Passion & Work Life Balance

Passion is what passion does

Passion is a very dangerous word if not used appropriately. Subroto Bagchi has very beautifully spoken about this in his books (Go- kiss the word, High Performance Entrepreneur and The Professional). Don’t we hear people saying that they are extremely passionate about cricket, so much so that they leave everything to watch world cup or whatever is on? Or guys who are so passionate about the state of affairs/ prevalent corruption in our country that they can go debating “passionately” for hours about what should be done but when they get caught while driving and talking on mobile, they quickly offer a bribe to policeman to get out of the situation.

Is this passion? Really? Funny!!!

Mr. Bagchi says “Passion is what passion does”. He is right. He is so wonderfully right. Even passion has to walk the talk. Thanks for this priceless wisdom, Mr. Bagchi.

I love Stephan Covey’s theory on Circle of Influence and Circle of Control. I recommend every passionate person to read this theory. It certainly helped me keep my passion “real, practical and constructive”.  :-)

My current professional passion is to be a change agent, a serial intrapreneur/ entrepreneur, build / help start ups, take them to a certain maturity level and handover to a capable team to run it and then build the next one. To do that, sometimes you have to take very difficult lifestyle decisions, work long hours and sacrifice a lot of personal time.

And then arises another pertinent question: Real, practical and constructive Passion is good but what about work life balance?

Work Life Balance

Passion sometimes becomes blind, so much so, that we start moving fast in life and we forget the importance of seemingly unimportant things. We forget that surprises come in small packages and these small things makes life more beautiful. We forget to relax. We stop listening to what our heart says. We forget to sit and review the past and preview the future so that we can rest for a while and slowly pave our way for a better tomorrow.

About year and a half back, when I had just started my current project, I met Vikrant, my colleague and friend from Hitachi Data Systems days. I was so engrossed in my thoughts about building Astaro India business that during our two hours dinner meeting, I spoke about nothing else. He asked me why I was letting this idea consume me completely and I said “This is the time; it has to be done now”.

He said “The time to go to gym is also now, the time to learn guitar is also now, the time to go on a holiday with family is also now. The only time for everything is now”.

Fantastic!!!

Thank you, Vikrant.  Reminds me of  a  story . 

Two old acquaintances, which hadn't seen each other for years, were walking down the street together, renewing old times. "Just a minute," said one, "I think I hear something," and turning a loose paving stone over, he liberated a cricket which was chirping merrily away.

"Why, that's astounding. Of all the people on the street at this hour, hurrying from work, you alone hear the cricket above all the traffic noises."

"My friend," said the first. "I learned a long time ago that people hear in life only what they want to hear. Now, the noise of traffic has neither increased nor decreased in the past few moments, but watch."

And as he finished speaking he let a silver half dollar fall from his pocket to the sidewalk. Everyone within an amazingly large hearing distance stopped and looked around.

The funny thing about life is; it gives you what you really want. If you want only silver coins, it will give you that, if you want to hear the cricket’s sound, it will give you that and you know what….

If you want both, life will still oblige… :-)

My "Rubaru" moment : When you are successful and happy, you would want to have someone dear to share that success and happiness with you…..