A few weeks ago, Rajneesh Jain messaged me that he had authored a book and would like me to read it. I was sceptical. I had imagined that Jain, being a hard-nosed chief financial officer (CFO), would have written a book on finance and best practices around the same time. What else would a CFO write about? Would I be able to read such a book? The book was titled Quiet Excellence, and I still felt it would be about finance practices.
As I got to know a little more about the book, I got myself a copy, and not being a regular reader of books, it took me several days to start reading it. I would carry it with me on my travels, but there were always some other pressing tasks. Recently, I was grounded and had to be at home on a working day. After clearing all my work-related tasks, I reluctantly picked up the book and, before realising it, the book had consumed me – I had read eight chapters at a stretch.
This book is not about finance. It is about you, me and all of us. It is about our beliefs, our daily practices, our every-minute conduct – latent habits and intentional habits. There were several learnings in his book, several of which some of us are aware, several that we practise and several that we have lived and subconsciously forgotten to follow. For me, this book served as a reminder of some of the practices that I had unintentionally forgotten and several that I learned from this book.
Jain, whom I had imagined was an out-and-out numbers person, through his learnings, experiences and some of our scriptures, has beautifully explained the meaning of life and how all of us can be better human beings. We all go through these experiences, but only a few of us are sensitive enough to draw out the larger meaning of what some of us would term small incidents. This CFO certainly has a great understanding of life and the ability to relate to what most of us would ignore without giving it a second thought.
All the chapters in this book are good. Having said that, being an animal lover, my favourite one is “The Puppy Who Taught Me About Anger Management”. It is about how a situation that occurred in an office finally unfolded with a little puppy. Well, all of us know how anger is contagious and can flow, but this little chapter that he shared certainly reminds me again why not to transfer my own negative situations onto others.
Whilst I would be happy to share more from his chapters, I would not like to steal the thunder from the rest of the 51 learnings shared in this book. The good part of this book is that each chapter is disconnected from the others and the book can therefore be read in bits and pieces. It has also been well authored and edited, which makes it exciting to read, considering each chapter has been summed up in a couple of pages, ensuring the message is delivered directly and quickly.
The book is titled Quiet Excellence – 52 Reflections of Work, Faith & What Truly Matters. I will be keeping it by my side to keep looking at it whenever I can. And I will also have to protect it from a couple of my colleagues who have read it for less than five minutes and wanted me to lend it to them. |
