Stand out.

This one's about being mad in your thoughts. In being mad about bringing those thoughts to reality. It's about how the giants disrupted their industry and threw the world in a shock.

Often, well, always, changemakers are often either turned down for being mad and impractical, or are left unheard. But those people still carry on, doing what they've committed themselves to. Around us, we see very often, people just follow the crowd without any sense of direction at all. Oh all my friends are delaying the assignment, let me do the same. Oh my friends are choosing the easiest topic, let me do the same. Oh my friends are ridiculing me for choosing the most challenging role, so let me back out. Oh I'll be the only one who would own an electric car, and people would probably laugh at me. Oh I'll be the only one who actually goes to bed by 10pm and wakes up early in the morning, so let me stay awake till late night and do nothing productive but to watch TV or play some games. This mindset of mediocrity, this sheep attitude, this blindness, this carelessness has got to end, and its high time it did.

I want to talk about a few pioneers who are actually taking initiatives and are seriously bringing about changes, small or big. I want to start with Eco2librium, which is a private company developing and distributing cookstoves and renewable-energy production in Kenya. They have created around 400 jobs so far, in an area where unemployment was the staple. Amicus co-operative is an American solar-based co-op, which has decided to pay their employees to advocate on behalf of renewable energy, apart from their regular job. Beneficial State Bank, again, an American bank, has been consistently focussed to try not to lend money to organisations that harm people- in the sense that they tend to motivate people to but unnecessary products and services, and it has been focussed on lending money to the poor segment of the society. A staggering 74% of their employees work in low-income neighbourhood. One of my favourites- 4Ocean. The initiative was started by two friends- Alex and Andrew who took a trip to Bali, and they saw first hand what pollution is doing to the world's oceans. So now, they're removing one pound of trash for every bracelet that's bought from their website. This is staggering, and they've already pulled several hundred pounds of trash from the oceans. And my most respected one of the lot- Elon Musk. I developed some insane respect for this man after reading about him in Ashley Vance's biography. To have had a childhood full of bullying, a not so great marital life, and a not so great set of board of trustees in his early startups, this man carried along to create and run Tesla, the company that has been pioneering a shift to sustainable transport.

It is without a doubt that the population of Kenya is huge compared to the number of jobs that have been created. It is true that funding an ocean clean-up drive is difficult and sometimes impossible. It is true that petrol carmakers sell insanely more number of vehicles in one country, in one month, than Tesla does worldwide, in a year. But that's what makes the challenge exist. You see, if it were easy, we wouldn't have had the word pioneer in our dictionary. If it were easy, we wouldn't have had electricity now. If it were easy, we wouldn't have been able to fly airplanes. If it were easy, we wouldn't get such pleasing shots of Giraffes in Africa. Everything has it's own effort to be paid for.

I hope, the next time you're in a situation, you choose a more challenging role. I hope you choose a more interesting tpoic than the easy one. I hope you think using your own mind, and not fall for the obvious and boring choice. Stand out, for its the best way you can know about yourself.

I'd like to leave you thinking with this saying, "Life is nothing but a conflict between the right way and the easy way".