Current mood:

contemplative

Forget the stuff you can’t change

Here I am in the office, finally done with all the articles for the next issue of the newsletter. It’s up for a final review before going to the printers. 

This is the 6^th issue that I’ve done, and looking back, I’ve written quite a lot of stuff from profile features, event coverage, research-based articles and so on…

And like my colleagues would say, I have been outdoing each previous issue every time, having written more and more articles, the newsletter has grown from 6 pages to 8 pages and to the current 10 page newsletter. I guess practice creates speed. I can churn out articles quicker nowadays, and that’s also partly because most of em were pretty formulated corporate pieces with very little creative panache. 

I wanted to blog about this event that I covered for the newsletter back in November of 2008. It was a forum on Wealth Management, which invited highly notable practitioners from the industry.

In one of the presentations at that event, one speaker said something that I found particularly insightful, something that resonated in me till now.

She started her presentation by recounting the days when she just started out in the business, and she related how she was sidelined by people because of her gender, because of how young she was then, because of her looks, and because of many other things that were inherent. 

She had to struggle against many things that were beyond her control.

And despite all that, she managed and she became this hot shot banker that she is today. 

The point to her story was this, she said:

“There are some things in life you can’t change – age, gender and maybe even language. So forget the stuff you can’t change!  Control your hard skills and work on your soft skills.  Let’s focus on things that you can change!”

Those weren't just words.  They were immensely good advice.

Stop dwelling on the negatives or the “why mes” or “how comes”…they are relentless and inconsequential.  Accept the inherent and FOCUS on things you can change for the better.  

Forget the stuff you can’t change.  That will be my ethos for the year ahead and beyond.