Going Beyond Fear....By Parantha Narendran.

[Guest guest]

1.8.2007 h-h Going Beyond Fear ...By Parantha Narender. From a spiritual point of view, the approach towards all individuals should be one without fear – I should be able to love and appreciate all people regardless of their capability or attitudes. - Parantha Narendran as Director of Strategy at Eurotel Telecom, Czech Republic Parantha Narendran was Director of Strategy at Eurotel Telecom in Prague in the Czech Republic, and 34 years old when we met him. Eurotel is the highly profitable and largest mobile telephone operator in the Czech Republic. In spite of his young age, Parantha Narendran had already considerable international experience; he was born and raised in Sri Lanka, educated in Holland and the UK, received spiritual inspiration in India, and worked in several parts of Europe. Prior to his top leadership position in the Czech Republic, due to his high ethical principles he had left a hi-tech consulting company and then co-founded

Boon Consulting in London. There he had raised $40 million for a start-up company to be based on his own patented technology for improving the performance of the Internet when the ‘IT bubble’ was punctured and the market crashed in the beginning of this century. This brought an abrupt end to his plans of collecting the final $20 million that was necessary to establish the start-up and led him, after a period as consultant in the UK, to accept his top management position in Eurotel in early 2002. “The first time I went to India I visited an ashram and met the spiritual teacher Sathya Sai Baba. For the entire time I spent at the ashram, it was as if I could see the whole inter-connectedness of life, and I was aware of everything as I moved through my daily routine. It was effortless. I was aware of people’s thoughts and ideas. I was aware of everything going on in the background. I had no stress or anxiety. I just had awareness and contentment. I was changed

quite a lot by that encounter by the time I came back to London. “I think the world needs spiritual-based leaders. I don’t openly talk with people about my spirituality, but I think they respect me as someone who is ethical, someone they can trust, and someone who works hard in a selfless way. I don’t have to talk about it. I just live it and people appreciate it, partly because in companies there are always political camps and I am seen as a neutral. Often when I talk, I do not say that this is the right thing to do. I will say, ‘It is in Eurotel’s best interest if we do this or do that.’ I think this helps me, and people respect this.” Parantha Narendran shared how being a leader helps him to grow spiritually: “I used to meditate as a child of about 10 or 11 and continued to do this until I was 16. After that I studied a lot of books dealing with spiritual matters. Recently I have felt that I don’t really need to do all of that; I just need to

be open to myself. I’ve learned a lot about my spirituality and myself in the commercial world by having to make hard decisions. In these everyday challenges that I come across, I find that I grow and learn much more than if I were to read about spirituality or meditate. “If I think of how spirituality affects me at work, it would be that spirituality challenges me and makes me grow. For me, spirituality is how you live your life. When you view your life as spiritual, you do start to make certain choices. For example, I choose to be a vegetarian because I respect life. I am aware of violence when it appears in my thoughts, words, and deeds and I try to control that. There are certain positive values that I have accepted, and I try to be aware of all of those values in everything that I do. “I’ve learned a lot about my spirituality and myself in the commercial world by having to make hard decisions. I feel I have been forced to

become a leader, something I had always wanted to avoid in my life. In these everyday challenges that I come across, I find that I grow and learn much more than if I were to read about spirituality or meditate.” Parantha Narendran not only reflected on responsibilities and success at work. He told us “I would say that success in my life would be learning to conquer my fears,” adding that what he seeks is “awareness and contentment.” “When I do not have an active ego, I am able to help get things done far more effectively. Essentially, it is like a game, and I am actually benefiting the most from the whole exercise. If my ego is active, then I tend to think, ‘I can’t do this and I can’t do that’ - a bit like when I was trying to raise money and didn’t have faith in myself. In that case I was forced into a position where I had to do what I thought I couldn’t do. I had to make something happen for the benefit of everybody. I had no time to step back

and say, ‘I can’t do this’ because my ego was afraid of failure. I just had to get it done. And I’ve done this and realized that I was a lot more capable than I gave myself credit for. “I want others to learn the same thing. So I try to pass these lessons about ego and fear on to others when I speak to them. And I do this in a straightforward, down to earth manner. I look to see why they are motivated to achieve the goals they are speaking about and what inhibits them in achieving their goals - it makes them think more about their life. “Now that I am in this company as a leader and not as a consultant, a principle I have, is to try to help the people I work with to achieve their best potential. This is an area where I think that spirituality and the objectives of an organization happily coincide. I think that when a leader believes in empowering individuals, he has the best interests of the company at heart, and can use the empowerment as

a vehicle to this end. Having the individual realize his potentials along with the spiritual aspects, and having the organization develop itself at the same time, are my primary and secondary goals.” Today Parantha Narendran has left Eurotel; he is involved in private equity investments in a number of European markets as well as an investor and shareholder in several new mobile operators in the central European market. Although he now works all over Europe in the telecom sector, he still maintains his base in Prague. The next spiritual-based leader you will meet demonstrates that even leaders in the world of finance, where the typical mantra is that ‘the business of business is business’, can find strength and deeper meaning in life and work by leading from a spiritual basis. Rajan Govindan relates how

visionary leaders “can integrate their analytical mind with their heart where the spirit resides … the spiritual heart that enables us to make decisions that we will never be sorry about.” Ram ChuganiKobe, Japanrgcjp

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