my article in the news letter to the GBS team @ Cognizant
Time is a relative phenomenon to every individual. It can be either past, present or future depending on how you perceive it. A person can view the day in the form of hours or in minutes, seconds would be too minuscule to be kept as a measure of proceedings unless you are in the activity of sports to break world records and carve a name for yourself in the annals of history. For a typical office goer, like us, 9 hours is what we are expected to expend in a day at the office or at the workplace to deliver a day’s quantum of work, including an hour of break time. Truth be told, many of us have come to consider work as a chore to provide for a livelihood through which we try to fulfill our deepest yearnings and desires. We try to put in 5 days of hard work and await eagerly for the 2 days of break where we try to cherish or do what we truly aspire to do. We continue to do this for the next 25 to 30 years of our life at the least as a means of sustenance. Yet, most of us dread at the thought of coming to office and consider work as a laborious process which does not entail any creativity or freedom of thought. If this is the mindset with which we come to our workplace, which in my opinion is a place of worship, then we need to cleanse these thoughts awash with negativity through searing questions and honest efforts of what each one of us aspire to achieve in life.
The question that I would like to ask each and every one of you is this, is this what you truly want to do? The answer, in my opinion is, partly yes, because that is what you had set your educational goals in the early part of your life to qualify yourself as an Accounting and Finance professional so that you can make a career out of it. That being the case, is it not right to set our heart alight when we step into a chosen organization, of our own accord, to do the work with passion, rigor and commitment rather than treat it as another mundane affair. We need to resuscitate the true values and principles of life that has been bred into us by our parents since early childhood. Hard work, Dedication, Commitment, Sincerity are some of the most important traits that we should imbibe and display proudly be it workplace or any other place. This will withstand the sands of time forever and will keep you in good stead. When you truly put your heart and soul into work, you learn new aspects which might not have been visible to you in the normal course of time.
To keep it simple, I would take the recent examples of two recent exemplary cricketers who have shown exemplary discipline to reach the highest pedestal in world cricket. First, is our own Virat Kohli. He has been the most accomplished cricketer in recent times winning the ICC world cricketer in both Test and ODI format for the last couple of years which is quite remarkable. If you read the newspapers, I am not sure, if you have noticed that his physical coach has mentioned that he has not had a cheat day, even once, during the last 2 years. If you are into physical exercise, I am sure you would know what a cheat day is…if not take the effort to understand about exercising and cheat days…it’s a start now that will keep you in good shape physically as well to keep you in good health in the years to come. Fitness, practice and vow to the sport is what has kept Virat at the forefront. And the second one is the Australian cricketer, Steven Smith. He returned to World Cricket after serving a ban for almost 12 months and in the recently concluded 1st Ashes test, scored a phenomenal back to back hundreds in both innings to ensure Australia win their 1st test after almost a decade in very difficult conditions. That shows the grit, determination and perseverance of a man, who has made his willow speak louder than the words in front of an antagonistic crowd. Also, it’s mentioned that he would bat forever in the nets, hours together and would never remove his pads even after his nets session, always hungry for more, even though it’s just another practice session. And then there is the great Roger Federer and his legendary fights with Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic including the recently concluded marathon Wimbledon Final. There is no end to it…such is the fascinating achievements of various sportsmen and women over the years, that we truly worship them as legends.
Sports is almost always a wonderful example to exemplify phenomenal feats of individuals who have time and again shown what it takes to be immortals of all time. But beneath that greatness lies years and years of hard work, toil, sweat and blood. This is something that’s not just unique to sports, but to every other field where humans have excelled consistently over many centuries. But one thing that’s been a constant, is the sincerity of work that the individual puts in over several years. Malcolm Gladwell, has mentioned that it takes about 10,000 hours of work to become a prodigy in his book Outliers. Whether it’s Music, Cinema, Arts, Science or any other field, people who have risen above others, as masters in their own field, have truly immersed themselves in their chosen field of work with such devotion and earnestness that they would have forgotten everything else around them.
In brief, the choice is ultimately yours to decide, what you want to be and how you wish to accomplish that. But there is no shortcut for success and the recipe is simple, hard work, day in, day out, keep practicing what you do until you become perfect and fine tune it even further…as there is no end to it, because change is the only constant. So, I would not end this by saying, be the best in class or of the team or in the Organization. Rather enjoy what you do, learn something from it, share the joy of learning with others, spread the knowledge wide and in return try to learn something new and find yourself the motivation to work, learn and contribute to whichever place you belong in the most altruistic way so that you are remembered forever, leaving the footprints etched in memories of others.
Beautiful Life 