Life-Ing It: Long Runs. Short Runs

By Ayon Banerjee

When will this end ?

Wrong question – Argues Ayon Banerjee. It’s ‘How’, not ‘When’.

Man is the only animal who grows when he’s alone, constrained & sad. Inside himself someplace, man waits for his arrival. 2020 & 2021 were two years in our lifetime that we spent being lonely, together. And arrived, at ourselves.

“LIFE-ing It’ is the sequel to Ayon Banerjee’s much loved ‘As You Life It’, and contains his next instalment of life bytes – Some short, others shorter. There is no underlying theme to the standalone chapters, except for the fact that they all sit on overlapping boundaries of work & life of everymen who were forced to hit pause button in the past twenty months & who, through their own unique orifice of suffering, re-discovered the meaning of work & life in their own ways while being confined inside a forgotten planet called home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Point Six Technologies Pvt Ltd
• Release date: Dec 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9789355590107

Ayon Banerjee

Ayon Banerjee, an Asia Pacific Leader for a Fortune 100 Organization is a keen observer of human behavior & someone who loves documenting his life and work as he goes along by collecting & connecting ideas. Over the years, Ayon’s articles have garnered a steady and diverse readership from around the world. This book is the third instalment of heterogeneous articles & blog entries, particularly written by him as the world was slowly recovering from the Covid 19 nightmare. Like most bloggers, Ayon’s inspirations are scattered – from his own life to the lives of people he observes, the books he reads and the dots he loves to join in his spare time. Though these are all different posts written at different times, the common theme that perhaps links them, is that they all sit on overlapping boundaries of work and life – a narration of events, relationships, successes, and failures which add up into the randomness of life that we all like to construct backwards into coherent stories. Ayon believes that at some point while you are reading this book, his story might intersect with yours, and make you reflect. And smile.

Book preview

PREFACE

It’s a riot outside the door. Thirty 4th Graders are kicking up a row. It’s high decibel chaos permeating through the walls & distracting my work. I’m about to shout when the kids suddenly go silent. Curious, I walk out to check what happened.

Turns out that the teacher (my wife), has given them an assignment. Her laptop screen is a matrix of tiny windows. I can see some kids are at the job. Others are trying to stifle giggles. Yet others are looking around for help, possibly from parents supervising the class from the background. In just a few weeks, the centuries’ old conventional model of teaching has been flipped on its head. And moved from a physical classroom to a virtual one. Throwing up new challenges the profession was probably not prepared enough for.

Half of her day will go like this. Then, as the head of the school, her management tasks come up next. Then, 1-0-1 meetings with the other teachers. Then, reports. Team calls. Paper corrections. And of course, complaint redressals. No matter how hard the teacher works, some parent will find some fault & write a long rude email.

12-13-hour grueling workdays for such low pay!, I’ve often protested, trying to reason with her to quit.

It’s never about the money in this profession, she explains.

Suddenly I feel proud of her and want to say this. Of course, I don’t do that. She might misunderstand & even suspect that I have been drinking in the morning.

I start back for my room and pass by my daughter’s room.

She is standing at the window, staring at the rain falling on the deserted city. Maybe she is anxious or sad about something. Maybe it’s just that age. Suddenly I feel guilty about my impatient outbursts at her every now and then. Suddenly she doesn’t look like a cocky youngster with attitude problems, but just a vulnerable girl who is probably worried about something. My little girl. Who’s grown up and become a stranger now. And I never noticed.

Suddenly I want to go & give her a hug. Of course, I don’t do that either! She will kill me if I did that. I tiptoe past her door.

I close mine & get back to work.

After decades of running wrong races for winning wrong trophies in a world of strangers, life has suddenly confined us. Inside a forgotten space called home. With our closest tribe. Those who matter. And who had slipped into the background.

Maybe we should have tried it earlier. A lot earlier.

Life has a habit of slipping by when we are busy being busy in a busy busy world.

One day at a time……

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Hence this sequel to ‘As You Life It’, a book that received a lot of love from readers all over since its publication last year. Like I confessed there, I once again clarify that I am not some Guru who has profound lessons to share through his writing. I am someone who grew up in a middle-class Indian home in small town India. I never went to any Tier 1 educational institution, though I would have loved to have. And while I have, during the two decades of my professional career, got opportunities to work with several bright men and women from around the world who have formidable resumes and educational backgrounds, I am no match for them.

Having said that, I have but lived a life and earned a few scars in my own serendipitious journey this far. Like millions of regular folks out there. The Everyman in the subway, the business traveler at the boarding gate, the Salesperson waiting at an office reception, the faceless participant in endless conference calls, the middle-aged professional holding on to a pride that’s fast nearing its expiry date. Each one of us has a story to tell, a lesson to teach, a joke to share, and a tear to be wiped. If only we could find a way to snare it on print. The story of how we sowed our wild oats and tried to build a life around it.

As the second most disruptive year of our lifetime draws to an end, no matter how much we would like to wish that 2020 & 2021 had never happened, the fact remains that they did. Reflecting on the years & joining the dots backwards, I can’t help but remember Mike Tyson’s famous quote, ‘Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth’. In many ways the past two years represent that punch in the mouth of mankind, a reset point for us to pause & re-learn some lessons of life. Like everyone else, I too had my moments of learning in these two years. Here are the top seven –

1. Perspective – Covid 19 showed us that no matter what heights we scale as a race, we are so insignificant in front of mighty Mother Nature who wields the power to bring the proudest living species to its knees with a mere microbe. Hopefully we’ll all get back to paying her the respect & care she deserves, as we go forward.

2. Humility – Covid 19 exposed to us the shallowness of the self-aggrandization culture that we, as a species, had fallen prey to in recent decades. It demonstrated to us that we are all equally vulnerable when it comes to an existential threat, irrespective what our ego identities define us as .

3. Gratitude – Appreciation tapers down on the moors of more. The rampant rise of consumerism over the past few decades had dulled our sense of gratitude. Covid 19 re-introduced us to appreciating the little things we had started taking for granted. The walk in the park, the meal with friends at a restaurant, and so on. I shall go into 2022 as a more grateful person for sure .

4. Resilience – Yes it has been a very cruel period & each of us will carry our share of suffering in our own way from it. But Covid 19 also showed us the enormous resilience we humans have when it comes to a calamity. The way the world gathered itself to fight back was inspiring & heart-warming. It showed us that we are far stronger than we thought ourselves to be .

5. Adaptability – If there is one big takeaway to pick from the year, it is the amazing adaptability we have as a species. Within a matter of days, the whole of mankind quickly re-adjusted itself to a way of living that was unimaginable in the past., making us realize that when pushed to a corner, we humans invariably find a way around. Stagnation is not our thing .

6. Tribe – The pandemic brought us together & made us appreciate the subtle qualities of our family members as we saw them conducting themselves with the outside world. The sudden disruption of work patterns this year opened up an unprecedented pocket of ‘we-time’ for us every morning, something my wife & I barely had in the past 20 yrs. It was a strange sensation to re-discover familiar conversation threads & retrace a journey of decades that now sounds like a rounded story made of events & people who stayed back in memories & memories of those memories. What surprises us today is that life didn’t turn out as long as it seemed at the starting line where we imagined some profound meaning waiting for us in the long run. The long run, as it turned out, was just a series of short runs, some of which we lived well & others that we today wish we had. 2020 taught us that our short run is our long run in disguise. We need to get the short runs right .

7. Faith – Lastly, as we prepare for 2022, we stand united in our faith that no matter how much they make us suffer, but bad times eventually end. And good times begin again .

The follow up to ‘As You Life It’ is a compilation of standalone entries from my daily blog – some short, others shorter. The only common theme that unites them is perhaps that they all sit on overlapping boundaries of work & life of an everyman.

I thank you for picking up this book. Because I think that somewhere along the way, a story of mine might intersect with a story of yours. Because there is one thing I have realized as I have grown older – that we are all the same, beneath the colors of our skins and passports.

I genuinely hope this book touches you in some small way.

Regards,

Ayon

October 2021

ONE

The Invisible Parent

He is around five years old, dressed in a white and grey school uniform under a transparent raincoat. And he is extremely fidgety about something.

He stands sulking, holding the handle of the scooter, wedged between his father’s reassuringly protective legs as they wait beside me for the signal to change colors. The man is trying to negotiate with his little one, in vain. In a span of ninety seconds, I witness the kaleidoscope of emotions on his weather-beaten face, from affection to mild irritation to subtle indignation, and then back to love, as he argues his losing case, sitting soaked in the late afternoon shower without a cover on himself, except for his grey helmet. From the two inches of lowered glass of my car window (I always love to keep it that way when it rains. It has something to do with the fragrance of the moist earth after it soaks the first drizzle of the day that helps me unwind for the remainder of the evening), I can eavesdrop into fragments of their animated conversation and guess the crux of the argument. I deduce that the man is in a hurry to reach someplace, maybe home (especially given the fact that he is wet and cold), but his son wants him to take a left turn into the Times Square Mall for the fulfillment of an old commitment ( A pair of RED roller skates – He repeats the color at least four times, which tells me that this is a very detail oriented young man who knows exactly what he wants in life ).

I make a bet to myself that the man will manage to bulldoze his son’s wish and not give in. The signal turns green.

I lose my bet.

The man maneuvers his scooter into the ramp leading into the parking lot of the mall. He has agreed to his son’s aggressive demand. As I drive past them and carry on down the road, my eyes meet the boy’s, who, for some reason has been checking out my car, his face now glowing after having managed to beat his father once again and emerging victorious for the day. I smile at him. I wish I could lift him in my arms, give him a hug and try to explain to him that he did not do right. Many years later, when he is driving through a rain-washed city center and comes upon a father and son entangled in this kind of tussle, his heart shall go out for the father. He would imagine all that the man must be going through, just to make junior happy. Maybe that day he might crave to say sorry to his own father for all the battles he won over him along the years. But maybe by then, it would be too late for apologies for him.

Stopping at the next signal, I touch the foggy car window that stands between me and the downpour, wearing tiny water bubbles on its outer face. I scribble a license plate number on it with my finger. The light turns green again. I drive off and hit the highway.

As the green city of Kuala Lumpur speeds in the reverse direction, my eyes occasionally see the outside world through the bubble & the invisible license plate number. It fills me with a void which I now know, can never ever be filled. A void made of unasked forgiveness. For being such an unreasonable son, to such a reasonable father.

He loved his Vespa scooter more than his Ambassador car. I am yet to come across anybody who knew him and did not mention affectionately about his love affair with that scooter of his.

He was a simple man. He was a good man.

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This year, using the excuse of a man-made ‘Day’ to celebrate our first hero whom we often fail to acknowledge, let me list down the top three things I totally admire in my late father today and yet, paradoxically so, which I never understood enough to applaud him for while he was around. (I am sure you have your favorites about your father as well. Do reflect on them & if possible, note them in your journal) -

1. Despite having a great sense of humor, my Dad used to be one of those people who couldn’t tell a joke well. He would invariably throw away the punch line early & start smiling himself. I am sure you too know someone like that. However, what would surprise me as a child was how he always managed to be the life of a party. As you know, kids often notice the stars in a party – the one who sings the song, makes you laugh & so on. It was only when I grew older that I realized what made Dad so popular despite not being a ‘star’. His was the loudest laugh when someone else told a joke. His was the longest applause when someone else performed. During any fun conversation when most people would be impatiently waiting for the other person’s anecdote to end so that they might share theirs, my dad would be someone who would not just listen generously but urge others to share more anecdotes. And he would applaud with all his heart. No wonder his name would be on top of invitation lists to any party in town. In our relentless urge to be stars, we often forget to be the audience. The ability to recognize talent is a rare talent. Stars are aplenty. An engaged audience is rare.

2. He would NEVER criticize anyone under any circumstances. I (or anyone who knew him) can vouch for this fact that we had never heard Dad speak ill of any other person, no matter how bad the other person might have been or even if the other person had harmed Dad himself in some way. He was very clear about this. In fact, when people in a group would even light-heartedly criticize someone else, he would either remain silent, or ask them to stop, or leave the place. As I grow older, I realize how difficult this quality can be – to restrain yourself from criticism while living in an imperfect world. This is not something you can fake. It must be extremely internalized, linked to your deepest principles.

3. He would never complain, no matter how tough his circumstances be. As a self- made man, his was not an easy life by any standards. He had faced tons of challenges all his life, many of which were witnessed by us. But never had I seen him sit and crib about how tough his day was or how bad his circumstances were. He was a man of action. Whenever he was in a situation, he would roll up his sleeves and start resolving the issue at hand instead of idly expressing disappointment about his luck.

Today, almost seven years since I last saw him, I want to tell him that I’ve been trying out the above three principles during these years, and I am failing consistently. I wonder with awe how he managed it.

This one is for you Baba! Till we meet again, for a drink. Somewhere in the skies! I miss you.

TWO

Accidental salesperson? 10 tips to survive (&

thrive) here

I stumbled into sales by accident.

Unlike what used to be a trend those days, I didn’t sign up for a sales career because I didn’t have any alternative. I rejected a job in IT (which, in the late 90s’ India, was the hottest destination for engineers) and I walked out of a production job within two weeks & then, a Systems Engineer’s job in a year. I concluded early on that I couldn’t handle an office or a factory job. I knew I was good with people and I was also a reasonably good public speaker. This led me to conclude that I was an extrovert & hence, cut out for a sales profession. Friends & family cautioned me that I was making a blunder, throwing away a gold medalist’s resume to jump into a murky pit full of smooth talkers & con men. Funnily, I never thought it this way. For me, a sales profession came across like a game of thrills (possibly because I had been reading too much of Zig Ziglar and Og Mandino those days) and hence was the coolest place to be.

That’s how it started. My Page 1.

A mixed bag of a year later, I realized I was indeed not the quintessential extroverted salesperson by nature. In fact, I didn’t even like the loud & pushy salespeople all around me – in client offices, seedy small-town hotels & the dusty streets of the bazaar that had become my workplace by then. But since I was already married & we had a child on the way, I couldn’t afford to quit my job and needed to carry on. My next job was again a sales job, in a different industry. Then the next. So on. Life rolled on. And the other day I realized that I have spent twenty plus years in a profession I didn’t quite like at first. Yes, along the way, I won my share of trophies, slugging it out, an ambivert in a jungle full of extroverts.

Do I like the sales profession today? You bet. I love it! Have I become the quintessential salesperson? Maybe not. Like all ambiverts, I embraced the sales profession but never really became a salesman.

As I grew older, I realized that it was not just me but that everyone around me was into some kind of selling. The wares differed, the rewards varied, but eventually human society is all about moving each other, from point A to point B, in the short run or long. That’s how I view this profession that I have developed tremendous respect for. And when a section of society still looks down upon it, I feel sorry for them. For, the noblest of causes and the mightiest of human endeavors are of no significance till they reach where they are supposed to. The greatest inventions are of no use unless commercialized & made to contribute to the economy. Be it a product, a service, a cause, an idea, or an opinion – we are all into selling. And if someone is not, he or she is being sponsored by us.

This post is not to give you some great tips on selling. There are enough articles & books out there to help you with that. This post is my note to fellow ambiverts who, like me, might have accidentally walked into Sales, and might be disillusioned about the profession itself like I once was, at the starting line. This might give you some insights to survive & thrive in sales without turning into a salesperson. Let’s get into it.

1. Focus on the person – I love people. Human nature fascinates me. For me, my job means endless opportunities to meet & know new people, to understand their layers & drives, to learn and unlearn with their help & to forge long term relationships with as many people as I can. Till as far as I remember, I have never really kept ‘ an eye on the prize ’, like conventional salespeople are asked to do. I focused on the relationship. And as many of my client-turned-friends have confessed later, this approach helped me take their guard off. The prize mostly followed in a serendipitous way. Sometimes it didn’t. But the relationships stayed. And made way for more prizes in future. From unexpected fronts.

2. Debate from both sides of a subject – This is a childhood hobby that’s served me well. I love building a case against my case & playing a chess game of wits against myself. This needs patience, detachment & practice. But once you learn to do it, you develop perspective. You learn to get out of yourself & see yourself from a customer’s eyes. This removes blind spots; makes you humble & keeps you alert. Next Sunday, try this. Take a strong opinion of your own and try to destroy it yourself. It’s fun.

3. Network (without an agenda) – In a later chapter of this book, I tried to compile the Dos & Don’ts of networking. While you may read the whole thing later, the crux is – network without an agenda and network relentlessly. Never complain, shun gossip & make sure you add value to your network. Today my informal network consists of thousands of colleagues, friends, and colleagues-turned-friends, across geographies, industries, age groups & domains. Do I have a transactional relationship with all of them? No! Will we come to the aid of each other in times of need? You bet! Never underestimate the power of an authentic network. It is a lifelong investment that pays you dividends in the form of valuable (timely) information, reliable insights & pointing of red flags before a crisis hits you.

4. Be original – Brings me to my next point. In this age of connectivity overkill, it is easy to get sucked into trends & fads. Or become a slave of hashtags & a clone of every second person out there, not anchored enough to respect the other person or even yourself. It is not your gift of the gab, but rather your ability to stand out in a sea of identical salespeople, that will get you ahead in the game. People buy from people. Mostly from interesting people. Interesting as in – knowledgeable, deep, insightful & likable . Stop yourself the next time you re-tweet an influencer’s tweet without thinking, or before you jump into a signature campaign just because it is trending. Form your own opinions. Raise the standards of your heroes. Your customers will notice. They always do.

5. Read (Then read some more) – I read about thirty-five books a year. And this is over & above current affairs, magazines, articles & blogs. Unlike solemn readers, my reading cart is eclectic. I read anything I can lay my hands on. Being away from social media helps. I read, re-read (at times), scribble marginalia & also blog about what I read. Some of the ideas stick & stay. Over the years, my reading habit has helped sharpen my thinking & my personality way beyond what my university education did. For a small-town Indian boy like me, reading is my equivalent of standing on the shoulders of giants & short-circuiting years of experience by learning from others. And it is my reading habit that has come to my aid when I competed against some of the best salespeople across five industries in a dozen countries in the past twenty years.

6. Play to your strengths – Like all salespeople, I pay attention to externals. I dress appropriately, try to keep in shape by working out six days a week & practice as much active selling as I can. But despite all efforts, I know I won’t still look like a movie star or be the most skilled salesperson out there who can grab attention by default. These are not my strengths. I know I have fair writing skills and pretty good public speaking skills. Over the years, I have been an avid blogger, a published author & a regular speaker at industry conclaves wherever I got an opportunity. I also often accept invitations from Management schools to address students. These are platforms for me to do passive selling of my personal brand. Over the years, I have built an audience for myself. Do they buy from me every day? No. Will they refer me or pass a positive comment about me if asked? I think they will. Typical salespeople stop at active transactional selling. Ambiverts like us do passive selling that has a larger shelf life.

7. Practice the seven-second pause – The problem with the advice on listening skills is that nobody listens to that advice ! Listening is not the opposite of talking or waiting for your turn to speak. Listening is also not about mimicking the other person’s body language as many gurus teach us, nor is it about asking connected questions. True listening is listening without listening for anything . One way to do this is to let the other person finish and hold yourself for at least 7 seconds before you even open your mouth (I