Musings post FastTrack: Aditi Jain’s takeaways on leading a balanced life

It has been more than a week since FastTrack concluded in Malaysia. I’ve had so much to say ever since, yet for the longest time I have had no remote idea on how to articulate what I experienced. In fact, when someone still asks me what the big deal is all about, my eyes widen and I grin and I fumble. I also think of the many ways I can explain and still not get it right. Here’s an attempt, and I have consciously tried to not intellectualise the subject, like we’re always prone to do.

FastTrack is not a textbook leadership training and it doesn’t tell you how to be an amazing boss or how to speed up your trajectory in your organisation. What it is also not is an advisory on the dos and don’ts of marketing, communications and advertising.

It was just three days of heart – laughter, cries, some reason and lots of unreason – all the highs and lows that one typically runs away from in the name of leading a balanced life.

Imagine living in an isolated bubble.

Imagine a life where indifference doesn’t make for balance.

On the opening day, we were 26 people in the room – from India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Malaysia, Taiwan – all of us waiting to find out why we were there. We didn’t know each other’s companies, achievements, likes or dislikes, religious faiths, left-right orientation, etc. We had no back stories to arrive at striking pen portraits of each other.

The typical defense mechanisms of functioning in a real world were missing, but they just weren’t needed.

Imagine not judging people for where they come from.

We spoke very little about our professional lives, but ironically everything we spoke about has an impact on our professional lives in a massive, massive manner and we just don’t realise it. The kind of stuff that takes several graceless actions and reactions, words, missed deadlines and years of regret to arrive at.

Imagine saying everything you have wanted to say, without the fear of being shot down.

Imagine putting forth your differing point of view with all the grace that you have.

Imagine listening closely to spoken-unspoken words, movements, twinkling eyes and folded arms.

During the course of the three days, I was reminded of how my busy life ensures I’m on autopilot more often than not. And when that happens, I’m not the one making decisions, it’s my alter-ego, who has no practical experience of living a life.

Imagine not using your beliefs as a scapegoat while taking decisions.

Imagine not feeling like a victim every time you’re given a task you don’t want to do.

Imagine being acknowledged for your efforts. Imagine acknowledging someone’s efforts.

This is all I am imagining and consciously trying to inculcate in the way I live and hence, work.

Thank you FastTrack for giving me the opportunity to meet some wonderful, fearless people who live and breathe with their whole heart. Thank you, Mr Bharat Avalani and trainers, Janet and Shahnaz, for helping me meet myself halfway.

(Aditi Jain is Brand Strategist at Leo Burnett. She was among six young professionals selected to attend the Asian Federation of Advertising Association’s Fast Track programme in Malaysia this year.)