UNCORK YOURSELF NOT BOTTLES

The book is all about the thoughts, observations, experiences gathered in the personal and professional life of the author spread over four decades in downstream of oil, gas and petrochemicals sector in India (1976-2017), both in blue chip Public and Private sector, larger part with the Public sector where the author’s brain got wired initially. Several changes in the brain circuits were required to be made while switching to the private sector (2008-2017).

Every page in this book is a chapter. It should trigger some thoughts and action plans. Each of us dreams to be the CEO of the company when we start our career; only few handful reach that stage. We all compete vociferously in the rat race, not realising that even if we win the race, at the end of the day we remain a rat. Should we consider changing the goal post at some stage in professional life?

How about playing the role of CEO in your own life and always being in control with a key to happiness in your own pocket and not others? You are the boss of your life. You need to challenge yourself all the time to get the best out of you and your life. You need to live your own life the way you want. You need to write your own appraisal at a time and frequency decided by you alone. Proof of your progress as CEO of your life will be how do you feel and assess yourself at regular intervals. Monitor personal performance every week, month, quarter or every six months. All decisions are yours alone.

Time flies very fast and the way business is done is witnessing accelerated changes. Last few decades, the change was rather slow; pace has only picked up in last few years. Going forward all of us have no choice but to visit self-created mental gyms on a daily basis, besides physical gyms. Visit to Mental Gyms is really about Uncorking yourself. Mental gym referred here is talking to yourself and holding crucial conversations. This suggestion is to rule out any early signs of mental constipation or verbal diarrhoea which may set in, that too at a young age with the onset of rapid technological change.

Like your financial capital, your mental capital also needs to be preserved, protected and promoted besides putting it on a growth path. Like inflationary pressures on your finances, your mental capital can also erode rather fast, if you don’t add on to it. Challenge is how fast or how quickly you accumulate and grow your mental capital. It’s available in abundance around you; it’s your ability to pull in, suck in, utilise it, grow and share it.

Sharing your slice of mental capital will give you excellent returns, and you will see the compounding effect. Not sharing your mental capital is akin to keeping hard currency in cash chest for a long period where it does not grow further, and value deteriorates. Hoarding your mental capital will yield negative returns

Like your financial capital, your mental capital also needs to be preserved, protected and promoted besides putting it on a growth path. Like inflationary pressures on your finances, your mental capital can also erode rather fast, if you don’t add on to it. Challenge is how fast or how quickly you accumulate and grow your mental capital. It’s available in abundance around you; it’s your ability to pull in, suck in, utilise it, grow and share it.

Had the pleasure of working with many of the bosses, some of them illustrious where standing by them was an education. Have tried to classify them by their approach, vision and interactions. You can also classify yourself as boss based on various traits.

All our actions verbal, nonverbal silently create a brand image of ours. A lot of our success depends on the brand created by ourselves. Are you a trustworthy brand? In case you are, the speed of business you do will be very high, cost of the business you do will be significantly lower. Relation building personal or professional is the core need to accomplish all your dreams. Relations and not contacts, how do you build such relations that you get responded even at 2 AM? Do keep your dreams big and realistic. Example of most unrealistic dream or a plan, according to Pakistani author, Akbar S. Ahmed, was of Major General Nazi during Indo - Pakistan war in 1975, he had hatched a far-fetched plan to "cross into India and march up the Ganges and capture Delhi and thus link up with Pakistan.” We all know what happened; he had to sign a surrender document which is the most humiliating event for an Army man.

To achieve anything in life, you need to communicate clearly with various stakeholders around you, be it your friend, your boss, your spouse, children, your parents and many more business acquaintances. For communicating well, you need to speak well. Good speech comes with good listening habits. Listening is the most challenging exercise or habit in life. Higher Standard of speaking can only be achieved if you read well and extensively. A well-read person is most of the time found to be a good orator. In case it is some time since you last read something worthwhile, it merits consideration whether to make your personal library at your home by making some investments. This will be the best investment you would ever make in your lifetime for generations to come. For me, reading started very late in life, as initially, as a child, there was neither intent nor budget in the family to buy books other than what was required for the classroom. It’s never late in life for habits which can change the course of your life. Remember we are all going to live once. During such long career, one gets to travel quite a bit, attend several meetings and seminars, meet many stake holders, suppliers, advisors, consultants, customers of different cultural backgrounds in India and abroad. Had the pleasure of meeting many persons from reputed companies like Unilever, P&G, Colgate, BP, QP, Petronas, and a vast spectrum of top Indian business houses like Reliance, Aditya Birla, Tata’s, Hindustan Unilever to name a few on different assignments. Looking back each experience threw up something new and noteworthy which has been placed here. The graphs in some of the chapters are only directional and are not plotted based on any lab or test reports. The intent is to simplify the thought and for impact to emerge thereof. Here it is your first step on the journey to uncork yourself. Shake yourself like a champagne bottle and let the bubbly ooze out with full force. Cheers!

New Delhi

October 2018