He was a shy teenager who would rather merge with the furniture in the room and was naturally ignored by his classmates in hostel and college. But that didn’t stop his teachers from picking on him for being poor in studies. He always failed in a couple of papers in every exam and that added insult to the injury. He had no motivation to pull himself up as the lack of empathy from his fellow students on one side and the absence of sympathy from teachers on the other side made him hit low confidence levels. He hated his predicament but there was no way out. He sat timidly in a corner among the group of students that attended my training session in their college.
A behavioural trainer or coach sometimes ignores simple cases and tries to address complex ones that give him a kind of professional successes to boast of. I have learned through experience that real satisfaction comes from simple solutions. When he attended iPower training sessions and I found that he was ready for a transformation but the burden of backlogs weighed him down. I made him realize that he need not prove himself to his teachers and peers, but he just had to prove to himself. An ounce of self-worth is more powerful than barrels of public praise. By the end of the training he was motivated enough to set goals that were simple enough for him to achieve.
He vowed to do well in at least one subject. Interestingly, he chose the toughest one – Electronics. I smiled to myself as he displayed pragmatism in selecting a career oriented subject. With newly found motivational energy, he went on to top the class in that subject that year! It’s a just a matter of time before he cleared all papers of BSc Electronics. The momentum took him to Pune for his master’s degree.Next I met him, he was employed in a reputed company. He is one among several thousands of students that benefitted from training in my career. But, for me he too is a success I cherished.
He came from a troubled family. His father earned a pittance and couldn’t afford any comforts for the family. His mother was overly possessive of him, also would get hysterical often. It seemed natural that he had anger management issues. He was blunt in his communication. He would indulge in fights with everyone. He had no friends, anyways. He was most disliked person on the campus. He was branded as a problem case by the authorities despite his fair performance in studies. Surely, he needed help. To top it all, to the utter consternation of his teachers and well-wishers, he refused to attend the campus recruitment visit by TCS that was a rarity in those days!
During the iPower training sessions, he opened up to reveal the real reason for not taking part in the campus drive. His dream was to join Infosys! Well, that would have been possible if Infosys had visited his campus for recruitments. That was not the case. Infosys wasn’t even visiting any college nearby or even in his district. Everyone called him a fool for setting such impossible goal – that too the cost of a great opportunity at hand. But then, he just underwent a transformational experience in the training sessions and started believing that nothing is impossible as long as he believes in himself. He came to me personally for a dose of reinforcement. I became his anchor!
Following week, he travelled 200 kilometers to Visakhapatnam where Infosys was conducting a pooled recruitment drive. And his dream manifested as he was one of the five candidates from among near 1200 graduates who attended the event. He got his dream job! The transformation that he went through using the affirmations given to him got the confirmation.
His story was nothing short of a miracle. I remember him as a handsome looking entrepreneur with graceful manners who set up his own business and hired a few young and energetic employees to work alongside him. As the volumes grew, he entrusted client relationships part to a girl whom he found to be trustworthy, while he focused on operations. It was all going fine, but suddenly sales started going down. He went to meet some of the regular clients to investigate the reasons. What he discovered utterly shocked him. The girl whom he trusted and handed over the client relationship management had clandestinely started her own business and quietly shifted his clients to her company! She resorted to this treachery while still working for him betraying the trust he reposed on her! When he confronted her about the unethical act, she filed a case of sexual harassment against him and left the company.
After recovering from the initial shock, he began rebuilding his business. This time his wife helped look after the operations while he himself handled marketing and client relationships. It was tough. He also had to face the police pressure of the case by the girl who managed the backing of a powerful politician. It was in these circumstances that he came to attend a workshop of iPower.
He was clear in his target for taking his business forward. His problem was well defined: “My clients don’t pay me on time”, he told the Coach. “Train me on how to recover the dues from the clients”, he demanded. I simply asked him, “How is that you attract clients who don’t pay?” He was taken aback, and I started working on him right away. As workshop progressed, it became clear to him that he had to forgive and come to grips with the betrayal by the girl. He had to alter his thinking about the clients. He went through subconscious reprogramming exercises and convinced himself that he had wonderful clients who were eager to pay.
Results manifested in months to come as he started receiving calls from clients asking him to come and collect the dues. He was pleasantly surprised by the turn of the events. Meanwhile, the police dismissed the FIR filed by the girl despite the political pressure. Both miracles convinced him of the power of behavioral training by iPower. He hired a convention hall in the town and organized a free one day workshop with lunch on the house. His story had a perfect ending when, within a year, the girl who betrayed him lost all her business and all his clients returned to him!
When he approached iPower, he was at the crossroads of his youth. He was 30 and was still pursuing PhD studies. He wasn’t able to settle down in career or life. His attempts to clear the competitive examinations for jobs in his field met with failure. He had a girlfriend who nagged him constantly. How could he marry the demanding girl without a decent earning? He was feeling insecure about life. He showed up as a restless, talkative and drifting young man.
iPower sessions firstly made him focused. He realized that he was just having fun in life with the girl friend without any serious commitment. Acknowledging the facts about himself brought certain integrity into him. Soon after the workshop he started rebuilding his life and relationships. He took training from iPower to learn study techniques and memory enhancement techniques, and began sincerely preparing for career examinations. He realized that toxic relationships ruin him and tried to become genuine with the girl by stopping physical relationship and seeking love and friendship which can lead to long term companionship in marriage.
Life took a turn for him in months to come. The girl was no longer interested in him. She told him that he was not the right person for her and left him. He cleared a competitive examination and got employed with the government as a scientist. He is happily married to a comely wife and well settled now.
He was the butt of the jokes in his office. He was always the first to arrive and the last to leave from office. In between, he was totally glued to work. He wore a morose look on his face and shunned friendships. He ate alone and was never a part of group outings. He kept so much to himself that none knew his predicament. Unmarried though, he had a large extended family depending on him back in his hometown. He would send almost his entire salary to them, keeping just 10% for his subsistence. Peer indifference made him introvert and diffident. He was scared even to change his job for the fear of facing interviews. When he met the iPower coach he didn’t even ask for help as he was resigned to his fate and believed that would never change.
Mirror exercise was what I prescribed for him to start with. He recoiled with fear saying he would be ridiculed by his roommates. I talked to him and explained that it was important to improve his life rather than getting affected by others. He began the exercise and, just as he was apprehensive, roommates didn’t spare him. But, he persisted! Within a week he was feeling different – more cheerful and confident. He began interacting with coworkers at the office. He even went out for lunch with a group of colleagues. He found himself unusually happy, for no apparent reason. He couldn’t wait to call me up to tell that.
I gave him further practice and encouraged him to work upon himself and solve his problems. He gathered courage to call up his uncles and aunts and told them that he couldn’t send all his salary for them. He reduced what was being sent, and began saving some amount in mutual funds for his future. He also became bold enough to face interviews and attended a walk-in at HP. He got selected and was sent onsite to Germany! He now believes that it is all in mind and one’s fate is in one’s own hands.
You could judge him as highly arrogant, spoke harshly and had a volatile temper. But then, you wouldn’t have known that he had toxic parents and ran away from home while in college. He saw his classmates joining IT majors like CSC, Oracle, IBM, TCS and Infosys, while he is yet to find a break. Unable to face his friends, he relocated to Bangalore to find a job. Two months passed in watching movies on laptop and visiting malls between attending the occasional walk-ins where he was invariably rejected.
It was then that he approached iPower to help him realize his wish of getting highest paid job among his classmates. Coming from a lower middle class family, he always wanted to become financially sound and prosper. IPower coaches helped him set definitive goals and clear process. He shut himself from all distractions and focused on mind power techniques.
He landed a job in a product company for a decent 35K per month. He continued with the techniques learnt at iPower seriously and began building his life gradually. He occasionally called me for clarity and counsel. Following the advice of delayed gratification he took to saving what he earned and began to invest. His resolve helped him to get in touch with a leading high profile investor in Delhi. Soon, he was making huge returns on his investments. Six years down the lane, his monthly take home touched 2 lakhs and he built a portfolio of 50 lakhs in investments.
He was obsessed with quality management of his small manufacturing plant. He would talk to his employees often and wanted to become a trainer himself. But then his plant was stuck at a turnover of 60 lacs and was actually running in loss. His first goal was to turn his business profitable. But then, he was rather a shy person. “I hate marketing; Selling is not my cup of tea!” he confided to iPower coach. But then, the sales people he appointed never got him enough business. They were no good either. He was stuck and sought help from iPower training sessions to create growth.
I noticed that the real block was his scarcity thinking and gave him exercises to turn it into abundance thinking. He began sincerely practice them. I made him realize that profitability was all about sales and he needs to give sales as much attention as he was giving to quality. He worked on his mind for three months before venturing to act!
He started spending two days of the week in the market. He began understanding the opportunities. He appointed two senior marketing persons and went about the business development aggressively. In three years, he reached a turnover of 18 Crores! Soon, he moved his plant bigger premises and set up new units. Now, he even had time to pursue his dream of becoming a trainer. He became a certified NLP trainer. Ever passionate about his business he uses his training skills to keep his employees motivated and happy.
He had a simple dream. He wanted to buy a house in the suburbs of Chennai. He was a software engineer in Chennai and has been saving to own a home one day. But then, realty was so fast moving that every time he found a property, it was beyond his reach! He continued saving but, with the sky rocketing rates, not even a decent flat in a simple apartment was affordable.
It was at an iPower workshop that he confided to me about his elusive chase. I trained him on a few affirmations. They strengthened his resolve to own a house: his dream home and without any compromises! In a while, he was transferred to US by his company which entitled him to fat remuneration.
He now owns two houses one in Chennai and another in USA.
He was a kind hearted person with helping nature. He came from a humble background. His mother was a cook who worked hard to bring up the children. He loved his mother and helped her in getting the daughters married off. He was often the helping hand in organising iPower workshops in the area. He assisted the coach in dozens of workshops. As we were returning from one such event, he shared with me that he wished to get married, but was afraid that he wouldn’t find the right match. He might as well remain unmarried!
To his shock, I told him to stop assisting in iPower workshops. He protested. I set a goal for him: he could return to us only after finding his choice of life partner. If in two months he couldn’t achieve this goal, he would be out of the team permanently!
After all, iPower is all about making the impossible possible and helping people celebrate life! How can a team member be left out? He knew what to do. He earnestly started aligning his thoughts and feelings towards the goal. Within a month he came across a girl from a faraway small town whom he instantly liked. His story had a happy ending when he married the girl.