C4E’s Mahabharata and our Shot at Glory
The lore has it that the Pandavas spent 13 years in exile. And while on the looks of it, it seems they were merely in exile, they were doing what everyone in exile must do – survive. And prepare for the war. Which is always impending. You just don’t know when. Especially when you are in exile. Often in hostile territory. At a time when you expect it the least.
While the tales of their tumultuous time in exile have been written in glorious detail, I look at it differently. For me, they always knew that there was an incoming war. And they worked backwards. They knew the war had to be fought and thus there were weapons to be gathered, practice to be done, and allies to be made.
Which they did. And which probably altered the course of the future.
At C4E, we’re like the Pandavas.
We know there is an impending war that we would have to fight, whether we like it or not. And we don’t know when that would strike us. And we don’t know who’d be the adversary. It could very well be the next COVID-19-like event. Or it could be our lethargy. Or even boredom! Heck, it could even be an opportunity to work on a big client that is out of our league. Or a challenge that we throw at ourselves that makes us wade into the deep end without any preparation.
So, at C4E, each action of ours is an attempt to work towards the impending war. To prepare for it.
And how so?
Well, we at C4E started by imagining a world where each person is engaged in meaningful work, gets paid enough to live a dream life and contributes to others around them.
To do this, each person at C4E had to be superhuman, even God-like. And truth be told, none of us is. So, we worked hard and discovered each other. People that could help all of us, the collective, walk towards the goal. We put in place the ethos and culture with which we wish to live. We articulated the vision of the world where we want to live in. We mandated that each person that signs on for the mission is in alignment. We started building the team one person at a time. We considered each person as a weapon. Each with its own superpower. And most importantly, each is a part of the team.
Each person at The C4E collective comes with a skill complementary to that of others. Each has a dream of their own, and the will to be a shoulder that others can stand on. We are bound by faith. In self. In each other. And on the path, we’re on.
No, we still don’t know the battle that we need to use our collective might in. But we do know that it’s just around the corner, if not upon us already.
When that battle does start, we hope that in the best-case scenario, we’d fight the war and get to glory. In the worst case, however, we’d end up as winners in our individual capacity.
Coming back to 2022-23, when I am writing this, I think this is a mighty and may I dare say, an unfair advantage for us. This always-in-fight-mode allows us to prepare.
Yes, from the outside, we may look like a bunch of people running helter-skelter but we’d like to be delusional and argue that we are not lost. We are proactively looking for a war where we could throw our hat in. This could be project X, a big client, an event, a startup, pivoting to another industry, or just about anything you can think of.
As I end this, I’d say, we don’t know what our battlefield is. But we know there is one. And we are gathering everything we’d need for when all hell breaks loose. After all, when that happens, it would be our call for glory. Our invite to the largest adventure of our lives!
And if you are reading this, the question for you is, do you want to be a part of the ride?
Thanks for reading this
Saurabh, on behalf of Team C4E.