The Idea Caravan

One of the biggest scar on humanity today is the big C- Cancer. And it changes your life, if you have lost a near and dear one to the deadly disease. Shree Bose, a 15 year old girl refused to take her grandfather’s death as merely an unfortunate death due to cancer. She wanted to get involved into research and find out why an abnormal growth or tiny changes in a few cells are held responsible for making a person so sick and eventually lead to his/her death. At the age of 15, she had decided she wanted to be a part of Cancer Research team. She mailed various professors and scientists. Faced rejection from many. But her undying spirit had to win someday. She was adamant on finding out why cancer cells developed resistant to certain drugs. It was this resistance that she wanted to battle and hence make the treatment more effective. She finally met a professor who believed in her passion and accepted her assistance.

Shree is definitely here to find out the cure of Cancer and for all that, I pray she succeeds at it soon. She is the Grand Prize winner of Google Science Fair 2011 and has many such awards to her name. She has met President Obama too. What strikes about this video is the confidence with which she speaks, the never-give-up spirit she symbolizes, the self confidence she recreates in you and a happy place she puts you in as the 10 minutes pass away. Her inventions at the 2nd and 5th grade she talks about lets you know that no one is small for anything. She refused to stop dreaming and followed what fascinated her.

Anything can inspire you, however small. Isac Newton was inspired by an apple! What inspired Shree was her brother’s childhood and her father’s unique thinking. Three unwanted words said to her father in regards to her brother- a curious child. ‘DUMB HIM DOWN’. These words could either make him or break him. Shree’s father chose the latter. He himself taught his son and let him discover things. Her father never said, “It is right, because I say so.” Or “It is not important for you to know now.” He always let him go and find out what he didn’t know. This is how those three shattering words turned into inspiring three words- ‘BREAK THE MOULD’ and they continue to inspire Shree even today!

Expectations- we put on ourselves, sometimes put by our parents, society, schools. What is important is, to think out of the box of those expectations and change what you think you can and cannot do. Following your passion is definitely daring. It tells you that you have a calling, and if you can discover it and muster the courage to follow it, it will be a big, bold move that would change just everything around. Steve Jobs, in his famous Stanford Commencement address, told the students: You’ve got to find what you love, don’t settle. Keep the faith. Do what you love. Shoot for the stars. Settling should never be an option.

What's more boring? Failing at having luxuries of life because you "pursued your passion" or getting a decent job you hate for 40 hours a week? It really doesn’t matter what you do. As long as you do something. With intention. With purpose. And enjoyment. Hold on tight to your dreams. Get some guts and go after what you want.

The secret of living is giving, if you follow your dreams then you will have something worth sharing with others, hope, inspiration and a meaning to live, and that to me, is a great contribution. Chasing your dreams will develop your courage. Courage is a fuel to achieve amazing success in life. In sure enough time, you will be unstoppable. Also, dreams can distract you from the negative events in life. You will weigh up what is more important.

What is not started today is never finished tomorrow. If you don’t follow your dreams, you eventually crush them. There are very few things worse than regret. Regret is a miserable place to hang out. Dreamers who took action have created everything around us. You might fail, but failure doesn’t come simply. It only means you are on the right path. Failure is just a step on the way to success, but it's a cliché because it's true! In fact, the bigger the snafu, the better it turns out in the long run.

You might live forever, but you might even die tomorrow, so take a chance. The purity of the goal really comes through when there is struggle. Nothing that comes easy is worth keeping. T.E. Lawrence said, “All men dream but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it possible.”

This video is for anyone who has a dream or anyone looking for clarity in discovering their dream. Passion is the engine that drives excellence. When passion meets performance, we experience our greatest satisfaction and impact in life. Passion is only lasting when it's connected to a larger purpose, something in the service of others. Something similar to a big cause, Shree Bose talks about.

All of us have dreams but not all of us fulfill them, so what does it take to transform your life? Are there particular traits successful people have that ensure their success? Yes. Tenacity is more important than talent. It takes courageous action, endurance, self-belief, passion and will-power to pursue what you want.

Whatever you're meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible. If you wait for everything in your life to line up before you act, you'll be waiting forever. Nearly everyone who's achieved something of significance has overcome great odds to do it. So, whatever your circumstances are, just get started! What you start today, will definitely show results tomorrow. You won’t win, if you don’t begin. Don't waste time lamenting the years that have passed when your dreams drifted by unfulfilled. It's a great waste of your creative spirit and won't affect anything except to make you too depressed to take positive action.

Almost every great idea is impossible when it is first born. Possibility thinkers turn impossibilities into possibilities. Because it is impossible today, doesn’t mean it will be impossible tomorrow. Success is never certain. And failure is never final. Disapproval is possible. But it is impossible to be at the top of the needle without getting pricked. People have their views. Learn to take it in your stride. Great people are ordinary people with extraordinary amounts of determination!

Today what seems all worth it to Shree, is not the awards and the recognition she has received for her research work, but the satisfaction and the hugs she gets from women batting Cancer whom she gave hope. The message she leaves us with is “Find your fascination. Follow your passion. Believe in yourself. Step beyond what you know you can do.” Every one of us has the ability to bring the change and make a difference. Don’t just wish for it, work for it.

You have not lived until you have done something for someone, who can never repay you back. Finding a cure for Cancer is the utmost need of humanity. Let us give them a purpose to live for, a new hope, an inspiration while going through this travail and ordeal called Cancer.

P.S: This is my take on the awesome and highly inspiring 10 minute video by Shree Bose. It is for ‘The Idea Caravan’ contest by IndiBlogger.

Franklin Templeton Investments partnered the TEDxGateway Mumbai in December 2012.