Chetan Bhagat – Sparks – Keep it Shining – What about THE ACTION?

Summary: I liked the speech given by Chetan and they way he showed the 4 thunderstorms of disappointment, frustration, unfairness and isolation trying to thwart you. What I couldn’t notice in his speech was the Umbrella or the Rain Coat to save yourself from these thunderstroms: THE ACTION.

“Sincere ACTION is the Umbrella that can help you brave the thunderstrom!”
-Sachin Uppal, 1st August 2008

I was reading Chetan Bhagat’s speech at the inaugural function of Symbiosis College in Pune, India. He spoke about a simple concept that keeps people kicking and striving to reach higher success. He likes calling it Spark, and urges to keep that Spark Shining. It is nothing but your will power and your passion to achieve something more in life and your continuous drive to reach it.

Download the complete Speech in a PDF format along with comments here.

In my life I have learnt that this spark comes to you if you are passionate about something and that passion is driven from your goals. If you set your goals (short term and long term) you always have a direction and you can measure and strive harder to achieve the same. Some time back I wrote about Goal Setting and how it’s important to achieve and bring a direction to your life.

When I look around I see a lot of talented people and see a lot of them with new ideas but what I fail to see is people taking action to fulfill their dreams. Having a long term and short term goal helps you get focused in your life and you can actually achieve what you have set out to achieve in your dream.

I liked the speech given by Chetan and they way he showed the 4 thunderstorms of disappointment, frustration, unfairness and isolation trying to thwart you. However, while saying that don’t take life too seriously, instead sincerely, what he missed out was a BIG point: ACTION.

What differentiates people from being Great and not good, is ACTION. Having dreams, living life sincerely and keeping yourself focused towards your goals need ACTION. Not taking life seriously shouldn’t make you complacent and shouldn’t make you lack in Action. Action comes to you from your passion. There are thousands of people out there who like to talk about doing something great, but how many take action to achieve it? These days with the competition increasing at such a fast pace, you are going to face one or more of these 4 thunderstorms.

Have you ever thought what’s going to differentiate you?

To SUM it up in a sentence:

“Sincere ACTION is the Umbrella that can help you brave the thunderstroms!”

For many people reading this the obvious question would be – How do you do that?

- Set up your goals.
- Be realistic or upgrade your self.
- Believe in yourself.
- Follow some dicipline.
- Breakdown your goals in small milestones.
- Congratulate yourself on achieving milestones. (get yourself a pair of new shoes, a tie, a watch, a perfume or whatever you think you like)
- Bring your passion to everything that you DO.
- Let your passion Permeate amongst the people around you.
- Show the world that you are not just about the Talk, but you prove it with your small Actions.
- Small steps go a long way to achieve a goal.
- Influence people in believing your goals.
- Ask for help (don’t feel ashamed).
- Give help – It’s a 2-way road.
- Follow- Ethics and Integrity.
- LIVE your dream and don’t give up. Even at a failure learn and stand up again and give your “passionate best shot“.

Enough of talking. Let’s DO!