courageous shot. We live in a world of double standards and that's true. History is written by the winners and not losers.
Make bold choices and make mistakes. It's all those things that add up to the person you become. This is such a wonderful thought. Now, Angelina Jolie is talking about making mistakes. One word of caution is that the mistake should not be recklessness. Don't go to the tiger to fight when you know that you are the one who's going to get eaten up. So fear is also a survival mechanism for us. By bold choices, it can mean take a risky project, go talk to that crush of yours, what I am trying to say is don't do silly things in the name of being bold. Truly understand the threat and then go about it. If the threat is losing your job, if the threat is a failed project, no doubt you should go for it. If the threat is that you will die, please don't even attempt there. Talking about things like Sky diving, understand the probability of death. There's a chance that you can die doing sky diving but the threat is less as there's preparation, multiple rounds of testing involved. So go ahead and understand the threat and go about your business.
One of my favourite quotes is this. You'll learn as you get older, that rules are made to be broken. Be bold enough to live life on your terms, and never, ever apologise for it. Go against the grain, refuse to conform, take the road less traveled instead of the well-beaten path. Laugh in the face of adversity, and leap before you look. Dance as though EVERYBODY is watching. Match to the beat of your own drummer. And stubbornly refuse to fit in. So beautiful, I know I have filled this paragraph with the same words but honestly there's so much meaning that it was not possible for me to write this on my own. If you read be bold enough to live life and your own terms, and never, ever apologise for it. There's absolutely no doubt in my head that we need to live our life on our own terms and never ever apologise for that. We want to play by the rules of our own game. Rules are meant to be broken, just like records. What are rules ideally? They are just made by men for their own survival. For example, when britishers ruled india, they made the rules and does that mean the rules were right? Absolutely not, in fact now that we think about it, we want to achieve so much that those 150 years of India can be looked back on and people say look at where India is right now. We are one of the top most developing nations. We have the strength and the skills of people that can make India great.
A lot of times we think that boldness is being rude, obnoxious, loud or disrespectful. Being bold is being firm, confident in your abilities, fearless, daring, strong, resilient and not easily intimidated. It means you're willing to go where you've never been, willing to try what you've never tried and willing to trust what you've never trusted. Boldness is quiet, not noisy. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. The message is here is very simple, being bold is not about being disrespectful but rather about trying things you have never done before and having the confidence within yourself to do those things without hesitation. That's all boldness.
My message to readers is very simple: Go out and try new things and fail at it. See how it feels and embrace those failures, understand what you can learn out of it. That's where we want to be in life. Taking risks that are calculated.
Comments
Post a Comment