Money, success and position

While what we receive on social media, more so on WhatsApp every morning, mainly eminently avoidable good morning messages, is crap, once in a while, we do come across certain stuff worth its value in gold. One such video was forwarded by an old friend of mine in which, the protagonist described her life changing experience during her official visit to India.

She expresses her desire to go to a crowded bazaar area in the city of Bangalore and persists with her request in spite of her host’s suggestion to avoid the area. However, she reaches there and soon regrets not having paid heed to her host’s advice to avoid the area. She’s overwhelmed by the crowds and rush and dirt and filth expose her to various smells, not all of them pleasant. She escapes to a corner to get some respite from the crowd, heat and humidity, where she observes a group of women making leis out of plucked flowers. She gets intoxicated by both – the aroma of freshly plucked jasmines as also at the artisanship of these ladies in the manner they were weaving flowers into leis. Her eyes fall on a lady – very slim and petite , wrinkles all over who, the protagonist felt wouldn’t be younger than 90 years of age. Her heart gets filled with empathy and she gestures to the old lady to accept the wad of notes that she has taken out of her purse! The old woman refuses and the protagonist takes the services of her guide to explain to the old woman in native language not to treat this as charity, but a deal from an admirer of her craftsmanship to buy old lady’s entire produce for the day. When explained by the guide, the old woman bows with her hands folded and offers 2-3 leis as gift to her foreign guest free of any cost.

The above incident strums the strings of the protagonist’s heart that there are certain values that are much above sales, profits and aggression. Till that day, the protagonist had spent most of her life in running a rat race to climb up the corporate ladder by indulging in ruthless competition. But this small gesture by an illiterate , poor and nonagenarian lady taught the protagonist a valuable lesson in life that changed the direction and approach towards the life. The purpose of the life goes much beyond money, success and position.

As she sums up her talk – “ That valuable lesson made me quit my corporate job and encouraged me to pursue my passions. That simple, poor, illiterate Indian lady made me realise to value Service over sales, honour over hustle and people over profits.”

Not really sure, how many corporate houses are running their businesses today by following the above principles! As I read somewhere, real life changing corporate and management lessons are not taught in B schools but in our day to day lives by observing the real life incidents!