Parminder Singh, former Managing Director of Google and Twitter, recently took to X, to share an incident of his time as a Sales Manager at Apple. Mr Singh stated that the stint taught him a valuable life lesson that has stayed with him ever since.
In a long post on the microblogging site, Mr Singh said that although he was "incredibly proud" of working at Apple, a little bit of embarrassment also came in with the job. But this changed when he met Shunu Sen, who was then the Marketing Director for Unilever India and later the CEO of the marketing consultancy firm, Quadra Advisory. He said in the post, "Let me first explain the embarrassment. Representing Apple opened access to CEOs, movie stars, top politicians, the who's who! I proudly interacted with them, but was secretly apprehensive that they might want to visit my office. Because I worked out of a humble 10x10 cabin in a business centre." Mr Singh said that many "devoted fans" of the company wanted to visit the office and he would reply evasively to their request.
He then spoke about Mr Sen and how his valuable lesson changed his approach to the meaning of success. He said that Mr Sen was setting up his new company and wanted to place an order for Macbooks and had called him for the same. Describing the meeting, he said, "I found him exactly how I had imagined him to be, sharp, witty, quirky. 'Do you know who is the singer?', he asked, as he saw me tapping my feet to the music playing in his office. 'Meat Loaf', I replied. 'Nice! I think we can do business together!', he said. And within a couple of days, he placed an order for iMacs and iBooks."
A few months later, Mr Singh invited Mr Sen to deliver the keynote address at the iMac launch. On the day of the address, Mr Sen, who was using a wheelchair, expressed his desire to meet at Mr Singh's office for a coffee. "I hemmed and hawed, wondering if my business centre entrance is even wide enough for the wheelchair. It was best to be upfront. 'Shunu, I wouldn't like to disappoint you. It's a very small office. Let's meet somewhere outside," he said in the post.
However, Mr Sen said something valuable to Mr Singh which changed his life. As per the ex-Google MD, Mr Sen said, "Never measure your worth with the size of your office or the grandness of your title. Your worth is measured by the value you create for your employer, society and the world." Mr Singh said that this lesson has stayed with him since then.
"Stay focused on the value you create. Everything else, eventually falls in place," he concluded the post along with a picture of his Apple business card.
Since being shared, this story has struck a chord with many users online. "Beautiful story. Thank you for sharing!" said a person.
"This is gold!" remarked a person.
"Values live infinite, materials have an expiry date!" commented a person.
