Your success is built into each step you take. The better you are prepared, the greater the success. To be successful, you must grow as the job grows for you. A classic example of this is our Indian Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi. He has become a top world leader because not only does he grow with the job, but he is ahead of his job’s growth.
To assist our young and not-so-young readers in their quest for a successful job, we want to provide a helpful series of articles. These would be written for the readers to increase their opportunities for obtaining jobs and help their subsequent career development.
For this endeavour, I have invited Mr Jay Gohel, a senior banker, to share his experiences and successes with you.
He says that to climb the Managerial ladder, he followed one principle. "Success is built into each step you take". He further says, if you keenly observe, you will find that PM Narendra Modi's successes are built on each step he takes. Each step is so well prepared that there is no better step available! Other world leaders have noticed this and they respect him for it.
Since school days, Jay Gohel's successes – big and small - were built in each step he took from the age of nine to the time he reached retirement age. Though he has not retired, he is always working on something or the other.
His successes started at the age of nine, when he was made a prefect of the Junior wing of his private boarding school, Rajkumar College, Rajkot (Gujarat, India). Subsequently, at the age eleven he became the Head Boy for this wing of 110 boys.
He says he received the Head Boy’s assignment because he ensured he was an effective prefect. In 1960, his parents moved to London. He joined Orange Hill Grammar School, Edgware,Greater London. For his last three years at school, he was appointed a prefect and proved to be effective, even though the students were not fully accustomed to taking instructions from a foreign prefect.
Jay’s past experiences of managing school children at Rajkumar College provided him with built-in confidence. The previous successful step helped him with the subsequent one. Similarly, successfully managing a department at a Bank made him capable of managing a branch of another.
He studied Higher National Diploma in Business Studies at what is now known as South Bank University and he later studied Chartered Institute of Bankers Course at what is now known as City University at Angel and at Moorgate, London EC2.
His career in banking began in 1967 in the Organisations and Methods Department of Lloyds Bank International. He was the first Indian to join the bank and perhaps the first Indian in the Lloyds Bank group UK. Subsequently, within two years of moving to the Central Bank of India, London EC2, he was appointed as the Head of department. The successful learning he derived at Lloyds helped him in his career with the Central Bank of India. All worthwhile experiences are vital steps in personal development, sometimes even a failure at something teaches you what to do better. We must not give up because of a failure; we should double our efforts to catch up.
Each correct step has a cumulative effect on the next. Soon, Jay was ready to be a Branch Manager. The BCCI gave him a branch. Later, he was appointed as the Bank’s Country Representative for Morocco and Tunisia and was based in Rabat, Morocco. When he returned from Morocco, he decided to stay in the UK. He joined Nationwide Building Society as a Lending Control Manager for the North West London area with fourteen branches. He achieved his targets and had twenty-four years of successful and enjoyable career with them.
The collection of above assignments made him aware that success is built into each correct step you take. But the correct steps need to be combined with self-motivation and willingness to be adaptable to the local environment to create self-acceptability by the people around you. Such efforts will open doors for you to unlimited opportunities.
It is up to you how big you want to make your successes to fit in with your goals and circumstances. The playing field is infinite. Achievements vary from making money to achieving successes in careers, sports, politics, and social life.
Jay further adds that to seal the successes from above efforts you must take each correct step with honesty to yourself and others. If you do this and believe in yourself, nothing can stop you from success!
If you are not good at self-motivation, adaptability, and acceptability, you can learn them by repeated practice until it becomes a successful habit. For instance, at the age of thirteen, Jay won the Target shooting championship at the Indian private boarding schools' NCC camp at Khadakwasla, near Poona. What helped him most to achieve this was repeated practice. Not only did he practice regularly at the school’s rifle range, but he also practised at home during school holidays. He did not have the target cards at home, so he used empty cigarettes and match boxes! But he practiced.
In his forthcoming articles, Jay will share the steps to achieving success that he has learned and believes in, explaining how all this, and much more, can be accomplished.
He feels that to help others and to give back to society what one has learnt is what his late father, Sir Jayvantsinh Gohel and his late mother, Lady Gohel, would have expected of him. He and I are confident that you will find the articles useful and enjoyable.
Sir Jayvantsinh Gohel CBE, was the first Indian to receive knighthood in the United Kingdom. He is perhaps the only Briton to receive two honours. First CBE, then two years later, the Knighthood. One generally receives one honour in a lifetime.
Many of us already know about Sir Jay but not the younger generation. I feel it is important that the younger generation should be made aware of such achievements because in the 1960s and 70s even though migrants were less accepted into British society, some of us, like the late Sir Jay forged ahead.
Mr Jayvantsinh Gohel is the full name of Sir Jay. In the 1930s, he studied Law at the famous Inn of Court called the Middle Temple overlooking the river Thames. He qualified as a Barrister at Law and, upon returning to India, was appointed Diwan of the Princely State of Morvi during the British Empire.
After independence, he was selected as an IAS Officer and appointed as Collector for Jamnagar District, and subsequently as Collector of Sabar Kantha District, Gujarat. He was also selected to represent India when the United Nations appointed India as Chairman of the Peacekeeping Mission during the War in Indo-China during the early 1950s. Russia and Canada were the other members of the Mission. Later, in the 1960, he again arrived in the UK and was appointed to the Board of Directors of the well-known Meghraj Group, which included the Meghraj Bank.
His wife Lady Gohel, during all the social functions which she attended with Sir Jay, became very popular in the Asian community and with the top circle of the Conservative Party. She became popular with the English even though she spoke very little English is surprising! Perhaps, even unbelievable, is it not?
That is called charm. This leads to a presumption that body language goes a long way! What she could not express by words, she explained it by charming behaviour. Whatever she did, she managed it well because she achieved a key to success. The success of gaining acceptability. The acceptability she created went a long way. This was endorsed by the fact that the Prime Minister at the time, Mrs Thatcher continued to send Christmas cards to Lady Gohel even after the demise of Sir Jay.