Surprise. Surprise. Surprise. – a winner’s mantra!

Winning isn’t just a feeling. Winning is a benefit. Winning means more. Winning gets you more. Winning leads you on to win more. Winning is a synonym for MORE! Just look at any of the winners anywhere… in politics, in sports, in the arts, in theatre, in films, in writing, in your class, your college, or even where you go daily to work. Winning is what makes people, things, subjects, destinations, ideas, and even actions different from others in that genre. Winning is what makes them… well, one step ahead of everyone and everything else. Let us examine a few questions before we go any further: 

Do you think winning stops at being a mere feeling of ecstasy?
No.

Will winning lead to just one more award on your shelves at home?
No.

Does winning change anything?
Yes.

Is winning going to last more than a few claps and a few parties?
Yes.

To delve deeper into the anatomy and the physiology of winning, let us take the recent example of one company sweeping away four awards. Samsung bagged 4 major awards at the NDTV – Gadget Guru awards, 2012 in these categories:

One of the winners!

Best Technology/Innovation of the year award – Samsung Galaxy Note
Viewer’s choice award – Samsung Galaxy Note
Jury Choice – Samsung Galaxy Note
Best Budget phone of the Year – Samsung Galaxy Y

Incidentally, the “Gadget Guru Awards are the most respected and anticipated awards in the Indian tech space, and have become the definitive standard for the best in the industry. The biggest asset of the Gadget Guru Awards is their credibility…”, as Vikram Chandra, CEO and Executive Director, NDTV Group has aptly stated.

Shared my DNA

The famous American architect and Chicago city planner Daniel H. Burnham is said to have remarked: “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably will themselves not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die.” If we read this quote and try to answer the first question that I’ve asked in the beginning, it will be obvious that a ‘logical diagram once recorded will not die’ as a transient feeling of ecstasy. The feeling itself tends to become a catalyst that makes sure that the ‘logical diagram’ gets better, stronger, and has the ability to fly even higher!! Let us step away from the ‘human element’ and look at this aspect through the eyes of a Galaxy Note… this is one device that gave us all the much loved S-pen and all the benefits that we appreciate so much. Do you think the Note is going to stop, relish the applause and fade away? No. It is going to re-invent itself into an avatar that is going to come and win yet another day. Someone has rightly said: ‘A winner never dies. He just goes and comes back into your life in an improved form.’ The Galaxy Note DNA will always be there to bring joy to us all.

Delve, deliberate, deliver

Winning is obviously not just another award that passively sits on a shelf… it is like a powerful daily affirmation of a triumph and fills you with an insatiable urge to win more… all the time, every time. It may not happen the same way every time, of course… but the affirmation goads you on to seek different platforms, varying arenas where you could prove something with your skills. In short, that award looking at you makes you seek for more opportunities to discover, nurture, and nourish skills that even you may not have been aware of so far. You keep finding yourself, so to say. Life is nothing but a large canvas of opportunities to delve, deliberate, and deliver… at a regular frequency!

Connect with people

So it is true that winning does begin a long and yet not fully understood process of CHANGE in your inner self. It is winning that makes you look at all the other aspects of life and makes you want to merge with them and create a better self… this is how innovations too take place! This is what, for instance, the Galaxy Y may attempt to do… get more economical and yet add a lot of other newer features! Winning doesn’t surely end the race… right? Winning just gives you many more reasons to move ahead and connect to more people.

Don’t look back

Applause and parties are never the reason to stand and vegetate. They end soon enough and you find you are back with your thought… any Samsung device would also agree with me. What is the solution then? The solution is in a single word uttered thrice to give it the right emphasis:

Surprise. Surprise. Surprise.

Go ahead and surprise yourself all the time. Peep into the nooks and crannies within you and find the gems that are lying there waiting to be discovered. Any tech innovation also happens in a similar way.

Don't look back!

For those interested, the jury for the Gadget Guru Awards featured award winning actor Gul Panag, India’s best known tech expert – Atul Chitnis, Technology consultant – Kishore Bharagava, Nishanth Padiar – Editor, Stuff Magazine, Ashish Bhatia – Independent technology writer and columnist, Prasanto Kumar Roy – President and Chief Editor of Cyber Media’s ICT Group besides Vikram Chandra and Rajiv Makhni.

A special audio jury included KJ Singh – National Award Winner for Sound Design in Omkara and Milinid Raorane – Electro-Acoustic Expert.

Vince Lombardi once said: “Winning is not a sometime thing, it’s an all-time thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is habit.” Let me end this small article on facets of winning by wishing Samsung a lot more wins in the coming times… after all, I am their brand ambassador and want their winning to become a habit!

Best technological Innovation of the year

NDTV Award of the Year - Jury Choice

Viewer's Choice Award

Best budget phone of the year

Arvind Passey
27 March 2012