Speech by Mr. Virendar Mohan Trehan, Chairman, Mekaster delivered on Friday 15th April, 2011 at RIMT Institute of Management - INDUCTION PROGRAMME - Mandi Gobindgarh

The subjects going to be discussed today are general in nature, but essential for life!

Since childhood your parents have groomed you. You were in School and now in College to learn more to help you to walk through the journey of life!

“The great are those who in their lives fought for life. My dear friends, Life is a Journey, not a Home. It is a Road not a City of habitation and the enjoyment and blessings we have are little STOPS on the road side of our life – where we get refreshed for a moment with the new strength, and continue to walk on the passage of life”!

In short, Life is a culmination of so many stories. It is not a one continuous story. In your life, you have the story of your childhood, story of your school, story of your college, story of your adulthood and so on…..or in other word

You are studying in this fantastic Institute and have come from different parts of the country to make your life great. The life which can be meaningful not only for you, but for the society in which you are living!

Please remember, Life of Triumph hinges on a firm faith for rugged times. It is the failures which make you tough to fight for your betterment and then have a successful life!

You want to make life great! That is why you want to study MBA and attain professional advancement to make your life better, thus make you a good human, better human being than many millions in this country or in the world! Your destiny will also depend upon how you respond to the events at different stages of life!

My interaction with you today is on – how we can make our life or career or journey of life more meaningful?

Paul Newman – one of the Actors in Hollywood has said, “The trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with the least fuss you can muster. I’m not a professional philanthropist, and I’m not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer who puts back into the soil what he takes out.”

First of all, we must clearly understand whatever we are today - how we have come up to this stage? It is not only the contribution of yourself and/or your parents or your teachers in School / College and/or friends / relatives, but a culmination of many more things including nature’s blessings around you. If we make our life worthwhile, it will not only be good for yourself alone, it will be useful for the whole society as well which has collectively contributed towards your personal development.

One of the first and foremost points for developing life has to be MISSION of your life.

• Have you defined your GOAL – what you want to be?
• What is the destination of your life other than ofcourse, going to the God Almighty at the end of life?
• What do you want to do and achieve in your life?

You have to define your Goal NOW, if you have not done so far. You want to be a Judge, Lawyer, Doctor, Engineer, Civil Contractor, Chemical Engineer, Financer, Business Manager or Politician etc After you have decided your goal in life then we follow some of the basics which make our life better in the following few lines:

COURAGE – Any decision you have taken in life, would have opposition from one or the other quarters - may be even from your near and dear ones. But with the changing of times, elders in the family do understand that if you are interested in Photography, they will not force you to become Cricketer because it has better money. They will let you develop your hobby / profession the way you want. Therefore, be COURAGEOUS to follow the line you have chosen. (LIKE 3 IDIOTS)

RIGHTEOUSNESS – Abraham Joshua Heschel – a Scholar from USA has quoted that: “Right living is the way to right thinking”

Righteousness is a very important aspect in development of your personality. Sometimes to get rich overnight or to fulfil your dreams quickly, you end up doing wrong things. Please be careful, this will not make your life instead MAR your life.

COMMUNICATION – It is one of the easiest things to follow, but strangely, we human beings most of the time are reluctant to communicate PROPERLY. It is amazing that some people can communicate orally, some visually, some by correspondence, some of you in English, some in local language and some through Audio Video Presentation. You must judge how you can communicate better and make sure that you communicate in that fashion.

Information Technology is a boon. We must take advantage of it to ensure Systems in our Enterprises. However, when we are in touch with people, it is emotions which play role more important than technology. Do not forget, HUMANISM is also very important technology which is basically governed by emotions. Messages by E-mail are fast, efficient and expect immediate response, but personal interaction is missing. Please make sure that you do not miss a chance to load your communication with EMOTIONAL CONTACT – which would go a long way!

SECRET: I was attending one Session with Prof Stevenson in World Economic Forum. We were about 200 Chief Executives from all over the world including top companies like Coca Cola, IBM, General Motors. One of the points he emphasized is noteworthy, “At the top, if you think you can hold your secrets for long, you are mistaken. Therefore, ensure that your acts are not embarrassing for yourself or for your organisation that you cannot face them boldly”!

There is an old saying, ‘ONCE A WORD IS SPOKEN, IT IS NO MORE A SECRET’!

Please remember, in life, particularly, in the current age of information technology, even Govt of India and various agencies know about you more than what you know about yourself. I give you another example:

“In the recent days, my Company has applied for some loans so they wanted to check my personal credentials and look into last one decade record. Although I never thought it would be easy for anyone to know someone’s financial records, but it was very easy for these institutional people. They found that I am enjoying several loans. However, the credit worthiness is that I had not defaulted even in single instalment in last 13 years”!

Times are going to be easy when UID cards are introduced. Our total information will be known to whichever agency want to know. Therefore, only a few secrets can be maintained by us, that too for some time. Make sure that our behaviour, our characteristics, our presentation, our image is not floundering our organisation& personality.

INTER-PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP - We must learn to make a friend every day. Somebody has said, “The only rose without thorns is friendship”!

Please note “RELATIONSHIPS ARE THE FOUNDATION FOR MEANING AND SUCCESS IN LIFE”

This would help you to grow in your life!

SUCCESS: We all work for success in life but it is normally seen that when we are successful, we tend to become egoistic and forget about Humility – which is our asset. As a result, we are in fact, heading towards failure. Please watch out that at any given time, you must be on the ground. You may go up, fly in the air, but remember, Aeroplane has to land. It cannot stay for ever in the sky. Atleast for refuelling, one has to land somewhere. ( AUKAT)

TEAM SPIRIT – As we grow, we always like to say,

• ‘I have done this’ (MUKTI BANDHAN)
• ‘I will achieve this”

Let us be honest. There is a lot of competition and the only way to achieve the best result is ‘WITH A TEAM THRO’ TEAM SPIRIT’ and not solo! A good Manager is a good Leader and you should build up a team around you!

Management examples are plenty. Even we can think of M S Dhoni managing his World Cup Trail. In between when there was a Tie between India and England, a lot of criticism was there for his actions. The moment, World Cup was won, everything was forgotten! However, he did give answer in his first interview there after “I know I have to answer a lot of questions but in my position, I know what I have to do and when I have to do” It was a quiet rebuttal to all critics because at the end of the day, he was successful with his strategies quietly but proved his capability by actions – holding the Team together!

LUCKY: In 1969, I went to USA for 3 weeks for a training of ‘SNAP-ON TOOLS, USA’. One of the important points I learnt from my Teacher there is FEEL LUCKY, THINK LUCKY and you will be LUCKY. (FORTUNATE)

Today when I see around vibrant youth, kaleidoscopic shades of rich cultural heritage and diverse geographical expanse, convinces me, what India will be India in 2020! Undoubtedly, it will be powered and driven by the youth of today!

It is unfortunate that we always look for education in Management to the West which is good. It is worthwhile. It is summed up. For example my friend Mr. VijayantBansal gave me a book ‘THE GREATNESS GUIDE’ in which the Author Robin Sharma has said, “Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals/ Fundamentals.”

Let me share with you a few fundamentals:

It is always a pleasure to be with you every year. I am confident that your Institute must be producing Talent Pool to drive Growth and Prosperity in our Nation so that we could be THE IMPORTANT COUNTRY in the world!

I pray to God that each one of you develop your life and follow a journey to achieve success and bring name to your family, to this Institute, to your State and to the Nation so that like World Cup, you can always be a winner with the Indian Flag flying high in your hands!

I thank Chairman Mr. H C Bansal, Dr. Bhatia and his colleagues to have invited me to address the students! I would be very happy to interact, if there is time and if someone is interested to ask questions.

Jai Hind !!!!!

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