Despite living in financially challenged circumstances, Manish never let his journey stop. He always kept moving ahead and achieved many milestones in his professional career.

Manish Sharma is working as a Territory Manager-Sales at Royal Dutch Shell in Mumbai. At present he is handling the retail sales in three states of India i.e., Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Manish hails from Jaipur. He says that because of belonging to a lower middle-class family, he did his schooling from a local small school in his locality till 10th std. But he got a scholarship thereafter and hence he did his higher secondary from a reputed school in Jaipur. He did Mechanical Engineering from Jaipur, alongside giving private tuition classes to meet his expenses. His professional journey started in 2009 at BPCL as a trainee in Bombay Refinery. After three months, he got his campus placement in HPCL in the sales department in Pune.

Manish says that while working in cities like Mumbai and Pune for a few years, he got good exposure. Then he took a break in his career and did his MBA in Marketing from Mumbai. And from there, he got placed in Royal Dutch Shell.

When asked about his role models, Manish says that he has never received as much mentorship from any person as he had from books. So he considers books and biographies as his source of inspiration. Apart from this, he draws inspiration from different sections of people such as his childhood friends and his professors.

Talking about his struggles, Manish says that during his engineering, his father was admitted to the ICU. At the same time, his sister’s wedding was scheduled just after four days. But as all the payments had been made, the family could not postpone the marriage and took care of both the situations together. That was the most struggling time of his life, he says.

Regarding his achievements, Manish believes that he has made many good friends in his life which is no less than an achievement for him. Besides, he feels proud of himself for bringing a big change in his life and lifestyle, which is an achievement for him. On the professional front, he has changed the lives of many people and brought a big impact in their lives. It has been a huge achievement for him.

Manish says that COVID’s biggest impact was seen on industries because everything shifted to online platforms very smoothly. No one ever thought that working from home was even possible but COVID did that. He thinks that it made everyone technology and digital savvy that no one had imagined earlier. He thinks it is one of the biggest gifts of COVID.

Describing his mistakes, Manish says his first mistake was that he made his financial constraint as an obstacle to his professional journey and made decisions based on that. Another mistake that he makes even today is that without knowing the facts, he makes assumptions about people and organizations. Consequently, he lost many opportunities. The biggest mistake he made was not to have a clear and bigger purpose of life that led him to short-term gains in both personal and professional life.

If Manish had a Time Machine, he would like to go back to his school life and live his childhood in a different way which he could not do earlier.

In his spare time, Manish enjoys reading, listening to music and playing with his pet. Sometimes he even writes.

Manish advises the young career seekers that if you have the ability to build relationships, then you can excel in any field and go a long way. All other skills can be learned with time and experience. Further he suggests doing work which gives you happiness. He tells you to choose your company wisely to have a satisfied profile that blends well with your skill sets.