Founder of SeekhoX, a new interactive event series featuring top industry leaders, Ankur Warikoo is a former Ph.D. dropout who is now an entrepreneur and public speaker.
Here are a few takeaways from his talk for GenZ and millennials navigating their education or professional journeys:
Tip #1 – Learn from people who are different from you
Recall your first day at college, your first job, or any social event. We are naturally drawn to people who share our interests. We are drawn to people who are like us. We identify with them. We identify with people who think like us. It doesn’t promote learning to be surrounded by people who are alike. Ankur says, “You will never learn anything from someone who agrees with you. Consciously, spend time with people who are different from you. Make diverse friends, talk to more people, understand what it is that they know you don’t.”
Tip #2 – You can’t grow if you complain.
When compared with others, most people will find that they are quite privileged. Our parents’ hard work has given us all the opportunities we have today. Power, money, degrees, or anything else the world owes us is easy to believe. It doesn’t mean the same thing will work every time. Taking control of our lives and stopping cribbing is the only real way to succeed. Ankur says, “The day you start complaining, you stop growing. The minute we feel we deserve something, we feel entitled. The truth is we don’t deserve anything in life. We are where we are in life because we were just plain lucky.”
Tip #3- Being comfortable breeds mediocrity
Life’s purpose is to make life comfortable, so it’s very easy for us to believe that. We are accustomed to convenience at our fingertips since everything has become one-click. The world around us is designed to provide us with comfort, and comfort leads to complacency. Complacency is not the best way to live.
“The most successful people, people who inspire you, people you’d want to be are on a constant daily basis taking the path of maximum resistance. They are challenging their fear and whatever they believe in because that’s the only way to change your orbit,” said Ankur.