I held a corporate job for some years. Those years represent important chapters of my life that I am grateful for. Working in key offices allowed me to function in various roles and capacities, all of which added to my wealth of experience, posture and outlook.

Another integral part of those times were the people I was fortunate to meet. Prior to those years, I had met with loads of people from really diverse backgrounds – culture, religious affiliations, philosophies and more. It was however unique to be part of a somewhat closed community of people with near common goals and organisational objectives. It was almost impossible not to be warmly involved with my colleagues. They quickly became family – for most part.

I would want to strongly believe that I gave every task my absolute best and worked within the ethics of my profession. I recall this one assignment that was no exception. I thoroughly examined the project and gave my honest feedback and recommendation on the proposed course of action. A tussle ensued and it left a sore taste as relationships were negatively affected by this. I remember being very angry and wondering why I would have a senior colleague that I frankly could not learn from. It was so painful that I had repeatedly tried to pick the brains of this colleague and sought to be educated on anything at all. There appeared to be absolutely nothing worth learning – professionally and otherwise.

And then it hit me! Of course, I was approaching this the wrong way. Perhaps there was nothing neither progressive nor helpful about my relationship with this person, but there was a whole lot of learning that had occurred on how not to be narrow-minded, overly critical and out-rightly nasty. Wow! Funny what you can pick up on if you just open your eyes and better still your mind. Talk about a great lesson from a really bad experience.