Prakash Iyer, Managing Director, Kimberly-Clark Lever and Executive Coach
shares two important management lessons he learnt from a 500-rupee note. Read
on...
It happened some years ago but I can recall the evening like it happened just
last week.
The speaker whipped out
his wallet and pulled out a five hundred-rupee note.
Lots of hands went up.
Including mine.
A slow chorus began to
build as people began to shout "Me!" "Me!"
I began to wonder who
the lucky one would be who the speaker would choose. And I also secretly
wondered - and I am sure others did too - why he would simply give away five
hundred rupees.
Even as the shouts of
"I want it" grew louder, I noticed a young woman running down the
aisle. She ran up onto the stage, went up to the speaker, and grabbed the five
hundred-rupee note from his hand. "Well done, young lady," said the
speaker into the microphone.
"Most of us just
wait for good things to happen. That's of no use. You've got to make things
happen."
The speaker's words have
stayed with me ever since.
Our lives are like that. We all see opportunities around us. We all want the
good things.
But the problem is we
don't take action.
We all want the five
hundred rupee notes on offer. But we don't make the move. We look at it
longingly
Several years later, it was another day, another time.
And another motivational
guru.
As I watched him pull
out a five hundred rupee note and hold it up for all to see, I thought I knew
what he was going to do next. But he just asked a simple question. "How
much is this worth?"
"Five Hundred
rupees!" the crowd yelled in unison.
"Right," said
the speaker. He then took the note and crumpled it into a ball and asked
"How much is it worth now?"
"Five Hundred
rupees!" screamed the audience.
He then threw the note
on the ground, stamped all over it and picked up the note and asked one more
time: "And how much is it worth now?"
"Five Hundred
rupees!" was the response.
"I want you to
remember this," said the speaker.
"Just because
someone crumples it, or stamps on it, the value of the note does not diminish.
We should all be like
the five hundred rupee note.
In our lives, there will be times when we feel crushed, stamped over, beaten.
But never let your self-worth diminish. Just because someone chooses to crush
you - that doesn't change your worth one bit!
Don't allow your
self-worth to diminish because someone says something nasty -- or does
something dirty -- to you."
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