, (Comma) - The Book

One day I wrote a book; in some years I will be telling this to my grand children. The book I wrote has no title. It has a punctuation in place of the title, a comma that means change. It is a book about personal change.

A little more than a month back, I joined Ducorp XTM and my first assignment was to work with the team on the corporate positioning of the group. We came up with 4 key ideas that are the fundamentals of the group, built around a core philosophy of Truth First.

Instead of just writing them down so people can read on our website, my boss suggested we try to make them come alive through small stories. So I set out to write 4 short stories, each centered around one of our core values. They are stories of people who choose to be true to themselves, to live their truth, find practical solutions and make a difference.

Once it was done, my boss suggested that we make it in the form of a book and get it published on Amazon. That was truly unthinkable at that time but the whole team came together to make it happen.

When it came to choosing a title for the book, we realized that is should be something different to what people are used to. We first wanted to put a fullstop because it is a punctuation that says a lot without saying much. We finally kept the idea of the punctuation but came up with the comma. A comma is a break in a sentence for a change to happen. I also like that the comma as title invites us to talk less and get practical.

In the end it was awesome seeing the book on Amazon. It is a wondrous feeling to have a boss and a team that believe in you and want to see you achieve things. I thoroughly enjoy our disruptive approach to doing things at the agency.

When I was at the university, there was a poster in my room that said: “Find a way or make a way.” I used to spend hours looking at it for inspiration. I think that’s exactly what we are doing and I am really happy about it.

The book is available here.

By Nanda Pavaday