Insured Life, Happy Life

More often than not, when one chooses a certain educational field of education, it is expected that they will pursue a career in a similar field. But sometimes it also does happen that one finds happiness in a career that is completed unrelated to and different from what one had been studying most of their life.

Something very similar happened with Sarita Mistry as well. Sarita Graduated with a Commerce degree and then went on to study Computer Programming associated with accounting and book keeping. Having worked at the backend, she had been used to working on her own as she didn’t really need to associate with clients or customers on a daily basis. However, this completely changed for when she joined the Insurance Industry in 2004. Since then, she can proudly say that she has secured the future of over 250 families with a sum amount of approximately 1000 corers. She interacts with families on a regular basis with the sole aim of helping them financially secure their futures even when they are no longer alive. She prefers to refer to herself as an entrepreneur as she has managed to create and run a thriving business for herself. She now has a team of forty people and she is actively involved in helping them establish their own insurance business. In that sense, she has now become a mentor too.

Life has always thrown challenges in Sarita’s path. But she has never been someone who scares easily and neither has she been a quitter. After losing her husband, she preferred to the take the reins of her life in her own hands as she had to single headedly shoulder the responsibility of her children.She has braved many a hurdles and she now she fears nothing other than God Himself.

Her family has always been a top priority and therefore there have been many occasions where she has had to choose between her professional and personal life. The personal always won. She feels that had she been driven only by her passion for her work and career, today she would have been leading a team of more than 100 Advisors and would have been a part of many more International Conventions. But she made a choice to put her family first and she does not regret any of her decisions. She is in a happy place, exactly where she wants to be.

One of the biggest hurdles that Sarita experienced early in her career was the fact that she wasn’t always able to interact comfortably with her clients. This was a result of having worked in the accounts field prior to moving to Insurance. Another difficulty that she often faced was to deal with the prejudice associated with insurance. It wasn’t always easy to convince people to buy insurance. Having over-come all these obstacles, strangers soon became clients and now these very clients are almost like family to her.

She feels that her job brings her happiness and satisfaction at a dual level. On the one hand, she guides her team mates and assists them in completing their deals with clients and on the other hand, when a client successfully buys insurance, she also experiences satisfaction in knowing that she has managed to secure a family’s future. These she considers to be some of the most satisfying moments of her professional life.

Her typical day starts with prayers and meditation, as she thanks God for yet another day in her life. She feels that her day is incomplete without reading the newspaper. That is her ‘me’ time. After fulfilling her domestic duties, the rest of the day is spent at work. Evening are usually devoted to her kids and father-in-law. She works for about 6 hours per day on an average.

According to Sarita, formal education is important in life as it offers one guidance and allows one to understand where to start from. However, success in one’s career cannot be solely attributed to education. Hands on learning while at the job and life experiences are far greater teachers than any book or educational degree. To insure that her work and family life always stays inspired, she enjoys going out with her family on a regular basis. These outings are usually mobile phone free to ensure 100 percent connectivity with each other. As far as work is concerned, she prefers to speak to her Advisors on a one to one basis rather than conducting group meetings. She feels that this offers her greater insight into the thoughts and working patterns of her team members. This in turn makes it easier for her guide them towards success.

Sarita feels that there are no short cuts to success. Hard work and perseverance are the onlytwo ways that will allow one to become successful in life. Along with being successful if you want to be happy in life then you need to be passionate about what you do and love your work. That’s the only way to feel satisfied with your efforts. Otherwise one will always feel like an under achiever.

We asked Sarita what advice she would like to give other women who also wish to succeed in their professional lives. Sarita reminded us of what Mahatma Gandhi had to say. He said that the customer is always right and if one wants to succeed then one must always keep the customer’s needs at the forefront of all business decisions. If the client\customer is happy, your business will definitely benefit and then no one will be able to stop you from achieving your desired goals.

Team Laja wishes Sarita all the very best and we hope that she continues to march forward taking her team along with her as they together reach for the skies.