Try harder.

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When I first started working in the advertising industry, I remember a case study of a unique advertising campaign launched by Avis (the car rental company) many years ago. The campaign tagline simply goes like this “We try harder”. You see, back then Hertz was clearly the leader in the car rental business. But what Avis did was to put the message across to the public admitting that they are only No. 2 in the car rental business and that is exactly why they are going to try harder. This tagline stayed with me until today.

I believe in trying harder… always. Once in a job interview, I was asked a very common question “Where will you like to be in 5 years time when you join this company?” My answer was “I don’t know but I will try hard to do my best and wherever it is going to be, it will come naturally”. Then I was asked again “What if, it doesn’t come?” And I said “Then I will have to try harder”.

Throughout my working life, I met some very good people who believed in me and gave me a lot of opportunities to build a career in the corporate world. Due to my lack of paper qualifications, I have to try very hard to carve out a good career in the corporate world and I have to try even harder not to let these people down. I hope I did not let them down.

It is good to place things at the No. 2 perspective and see how to make them better. There is always room for improvement. We just have to try harder.

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You complain about your shoes ...

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You know, I thought I was very poor when I was growing up. I used to tell people that I only have 10 cents for pocket money when I was in school. I told many people on how the 7 of us (5 siblings and my parents) stayed in a rented room until I was 12 years old. We can only afford chicken a few times a year during festive days and so on and so forth.

Well, if that was what I called poor, then I do not know how to describe the situation of the family in the video below (I am sure many have seen this video before).

http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/1081/Chicken-a-la-Carte

This is a true situation that is actually happening now. It shows a really poor family living on the waste that we threw away every day. When I saw this, it makes me think how wonderful my life was while growing up. I had proper food on the table. I had school. I had good clothing. I had a lot more things compared to them.

I remember my ex-boss once said this to me: “You complain about your shoes, some people don’t even have legs”. Those exact words reflected clearly on my mind when I saw the video.

Let me tell you now, I won't complain about my shoes anymore.
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