Whenever I think of the Aditya Birla Group and its contribution to the world, this quote by William Arthur Ward come to my mind:
“Do more than belong: participate. Do more than care: help. Do more than believe: practice. Do more than be fair: be kind. Do more than forgive: forget. Do more than dream: work.”
Aditya Birla Group has affected the lives of so many people around the world not only by generating employment but also by changing the way people live in a society. Aditya Birla Group has a presence in 34 countries with a family of around 1,20,000 members. The Group has its presence in various fields like non-ferrous metals, construction, textile, fashion, telecommunications and financial services which proves that this group has touched upon every aspect of the life of a human being necessary for its survival.
Brands like Allen Solly and Idea are the ones that contributed the most to my personal life. Allen Solly completely revolutionized the formal and semi-formal clothing sector. I wore Allen Solly semi-formal collection when I was a working professional as it gave me an air of confidence along with comfort. Smart dressing played an important role in my success and Allen Solly played a major part in it. The next ABG product that had a huge impact on my life is Idea Cellular Network. Idea was part of my life since 2014. Idea made me realize the true power of mobile internet and helped me immensely in doing various projects and also, keeping in touch with the technology. Its uninterrupted connectivity and fast speed are still unmatched. Keeping in touch with my friends who are in far off places is possible only because of Idea. Idea also made my parents tech savvy which made a huge impact on me as well as their lives. These two brands made a huge impact on my life and still, they are a big part of my professional as well as personal life.
The values of Aditya Birla Group made it an organization which has always been responsible for our social growth and the impact that they made in our lives will continue for the future generations to come.
CHALLENGES I FACED IN MY LIFE
Life is a mixture of experiences. How we deal with various situations and learn from the experiences determines the type of life that we live. Challenges are an important aspect of life and we can learn about ourselves a lot with the situation that a particular challenge brings.
For me, the challenges that I faced in my life have always brought certain learnings and change in my attitude towards life. This made me adaptable to various situations that life can offer. I was raised by the strongest man and lady on the Earth and that’s my mom and dad. My father is a retired Air Force sergeant. He always had an entrepreneurial mindset and hence, after retiring, he started his own business with the money that Air Force provided us as a retirement package. The idea was innovative but it demanded a lot of financial support. So, my father took a risk and invested all the money that he had in the business. At that time, I was not much responsible and never took any interest in the business. I was interested more in my own studies and what I want to do next. My ambition was to do engineering and then learn management as I believed that this is the best combination one could get career-wise. But then life threw a curveball.
Due to the slow economy and less demand, our business did not take off the way my dad expected it to be. Business took a hard hit and we could see all my dad’s hard earned money going to ashes. The environment became depressing and survival became difficult. There were times when we were not even able to eat three square meals a day. I left my coaching but in all this, the worst hit was my dad. He became sick due to all the stress and responsibility that he had. That’s when I decided to take up the responsibility to ease some of my dad’s burden so that he could focus on restoring the business. I took the responsibility of teaching my younger sister. I also started giving coaching to help us financially. As far as my studies were concerned, I started studying by myself and also, took help of some of my friends.
Initially, I did all this to help my dad but soon, I realized that my decisions were also helping me as a person. These made me responsible, adaptive, accommodating and appreciative of life. I also learned that in the face of difficulty, our true potential comes out. This made me even more focused on my ambition and the various situations taught me how to manage time and resources. I developed a sense that whatever you face in life, it has a greater meaning if you can learn from it. As it is said that ‘Whatever happens, happens for a reason’, our business also got back on track. So, I believe that this challenge was the most difficult and didactic so far in my life.
