Just Do It…
An Article By Vijay Michihito Batra
“You run and run, mile after mile, and you never quite know why. You tell yourself that you’re running toward some goals, chasing some rush, but really you run because the alternative, stopping, scares you to death.
So that morning in 1962 I told myself: let everyone else call our ideas crazy…just keep going. Don’t stop. Don’t even think about stopping until you get there, and don’t give much thought to where “there” is. Whatever comes, just don’t stop.
That’s the precocious, prescient, urgent advice I managed to give myself, out of the blue, and somehow managed to take. Half a century later, I believe it’s the best advice – maybe the only advice – any of us should ever give.”
- From the book Shoe Dog, autobiography of Phil Knight, creator of Nike
When I was reading, the paragraph, it really resonated with me, as in my life, when I returned to India in 1999, and embarked on the journey of becoming a corporate trainer / motivational speaker, the industry in India was nascent. People knew my father late Dr. Promod K. Batra for his books and his presence in the Indian industry, but I was not known, and I was introduced as his son, a fresher, a person with overseas experience but yet untested in the profession of training.
I started with a conviction that I will do and do, and just do trainings. By the year 2003 and onwards, the corporate training business in India picked up very well, and I was also doing fairly well, with steady work and a decent income.
I remember on a few occasions my father-in-law would ask me, “did you think you will succeed, as a corporate trainer.” I would remain silent, but I would always think, that I started doing it, and kept on doing it, I never thought of not doing it because of the possibility of lack of success.
Twenty years into the profession and business of corporate training, I am still working with the same zeal as I started with in 1999. The profession is still as challenging as it was in 1999, although the nature of challenges has changed. I do it, because I don’t like the idea of not doing it.
Often, I get participants in my seminars, who had attended my sessions in the years 2003 or 2004, remarking that my energy levels have gone up, and I have become a better trainer. Yes, listening to such remarks is very encouraging, and further reinforces my intent to keep doing trainings.
Once a trainer, always a trainer. Success or failure, up or downs, favourable or unfavourable conditions will come, go and repeat, but the very idea of not doing trainings “scares me to death.”
I encourage the readers to do what you do, for the sake of doing it, and doing it better every day. Success and failure will come, go and repeat…Just keep Doing It!
P.S. Just make sure that what you do, serves the people who you do it for.