The Art of Finding What Works | Imran Shamsi | TEDxChandivali
Summary
TLDRImran Shamsi's talk humorously recounts his journey of embracing failure as a stepping stone to success. He shares his story of being a college dropout to an entrepreneur, emphasizing the importance of finding and nurturing one's passions. Shamsi introduces a three-step framework—empathy, experimentation, and persistence—to discover what works for individuals and businesses. He encourages the audience to shift focus from the negative to finding solutions and to continue striving even in the face of failure, as it leads to growth and ultimate success.
Takeaways
- 😅 Even though the speaker isn't married, he humorously recounts a story of pretending to be someone's husband, leading to a deeper reflection on life.
- 🤔 The speaker's message centers around embracing failure as a key component of success and personal growth.
- 😂 The speaker, Imran Shamsi, jokes about constantly failing, yet believes in learning and laughing from those failures rather than being stopped by them.
- 👨🎓 Failure in education, careers, and life is emphasized, but the speaker argues that these setbacks have shaped him into who he is today.
- 💡 Instead of finding a single passion, the speaker promotes growing multiple interests and embracing being a generalist rather than specializing.
- 👟 The key to finding success, according to the speaker, is to imagine yourself in others' shoes and adopt empathy as a guiding principle.
- 🔬 The speaker advocates for experimentation, stating that learning what doesn’t work is crucial to finding what does.
- 💪 Persistence is emphasized as a vital trait — the speaker highlights that true success comes from getting up after repeated failures.
- 🎯 Focusing on the positive aspects, both in personal relationships and professional situations, will lead to better outcomes and solutions.
- 📚 The speaker encourages everyone to document what works for them and their clients, and to continuously build on these strengths rather than dwelling on weaknesses.
Q & A
What is the main theme of the talk?
-The main theme of the talk is about embracing failure as a stepping stone to success. The speaker, Imran Shamsi, emphasizes that failure is an inevitable part of life and should be seen as an opportunity to learn, grow, and eventually succeed.
Why does the speaker mention his 'wife' in Thailand, even though he has never been married?
-The speaker uses the story of his 'wife' in Thailand as a humorous anecdote to set the stage for the talk. It serves as an attention-grabbing introduction, leading into his discussion about failure and how to find what works.
What was the speaker's career journey before becoming an entrepreneur?
-Imran Shamsi's career journey included being a college dropout, creative director, corporate employee, and eventually an entrepreneur. He describes himself as a story of failures, having failed in various roles, including as a Bollywood reporter and reality TV producer.
How did the speaker’s parents influence his perspective on failure?
-The speaker's parents played a crucial role in helping him become comfortable with failure. When he was young, his father reassured him that it was okay to fail as long as he didn't do anything drastic, and his mother's understanding and supportive attitude also helped him embrace the idea of failure.
Why did the speaker decide to leave his job at Disney?
-The speaker decided to leave his prestigious job at Disney because, despite the position's benefits, he felt unfulfilled and unable to satisfy his creative urges. This led him to introspect and focus on what truly made him happy, eventually leading to his decision to become an entrepreneur.
What is the significance of the name 'What Works' for the speaker's video agency?
-The name 'What Works' reflects the agency's focus on finding solutions that are effective for clients. It signifies the power, practicality, and purpose behind their approach to creative work, emphasizing the importance of discovering what truly works in various situations.
What three-step framework does the speaker suggest for finding what works?
-The speaker suggests a three-step framework for finding what works: empathy, experimentation, and persistence. Empathy involves understanding clients' needs deeply, experimentation requires trying different approaches to discover what works, and persistence is about continually pushing forward despite failures.
Why does the speaker believe that being a generalist makes him happier than being a specialist?
-The speaker finds happiness in being a generalist because it allows him to explore and grow multiple passions simultaneously, rather than being confined to a single specialty. He enjoys the variety and flexibility that comes with dabbling in different creative fields.
How does the speaker view the role of failure in his life?
-The speaker views failure as a natural and valuable part of life. He believes that failure either teaches you something or makes you laugh, but it should never stop you from moving forward. For him, failure is an integral part of the journey toward success.
What does the speaker suggest people should focus on to improve their lives and relationships?
-The speaker suggests that people should focus on what works rather than what's broken. By concentrating on the positive aspects of their lives, relationships, and work, they can build solutions and improve overall happiness and success.
Outlines
😅 The Paradox of Pretense and Failure
The speaker, Imran Shamsi, humorously recounts a fabricated story of buying gold with a woman posing as his wife in Thailand, despite being unmarried. This anecdote serves as a prelude to a deeper exploration of failure. Shamsi introduces himself as a serial failure, having dropped out of college, failed in various career endeavors, and yet found success in entrepreneurship. He emphasizes that failure should be a learning experience or a source of humor, never a deterrent. His personal journey from fear of failure to embracing it as a part of life is highlighted, showing how a supportive family conversation helped him become comfortable with the idea of failure. The narrative then shifts to his unsatisfying job at Disney, where he felt creatively stifled, leading him to introspection and the realization of his true passions.
🤔 The Three-Step Framework to Empathy and Experimentation
Imran Shamsi outlines a three-step framework for finding what works: empathy, experimentation, and persistence. Empathy is crucial, and he shares a personal story from childhood to illustrate its importance. He then discusses the value of experimentation, using a unique marketing campaign for Shah Rukh Khan's movie 'Fan' as an example. This campaign focused on the fans rather than the star, which was a risk but ultimately successful. Shamsi encourages taking risks and learning from failures, arguing that it's essential for growth. The final step, persistence, is exemplified by a challenging experience in Thailand where he had to improvise to continue a film shoot despite financial obstacles. He concludes by suggesting that focusing on what works can lead to solutions rather than dwelling on problems.
🔍 Shifting Focus from Failure to Success
In the final paragraph, the speaker discusses the societal tendency to focus on the negative, drawing a parallel between media sensationalism and personal attitudes. He suggests that shifting this focus to what works can lead to more positive outcomes. Shamsi encourages the audience to identify and build on their strengths, using personal examples and the advice of Zig Ziglar. He concludes by advocating for the embrace of failure as a stepping stone to success, urging the audience to find something new to fail at as a means to grow and achieve greater success.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Failure
💡Empathy
💡Persistence
💡Experimentation
💡Generalist
💡Introspection
💡Client Perspective
💡Success
💡Storytelling
💡Creative Director
Highlights
The speaker humorously questions a past experience where he bought gold for a woman who pretended to be his wife, despite never being married.
He introduces his topic by promising to provide tools and techniques that will help the audience fail spectacularly.
The speaker shares his background as a college dropout who transitioned through various roles, ultimately becoming an entrepreneur.
He emphasizes that failure should either teach you something or make you laugh, but never make you stop.
The speaker recalls a childhood memory where his parents helped him become comfortable with the idea of failing.
He discusses his experience at Disney, where despite being at the 'happiest place in the world,' he was unhappy due to unfulfilled creative urges.
The speaker talks about how introspection led him to find what truly makes him happy and discover his multiple passions.
He challenges the idea of finding one true passion, instead choosing to grow all his passions together as a generalist.
The speaker shares the process of founding his own video agency, 'What Works,' after quitting his job at Disney.
He introduces a three-step framework to 'find what works,' consisting of empathy, experimentation, and persistence.
The speaker shares a lesson in empathy learned from his mother, who showed compassion even towards a thief.
He emphasizes the importance of experimentation in creativity, citing a successful campaign strategy for a Shah Rukh Khan film.
The speaker discusses the human tendency to focus on potential problems, which inhibits experimentation and creativity.
He compares persistence to a superhero, stressing that getting up after a fall is a victory in itself.
The speaker concludes by encouraging the audience to focus on what works, rather than what's broken, to build solutions and achieve success.
Transcripts
a few years back my wife and i went to a
fancy jewelry store in thailand and
bought lots of gold now it's a little
strange because i've never been married
so who was this woman pretending to be
my wife
why was i buying her gold
and why am i telling you this story too
many questions right well i have another
one would you like to find what works
for you
because by the end of this talk i'm
going to give you all the tools the
techniques and the secrets that will
surely positively and most definitely
help you fail
yes i will help you fail like you've
never failed before
my name is imran shamsi and it almost
sounds like imran hashmi
shamsi hashmi hashmi shamsi
you can guess that college wasn't easy
so yeah i'm a college dropout turn
creative director turned corporate slave
turned entrepreneur but to be accurate
i'm a story of failures
i failed my graduation i failed my film
school interview i failed as a bollywood
reporter i failed as a reality tv
producer i failed as a corporate slave
and even now i continue to fail every
single day
maybe failure has a thing for me or
maybe i have a thing for failure
but why should you listen to somebody
who's failed so much
it's like how they say if you've had a
shitty life look at somebody whose life
is shittier
i believe that failure should either
make you learn or make you laugh but
never make you stop
i wasn't always this thick-skinned about
failing
i remember i was terrified of it when i
was in school
my father had come to me on the day of
the results of my board exams i had not
studied at all and he comes to me and
says it's okay if you fail beta just
don't do anything stupid and i shot back
saying i'm not going to fail
and my mother was right next to me and
she said
so i wasn't going to kill myself but
this cute little conversation with my
parents helped me get comfortable with
the idea of failing
now fast forward to more than a decade
later i found myself sucked into this
well-paying prestigious but unsatisfying
job as the head of content at the walt
disney company
now you know you're screwed when you're
the saddest person at the happiest place
in the world
the problem was not disney or my
colleagues the problem was me
i was bitter and resentful about
stagnating and not being able to satisfy
my creative urges
so i decided to do the most cliche thing
that everybody thinks about but not many
people do
introspection
i took a break and shifted the focus
back to myself and started noting down
all the things that i really wanted to
do the things i was good at and the
things that truly made me happy
in short i had to do what they do right
after graduating from iit find my
passion this cliche scared me much more
than my biggest fear that is public
speaking
on that note here's a fun fact this is
my first public talk ever and the way
it's making me feel from inside it may
as well be the
last nervous jokes apart i thought that
finding my one true passion
or the one thing that i was born to do
or my sole purpose in the world was kind
of pointless for me there was not one
definite passion that i could commit to
and there were too many things that i
love to do like writing photography
cinematography video editing graphic
design web design branding and whatnot
but i realized that i'm not a good
enough writer to be just a writer i am
not a good enough director to be just a
director and i'm not a good enough
photographer to be just a photographer
i could relate hard with the words of
robert downey jr when he says
i know who i am i'm just a dude playing
a dude disguises another dude
but i did not want to be anybody else
so instead of tying myself down to one
passion i decided to grow all of them
together i realized that being a
generalist makes me much happier than
being a specialist also this act of
really dabbling into many things without
the fear of success or failure kind of
worked for me
and it filled me up with excitement and
hope
so after finding what works for me i
thought of applying my learnings for
others so i decided to quit my job at
the house of mouse and founded my own
video agency called what works i chose
this name from over 200 options
the power practicality and the sense of
purpose these two simple words had was
phenomenal what works that's all you
need to think about
while i love the name i also thought
that many people will find it cocky
because nobody wants to work with a
bunch of know-it-alls and frankly in the
creative industry no one truly knows
what works
so instead of claiming to know what
works we decided to focus on doing
whatever it takes to find what works
and to do that you don't have to be a
genius a maverick or even an
intellectual
you need just one thing
shoes
yes
shoes
imagine yourself in somebody else's
shoes
think from the client's point of view
for a moment imagine that your clients
business is your business
every penny that they're spending is
coming from your pocket and all their
dreams are yours too too many times we
get blinded by our selfish desires and
we fail to see the needs of the people
we are serving the ones who put their
faith in us and the ones who are giving
us the money
so how do we fit into their shoes and
find what works for them
simple take a hat any hat just put it on
their head
let it absorb all their thoughts and
then put it back on your head
i'm kidding obviously there's no magic
trick to this there's a simple
three-step framework that will help you
find what works first
empathy now it's not easy to have
empathy when all we think about is
ourselves so as a rule even before
thinking about the ideas we deploy a
borderline stalker level empathy for our
clients businesses
that means we go beyond the brief beyond
the website and start looking for
conversations about them on social media
we speak to people offline read news
articles about them to understand what
really matters for them and once we do
this not only do we get relevant ideas
we also gain the clients trust because
they know we care
my first lesson in empathy was when i
was 12 years old i remember i had gone
grocery shopping with my mother and we
were both coming back on a cycle
rickshaw with a huge sack of rice now as
tradition with mothers while shopping
goes she had to get off to get more
stuff and when she did not return i went
to look for her but i couldn't find her
anywhere
so i came back only to see that the
rikshawala the riksha and the sack of
rice had all vanished so i went back
home only to find my mother what is sick
because she thought that she lost me and
i started crying to her and i said i'm
so sorry i was stupid and the rickshaw
stole all her eyes
her response baffled me she said ko
bhatni beta rikshay balabhito gadibi
hoga maybe he needed the rice much more
than we did
at that moment i couldn't understand how
could she have so much empathy for a
thief but later i understood that when
you put yourself in somebody else's
position it becomes easy to deal with
the situation now how does one build
empathy
simple
by listening listen twice as much as you
speak there's a reason why we have one
mouth and two ears
the second step is experimentation
now to find what works we need to find
what doesn't work experimentation and
having a scientific approach towards
creativity helps with that knowing that
most of the approaches that we try will
fail take the sting of failure and it
gives us more courage to keep going
i remember there was a time when most of
the films that were being promoted were
promoted using item numbers
around the same time we in collaboration
with yasha films came up with a very
unique campaign strategy for shahrukh
khan's fan
instead of shooting cliched promos with
the actors of the film we decided to
make a series of documentaries featuring
the real life fans of the superstar now
it was a little stupid because we are
promoting a shahrukh khan film without
shahrukh khan
but then as shahu himself says it's not
special to be special it's special to be
ordinary we focus on these ordinary
people and their extraordinary stories
and made them the heroes of our content
no wonder the campaign trended worldwide
three months before the release of the
film
so why is it that people do not
experiment
the answer lies in their dna it may
sound a little odd but it's true
human beings are hardwired to look for
potential problems and dangers back in
the prehistoric times it was the fear of
wild animals hunting us down
which has now evolved to
whether my post will get enough likes or
not or is my art good enough or what
will people think about me
firstly nobody cares
secondly criticism and failure will not
kill you
the final step is persistence in a
superhero universe we'd not be like
superman or batman we'd be like
daredevil
no matter how hard we get hit
we get up we always get up
getting up after a hard fall is a
victory in itself
we focus on such small wins to keep us
going if you put brick after break after
break after break eventually you'll have
a whole building
too many people want to see the building
right after placing the first break
and that is why they give up
but sometimes you don't have an option
but to persist
remember the story i told you about my
wife in thailand here's what actually
happened
we were shooting a web series and by the
time we landed in thailand
demonetization had already happened so
all our currency notes immediately
became invalid
and to run the shoot to run the set we
needed a lot of cash
the only way we could figure cash at
that moment was buying stuff from our
credit cards and selling it just so we
could get enough cash to make the shoot
happen
now to do that i had to pretend to be
the loving husband to my line producer
and we bought jewelry across the country
and only then could we arrange for cash
and resume the shoot this lesson taught
me that sometimes you have to forget
everything else and do whatever works
so how will finding what works benefit
you
society has trained us to focus on the
negative
consider the news all they do is
sensationalize stuff that's sad and
depressing
like wars murders accidents natural
disasters and whatnot how many times do
you see them talking about how many
roads were built or how many lives were
saved or how many schools were
inaugurated
our mind focuses on the negative
and that's what they exploit but if we
shift our focus to what works
we will come closer to finding solutions
instead of worrying about the problems
for example what if there are few things
about your partner that you don't like
but there are too many things that you
love about them
now if you focus on what you don't like
will it be a happy relationship
what will happen if you focus on what
you love about them how will the
relationship change then
focus on what's broken and it can
consume you
focus on what works and you begin to
build solutions
so take a notebook and start writing
down what works for you it can be your
attitude your ability your personality
your education your wisdom your sense of
humor your boldness your ambition your
drive your empathy your discipline it
could be anything anything that works
for you double down on that instead of
dwelling on your weaknesses as zig
ziglar says you can get whatever you
want if you help enough people get what
they want
so i urge you to try this technique to
find what works for your audiences
clients friends family and followers and
when you finally feel that you're
successful find something to fail at
failure humbles you and builds you up
for bigger successes
because every failure is a step closer
to finding what works
thank you
[Applause]
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