When asked about the top businesses in India, one of the names that pop up is that of Aditya Birla Group. It has established its identity in 35 countries and is active in 14 sectors. Aditya Birla has played a very important role in all the phases of my life. Since childhood, the products of Aditya Birla has helped me feel more confident and beautiful about myself.
When I was a school going kid, my mother used to wrap my lunch with Freshpakk aluminium to keep it warm. Even without knowing the use of that aluminium foil, I used it every day and that is how Aditya Birla stepped into my life. It came to my life with hot and delicious food in its hands and it has stayed with me since then. There was a point when it took over my mind with the advertisement of Ultratech cement and the tagline- “Ultratech Cement: The Engineer’s Choice”.
Teenage is a difficult phase for most of us. We go through a lot of changes in our life and we become conscious of how we look, the kind of friends we have, the activities we do etc. It was no different for me. In fact, it was even more difficult because I have always had this feeling that my face is not pretty and the only way of making up for that was being stylish and wearing good clothes. That is when I got introduced to different clothing brands of Aditya Birla (Pantaloons and Forever 21) that helped me develop a good dressing sense and made me stylish. Along with me, it helped my father to be well dressed all day because of one of its brands- Peter England.
Recently, Aditya Birla acted as a savior when we were asked to buy proper formal clothes for these two yeas of MBA life. With not many stores for women’s formal clothes in Bhubaneswar, Allen Solly acted as a life jacket for me and many others. It helped me save a lot of time and energy looking for the perfect formals that was required.
“Don’t think of introversion as something that needs to be cured…Spend your free time the way you like, not the way you think you’re supposed to.” –Susan Cain
The “biggest challenge” that I had to overcome was transitioning from being an introvert to a more social person. While I was in school, having many friends seemed like a luxury and I was deprived of it. There was a point when everyone started pointing this out and that made me lose my confidence. Since I wasn’t confident, I further started building more walls around me. I consciously tried to change my behavior but failed. Tried again but with no luck. It wasn’t until I went to Kolkata for my graduation that I realized being an introvert is not actually a “challenge” that I need to overcome. It is a part of my personality. Today, in this world where everyone wants to be heard, I realized I was the one who wanted to listen and actually enjoyed doing that. That is when I stopped putting in any extra efforts of going out of my way to socialize and it has been better since then. This came along with shedding all the walls I had built around myself just because I thought I was flawed due to a part of my personality. I am still an introvert but I don’t restrict myself consciously or let myself be bothered with the opinions of others regarding this. I speak to a lot of people and actually like having them around. No one in this B-school believes that I am an introvert. So, this is one challenge I had to overcome, the challenge to understand that being an introvert is okay. And this understanding has immensely helped me in achieving my ambitions in life so far.
#ABGLP #ABGWOOME #XIMB
