In the very heart of Sri Lanka, within a small village that was hidden with the green gardens of tea, there lived a girl, and her name was Asha. She was one of those cheerful and kind-hearted girls, and she had only one dream: to open a bakery one day. Only the road, in that sense, was to be a little bit bumpy for her. She had to face, rather has faced, from financial constraints to the doubt of her very own community; each and every kind of hindrance came in the way of Asha. Despite all of those, Asha’s story did become the testament of how positive thinking can be so potent, and the strength there is in learning from mistakes.
One brilliant morning, Asha decided that she needed to pitch the idea to the man who had made his village so prosperous, Mahinda. “Mahinda aiya, I think this village needs a bakery. I have the passion and recipes; I just lack the funds,” she said in a tone filled with hope and nervousness.
“In Asha’s eyes, there seemed to be a kind of resolve. A man who had made it in the textile business, Mahinda, asked her, ‘What is it that holds you from doing this, Asha? The lack of resources or resilience?’ He then went on, asking, ‘So, tell me, what do you plan on doing if you fail?’
Asha took a pause to think about his words. “I will learn from it, Aiya. Every failure teaches some lessons. I will come out more powerful,” with conviction lighting up her eyes, she said to him.
Impressed by the spirit, Mahinda agreed to finance her bakery under one condition: that she first works in one of the bakeries in Colombo to get on with the business. Asha voluntarily agreed to do it because, for her, that was her stepping stone to reach her dream.
Asha found it a bit hard shifting to Colombo. She missed the village back home and found city life rather intimidating. The job in the bakery was relatively harder than the one she expected. Early mornings, long hours, and the fast pace pressed her. Her first major assignment was the making of a special cake for some elite client. Always leaving no stone unturned in order to impress the client, Asha got down to cake preparation, putting all her heart into it. But, to her chagrin, the cake turned up otherwise. The client was unhappy, leading to criticism from her boss.
Feeling disappointed, Asha pressed a number on the mobile dial and started talking to her best friend Nimali back at the village. “I don’t know if I can do this, Nimali. I think I better give up and go back home,” Asha let out her heart.
Nimali always supports with the beam of support and replied, “Asha, do you remember why you started? One setback should not define your journey. Learn from the mistake. What didn’t work? How can you make it better? You have a dream, and I believe in you.
The piece of advice from Nimali did get registered in Asha’s mind. She understood that she had hurried the baking part, which was always a compromise of quality. She made that a realization. She took the commitment to make that right in her craft through feedback and learning from every mistake.
Months and time passed by, and Asha significantly groomed herself in such skills. Her positive attitude, learning from failures, and coupled tendencies for helping made her not only the darling of her colleagues but also endeared to the boss. She went back to the village, leaving the bakery in Colombo far richer in experience and a person with a new purpose of life. Asha, investing from Mahinda, and with all skills to learn, finally opened the bakery at the village. People from the village and tourists were very much attracted to it.
But more than the array of goodies up for grabs at Asha’s bakery, it was representative of so much more. It was a symbol of resiliency, a tribute to what those who believe they can—and learn from their mistakes—are capable of.
Most of the time, Asha used to narrate her story to the customers, mostly to the young customers, so that they could also be inspired. “Remember, every failure is a step closer to success. Embrace your mistakes; learn from them, and never let go of your dreams,” she often said. That village probably learned the most powerful lesson; if at all important next to never giving up, then the lesson of learning from failure. And they most probably had learned from Asha’s story that perhaps nothing is as powerful as positive thinking. Asha had become more than a baker; she had become a beacon of hope and inspiration that showed with the right frame of mind, one could change their life to what one always envisioned it should be.
