Sunday, 17 October 2010

Copper Coin

Gandhi went from city to city, village to village collecting funds for the Charkha Sangh. During one of his tours he addressed a meeting in Orissa. After his speech a poor old woman got up. She was bent with age, her hair was grey and her clothes were in tatters. The volunteers tried to stop her, but she fought her way to the place where Gandhi was sitting. "I must see him," she insisted and going up to Gandhi touched his feet. Then from the folds of her sari she brought out a copper coin and placed it at his feet. Gandhi picked up the copper coin and put it away carefully.
The Charkha Sangh funds were under the charge of Jamnalal Bajaj. He asked Gandhi for the coin but Gandhi refused. "I keep cheque worth thousands of rupees for the Charkha Sangh," Jamnalal Bajaj said laughingly "yet you won't trust me with a copper coin." "This copper coin is worth much more than those thousands," Gandhi said.
"If a man has several lakhs and he gives away a thousand or two, it doesn't mean much. But this coin was perhaps all that the poor woman possessed. She gave me all she had. That was very generous of her. What a great sacrifice she made. That is why I value this copper coin more than a crore of rupees."

Friday, 8 October 2010

Just Go and Do It!

When we were young, we had dreams and expectations. We imagine things, we keep thinking about what we want to be, what we want to do, what makes us proud and happy and what will we become.

We grew up, and things seemed like having its own way. We accept our success or failures and we move on. The rapid change, the need to do the urgent things, the works, the pressures and the failures, all kill part of our visions.

Things have changed, but they cannot really take away the dreams. We still have to dream on, to visualize our desires, our wants, our vision of our future, even when we are considered too old for such things.

Cornel Sanders started his business when he was sixty, and started the whole successful KFC business. The main thing is not the age - whether being too old, or too young, but it is the desire to dream on, and the courage to realize it.

Vivid visualization, taking it to sleep, thinking constantly about it, talking about it, planning it, adding all the spices to our dreams will make us a bit closer to the realization of our dreams.

Entrepreneurship starts with a dream, a simple wish of tiny restaurant operation, or a huge business of real-estate development, or a modest training center for English education, or just any other self-employed money learning fun.

The ability to dream on is one of the fine quality of human race that other species do not possess. So dream on, and put a deadline: make it a giant dream, a tiny one, an old everlasting one, a newfound one, a hobby related one, a change of life one, a religious one, a stupid one, a stroke-of-genius one, or just whatever...... just continue to dream on........ Then, Just Go and Do It!

Friday, 1 October 2010

What needed to change


A few years ago, British Rail had a real fall-off in business. Looking for marketing answers, they went searching for a new ad agency - one that could deliver an ad campaign that would bring their customers back.

When the British Rail executives went to the offices of a prominent London ad agency to discuss their needs, they were met by a very rude receptionist, who insisted that they wait.
Finally, an unkempt person led them to a conference room - a dirty, scruffy room cluttered with plates of stale food. The executives were again, left to wait. A few agency people drifted in and out of the room, basically ignoring the executives who grew impatient by the minute. When the execs tried to ask what was going on, the agency people brushed them off and went about their work.

Eventually, the execs had enough. As they angrily started to get up, completely disgusted with the way they'd been treated, one of the agency people finally showed up.
"Gentlemen," he said, "your treatment here at our Agency is not typical of how we treat our clients - in fact, we've gone out of our way to stage this meeting for you. We've behaved this way to point out to you what it's like to be a customer of British Rail. Your real problem at British Rail isn't your advertising, it's your people. We suggest you let us address your employee attitude problem before we attempt to change your advertising."

The British Rail executives were shocked - but the agency got the account! The agency had the remarkable conviction to point out the problem because it knew exactly what needed to change.

As Yogi Berra once said."Before we build a better mousetrap, we need to find out if there are any mice out there."

(Source-Unknown)