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Story of Ram: Connecting the dots…

“ Everything that's coming into your life you are attracting into your life. And it's attracted to you by virtue of the images you're holding in your mind. It's what you're thinking. Whatever is going on in your mind you are attracting to you”. (Excerpt from The Secret – Rhonda Byrne)

Published on :March 17th 2010 Blog: http://Intellectmatrix.blogspot.com Share your commen ts: info@intellectmatrix.c om

Story of Ram: Connecting the dots… TATA’s senior executives spoke about Innovate, Socialize & be Mobile to be successful in whatever we do & many well known mentors advised to THINK BIG. Many more others spoke about the LOA – Law of Attraction. In my previous article I narrated how some of my past experiences unfolded while watching movie 3Idiots (3idiots - one of the block buster movies in Indian film industry). The first character I introduced was Samir and I gave a glimpse of his desire to follow his dreams and he dared to dream to be something other than an engineer or a doctor as wished by his family … Samir’s story is incomplete but I wanted to expose you to the spirit of following one’s dream even if it meant r evolt against family. There are five individuals, including Samir, who have made a deep impact on my personality for various reasons. All these 5 characters were associated with me in some or the other way in the last 2 decades. I would like to share those valuable incidents / situations / experience with you all, before I get into personality development, leadership & management tips compiled / interpreted by various available sources.

Riches don't respond to wishes. They respond only to definite plans, backed by definite desires, through constant persistence. -- Napoleon Hill Now I present you the story of Ram….2 n d person who made an impact in my life… Here we go…. This

saga

goes

back

almost

years

ago

…

I am basically a computer science graduate. I did not study engineering as wished by my parents nor did I study medicine. Those were the only 2 options looked upon by parents for their children 25 years back in India. I thought I was not good enough to study engineering and I was not interested in medicine - It scared me though. I was not a brilliant student during my graduation studies but I always managed to score just first class. After my graduation I joined a technical training institute as a trainee assistant during mid 90’s. My training institute was into computers & networking training. During my initial days at work, I had my own strugg les to establish myself at workplace since I was the only fresher sandwiched between many experts in their fields. I was lacking in “Excellent communication and English” skills and computer skills. My experienced colleagues believed it is not good to share knowledge since they felt either they would be depleted of it or they thought I would outsmart them. My institute was one of the oldest and well known training institutes and hardly had any competition. We had many branches across India and we had good business and assignments. Even now since the last

15 years the institute has grown phenomenally big and has been going great nationally & internationally. It was those days when weekends were the opportunity to run special batches for students, finish extra lab hours, etc. So I used to run many batches and our schedule use to be very tight. It was one of those fine saturday mornings, I was busy with one of the networking batches. It must have been 7.30 am. During the session break, my center in-charge who was counseling the prospect candidates called me into his cabin and introduced me to Ram. Ram was seated in front of him. My in-charge asked me to meet again after completing my morning training batch. I extended a warm welcome and shook hands with Ram and said “Nice meeting you”. He shook my hands firmly with a confident kind of smile. Then I carried on with my remaining training session. I was not sure why my boss introduced Ram to me. Being a Saturday, that too as early as 7.30 hardly anybody would be in a mood to start an acquaintance. Throughout my session Ram was running in my mind. Though my sixth sense told me that Ram had something firmly calculated i n his mind before coming here, his serene smile was a welcome one. I began to think I liked him. I finished my morning training batch and soon went to meet my boss. I knocked at the door and my boss was alone. He welcomed me and asked me to pull a chair. The discussion went on as following Boss: “How is training going on?” Me: “All well. A nother 2 weeks to complete the batch and then the team would take up assessment” Boss: “Excellent… I am expecting an ex cellent feedback from your team similar to what you have been doing since long.” Me: “Yes sure. No compromise”. I said beaming with a smile Boss: “What do you feel about Ram?” Me: “I am not sure. Is he joining us?” I was not sure of what brought him here. His smile again crossed my mind. Boss” “No.. I am sorry I didn’t tell you. Listen carefully. Ram is a commerce graduate and is a very bright student. He wants to learn Computers & Networking and develop his career in IT. Unfortunately he is physically challenged and one of the special member in his family. He can’t speak and he can’t hear”. As I was surprised and wondering why my boss was telling me all this, he continued “Look. He wants to learn and he is determined. He was turned around by another training institute who they said that they were not capable of handling physically challenged students“. Now things became clear to me. I made up my mind to help Ram realize his dream as I always tried to help people who are in real need and determined to do something in their life.

My boss wanted to continue further. I interrupted him … “Sir. I got it. I will support Ram and I need 6 months time to make him a specialist” I saw a twink le in my boss's eyes. Obviously he was as excited as I was. My Boss said “I knew you would take up this initiative. Show that we ca n make anything possible. We can make any dream a reality. We just need a will to do it. All the best”. “I have asked Ram to come and meet you in the second half today. We will not charge any course fees but will deliver all the required content as per the training module. Please discuss when he comes and plan further. I need to meet someone. Good wishes” That afternoon my interaction with Ram started. It was a little tough for me to interact with him as he could neither hear nor speak. He used to make some wobbling sound but I could not make out anything out of it. I showed him the calendar and wrote on a piece of paper the time and date when we would start his independent batch. He nodded. We agreed upon to start the batch after 2 weeks and the batch would be every morning first hour.

“The first step is to ask. Make a command to the Universe. Let the Universe know what you want. The Universe responds to your thoughts.” - LISA NICHOLS (Excerpt from The Secret – Rhonda Byrne) My journey with Ram begins from here… From the day I started the batch (It was a dedicated and independent batch) it took 7 months to complete the batch as against a regular batch of 3 months. I trained him on computers (hardware, troubleshooting, software, operating system installation) and networking. The medium of instruction was of course Eng lish but I was able to make him understand only by writing. I used to write everything on a paper and explain to him. Whenever he had some doubts or clarifications he used to again write in a paper and then I used to respond in the same way. During the first week he insisted me to learn “sign language“. He bought one book for me to train me as writing and explaining the entire training module was a tedious job and there was so much of stress involved. Ram started pestering me to learn sign language and he was ready to teach me the sign language for some time. He suggested taking a break from the training schedule for some time and both of us dedicated some time daily to learn the sign language. I agreed and this continued for a while. But that being summer vacation, there more enrolments and new training batches were coming up. We could not afford more time for sign language.

I explained the same to Ram and then he agreed to continue with the same way of writing and noting all modules. It was a very tiring job for me as writing and explaining involved more energy than regular training. However I delivered the entire module to my satisfaction irres pective of the stress involved. Soon, I began to enjoy the results. Ram was a very intelligent guy and used to pick up skills very quick ly. Week after week, month after month, Ram began to feel thrilled about his accomplishments and independence on computers and networking. After 7 grueling months of training, Ram was ready to face the world and follow his dreams. He thanked me for all my efforts and said that definitely the learning would help him to get him a good job or start his own business. Days passed and Ram began to move out of my mind and I became busy with other batches. This story ends at a point when I met Ram’s dad on a busy Sunday morning at the shopping mall. Ram’s father was in his early 60’ and was on his way to buy some stuff for him. He greets me, holds my hand gratefully and says with tears in his eyes - “Sir, Thank you so much. I am indebted to you. Ram has got a job as a Computer Sys tem Administrator. I am not sure how will I be able to repay you ever.!! “ I felt dumbstruck. I couldn’t speak. I went blank for a while. Then I just smiled. I never thought that my efforts of assisting Ram in his path of meeting his dream would bring so much joy to his parents. I said with a smile “Dear Uncle, it is not me. It is Ram who wanted to do something in life and he did not want to depend on you. I am just an enabler, a catalyst. I deserve very less credit in this”. And I really meant it. I felt Ram’s ambition to follow his dreams were stronger than my efforts to help him. Ram’s dad thanked me and left. After this incident I could see a drastic change in myself too!. I learnt that everything in this world is achievable. Everything is possible. It is up to you to choose what you want to be. It is upto you to follow your dreams in spite of obstacles. It is upto you to believe in your dreams, to believe in the power of your dreams and to work towards it. We are the creators of our own destiny. We need to focus persistently on our goals to accomplish them no matter what. Follow your heart and follow your dreams. Believe in them and success will follow you.

Follow your dreams!!! Good wishes Coming next in the “connecting the dots” series is the story of John – Rags to riches - 3rd individual in my

life

who

made

impact.