The first international foray that I was personally involved with was into Singapore. The OEM partner (the elephant that we chose to ride at that time) that we used to work with had their regional headquarters in Singapore. The India geography was part of South Asia which used to be clubbed with ASEAN at that time.

While we had our own operation in the US also, this was the first international operation which would be handled out of India. Eventually we were able to execute business in 11 countries out of India.

The various people whom I met in our partner’s office were nice and helpful. However there was one lady who I remember even today because of a phrase she used “CAN-DO”. She was responsible for the business from Singapore for our partner.

I remember we were both in the car and she was explaining the challenges that they face while doing Implementation and asked me questions on various scenarios and how we would handle such situations since we were based out of India. After I had answered all the situations honestly she just mentioned ” I like your CAN-DO attitude “. We eventually went on to do business in Singapore and all the other ASEAN countries for years.

I have always tried to find solutions with whatever I have – quite often I have failed, but a lot of times I have succeeded spectacularly but no one had given this attitude of mine a name. This possibility thinking has got me a lot of rewards.

Now when people try to keep show casing all the reasons why a problem can’t be solved, I use the same term and ask them to learn to get a “CAN-DO” attitude.

Till next time then …. “CAN-DO”

Carpe Diem!!!