Live Again

Mr. Rajeeva Ranjan Upadhyay

With exploring the ‘Life’ up to the hilt as the prime motive of this adolescent, he went on to secure BTech and MBA degrees in the normal course of education. Continuing explorations of the world of engineering and business for first ten years of his career – 1992 to 2002, he suffered a serious loss of interest in his exploratory efforts and soon a realisation began to gradually dawn upon him that earning money & leading a so-called good life (for oneself) could not be the only aim of ‘human life.’ Had it been so the world would have only ‘individuals squeezing all for their individual growth & satisfaction.’ The world could not have survived with this approach to life!

With this realisation, he struggled to set & define his life’s mission. It wasn’t an easy job to redefine this word to include his belief & life’s realisations for someone with professionally defined ‘mission’ by his management studies! But with the avowed conviction to make the most of his life, a struggle of over 4 years ensued resulting in five words that “rediscovered & founded the human in him for a better & sustainable life for all.”

“Life is All about GIVING” – the five-lettered word became the beacon (the tenet) for his path that unfolded the mysteries of life in all that he has taken to so far. Without sacrificing a bit of the ebb & flow a life drifts through – less or more at professional, social and personal levels, he has so far remained glued to this tenet and waded (actually relished) through his life full of ‘life as a sentient being.’ On the journey, he has also discovered a unique concept & path that can actually keep a person rooted in his Real-SELF & yet perform his duties as a human in all the varied forms it takes during his lifetime!

nowledge and realisations acquired over extensive traveling around India and some developed & under-developed parts of the world further strengthened his conviction that GIVING can best be achieved through sharing one’s gains of knowledge and practical wisdom unfolding every other day in every path of life undertaken. With this as the foundation to his life, he decided in 2006 to start sharing his experiences through all the contact points with all forms of life! With deep spiritual moorings in his professional outreach in the unrelenting and ever-unraveling journey so far, he has shared ‘himself’ on many forums and platforms of his professional career. For the sake of describing his spheres & realms of commitments, & professional background, following excerpts of his life can be considered as human-worthy in his own words:

Professional qualification & experience (1992, graduation onwards):

  • MBA in marketing and MIS (LNM Institute of Economic Development & Social Change – Patna, under Ministry of HRD), & B. Tech in Civil Engineering (Karnataka University).
  • Industry experience – software, Steel and Geosynthetics.
  • Led the largest team size of 102 persons, and secured very high margin (over 78% GM) single largest order worth 146 Cr.
  • Personally groomed careers of 18 direct-reportees & many levels down across various organisations and also established 5 business units for strangers in two countries.
  • Founded an engineering consultancy firm in 2018 June – www.zecpl.com & then two more in 2020 and 2021 viz www.LiveAgain.in (training & consulting) and www.t3e.in (business consulting) – and currently managing all of them.
  • Never asked any of employers for giving increments while always secured for his team-members. But increments and incentives kept flowing in against the minimum gaps (sometimes negative) between his words & actions & results.
  • Developed self-motivational skills, trained all teams he handled, and practiced it all through.
  • Learnt to first practice and then train others on the two most basic qualities of leadership viz ‘humility & empathy’ – the two antidotes to, respectively, two most lethal drugs viz ‘hubris and self-centeredness.’ This has been the foundation of all training programs now which is aimed at sharing the knowledge built around others’ experiences for their sustainable growth and betterment.’

Major highlights of training programs conducted and related experiences:

  • Presentations (technical, professional & spiritual) in over 784 seminars and conclaves in over 9 countries in last 29 years;
  • Conducted over 55+ training programs for colleagues, employees, students & school students between the age of 10 & 16. Launched into professional training only on 8th April 2020.
  • Personally, counselled over 460+ candidates (students, employees & social activists) on various aspects of business and life and the importance of GIVING;
  • Some of the specific training-cum-development programs conducted so far include: Work-life balancing – AIM; Building trust in an organisation; TRUST – the lifeblood of business; TIME – the transient resource – that makes or breaks an organisation and a Life…!; Stress – lies between Reaction & Action (AIM) The 4-step process to free one-self of STRESS eternally; Developing compassion and gratitude in the workforce for organizational excellence (AIM); Crisis management esp in the Corona period (AIM); Pandemic is only in MIND; Unknown future is the biggest-ever crisis (AIM); Relationship building – foundation to life’s sustainable growth (AIM); self-development (AIM); Robust HR – adding mother’s value to the organisation (AIM); Driving sales in new markets (AIM); Market development for new products (AIM); NAD – Network Account development (account management technique); Job Interview – always a psychological game (AIM); Meditation – the only road to self-discovery; ‘I’ is YOU; DEI – the greatest-ever challenge for HRM in the post-pandemic world (AIM); Crisis changes nothing – it only awakens us out of our deep, sub-conscious slumber; A true leader is borne only out of self-awareness!; AI & HR – bound to bond through unprecedented psychological conflicts; POSITIVE thinking is POSSIBILITY thinking for Life’s growth; Securing POSITIVE thinking out of every moment of LIFE; POSITIVE thinking is SUCCESS achieved; et al.
  • Industries & organisations impacted so far with training and development programs and professional commitments – Software, Steel, Pharma – retail & small-to-medium clinics in rural India, Farmers, Small businessmen, & engineering field of Geosynthetics involving mega-corporates in India & abroad.
  • A brief exposure to Pharma industry by virtue of having over 30% of family members & school friends in the field of medicine as doctors and businessmen with small-to-large setups
  • Having interviewed over 1200+ candidates for various positions in many organisations. 31 out of the 101 selected have reached the higher or the highest levels of their respective fields. Without a shred of doubt, they have stood by the 5-lettered word gifted by him and remained deeply engrossed in ‘Living their lives fully’ rather than just ‘completing the journey for the heck of it.’
  • Conducted 2 programs on AI (Artificial Intelligence) with the help of CTO of Hansen Robotics based at Paris who designed the first humanoid named as Sophia. Currently pursuing self-defined goals to research & understand the changes AI is to bring in human life in and also how to prepare the humans to retain their ‘human’ in them.
  • Completed two full-hog, on-the-job internship programs for a total of 9 students of The Heritage Academy (BCA) and Tezpur University (MBA). The value proposition added to them has been based around the idea of ‘cooperation and participation’ which together found the course of the most sustainable business goals. Shall now be undertaking 50 students from various fields of studies for internship programs for inculcating human values apart from giving them certificates towards fulfilment of their PG (MBA/MTech/MSc) / UG (BBA/BCA) studies. The internship is conducted in his technical consultancy firm www.zecpl.com and the programs are sponsored by his training firm www.LiveAgain.in
  • For understanding and meeting the ever-demanding needs of ‘human at business’, currently undergoing an Executive Development Program in Human Resource Management from XLRI – Jamshedpur – will also be certified by SHRM (Society of Human Resource Management).
  • Have travelled across all states of India (mostly for professional work) and spent over 39 days in hills in deep meditations in the last decade.
  • Tag lines created for leading and managing various spheres of one’s life to make it so-called a happy life – [a] Life is all about GIVING!, [b] Everyone is RIGHT!, [c] Sell & Tell the TRUTH…real mantra for a successful and sustainable business model…!, [d] I don’t DISTRUST you!, [e] If you TRUST your customer, question yourself WHY?, [f] Life itself is an interview & it’s only to answer to WHAT, HOW & WHY!, [g] There are only six components of our life – earth, water, air, fire, space & consciousness, the last one decides our LIFE…!, [h] All that exist have the same process of beginning & ending – only their timelines are different!, [i] Even emotions have cycles on which we ride…!, [j] We exist only for others…!