On the Road

A famous basketball coach once said, “You may be on the right track. But, if you just stand there, you will be run over”. When I read this, I didn’t realize that it will have such a huge impact on me. Today in my ice breaker I’m not going to talk about my school days I had spent at Tambaram. I’m not going to talk about my college days in A.M. Jain College where I did my Maths graduation. I’m not going to talk about my retired parents, my spouse who is a home killer, sorry, home-maker and my daughter doing her 6th standard. I’m also not going to talk about my career in HR and about my 6 years in CSC. I’m going to share with you some other aspect that has made me who I am today.

Let’s go back to that sentence. You may be on the right track. But, if you just stand there, you will be run over. Back in the year 2000, I had a normal life and everything fell in place most of the time and life was smooth. I had a decent job, my wife was about to deliver a baby, I got married. Oh, not necessarily in that order. I got married and my wife was about to deliver a baby. As a family we had paid all our debts. So we had an independent house. I had bought a car. Life was smooth and beautiful. What more would a middle class young man want? I was on the right track, but I was just standing there.

When I started driving my car on the road, I started viewing life differently. You see, life on the traffic lanes is like our life. It is very similar to how we approach life. Driving is like living. You start from a place and you have a destination in mind. Sometimes you drive slowly, other times you drive fast. You may go at a constant speed some other day. It teaches you so many things. Driving teaches you what your boundary is. You also learn how to be disciplined. You learn how to survive in a traffic jam, how to maneuver cramped space when everyone is trying to nudge forward.

It teaches you the power of Positioning. When you position your car at the right place, you keep going without getting struck in traffic. When you travel long distances, you realize that you might be on the right track but if you just go at a very slow pace or get struck, you may be run over. The same thing can happen in life as well. In fact it almost happened to me.

In 2000, I had become an HR Manager in a reasonably reputed IT firm. My wife asked me what do you do in HR? Well, most toughest question. I said, “I’m in the business of changing lives”. “Then why some people complaint about HR?” she asked me immediately. My response was, “Well, for most of them our change is from bad to good. Sometimes it happens the other way around as well”.

So, there I was enjoying my managerial career. Suddenly I realized that it has taken over 8 years to reach a good position where people reached similar if not better heights in life much faster. How? They had good educational foundation – MBAs from reputed institutes and they constantly kept learning something or the other. When I looked at myself, I was just a B. Sc Maths graduate, competing against stronger contenders. Yes, I was doing well, but in the next couple of years I will become an “also ran” with the competition around. I quickly enrolled for a part-time MBA and spent the next 3 years going for my classes 5 days a week in the evening after work. My career also progressed thanks to my MBA, couple of certifications I obtained and the learning I had from people around me. I had a different perspective on Management and got recognition as well.

Again, life was ok and my lane was good. But when l looked at my destination and see where I was then, I was not doing enough. That’s when I enrolled for a Ph. D and in about 2 years time, I will complete my Ph. D in Management.

Ladies and gentlemen, life is not a 100 meter dash. It is a marathon. You need to constantly sustain and learn to survive, adjust and go on to last the distance and to come out in flying colors. After all, you may be on the right track. But, if you just stand there, you will be run over.