To understand Life better you need not have to go to any Business School

It was almost mid-night and I was all alone sitting at my study doing very serious thinking by way of chintan (meditation) and the agenda of my late night mission was to finally draw a road-map so that I can reach at my personal and professional destinations in this lifetime before I can get a final call from the God Almighty.

I have been told human life is very precious and after covering eighty four lakh lives; one can get the most sought-after “human life”, which is the most valuable, precious and best life in this world, and every living being of this universe desires to have it, at any cost.

I am totally confused and disturbed with my present state-of-affairs. I am feeling as if suddenly someone becomes all alone, without having any close friend, well-wisher and guide who can sit with him understand needs, wants and desires of his mind, body and soul in totality. Someone who is very closes to him and can talk with him without any hitch or hesitation with un-biased approach. Someone, who can further help and assist him in his personal and professional life and can solve the present crises with lots of courage, conviction, confidence and clear understanding, and finally understand him fully well that too without any pre-conceived notion and pre-conditioned mind, which is full of unconditional love, respect and regards for him.

This problem started when all of a sudden I realized that I am no more young and the middle age crises started knocking at my doors and the physical signs started showing on my mind, body and soul. All of a sudden, I found myself standing all alone in the so called crowded world, where everyone is talking to everyone except me. Neither was I their center point of discussion nor the topic worth discussion amongst them any more.

For my beloved wife, who is still beautiful, charming, sweet and young, I am no more her first priority and the main objective of her life. I was getting older and all my dreams, desires and fantasies have no relevance to her. Besides, for her, the first and the foremost priority in her life, are her children, whose future is the most important thing in her life; hence I should not interfere in her present state of affairs unnecessarily, anymore; unless I have been asked to help and assist her, I should stand aloof.

Similarly, my children’s have also started thinking that the generation-gap between us becoming more-and-more prominent and they find it most difficult to make me understand their point of view. Therefore they have also stopped talking, discussing and arguing with me, any more. Maybe, they have also started thinking that I am getting older and I will not understand their point of views any more, very easily?

But seniors and elders of my family thinks otherwise, for them, I am still not mature enough to understand the true meaning of life because, I am still young not worthy of their trust. Just having grey hair does not mean I have attained the maturity-age, not yet. I still have to go a long way to learn the actual purpose and meaning of this life which I got without paying any price as a God’s Gift to me, per say.

Today, I have realized what my father used to tell me when I was very young but I never gave any importance to his ideas, views and advises then, because I used to think that my father had not gone to any school or college and moreover he was not an MBA; so how will he understand my life, dreams, career and future plans better?

I have also understood fully well at this point of time that, how wrong I was in judging people, position and purpose of their lives, because my thought process, attitude and vision were very conservative, one-sided, narrow and wrong. Then, I used to think that, I know life better than my father and have understood the meaning of real Life fully well. But how idiot, novice and stupid I was, who never understood the real meaning of life, even today. For me life always used to be a plan-strategy with defined goals and the road map to achieve the said goals which were also well researched and defined with a very clear option of having contingency plan-B in case of failure of Plan-A.

But how stupid and wrong I was, through out in my life, because between the fine-thin-lines of this life, I have missed the fundamental point that the Life is not mathematic and you just can’t predict the life the way you want it to be.

Today, I can say with confidence that, you get what you have been destined by the Nature, not a penny less not a penny more. To understand life better you need not have to go to any business school because this entire universe itself is a big university where you are admitted the day you are born that too without any entrance examination and where the classes are a continuous process no Sundays or any holidays. Moreover, here every individual is having separate syllabus and anybody can teach you any subject and you have no choice but to attend the classes seriously and the lectures are also not repeated. Moreover, you can’t buy, borrow or steal the notes from any market of this world.

Here everyone has to get the first-hand practical experience and chances of studying and learning simultaneously. The most unique thing of this university is that after every action, event, incident and situation, there are examinations and everyone has to sit and pass these tests without any option, where all the questions have to be attempted and nobody can afford to be on leave or can re-appear in the said examinations and the best part of these examinations are, the results are spontaneous, if you survive the test you pass otherwise you are failed.

That’s why nobody ever fails in these examinations because the vice-chancellor of this university is the God Almighty himself who will not leave you unless and until you have passed in this Life's (which is His gift to the Man-kind) said examinations, that too in first division with distinction.

With Prayers

Gurcharan

Life is more than Buying and Selling

Whatever I wanted in my life, it has never happened and whatever happened was beyond my imaginations and expectations. Things I not even thought of in my dreams came true and it came in front of me without giving me any chance or choice.

The truth of my life was looking straight into my eyes without blinking an eyelid and I was simply watching it helplessly because I was having no choice either and I was forced to accept the same as a verdict of my destiny.

Right from my childhood I was fond of reading and writting. I always wanted to become a writer and a story-teller but I became a hardcore product-seller and a salesman whose primary job was to please the clients by providing them with the best of products and services.

In the sales profession, client’s happiness comes first and self help comes last. The first lesson which is imparted to every salesman is to understand the customer’s requirements first and his existence was directly linked with the survival of his “Client”. They were taught from the beginning that the Client is a real “King” and they have to do every thing possible to please the client at all cost and at the end of the day, they have to make the client very happy with the products and services they offered.

As a matter of fact, it was very difficult to understand whether the client actually needed those products/ services or not, moreover, it was not any salesman’s purgative also to know about it. Because they can’t be judgmental, at the end of the day, it’s their profession, responsibility and prime duty to perform accordingly, on prime-fascia.

The job of a professional sales person used to be first creating an environment and developing the need, want and desire amongst their prospective customer/clients and thereafter offer them the right product-mix and services to fulfill those need, want and desire in totality.

If we look back and evaluate the buying process with an x-ray eyes, we will come to know that in many cases the actual need was never established fully at the first place and due to target presure from the seniors they end-up over-selling the sales transaction has been made and it was the direct impact of the Third-P of the Marketing-mix (Product, Price, Promotion and Place) which resulted in wrong-sales.

The today's professional salesmen are actually very intelligent, clever and smart and they go out of their way to satisfy the customer’s ego, hunger, thirst and requirement/s by fulfilling all their demands which have been created by the market dynamics.

They offer them a solution, which is in the interest of both the parties and hence the deal is stuck between them and it looks like a win-win situation on the face of it, but if we go deep down and analyze, we will find out that this need may not be there at the first place and every thing was an illusion which was artificially created by the sales environment to fulfill the need, want and desires of the customer.

In the beginning, the said salesman used to feel guilty of over/wrong selling but after repeating the said act again and again with the clients, he becomes an expert enough to even fool himself. He also has started living in the same illusions that the need was actually their hence he is not guilty for the said act. But deep down in his heart, when he really start thinking about his clients, he becomes very impulsive, uneasy and uncertain of his acts and deeds because he has never treated his clients as a human beings at the first place and throughout his professional life the client remains a customer only, nothing more nothing less and the same client is only a via-media of achieving his pre-set sales target/goals and he is not at all bother or worried to know what the client actually needed, wanted and desired in his life.

But we know for sure, life is more than Buying and Selling, but it's easier said than done.

With Prayers,

Gurcharan