Companies are like human beings. Just like humans are born, grow and perish a natural death, so do companies.  The percentage of companies which have survived the last 100 years is very close to the percentage of centenarians in the human race. Therefore, uniquely, companies like IBM which has been around for half a century, Tupperware which has done a century, GE, and Encyclopaedia Britannica, have been through their own ups and downs. Some of them have come to the brink of extinction and turned back while others climbed the scales of success and dropped to their current state…just like human life.

Our first decade is leading into the second. For those of us who have lived it this past decade with the company, it feels like almost a lifetime. It has taken us from the depths of chaos and controversy to the heights of spinning almost unimaginable success, and both-- the heights and the depths —have left us wiser.

The question is not so much what we have done so far, but where do we go from here. Despite the various changes that we have undergone over the years--changes like those which are undergone by mountain streams becoming small rivers.  In reality, the river is not the same as it was a few minutes ago and yet, it is changeless. From the outside looking in, we as a company, as an entity and as a network, may look the same, but we have grown and continued to grow and we continue to change. Not at the same rapid pace of the mountain stream which we were in our early years, but at a slower, steady pace of a river that is coming into its own.

We are now a river with many tributaries—all flowing into this mainstream which we hope and aspire will one day become the mighty Amazon of companies on Earth.  Why? Not because we are more efficiently run or that we are more effectively managed or even because our marketing skills are unparalleled. Not because of any of these!  It is simply because our heart is in the right place and therefore our vision too, which makes us all share a common spirit —from our most junior employee to the Board of Directors, from the networker who signed in yesterday, from a V Partner, to even our suppliers, who have come to accept who we are; and many of you, who share this powerful dream.

Just like the late Dr. Martin Luther King had said, I have a dream.

I have a dream that one day we will change the future of the human race.  These words may sound grandiose and have been echoed many times in the past by many great people. Yet, they hold true till today. 

If it is dreams that will define who we can become, then let us dream far and wide; let us dream to the dizzying heights of raising mankind to the ultimate purpose of living in harmony, in peace and in love—as envisioned by almost every philosophy and religion since beginning of time.

So how do we do this? Let us begin with little steps. The beginning is not by creating more efficient systems but rather by more effective caring, by better concern to delivering customer service to every networker; and equally by appreciation and support for the very long serving, very first people who remain steadfast till today. It begins with better dialogue and more effective communication, not just between the company and the network but also between every leader and his network. For, it is in greater communication that we have greater understanding. Instead of anger, we should have appreciation for everyone’s efforts, and the understanding required towards each other’s mistakes.  For, ultimately we are but only one family. Whether it be with the V family or the QI family or the family of nations—because in the end, we are all the family of Mankind.

Let truth shine, let love bind, and let us arise and awake into this new dawn, this new decade, this new phase—the next decade.