Mindset matters, make the most out of failure. | Anup Thomas | TEDxSJCC

Quick Overview

The speaker, Anup Thomas, emphasizes that failure is inevitable and should be embraced as a challenge rather than something to fear, recounting his personal journey where early failures in academics and sales jobs, coupled with a supportive environment at St. Joseph's College of Commerce (SJCC), taught him how to handle adversity and ultimately led him to pursue the challenging CA course.

Key Points: The speaker's first encounter with failure involved losing his job at Hindustan Petroleum (HP) after working there for over 10 years, which was devastating for supporting his family. His initial academic failure occurred in 10th grade at Sri Venkateshwara School in Kannapuram, where Malayalam was the dominant language, causing him to score just 8 marks above the passing mark in an exam. The speaker credits the supportive environment at St. Joseph's College of Commerce (SJCC) for helping him overcome the emotional scars of failure, as seniors encouraged him to speak in English despite his broken English. He chose the Chartered Accountancy (CA) course because it was considered the toughest finance course, requiring multiple attempts to pass, which further exposed him to failure. The speaker learned a 'Triple E' mindset from failure: Embrace, Enrich, and Enable, which suggests confronting failure, learning from it, and using it to propel future success. He worked part-time selling insurance policies at petrol bunks during his college years, another endeavor where he faced constant rejection (failure).

Context: Anup Thomas delivers a TEDx talk titled "Mindset matters, make the most out of failure" at TEDxSJCC, sharing personal anecdotes about overcoming significant setbacks in his life, including job loss, academic struggles in a non-native language environment, and early career challenges in sales and finance, all of which shaped his perspective on failure.

Detailed Analysis

Anup Thomas discusses his philosophy on failure, arguing that it is an unavoidable part of life that should be reframed as a challenge rather than a source of fear, resentment, or self-pity. He shares three major instances of failure: first, losing his job at Hindustan Petroleum after a decade, which left him devastated as he was financially responsible for his family; second, struggling academically in the 10th grade at Sri Venkateshwara School where Malayalam was the primary language, causing him to pass by a very narrow margin (8 marks); and third, experiencing repeated failures while pursuing the Chartered Accountancy (CA) course, which he chose because it was considered the toughest finance course. He credits the encouragement he received from seniors at St. Joseph's College of Commerce (SJCC) for helping him gain confidence despite his poor English skills during those early struggles. The speaker introduces his 'Triple E' approach to failure: Embrace failure, Enrich yourself through failure, and Enable yourself to take a different trajectory using the lessons learned. He concludes by urging the audience to adopt this mindset, recognizing that while failure can momentarily break you, the right mindset allows you to rise stronger and learn from every setback.