If you do
something that makes you come alive, every single day, your purpose will soon
find you. And when it does, Life becomes meaningful!
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| Preethi Sukumaran and Srinivas Krishnaswamy Pic Source: Internet |
I learned a lot
listening to a wonderful young lady, Preethi Sukumaran, co-founder of the
“sustainable goodies” venture, Kyra (www.krya.in),
yesterday. Preethi and her husband, Srinivas Krishnaswamy, founded Krya in May
2010 with the idea of creating the best plant-based products for helping urban
folks, like you and me, make an easy transition to a more sustainable Life. So,
the entire Krya “sustainable goodies”
range today, which includes a popular detergent and dish-wash, is made on five
principles – it is recyclable or re-useable, it has a minimum ecological
footprint, it is made only from natural ingredients, it is entirely vegan and
it is easy to adopt and embrace. What drove Preethi and Srini, who had spent
the first 15 years of their careers with MNCs, leading popular global brands,
to embark on this “creative partnership” called Krya is, as Preethi shared,
this: “We
wanted to leave the planet a better place.” So, apart from being
cruelty-free (very unlike many leading brands in the detergents and personal
care space) and staunchly vegan, the Krya team thinks about each product from
the sourcing to the manufacture to the disposal stage – incorporating
sustainability into every part of its lifecycle. Preethi is, as she confesses,
fanatical about this focus. She envisions that Kyra will soon be an institution
that champions sustainability and leads by example – living on even after both
of them, the founders, are gone!
Running an
enterprise with that kind of monomaniacal focus – “where you are clear and principled about
what you will never do” –
is not easy. For one, scalability is an issue. Second, consumer preferences,
which are currently steeped in self-gratification and are not necessarily
sustainability-driven, are unlikely to change significantly even in the next 50
years – at least not in the lifetime of pioneers like Preethi and Srini. Third,
should sluggish market trends impact profitability in any manner, then
sustaining the business venture itself becomes a challenge. But people who come
“alive” in every moment that they are living, are ready to face whatever comes
in their way! That’s because their “purpose” has
found them. Jim Collins, the management guru, and author of Good to
Great and Built to Last, theorized (through research spread over 25
years) that organizations (led by people) with a core purpose – which is the
reason why they are in business apart from making money – were far more likely
to survive in the long run, despite market upheavals. These are the ones that will
go on to become institutions, Collins has postulated.
Similarly, individuals
too, who are driven by a sense of purpose – a deeper reason for being – do end
up leaving behind a lasting legacy. Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King
and Nelson Mandela are classic examples of people who led a Life of meaning,
because their purpose had found them. And that’s the other point. Your purpose
will always find you if you are open to and are aware of the idea that there’s
a larger reason why you have been created. That your Life has a meaning – which
goes beyond meeting your selfish desires and your obsession to provide for
yourself and your family alone. When you start asking how you can be useful –
than be merely successful – then you are, in every sense, purpose-ready. Of
course, when you choose to do something that makes you come alive every day, then
your purpose will surely find you.
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