Tribute to Teachers

Everyone has a favourite teacher. A teacher who teaches you more than the defined school work. A teacher who believes in you more than you believe yourself. And someone who just makes a better person out of you without you even realising that. And there will be a teacher you will always be grateful about. Everyone will have a different way to express their gratitude. Few show their gratitude by giving presents, few by spending time with the teachers even after passing out of school/college and some, like Mitch, will write a book about their beloved teacher. There are two books about teachers which celebrate them as teachers and their teachings. Tuesdays with Morrie and The Last Lecture. There was something so positive and captivating in these books, I wanted to share these books with all of you.

Tuesdays with Morrie

Morrie Schwartz was a much loved teacher by all this students. He was someone who lived each day to the fullest, loved whatever he did and was totally content and happy with his life. Till the day a life threatening disease struck him. He knew his days were numbered and his mobility would be challenged. This wasn’t an easy thing to take for the otherwise active and lively person. When one of his old students came to know of his ill-health, he just thought of giving his favourite teacher a visit. One visit turned into several life changing visits for him. Little did he know that his teacher would be teaching him, will be giving life lessons right up till the moment he breathes his last.

The Last Lecture.

This is about another popular and loved teacher, Randy Pausch, who had a little time in his hands. But he chose to live the last few months living a king sized life rather than wallowing in self-pity. In Carnegie Mellon, where he taught, there was a custom of every retiring teacher to give one last lecture to all his students. What they shared in their last lecture varied from teacher to teacher. Randy gave his last lecture in front of hundreds of students and staff. He chose to speak about his life, from his childhood to that day when he was speaking on the lecture. What he shared is thought provoking, inspiring, and humorous and the experiences as a teacher who was learning something new form his colleagues and students as he was imparting to his them. The examples and experiences shared are heart warming, and for sure there will be something each of us will like to adopt or pass on to others.  

These books are nothing but a collection of moments between a teacher and his student(s). A few might find the books to be preachy with all the life lessons shared but it’s nonetheless a sweet tribute by a student to his teacher (Tuesdays with Morrie) and another being the desire of a  teacher to impart everything to his students in his last moment as an official teacher. I read these books twice. Whenever I had my moments of self-doubts, I read them. It was again like my teachers shouting a few encouraging words and giving a hand to pick me up again, just like my school days. The last lines in both the books gave me goose bumps and I was drawn back to the days I shared with my favourite teacher. Both these awe-inspiring books will do that to you. I’m sure that you will find these books a little comforting whenever you are feeling low, just how a favourite teacher does. Overlook the ‘preachy’ part and you will surely like what you read.

 Reading these will seal the fact that teachers will ALWAYS want to give something to their students, unknowingly too. Guess they are just made that way. All they know is that want teach and they do it till the time they can, being on the job or retired doesn’t matter. Once a teacher, always a teacher.  You will be reminded of your favourite teacher and will definitely think about them and thank them. I’m sure that you will start thinking of the ways to tell him/her a great big Thank You for making a change in your life. It’s never too late to say Thank You to them. Write a book on them or dedicate something to them, it’s your pick. As for me, I dedicate this blogpost to them.

Thank you ma’am. Thank You sir. I’ll always always always be grateful for what you taught me. J

P.S : If you are feeling too lazy to reach these books, watch the video of the The Last Lecture. It’s really worth it. Tuesdays with Morrie also came out as TV series. Do watch and let me know how they are.

Maverick -- Ricardo Semler

“If you know how to respond to official mails/calls during the weekend, you should also know how to watch a movie during the working hours”. – Ricardo Semler

‘Crazy’ is the word you’ll utter repeatedly when you’ll sift through the pages. And the second word would be ‘cool’. The impression this book would leave on anyone would be for a lifetime.  It’s almost like a fairy tale, which would start like, “Once upon a time, there lived a crazy man who changed all the rules...and which definitely has an ending like ‘happily ever after, or happily successful” or something on those lines.

Ricardo Semler was just in his 20s when he joined his father’s business. And since he joined, he turned his work place into something that even the no one would have ever dreamt of in the wildest of dreams. He made Semco the most unusual workplace ever. To get that tag, he challenged the age-old rules, did all unimaginable things possible, which, in a way enraged and delighted  the employees. The day he took charge of the place, he fired 60% of all the top managers. This baffled everyone as they were the ones who called most of the shots and firing them meant that they were literally on their own now. Everyone immediately doubted his capabilities and abilities. Well, little did everyone know that, that it was just the start of an unexpected and thrilling ride. Slowly but surely, the working environment and rules of the company went through major dramatic changes. The very people who initially doubted him, fell in love with his unique ideas and supported and helped him to make Semco a very successful business. After he took over, he took the company to dizzying heights and made it into a money churning place.

When Ricardo was diagnosed with acute stress and given an ultimatum by the doctors, he knew he had to make a drastic change in his lifestyle. Instead of bringing a change in his personal life like most do, he brought the much needed changes in his workplace, where most of his time was spent. Result was a stress-free, fun, employee friendly environment and a much relaxed, healthier Ricardo and happier employees. He wiped the rule slate clean and re-wrote the rules which seemed like the procedure of a whacky experiment. He removed the hierarchical system that is prevalent in all the companies and introduced a more employee friendly circular system, he broke down all the walls of the company, in literal sense too, he left it to the employees working in the production how they want to produce and did not burden them with unrealistic numbers, and rest I guess I should leave it for the readers to find out. My personal favourites were how the employees could choose a different work station and suitable work timings every single day! The best being, when a new person came in to join, there was no management who recruited them. Instead, the very team who was supposed to work with him/her are the ones who interview him and select him, irrespective of the post the new person was applying to. If he wanted to join as the manager, his subordinates were the ones to evaluate. I mean, how cool is that! Imagine having the power in your hands to select or reject your supervisor :D. Even an unproductive boss could be fired by his subordinates. (Yes, you can stop dreaming now. It’s not gonna happen with lesser  mortals like us). There are many such amazing surprises this company has in store which will undoubtedly delight the readers.

You might think that it really takes a lot of guts to give most of the power to the employees instead of managing them, which is the usual norm. Or you might think he was too uncertain or a coward to raise hands and shove all the responsibility to others and just view the entire show as a mute spectator. Well, whatever your initial thoughts about him are, you’ll end up bowing down to him or worship him. Alright, I’m being a tad dramatic here but I’m sure he’ll join your list of ‘People who inspire me or People I want to meet’ (I definitely want to meet him..if anyone reading this knows him personally, who know how to make me happy  :-D ). I don’t know how many of you would try those techniques in your own companies but I’m sure everyone of you will that moment of ‘I so wish I could work there’ or ‘why isn’t my company this cool’. To be honest, I had that moment and it lasted for, well, I think I’m still in that moment. 


This crazy man inspires, amazes and baffles me. He’ll rub off his crazy charm on you too. Go ahead, pick up this book about an awesome company, lead by a cool man, with unbelievable rules that somehow work! This book will make you gasp, marvel, wonder and dream. Enjoy...