“This ad says Jockey. Or Nothing,” Jigneshbhai started our coffee chat the other day looking at this ad in a magazine. Swami and I wondered why he was looking at these kind of ads in a cafe. But he was engrossed in it.
“The idea is to tell their target audience that they should not settle for anything other than Jockey, isn’t it?” he asked.
Swami and I nodded. Swami had a smile on his face. Though Swami wasn’t much into advertising, he might have been a user of that brand, I guessed. “Because they claim Jockey is as perfect as it can get,” Jigneshbhai added. “And it is meant for people who want everything perfect.”
“It is an enviable brand whose customers have such exalted preferences,” Swami added with an exalted vocabulary.
“For all you know, it might just be a good ad that makes its consumers feel good about themselves,” Jigneshbhai remarked, playing the devil’s advocate to Swami. I could see a frown emerge on Swami’s forehead.
“But it is quite a good brand,” Swami argued. “I have used many of their products for years,” he confessed.
“I guessed so,” Jigneshbhai said with a smile. “But is it perfect?”
I watched Swami get lost in thought this time. “Well.. umm.. it is better than others. It is expensive, so it better be.. But.. ”
“It is not perfect..,” Jigneshbhai completed Swami mid-sentence.
“Well.. true.. not perfect.. perfect.. in that sense.,” Swami agreed.
“Because the reality is that there is nothing perfect in this world, in an absolute sense,” Jigneshbhai asserted. Swami and I watched our wise friend waiting to see if he had anything more to say. “Yet, in this race for perfection, sometimes we end up doing nothing. What a pity!” Jigneshbhai added, and then let us dwell in the silence.
And I thought, as might Swami have, that he was right, after all, like always. How often had I shelved a story or an article, especially in early days, because I thought it wasn’t perfect! How many times had Swami not invested in the markets because the timing wasn’t perfect! We stared at each other and seemed to read each other’s thoughts.
“We hold ourselves to such a high standard that sometimes it becomes a pretext to do nothing,” Jigneshbhai broke us out of our reverie this time. I nodded my head and started sipping my coffee. “What else do we hold to such standards in our life?” he added.
“Almost nothing else,” Swami said. “Nothing we purchase is perfect.”
“No house, no car, no appliance is perfect,” Jigneshbhai said.
“No piece of clothing fits perfectly (not all the time!),” Swami added.
“No employee we hire is perfect.”
“No customer that we work with is perfect.”
“Not even our spouse or children are perfect, however much we may love them.”
“Our families are not perfect.”
“Our leaders and representatives are far from perfect.”
“And even this coffee is not perfect.”
“Neither is this muffin.”
I felt like stopping my friends and getting them out of their duel. The point was made, I felt like saying. Move on. But I didn’t have to do it because the wealthy man in the sprawling bungalow who had been listening to our conversation from the adjacent table, walked across to ours.
“A finished imperfect product is far better than an incomplete product waiting for perfection,” he said. “If you find someone who doesn’t bring much out into the world, look for the mindset of perfect or nothing.”
Now that seemed like perfect advice. Close to perfect, maybe.
***