The Nursery of Stars

SEALA 1, DAY 10

It is a tremendous honor to welcome Anu Aga (Chairperson, Teach for India) as our guest speaker this morning. After leading the engineering giant Thermax for eight years, she retired and took to social work. Her fortitude in overcoming obstacles in her personal life, in parallel to her professional determination to live a life that was not only successful but hugely significant, has the audience lost in awe.

Parth Amin thanks Ms Aga on behalf of everyone in the room for a lesson in leadership that was both inspiring and humbling.

It is a certain somebody's birthday today! Happy Birthday Tasneem! (Actually her birthday is tomorrow, but her SEALA brothers and sisters were so excited that, frankly, we couldn't wait.)

Caffeine reinforcement as we head into our final sessions.

Anand looks beyond the workshop to consider the power of the network that has been created in the last ten days. The power and reach of SEALA are multiplied by its affiliation with the Society of International Business Fellows (SIBF) and its sister organizations in Central Eurasia (CELA) and the Middle East (MELA). 

Underscoring the fact that the SEALA members are the founding partners and owners of the organization, the class elects two representatives to serve as plenipotentiary members of the SEALA Board of Directors.

Newly-elected Board Member Rahul Krishnarao receives the congratulations of his peers.

The second, honored Board Member is Shamama Arbab.

Sadaf takes the floor with a poem to set the tone for the rest of the afternoon:

Let the emotional fences down,

The world is ready for you to embrace.

Open up and let the sunshine in,

Move on, and keep up the pace –

A thousand different lives,

A thousand different suns

Feel nothing but joy and gratitude.

Touch lives and more will come.

Millions of years compressed into a mere ten days, as the suns of SEALA emerge to form a new and glittering constellation in the sky.

Could it be only ten days ago that we met as darkling strangers, searching through the lonely vastnesses for others like ourselves, with whom to share our purpose and our dreams?

A thousand different lives, a thousand different suns... The right group of leadership peers could incubate a galaxy.

SEALA, the Nursery of Stars.

(see SEALA 1, Day 8)



Participants receive a certificate of completion of the SEALA Academy, and are officially inducted into the network as SEALA members.

Raj is The King.

Navneet all spruce and spiffy for the induction ceremony.

All eyes are drawn to Tanu's glow and charisma.

Su poses with her certificate, flanked by her pretorian guards Anand and Parth.

Izam tries to halt the flood of compliments about him shouted out by the audience. In vain.

Ravi's personal magnetism fills the room.

Anil shows off his trademark move, one last time, by popular demand.

Adeel, the man behind the (radio) voice. What a voice, what a man.

Tuxedo-clad fashion icon Shadab brought illumination and color to all the sessions and conversations.

Alok shows the way forward.

Meekay... he leaves SEALA with a new name, and his own tribe ("Meekay's Tribe").

Prashanth proved an inspirational leader to the whole group, and a true gentleman.

The facilitators stand up to receive wholehearted thanks for pouring every drop of themselves into the program, body and soul.

The room rises to its feet to pay tribute to the presiding genius and motivating spirit behind the creation of SEALA.

Anand Sharma and his muse Anu.

Breakout Group 1 photoshoot: the Tribal Stars (a.k.a. Meekay's Tribe) perform the totemic hand gesture. 

Breakout Group 2 exhibits the SEALA spirit. 

Breakout Group 3 radiates confidence and well-being.

Breakout Group 4 members count on their fingers.

Breakout Group 5 members show off their opposable thumbs.

Another totemic gesture. SEALA staff members Tim, Serena and Amy demonstrate one of the many reasons why they were invaluable to the clockwork functioning and brilliant success of the inaugural SEALA Academy.

WE SALUTE THE STARS OF SEALA 1!

A Leadership Collage

SEALA 1, DAY 9

At their morning meeting the facilitators have sought to put into words SEALA's special and heady atmosphere, and to describe the role they have aspired to play in shaping that atmosphere during the last nine days. 

The credo they have drafted deserves to be shared: part mission statement, part testimony to the unique chemistry of the program, that makes us feel like we're breathing pure oxygen...

Andrea guides the group through an exercise in which they imagine their future aspirations, then work back in time to craft a realistic path towards achieving those goals.

Images in old magazines stimulate ideas and ambitions, refresh memories and intentions.

Combining them in a personally meaningful collage is a powerful, pictorial way of bringing one's life trajectory into focus.

Such a torrent of images can flood even Anthony's capacious brain: how to prioritize, how to choose?

Different people....













...have different interests.

          

            

(Some people have different interests, but identical shirts.)

But what is a collage, if not an assemblage of different forms to create a single artistic whole? And according to that definition, what is SEALA, if not a collage?

Sajjan and Asha Agarwal are welcome guests at SEALA.

A few moments of levity in the ballroom, to clear the air for a final, emotionally crunching exercise of clarity and insight. The closing session of the day is rooted in gratitude to our peers for the leadership lessons we have shared at SEALA, and an ongoing personal commitment to live in integrity.

But to friends who have not gone through the wringer and lived the intense SEALA experience, these things are hard to share or explain; so in a public blog of this nature, we discreetly draw a curtain over this session. 

Beachside lunch and afternoon excursion to Pancha Rathas ("Five Chariots") monument complex, Mahabalipuram. The temples portray events described in the ancient Indian epic, the Mahabharata.

Five chariots – thirteen charioteers.

Our SEALA heroes gather in preparation for their own grand epic.