What's Your Excuse Today ?

Saurabh Chaudhary is 16 year old, but he is quite unlike teenagers in his tender age group. He recently won a gold medal in 10m air pistol in the  shooting world cup held in Feb 2019.

 Saurabh not just won in senior category (being a teenager!) but shattered world record by an unbelievable margin. His reaction post winning got everyone talking in awe. He simply remained calm sans any emotions, truly presenting a sight of a man possessed- someone who has his eyes set on something big in life.

The point of my post is not only to celebrate incredible victory of his but also to drive home a point that occurred to me on seeing the side tweet.

The picture in this tweet shows the shooting range at Saurabh's home. Apparently, it was a cowshed that was converted into a shooting range with almost minimalist equipment.

I am not an expert at knowing all the nuances of the sport of shooting. But having read Abhinav Bindra's biography and through my association with OGQ and listening to stories, i do understand that equipment, conditions plays a big part in training for this sport. Any sub-par equipment can be a contrast between a Gold medal and 20th place in the medal table.

In such a thoroughly competitive sport, Saurabh winning at the highest levels with minimal facilities during his formative year is simply superlative. Of course, he now has access to the best of equipment and the coaches but that doesn't take away anything from his humble beginnings and how he rose.

I am also reminded of the message in this tweet from Vala Afshar. The message in it is profound and the way it is expressed nothing but touching.

'Some people would love to have your bad days"


When kids of Saurabh's age, living in big cities would have demanded greater facilities or used lack of facilities as an excuse for not training hard enough, Saurabh chose to do the opposite. He embraced his constraints and even turned his constraints into his strength. While others complained of a rainy day, Saurabh was busy figuring how to make best use of the moment at hand and find ways to take that small step towards eventual expertise.

Whitney Johnson in her book 'Disrupt Yourself' says:
"Whether we create or impose constraints, having a plan for how to make constraints work for you- asking not 'Why did this happen to me?' but 'How did this happen to help me?'- is the difference between bracing yourself for a lesser version of you, and moving at a breakneck speed up your personal learning curve."

Champions are not made in a day, it takes a toil, dealing with acute moments of despair, hopelessness, dealing with unimaginable constraints to emerge as one- much like the sacrifices a piece of coal goes through before becoming a diamond.

Saurabh Chaudhary, What an inspiration! Take a bow, Champion!

So, What's your excuse today- for not doing what you ought to be doing ?

Tweet source:
https://twitter.com/mihirsv/status/1099908190072983552
https://twitter.com/ValaAfshar/status/946096069212913665