Welcome back,
But let us see Pravinji's life story.
When Pravinji heard from his doctor that shocking news, he was in his mid thirties. Sitting at the doctor's office having received that news, let us see his life thus far:
If you are new to this blog, please read the Preamble of my blog site, before reading any further.
DISCLAIMER: I have written about someone whom I know, I have had chance to work with and get his mentorship. This is not verified by any of his family members, his mentors or my mentors. If anything found to be incorrect or inaccurate, it is solely my mistake and I am responsible for the same.
Today, I am going to talk about a warrior who demonstrated the power of tenacity. I thank God and my mentors for having given me the access to this great human being. I was fortunate to be one of the persons to be taught and mentored by him among thousands of people he touched upon. To say simply, he did not merely teach by words but he lived like what he taught and demonstrated through his own life. He is my beloved and respected Pravinji.
Before we dive deep into Pravinji's story, I want to let my thoughts wander:
My thoughts take you all to a day in future. It is a huge park with a big building at the center. And there is, at the center of the hall, a body lying in state. We see a long line of people, many of them dressed in suit and dress, waiting; thousands of people walk past in serene mood wondering why did he leave so soon! There is prayer service all over the world and many many 1000s of people recall their wonderful feelings while tears rolling down their cheeks. I can smell the fragrance of flowers. So you do! Yes, we look closely and we realize it is my physical body lying in state there! Leaving you alone there in that room, I observe from my sukshma sharira my own physical body and see peace writ all over on that face with a sense of fulfilment. People would not see me in mortal form any further. Yet, those people who have gathered there find solace that my legacy will last for generations to come. While the people around there are not conscious of my astral body floating around, I sail to a corner to scan the huge board hung on one of the walls of that funeral hall. It has my pictures right from my childhood till my last days with scores of people. I quickly run my life story through the pictures in that collage. I see the dates written under one of my pictures decorating the center of that collage. Don't you worry This ain't happening until I am 100 years old. That is a date in the year 2065 as my last day in this world written beneath that picture! But, alas, at 100, I will be too young to leave the world as the life expectancy is well over 100 years at that time with the kind of advancement in preventive health and nutrition.
As my thoughts wind me back to 2009, I see myself hale and healthy in my physical body. I am grateful to God for everything He has done to create me like this. But, the scene in year 2065 is for a reason. Ever since I read this wonderful book "Slight Edge" by Jeff Oelson as part of my book subscription, I have a feeling I become a better person everyday as I apply the great principles taught in that book. Folks, let me tell you, this book is a must read. If you read it when you are young, you are blessed. I strongly recommend everyone reading this blog to grab a copy at the earliest. It is a very light reading but it has a lot of life fulfilling formulas with visual expressions to teach you exactly what it takes to lead a successul life. It is sprinkled with quotes on every page that you will use in your life. You can apply the principles taught in this book in every walk of your life including at your job, at home. I don't mean to say I have mastered it. But, I am getting gooder and gooder every minute as I read and apply the principles.
I don't have permission to quote from the book. But, I want to quote, without giving all its secrets, one interesting topic which is relevant today. That topic is "What I Learned from My Own Funeral". It states, based on statistics, if my funeral happened to be of an average person, only about 10 people cry. You must be kidding as it is ridiculously low.
"Ten people? That's it? You mean, I go through my entire life, spend years and years going through all these trials and tribulations and achievement and joys and heartbreaks - and at the end of it, there are only 10 people who care enough to cry?"
It says the statistics got worse in the next paragraph.
"Once those 10 or less people had yanked their hankies and honked their noses, the funeral was over. The number one factor that would determine how many people would go to the burial would depend on the weather. The weather?!"According to that statistics, out of those couple of dozens attending the funeral service, 50 per cent would leave before burial if it happened to rain at the time of burial.
As I had stated in the story of SPV, books talk to you so personally. Your mentor may hesitate to tell you certain things if you are not teachable. But, books would not hesitate to tell you. So, this book, really kicked my butt and made me start thinking. It asked me point blank, what kind of life would you want to lead rest of your entire life? Do you want to be a person taking the path of least resistance? or will you be a person who would choose a challenging path? Even if that path is un-treaded, unpaved one, won't you take that road in order to accomplish something worthwhile which would leave a legacy that survives than just walk behind the masses? A path as long as it is morally, legally, ethically correct and filled with compassion, helping others to success!
Also, I did analyze why would only ten people cry when someone average person leaves? Because, the person has not been a giver in his life.
I did the math taking an average person who has just taken a path of least resistance.I am just talking about the male member of a family. As this male, taking the path of least resistance, he would have probably worked for 45 years in a professional job to provide to his family. He probably spent at least 18 years in education. Mostly, his parents were at work while he was at school. He came back from school spent couple of more hours at some child care center until he could fend for himself. Let us assume he took up a career work at 20 and lived until 80 years. He lived 700,800 hours in this world. leaving the formative 20 years away, he spent 60 years in a position where he could have chosen to create a legacy beyond his progeny. That is 525,600 hours at his disposal. But, if he just chose a path of least resistance by just living for himself and his immediate family, then let us see how his life happens:
- Probably he worked for 45 years at 2,000 hours a year. That means, he would spend 90000 hours away from family for the sake of his own family. I don't want to talk about those ghostly hours spent in graveyard shift to deal with offshore or on site as the case may be, if he happened to be an IT professional!
- To get to his work, if he commuted for an hour each way, that is 10 hours a week and 500 hours a year! That translates to 22,500 hours spent in his career just on the road away from his beloved family?! Forget about the time he was on tour due to office work.
- Then, I assume he played cricket, golf, tennis or other games with his beer buddies for 3 hours every weekend. That takes away from his family on his pleasure indulgence another 6,750 hours!- (I hear you saying "Excuse me - that is for keeping up the body fit for the next week)
- Probably he slept on an average for 7 hours a day (including those extra hours on the weekend) in these 45years spending over 110,000 hours just in sleep oblivious of his family, friends and of course himself.
- On top of all these, he browsed the Internet on Facebook, You Tube, Twitter or watched TV for 2 hours a day and thus he spent another 7,000 hours as a comatose. (I mean, those are the hours we men spend in our cave world as we are from Mars - During that time we menfolk do not hear any of those questions our wives asked us or things she said to us making her repeat everything twice!)
- Add to the above aggregate of those additional hours spent in office out of professional etiquette - I mean those unpaid hours.
- If he counts his cell phone hours, showers, grocery shopping, waiting at hair cutting salon on a weekend, there is hardly any quality time spent with the kids and wife, parents, in laws, siblings and close relatives.
- Remainder of the time spent whiling away unnoticed, uncontrolled or un-prioritized.
But let us see Pravinji's life story.
When Pravinji heard from his doctor that shocking news, he was in his mid thirties. Sitting at the doctor's office having received that news, let us see his life thus far:
Hailing from a family of traditional business in India, Pravinji had wonderful years as a youth. He had even the luxury of assistants carrying his books to school. But, his parents' dream to see him a scientist brought him to the USA. That is God's plan for him, indeed. After his masters graduation from San Jose university, life went on for this budding scientist working in a pharmaceutical company. He did the usual things. He got married. His was an arranged marriage. His wife was an accomplished chemist from Mumbai with university level ranks. After she moved to the USA on her marriage to Pravinji, she qualified herself to become sonographer. They were having a wonderful life. They had a baby boy. Like any typical desi in the USA, they were realizing their American Dream! They would work the whole week, get together with friends to have potluck parties taking turns in each other's home every weekend; and get back to work Monday through Friday only to wait for another weekend pot luck party. Their son was growing to be a great kid. After few years of life, they decided it was time to stop the monotony and move back to India. As a precursor to it, Pravinji's wife had just moved back to India with their son.
But, the news his doctor broke on that day shattered all his happiness. He learnt his days were numbered as he was affected with lymphoma. The shocking news changed the life drastically at Pravinji's home. His wife rushed back from India on hearing the news. He underwent chemotherapy. It was quite an ordeal that took him through few more months. By the Grace of God and his wife's love for him, he became alright miraculously. Pravinji used to recall how challenging and painful the therapy was. While he underwent the treatment process, he gave up his job as scientist due to the stress level involved. But, the ailment helped him realize what kind of financial insecurity he would leave the family if he were to leave the world suddenly. He understood the emptiness of the phrase "job security" as it just stops if he is X-ed out. With the hindsight of his own experience, he says that what a family needs is income security and not job security.
In short, the life was in shambles for this warrior to be who is just in early thirties. But, he said that he never quit wearing a smile on his face.
Yes, in my short association with Pravinji in the last few short years, I have never seen him without a smile.
His potluck buddies and doctors advised him to go back to India and spend his final days peacefully. He pondered over but he decided that he would not go back to India. He wondered why God created this situation for him. He realized it was an opportunity to take on his life more purposefully.
He decided with all his belief to stay back in the USA and God smiled on him. Opportunity started pouring through one of his family friends - a couple - He a PhD with Post Doc working as senior scientist and his wife Administrative Director for Nuclear Medicine in a NJ hospital. She got Pravinji's wife the job of a sonographer in her hospital. Few more months passed. In the mean time, Pravinji also took up a job in a retail store selling TVs. Pravinji's family was coping up with life after his illness but they had no other needs. They were kind of settled with whatever they were earning. At that time, this scientist friend and his wife started a new franchising business. It was to distribute a range of high quality fast moving consumer goods, globally. On the day they had a grand opening of their business, they invited Pravinji to their home to discuss with him about their new business and showed him how he can start his franchise. As soon as he got to know about the business from this scientist friend of Pravinji , he told his friend to count him in. He took up the franchise immediately. He went back home and informed his wife about his new business. She was sceptical but she supported her husband in his decision. Moral: Pravinji did not need anything at that time. He had all the reasons to avoid doing something extra citing his illness as excuse. Hailing from a family of traditional business, he could have gone back to India to take up his father's tradtional business. Probably, he would have provided employment to a handful. But, a visionary he is, he didn't say NO to an opportunity. He evaluated it and took a decision immediately reposing confidence in his good friends who are well educated and his well wishers. He understood the synergic power of building community. With hindsight, is it not true how the power of community being realized in this information age by Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim (YouTube) to name a couple of them? Besides, Opportunity is always tied to a thin thread and handed to you by the giver. If you don't recognize that thin thread grab that tightly and securely, it snaps in no time.
While Pravinji was seriously doing everything to grow his business, he made full use of the mentoring program that combined entrepreneurship, self building and wholesome life. He liked the fact that the business provided opportunity to him to work together with his wife. He and his wife got access to people who are already successful in life and understood how they faced different challenges of life. They made themselves teachable as mentees and learnt from their mentors the power of giving. They invested their time in nurturing other people. Pravinji learnt that if he provided a stable financial security to as many families around him, he would also achieve financial security in the process. If he provided opportunity to hundreds of moms to have a choice to quit their 9 to 5 job and be full time home maker, his family would also reap the benefits. So, he set clear goals for himself on what he would achieve.
Even though he recovered from his cancer attack, he knew it could be month or years that his life has been extended in this world. So, he was determined that he would leave a legacy behind him. He promised himself he would not leave the world without providing his family the utmost financial security. On the material side, he promised his wife he would take her to world's most beautiful resort for a week. He would take her to Hawaii and stay in the most expensive resorts over there for a week. Also, he said to his wife that he would take her around the world. He did not know how long he would live but he was determined to achieve his goals.
They built the business without disturbing their jobs. His wife soon rose to become head of sonography department and worked 60 plus hours a week answering beepers call at odd hours to rush to hospital to attend to patients. Yet, she supported Pravinji's mission by actively participating. She got the mentorship that would make her a leader by herself. She read books like "Power of Subconscious Mind" and "what do you say when you talk to yourself". Both Pravinji and his wife understood the power of spoken words.
As he learnt from his mentors, as a giver, Pravinji gave his valuable time in nurturing other people. He learnt their goals and dreams. He taught them how to protect their dreams and the ways to accomplish them. Also, he would teach them the value of time. Who else is better than Pravinji to talk about time management. I have often heard from him that the difference between Bill Gates and an ordinary person is only the 4 hours. It is how a person spends those 4 hours every day.
Once he explained:
"Let us see how one could create that 4 hours time everyday. Everyone has only 24 hours. There is no difference between Bill Gates or you. You can not control time but only your activities. If that is the case let me explain how you will find at least 20 hours a week that you now waste unconsciously. You use those hours 5 nights a week in a spare time future building activity. If you do the math, in a week there are totally 168 hours (7 x 24 hrs). Let me first give away 56 hours with 8 hours sleep per day. Another 60 hours (5 x 12 hrs) for work; 4 hours for weekend party and continue to spend those 2 hours everyday on TV / Internet. So, that will take away another 18 hours (14 + 4). Ok let me give you another 2 hours to get ready in the morning to go to work and reduce another 10 hours (5 x 2 hrs). Take another 4 hours for your weekend chores. All these total upto 148 hours in a week. So, you have another 20 hours left out of your 168 hours after taking care of all your present lifestyle. You have not compromised anything. These 20 hours go in the drain uncontrolled. I want you to invest in your future building. That is how I live my life. If I have to find 1 hour in a day, I sleep half an hour late and wake up half hour early" What a words of wisdom!
Moral: Prioritize your activities. There is no additional hour to the 24 hours in a day. It is not urgency of your activity that matters. Only importance of your activity that matters. So, ask yourself if an activity is important to you and your family. Is it a future based activity or pleasure seeking activity. Future based activity builds your family.
In the last 20 years since he was diagnosed with lymphoma, Pravinji, suffered two heart attacks. He carried with him pacemaker that powered his heart. He underwent triple by pass surgery. He had eye surgery, kidney stone. Above all, his medical problems were compounded by the fact that he was a diabetic. Sometime in 2004, he was diagnozed with a serious stomach ailment. Doctors recommended removal part of his stomach. He lived in pain everyday. I heard him say that nothing would stop him from achieving a wonderful, worry and stress free life for his wife, his son and daughter-in-law. In fact, while he underwent all these challenges completely bed ridden, his business grew multifold.
Once when he was admitted to hospital to do angioplasty, his heart suddenly stopped and the doctors were rushing to attend to him on blue code emergency. One of the doctors informed her on the situation and said to her that he was worried she was alone waiting outside the room. But she said she was not alone but God is with her. A lady who has mastered the fabulous book "Power of Subconscious Mind", she knew the power of faith, power of spoken words. Finally, when the doctors allowed her to take a look at Pravinji lying unconscious with an external pacemaker keeping him clinically alive, she went inside the room and touched him. Pravinji recalls fondly how that created an electric current in his body. In a second, his heart started working again.
Recently, in a training program, Pravinji said:
"I am a simple man with big dreams. I keep myself positive and I always wear smile on my face. I speak only what I want. I think always what I need to provide to my wife, son and daughter in law. I speak my dream daily. Doctors ask me often how strong I am. But it is God, my association and my mentors who provide me strength. I have multiple doctors to consult before I can do anything. But all I tell God is YOU give me struggles, YOU give me challenges. No problem. But, give me courage to fight them. I will fight them."
With his untiring fight over 20 years, he built his empire. With that seed he planted in 1991, today, I estimate, his organization distributes high quality fast moving consumer goods worth more than $20 Million annually in the US markets alone. Majority of these products are US manufactured and are of high quality. While estimating this annual business turnover, I have not included the volume his franchises generate in other parts of the world. It is a conservative estimate from top of my head aggregating the monthly base turnover of all his leading franchises I know of. If I may say this as hyperbole, even at a conservative estimate, perhaps, he is distributing more US manufactured products than the world’s number one company Walmart distributes through its outlets in the USA :-). But, I am sure I may not be far from reality given the fact a vast majority of products sold in Walmart is from China and third world countries.
He has helped at least 20 couples become multi millionaires through the franchising business and attain financial freedom. Most of them retired from their job in their late 20s or early 30s who in turn mentor other people to succeed in life. He and his wife personally mentored many youngsters to success. Through his mentorship and the vehicle he provided through his global franchises, hundreds of men created a strong secondary income that helped them to choose to retire from their job and take up full time franchising business all over the world. Today, his dream propelled that seed he planted 20 years ago into a gigantic tree that over 500 moms all over the world created a strong secondary income and choose to retire from their jobs to be home makers. In the last 20 years since he started his business, I would estimate, he and the leadership in his franchises would have touched upon over million people all over the world in a positive way, on a rough conservative estimate. Moral: success is choice. It is there for those who choose to succeed.
He built a huge home in New Jersey. He said his master bedroom is bigger than his first apartment. He bought high quality luxury cars. The ecosystem he created through his franchising business created steady stream of ongoing residual income that would equal any well paid c-level officers. The difference is this is ongoing, stress free. What he created for his family is not linear in nature because he does not have to go to work to earn that income. Every dream he wrote down was coming true. In 2007, he got his only son married. He mentored his son and daughter in law to become a successful entrepreneur in his franchising business. His son also works as an IT professional in a Fortune company besides being an entrepreneur. The same year, he brought his wife home giving her freedom from the leash of her beeper. She loved her medical profession and worked until the last minute of her last day at work when she chose to quit. Pravinji went to her office in a white stretch limo as a surprise to her and got her out of office as a free bird. February 2008, he went with his family to stay in exotic resort in Hawaii. In April 2008, he and his wife went to a resort in Atlantic Ocean with pristine clear water that would cost $9000 a night for a week. He took his wife on tour to China and other countries. So, he accomplished every bit of his dream. He can even X himself out of the income earning equation. His income is no longer dependent on his capacity to perform or hours he invests. His business empire covers many countries around the world.
It was first Tuesday of June 2008, Pravinji provided his mentorship to a group of 400 people. While recognizing me and Jaishree for a particular achievment, he touched me with his blessed hands; put his arms around my shoulder and told me and Jaishree "don't ever give up your dreams. Go get them!". Moral: Associate yourself with a dreamer. Your thoughts will be stretched beyond imagination; life will see wonderful things happening for you. You will learn things that no university or professor could teach you. Because, every success is born out of a dream. As the realized sages say, man without vision will perish.
It was a week after that, Pravinji chose to leave this world from his body that bore the brunt of several surgeries, therapies. His grit built upon innumerable rejections, ridicule, ups and downs in his business efforts that none of his beer buddies supported. He converted them into scars of his valor in the valiant battle of accomplishing his dreams.
As Pravinji's body was lying state, I personally saw 1000s of people filing past the body of this warrior who was only in his mid fifties. Those people were from all walks of life he impacted positively - students, young couples being mentored by him and his wife as entrepreneurs; those people he and his wife already successfully mentored into financial independence and also scores of his own mentors. He was as smiling as he ever used to be. The face that was writ with peace. His son said - here lies a MAN who fought to accomplish his dreams, he achieved them all, he left the world fulfilled that he did not have to worry that he left behind any debt for the family to take care, he did not have to worry because he has created a financial future for his family. The seeds he planted will grow for ever. Mom will be able to take over as she was part of his business in every aspect and mentor many more into success.
1000s of people stayed back for his cremation, too. There were scores of people all over the world conducted condolence and prayer meetings. All of them know he touched many positively. He has left a vast legacy behind that his great great great grandchildren will remember and cherish about!
I am sure, like I am inspired by the story of this warrrior, Pravinji's story will inspire at least one among the readers to take next steps to provide and protect their family like Pravinji did. His story will inspire at least one soul that will decide to be a giver!
See you in next story of Desi Winner - 4 The Story of RS - an ordinary person with extra ordinary dreams of a giver and thus chose to be part of Rich Minority than being Poor Majority. Like I did for Pravinji's story, I might take two weeks to complete my next story. Would appreciate your feedback!
Keep Chargin'
With Luv
Kalyan
