The 'ABG' Influence In My Life- Ishant Parakh, XIMB

One day while travelling for some work related purpose, I was stuck in traffic and that’s when I spotted the showroom of Van Heusen. The first thought that immediately crossed my mind was “Power Dressing”. Even though I was aware of Van Heusen for a long time, it still was not in the list of brand showrooms that I had visited in the last few days to find my perfect piece of suit.

For some reason, I was tempted to visit the showroom, but that would delay my work. I resisted the temptation thinking that this too, would probably be a waste of time just like all others had been. Yet, the two words “Power Dressing” were constantly crossing my mind. I finally decided to give it a shot and entered the showroom.

The moment I entered the showroom, the staff there greeted me and asked what I was looking for. Blatantly, I said that I needed a suit that would create a difference when I wore them. Amazing as it may sound, but just within the next few minutes, I did find a brilliant three-piece suit which also happened to be of my favourite colour, which is royal blue. I immediately tried it and was amazed at the perfect fitting of the suit. It was an easy choice to buy the same suit.

I was happy with my shopping experience of “Power Dressing”. But something interesting was about to happen, which I had simply no idea of.

The same staff who greeted me earlier, handed over my purchase to me and suddenly said, “Sir, can I tell you something?”

I said yes.

He responded with a smile and said, “Sir, It’s not the clothes that will create a difference, but it’s you who will.”

This one simple line from him was not so simple. It had a greater and deeper meaning to it. 

I received many compliments on the night of the wedding about how good I looked wearing that suit. But now, those compliments were not as important to me as earlier.

My words are themselves suggestive of what I am trying to speak. I had realized that my confidence did not depend on my clothes but on me. That, it was not the clothes that would create a difference, but I who would.

Interesting and different as it may sound, but it was not just a brand of Aditya Birla that really impacted me, but also along with that rather an employee who was directly or indirectly representing the same great conglomerate.

How I overcame challenges to achieve my ambitions?

Cricket has always been my favourite sport and still means a huge deal to me. Until some years ago, I was extremely involved in Cricket. I was good at this sport and was also very keen to become a better player. I therefore started my professional coaching in it. 

Initially, everything was running smooth. The game seemed very interesting and I was improving as a batsman and a fielder at a quick rate. My teammates had become great friends of mine. We were like a family growing together. We started playing in different competitions starting from club level to district levels. We were also winning quite a few competitions amongst them. I too had quite a few match-winning contributions in a number of these matches. I knew that I was probably the best batsman in the team.

With praises being showered upon me, my confidence grew.

But slowly and surely, it grew to a level that it should have grown to. I was forgetting about the thin but a strong line between confidence and overconfidence.

I started skipping practice sessions thinking I was good enough to perform on any given day I wanted to. I had become ignorant about the finer nuances of properly conducting myself in a team environment. Almost everybody else around me sensed my overconfidence. 

Some days later to that, we were playing in probably the most important regional tournament of our professional careers. I was given the responsibility of taking my team home. I knew that I had to perform, yet I could not. I played a very rash shot and got out. We lost the match by a big margin. Once flying high, I had been thrown down to the ground. All the mistakes that I did were now visible to me.

I understood the gravity of what I had done. I had locked myself up in a room for one entire day reflecting on what had just happened.

I now wanted to redeem myself. The only thought that I had in my mind was that I cannot change what has happened but I can still shape what is going to happen. With this learning, I approached the game in the same way again as I did earlier. I had become the same young and humble cricketer again, I was again a student of the great game. I wanted to improve my game to a different level and instead of trying to be the best player in the team, I now wanted to be the most responsible player of my team.

 

Some months later, I was again feeling the same confidence that I had felt all those months ago, but this time I was aware of the difference between taking success rightly and taking success for granted. My match-winning contributions were growing in number. I was now happy and so was my team with me. The friendship amongst us had regrown.

Cricket throws you on the ground every single day to test every bit of your mental strength and resistance. It has taught me many things in life. For one, it has taught me how to celebrate a victory together, how to celebrate the success of your teammates, but far more importantly, it has taught me how to cope up with losses.