well done sonny boy

Who is Sonny Bill Williams. Well. He is the Sachin Tendulkar of New Zealand. If google searches are a metric, this man ranks as the amongst the top 10 from eh country, eclipsing some real hot women stars. Its always the women stars that you need to beat, isn't it? I came across this guy today as i saw, what is to my mind the most inspirational video  that i would have ever seen.

Sonny is a New Zealand rugby player. He is adored and worshipped amongst those who follow rugby. He is also a heavyweight boxer, amongst the top 100 in the world. that would make him by most archetypes an extremely aggressive person, who you wouldn't want to mess with. Imagine Tyson playing Rugby. Now that is a crazy ass kind of personality. Sonny also at the start of his career got into all sorts of trouble - caught making out with a model, pissing in the alleys and drunk driving among other stuff. It seems something happened - a change to Islam and the guy turned. he is now clean, doesn't drink and is a role model for kids.

But that is still not inspiring to me. A lot of people turn around in life. Some thanks to a question of faith and some for some other reasons. People turn. I am not so crazy about seeing people turn. its commendable but NOT that crazy. But When a perceived archetype of a jock shows he is an athlete - that moves me like nothing else.

See the below video. Its really crazy. The New Zealand All Blacks are the most crazy rugby team in the world. feared all over they start their session with a Maori haha that gets them all worked up and puts fear in the hearts of the opposition. This team just finished a world cup campaign where they ended up as the champions. At the end of the match the players who would be at the highest level of their testosterone filled bodies are taking a lap of honour in front of a delirious crowd. A kid try to run in and meet their hero. This kid gets brutally tackled by a security officer. I think he was a bit too serious about his job, but then he is trained to react knowing how crazy and drunk a fan can get. The next thing that happens is that our champion immediately restrains the security officer from doing more harm, takes the kid and shields him in his burly hands. he hugs the kid. Other players too help in keeping the security out of the kids reach. One player pulls out his All Blacks warm cap and puts it on the kid. Thats still humanity and empathy. But what the Sonny proceeds to do next tells us a lot about his mind.

Sonny then still hugging the boy talks a little to him. I think he asks him where his folks are and then escorts him to his folks in the crowd. He doesn't need to do that. That is a human being knowing how to achieve complete closure on the empathy that you show. He knows that the kid had a rough tackle and that the security wouldn't be too cool with him, he takes the boy all the way to the crowd where he hands him over. AND THEN does something that i wouldn't even think of. He spontaneously removes his medal that he received for the world cup and hands it over to the kid. HE GIVES AWAY HIS WORLD CUP MEDAL!

I had a lot of cricket trophies on my table a few years ago. Medals, trophies and other paraphernalia. One day I decided that its stupid. The achievements were nowhere near as good. They came against stupid players with little or no skill. I hardly did anything of note against any thing of quality. So i junked every trophy I had and I junked every certificate i got. Most of them were stupid and nothing but ego feeding, navel gazing crap of no real value. What would i gain by showing off what I had (or rather little) achieved. Nothing. As you grow up the value chain as a corporate professional, you get even more crap to display on your desk. People who think they want your mindshare by simply giving you a certificate of appreciation with your name on it in the hope that you will not throw it. I have met more than one professional who takes a lot of care and effort to display the range of trophies that they have won over the years along with the certificates of meaningless value. Why would they do that? And some of these have been seriously large people in their fields with a lot of achievements that they need not prove to anyone about. So - i threw out a lot of stuff. better to not keep than to keep vanity junk.

But Sonny… Sonny gave away what everyone else will consider an heirloom. It is something that you will hang on your wall for infinity, it is something of real value, it is something that your grandkids will remember and cherish. It is a manifestation of all you have achieved. It is your proof that you were amongst the world’s best! and you just gave it away to a boy who was treated rough? Would you give away something you have worked all your life to achieve… well its not everything you have achieved but it is the physical manifestation of all you have achieved.

I have had the pleasure of working two outstanding individuals. One is Prem and the other is Rajesh. They showed me what true compassion and humility is all about. After those two - this is one thing that I am not likely to forget. This is greatness absolute greatness. A true athlete knows that while the standards of performance he sets out for are for himself, at a fundamental level, he is what he is because of the fans who love him and adore him and want him to succeed. An athlete is nothing without his fans. Respecting your fans is the greatest thing you can do. And what Sonny did was a show of humility and respect - no is above the game but no one is above the collective audience who watches the game. 

A stitch in a long time!

On a Saturday a long standing wish came true. After a long time, I finally got some stitches!

When i was a kid, I used to jump around all the time. I was a hyper active child with ants in my pants. Running around everywhere and jumping on anything. I remember getting hurt all the time. Falling, scrapping, cuts, wounds everywhere. Both my knees bear marks of the fun i had, and along with that both my elbows as well - and both my eyebrows!

I remember three instances of stitches very well. All of them happened when i was less than 10 years old. In no particular order - the first one. A place as exotic as Nepal. I was jumping from one bed to another in the room in Kathmandu. I so clearly remember jumping around and thats all i remember. It seems i jumped from one bed to another and in the process of doing so - I rammed into the air conditioner in the room. I had to be rushed to the hospital and that is the origin story of the mark on my eye brow above my left eye. My mom tells me that I kept shouting that i am not going to cry “i am Jeetendra” or so she says. All that bravado disappeared the moment i 

The second one - I remember waking up in the middle of the night as I had fallen down from my bed. My dad comes in and asks what happened, and the next thing I know - I am being wheeled to the hospital in Dubai. It seems they heard me crying and came in. I fell off the bed and the side table had a sharp corner that cut through the eyebrow on the right. Shit hit the roof in the middle of the night. Then dad had the corners rounded and I always had a fear of sharp edges near the bed. Thats why i never had a sharp edge near mine or Jispa’s and thats also why I would always throw a few pillows on the floor near Jispa’s bed. Even the floor can get hard.

The third one was when I was playing in school with my brothers friends. I remember jumping over a pile of concrete bricks arranged  in way that the diagonal point is pointing upwards. The top point just cut through my trailing right knee. I remember seeing my white flesh and two red lines passing through. Then all the friends came in and rushed me to the school clinic. They bandaged me and the main doc said call his home and send him. This task was left to the peon. the peon calls up and tells mom that its not a big thing and it seems ok. Mom was like, ok send him in the bus. In the evening when dad reaches home, he sees the wound and boom - we rush to the hospital. It was a big wound and the stitches were painful. The scene is that since it took so long to get the stitches, the marks remained. I used to play with that fleshy bit for a long time to come. Now that I think of it, I haven't had the chance to really look at the scar since a long time.

After that I had a lot of falls and tumbles, but thankfully never stitches. In fact I used to try an avoid them. I remember once or twice get bad cuts but I used to be scolded for the falls and so I tried to get them fixed without stitches. Just keep them together with the dressing. in fact at one point i had so many wounds that parents did not even notice that i had one more!

So after that when I grew up I always wondered what it would be to get stitches. And I never did get any. Till last week before last. I was at a  friends place and to make a call I entered the balcony. I must closed the glass french windows behind me. As I was talking the call dropped. I tried calling but it did not connect, so to get back in I turned around with the phone in my right hand. Bang, Crash - i hit the glass door with my hands and the glass cracked and came down. At that time when all the glass came crashing down, I remember thinking about another close shave that i had. Once with Friends we had gone to the Barista coffee shop at Regal cinema. There was a kid with us - a bit of a hyper kid. Suddenly before anyone knew he had got out of the cafe and was on the footpath going somewhere. I screamed ‘Ali’ and tried to go behind him. As I pushed the door to get out, crack - the glass door had a small thing to stop it from opening outside. The door simply split in half horizontally and the top part remained where it was and the bottom part simply pushed ahead. The crack of the top part  was just above my hand and the sharp glass simply scratched my hand mildly leaving just white scratch marks as if done by fingernails. That was a close shave. Even one inch lower would have been enough to cut my skin real bad.

So as the glass of the door crashed down, I thought abut the door in Barista and thought - wow another close shave. Jasmine came rushing in from the other side and saw me and was wondering what happened. Nothing really i said. I checked my right hand - ok - the phone was still there - intact. And then I saw my left hand - the glass had cut through the webbing of the first and second finger by making a cut at least an inch deep. A clean cut that i could see through and through. I then told Jasmine “Jasmine - I will have to be rushed”. She tried to remove the glass so that I could get out. By then the bleeding had started and it was a rush of blood. My friends also ran in and then i got a towel and everyone started wondering where to take me. I suggested a few hospitals but Jasmine was clear. Hospitals would take too much time and the traffic was not worth risking. I guess everyone thought that i would possibly bleed to death.

The thing about being 40 and getting hurt is that you know how to deal with the situation. When I got cut I did not even feel a thing. So when i saw the ugly cut, i could have panicked. But to my surprise, i did not. I kept my wits about myself. I stayed cool and calm. We discussed hospitals and treatments and were generally cool. I remember thinking about a joke and laughing. I remember seeing Jasmine very troubled, so I tried more to remain calm and happy. Take charge and relax. Control your speed of thought and see everything in slow motion. Thats the bets way to do it. Any times a theoretical question is asked of you an you never know what you will actually do in such  situation. When the chance came - i was happy I redeemed my self. Controlled action. When everyone is going to panic, the least you can do a patient is not panic. I was happy that my wits were good enough to even flex my fingers soon after the cut and then telling my wife - all cool, no nerves cut or something worse (basically thats the tendon cut test, as I learnt later)

So then we rushed to a clinic that was open on Saturday and got my stitches done. It was a fun experience. First to stop the flow of blood, the compounder asked me to hold my hand high up in the air post which the doctor took me in for the stitches. After putting a local anaesthetic he started sewing up the wound while we walked about things in life. It seems he was a childhood friend of my first cousin and we spoke about some common stuff. I told him that i was happy to see him without ties as i had read somewhere that the tries carry the most amount of pathogens and add no practical value to a doctors life. He said he ditched the tie once he saw that a light coloured tie had become dark around the knot from dirt that comes with everyday handling. 

I had gotten stitches before, but i wanted to see the procedure for my self. This time I could see it well enough. i was in my spirits and happy. The doctor had asked me if i would prefer a local or a general anaesthetic that would put me off completely. Crazy - I got a wound this big after 30 years - i wasn't going to leave this chance to see the procedure in person.

I guess i take this learning thing way too seriously. I have to have to learn from everyone and everything. What a life if not spoiled by learning!

gyan ka boon

“Do you have any time when you and the family are just chilling at home, doing nothing?” my boss asked me. That was a tough question.

It started pretty innocuously. There was a long weekend coming up and boss asked me, what my plans are for the weekend. Oh I was excited. The plans were pretty simple. I was meeting up some fitness experts for the kabaddi team. While I do my new job, i am also involved with the kabaddi team as a consultant. I am getting paid for it but largely its a job I doing as a favour for my old boss who owns the team. its run by the son of the big man. the BigMan who owns the bank i worked for is a great guy. He is sweet and largely fair. I owe a lot of my life to him in the end. After all i spent more than 14 years working for his firm. I see this as some way of repaying back to the family. Sure i worked for them and gave them growth and money but they have also been nice to me and repaid me back in many ways. Those 14 years have largely remained very happy and i can look back on it with a certain sense of happiness and accomplishment. So I couldn't say no, when the son wanted my help while he was studying for his management degree.

Also the fun bit is that I am connecting to sport thanks to this. I am able to help take kabaddi to a higher level and hopefully some of the athletes also benefit from this. When they go back with better techniques, better systems, better processes; it makes for a better sporting nation. But then thats easier said than done. these jokers are the typical stereotype of Big Moose. They want to eat a lot and work a lot.  One champion who is going to be our captain while signing with us was very clear. He said that he know what we did last year. We had a diet plan for the players. He said that kabaddi players don't need diet. They eat and play. He wants his sweets, his gulabjamuns, his rasmalais and the lot. Sure. As long as you play and perform - here eat this shit. Bum!

So I was meeting people over the week end and then i had to do some studies with my daughter and then something. So my boss looked at me and asked me “Do you have any time when you and the family are just chilling at home, doing nothing?”. Err. he got me thinking. I couldn't answer. When was the last time we were at home doing nothing? Then he laughed triumphantly - “there I got Jaimit quiet for the first time. Normally he always has some thing to say or some story or something or the other”. Well he is right on two counts - I am always with something to do or the other. My weekends are spent with family doing things or studying or watching movies or at friends or I am teaching or doing some consulting or working with other new startups. The second count - the amount i read or listen to podcasts or something, i always have something or the other to contribute to a conversation. Some story, some anecdote , some gyan. So much exposure helps me be a smarter person and I always try my best to spread what I know all around. I know sometimes it might be understood or interpreted as Smart Alec but hell - it goes with the territory.

So to take my last blog post forward - constant curiosity is what got me here. I am constantly curious. That with a pathologically ingrained desire to help others and spread word, makes me a weird character. learn a lot and spread a lot. Keep giving a lot of gyan. My wife has the most fun. She also calls me the gyan giver. She takes jibes at me for this. Every time she will ask me who did you give gyan to. I think she understands this nature of mine. She has seen me grow from an insecure dumb ass with a lot of verve to this avatar of mine. tons of understanding, gyan and connections. She is used to me meeting people at random places and in cities around the country. I think its a good thing. Will have to figure how it pans out in my life. But i think so far its been a boon rather than not.

Pandora is it.

Jasmine reads my blog diligently. But not because she needs to read it but i suspect its just that she had it in her feedly link and it shows up there. She has hardly ever said anything about anything that I have ever written. She is a quiet spectator to the blog. So yesterday i was pleasantly surprised when she out of the blue remarked – you haven't written in a long time. Yup, I told her. My mind hasn't been clear.

You know having the best intentions aren't enough. I had the best intentions that as i join the new place i would write everyday. It would be a great experience trying to articulate and note down all my experiences as i see them for the first time in 11 years. A  new company, a new environment, a new culture. I would be excited and all fired up about cataloguing all my experiences. But i guess, nothing of the sort happened. First, this place sucks by giving a keyboard. I am so used to a key board that i find it pretty irritating to write on the laptop key board directly. Bah.

That is one hell of a bad excuse for a blog that is dedicated to my daughter. But then if my wife asks me for something, how can i not give her, so in fact of the matter that i hate typing long on the laptop, here i am writing this post. Of course there is enough of stuff to talk about...

Last month was a revelation as far as Jispa’s studies are concerned and we have decided to focus on studies every Saturday. This way there is no pressure to study just before the exams and it leaves me free to explain stuff in my own way. This time, I dont know what I was teaching but i ended up listening to the Great Hargesia Goat Bubble along with her. This a great radio play that explains how asset bubbles are formed and how markets react to them, create them and then how they eventually go bust. All using the story of goats. Its a 40 min play which i sat through with Jispa, explaining to her while pausing it where it got a bit technical. Jispa and I really enjoyed this one. Then we moved onto History and math and other stuff. History is even more fun. Indian history is simply understood by reading the official school book. Its enough history to understand a lot of what you read around you. Right now its about Babur and the advent of the Mughal kingdom in India. After Babur, Sher Shah packed Humayun off and ruled Delhi till as Jispa told me – he shot himself while cleaning a rifle. This last bit is possibly apocryphal. But the poor guy supposedly would have never let the Mughal rule take hold until he died early. He is the same guy who laid the foundations of an ably administered kingdom which the Mughals used.

So that is awesome fun. I am going to keep reading her textbooks and other related stuff and enjoy all about growing up with the pains of exams.

I think another thing i must make her do is simply google or read at least the main wikipedia  page of any character she encounters in her history book, or the main wiki page of anything she studies. It just might give her another angle to what she is studying.

Chemistry is another thing i am rediscovering. I was always reasonably good at it. So now, only a few videos later, i can explain largely most of the stuff to her. In fact the videos are so good that i don't even require to explain stuff to her. She and me just watch the videos together and then we are done.

This weekend I took sometime off to give an interview over a con call. I apologised as the call took an hour long. After that i apologised to Jispa saying ‘sorry, interview for a new job’. She was wondering that I just got a new job.

I told her that right now I am in high demand and that this is something I have to do at this point of time.

I told her that the single most important quality that i have that got me here is – now this set me thinking – I wanted to say something that completely summarises my life so far and leave something simple and interesting. I said – the single biggest quality that got me here was ‘constant curiosity’ . that came out nice, considering i thought about it for about 2 seconds. That is true. I have been curious about everything and that has led me to constantly try to learn and experiment and improve. “ah” she said “so you are like Pandora”.

Sigh – my entire life being brought down to Pandora. What else are daughters meant for?

process over results

This month is possibly going down as the most confused month i have had since a long bloody time. Ever since i started the blog, one thing remained firm - at least one post a month. I thought that this month is going to be an epic month. I would have just started working in my new firm and there would be plenty of updates and hence plenty to talk about. The truth is that there was plenty to talk about and plenty to update.  A lot of things happened in this month. i think the problem was reverse, so much happened that actually a paralysis happened on what all to talk about.

The new job has been a roller coaster of emotions. Too many emotions to handle. I tried working hard… really hard, i tried giving freedom, i tried letting go, i tried everything. Sometimes things just cant move that easy. 

on the home front - there was another battle of epic proportions! Jispa had her exams and this time she was to prepare for it on her own. Five days before her math paper she asked for help. I sit down with her only to realise that she not only requires help - she requires a complete revision of the entire portion. Everything. She might have understood while the teacher taught but now, its gone for her head. I had to do almost every sum in the text book. So in 5 days i had to cram in a few months of work. the stress and the tension of all this was extremely high and impossible to handle. We were so angry at her. Overtime we used to ask her and she was maintained that she understood and had studied her portion. But when we did math - she was completely off. So everyday i would reach home and get her to study. we would do sums from the notebook. Certain stuff, i could teach her, but certain stuff, she had to teach me before i understood enough to teach it back to her. How was this even possible… I have no clue. On one occasion, we had house the powers of youtube to help us. Finding the squad root of a number using division method. This was something completely alien to me and Jasmine. So we studied on youtube and then explained what Jispa had written in her notebook.

This was a project that Jasmine and me had to do together. In the end - it was so intense that it consumed all our free time. We were so pissed at Jispa. She would have failed for sure if we had not intervened. At the end - her paper went off pretty ok. there was one question which a real googly. something that required me to think quite a bit before i could safely answer. Jasmine too was confused on that one. this was not even something that was taught in class. I don't understand this - I understand asking questions outside the base, but asking questions that aren't tackled in class at some level - i disagree. but still it did really matter. We told Jispa that now onwards - you are not studying only by yourself. You will study on Saturdays with us and you will do a lot of math. Also i told her - give your exam with no worries - now whatever you get in math we wont tell you anything.

Jispa sis not quite understand this. Why would we scold her and make her study and then tell her to forget about the marks. Its simple really. Process matters not results. thats what i have always maintained. If you insist on studying on your own and not want us to interfere then you get good marks. But if you get us involved from the start itself and allow us to help you and push you to do better, then in the end your results are our results and we are in it together. Math we did together. We should have started earlier and done better, but its ok now. you have got enough stress from us on this itself. So now lets focus on the exams which you give without stress.

I have had the stress of exams for a long time. I hated them. For many years afterwards i still got nightmares on giving exams. that i have reached the exam hall and i am not prepared for the papers. i am blank in front of the paper. I did not want to give this stress to Jispa. Invariably there is enough on her. It seems after the math paper - a lot of kids cried.  Around 10-15 girls and a couple of guys cried that either they could not finish or the paper was tough. Jasper didn’t. thank God! After all - it was just a  math paper and nothing much beyond.  there is no point stressing so much. Even the class topper cried. Whats the point in being topper, if you cry after the paper. Seesh.

So now i am dying to see how I fared in the math paper. Or how we all fared in the math paper. The stress of this is too much to bear.

So that came along with my new job and screwed my brains twice over.

It was a great month. Also this new job, i sit outside in the bay and i dont have a keyboard draw and it hurts to type so much on the laptop, plus i have taken a mac for the first time… ohhh… this is going to be painful! But at least - i hit the one post per month minimum program!

belong

Its been three days at the new office for me now. The first day was very tough. I spent the day battling a sense of depression. It come from various sources – a stong missing of my old team and the new office which somehow doent know how to welcome a new person. I remember the last time I was at a new place. It was 11 years ago. My first interaction with my new team was an offsite. Here I remember feeling like shit and alone and not knowing whats going to happen. I did not know if I could belong here.

This place was also a nightmare on the first day. When my old team celebrated a birthday at office and sent me the photo, I was completely upset. Smashing a cake on everyone at a birthday was my thing. By the time I left it was a ritual for everyone to smash a cake on everyone and then take a selfie with all the constituents. This time I was not in photo and instead there was my replacement. That was not fair.

I returned home in a bad mood and was not sure what I wanted from life. It carried on till the next day morning and then I did not have time to sulk as I had one meeting afetr another. Suddenly after the second meeting – shit changed. Something happened and I got my groove back. I got out of the meeting and started taking charge of the numbers. I got the relevant people in the teama nd started barking orders left right and centre, I started teaching how the numbers must reflect, started attacking the existing way of doing things, called the team one by one and started talking to them. I spoke to each one of them and asked them what they were doing what they wanted to do in life. I started talking to some of founders and asked them what they wanted to do in their streams of business. Then I started cracking the whip on everything I could see.

Now I am in control, now I am back and suddenly nothing is new to me.

Yesterday I was telling Jasmine, All it needed was me to believe in myself and my abilities. The first day was just an abberation. Once I believed in myself and knew that I belong here, everything else just fit into place. I asked the right questions and got the right direction. I pushed for what I wanted and the people all fell in line.

Of course right now, the guys must be wondering what kind of a mad man they have as a boss. This guys comes in at 8 am and then leave a little earlier than 8 pm. Constantly pushing, showing agression and urging them on while laughing, cracking jokes and suddely calling a spade a spade.

Of course I have matured in the 11 years. With more than 17 years of work experience, I know how to push the bar on work to be done. The first day as I said was an aberration, it was an important transition day. The second day was even more important – now I know that I can and that’s easy. Just trust your instincts. Like the first day for a  new batsman on forign soil for the first time in a test match. You prod, you poke, you sulk, you move around. You get a few overs in, you possiblyget out and you don’t know what hit you.

When you come back for the second innings or the next day, you have had time to reflect and to look back at yourself. Then you tell yourself to just chuck it and trust yourself, and enjoy your time. The first ball hits the bat and then things fall in place. When I played cricket I have opened many times. I always liked to go to the non striker first. It allows you to get a feel of the match. I also always liked to listen toteh sound of the first time the ball hits the bat. I hate to get out without even touching the ball with the bat. Once I feel that, I know I can bat and then I know I belong and then its on form there.

I started here by the numbers and the way we looked at them. I got my team to start working on them. To start analysing them in a way that made sense to everyone who needed to analyse them. Things started falling in place from then on. Analysis is something that I have always been good at. Getting numbers in a format that aided decisions is extremely important but a few get it right. I cant understand why it would be so difficult, but now I have had years of training on it.

So yes, the first ball was outside the off stumo which I left. The next ball was on the stump which I defended firmly and the ball raced away between covers to the boundary line. I belong.

long good bye

On the 31st of last month, I closed a huge innings of my life. I resigned finally from the Kotak Group and searched for my passions elsewhere. This was a really difficult decision to make. I knew I had to do what I had to do. The digital industry was booming and I couldn’t stay out of this for a long time. I had to experience and understand digital in its entirety and had to take the plunge.

The difficult thing was the team and the fact that I had to leave a team, which I had so painstakingly built. Everyone barring two, were people that I had hired and trained. The two were from before but I had trained and groomed them as well. It was an emotional thing more than anything else.

There was a three-month notice which I had to serve. This was a really weird period with me not knowing what was really expected of me. It was a tough phase emotionally and mentally. At the end of which my team got really emotional. Towards the end – I was dreading the last day. I think others were as well. Everyone knew it was going to become tough and emotional and people would cry. No one really wanted to cry openly and neither did I want to nor did I want anyone else to. Normally when people leave, we do a speech session where each one gives a short talk on the person leaving and the person leaving gives one talk on every individual. That is the surest way to kill you emotionally. So tactically I think everyone agreed that this was something we were not going to do. So we assembled and had some coffee and then I gave a speech to all. I gave my last words of advice and a brief about what I thought I faced at the firm and the obstacles and the high points. I gave advice that I thought was relevant for them. And I left it at that. And then I let it go. Some were teary eyed and some went to the loo and cried and some just hugged.

Also I tried to write something that they would read at rest and get a sense of what I thought and what my philosophy was. It was my feeble attempt at a legacy!

Here it is

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Hi Guys

I have spent the last 5 years trying to build the marketing function in the middle of the digital landscape. The truth as I saw it was very apparent. Mass media as we understood it as marketers is dying. The new digital landscape is allowing for a large range of options that we were not available for the marketer. The times have changed. While it is easy to deride the old ad ring in the new, not everything we learnt in the past is to thrown out. The fundamental principals of marketing remain steadfast.

Understanding customers, gaining insight and solving unfulfilled needs uniquely is still very much in fashion and I think it will remain in fashion for a long time to come. Yes Kotler and all the gurus will be even more relevant. The digital landscape allows the marketer to micro target and follow a customer through many of his life stages and the brand can stay relevant and push for an appropriate call to action at each of the stages. Brands with deep understanding and intellect will be able to build even stronger bridges with their customers. Digital allows for this – it encourages it. the success you see around you is from those companies who have managed to keep this connect very sharp and alive across the life cycle.

More math and more tech will surely come in. Does that mean that creative will die?  On the contrary creative will see a reinissance like never before. With a spectrum of moods and million ways to reach, what will break the clutter? Mere relevance is not going to be enough. Creative will come in. And the best part – creative will get instant validation of whether it works or not.

The good old days of planning your year with one big campaign will go. If tech development can get Agile, marketing will as well. Marketing will release in versions. There will be wave of marketing campaigns. These will run parallel and sequential to each other.  There will be chaos – organized and unorganized. The marketing manager will have to live with ambiguity. In fact the fuzziness of campaigns will have to be built in and accounted for.

It’s not that wastage will stop. Waste will always be there but this will be in the form of exhaust that can be analysed. This will lead to further efficiencies to be built in. Campaigns will be designed for testing and collection of feedback and data will decide which one will run its course.

These are what I see playing out in marketing. These are forces that I have learnt will shape marketing for time to come. But the greatest mystery I have tried my best to solve is the mystery of motivation of man! This has taken me most of my adult years and I don’t think have come too close to cracking it. Many different incidents and experiences have shaped my thinking. When I first started my work life my limited interaction with leading people was the stuff I did in college – I was the secretary of a few societies. But clearly I wasn’t that good at it. Later on when I started work, I was a disaster as I took a lot of time to understand that people have various different motivations and many different things that make them tick or not… Understanding this has taken up most of my time.

The challenge here is also not the people per se. The challenge I felt at start was simple – where does the person end and where does the firm start. Who is more important? The firm or the person. What if they are at cross purposes to each other? Whom should I develop first? Whose interest is paramount in daily interactions or even at a strategic view point?

It then dawned upon me that the answer was simple – it’s the people. I got upon this in a simple way – people were in front of me all the time. The firm was still two steps away. Firms are more complex and very weird. They designed for profit maximization. People aren’t generally built that way. They respond to stimuli and they tend to reciprocate. You get feedback over a period of time.

People are what make an organization and people are what take it forward. People are capable of going beyond what you thought was possible. People are ones executing things for you. And people need to be trained or pushed at best. They need to go beyond what they think is possible by them. All they need is someone to trust them and believe in them. Surely some funny characters come along. These don’t believe you or are skeptical of everything they see or hear that doesn’t fit their world view. My aim was to simply take people who were positive, wanted to do good and helped them do good. And people grow, invariably they grow by doing good things for the firm and then the organization grows along. The organisation growth is the byproduct of people pushing the paradigms of growth and not the other way around.

Hence this philosophy shaped my work life. Bet on people, train people, push people. This is reality as I see it. Push them hard. Those who don’t want to be pushed will move aside. Those want to be pushed will do good things for themselves and others. They take the team forward as well because at the end… everyone wants to do well.

This has been deeply enriching and rewarding for me – and of course deeply frustrating as well. But in the end as you stack up all the pros and cons – I realized this is the way I like to lead my life. By putting faith in people. Always having time for them and always being there to guide them. It works weirdly within the organization as the rest find the camaraderie developed uneasy. They throw stones, call names and express disbelief. They laugh at the times it fails – which invariably it will in isolated instances. But on the whole, it creates something that many aspire to but few actually do.

These are my big take aways or leave behinds.

Things around you will change – at a pace slower than what you predict but will come and hit you faster than you realize it. So keep learning all the time.

You are nothing without people around you. Keep them as your priority all the time. Push them forward, propel them but don’t hang on to them. So keep teaching all the time.

This is my distillation of my life. All of you have contributed in many ways to this. Some by your mistakes and some by your advice and some by your behavior or attitude. But the one I treasure the most is what you taught me by your love. You show it different ways and I treasure it so much. this is what I carry on as confidence when I move on. That  - I may piss off people, some may hate me, but some – some I think genuinely love me.

All I hope is not that we keep in touch. Life is fast and busy and many forces push us away. If we are in touch then great and if not then great. But if you catch me at a mall, or at a movie or anywhere just loitering about – I hope you will shout out to me or at the very least look at your friend or kid or anyone with you and point out to me and say – you know that guy – he is Jaimit – I worked with him and I learnt a lot.

Because honestly with all of you – I learnt a lot!