Leap of Faith

You need to lay the foundation on which most opportunities are pursued. Without that foundation, you will be all alone in your journey to greatness. The foundation we are talking about is the concept of taking a leap of faith.

You take “leaps of faith” all the time. You have to. It would be scary (or plain weird) to analyze every move that you make in your life. In most cases, you let your gut and emotions make quick decisions and later get logic to support what you have already decided.

Think about it again. You really don’t have a lot of choice here, but to take a “leap of faith.” Most of the times you have limited data at your hands to make a good assessment of the situation [For those super smart types – not making a decision is making a decision].

I can even generalize it – at some level, the available data is always insufficient for any major decision. So, there has to be some “leap of faith” in any decision making.

Taking “leaps of faith” is so common and pervasive that sometimes you may even forget to notice it. That entire decision making process has gone to your background thinking.

This is not just true when you are taking a “leap of faith” but also when others are taking a “leap of faith” in you.

The concept of ‘leap of faith’ becomes important when it relates to a person. It becomes extremely important when it relates to YOU!

Even though I may not know you personally, I can guarantee that you have benefited from someone taking a “leap of faith” on you (several times) until now. And, you will continue to benefit from others taking a “leap of faith” on you (several times) moving forward. This is going to happen for the rest of your life.

Reflecting on my own situation, I have been a beneficiary of this multiple times. Here are a few that I can share:

When I wrote my first book (a murder mystery). I was ten years old and shopped it like crazy for three years and got rejected over hundred and fifty times. Everything seemed hopeless. Then, three years later when I was thirteen, two people (their names are G.Prakash and Nataraj Choudhury) took a “leap of faith” and said “Yes” to publishing my first book.

When my first ever startup dream was shattered in 1992 and I was desperately looking for a job, things seemed hopeless. I didn’t have the software background but was willing to learn. The future looked bleak. Then, someone (his name is Sridhar) took a “leap of faith” and said “Yes” to hiring me.

It was 1997 and Kavitha (my wife) and I decided to come to United States. I had several interviews for a position in a Consulting company. The final interview was a super-technical one where I could not answer a couple of questions on setting distributed Oracle databases. The interviewer recommended that I should not be hired. So I thought it was over. But then, God had other plans. The interviewer’s boss (his name is Alok Khare, my boss in two separate companies) took a “leap of faith” and hired me.

It was 1998 and I had never managed a large Vantive (a CRM product then, acquired by Peoplesoft and now part of Oracle) implementation before. Neither had I worked on a Vantive project until that time. We got a new project from Lincoln Telephone Company and then someone (his name is Bill Morton) took a “leap of faith” and made me lead that project. It worked out fine as we completed the project a week before the deadline.

In 2005, I wrote my first business book “Beyond Code.” My last book before that was published in 1987 (eighteen years ago) and I had never written anything serious in the recent past. I worked hard on the book for more than a year and I passionately believed in what I had written. I had put my heart into it. It was not easy to get to the finish line. And then, someone (this time, one of my heroes, Tom Peters) took a “leap of faith” in me and wrote the Foreword for the book. That meant the world to me. I never had to look back after the publication of that book.

I can go on and in each and every case, if the people above had taken a rational approach and looked for a “history of accomplishments” as proof, I would have lost. Instead, they decided to take a “leap of faith” and that made a world of a difference in where I am (and what I am doing) today.
These are special people and I thank them and many others who took a “leap of faith” in me.

If you think about it in your own life, you will notice that you will have a set of people who took a “leap of faith” in you. They are special people. Take time to thank them.

If I have one wish for you, it will be that you find more people that will take a “leap of faith” in you.

If I have one request for you, it will be that you take “leaps of faith” in a few people that truly deserve it.

Here is the deal:

When someone takes a leap of faith in you, they open a new possibility in your life – sometimes it may be one that you may not have discovered yourself. In some other times, it may be something that you might have seen, but you never thought you had the capacity to pursue it yourself.

When you take a leap of faith in someone else, you open a new possibility in their life. One that they may not have seen and sometimes one they have seen, but they never thought they have the capacity to pursue. Do this right and their world will change forever.

This book is all about how you can pursue one or more opportunities – from thought to launch. So to get started on finding a steady flow of opportunities in your life and in the lives of people that are close to you, think about opening a “leap of faith” exchange. If you are so inspired, convince others to join the bandwagon – ask them to own and operate their own “leap of faith” exchange program.

We can together change the world. If you think that’s a tall order, let’s start with at least changing the world around us for the better.

I am ready. Are you?