Transcript of an Interview with sub conscious

M: Myself  I: Interviewer

M : Good Morning

I  : Good Morning

I  : How do you pronounce your name

M : Nathan would do. Easier

I   : Tell about yourself

M : I took the path as it came by, loved the people around, lived life without any cribs, allowed people around to live happily, tried giving no stress to anyone around. I have been working in one of the wonderful organisations to work for the last two decades. I have performed all the functions as what the organisation has asked me to do and I presume I did it to the satisfaction in whatever I have been asked to do.

I   : But you are not telling anything about what you have done.

M : It is already there in the CV sir.

I   : Ok Tell us one thing which you feel is the biggest achievement in your life

M : There are many but one which I found worthy of telling because I broke all my inhibitions .

I was studying in the college at Tirupati, one day I was in the town  and it was raining very heavily, so I and many others took shelter under the roof of the railway station but there was a beggar drenching in the rain, he had neither legs nor hands, he perhaps was on his wheels, but that had skipped and was at a distance. I could see that the wheels were broken and lay by the side. The rain was not receding, everyone was watching the rain and enjoying it, for a moment I saw this beggar, felt very bad, rushed and put both my hand under his shoulders lifted him and brought him on to the platform. I did not think if I could have lifted him as I was lean and thin, I did not know who gave me the energy, but I lifted him. Actually I had come to the town side to purchase a few books, I did not have enough money as I was from a middle class family, but I felt like giving away the money to the beggar for the repair of his wheel and I did the same. In the end I told him I will visit the station next Saturday at 5.30 Pm to see him with wheels on, I was surprised to see him exactly at 5.30 Pm and that he had repaired his wheels and was with a pack of sweets. No better reward and achievement in life has been better than this.

I : But don’t you have anything in your profile which You can speak of

M : Three decades I have worked, I have delivered by and large satisfactorily  whatever I have been asked to do which I have put in the CV, I have done it for my own survival hence there is nothing great to speak about, all this has been done as a part of my Job. Hence I do not consider them great. If the organisation would not have given me that opportunity and had not trusted I doubt if I would have done. I think the credit to should go to the organisation and the leaders who trusted me than to me.

I : Why then somebody would want you

M: For my traits, trust me I will not fail. I will treat work as my own. Do it with pleasure. I keep enjoying what I do; remain healthy, for me the entertainment in life has been work. I do not know any other means to enjoy other than working.

I : Any big learning that you got

M: Yes try to be humble and do what makes other happy, see your happiness in others happiness, then life becomes simple.

Once I was travelling with the Head of Business. She was in a senior position; she decided to travel with me in the economy class. Food came in, all the things which I had left out she said don’t waste, and she took all that I wasted, folded in a tissue paper and kept it in her bag. I was very junior to her hence did not have the courage to ask her what she was doing; I felt very bad as I felt it was shameful and mean. But she was not perturbed at all, for a moment my respect for her vanished. We walked out of the airport boarded in the car, after travelling some distance she asked the car to stop. She walked out and gave to a physically challenged person sitting at the road side seeking alms. She came and sat back in the car. My respect for her increased significantly and the mind started thinking how mean it was on my part to have thought so initially. What a great leader she was I thought. I can never forget this incident in my life. She is now country head for a MNC bank. I can never forget this travel.

Fortunately or unfortunately I had bosses changing every few years, hence I had the opportunity to learn a lot from each one of them, as each one was a star by himself or herself. Each was unique with tremendous energy and potential. One thing I realised after seeing all of them is they have sustained through with lot of energy, and I realised that Intelligence alone will not take you anywhere; it is endurance for a long sustained period of time with the highest energy levels which takes you to the top. These are passionate leaders who day in and day out are self-motivated.

When I am living in a constellation of stars while all others were self-illuminating, it was easier for me to shine too as I could also throw light from the reflections of the stars just as moon also is bright.

I : Any regrets

M: Many, on the professional side. Not all decisions have gone right.  Some decisions which I had taken went really bad. In the hindsight it looks bad and terrible. But I work in an organisation which gives flexibility to take decision, and does not prohibit taking decision.  I am indebted to the people and the organisation which valued me a lot, many a times I wonder if I were worth that. Coming from a small middle class family from a small town, the leaders here made me what I am today.

Only other regret I have is I thought I will write a lot and there will be lot of people reading my poems and books, I could not do as much

One event in my life which I would like to forget and should not happen is, once while I was travelling from Kumbakonam to Nagapattinam in TN a small boy wearing a school uniform came and asked for money and said that he does not have money to travel to his place Mannargudi. He said he had lost all his books too. I without even thinking took Rs.300 from my purse and gave it to the boy to purchase the books and the bus ticket.  45 days later I saw the same school boy approaching me again with the same sadness and with the same dialogues in Thiruvarur. For a moment I lost temper, I had for a few days lost trust in the system. But I endured pacifying myself that all are not bad and in each system there will be some crooks.

I: You seem to have a socialistic bent of mind; you seem to want yourself portraying a holier image about yourself. Not a kind of leader who should be.

I am quite ambitious. Many a time ambition is confused with physical behaviour one exhibits, rather than the desire one holds to excel. For example one lesson that I never wished to learn was to be contented.  I was never contended. I keep saying that contentment retards growth, the desire to acquire knowledge keeps receding the moment we are contended. There is thin line between greed and being not contended. Being not contended will make you grow, greed will kill you at some point of time.

The second point which I want to make is many times people get confused between a humble boss and a weak boss. Humbleness does not mean that the boss is not firm and is weak. It is not always required that you exhibit that you are angry and shout to prove that you are good boss. You need not speak a loud to say that you are firm. There are a lot of people who are soft humble and yet firm.

Third point which I would like to state is I have been ambitious even on the personal front. I stretched myself a lot as I felt that the future cash flows would be much better than the present cash flows. I believed in myself. This I keep advising my colleagues in office to stretch themselves in the early days, as your future cash flows would be better than the present. I leveraged myself to the core.

I do not run any socialistic agenda, but no harm in being empathetic to the needs of the society which is what I have been doing. Beyond certain point wealth can be used to fulfil needs of society. I many a times say that wealth has to be with the wealth creators who create wealth for others; hence the need for a large wealth did not arise in mind as I am not a wealth creator. I wish that TATAS BIRLA AMBANIS etc earn more and more so that they can create wealth for others. May be at some point of time if I decide I may change course

I : You are seeking publicity of being good and defending your personality…

M : May be yes. For I want to see a flock of leaders of this breed created too in the system. No harm in building visibility about yourself if it serves some purpose and if it is genuine