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Attitude makes the difference

K. Ramakrishna

Ramakrishna was born with congenital cataract. By the age of 22, he was totally blind. Today he is General Manager with the Industrial Development Bank of India. He credits his mathematical ability and technology as the two most important pillars of his success.

We will let his words do the talking and reflect on his journey to success.

Ramakrishna says:

• I often question myself, did I really succeed? If so what is the success formula? What is that I would like to share with those who want to succeed? Well, I believe success is a journey, not a destination. I invented a secret recipe of success, which unlike the three or so routine courses of meal, has eight courses to taste and dwell on. These are: vIsion, Dream, focUs, dirEction, mind Tuning, Toughness, perseverAnce and sTruggle. Now collect the capitalised letters of these eight steps and reshuffle them to form the mantra of my success ‘ATTITUDE’.
• My vision right from childhood was to be different from others and not to be run-of-the-mill. I have always been doing different things or things differently, as the famous motivator Shiv Khera would have said.
• During the gradual deterioration of my physical vision between the age of 12 and 20 years, a very close friend of mine gave me the dream, that is, I should be the first M.B.A. among the visually impaired.
• Success is the sweetest form of revenge: to further my vision and fulfill my dream I realised that I needed to have a strong focus like Ekalavya. Throughout my journey towards the completion of M.B.A., many onlookers discouraged and in fact made a joke of my dream. I learnt that the best way to succeed was to quietly sweat out and let the results speak for themselves. My success glared back at them.
• National Association of the Blind, India helped me to get back to the school where I earlier studied by convincing the school staff about inclusive education. Also the available support in terms of readers and scribes, gave me the orientation and the direction I needed.
• I internalised that the mind is all-powerful. It processes the sensory data, information and graphic inputs to produce a response or an output. I focused on the process and not necessarily on inputs and output. This helped me in mind tuning and made me very strong in mathematics and installed in me a perception of graphics and contours. Even today my memory is highly graphic oriented and this has helped me tremendously in quantitative subjects and has also developed the skill of effective communication.
• When the going gets tough, the tough gets going: It doesn't matter how well you played, what matters is, did you win? In the success journey, one has to be tough to face all eventualities, to accept failure as a stepping stone for success, to have the courage for mid-course correction and to learn from everyone, even children. I consciously worked on being tough.
• Ordinary efforts won't bring extraordinary results: A strong vision, passionate dream, undeterred focus, well laid-out direction, mind tuning to think differently and being tough to take on challenges taught me perseverance. Nothing comes free in the world. It is only in the dictionary that ’success’ comes before ’struggle’ or ’achievement’ comes before ’work’. We are all social animals and subject to the combined influences of everyone around us. This means you will not have things your way all the time. You need to be patient and should never shy away from relentless efforts.
• All the above helped me struggle and helped me survive till I reached the touchline. What matters are results and the efforts should be well directed with focus. I may be the first M.B.A. among the visually impaired person, may be a career-efficient senior officer of Industrial Development Bank of India Limited, may enjoy reputation in the cultural field, may be involved with number of social welfare organisations in sharing my vision and perspective, and may be a successful teacher, sharing knowledge in the areas of finance, project management, risk management, etc. But the question remains have I succeeded? My conviction is I am on the way to success but yet to succeed.
• On this journey in search of excellence, I have learnt:
  • Never to compromise with injustice: fight for your rightful share by perseverance and not by aggression;
  • Never to be a party, even unwittingly, to any act of injustice;
  • It is discipline, integrity, hard work, perseverance and self-trust, which will bring success;
  • To agree with people profusely and to disagree modestly and
  • To have a very big dream, to be passionate and to not doubt the dream.

If you would like to share your views on attitude and success, please write to us at: content@eyeway.org.

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