The desire for success, morale and attitude

The famous American author Napoleon Hill, after researching the reasons for the success of many successful industrialists and businessmen, said, "The mind can achieve what it wants and believes."
Success will not come if there is only hope and desire. Aspiration is the primary element of success. Just as a small fire produces a small amount of heat, so does a small amount of desire. In short, we are talking about the scope of desire. In order to achieve extraordinary success, first of all you need diligence, aspiration. Then infinite confidence. You have to feel deep in your heart, you have to achieve success, you have that ability. All you have to do is do it.

Bill Gates, then a student at Harvard University, wanted to make computers more useful in helping people with everyday tasks. Due to the intensity of his aspirations and his self-confidence, he has achieved success in his tireless work without completing his degree. Enthusiasm and aspiration are also essential for the success of education. The main feature of the students of the top universities of the world is their unquenchable thirst and desire for knowledge.

I myself strictly follow these two principles for all work. At one point in my life, I developed a strong desire to teach. When I completed my PhD, my subject in Canada was not a job opportunity to teach in chemical engineering. I waited two years for a low-income post-doctoral fellowship without having a well-paying job in the oil and gas industry.

When the first opportunity to teach at the university came, I tried my best to be a very good teacher. Since English is not my mother tongue, I could not speak as fluently as those whose mother tongue is English. Apart from that, I also had some doubts about the ability of students to teach effectively for cultural reasons. While teaching the first course, that doubt became a reality. I realized at the time of teaching, teaching is not going very well. At almost all universities in Canada, students evaluate teachers at the end of the course. The results of my assessment were not good. While I wasn't disappointed, I thought deeply about quitting teaching because if I can't teach well, I'll do something else where I can do better. Inspired by my department head, I prepared to teach the course for the second time without resigning. This time my efforts were successful and I decided to stay on campus. I have worked with an unquenchable desire to do exactly the same while performing administrative duties at different levels. My aspiration was to become a high quality professor ায় I succeeded in that relentless endeavor.

The third quality I will talk about is attitude. Let's try to explain with a personal example. I have never seen the opportunity to make a living as a teacher, an administrator and a leader. I could have worked as a professional engineer, but instead I chose teaching. I have seen teaching as a great duty. My guess is that there is hardly a great job of encouraging and guiding young students to acquire knowledge.

I can fulfill my responsibility to improve the students in the administrative field as well, the authorities have that confidence. I have been given the responsibility of important leadership by choosing from many qualified people. So my personal desire and determination is, I will do the best I can. I do not see work and personal success as separate. So there is no time limit for my work. For the sake of information technology, it is not difficult to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The motto of Avis Car Rental Company is 'We Try Harda'. I like this ideal very much. With that in mind, if you take ‘more effort, more intelligent work’ as the norm, who will stop you?

A positive attitude is a valuable asset to your success. Negative attitudes are deadly harmful to your well-being. We all have more or less positive and negative traits. Positive attitudes can be enhanced through mental practice over time. The philosopher George Bernard Shaw said, ‘When you see something, you think,“ Why? ” And I imagine something that never happened. And I thought, “Why not?” David Johnston, the former Governor-General of Canada and former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Waterloo, called it “The Spirit of Why Not”. The bottom line is that we are often accustomed to making or giving negative decisions, and we feel comfortable saying yes or no. One way to suppress this habit and start positive thinking is to ask the question first, if there is no strong answer to ‘why not?’, Then the decision must be positive. Negative effects can be avoided if the mind is always aware of this tendency.

Attitudes are contagious. Just as a positive attitude promotes the best qualities in us, a negative attitude creates bad traits in us. Consciously I therefore try to stay away from negative people.

Now ask yourself, what are your aspirations? Qualify that amount of morale to make the aspirations a reality. I have no doubt that you will overcome all obstacles and reach the door of success once and for all by developing a positive attitude.

Amit Chakma, Vice Chancellor, University of Western Australia

● ‘Read Amit Chakma’s article on hard work and the dignity of labor in the next issue’