GATE Motivation

We Are Just Close To Success

When I was young my father told me a story and later I heard quote and every time I want to give up something I remember those I just don’t want to give up on that. It is true for everything including going to IITs to finding a job and to most of my personal decisions.

I tried to get into IITs for Bachelors’ degree, could not make it. Tried for masters, could not get it. Finally landed there for PhD. Getting in  there was already a great success for and I was damn happy to be in registration lines of IIT for PhD and that happiness led me to complete PhD in record time with a great love from my surroundings.

This  is my 7th year in one of toughest companies, job and countries. After three years felt like running out of it and felt burnt. When I stayed patient but didn’t compromise on my basic principles and kept trying to learn and improve and understand,  I was lucky to get the work I love to do and cherish it. Sometimes I feel, I would have left this place would have left it with a feeling of being failure or unsuccessful. This might have given me a bad taste of place, people and work. Now I feel truly lucky and if I leave this place, I would leave it with a desire to return to it as I do with IITR.

My dad works in Saudi Arabia for the biggest oil producer in the world. He started working there from early days of Saudi Arabian Oil exploration. He always have many interesting stories to share from his job. Once on a dinner he told a story about an oil digging project.  This is really an interesting and intuitive story.

Once few scientist told an oil exploration company that one specific site if they explore can find oil. The company started digging the site for several years and could not find anything there. The CEO again asked scientists, they said according to analysis they must have oil there but their finding can be faulty. The CEO ordered for dig again spend millions of dollars and not making any profit. After a decade of digging and making losses on paper for company the CEO ordered to abandon the site.  After few years the board of directors decided to try a new CEO and nominated the research group leader as CEO.  The new CEO looked into abandon projects and asked to start digging the site again. The CEO then and a board member suggested him that he should not waste more money into it. But the new CEO after reading the reports ordered to reopen the site and start work. My dad says, after digging for mare less than 30 days they started seeing oil sings there and in two moths they reached oil reserves. These reserves become world’s richest oil reserves and everyday produce millions of barrels of crude oil to the world. The new CEO became the life time chairman of the company and company became one of the world’s largest oil supplier.

There are lot of lessons in this story for and still draw lessons from it. First and foremost is to know what are we looking for and what is its worth. If it can change your whole life its worth giving a good try, if it’s just good for couple years don’t worry too much about it. I strongly believed a degree from IIT would change my life upside down and felt that the best bet I can ever make. I tried till reached there and every time I had other opportunities at hand I felt they are just temporary and in long run won’t benefit me much. This made me clear that I must go to IITs whatever it takes.

Second important thing to constantly work and move towards it. Without a good try it is called dreaming and without giving a good effort is called fooling. You cannot enter  IIT without a good try and without a good effort. So don’t ever think that you will get all in your hand by just talking or thinking about it. Giving up or sticking comes when really started working on something and gave it good time. Once you started giving effort don’t give up. We don’t know how close to success we are when we just give up. Think about the first CEO, dug  the well for more than a decade and gave up when he was just so close to success. Remember him and give your best efforts.

Remember the famous quote from Thomas Edison

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up : Thomas Edison

If you want to read more on it do refer to Personals.

Wish you all a great luck ahead and keep rocking.

13 Comments

  1. Sarvesh

    I used to have the knd of attitude that you have but it has disappeared somewhere. Worrying too and distractions of the modern world are somehow having its toll on me. Your site is a beautiful reminder of the good things to be perceived .
    Thanks.
    An Appreciator.

  2. Sumit Verma

    Hello Zahid sir,
    I am following you for the last 4-5 years, since I had taken my first GATE exam. Till now I have qualified the GATE three times but hardly my rank is all about 4000 AIR. My dream & aim was the selection in anyone of the PSUs. I have completed my M.TECH. from NIT Kurukshetra but now-a-days I am working as an assistant professor in an average college. At this time my age is about 27 and I belong to a lower middle class family. I am not happy with my job because I am not able to teach the students properly & I think I don’t have skills for the teaching.
    What should I do, Zahid sir, at this time.? I want to join any company but when the recruiters look at my m.tech. profile they reject me. Should I take the GATE exam again & again or other else option what I have. I am in too much frustration. Please help me.

    1. JAHIR

      Why did mention bad about ur m.tech profile.. That too from NITK

  3. bunny

    How can I be in top rankers in gate 2016. ….if I am seing hard competitors around me…..dat feeling seriously put me in fear of huge competition

  4. vishal

    Oh Finally one more post from Zahid after long time…kaha ho bhai? Bhoolgaye kya hame?

  5. Anoop

    the success story is always a motivation ty zahid:)

  6. Achal

    Your site is one of the best one.
    Since last 20-25 days i am reading stuff.
    Keep up the best work.
    I am also giving the GATE 2015 to get admission to Masters.
    Thanks to you for such precious information.

  7. KARTHIKEYAN

    Thanks for the inspiring story Zahid je. Can you give us the GATE cut of for IIT madras 2014?

  8. punil

    hello zahid sir,
    my self punil, completed B.E(mech) in a private university, i always use to be in top 5 in my college. when i was in final year B.E i have strong desire to enter any PSU then i decided to give GATE ,i prepared hard but i couldn’t make it and i felt some guidance is required some guidance is required so i joined for coaching in ACE Hyderabad , there i felt very good and everything was fine. I USED TO SPEND MINIMUM 12 HOURS PER DAY FOR PREPARATION BUT WHEN I GO FOR SOLVING PROBLEMS, WHENEVER I CROSS NEW KIND OF PROBLEM I COULDN’T ANALYZE IT PROPERLY. MAY BE WITH THAT PROBLEM ONLY I COULDN’T CLEAR GATE-14(SCORED ONLY 25), a big shock for me. then some how i makeup my mind for writing for pgcet but i have not succeeded to the extent what i expected. so i concluded that there is some problem in my preparation but i couldn’t find it. PLEASE GUIDE ME TO COME OUT FROM THIS PROBLEM
    please reply me sir presently i am in dilemma that to give GATE15 or search for job. but other side i am not ready to giveup.

    1. Shubham

      I understand your pain, don’t lose the burning desire to succeed in GATE used it in your preparation this year, plan properly and analyse what problem still persist in your preparation, benchmark it with a test series. i would strongly recommend you to write down your the topics which you feel you’re not comfortable somewhere, and prepare them rigourously taking two at a time and strike out the topics once you’ll comfortable with that specific topics. And keep this thing in mind merely taking coaching in an institute won’t help, you need to assimilate whatever taught there that is only possible with hard work, hard work in the sense reading the same notes while refering to standard textbooks followed by sufficient problem practice. And please stop counting hours while you prepare, just do not sleep till you feel you’re comfortable. Do not procasinate things but at the same time keep thinking about the the aim all the time. I ‘ll come back here to see your result this year in march. All the best. 🙂

  9. Nikita Purohit

    Its really inspiring….

  10. Shubham

    Inspiring as always, i was in need of it, keep up the good work Zahid. 🙂

    P.S. If you could increase the frequency of writing the posts, student community will be delighted. This is coming after one month. 😛

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