The Balancing Act in Business

Q: I don’t know how to put his ques­tion. When we enter busi­ness, we feel we need to think about oth­ers, but we also feel like we need to think about our­selves. So we have this con­flict. How to deal with it? We need to be free from con­flict and there should be hap­pi­ness.

It is a very impor­tant ques­tion. That is why we refer to Mahab­hara­ta. In the Mahab­hara­ta the heroes are said to be parakramis. Kra­ma means effort. Parakra­ma means tremen­dous effort. They bring tremen­dous enthu­si­asm and effort, in deal­ing with tasks. Now any busi­ness needs to have that parakra­ma. See, some­one who receives a month­ly salary does not need to show parakra­ma. Isn’t it? Because for them it is a 9 to 5 job. But one who is at the fore­front of mar­ket dynam­ics, for him mar­ket is always shift­ing. It is nev­er one way. It is shift­ing. And hence ini­tia­tive becomes very impor­tant. If you do not have parakra­ma, if you are not a parakra­mi, then you will be at the receiv­ing end of the mar­ket forces. And that is not accept­able in busi­ness. Then, you will be in fear and inse­cu­ri­ty, not as a con­se­quence of mar­ket dynam­ics, but because of your own world­view. If that hap­pens, it is not good for busi­ness. There might be con­flicts. But what is said in the Mahab­hara­ta is that, dhar­ma prad­han hai. Dhar­ma is prime.

If you look at the Gita, it starts with a con­flict. It is because of this that we say Arju­na Visha­da yoga. He start­ed hav­ing tremen­dous inner con­flict. “Is this right or not? What am I doing?” Because for a leader, when we see, you are depen­dent on.…see this is beau­ti­ful­ly brought out in the con­ver­sa­tion of Krish­na, Arju­na and Yud­hishthi­ra. Arju­na and Yud­hishthi­ra say,”We lis­tened to your words and we have got­ten into Mahab­hara­ta, into the Kuruk­shetra war. This is a dhar­ma yud­dha, but we are con­vinced about you and hence we have…based on faith in you, we have made this deci­sion, nis­chaya. What is it that you derive con­fi­dence from?” So he clear­ly says,”Dhrida Nis­chaya.”

That is what a leader needs to pos­sess. Now, you are at the fore­front of busi­ness. The future is uncer­tain actu­al­ly. Any busi­ness leader faces this. “Which mar­ket to invest in. Will a mar­ket open up or not. Will my busi­ness suc­ceed or not.” You might do all your home­work, all that is impor­tant. Quan­ti­ta­tive meth­ods need to be applied, but final­ly it comes to your dhri­da nis­chaya. And when you face a prob­lem, it is your dhri­da nis­chaya, that firm con­vic­tion that takes you and breaks open those chal­lenges. Oth­er­wise where is the path? For a month­ly wage earn­er, that is why we call it naukri. (Laugh­ter) I have not touched upon it for obvi­ous rea­sons, but it not con­sid­ered real­ly good for every­one to be month­ly wage earn­er. At least in the Mahab­hara­ta times. Because self-reliance was giv­en a lot of prad­hana. That is why you would do your own work. Until very recent­ly, this…even in vil­lages if you go to, even now you’d hear peo­ple will say,”Are naukri ke liye jaana hai kya? Gaav main kuch kaam nahi hai, naukri ke liya jayen?” This is how you would see, you’d be so proud. That is not arro­gance. That comes from this rea­son­ing that self-reliance is giv­en the high­est prad­hana. For a busi­ness leader, that self-reliance becomes very crit­i­cal. Invest­ing in it becomes very crit­i­cal. One needs to have dhri­da nis­chaya, one needs to be a parakra­ma, you need to be able to inno­vate, apply firm­ly, be deci­sive in action. Once you decide upon some­thing, you should not look back. Repen­tance should not be there. Objec­tive analy­sis should be there, but not repen­tance. Only then you can move for­ward. Oth­er­wise, you take up any­thing, chal­lenges will always be there, con­flicts will always be there, dif­fer­ence of opin­ions will always be there, in any­thing. Even, let’s say you want to get into a col­lege, you will have dif­fer­ence of opin­ion. That does not mean you don’t decide and go for­ward. Does that mean you con­stant­ly keep repent­ing, “Are,mujhe tho wo hi kar­na chahiya tha!” This might be okay, this mind­set might be okay for a month­ly wage earn­er, not for a busi­ness leader. So devel­op­ing these qual­i­ties is very impor­tant. Otherwise.…that is why it is said that suc­cess is an atti­tude, not just an objec­tive real­i­ty. It is an atti­tude that you dis­play. And because of that atti­tude and hence Lak­sh­mi is said to reside in one’s heart. Lak­sh­mi is not sup­posed to be just objec­tive wealth.

(Smrithi ji) Not just in the bank (Laugh­ter)

(Adi ji) Not just in the bank, okay, many peo­ple don’t get it. Where does the puja of Lak­sh­mi hap­pen? In the heart. You devel­op those qual­i­ties of parakra­ma and so on, that retains Shri. That retains Lak­sh­mi. You will feel pros­per­ous inside. You will not have a beg­gar­ly atti­tude. That is why, you need to actu­al­ly have your hearts open, and hence, daana dhar­ma was pre­scribed. You allocate…it even went to such an extent that in ear­ly times, more than 30% was allo­cat­ed for soci­ety. Or even 50% in many cas­es. Now we have CSR and oth­er ways of giv­ing back to the soci­ety! A per­son­al social respon­si­bil­i­ty is also need­ed! That gives a sense of pros­per­i­ty!