“You jostled and jabbed and nudged and kicked half a million others. Only if you had knuckles then, you would have known what a bloody fight it was, you flailed a million times like a feisty swashbuckler. You made it through precarious passages fraught with uncertainty; and the furore you raised on the table. You made it clear in no uncertain terms, that you were here to thrive. Thrive as life thrives in the face of death and entropy. Never, ever forget that!”

– Anonymous

There is a tree called the “Ailanthus”. The scientific name is Ailanthus Altissima. It is also known as the Tree of Heaven or Varnish Tree. And there is a girl. An 11-year old Francie Nolan who lives with her 10 year old brother Cornelius and parents Johnny and Kate. Francie is a girl with a highly imaginative bent of mind, her love of reading provides her with an escape hatch from her life of impoverishment. Now why am I talking about this tree called Ailanthus? This tree is a central motif in the bestseller and classic “A tree grows in Brooklyn” by Betty Smith. Besides being a personal favourite, by the time I reached the end of the book, I felt so high on the invincible vigour of life. I am not alone in my share of accolades for this book. One marine wrote to Smith, the author of the book “I can’t explain the emotional reaction that took place in this dead heart of mine…A surge of confidence has swept through me, and I feel that maybe a fellow has a fighting chance in this world after all”. Such was the impact of this book. The Tree of Heaven recurs in the book many times. The tree grows amongst the tenement houses in Brooklyn where Francie and Cornelius collect junk to exchange for pennies. It is the central metaphor of the book, it is the archetype of the ability to survive and thrive in a difficult environment. The tree refuses to die out despite all the adversities the changing shape of the city brings upon it. It finds a nook, a cranny, a crevice, a conduit, a vestibule, an opening, to keep sprouting back to life. The trees persistent ability to grow and flourish runs a parallel course with the life of the protagonist Francie Nolan, exemplifying her desire to flourish despite pecuniary conditions and the throes of adversity.

The opening lines of the book had me in their thrall “Some people call it the Tree of Heaven. No matter where its seed falls, it makes a tree which struggles to reach the sky. It grows in boarded-up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps. It grows up out of cellar gratings. It is the only tree that grows out of cement. It grows lushly … survives without sun, water, and seemingly without earth. It would be considered beautiful except that there are too many of it.”  I remained riveted through the entire spread of the book, rooting for the tree, rooting for life, rooting for its ability to thrive. And the last lines left me in a state of blissful vigour “The tree whose leaf umbrellas had curled around, under and over her fire escape had been cut down because the housewives complained that wash on the lines got entangled in its ranches. The landlord had sent two men and they had chopped it down. But the tree hadn’t died … it hadn’t died. A new tree had grown from the stump and its trunk had grown along the ground until it reached a place where there were no wash lines above it. Then it had started to grow towards the sky again. Annie, the fir tree, that the Nolan’s had cherished with watering and manure, had long since sickened and died. But this tree in the yard-this tree that men chopped down … this tree that they built a bonfire around, trying to burn up its stump-this tree lived!

 Yes, we have to be like the tree, which nothing can destroy. We have to thrive and prosper. We have to grow and we have to grow with great vigour. We have to get into every nook and cranny of an opportunity we can get. We have to stick our necks out to thrive and prosper. We have learnt all the lessons that the school of hard knocks has for us to learn. I have a certain background in Botany and what I know from my observation is, sometimes you plant seeds of a certain species, water the soil and wait for the plant to sprout. Days pass and no such thing happen, but what you get to see is, some other shrub has sprouted in its place. It is rugged, wiry, tenacious and resilient. You scowl at it. You refuse it water and perhaps try to trample it with your foot. Another few days pass and you see the plant has ramified itself into a formidable cluster. Cloned itself multiple times. It has made a statement “it is here to stay” In the same way, all of us on the path of becoming great selves or Mahatmans have to make a firm and resolute statement in the face of every adversity life offers us “We are here to stay and proliferate and prosper. We are here to THRIVE.”

We, the humans would have been one of the weakest species amongst all the living flora and fauna. We do not live for as long as the redwoods or the sequoias who have a lifespan of 1000+ years. We are not as big as the mighty whale which is 6 to 7 times the size of an elephant. We are not as fast as the cheetah, we are not as ferocious as the lion or the tiger, our limbs are not as half as powerful as our closest relatives in the animal kingdom- the apes. And yet we as a species have thrived and multiplied to gargantuan proportions. From being hunting-gathering tribes in the Serengeti we have come to a long way to be the mighty rulers of this planet. The reason- Our brain, which has given us a quantum leap in the pecking order of the most advanced species on the planet. We have thrived on this planet despite our physical limitations. What we cannot do with our limbs, we have constructed outside of us, thanks to the faculties of our brain. It is interesting to note that in most animals, the offspring takes to walking within a few hours. In case of a Giraffe, the calf stands up within 30 minutes of its birth; the human baby needs at least a year of intense care before it can do the same. There is a reason for this- Our brains are larger in proportion to our body size compared to any other animal, and much of our developmental energy is concentrated towards the brain, while in the case of animals it is channelized towards developing muscles.

We have proliferated as a Great species on this planet on account of the tremendous intellectual and creative potential of our brain. We need to use our potential to maintain peak fitness and lead an affluent and sentient long life. Thriving is all about growth, economic and material growth in addition to biological growth. We must be unapologetic about our quest for affluence, (though we must certainly moderate it taking into consideration the ecological repercussions our lifestyle decisions may have on our planet.)Thriving is all about overcoming mediocrity and complacency. Thriving is about prospering in life. Thriving is about overcoming the lethargy and inertia of life using physiology and psychology. There have been a number of studies on the importance of a great posture and gait. It optimizes the load on the body parts and minimizes the loss of energy squandered in faulty kinaesthetic movements. Sitting erect makes our more alert and receptive. There are so many schools dedicated to body kinaesthetic such as Yoga, martial arts, dance, sports, Tai-chi. The right postures, gestures and movements generate great energy and vigour and helps us to shake us out of our inertia and reveries. They also make us more mindful and more attuned to every minute that life has offered us. We are able to milk the most value out of our time. Self-love often expressed through affirmative self-talk is a great way to shake off the inertia. We must express love for ourselves all the time and especially in the mornings when we start the day and when our receptiveness is the highest.

It is also important to surround ourselves with people who are hard-working, result-oriented and have a positive frame of mind. The right company will always uplift our spirits. In his books: How to win friends and influence people, Dale Carnegie talks about the powerful American business tycoon Rockefeller. Rockefeller always used to say “One reason I have succeeded is because I have always been able to get people who are better than me to work for me.” Truly, whether people are in your employment or they are just your friends or family, in a way they all are working for you or against. People with pessimistic and lackadaisical mind-set will bring you down while people who have a fire in their belly and a blaze in their eyes will keep you levitating against the inertia of life. So always associate with people better than you, those people with the proverbial halo of a positive mental attitude coupled with exemplary diligence about manifesting it in their actions.

While you do this, at the same time you must also learn to enjoy your own company. Before dying at the age of 39, Blaise Pascal made great strides in the domain of Fluid Mathematics, Geometry and Probability. Just before his death he churned out a collection of his private thoughts on life which would later be published as Pensées. He says “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone. “ Pascal was making a point- we do not enjoy our own company. In the period that we live in, we have all the communication and entertainment marvels at our behest. Those that help us stay connected with all our friends and family across the globe. Yet there is no technology that helps us stay connected with ourselves. That is some inner engineering we have to do ourselves. We have to learn to enjoy our own company. We can do that in various ways. We can be passionate and deep about things that are close to us like books, music, travelling, nature, wildlife, sports. We must not fritter our time in idle gossip and cynical conversations. We must delay instant gratification. Also we must inculcate hobbies and interests that call for a more engaging and hardworking experience for our faculties. For example instead of watching a movie, read a book. It helps you build your imagination and visualization skills. Be passionate about things which do not make you a passive receptor but an active contributor in the process. If you read a book, build a 360 degrees experience around it. Make notes, scribble in the marginalia (if you are a purist use a notebook), note down the questions that the book raised, discuss the book with your friends or at your book club, make a presentation about it, or write a blog about it.  Instil greatness in your character by bringing depth and passion to everything you do. Always be in a self-driven teaching-learning frame of mind. You will be jubilant with your own company.

It is very important to note that the real growth, the real progress is inside of you. As a hypothesis assume that Elon Musk or Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos of Amazon lose all their wealth in some unfortunate event. How much does that really change anything? Are they any different people then? The answer is NO. These people are the sum total of all their hard work, resilience and the attitude of greatness. Like a phoenix they can rise once again and attain the same levels of fame and fortune. The vigour codicil once wired into you, will make you do wonders. Just the like the caterpillar which metamorphoses into a butterfly. If you have ever seen this process in action, you will notice it is an experience of immense beauty and massive intensity. It is like a rebirth. This calls for immense vigour on our part. This calls for the vigour to be reborn again and again, into a better version of ourselves so that we do not slump into complacency and mediocrity.

Based on research about wealthy people here are a few things you can do to keep that joie de vivre alive in your life all the time and stay great-

Take risks- I attended a session on share trading. Someone there said “the share market is so volatile, such huge ups and downs – it almost looks scary on the graph like mountains and ravines, why cannot it be a peaceful flat line.”  The Trainers reply was epic- “That is precisely the idea, you earn money because the market is so volatile and keeps bobbing up and down the graph. If it was a flat line, where is your money going to come from? Have you seen the Electrocardiogram? How does it appear to you? With lots of ups and downs right? Would you want a flat line there? You know what it means, don’t you? Flatline stands for DEAD” That is exactly how our life is without risks. DEAD. We have to take risks to FEEL alive and feel GREAT.

Work Hard- The great inventor Thomas Edison once said ““Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” For a person who works hard, the clock never stops, the shoes never come off, and the lights never go out. We must not strive for work life balance because they are not separate entities. Work and life are integral to each other and we must strive for their integration. 24/7 we must be integrated into the zeitgeist of hard work.

Stay positive- A boy and his father were walking across a beach, when a huge wave tossed thousands of fish onto the beach. The fish were all throbbing and gasping for life. The boy picked up one fish, ran across and tossed it back into the water. The father scoffed and said “what difference does it make, there must be thousands and thousands of them” The boy retorted merrily “Well to this one it did” There will be cynics all around you. Never lose focus of your convictions and stay positive.

Keep learning- Life is going to teach us lessons, should we choose to learn or not. So why not gear up and put ourselves in a perpetual cruise control mode of learning. Learning is a life-long process. We must always be in an inquisitive frame of mind, and keep our vigilance about us. We will be astonished at how much even a small incident will teach us. We must be extravagant and greedy about learning new things. The question we must ask ourselves every day “when was the last time I did something for the first time? “ We must keep reinventing ourselves through doing different things or by doing the same things in a different way. We must challenge our own assumptions and beliefs every now and then and let new answers evolve through the process of introspection and brainstorming.

Let me end this chapter by asking you a question? Would you be a Cockroach or a Dinosaur? Think about this – Cockroaches have existed since a million years even before the Dinosaurs and they are here even today giving us a hard time by popping up in the kitchen sink, refrigerator, kitchen shelves, even our shoe stands. This is because Cockroaches are tenacious, resilient and highly adaptable specimens of life. For food they can thrive on bread crumbs as much as they can on dried shoe polish. They can bear the parched excess of Sahara desert with the same equanimity as they can in any of the freezing pockets graced by the cold Labrador Current. In a nutshell be resilient, be adaptable, be one step ahead of life. Learn from the cockroach.

Big bang of Thrive–

• Vigour is the essence of thriving- learn from how the caterpillar transforms into a butterfly
• We should remain productive and useful our entire lives
• Who we become is more important than what happens at the end.
• Be resilient and be adaptable. Be one step ahead of life