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| Home | Successful Indian
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| SUCCESSFUL INDIAN OF THE
MONTH |
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Rooma Nanda is currently in
the finance industry, working as a residential mortgage consultant. She has
over 10 years work experience with various corporates, such as, IBM and Yellow
Pages. Rooma has done her MBA from Sydney, and is passionate about learning on
a constant basis. This column is to highlight the achievements of
certain individuals who could be a source of inspiration for others. Email
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"What lies behind us and what
lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us" is a famous
quote by Confucius. Meaning the success of a human is measured by who they are
in terms of their values and convictions and not by any other superficial
measures lucrative to the minds living at a lower scale of human potential.
 Our column guest for this month, Mr Sunil Jha, has truly defined the above in
one liner when asked about his aspirations:
"I aspire to be a human first, then a creator of harmonious living (whether
it be personal or professional) and then an entrepreneur".
We feel honored in introducing our next column guest,
Mr Sunil Jha, a
great spiritual soul for a non materialist world and a great entrepreneur for
the ones who measure success in sales figures.
Firstly, a brief introduction to his personal and professional life in his own
words below and then we will seek some wisdom from him.
My Personal Life:
I have spent almost 50 years on this beautiful Earth, 39, of the 50 spent in the
cultural and spiritual hub of the world - India and almost 11 years in this
gorgeous country - Australia. I have two beautiful children 13 and 11, and a
gorgeous wife - what else can I ask for!! In a nutshell a happy, content and
satisfied family. I enjoy friends, love watching people interact with each
other, play chess and am passionate about photography - once again, capturing
emotions.
I have been experimenting with Spirituality and believe have managed a fairly
good balance between my materialistic life and my spiritual life. It has been a
great journey and along the path I have learned a lot - I guess there is a lot
more to learn and I am open armed to accept and receive all I can.
I would not call myself a Connoisseur, however, will still contend by saying I
love a good drop of wine and have started enjoying wines from different regions
of the world. I definitely love food and enjoy cooking for friends and family, I
believe it is my way of relaxing. Very much a family man, I do love to go out
with friends as well and enjoy some one-on-one with me mates (as they would say
in Australia). I have traveled around the globe and have visited many countries
and enjoyed interacting with different people and cultures.
Sunil Jha: Professional Profile:
Sunil Jha is a Serial Entrepreneur who has worked his way up from the grass root
level up to owning and operating successful business ventures both in India as
well as in Australia. Sunil began his professional career in 1982 in India. By
1985 he had set up his first business venture "Professional Business Software".
Professional Business Software under Sunil's leadership assisted IPO listed
companies in India convert shareholder information from tape drives to hard disk
drives and then developed an application "SHAREASSIST" to manage all share
transactions internally. In 1987 Sunil Jha established "Akiko Systems, a
privately owned Software Consulting and Developing company. Sunil headed it as
its Managing Director. Akiko Systems in India was the first company to have
started the concept of ERP style software development starting 1988. Sunil is a
bit of a conceptualiser and takes great pride in his expertise at Concept Design
and Development. Sunil migrated to Australia in 1999, and joined the workforce
in senior management positions within large IT Systems Integrators including
Praxa Limited and Aspect Computing Pty Ltd.
In 2002 Sunil established Akiko Business Consultants, a privately owned Process
Improvement and Consulting firm and has successfully grown it to a million
dollar business; assisting fortune 500 Australian companies reduce cost of their
business operations and increase their efficiencies through Business Process
Improvement.
Akiko Business Consultants is a premier business process consulting and services
company. Akiko's consultants help their customers use Akiko's Business Solutions
to reduce costs and improve business efficiency through re-engineering/ refining
the client's business processes. To extend the value Akiko brings to its
customers, they've invested their skills in methodologies that help speed
deployment, decrease risk, and control costs. Skills Akiko uses are certified
SIX SIGMA and CMM5 consultants.
As a part of Business Process Consulting, Akiko also offer Business Process
Offshoring/ Outsourcing. Akiko has facilities in India where they process
Accounts Payable, Marketing Surveys, Driver Manifests, Cab Charge, Loyalty
Program forms, Mortgage Processing and essentially anything that could be free
flowing, structured of semi structured text.
Recently, Sunil conceptualized, (using internal Akiko resources) designed and
developed a "WORLD FIRST" web portal. www.myAssetsOnline.com is a concept that
is currently sweeping the security and safety conscious internet users off their
feet. It is a World First and is already attracting registered users from
countries like; Australia, China, USA, Germany, England, India, just to name a
few. Imagine how many people all over the world lose their personal and business
assets to flood, bushfires and theft. Being registered with myassetsonline.com
helps them not only secure but also capable of insuring their home/ business
contents to the value they purchased and not some pick a figure from the air
scenario. It is a FREE service.
RN: Sunil, the way you
have described your life is amazing. Creating harmony is something I recently
read in Dr John Demartini's books. Tell us more about creating harmony in
personal and professional life. What exactly do you mean by it?
SJ: Rooma, The art of creating
harmony in personal and professional life is a) to keep the two away from each
other and b) never carry the issues from one to the other. In almost 30 years of
my professional career I have learnt not to bring my problems from work to my
home and my problems from home to my office. This has not only kept me sane but
also my family.
RN: People like
me also define success (apart from many other definitions) as standing by one's
convictions in the face of life's adversities and follow the path shown by an
inner voice. Tell us about the adversities you had to confront during this
journey and how you and your convictions stood by each other both in personal
and professional life?
SJ: My life has
been a roller coaster, in fact I have been tested numerous times. But the
obsession to succeed has always brought be back, even from the face of death.
When I was young and a very successful entrepreneur, I was in a terrible
accident - I lost a friend and almost brushed with death myself. It was my
destiny to live a second life and so I am grateful to be amongst loved ones. I
owe my second life to my mother; her prayers must have saved me from my near
death experience. However, that near death experience taught me a lot,
especially about life and to be grateful for every day that we live. Our past
experiences teach us to be careful, we build our dreams for our future but Today
is the Present that we always should be thankful for.
RN: Talking about
spirituality, do you believe our destinies are defined or do we write our own
life plan? Our dreams or our paths are given to us by some unknown force and our
job on earth is to follow the path until we manifest them into our physical
realities and hence fulfilling the role of being humans?
SJ: In my opinion, the
final chapters of our destinies are predefined; however, we carve our own
destiny with our actions. According to me, we face our heaven and hell right
here on this earth and in this life. As a Hindu our belief system talks of life
after death and reincarnations, but thinking we will clear up our sins in the
next life is a fallacy that we should erase from our minds.
RN: There is a school of
thought which says humans are born twice. Meaning, in one life, we can recreate
ourselves and sometimes are reborn as a newer self. What's your take on this?
SJ: ONLY great humans/
super humans would perhaps have two consecutive human births. I am happy and
grateful to live one human life!! Different schools of thought believe in
different versions of the same statement. Recreating oneself is a possibility
and a lot of people have recreated themselves - Maharishi Valmiki for example.
RN: When you say "I have
been experimenting with spirituality", what exactly do you mean by that?
SJ: I love the spiritual
world. I was an atheist as a child, but my mother always insisted that someday I
will changes and become a theist - maybe she had a devious plan!! When she was
alive, she was worried about who should look after her Gods and Deities that she
worshipped all her life, on day I promised her that I will look after them after
she died - I am now fulfilling my commitment to her (willingly). Being still in
my "Grihastha Ashran" (Family life phase), I want to enjoy my family and have
quality time with my wife, my children, my family and friends; hence I do not
want to become a sadhu. I have been trying to create a balance between my
materialistic life and my spiritual life, and believe I am starting to get
there. My spiritual life keeps be rational and my materialistic life helps me
live the commercial world.
RN: Yesterday,
I was listening to a Vietnamese philosopher on tele who says that meditation is
doing what you do with your heart and putting 100% into it. In your experiences,
whenever you achieved something great, was it merely an outcome of such hard
work or was it a combination of focus, goals, faith, and discipline, etc,? In
other words, is there a basic / simple formula in order to achieve what you are
looking for in both personal and professional arena of life?
SJ: Belief, that's it.
One's belief is all that is required to achieve one's goals. The rest - focus,
goals, faith, discipline - follows automatically.
RN: Tell us more about
your experiences and achievements in photography?
SJ: I like human behavior
and have been intrigued by it for many years. So, I capture these emotions in
memory through my photography. My photography is still in an amateur stage and I
capture expressions of my friends and family - especially when they are not
ready or posing. I do not wish to commercialise my photography and so wish to
keep this a personal hobby.
RN: I recently read a very
interesting book, The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, in which the author says that
success leaves clues and those clues are found where your tears are shed. Do you
agree with that theory?
SJ: Absolutely. Success is
hard work and a lot of sweat, tears, time, patience and hard work are required
to get to where one wants to get to. Being successful is no mean feat, and is
not for the weak hearted or for people who wish to run a fly by night operation.
RN: Dr John Demartini says
that the people who inspire you are infact your own hidden higher self? Once you
bring that higher self out, chances are you become harmonious with yourself. I
remember George Orwell saying something similar in his book 1984. Would love to
know your thoughts on it?
SJ: GOD made all people/
beings equal i.e. the brain size in every being is the same to that being's
category. The way we use our brain/ grey matter is dependent on the individual.
Whether you want to be "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" or your want to be an
"Albert Einstein" it is entirely on ones individual belief system. We are all
born with our own higher self, we only need to choose to open that door to
access our higher self - harmony follows suit automatically.
RN: Any particular
readings you would like to share with people who are always in search of
excellence?
SJ: - Man Watching -
Desmond Morris
- The Path to Love - Deepak Chopra
- Why is GOD Laughing - Deepak Chopra
- One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
- Losing my Virginity (Autobiography) - Richard Branson
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In the Previous Issues:
Shivani Gupta
Dilip Rao
Tinku Band
Sheba Nandkeolyar
Bobby Singh
Anupam
Sharma
Vikrant Kapoor - Zaaffran Restaurant
Rashmi Mehrotra
Dr. Jagnnath Mazumdar
Naville Roach - Fujitsu
Australia
Dr Arapaut Sivaprasad -
WebGenie Systems
Suda Navada
Jeet Bindra - Caltex
Dr. Bhuvan Unhelkar
Safina Uberoi - My Mother India
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