The power of a strong desire

Many of us would remember the famous dialogue from Deepika’s first movie ‘Om Shanti Om’, which goes somewhat like this:

Itni shidaat se maine tumhe paane ki koshish ki hai, ki har zaare ne mujhe tumse milane ki saazish ki hai. Kehte hain ki ...... Agar kisi cheez ko dil se chaaho to puri kayanat usey tumse milane ki koshish mein lag jaati hai

It’s the second part of the above dialogue on which I would like you to focus on for a while.

From Hollywood to Bollywood, from Brian Tracy to Zig Ziglar, everyone vouches for the power of dreams, desires, wants… You can name them the way it appeals to you. In the end they are all the same.

If it was not for the desire of Thomas Edison to invent an electric light bulb that perhaps we would be living in darkness. Same goes for many more inventors and discoverers. It’s the sheer power of their desire which carries them through the innumerable times of disappointment. The refusal to quit lies in the power of their want. And the ability to carry through during multiple rejections lies in the ingenuity of their dreams.

No I don’t want to sound preachy. So the best thing for me right now would be to share an actual story of one of my close friends, which is apt for the subject of my blog.

In his career spanning a total of around 15 years, he has worked with 3 technology companies, each time insinuating himself on to one of the latest technologies. One of his innate desires has been to be a reputed consultant in his chosen field.  For the last 3 years, he has been kind of religiously following the teachings of a couple of management gurus, who give due importance to making a list of desires and to the power of visualization. He has been regularly reading his list (which includes being a reputed consultant) and visualizing every morning, every single day, without fail. On this very desire, he had comparatively less faith, realizing that in India, the pre-requisites to being a consultant are a min. of 25-30 years of service and at least some grey hair if not all!

It so happened that almost a year back one of the companies of repute in his field of work wanted to hire him for establishing their business in India. He negotiated a decent jump in salary and a good position for himself. Everything was set and while the company went to register themselves, some rules got changed, putting an uncertainty to the period in which the company could register itself. Without registration in India, legally the company couldn’t offer him an employment contract. A quick way suggested by HR was to hire him initially on a consulting contract, followed by employing him, as soon as possible. Keeping in view more flexibility in work and the tax savings involved, he has from then on continued on the consulting contract, and has made for himself a name of high repute. While narrating this episode of his life to me, he says, if it was not for the power of his strong desire that today he would be working like any other employee.

PS: the above is the 2^nd blog of my 30-day challenge. I may be sleep derived, but I will write every single day for 30 days!