I am passionate about people. One of the reasons I have enjoyed a career in Public Relations is because it is largely about engaging with people of different types. There are two kinds of people in this world. People we know and people we don’t. You can further classify people we don’t know into two categories – those who also don’t know us or those who know us.
Well, I have decided that 2019 is going to be about people in a big way for me more than ever before. And I’m going to do it in a way that makes me proud to be a human and a part of the PR profession which is all about behaviour. I am inspired by the dozen very special connections I made last year and this stems from there.
Kindness to each other – We lead crazy lives. We have new age problems. We suffer from the fear of missing out. We are in the fast lane. We are connected 24/7 and even on holidays. The least we can do is to start becoming kinder to each other and taking pride in the fact that we all have short lives and just one life. The bottom-line of everything we do is to be happy and there is no better way to be happy than by being kind to our fellow human beings. Be it folks at home, colleagues at the work place and friends in general. It does not take much. It can be done if we decide every morning when we wake up that we will be kind through the day. Yes! It is possible.
Learn from each other – We all have a few things we are good at or knowledge of something we may have read or observed recently. It is not difficult to share these with people we meet. It is worth putting in effort in learning new things to share with others so they lead a more enriched life.
Meet new people – I told myself this year that I will ensure that I meet 52 new people this year. These are people I may have bumped into or connected online with but didn’t really get the time to meet and have a one-on-one conversation with, over a meal or beverage. So, on an average of one a week I will do that this year. We are in the fourth week and I have met four people already. It is really worth it.
Nurture old connections – We can all make a list of a dozen people we care about but we haven’t met for over a year despite being in the city. It happens. May we find the time this year to make those offline meetings happen. I have made a rule to simplify my meetings this year. That I will meet 52 new people for an average of one hour. But I will also meet old connections and use this filter to make the effort for the meeting when they call for one. The filter I will use is: That I should love that person enough, or that person will learn from me or I from him or her. If it matches this criterion, I will make the time and effort to make the meeting happen. For everyone else there are ample group meetings.
Organise old and new together – For the two sets of people listed above (old and new) there are numerous platforms where a physical meeting can take place. Starting with Knowledge Factory in Bangalore, to Conclaves in Gurgaon and Mumbai to a Super Night in New Delhi to PRAXIS in Goa. I feel delighted when I see friends in the fraternity share online and offline that they first met someone at PRAXIS.
Well, this column may seem like a self-help article. It was just a heartfelt note to bring in more clarity into what I have been thinking this year to be – the year of learning and loving people. Thanks for reading, always.
He is also the Founding Dean of the School of Communications & Reputation (SCoRe).
He can be reached at @amithpr on twitter.
पढ़कर अच्छा लगा. सार्थक प्रयास है. आगे बढ़ें