Use What You Learn — Ice Stupas, Theme Parks and Shoes

Start here High up in Ladakh, there is plenty of snow in winter. But in spring and early summer, when farmers need water, the streams are nearly dry. Hundreds of villages faced this. The answer came from a science lesson you learned in school.

Ladakh is cold, dry and rocky. You can’t easily dig ponds or wells there. In summer some people even had to leave their villages for a few months.

The school science: a big block of ice melts slowly. A small piece melts fast. Why? A big block has less surface for its size, so it takes in heat more slowly. (That’s also why we spread hot food out to cool it faster.)

Lecture example — the Ice House in Chennai Near Marina Beach stands a building once called the Ice House (today Vivekananda House). In the 1800s, huge blocks of ice came by ship all the way from America and were stored there. Big blocks lasted for months.

The idea: engineer Sonam Wangchuk piped stream water up through a pipe so it sprayed out like a fountain in the freezing winter. The water froze layer by layer into a tall cone of ice, called an ice stupa. In spring and summer it melts slowly, giving water just when farms need it.

The character Phunsukh Wangdu in the film 3 Idiots was partly inspired by him.

The lesson: he didn’t need new science, just school science, used.

Lecture example — the picture of a vegetable An old Tamil saying: you can’t cook with a picture of a vegetable. In the same way, the lessons in this course are useless unless you use them. Pick a few, practise them, and turn them into habits.

Long ago, two men from India visited Disney World in the USA. Both loved it.

• The first came home and told everyone how much fun it was.
• The second asked, “What if we had theme parks in our country? People who can’t travel to the USA could enjoy them too.” He went on to build theme parks in India.

This “what if?” thinking is the entrepreneurial mindset. You don’t need to own a company to have it.

Everyday example: you notice a slow process at work, think of a better way and share it with your boss. If the idea is used, the organisation grows, and so do you. As the saying goes, “Your attitude decides your altitude.”

A shoe company sent two salespeople to a village. Nobody there wore shoes.

The boss loved the second report. Scarcity or abundance? It’s your choice.

In one line: Use simple knowledge to solve real problems, and look at every situation with a “what if?”, abundance mindset. Exam words: ice stupa, surface area, Ice House, use what you learn, entrepreneurial mindset, attitude and altitude, scarcity mindset, abundance mindset.