Future Focus: Resilience and Play

What's common between the following dialogues?

1. "I am your father" by Darth Vader in Star Wars Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back
2. "Remember who you are" by Mufasa in The Lion King
3. "Contemplate this on the tree of woe" by Thulsa Doom in Conan the Barbarian
4. "So you see my son, there is a very thin line between love and nausea" by King Jaffe Joffer in Coming to America

They were all delivered by the same voice actor / actor James Earl Jones. Ok, so why am I talking about a voice actor in Future Focus?

James Earl Jones, just like the most famous character he portrayed through voice, Darth Vader, had a dark side. His father left him just after he was born, his mother abandoned him when he was 5 and he was raised by a racist, bigoted grandmother. He was uprooted from Mississippi to Michigan at a very tender age and the trauma of that caused him to stammer. In fact, he stayed quiet and mute throughout most of his childhood, because he was teased and bullied a lot because of his stammering. The same James Earl Jones grew up to become the greatest voice actor of all times.

James Earl Jones passed away last month and left behind a legacy of resilience, grit and determination behind him.

Some people are more resilient than others. But resilience is not a personality trait that only some people possess. According to an American Psychological Association, Resilience is a skill that can be learnt through practice.

Another beautiful story is about Mahender Singh Dhoni. For those who have seen the move would know that Dhoni was a Ticket Examiner in the Indian Railways and he was very demotivated one day, about his cricket career is not picking up.

The station master asked him, "when you play cricket, do you hit a six on every ball?".

He said, "no".

So the station master asked, "What do you do when there is a bouncer?".

He said "I duck".

"And what about a full toss?" the station master asked.

"I dodge", said Dhoni.

"Why don't you hit a sixer on every ball?", asked the station master.

"Because it is not the right opportunity", said Dhoni.

And then the station master laid the bottom line. "Not every ball is an opportunity for a sixer in life, but we must keep ducking and dodging and keep practicing until we get one. And when we do, we hit hard".

Every day we face new challenges. For example, in the Cloud Acceleration Program that I am running at the moment, business consistently pushes back, but we keep pushing. We use a range of tactics. We look at End of life of systems. We look at cost avoidance, we try to find what the stakeholders are looking for, we dig deeper into not just their needs and wants but also their fears and insecurities and try to come with ways that would help us breakthrough their resistance.

Sometimes we take over some of their costs. Sometimes we show them how they can win if they migrate. Sometimes it is their ambition to add value to the business and we enable them to build a business case. Different stakeholders come with different and sometimes unique reasons why they don't want to migrate. And we keep pushing.

But all this pushing doesn't have to be hard work, determination and grit. It doesn't have to be about being passion either. These are not the best ways to look at your "job". In fac, I don't like the word "job" too much either. I like "Play" better. We come to work every day to win a little. We find new and interesting ways to get stuff done. We hustle. Because "resilience", "grit", "job" are very scary terms. "Play" is fun. "Play" makes "Resilience", "Grit" and "Job" sound better. Feel better.

James Earl Jones enjoyed the work he did. In this scene he uses his stammering to have a little fun. Enjoy and please excuse the language in the end.