It was the summer of 2017. I just started exploring Autobiographies of various business people and influential personalities. I read about Captain Gopinath (Simply Fly), Phil Knight (Shoe Dog), Lakshmi Mittal (Cold Steel), etc. And then I came across this book called Kumar Mangalam Birla by Drimi Chaudhari. This read gave me an insight into the life of very humble and modest Industrialist who has touched millions of Indian lives through numerous successful verticals.
The book discussed ten secrets of Success from the life of Mr. Birla such as Dreaming Big, Aiming High, Learning from the Past, Building and then Expanding, Evolving with the World, Building a World-class Team, Keeping our Cool, Being Humble, Keep Learning and Being Prepared to Succeed. The values and principles that he followed in his life make evident a lot of things about what such personalities live by to ensure they succeed at the end of all.
I absorbed all his learnings and carried this treasure with me when I started my career. It was a typical manufacturing plant where most of the workers were of Father’s age having experience more than my biological age. I was supposed to supervise them, which was an arduous task for me. The initial days were very demanding. But I kept my calm. I quickly understood the significance of being humble and being wilful at the same time. I kept learning from my mistakes and improved my people management skills. And with these skills, I succeeded to build one of the best maintenance teams in our company. In hindsight, Mr. Birla’s life lessons helped me a lot to evolve as a better manager.
