“If God doesn’t stop testing then you shouldn’t stop fighting, keep going till your resilient fight is acknowledged and the universe joins hands with you.”
With this as the basis of the autobiography, Confidence Sponsored By Pain: Strategies and Gifts to Leverage On and Strengthen Your Beliefs,” Venkatesh Krishnamurthy, Founder and CEO of Wharf Street Studios and Wharf Street Strategies, chronicles his journey from being stuck in the rat-race life in India to mapping out a completely different world for himself in the UK.
The book has beautifully described that to succeed in life, you must focus on only evaluating feedbacks you’ve received. Of course, feedback and criticism from others are very important for building a strong character, but more than that is the importance of self-feedback which the author has documented in a very motivating way. There are many exercises throughout the book which the author has used very cleverly to engage the readers.
Venkatesh too faced many ups and downs in his professional and personal life but he was able to succeed only because he believed in a very vibrant thought: that power is in the mindset and once we can control and program our mindset, we can achieve anything.
Wrapped up in a ten-chapter story format, the name of the chapters is very intriguing and instantly motivates the readers to take actions as per the exercises described. For instance, in the third chapter, Darkness as an ally to mould oneself, the author has described a personal tragic event which made him introspect many aspects of his life. In this chapter, he explores the concept of TCOS Quadrant that is Trigger, Challenge, Opportunity and Strength.
Venkatesh explained a very important practice in the ninth chapter that when we are most comfortable we don’t expect hardships or unpleasant situations. Despite recession at the time, it was his absolute zeal that motivated him to showcase and channelize his skills towards his passion. And it was through these challenges that acquainted him with his talents and nature of expertise, which he calls his gifts. These skills were imbibed from his experience through the years of hard work and knowledge, especially because he worked with multiple startups. He used these experiences to find his gifts which eventually made him recognize his strengths and powers which he used to finally establish his businesses.
The book ends on a very actionable note, explaining the theory of Energy Flow Quadrant. Simply put, if you are aware of your gifts, the energy that you are using to achieve those goals will work like a miracle, navigating your life towards those goals. You channelize your gifts which in turn will build your net-worth, once you build your net-worth, you will be connected with the right people and once you are connected with the right people, you will share your intellect which in turn will reflect you to channelize your gifts properly. Those who follow and repeat this process will succeed as Venkatesh did.
The stories mentioned does justice to the title of the book. As a reader, you can expect to relate to these experiences and implement these strategies to scale any part of your life.
Book Review by Shruti Dugar