- “Why Aditya Birla Group is big in my life?”
When one speaks of the Aditya Birla Group, two verticals that spring to my mind which have become ubiquitous in my life are Vodafone Idea and Aditya Birla Capital. A conglomerate of this size is sure to have a great diversity of verticals. The ones mentioned above impact me individually daily.
I have been a user of Vodafone since I have had a cellular device given to me. The transition from Hutch to Vodafone in 2007, to the merger of Aditya Birla’s Idea and Vodafone in 2018, the name Vodafone has been synonymous with my everyday functioning and is now my main source of connection with people around me. The merger of Idea and Vodafone gave Vodafone a homely feel and gave an impression of Vodafone finally being able to address the needs of the Indian consumer from home ground. The boom of low-cost services for cellular devices, namely 4G internet, SMS and calling (roaming and local) did make situations very uneasy for me as a consumer. Vodafone took a while to account for the sudden and drastic changes in the telecom market, yet the services offered by the brand since I was a teenager kept me loyal to it. I am glad I did because I think the services have become even better now owing to the merger with Idea and they are offered at drastically cheaper rate. As the average Indian consumer, what more could have I asked for.
I walked into the Aditya Birla Capital (ABC) ecosystem roughly a year back. My father lent me some money to facilitate my foray into mutual funds. Based on his portfolio and the guidance he gave me, I invested into the Aditya Birla Capital funds. Market outlooks have dampened my returns on the same but based on my father’s experience of having invested in ABC funds for a long time, I expect returns to come in the long term. The only reason I picked the ABC funds blindly is because of my father’s advice. It’s not just my life that ABC has contributed to wealth creation, but also my family’s life. I intend to continue looking at ABC for wealth creation. It gives me an outlook of stability and sustainable wealth creation and allows me to look at a bigger picture in the coming future.
- “How I overcame challenges to achieve my ambitions in life so far?”
The biggest challenge I have faced in my life yet is to get back up from hitting rock bottom in your own eyes. To give you a little backdrop, this phase of my life lasted from 2016-2019 and had onset due to my lacklustre effort at Mechanical Engineering. I got out like all others, with a degree but with bare minimum knowledge.
The issue began with my expectation setting with undergraduate life. The goal was never to study, it was to socialize and take advantage of living away from home for the first time in my life. Having no financial issues propagated this lifestyle expectation as well. I lived a fun life which included lots of parties and as less as possible classes. The chances that engineering gave me, I will always remain thankful for, yet they made sure that I could take my classes lightly till the end. The availability of 2 extra semesters in a year made things very simple and pushed me to peak procrastination. In short, I lived a life which I look back upon with astonishment. It took me a year to come to terms with what I had put my family and myself through.
The challenge of winning back my parent’s trust and my own trust started with the first day of my first job. My father pulled a few strings to get me a job in a reputed conglomerate. I did a 180 degree turn on my choices. I put myself, my health and my family first. Everything else became secondary after. The overcoming journey was long but one with deep self-learning and development. I condensed my day into 3-4 main activities namely, working, sleeping, fitness, eating which I made sure to complete 100%. No skipping work, meals, fitness regime or 8-hour sleep. As the months flowed by, I got accustomed to a lifestyle which kicked off at 6am every morning and ended at 10pm every night, all 7 days of the week. This routine became a habit and then I started adding on things onto my daily routine which included certifications, job diversification and giving back to my family and friends who stuck by me. Slowly but surely, I regained confidence in myself and today proudly mention that I was able to get into a Tier 1 MBA institution on my own merit.