Finally it was Sunday and with weeklong Holi vacation commencing, I was enjoying my beautiful Sunday evening, when two kids came knocking on our door. You guessed it right, they were representing an organisation and with the Financial Year coming to an end, it was an opportune time for them to pitch for 80G benefits and get some donations.
As my sister tried to dissuade them, my niece got all excited and got them into the office area. I dragged myself to figure out how I shall get rid of them since all my donations were already made for the year. Nonetheless, I thought I should humour them up a bit. The moment the pitch started, I got restless. It was not because the pitch was bad or they were not engaging enough, it was just that I had a deja vu.
More than a decade back, while I was studying in Melbourne – I had done similar work for an organization there. The door-to-door selling of a concept is the toughest thing to do because it is not your usual product selling. Product selling is easy because someone pays for a tangible thing whereas Concept selling is selling an idea. One is trying to sell something, which is not there for you to see.
Even though my father was financing my education and honestly, I could have acted like one of those spoilt brats who didn’t have to work and could splurge on my father’s money. But, I am my father’s daughter and the thing with being a self-made man’s daughter is that you want to do things exactly the way he did it.
Coming back to the story, the kids had just completed their grads about 6 months back and this was their first job. I got curious and thought of asking how come they ended up in a direct selling job and what their experience was like. Both of them were from good families, fluent in spoken English, well groomed and most of all, they were not hesitant. They were confident and all of 21.
As I sat there writing the cheque, I couldn’t stop myself from complimenting them. The confidence that they exuded, that doesn’t come from giving the numerous presentations in college or going to a big school or college. That confidence comes when you choose life to be your teacher.
There are typically two schools of thought as far as work and success are concerned. For many, things are served on silver platter but they still have to work very hard in order to sustain the success or achieve greater heights. The other school of thought is that you go through the grind and then achieve greater heights. I certainly believe that for anything to be achieved in life – hardwork pays but so does your inter-personal skills. Inter-personal skills is not just about how well you speak but also about knowing the difference between when to speak and when to be quiet or how to serve without being a servant or how to use your ego or the total lack of it. Life is all about these experiences.
I don’t know what luck really has in store for the kids but it is true that anyone who has parents willing to provide comfortable living, who can do their masters instead of working, who can instead enjoy their lives at 21- chose to go about knocking on doors in South Ex.II on the whole of Sunday – trying to get their foot in the door.
It is what it is – these kids trying their best. Like the saying goes, ‘Good things come to those who work their asses off and never give up.’
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