3 mistakes of my life and 7 lessons they have taught me – By Alok Das

3 mistakes of my life and 7 lessons they have taught me

By Alok Das

I love to hear your stories and, at the same time, love to tell you my stories. Allow me to tell you some of my stories. Well, in this case, different mini stories along one long journey.

Hard times

Story 1: Just after the end of high school. Four of my friends and I used to live in a rented apartment. Every month we would appoint one of us as the Manager for the month, responsible for assigning tasks to the rest of us such as doing grocery shopping, cleaning the apartment, deciding the menu, asking everyone to pay their share of the rent and bills on time. When it was my turn, at the end of the month, I discovered – much to my anger and frustration – that either I did not keep the calculations on time or had lost records of the expenses. There was a deficit in my budget and I had to suffer some financial losses. I would not blame my flatmates; they had cleared their dues whenever I had asked them to. So clearly I did not keep the records together. Normally my room and desk would be a mess, books everywhere, some important documents in one drawer and some in another, or in a locker. If for any reason I had to get an important document it would take me a lot of time to find it.

Story 2: End of university life. I just got my results. To survive financially, I was working in retail and doing a bit of shift work in a factory. I felt finally I had some leisure time as there would be no pressure of studies. In the previous two years I had worked really hard, both doing my studies and working to support myself. I was thinking of what I could do to enjoy the time as I did not have the pressure of studies. It would be nice to go for a holiday to my home country Bangladesh but the problem was I did not have enough money to cover the plane ticket and the rent of the unit for the period I would be holidaying. A lot of my time was spent in thinking about the issue. But the real problem surfaced when I realised I had not thought enough about one major thing that would determine my survival in Australia: lodging my application for permanent residency. This was far more important than going for a holiday. I spent so much time in thinking about a holiday that I realised very late – much to my dismay – that I had only four days to complete my paper work and lodge the application. You can imagine my situation. The fear of uncertainty started to send shivers down my spine. I managed to submit this time but the stress I took was not worth it.

Story 3: Start of working life. In one of my jobs where my major responsibility was selling financial products, I was performing inconsistently: most of the times doing very well, but occasionally I would do badly by missing on some big sales, especially in cases where a sale would involve interpreting a complex policy. As my manager at that time would track my performance and have a discussion with me every week, she offered to sit with me in one of my client meetings. The idea was she would observe me and give me feedback. I was happy to consent to it. She sat with me in two meetings, of course with the consent of the clients in front of me. After the two meetings my manager gave me feedback which was unpleasant but, after some reflections I realised, was true. In general my meetings were good but, she observed, I was occasionally showing these behavioural traits:

• Not being flexible or failed to impress the client that I was flexible.
• Not thinking beyond the box.

Because of these not only was I losing on sales but also upsetting clients.

The impact

As I was repeating the behaviours mentioned in the stories above, I was having lots of troubles. As a result of misplacing documents and never tracking on my expense records, I would struggle in many situations. I would reschedule meetings at work which sometimes would not go down well with clients and colleagues. As I never managed my time properly and never prioritised my work, I struggled every now and then. At the home front, I would not be able to report a faulty product to the manufacturer as I failed to remember where I had kept the receipt and / or warranty papers. On some occasions I could not claim the benefit of cash back offers on the products that I had purchased, as I had lost the receipts. I did not have a proper budget as I never tracked my expenses. Even though I was working very long hours, sometimes even on weekends, I started to notice, I hadn’t saved up anything. Some of my friends had already purchased their first home whereas I had not saved up anything. As my conversations, owing to the way I used to look at certain tasks and how I used to talk to clients in certain situations, made me lose some many potential sales. What is more, it did not create a good impression about me; nay, it was hurting my own branding as an employee.

The worst of the troubles was anxiety. I was in a complete mess.

Fighting back

Identifying the roots of the troubles

I realised I was suffering a lot. I desperately wanted to get out of this chaos.

I decided to change myself.

The most important task in this case, I thought, was to pinpoint my problems and shoot them. However, at that stage I did not know what my roadmap should be or who I could seek help from, or what action plan I would have. I decided to do explore the challenge myself.

As the first step, I decided to identify three of my biggest challenges / factors that are putting me in a mess. On a quiet Friday evening, I reflected on what:

• I have gone through.

• types of comments / feedback from my friends, colleagues, or managers did not make me happy. My belief, which later I found to be true, was running away from the problems would not help me and I needed to face them to fix the situation.

After a deep dive, I noted these three points on my notebook:

1. Poor management of time and work.
2. Mismanaging documents and personal finances.
3. Lack of flexibility.

In my mind there was a juxtaposition of feelings: I was a bit upset to discover these negative sides of me; I was happy to know that I had identified the problems and now can start working to improve myself. Luckily, somewhere I read the ancient Chinese saying: A big journey starts with a small step.

Fixing the problems: the journey in the correct direction

Identifying the troubles seemed easy compared to finding the solutions. I was thinking what to do and if I could talk to anyone about these problems. Talking to someone for help offered me two challenges: firstly, it seemed to hurt my ego a bit, and secondly, what opinion would the person I should be seeking help from form about me? I spent a lot of time thinking what to do. Then an idea surfaced in my mind. I decided to tackle the problems from different angles. This was my approach:

• Poor management of time and work: Search in YouTube.
• Mismanaging documents and personal finances: Search in Google and read magazines / newspapers. I had one good habit, I still have it, and that is I read a lot. I expected this habit of reading would help in finding some good materials.
• Lack of flexibility: On this one I decided to seek the feedback from my manager at that time. It was she who pointed this out and hopefully she would be able to guide me.

For proper management of time and work, I searched for some videos and the best one I found is a lecture by prominent American academic, late Dr Randy Pausch. Of all the videos I have watched so far, I rate it the best. I watched it several times and took notes where relevant. He makes references to Stephen Covey’s time management matrix and makes it simpler with examples. Some of the key points that I used from his lecture are:

• Categorise all your work in terms of:

o Important, Not Urgent.
o Important, Urgent.
o Not Important, Not Urgent.
o Not important, Urgent.

• Always prioritise the work that are Important, Not Urgent. Surprising, isn’t it? He tells you to start with Important, not Urgent but not with Important, Urgent. But there is a logic that Dr Pausch offers: if you had started with pieces of work that are Important, Not Urgent they wouldn’t have moved to the stage of Important, Urgent.

• It is possible to avoid getting lost through endless number of documents. One good suggestion is storing documents in alphabetical order using suspension files in a filing cabinet. That way you will never get lost. I personally do it slightly differently: I use expanding files where I name each compartment for a category, for example Bills, Mortgage, Insurances, Receipts, Education, Medical. In my experience, documents for 2 years can be easily stored in a standard expanding file from Officeworks. Every two years I buy a new expanding file. I label the range of the timeframe on each expanding file. There are many options available: handy files, box files, expanding files.

In addition, I started to use a diary to record my schedule and made sure that it synchronizes with my Outlook calendar at work.
For managing personal finances, I benefitted a lot by reading articles by Australian TV personality and pioneering finance commentator David Koch (popularly called Kochie). In addition, reading the Money magazine also enriched me a lot. Not only did I read these, I started to implement many of the suggestions provided in Kochie’s articles or in the articles on the Money magazine. Some of the suggestions they provide are simple but very powerful:

• Always track your expenses. See what you can avoid purchasing and then set yourself a budget.
• For every week or every fortnight (depending on your pay cycle), never spend more than what you earn.
• Make savings a habit. After every pay cycle, the first thought you should have is how much you want to save, not how much you want to spend.
• When buying something, wherever possible, do a price matching.
• Where relevant, seek professional advice on financial matters.

Within one year and a half I was able to turn my savings book from red to green. I got rid of many unnecessary expenses, and the most pleasant side of it, I was able to buy my home.

For fixing the issue of flexibility, I requested to seek guidance from my manager at that time. An awesome leader, she was very kind to guide me. Some of the pieces of advice from her that helped me are:

• Think beyond the box:

o Is your interpretation of the policy necessarily correct?
o Do not compromise your principles but before saying No to a client, have you checked with an experienced colleague if they have been through such a situation?
o Have you checked in the company knowledge site if any amendments have been made to the policy you are concerned with?

• Think about the perception of the person sitting on the other side of table. How what you are saying will be interpreted by them?

• The motto should be: hit the problem, not the person at the other end of the table.

• If you have to say No to the client, do not say it bluntly. Explain the matter to them in layman terms and tell them that despite all your willingness why you are unable to process the deal for them. Also be mindful of the way you are speaking to them: smile and soften up. You may not be harsh but the way you speak may lead the client believing that you are harsh.

For a number of weeks, every day before work I used to say these above points to me. The outcome? It was simply superb. My manager started to get positive feedback from my clients on a regular basis. Needless to mention, my sales figures also improved a lot.

The pleasant aftermath

As I fixed or I should say I learnt to tackle the mistakes, it brought many positive changes to my life and work. I was more efficient as an employee. I was in better control over many of the events in my life. I got rid of my bad debts and was far better off financially. Most importantly, I was happier as a human being.

Learning points from my personal journey

If I had to go back in time machine what would I say to myself? Here is what I would say:

1. It is ok to make mistakes. We are all humans. But if someone gives a feedback take it positively and analyse it.
2. Keep an open mind so you can identify a mistake and once you have identified a mistake, work to fix it.
3. Have a good network that will include one or two mentors, some good friends. Most importantly they should be people who you can share your problems with.
4. If you are not comfortable to talk to anyone about an issue use your best friends Google and YouTube.
5. Read books. A lot of books.
6. Manage a notebook where you will occasionally record your reflections about your own self.
7. Most importantly, have confidence in your own self and have a strong will power.

Thank you for listening to me patiently. Do you want to tell me your story? I am happy to listen to you.

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