Benchmarking

A guy from West was speaking with Indian spiritual guru, " My mind is at peace now. I have learned a lot from you." He further asked, " You say I can be like anybody if I aspire for and perspire to be. Then please tell me, if I work to become like Henry Ford, can I be like him?" Gurus smile in a very special way when they see innocence in the seeker. He too did and replied, "Of course you can. But then you might miss a chance to be like Jesus."

Are you too missing such a chance?

Who is your ideal?

Who are you trying to be like?

What are the qualities you have acquired till this day? From where are those?

If I want to build a character, that of less than Rama's should be unacceptable. Isn't it? If I want to start a company, say in Finance, a goal less than Berkshire Hathaway could be said conservative. Right? If I want to evolve as a human being, isn't Krishna a choice better than any living person today? If I want to benchmark myself with someone for some quality, who should that be?

When it comes to choose a role model, child begins with parents. They are the biggest influencers after all. Child gets two options in the process - Whether or not to be like my parents. It is okay as long as child decides to be like his parents. If the opposite, then he gets infinite options. Imagine if this happens. You won't know what he chose out of other available alternatives until it is too late. As a parent, therefore, it is our duty to set high standards for our children. Isn't it? In order to do that, parents need to have discipline. You can't expect the child to have a habit of reading or exercising if you are not doing those. Parenting is leadership. Leadership is parenting. First you become that what you expect. You need to be what you expect from your boss or sub-ordinate. What kind of nation do you want? Creative? Strong? Humane? Become that and you will see that happen. It's called visual management. You need to show others how right things are done right. Then they follow you.

Let's look at India with respect to other countries. India has one third of the land compared to the USA but 4 times that of its population. Out of 47 states of the USA, only 8 states has the population more than 1 crore. Whereas in India, out of 30 states, the number is 21 states. Imagine the difference in population density! Number of cities in India have population more than the countries like Australia and Canada. In spite of such huge differences, isn't India being unrealistic when she sets goals which are benchmarked by the World Bank or the UN? Can India have any other model nation which can be taken as a reference for benchmarking growth and development? For example, Japan (has population density of 348 against India's 445 per sq. km.), Israel (Pop. Den. of 395), Korea, Rep. (Pop. Den. of 526) or Netherlands (Pop. Den. of 506). Can India be considered similar to these countries, only with bigger scale? India has great minds and strength of population to make it happen. Isn't it? I believe, if India sets just the right benchmarks, it can rise again as world leader not only at economic front but at spiritual, power and technology fronts as well. This logic is applicable to African countries as well. We say no two people should be compared. Then why countries? It's just that genres are different here. Can you say which movie is better - Interstellar or Inception? Haha..

Or, do we need to set ideals? Is benchmarking really necessary?

Because some kid is famous on a dance show on TV, parents make their kids learn dance. We need to learn the difference between influence and impression. Goals are not set based on influence. Goals and visions are the product of introspection. We need to learn about ourselves before we learn anything else. Our dreams, likes or dislikes - we need to discover them. A continuous search for betterment goes a long way. Whom did Berkshire Hathaway set as a touchstone? Whom did Apple set as a yardstick? Darwin had no reference theory when he gave the "theory of evolution". India was never into materialistic world in spite of being wealthy. Someday, someone came and told you, "because you don't have enough clothes to wear, you cannot feel happy" and you believed him! We were happier then than today. Ask your grandparents if you don't believe me. Those who are born in 1980s, almost none of your grandparents did job. They were all entrepreneurs or business people. They were all surviving on their skills. Now you are told, "if you don't have job, you cannot survive." Is survival that challenging? Or we have set wrong measures for what we call a way of living!

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