BEFORE YOU JOIN A BUSINESS SCHOOL

 



“People look for greatness only in the extraordinary and completely overlook the wonder of the ordinary.”

Ann Tatlock Quotes

 

This young man –- let me name him Sahil* –- is an MBA aspirant. He was expected to come to me for a ‘grooming’ session at 11, this morning. Sapna*, his mother, who was my student several years ago, had requested me to ‘polish’ her boy to a join a good business school.

Grooming, polishing, finishing, and business schools -- I, often, find them a lot hyped up. “Why do you search for goodness outside, while it lies right inside you?” I ask parents and their young kids, “Why don’t you start with small things, which are right within your reach?”

“Good evening Sahil. Hope, you will be there at 11, tomorrow morning. Please confirm,” I messaged the young MBA aspirant, last evening. As he did not respond to my message even after two hours, I forwarded the message to Sapna, asking her to check with Sahil. She instantly replied:

“Good evening Sir. Yes, Sahil will be there at 11 tomorrow. I will ask him to respond, too. Regards.”

Just a minute after that, I saw Sahil’s message:

“Yes.”

I took a long breath. When the breath ended, I wrote to him:

“Dear Sahil, I am sharing Mom’s reply, and I want you to refine yours. Reason: Such fine lessons will not be taught in any Business School. I want you to be a lot mindful about little things in life. Love you, dear.”

I tagged Sapna with a note: “Sapna, I just imparted a subtle lesson to your young boy. Hope, he sees the point I am trying to make.”

“Thank you, Sir… It’s much needed,” Sapna ended the late-night conversation…

I was remembering another similar episode. The only difference: the person involved in this episode was not a Business School aspirant, but the Director of one of the premier Business Schools in the city. I had met him earlier and he had shared his number and asked me to communicate through this number. Last night, when I checked: I found, that five of my messages and two phone calls were left unattended. The messages had been delivered, and the phone was ringing…

Too busy to send even a bland (blunt) response like Sahil’s?

Or, was it right on my part to ‘judge’ this Head of the Business School?

Well, these kinds of things –- lack of sensitivity –- is rampant among educators and educated alike…

The speed of the leader is the speed of the gang. An old saying that is…

“If you wanna change the world, start off with making your bed.” This was Admiral McRaven‘s famous advice to the educators and educated alike…




So much for our search for ‘gold’ outside of ourselves!

 

*Names changed


GERALD D’CUNHA

 

Pic’s: Pixabay/Alexas Fotos

Video: The University of Texas at Austin

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BUT, NOT INTO EACH OTHER'S KEEPING...

Image
"If you can not love yourself, You can not love another.” I meet many young college students who are head-over-heals in relationship. They call it ‘Love’. One of the most difficult things to deal with in such relationship, for most of them, is: the desperate clinging of the other partner. “Why didn’t you call? Why didn’t you meet? Where did you go? What did you do? Who was there with you? Why can’t we go out? Why did you wear this? Why did you go there? Why? What? When? Who? Where? Whose?... Yes, all the possible ‘W’s’ in the world. Yes, in the world of our ‘Love Birds’. What starts as some romantic sweet-nothings, now is marred with endless probing, judging, accusing, blaming, sulking, fighting and pain. Most of them are unprepared to deal with this volatile shift… They end up hurting each other; more importantly, they end up hurting themselves. They begin to wonder: Where has all the sweetness gone? Why am I feeling so lonely now? Why is this suffocation? This fear? T...
Read more

LOVE NEEDS TO BE MADE LIKE A BREAD

Image
“Love doesn’t just sit there like a stone; it has to be made like a bread, remade all the time, made new.” Ursula K Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven “E motional blackmail! Parenting is something, I feel, I am failing! We keep telling her to do things she is not keen doing… I can’t engage her in books… I can’t take responsibility of a dog, the only thing she is asking for since ages! What to do, my teacher?” This was the daily frustration of a typical parent. She has two little girls… One of them (age ten) has brought the mother, once my student and now a friend who lives abroad, express her frustration here. Now, I have had a ‘longer experience’ as a parent compared to this student/friend of mine. So, the temptation was to give her some ready gyan on what to do and what not to do… Whether she should gift a dog to her little one or not. The reality was this… My gyan was of no use for my friend to deal with her daily situatio...
Read more

CHIKNI CHAMELI...

Image
If you have food in your fridge and clothes on your back, A roof over your head and a place to sleep, You are ‘richer’ than 75% of the entire world!  If you have money in your wallet and a little change, And can go anywhere you want, You are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy! If you woke up this morning, with more health than illness, You are more blessed than a million people Who won’t survive this week and die! If you can actually read this message, and understand it, You are more fortunate than the three-billion people in the world, Who can not see, don’t know English, or suffer being mentally retarded! LIFE is not about men/women who dumped you, Or whatever else that doesn’t matter… It is about a thousand other reasons to be Happy… So, ‘CHEERS!!!’ to this Life… Have a cheerful day!!!  Almost a month has passed since I received this Good-Morning message from my younger brother, Viva. Ev...
Read more
THE WILD, WAYSIDE FLOWERS
There is, always, something extra-ordinary in the wild, wayside flowers...