Do We Push the Bird from the Nest?

 Do We Push the Bird from the Nest?

⌛What sets apart the bird, the seal and the camel from us humans?  And what explains the 'Great Divide' between cultures?

Tough love it is, dude.

At its most fragile infancy, birds get pushed from the nest as soon as the hatchling becomes a nestling.  And when it becomes a nestling, they get literally pushed off the branch so that they can figure out how to fly and be on their own.  The same 'quirky quickie' way happens to the seal frolicking along the edge of the waters and camels who tend to be in 'survival' mode across the parched tracts of deserts.

But these 'quirky quickies' is replicated with humans too.

While there are laggards [especially in the Third World], there are cultures and countries whose students become 'studs' in much shorter cycles.  And while the Nordic countries are in the top quadrant, Japanese students are atop the 'success rankings'.  Why?  It's because from generation to generation, Japanese push themselves the hardest, much harder than the 'far second' behind them.  And where's the United States?  Just behind New Zealand but not afar though.  And that is the lead pack in the rat race we are all locked in throughout our lifetime.  And there's no turning back. For the laggards, though, this is not the time for despair because there is a razor-thin line between the leaders and the laggards.  Obscurely, the laggards are just a bounce away, very much within striking distance of the lead pack.

And what's the formula to push us from laggards to leaders?  Leave your comfort zone.  Get out of its comforts.  Pick up the gauntlet and go where you may even be thrown like a matador facing a raging bull.  Surely, you will get scathed and wounded but that's the hard way to earn your spurs.  In fact, there is no other way if you're steadfast to take that upward trajectory of your 'flight plan'.  

A decade ago, I was spending 11 months in a year, working with Indian techies in Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.  And I was flabbergasted no end by their very contagious sheer and frenzied enthusiasm to learn new tricks from the SME [who's hosting a Knowledge Transfer].  And when the Indian 'studs' listen, they are so focused to the point of being reverential to their SME mentors.  Roll-up a decade, where will you find these Indian techies who, by that time, have ripened?  The cream of the crop may have found themselves in Silicon Valley before the overflow Indian techies will spear over to the U.K. and across Europe.  Even as we speak now, one of my functional bosses is an Indian migrant in Western Europe way back more than twenty years back.  And where is he now?  He's at the 'totem pole', on par at the course with the Global CIO.  So, what's the push we need?  It's our WORK ETHIC, dude.💪