Tempered Steel

13.10.2010

Tenneco RC Hosur manufactures Ride controls. Ride Controls are our good old shock absorbers and struts when they are at home.. They also make emission controls (that’s silencers, exhaust pipes and mufflers.) But that’s not at Hosur.

Around the end of the second day, at the request of the participants, I spoke for a short while about “the Seven Habits.” I was describing the fifth habit and how it softens you and makes you more understanding, when a participant expressed a view that if you are too soft then people take advantage of you. I replied with my usual comparison with silk: soft outside, tough within.

Then, I compared seven habits practitioners with tempered steel, strong and flexible like the struts that Tenneco makes! Strong enough to absorb the shocks of driving over ruts and pot holes but flexible so that it doesn’t break!

Strength with flexibility seems to be the essential attitude that the constant practice of the seven habits induces. In this sense practicing seven habits is like constantly tempering ourselves.