STAYING ALIVE!

You would perhaps have heard this very old story illustrating the difference between positive thinking and negative thinking

Many years ago two salesmen were sent by a British shoe manufacturer to Africa to investigate and report back on market potential.

The first salesman reported back, "There is no potential here - nobody wears shoes."
The second salesman reported back, "There is massive potential here - nobody wears shoes."

This simple short story provides one of the best examples of how a single situation may be viewed in two quite different ways - negatively or positively.

When reading this story... I thought of narrating my own story where I made an interesting "choice" too..

I always jokingly called myself a challenge to the medical fraternity, the industry I was very much an integral part of as a professional as well. I would often kid with people who knew of my health concerns that, “if I could think of an apt nick name for me it would be a ‘medical catastrophe’. I knew more doctors in the city than my relatives! Beat that for a statistical analogy.

But having said the above, there was never a dull moment in my life, be it my attitude or the way I prefer to deal with things. And that is one reason I have always managed to keep the smile pasted on my face despite all the challenges life has thrown at me.

One such milestone moment I am proud of is conception of my own consultancy TAG.

“…..I SIMPLY LOVE MYSELF!” – I told KJ, my friend who had come to see me at the hospital where I was recuperating from a hip fracture, “What on earth keeps you so pepped up all the time, when most of these times you are in deep shit…” she asked. “Now this wasn’t the first time that I was encountering such a remark from someone or for that matter KJ herself. I am quite a health disaster that way! Troubles love to find me. On this fateful day, after torrid clinical investigations from head to toe, I was informed about the mother of all reasons that had caused me these miserable health rollercoaster rides – a brain tumor! As filmy as it may sound, I had BRAIN TUMOR. I instantly felt like the female hybrid version of a Shahrukh Khan from Kal Ho Na Ho and a Rajesh Khanna from the movie Anand! (Sorry! I love drama) Ofcourse I would feel like that! after all, this is the least a happy go lucky, popular 25 yr old would expect to hear at a time when she is making plans to scale new heights in her career, speed date with her boyfriends, hang out and party with friends or is scheduling an international holiday with her own earnings!

“How are you Madam?” KJ asked me with all the concern she could gather in that one breath. “If I was any better, I’d be twins” I said with a devils grin and wink back at her. She slapped her head in disgust to say, “You are simply impossible! “THIS IS ME” I said..,

Each morning I wake up and say to myself – Dear Girl, you have two choices today.

You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood. I choose to be in a good mood.

Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it.

Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose to point the positive side of life.

"Yeah, right, this is YOU.  It's not that easy to keep this positive all the time," she protested making a dirty face at me. "Yes, it is," I said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live life. And I choose not only to live but to STAYING ALIVE!”  

The doctors had asked me not to take up any kind of strain inducing activity, both mentally and physically until the treatment was on. Now this could mean anything from 6 months to 3 years. I have two problems in life, I get bored with monotony too soon and second, quitting isn’t an option I consider so easily. So sitting at home with restrictions in mobility and no physical activity as a protocol to the treatment for so long didn’t go down so well with me. Seriously! I can’t sit idle!

Doctors continued to inform me, “your condition is life threatening but “reversible” if treated correctly and in time. REVERSIBLE – Now that’s the word I caught onto.  Call it attitude or technical default, I was born this way. I see a positive streak in everything around me. I’m shamelessly positive!

This was again one of those moments, where I had to make a CHOICE. (Just like the story above)  I said to myself either you choose to cry your lungs out in despair and whine away to glory criticizing the sudden turn in destiny or make the most of this challenging time and create something out of it. A couple of weeks after I came home, I began thinking of what I can do with my gigantic resource and talent pool and limited physical ability. Thanks to my management education and admirable experiences with a lot of great mentors I had the skill to gather the right resources for the right purpose. I began with creating a website and some basic digital and social media network marketing material. This took about a month or so followed with a face book fan page and LinkedIn invites. Oh boy! What would one do without social media networks! I conceptualized TAG in 2010 as a staffing agency specially catering to the clinical research industry, along with two parallel business verticals catering to corporate event management and creative business model designing and marketing. Although I originally belonged from a larger market of clinical trial business development, I realized the need for a personnel agency that filled a void left by other temporary and permanent placement agencies which recruited and hired over various domains and lacked the technical insight and know-how of the clinical research and pharmaceutical industry. I had experienced this void myself while I was working. Now that’s where I saw an opportunity I could grab on! I established TAG out of the desire to contribute to the clinical research industry. The right mix of presentation and communication skills brought me my first training and placement project. Through the distinctive combination of industry expertise I had through professional acquaintances, an extensive candidate database and a comprehensive career lifecycle and background screening process, I managed to secure the  right professionals for my clients - on time, every time. That kick started the staffing vertical.

The office set up was no rocket science. The well known K.I.S.S. formula ( Keep It Simple & Sweet) worked fine for me. I began operating from home and created a virtual office. A mobile connection, a wireless landline, a super fast broadband wi-fi router and a well equipped laptop connected to a printer and a comfortable wheelchair to maneuver me all over was all it took for the infrastructure bit. Yea! I was on the "roll" .. ;-)

 I believe that leadership is something that you are born with - and that is defined by the choices and actions you take. Choices as simple as – waking up with a smiling face every day or as complicated as giving up on your usual daily lifestyle and adapting changes to accommodate an absolutely new one so as to deal with the herculean challenges life brings to you on the platter!

I'm glad you actually read my ramble upto the end... you ought to be proud already! And I sincerely hope I have managed to motivate you to see your problems differently.. more as opportunities and less as hurdles... :) cheers!!