Striving towards Excellence

-Karthik Gurumurthy

My dad and mom are always big on character. The best months of my life was the time I spent one-on-one with my dad from Nov 2011-Feb 2012. Until end of January, my dad was in a position to talk very well and I got many opportunities to listen to him speak about different aspects of life.

He mentioned, " Reputation is what others think about you. What is far more important is character, because that is what you think about yourself." He had saved bunch of clippings from the past about me. I was delighted to see them and was proud and ecstatic.He said "Reading press clippings is a great idea. The danger, he said was not much I would hear or read something bad about me, but that I might tend to believe my glowing articles too much. He didn't want me to get a big head." Then he said something that really rang true to me. He said that reading about your results was reading about yesterday. You need to live now to shape your future.Why sit back and admire yourself when you could be spending time getting better and better.

Living in the present was something my dad his whole life. My dad had guts and determination. From my dad, I learned the importance of valuing each moment, carrying on, doing your best no matter what the difficulties. To be successful in anything he stressed the importance of reinventing themselves through continuous learning. 

To overcome challenges, you need an unwavering sense of self, and if you listen to what everyone says about you, you won't gain that personal insight.

We are all ignorant about something but recognizing that allows us to do more than give information inclusively. It also opens door to receiving information. If we are able to identify our own ignorance, we can then identify someone else's expertise. I miss you dad..