We are glad to declare Dr Pramod Kumar Rajput as Positive Thoughts Achiever of the Week who shared his words to narrate the success story “From Nowhere to Now Here”.
Dr. Pramod Kumar Rajput is an "Advisory Board Member of Positive Thoughts"
Born on the 9th day of April in the year 1964 in a small city of Uttar Pradesh, Gorakhpur, I had no idea that one day I would end up being the senior-most official in an Indian multinational pharma company who would travel and lead people around the globe. I was blessed with very hardworking and loving parents who instilled the values of discipline. Time management and hard work into me. My maternal grandfather had also a very huge impact on me. With his care, folklores and religious stories, he added the values like determination, dedication and truthfulness to my young mind.
My childhood was marked by the lovely memories of the wonderful days I spent at the school which happened to be North Eastern Railway Senior Secondary School. I still remember the classrooms and huge ground it had. My school was one of the best schools in Gorakhpur and the bonds which I created, the friends which I got during my school time are still very near and precious to me and I still keep cherishing them as Still our group meet once a year at different destinations. I started playing different games in my school time which helped me gain physical as well as mental strength. I have been College champion in
the games like Kho-Kho, Chess and Badminton.
Life during my childhood was simple. We were allotted Railway Quarters and we lived in Railway medical colony where I spent the majority of my childhood till I entered into professional life. Everyone in our colony lived peacefully and with the emotions of togetherness. I don’t remember my parents closing the doors of our house ever during the daytime. The most memorable time here was the festivities. Be it any festival of any religion -We all used to celebrate it together with a lot of participation and enthusiasm.
This helped me become a global citizen and we all respected the virtues of all the religions and ethnicity and a very important virtue which is - “Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam” was realised in the true sense. Talking about festivities - I still remember during the times of Diwali, it was my job to distribute sweets to the entire neighbourhood which were prepared by my mother.
I realised the value of money, negotiation and bargaining skills by a very practical
the lesson was given to me by my parents. It was my duty to buy vegetables and fruits for the family on a given budget. I have always taken any responsibility given to me with full serious intent and every time I used to walk miles to get the best vegetables for my family at lowest price possible. This is how I learned a very important lesson - “ You should not trade comfort with money.” I wanted to change this and there I made up my mind that one day, I will make sure that my family would never have to give up comfort for the money. The roots of hard work and struggles to grow and do something better in my life started from here.
It is not life - if it doesn’t feel like a roller coaster ride. And sticking true to the saying, my life had many turns and around. One of which was my decision to drop out of engineering college. Yes, My parents wanted me to become an engineer and as a dutiful son, I started working hard for the entrance and got into one of the best engineering colleges but my inner calling was to do something good for mankind. I never questioned the decision of my parents but the inner me was not allowing me to deviate from the path which I thought true for me and to the shock of everyone, 45 days after joining the engineering college, I left the course. It simply did not match the inner true calling of doing something good, something better and different than the set routine. This was the first independent decision that I had taken and As you can see now, I have done pretty well with myself for that decision.
The path to self-realization is always hard and filled with struggle, I remember that my parents stopped talking to me for 2-3 days for this decision of mine but I believed in my self and I convinced them also to believe in myself and the rest is the history because the fact that this is my own decision - gives me more power to honour it and bring it to a successful reality.
So, what did I do after leaving engineering?
I found something very interesting and something which was doing directly good to the people of society - The profession of Medicine. The profession of explaining the science of medicine to the doctors and the patients and bringing the latest advances of science which will save lives of billions to the market. Yes, the job of Medical Representative.
One day, during my visit to the doctor, I saw a doctor thanking a medical representative about how their medicine helped him save the ife of a really close patient of that doctor. I realised at that moment that the doctor diagnoses the condition but the depiction of medicine can be given by a medical representative. I was so fascinated by the science of the body and medicine that I decided to become a representative. It was one of the best jobs where
we get the satisfaction of saving lives and we also get the satisfaction of learning new things every day about medicines and the human body.
I joined Cadila Laboratories as a medical representative and who better can teach you about biology than doctors? I decided to meet them, develop relationships with them and learn from them. Trust me, if you have an honest desire of learning - you will never be denied the knowledge. Doctors were my customers but still, they never said no to teaching me.
Another important thing I learnt was the fact that communication is the key to success. As a person, I communicated very well and I talked with everyone. I tried to learn from everyone and that is how, I could gain the trust of everyone. I used to retrospect a lot about what I could have done better and how can I learn from my failure as well, how I can make sure that I would never repeat the same mistake again.
Instead of making this job a tool for earning, I made it a tool for learning. I learned a lot, I observed a lot. 70% of my learning came from observation. During my calls to doctor, I used to keenly observe what were the requirements of my clients. I always maintained eye contact and I maintained perfect body language as it is also a key element in approaching customers. I worked hard and smart with 100% dedication and that attitude of mine bore fruit as I started gaining good results for my company. I always approached consequences with humbleness and never let arrogance take the hold of my mind.
Amalgamation of all these good attributes created a the flower of success and my hard work and sweat started giving sweet smell - I started to be recognised as winner in all the competition of my organization and they called me - “ The Rajput of Cadila.”
The journey had just yet started and it was not going to be an easy bed of roses. But, the God has decided to double my strength and in the mid way of my life - I met the strength of my life - My wife, Ritu.
Ritu is the rightly entitled queen of the palace of my heart. I was lucky enough to meet her at one of my cousin’s wedding and it was love at first sight for me. She was and will always remain the queen of my heart and I will always love her until the last moment of my life. As a person, she brought a fresh air in my life. The speeding prince of roads who was always chasing targets, got a new direction and vision in my life. My wife brought out the best in me.
We always help each other but she has helped me more than I can ever imagine. I will always be in-debt to her because she is the one who took care of every aspect of my family life and in turn helped me to give my 24X7 to my profession. As I took on the duty of earning money, she took on even more important responsibility - Raising 2 beautiful children to be good and successful humans. We moved from Gorakhpur to Agra then to Lucknow as I started gaining ranks in same organisation Cadila. From Lucknow, I was transferred to Bangalore as I had been given
responsibility to handle the entire South, I was then again promoted to Mumbai and then from Mumbai, seeing my contribution to build business and team , I was chosen to handle big responsibilities - From Ahmedabad Head office itself.
In my organisation launched many brands, Multiple Divisions & converted them as block buster brands & arrow head divisions from acute to chronic therapy.
I was felicitated with many awards during my tenure of work at Cadila Pharma.
Believe me, If my wife would not have followed and supported me happily everywhere, if she would not have made every house home for me, I don’t think this journey would have been possible. I was busy satisfying my hunger of success, fulfilling the given responsibilities at various desired levels, through learning and achieving, but my wife, A real Annapoorna, was always there waiting for, sitting on the dining table, not eating anything until I come home and have food whenever I was in my HQ.
The most important factor started from the time I got married which was - Work life Balance. I can’t let my wife handle everything while I carelessly work late. I feel the most important thing in a person’s life is happiness. Happiness brings peace and peace brings gratitude, which helps a person to progress in life. I always tried the journey of my life happy for my wife, my children and for my parents.
My parents were my role model and I always wanted to be the same for my children. My wife has given her everything into raising them both to be the most compassionate and kind children I have ever seen. I have seen them behaving mature at the age when they should be behaving like a child and along with their IQ, we both as parents, have contributed into their EQ also. Today, proudly I can say that we both are blessed parents of successful and kind children.
There are some important learning from my life which I would like you all to think on are
For Professional Growth -
The Attitude of the person should be positive
The person should be ready to learn and should be a dedicated and determined person
One should be accountable with good collaborative approach
One should be an effective communicator and one should work towards customer delight both within the organization as well as beyond the organization
There should be no procrastination and if the change is required, the same
should be implemented immediately.
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Keep updating as Knowledge is an Asset
While keeping the instinct of Learning, I completed my MBA, Marketing & Executive
Leadership Development Program from IIM, Ahmedabad.
Also did 24 certification courses from all leading International Universities across the world like Leeds University, London, University of Michigan, (University of Queen's land, Deakin University, CK University) Australia, College of Law, Samsung & Accenture on the various subject including Massachusetts Medical Society & Harvard Medical School USA. Completed “Train the Trainer –Level 3 & Advance Level 3” from Learning without walls apart from completing Diploma in NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) from American Board of NLP
Also completed my Certification in School Management and Leadership (CSML) from Harvard Business School, Boston
Completed Diploma in Project Management on Leadership & Team Development, Change Management & Risk Management from International Business Management Institute, Berlin,
Germany
This year I became the Member of Leaders Excellence at Harvard Square MLE℠
During the time of COVID, as the leader of my company and my team I ensured that every team member understands their responsibility towards customers, Organisation as well towards their families. The medicines are vital for mankind’s survival and thus, we have to be on the front line and here, I saw my dream - my dream of helping people calling me again in a literal sense.
We never wasted a moment, we started physical, worked side by side with doctors and healthcare workers. We made sure that even darkest corner of the country should be equipped with the life saving drugs of our company. We educated the employees and their families about Covid-19 and the steps to be taken to prevent it. With God’s grace, most of our employees were safe while working.
While this invisible threat was there, I took the opportunity to learn new things and contribute more to society. I delivered many lectures and many talks virtually to many students in many universities apart from multiple forums at various levels from Professionals to Home makers to Educators across the Globe.
I was honoured with 3 honorary doctorates for my services to the business and literature. I have become a board member of various institutes and chairperson of various universities. I have been made secretary and member of various international institutions and multinational firms. I have become an ambassador of various global initiatives.
The journey of my life is filled with learning and turning challenges into opportunities continues and looking back at the journey, I feel that it is just has started. Life goes on and on and the journey of learning and the journey of contributing to others life continues with Humility, Humanity filled with Compassion that too without compromising the prime responsibility of my organisation Cadila.
if you want to interact with me on LinkedIn, here's the link
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pkrajput99