It was Feb or March of 2011. We were just completing our MBA and as would be the case with any other B-school companies were visiting campus for recruitment. A big company was scheduled to visit one day. One of my friends – Jaydutt – was among the most likely candidates to be selected. However, he did not even attend the presentation of the company. Everyone was curious, why?
I – besides others – was shocked it! I went to his room and asked him, why did not you attend the presentation itself forget the recruitment process?
He said – “I know the company well, and I have firsthand experienced working there. Pravin, as confident you were, other friends too were confident and I was under pressure to make a decision, it was a enormous confusion I was also not able to make a choice. So, yesterday night when I was about to go to bed, I asked myself this question – ‘if I join them, would I be happy getting up every day in the morning and going to office? Would I enjoy working there? I would invest at least 8 hours per day there, which is 33% of my daily life or close to 50% of my hours awake in a day, am I really keen to go there?’ My conscience told me NO! I decided to skip the company.”
This small conversation with Jaydutt made me think – those points were such that even after full 5 years I still remember the discussion. I recalled that small discussion with Jaydutt when I planned another of my journey from Business to the Buddha to Saint in Suit. I realized whenever I say Business to the Buddha, there seems to be a gap between Business and the Buddha. There seems to be a movement from one place to the other. It requires separate effort or action.
When I met Fateh uncle recently, I realized that it is not going from one place to the other. It is “being” that. He is a successful businessman and a spiritual person. The title Saint in Suit actually came in my mind when we met once and he was wearing a suit! Now or in future we’ll have to be professionals with the spiritual connect. We need to be saints in the form of professionals. That awareness will either sprout or if does not, we need it to be developed. Though, unfortunately currently I don’t have time to commit to this and keep writing regularly there besides keeping my pace here too.
Saint in Suit concept is spirituality and business are together. In this concept the plan is to write about how business works (or should work) on spiritual practices, how it can work on spiritual practices, sharing any model related spirituality and business, sharing or defining model related to spirituality and business in any business function e.g. Board level to line executive from marketing to HR to suppliers etc.
I’m hoping to bring like minded people on this platform to start writing about being saint in suits. your contributions are welcome there create your login.
Image source – http://www.bravefury.com/six-reasons-men-should-do-yoga/
4 Comments
rummuser · January 23, 2016 at 8:11 pm
They are there in every company and sometimes they are the owners/founders or descendants of them. It would however be very difficult to locate them and felicitate them as they will be most reluctant to be felicitated. Typical of saints.
KRD Pravin · January 24, 2016 at 9:21 pm
I know what you mean. You are one of those… wish to get people on board.
Businessman Buddha - Business to the Buddha · September 8, 2019 at 10:12 am
[…] long and short of all this is balancing the life with awareness and becoming a saint in a professional life. Do we really need to be a monk to be spiritual? Most of us are running to be someone or to achieve […]
Gyani in professional life - Business to the Buddha · May 24, 2020 at 3:53 pm
[…] If we approach situations in this manner we can be Gyani in professional life – a saint in suit. Here is a very small example with me how I failed in it recently and learnt a […]