On saturday evening Ajit and I went to visit an old boss of Ajit’s. The said gentleman and his wife, are now both retired, and gentleman, lets call him R, now volunteers his time advising and mentoring organisations working in areas he cares about. Having achieved the pinnacle of corporate success, he now leads a buzy life away from the limelight. R has always taken an interest in my career, and when I was working on my start-up, I had sought and he had given freely several hours of his time to give me guidance, mentorship. So it was with a mixture of trepidation, and embarassment that I told him that while the company was around, I no longer worked there. What happened ? He wanted details. I thought I hid my regret, my twinge of shame, when I conceded that the tenure had ended badly, that I had judged people poorly. It’s been a few months and I have truly closed that chapter, but talking about my folly made me a bit self conscious. Now those who know me intimately, know this story of mine well. I have received the entire spectrum of responses from ‘I told you so, to ‘you goofed up’ to ‘I feel so bad for you’ to ‘go kill’em to ‘move on’ , but R did something else completely. He told us two stories from his life. Two passion projects that he gave his time, energy, resources to, within the last 3-4 years. Projects that he moved mountains for over a prelonged period - 1-1.5 years for each project, , but eventually decided to walk away from, for different reasons. He then shared his learnings about himself from these two events, and how he used those learnings to course correct and find a project that did justice to his time and met his criteria. He concluded with ‘If I , at my age, can still learn from my experience, you are still young.’ And just like that , he not only made me feel comfortable in his presence, he helped reframe a key event in my life. A gift ,of well chosen words, of vulnerability, from a person of stature, that made me feel normal, whole. Greatness lies in bending down and lifting the other, even when s/he has nothing to offer in return.
No comments:
Post a Comment