Proposal and courtship period (Part 1)

How does Theatre help you in Procurement.?

I still remember this question by one of the interviewers when I was looking for my first job after finishing MBA. I had mentioned “Theatre” as one of my hobbies in my Resume. Though, I was taken aback but like a good actor the freckles on my forehead were visible only to me. I enumerated all the behavioural skills required in Procurement and matched it with Theatre. As I look back some of these skills must have helped me in my 26 years of career. 

But somewhere down the line, the theatre person died and the theatre was limited to tom foolery at home with kids. Though, I was doing a regular 9 to 6 job and completing all the points meticulously in my KRA but somewhere something was missing. The inner artist in me wanted to be free. I felt like giving a long shrill shout like I did while I was being killed in the Play “Ek tha Gadha Urf Aladaad Khan” I was not happy only in giving few guest lectures at MBA Institutes and then Toastmasters happened. After persistent efforts of my friend Priya Lekha and dodging every time citing paucity of time and inability to commit, one day I actually stepped in Agnel Toastmasters Club. Did I love it ?

Nooo. I was intimidated. Here was a 46 year old man attending his first meeting and sitting scared at the end of the hall, hiding his face so that no one calls him on the podium. All the myths I had about my skills were shattered that day. I had so much to learn. there was so much scope for improvement and I felt like a kid as even the youngsters were so good. 

So, did I stop going to the meetings. I came back home with mixed feelings, one was about the quality of speakers and the commitment of each and every person present in the meeting and the other feeling was of survival and proving that I am also good and can also contribute. With great resolve I attended another meeting as a guest and this time I paid more attention to each and every segment of the meeting and each role, how it was contributing to growth. This time I was feeling better and towards the end of the meeting I was willing to give a try and challenge myself like I have always done. 

Next couple of meetings were spent in making myself home and adjusting myself to the Club atmosphere. I took the roles of Timer and Grammarian but still taking part in table topics or giving a speech felt like a distant dream. I saw young and energetic toastmasters come on to the stage and speaking, sometimes failing too. In a normal world inhabited by normal human beings failures were ostracised and made to feel less competent than others but this was a different world. Here everyone came forward for help, advice, tips for improvement. Yes, they laughed but at themselves narrating how they themselves have failed at some point and had no shame in narrating the same. Sometimes, I felt strange that someone being so proud of his failures. People hide instances of failures below the carpet and here they were using it as stepping stones to success. At this point I realised that If I want my remove any doubts in my mind to accept the proposal of this Beautiful opportunity I will have to leave all my previous learning’s behind and start fresh as a new kid on the block (46 year old kid ;) ha ha ha

I remember Kishore Biyani ji once said during an interaction in Pantaloon that we are like compueters. After some time every computer becomes slow because of the temporary files and cache in the memory. Even the deleted files are stored somewhere inside the computer which affects its performance. We humans are like that only and in order to learn anything new, we too need to reboot sometimes and clear our mind of all that we know and start learning again as a kid. The proposal from Toastmasters was accepted and I rebooted myself to start the courtship with Toastmasters. 

This was the precise moment when I decided to embark of my journey as a Toastmaster. I started calling myself from being a ProcureMaster to a budding Toastmaster. The courtship period had begun as I started having feelings towards Toastmasters. I felt like a kid running to grab every opportunity to grab a role or even just sit quietly and listen to the speeches and get awed every time. Clapping, standing ovations, motivating evaluations were just some of the steroids that were injected during the courtship period whenever I had any doubts. I sometimes wondered I was suddenly thrown in a world where irrespective of the ranks and positions in the society in the outside world, here they were just Toastmasters, nothing more or nothing less. 

(To be Continued) 

#toastmasters #renew #winayyee