AN HOUR OF FULFILLMENT IS LIKE A LIFETIME OF FULFILLMENT
I feel like telling this today: An hour
of fulfillment is like a lifetime of fulfillment!
I had been invited by
one of the reputed colleges in Mumbai to take a session, today, for its
teachers… The subject had instantly caught on their imagination – ‘AM I A
TEACHER BY DESIGN OR A TEACHER BY DEFAULT?’…
I had an hour and a few
minutes more to leave an impact… Yes, I did!
How do you make out
that you have left an impact? After decades of doing this teaching and training
stuff, and, after having seen every kind of participant in the audience… I have
stopped going by the traditional way of getting the ‘feedback’…
You can’t satisfy all… All
that you can do is: Put your total heart and convey your message. Keep it
utterly simple… and practical… Make them feel you are one among them… And,
never ever position yourself as a ‘super-human’…
People relate to the
underdog-heroes… to those, who are ordinary folks like them, but who rise up to
greatness!
I was pleasantly surprised,
today, to note the fact, that the college had organized my session to coincide
with the felicitation of one of the retiring teachers… So, immediately after my
session, some 30 minutes more were spent to honour this senior lady teacher,
who, I could, immediately realize was one of the most effective and popular
teachers of the institution… Colleagues, Principal, Department Heads, Trustees,
friends and family members… almost every one kept showering praises on the
retiring teacher… I realized, in those few minutes, as to how this woman had
touched so many lives… gone beyond the call of her duty… and remained true to
what she had always believed in…
“I, always, admired
madam for being a totally transparent person,” one of her colleagues said, “What
she was inside, she was outside, too… She was a true mirror for many of us.”
As this male colleague
was saying what he had just said, I could feel the truth and honesty in his
words, too… He was totally transparent… he meant what he said… What he was
inside, he was outside, too!
I have, always, relied
myself on this kind of feedback… Genuine feedback is seldom wrapped in glossy
words… It comes straight from a simple and sincere heart!
My one hour, like I
said earlier, was like a lifetime of fulfillment… My heart doesn’t lie about
it. After the session, when so many teachers came up to tell me what they had felt,
they only echoed what my heart was already feeling – total fulfillment!
The same must have been
the feeling of the senior teacher who retired today after serving for the
institution for years… I could feel that hers was a totally fulfilled career!
Apparently, this
teacher had been instrumental in creating a very effective N.S.S. cell in the
college. When the chief Trustee handed her a cheque as a token of love, she
instantaneously donated the amount to the N.S.S. cell!
“When you leave the
place, leave it a little better than how you found it when you first came in.”
As part of my session, I, always, challenge teachers to ask this to themselves:
“Have I done it so?”
As a trainer, I
challenge myself, too: “Am I leaving this place a little better after an hour?”
The retiring teacher
did it even on the last moment of her eventful service in this great
institution.
My one hour… Her one
long-career… yes, they had given us both the same feeling: of total fulfillment!
GERLAD D’CUNHA
Pic.: Avinash Mantri
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