Book review - Eat, Pray, Love

I browse in airport bookstores. It is much nicer to hang out among books in a cluttered, almost claustrophobic space amidst the noisy announcements and general “busy-ness” that pervades all airports than to stare blankly into space while awaiting the boarding announcement for your flight. Often I buy a book, sometimes two. But I always pick up a few that I put on my mental list of “nice to read” but risky to purchase, considering the price. “Eat pray” love by Elizabeth Gilbert was once such book. I had gazed longingly at it a few times but did not buy it. So it was indeed a treat to find it at Evening Hour, my neighborhood bookstore cum library.

As a voracious book lover, I usually read a book from cover to cover and find it hard to put down. But this book took me a good ten days to read through the 350 pages. Not because it was boring or too much, as such books tend to be but because it has been presented in a format that makes this possible. The book describes the journey of one American woman, who spends one year in three exotic places – Italy, India and Indonesia in pursuit of pleasure, prayer and perfection (or pasta, penance and partner?). She spends about 4 months in each location, indulging in an overdose of food in Italy, meditation in an ashram in India and trying to find balance in the Indonesian island of Bali. This year of introspection is initiated following the after-effects of a nasty divorce that straddles the public tragedy of September 11 which keenly affects the sensitive New Yorker. Each section of the book is told as 36 tales that add upto 108, the auspicious number of beads in the quintessential japa mala familiar to all Indians.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this not-so lighthearted book that is difficult to classify into a genre. It contains primarily the spiritual journey of one person so it sounds like a memoir but also like a travelogue because it describes specific facets all these exotic places. She meets several interesting people in each setting which is described in a personal, unself-conscious way without stereotyping the characters. The humor is subtle in most places and Gilbert is at her best when the jokes are directed towards herself. There is serious stuff too, about meditation and meaning of life. But overall, it is a wonderful book for those who are spiritually inclined. You are not merely a reader but a companion to the author on her quest through the world to get to know herself better.

What you value

I was thinking about certain moments in my life when I have desperately wanted something – an object, a status, a title, a promotion. The need was so great that it held to ransom my happiness and extracted any semblance of peace that I may have had. Surely, possessing those things did bring me the attendant benefits, or simplify my life or give me a leg up, as I knew it would. But when viewed in hindsight, with the long lens of time to give it perspective, I find that many of those “things” which I valued highly then, are no longer relevant now. A prime example is my recent surrender of the coveted US Green Card. I felt no sadness or remorse in giving it up, since I have no real need for it now that I live in India. It had become an unnecessary appendage. Similarly, the designations I held in previous jobs made me feel good then, a testimony of my hard work and its acknowledgement by superiors. Today I have no use for these titles since my work speaks for itself, I get repeat business if I match the expectations of my clients. I have no one else to blame or praise.

I wonder why we get so caught up in the acquisition of objects and accolades to the extent that we ironically seem to enjoy the pain of not having it. We rant and rave about unfairness, blame others and generally wallow in much misery. At the end of all this drama, when we do receive the subject (or object) of our desire, it is usually anti-climactic. We then proceed through life repeating the same process for the next new thing that appears in the horizon of our wants.

While the objects you value may change with time, what will not change is your work ethic, your passion for what you do and the priority you give to that part of your professional life that you still hold onto when you have stripped it off its fancy outer shell. It may be worthwhile to consider putting effort to those things that endure with time. Frankly, everything on the outside changes, usually degenerates, but what you can preserve is what is on the inside. Why not work on making some changes internally then?

Multi-tasking

There was a time not so long ago when you could find me comfortably doing multiple tasks at the same time; replying to an email while talking on the phone, preparing dinner, helping with homework and answering the doorbell, all without missing beat. It was the same on weekends too. On any given Saturday, by noon, I would have accomplished what most people would take the entire weekend to complete. My morning shower would be accompanied by thoughts about the day ahead, the deliverables, the meetings, the errands, all swirled merrily in my head and settled down in obedient order so that minimum time was used to achieve the maximum possible. There was one training program I did not need to attend and that was time management.

I was proud of my efficiency. I did not know any other way. I liked being efficient. It saved me time which I could use for other things (though I did not figure out what those other things were until much later). In fact, my ability to skillfully manage disparate activities in a short period of time was one quality I counted upon when I decided to go solo. So I did my networking calls and emails, met people, attended conferences, wrote proposals, prepared presentations and billed clients. Somewhere along the way, I noticed that being efficient, usually led me down the path of taking on more than I could chew. This led to mistakes. Not big ones. Nothing that clients noticed. But I did. And I was not pleased.

I read somewhere that multitasking is just a fancy way of saying “divided attention”. Now I believe it. When your brain is occupied with one task but already thinking of another, it is making room for something else which detracts from the task at hand. If I were to undertake only one thing at a time, I thought I would not have enough hours in the day to get through all the things that needed to be done. But guess my surprise (shock is a more apt word) when I found out that by tackling one job at one time, I am not really doing things slower, I am actually doing them in the same amount of time (or less) but with fewer errors or repeats. Overall my efficiency actually went up – of course the data is from my own personal empirical observations alone so I cannot claim a scientific breakthrough here.

In case you are skeptical about my theory, try to get off the multitasking roller coaster for a day. Make a list of things you need to do. And do them one at a time, in a logical sequence. I guarantee that you will make progress on each item on your list. At the very least you will most definitely enjoy doing those things that you attempt. And isn’t that the whole purpose of saving time, to savor it on other things, the things you truly enjoy doing?

Building a business

In my parents apartment in Bombay, if you look out the kitchen window, you can see the classrooms of the school which is across the street. But if you stick your neck out the window and look straight down, there is a ledge, slightly obscured by the outer beams that surround this 6 floor building. It is dark and cool in that safe zone. Though, it has been a bit noisy the last few days. A family of pigeons has taken up residence and keeps cooing constantly. I can’t say if it is just Mama and Papa pigeon working hard to prepare the nest. Sometimes there are at least three of them in the vicinity. Bringing a straw in its beak; or sometimes a broomstick. They dash away when I peer to check the progress, squawking incoherently.

I have been watching their steady progress in the last couple of days. The nest is not ready yet, but a neat semicircle of twigs and branches has been laid down. The rate of nest building is slow, particularly when I bend down to examine the contents and state of perfection of the nest. The pigeons seem hassled when I do that. I scrutinize their creation out of a sense of curiosity and not to scare them out of their wits. But they don’t know that. I know for sure that the pigeons will continue with their task, undeterred either by my interest or lack of enthusiasm. And they will have their nest ready, in time for the arrival of the new family members.

Building a business is very much like this nest-building endeavor. You need to figure out the immediate goal. Then bring the bits and pieces you need to create the tools to reach the goal. The journey to build a strong, working model of your idea to a point where it functions in the way it should is where the learning is, where the excitement lies. In not knowing if you have all the twigs you need or could you substitute other materials. In not getting off track when someone breathes down your neck, however earnestly. You can’t get swayed by public sentiment but need to be aware of your environment, in case it presents a threat to your plans. In all of this, you need to stay focused while continuing to be flexible.

I have days when I am torn between sticking with what I know and in stepping into the great unknown, in staying small versus growing big, in not knowing whether I have what it takes to be successful. I am happy with what I have done so far and content to stay within the status quo. But there is also a part of me that knows that I can dream big and achieve it too. I don’t know all the steps. I think I can figure out the bits and pieces, how to get them and who to ask for help in putting it together. Handling the curious onlookers gets tedious but I am sure there is a way around them too. I can do it. I just need to think of my business as a work in progress nest. Simple!

Age and experience

This time in Bombay, I had the opportunity to teach some students at my college, a place I had not been to in twenty years (has it really been that long?). Visiting your alma mater is a bittersweet experience – you instantly recognize the gate, the corridors, the sense of familiarity that closes around you like a favorite jacket. Of course, many things have changed. In this case -the entire neighborhood. What used to be a tree-lined colony of small independent houses, an oasis in the big city of Bombay, is now full of tall buildings obscuring the entrance of the venerable institution. Some things inside have not changed, the canteen is still the same location, overseeing a patch of green. New floors have been added, some parts are being renovated. I visited on a weekend, but I was told that some of the teachers are still around.

Time flies but memories remain. I had to mention that I was an alumnus to the class of students and asked them to guess how long ago I might have been roaming these halls as a teenager. Some said 5 years, some said 8 – I was flattered with these guesses. One smart aleck said 19. That hit too close to home, so I did the only thing I could – I changed the subject. After all being a teacher does have its privileges.

A few years ago I met the man who had been principal of this college during my college years. It was easy to recognize him – he looked exactly as had done couple of decades ago. I was amazed that this man had stopped aging. He was still the bald, jolly, genial person he had been. His appearance gave me hope – I thought, perhaps I could also look the same twenty years hence. Then I happened to meet another gentleman who had also been a student of the same man ten years prior to my tenure. And he shared my views, although with a twist. While I assumed “Sir” had not aged, he corrected me by saying that “Sir” had aged in a accelerated manner in his youth and then hit a plateau. I am not sure if such a phenomenon has been reported in medical literature but here was one living example which we could simply not ignore.

In any case, I was requested to teach at my college, not because I was an alumnus, or because I was of the required age, but because of my experience, my interest in teaching and the fact that the subject on which I was to speak was of interest to the students. So it is age and experience that are supposed to go hand in hand not just age and baldness or graying or layers of fat around the middle. It is easy to hide the physical signs of passage of time but difficult to fake knowledge. I am glad to have the requisite characteristics and to share it with ones who are interested.

Attitude counts

I am in Bombay this week (not Mumbai, Bombay, like I knew it from my childhood), my hometown. And as anyone who gets to go home only occasionally, I am doing indulging myself. I had a list of things I wanted to eat including pav bhaji, vada pav and pani puri, not to mention shrikhand and other sundry stuff. Surprisingly I was able to get through most of these cravings in the first two days itself.

As all pani puris connoisseurs know, the best tasting ones are available by the roadside and involve the dipping of the fluffy puris into the spicy water by hand. Hygiene factors notwithstanding, the crunch of the puris as the water explodes with flavor is a thrill that is addictive. So Dad and I were waiting our turn at a small shop which opens onto the busy street and serves delicious Bombay chat. At that time of the evening, groups of young girls were hovering around debating their choices. One girl loudly said to the distinguished looking gentleman (Uncle) who was in charge of preparing the chat that her aunt told her that “Uncle” used to look like Amir Khan in college. I thought he looked quite handsome with his salt and pepper hair and kind eyes. In the banter that followed, it was revealed that Uncle used to be law student along with the aunt of the college girl. Due to circumstances, he had to give up his studies and to support a large family he sold chat from a hand cart. Times were tough when the police or the municipality honchos would haul away his cart. He told his story dispassionately as if narrating a movie script, with no bitterness. His shop seemed to be doing well with a constant swarm of customers at all times of the day.

I said that there is nothing wrong in changing the course of one’s life as long as you had a choice and more importantly, if you were true to the choice you made. He was happy to hear that I had come from Hyderabad and had enjoyed his chat. In the final tally, doing good work, pleasing your customers and doing it happily is what is essential to leading a meaningful life. Perhaps the giggling girls did not get the deeper aspects of the conversation as they tucked into their delicacies but I am sure they learnt one lesson, there is dignity in all work and it comes from the attitude you bring to it.

Receiving graciously

I grew up in a generation where parents thought that praising children, especially in public, was not advisable from two points of view. Foremost was the fear that it would inflate little egos to unmanageable sizes. Second, such a public disclosure would probably attract the evil eye, leading to unfortunate consequences. So most accomplishments were either quietly acknowledged at home or discreetly ignored. Perhaps it is this upbringing that makes it hard for me to receive compliments even now.

At an assertiveness training seminar that I attended many years ago, the trainer pointed out to all of us women in the room that if someone says “That dress looks good on you”, the typical response is “Oh, this old thing.” The right response is “Thank you” with a smile. I do not remember the connection this statement had with the assertiveness theme but it did bring to mind the hesitation most of us, usually women, have in accepting compliments. Nothing builds confidence like praise. And praise, when deserved and given freely, is what each one of us needs to move forward.

It is nice to receive praise but it is also easy to get swayed. Sometime people will tell you what you want to hear, either because they feel it is a quick way to win favors, or just to cheer you up. While praise given in public may make you look good to others, if you did not deserve it, you will not look good to yourself. While the well known proverb may say that you can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time but not all people all the time, fooling yourself even for a short time is extremely dangerous to your self-esteem.

I think being honest in appraising your capabilities and striving to improve in those areas that need attention is its own reward. If praise follows, enjoy it. But don’t accept it if you have not met your own goal. Setting a personal standard of performance much higher than public expectation is always a good policy. The best outcome is when you know you have exceeded your own expectation and so do your customers. And when the well-deserved compliments flow freely, smile and say “Thank you.”

You are not alone

The feeling of being included in a group is something we take for granted from an early age.Whether it is the security of being part of a family or classroom, being part of a community brings comfort. When you grow up and get into the world of work, there is nothing like a boss-bashing session to foster brotherhood among fellow-sufferers. The knowledge that you will see your coworkers each day as you enter your office, the easy camaraderie at the coffee machine, the lunchtime gossiping is as familiar a routine as brushing your teeth in the morning. When you leave your job, you have to leave all this behind. And that is scary. Lonely too.

I had always been engaged in gainful movement through my life – college, graduate studies, job number 1, job number 2, home, kid and all the good stuff. When I quit my job, what I missed most was the social interactions. I had no one to complain to, no one to seek an opinion on the latest movie or ask for directions to a new restaurant in town. I had to book my travel, call the cab, work on the assignments and send my invoices. No administrative help. No one else.

But it does not always stay that way. Your work, any work, involves people. Okay, so they are not employed by the same company. They may be clients, business prospects, vendors, students, courier guys. And you still have your current friends, past colleagues and a horde of new as yet “unmet” people to befriend. It is an adventure to figure out every day, who will I meet today? Not all people are professional nor are all interactions pleasant. There are times when you sorely wish you could walk over to the guy in the cubicle next to you for a second opinion. This is when you need to be creative. What you need to cultivate is a set of friends in the “phone a friend” category. Typically one person may not fit the bill for all possible conversations. Sometimes they are not available. So you need to have backups. And before you know it, you have an impromptu Board of Directors on call. Your support system, your secret team. How great is that! There is only one caveat – by setting up this system, you are automatically enrolled into their teams as well. So stay tuned, you never know when they might call.

Imaginary boundaries

I had the pleasure of watching a little boy this evening. He spent an hour at my home while his mother attended a meeting. Like other six-year olds, Aditya loves cars. We spent most of our time inspecting the interior and exterior of my car. He studied the general condition of the car. He wanted to know where all the buttons were, if the power locks were functional, if the lights were working. He peered into the trunk and looked thoughtfully at the tires. “Even though it is such an old car, it doesn’t look like it – it has no dents or chips.” If my car was a woman, she would have been so flattered, after all she was 6 years old and I think car age is similar to dog age, which makes her about 42!

I was impressed with his thoroughness and totally charmed by the pleasure this activity brought to him. How delightful it is to witness joy on the face of a child – untainted, pure and simple. I confessed to him that I did not know how to operate the windshield wiper in order to make the cleaning fluid appear. So he showed me. He wondered loudly how I could drive a car but not know this! But it made him feel important.

As we circled the car (after locking and unlocking it with the remote lock for the tenth time), he noticed the irregular whitish stain on the rear door. Of course he was curious about its origin. It was the remnant of the sticker put there by some zealous political party prior to the elections. The boy who cleans my car told me that it was not easy to remove. I believed him, assuming that the glue was not soluble in water and probably made of cheap, tacky stuff. But Aditya would not have any of it. “Why didn’t you try to remove it”, he demanded. So I hesitantly put my nail to the white patch and scrubbed it. Lo and behold, the residue came apart and there was just fine dust lightly coating the surface. I put a wet cloth to the spot and the beautiful sky blue paint glowed just like the rest of my car.

It was a moment that refreshed a lesson that we all know. Many times, we feel there are barriers in our lives that are too tall to scale – be it public shame, private doubts, family responsibilities. So we live the safe life; prescribed and predictable. Maintain the status quo so it does not rock the boat. At some point we forget the reason for doing so. And justify our action (or lack thereof) by pointing to others – my husband won’t like it, my in-laws will disapprove, my children will not allow me, my parents said it will not work and many more. But if there is something that you want or when someone pushes you hard or the status quo is not very comfortable, you try to climb those self-built walls. With the power of your intention and clarity of thought, the barrier is just smoke, it falls apart in a powdery whiff, much like the “unremovable stain” on my car – I believed what someone told me, without even checking to form my own opinion. I had also avoided driving my car for several years fearing the chaotic traffic conditions in Hyderabad. But once I decided that it was essential for me to independently move around (and put my car to good use), it was simple to figure out the unspoken rules of the road. All my past driving experience came to my assistance and I was mobile!

I guess what I am trying to say is that the boundaries you assume, are imaginary ones. The only way to demolish them is to take the first step.

To do or not to do

It sounds great when you tell people that you don’t have a boss and are not reporting to anyone. The most envious responders to this statement are the unfortunate ones who have endured or are currently suffering with a boss from hell. But in truth, being an independent consultant means that you have multiple clients, and guess what? They are all your bosses.

At any given time, you will have projects which are either just in the initial enquiry stage, some that you have sent proposals for, some you are currently executing and others that are closed out and need to billed. Depending on how the work load looks in the immediate to short term horizon, you have a different feeling when a potential new job appears. If things have been slow and you have been twiddling your thumbs, any prospective lead looks attractive. Quite often, you are eager to get it converted to an actual billable project but when you learn more about it, it seems out of your league. Occasionally, the work looks doable but the terms are horrendous. At other times, the client gives you a strange feeling in your gut. What to do?

With experience I have found that my gut is a pretty reliable indicator of things to come. What sounds too good to be true, generally is. If clients are trying to beat you to a price that does not work for you, chances are that the outcome will not satisfy either party with no repeat business. When clients are in a tearing hurry to accomplish the activities, work will get done but perhaps not to your satisfaction, if you have high standards. And god forbid you accept a project that is totally out of your field of expertise, just for the “experience”. I am most unhappy when I find myself in mysterious waters.

Now I use a mixed indicator when new prospects show up at my door.
• Have I done this kind of work before?
• Have I worked with this client before?
• Can I do a decent job in the proposed timeline?
• Does it pay adequately?
• Is it something new and exciting where the learning experience is worth the trouble?

Based on the answers to the above questions, and with the gut indicator thrown in for good measure, the outcome is usually satisfactory – primarily for the client and also for me.

That is the service I have set out to provide. I have met my goal.

Financial planning

One of the scariest aspects of leaving a job is the loss of a regular salary. I remember a time when I wrote a large cheque and almost emptied out my bank account. I was smug in the knowledge that on the first of the month, my salary would miraculously appear and fill up the vacuum. It is addictive; this dependence on a salary. Of course, it is well-deserved payment for a hard month of work.

Being on your own really pushes you over the edge. There are times when work flows in easily, the invoices get paid on time, the bank account looks healthy. But the tide also ebbs. As my former boss put it, it is feast or famine. And if you don’t have the stomach for it, don’t try it. It is nice to have a reasonable sum always available for putting food on the table and for emergencies. However, planning to make best use of the occasional unusual peaks in earnings is the best trick to managing the lows.

I make resolutions every year to invest my money in better ways, diversify my “holdings” so to speak, make it grow at a rate that beats inflation, blah,blah, blah. It is only this year that I got my act together and spent some time chatting with a financial planner on what alternatives I could consider to bolster my savings for the long term. I know I have enough insurance to cover my family’s needs when I am no longer around. But I wanted to make sure I was financially secure enough to consider retirement if I chose to do it sooner than the prescribed age. To travel, to write, to linger by the sunrise on a pristine beach, to walk in the rain, visit friends and fulfill all those undefined dreams.

I have made one move towards this goal. I hope I will be guided to take other steps in the same direction as the year progresses. I would like to enjoy my work and my life. As much as I love my work, it is not my whole life. And I would like to keep it that way.

Appraisals and such

It is that time of the year when companies are engaged in the process of employee appraisals or have just concluded it or are gearing up for it. Whether you are a manager preparing to evaluating your subordinates or dreading meeting your own manager, I can almost bet that what you are feeling is not a pleasant feeling of anticipation. Reminds you of the frantic beating of your heart before you see your marks after a grueling exam or the empty feeling in your gut before a viva, doesn’t it? While these milestones in school and college were predetermined and the amount of information you were supposed to digest was defined in advance, the annual appraisal is a beast that slumbers all year but wakes up annually to attack you.

Last year, I was fortunate to meet an experienced American scientist who after being laid off, had decided to use his vast experience to help clients in the role of an independent consultant. He seemed pretty content doing this for the last few years. I wanted to find out if he ever had the urge to grow his company by adding staff and expanding the offerings. I personally was struggling with defining strategy for the second year of my independent career. He said “I have not done performance appraisals in the last four years. That makes me a very happy man.” I thought the statement was totally hilarious. But it was interesting to note how people who had spent their entire work lives in companies, having long successful careers were just going through the motions without buying into these torturous modes of measuring the worth of individuals.

I guess the current system is not perfect and I don’t have any suggestions for an alternative method of evaluation. However, I echo the same words of relief. I am on my own, responsible for my work, get to take complete credit for a job well done but also know when to look critically at my own performance. I consider myself the one true judge of my abilities. I am best suited to make whatever course corrections I need to do. I have never had any trouble with my appraisals with my bosses in the past and I doubt whether the ones who reported to me were particularly unhappy. But I am glad that I do not have to undergo these subjective evaluations and judgments anymore.

Whenever I am confused over what I do next to evolve my company, I think about performance appraisals and put the expansion plans on hold for a little longer.

Retention in the time of recession

I am not an HR professional. I have always thought that one of the prerequisites for pursuing a career in the human resources department, was an instinctive understanding of human nature. They are enablers, match-making at the time of recruitment, facilitators to achieve business objectives and even mediators when necessary. But with my years in the corporate world, I have come to suspect that they are just spies for upper management. Why the cynicism you ask?

Very often I hear the topic of recruitment and retention come up in meetings. Finding appropriately qualified people for hard to fill niche positions is the first hurdle for any company. I find it amusing that many times the focus of the interviews is primarily on the personal and social considerations – will you relocate to a new city, what if you get married/have children etc. While the answers to some of these questions may be gently probed during the interview process, it is unforgivable that the extensive resume of an experienced person is overlooked by those who should be looking at the possible fit of the candidate and the potential for growth.

Recently I came across a person who joined a reputed company after a rigorous selection process and landed a cushy job. But I was surprised to see that such a highly competent and ambitious person had accepted a trivial job with no growth prospects. The person desperately needed a job. The company assumed that the fit was good since the candidate was local, appeared to be settled in the city and commitment was therefore assumed. Guess what? Within a few weeks, a better job prospect more in line with the person’s career goals appeared with an offer that was too good to refuse, and it was bye-bye to the so-called “good job”. Who lost? Certainly not the candidate.

I feel that company’s with a myopic vision, looking for a guarantee of loyalty from prospective employees, based on their personal parameters are only fooling themselves. After the booming growth of the economy in recent times, followed by the recession, attrition became less of a concern since there weren’t too many competing, lucrative offers in the job market. Does that mean HR can become complacent with respect to retention? Times of great change at the macro level are accompanied by an equal level of introspection on the individual level. When satisfaction with one’s work becomes the prime focus (rather than paycheck), there is no stopping an employee from leaving the security of a familiar job. This is another reason why retention should be given more, not less attention during times of recession. The spotlight has to be on the individual, his needs, his strengths and special talents which the company has to value in order for him to continue being a productive performer. Assuming that employees have nowhere else to go will only hurt such companies in the long run.

But this is just my opinion – I am not an HR professional.

What goes around

It seems as if every woman I know is stepping out of her comfort zone to start something new. I know card-carrying career women who have left the security of a high paying job, housewives getting into clothes designing and even a former accountant inaugurating her own beauty parlor. I am glad to witness their metamorphosis and feel privileged to be part of this change. While it appears that a handful of individuals have made a personal choice to try on roles that are unconventional for them, their decisions mark a novel trajectory for all of us.

Very often we come across people, men and women, who feel trapped in their prescribed spheres, caught in a cycle from which they cannot step down. For men, it is the fear of giving up a job (read salary) which they believe is essential for them to sustain their families. Similarly, the homemakers experience guilt about letting their families down if they were to take up any activity that may upset the status quo at home. Working women who may contemplate giving up their jobs also feel the pinch of losing a salary and impacting the family or personal lifestyle.

Therefore I feel it is important to celebrate the ones who dare to be different. I made a choice to give up my corporate job to have greater control on my time and have the ability to pick and choose my work. My move helped me free up time to do what was important to me. To be home when my daughter gets home from school; to take the needed time off to grieve the unexpected death of my mother; to get back to my writing. I cannot even remotely consider going back to a full-time nine to five job now.

But I have my doubts about sustaining the business, of having a continuous stream of work that satisfies me and also pays the bills. And I know that all these women feel the same way. So I ensure that I patronize their businesses, I buy clothes from the designer and visit the beauty parlor. We talk about how the business is doing, exchange notes, speak a few words of encouragement. We recommend each other when appropriate.

I find that the more I do this, the easier it gets for me to attract work to myself. While I cannot prove a direct link, it seems that as I support others, some others are doing the same for me, with or without my knowledge. What goes around, does come around.

Mentoring

When you sow a handful of unmarked seeds, you have no way of knowing how it will turn out – will it be a quick-growing colorful annual plant or a late bloomer that lasts through seasons? One of the joys of interacting with young people in the workplace is the satisfaction of seeing them do well as they progress in their careers.

I have firmly believed that aptitude is God-given, the rest is up to us. The big step is in recognizing our talents and figuring out where and how we want to use them. But the path is not always smooth. Doubts abound. Sometimes well-meaning friends, family and acquaintances point out the futility of marching to the beat of your own drummer. More often it is self-doubt that stalls.

Whenever I have come across youngsters who are full of potential but lacking in self-confidence, I have tried my best to give them a hand. It is not advice they need, they need an example. I try to show them a glimpse of what they can be, not what they currently are or where they came from. Quite often they talk of hurdles, real and imagined. The intention is there, buried under a cloud of misgivings. If action does not match intention, there is no movement. And that is the greatest failure for those who sense their latent potential. It is here that I intervene, in figuring out the tiny steps they need to take towards their goal. Breaking it down to manageable pieces, making the necessary minor actions required so that journey is not a momentous earthquake but a purposeful movement to self-realization.

Recently a newly-married young woman called to tell me she was moving to a new city to be with her husband and had resigned from the job; the job at which we had met. She was diffident and anxious about her ability to manage a house, live in another city away from all that was familiar and more importantly, concerned about starting afresh in a new job. I had no doubts about her competence and ability to handle this change. But she needed to hear that, from someone who had helped her with change on a professional level, worked with her through those inevitable sticky spots and moments of despair. I told her what she needed to hear. And she told me what I wanted to hear – that she considers me her mentor who had guided her so far. She said she hoped to be able to consult me for the rest of her life.

I must confess that she made my day. Not by the compliments she showered but by giving me a chance to see how the seed of confidence that I had sowed would turn out.