What are great men made of?

Ever wonder who great men are? Well start from fictional characters viz a viz Spidey, Superman, Batman yada yada were never claimed to be "great" men. They were rescuing and saving the men in distress alright but still men did not classify these fictional characters great. Now lets shift focus to sports person for instance, we don't call them all great either. We call them amazing or awesome people mainly because of the talent and media attention. And many more people in several fields of excellence ain't so easily called "great". So who are these great men then? When can a person be called a great person rather who calls the shots in naming a mortal great?

To answer that question, great men are you and me. No it ain't a joke. Great men are us all and when we know how to respect human beings and when we don't let the success start ruling us. It might sound a bit vague and for starters a bit of a sarcastic joke. Fact is we can all be great men if we keep all our feet really stuck hard in the ground and yet savor the condition of being an achiever.

I will give a live instance of two set of people that would sum up the content I am trying to advocate. I chanced upon a Senior Manager Sekar who works for Merrill Lynch. What a guy? He has worked almost every other part of the world. Extremely result oriented and fantastic person. I think these guys have nothing to prove anymore to anyone, given their experience with success. Imagine a condition when you are the only one Indian in the entire American operation who holds a senior management position. Fantastic. The reason why a senior manager position is sorta an apple to the eye primarily when abroad is because unlike in Developing environment, for example India, you don't get to move on to a higher position in short frame like 2 years or meeting a budget of 10-15 million! This gentleman has about 30 years of experience and when you meet him for the first time you could see the nice warm smile that does take a common by surprise. The gentlemen has a ear for what you say and never tries to ridicule the achievement that you claim is your success. This is one type of a person. Now to another one and I would not name the person for obvious reason. The guy has about 12 years of experience works in a service industry and nothing significant about him indeed primarily because he treats people with scant respect. I remember a day about 4 years ago , when we were executing a very difficult project, a guy about 6 years experience answered his question with a degree of skepticism and the guy goes ballistic. In front of everyone. Unparliamentary words. Fresh associates out of colleges stood watching the verbal abuse and I just don't want to imagine and think about the guy who got a good bit of his mind. Now he holds the position and has the money to back it. But I don't think he is quite respected at heart by his peers. Heck ! I don't think he even cares about it.

You can now know where I am coming to.

I think with greater position comes greater responsibility and one of the most important thing being the people management and knowing where you were from. The great minds in several fields of accomplishment are not the ones who had no control on their actions. Rather it is the set of people who primarily knew what "Human Beings" around them were. The people who know how to respect fellow human beings are definitely are on the path of not only success but also are on the threshold of becoming great men. This according to me is the only thing that we have to do should we have to be successful in life in true sense. We all have had moments for being sarcastic when it comes to admonishing fellow humans. Atleast I did many years back. I accept it I was brash but heck who has not done that. Now is the time we shake the qualities out of us and become sane at heart. That is the only small step that would differentiate a successful person from a great and successful person. Who you want to be your prerogative. Hey, it is a free world indeed :-)

Until then.