You Never Know What You Are Capable Of

Hi,

I no longer am as regular with reading books as I once used to be. But still want to get my hands on to something interesting once in a while. The latest I am reading is "The Education of an Accidental CEO" by David Novak, CEO of Yum Brands - owners of Pizza Hut, KFC, Taco Bell.

I found the title interesting..."an accidental ceo" - wow! How cool is that / How lucky / How did he fall upon the CEO's chair??? Since the moment I came across this title, my mind was racing with such questions and I had to pick up the book for me to read. Also, this title had the word education in it, which made me wonder can this book really share something.

To be honest, this book was bought at-least three weeks back and I have not gone past the third chapter. This is purely because of my procrastication and need to spend sometime watching TV, instead of reading interesting books. Anyhow, even though I am still at the first 5% of books contents, but I have already come across the essence of it (thanks to the author). This post is about the essence:

"You Never Know What You Are Capable Of..."

What I take from this statement is - I know my current strengths and weaknesses but probably don't know what else can I do or what is it that I can do better. Let me give an example for this - I am a sales professional and have been in channel sales throughout...but am not sure how would I be in personal sales, how would I be in corporate sales or how bad would I be in finance. The last point being, I know I would be bad in finance but how bad - whether impossible or still manageable.

To develope this thought further, Mr. Novak explains his learnings over the years that led him to the CEO's chair. But in my view what is more important is the attitude, with which he welcomed each change and took on each challenge, that allowed him to have all these learnings in the first place. Starting with life in a trailer, entering a journalism course, becoming an advertising professional and then becoming a CEO - during all this, Mr. Novak was not only open to new ideas but also bigger challenges. Some of these had the potential to wipe him out and he didn't know whether he had all the solutions with him - all that he had was self-belief!

After M. Novak managed to tackle each of such 'difficult' issues, he looked back and thought - would I have believed ten years back that I am capable of doing this. And that my friends, I think is the essence of this book.

Do tell me what is your opinion on it...take care and be open to challenges!