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I want to start a business
An Entrepreneur's Diary

I want to start a business

The desire for entrepreneurship is a strong natural urge which in my view is the logical development of leadership in a person, which encourages him/her to become independent and strike out on their own. In days of old, they called it, ‘seeking your fortune’, which ranged from traveling across the world to trade, to buccaneering and banditry masquerading as adventure and conquest. Be that as it may, the crux of the matter was as in the song, “A man and his will to survive”, where you pit your wit and overcome challenges and build a future for yourself, different and better than your compatriots ‘back home’. That spirit remains to this day as I believe it is a primordial urge and the fulfillment of all that one aspires for. Today, that is usually in setting up a business of your own, becoming an entrepreneur. Not quite as dangerous physically as sailing the high seas on a Dhow or Clipper ship or leading an army across the land but equally anxiety generating in terms of facing the possibility of financial ruin for oneself and one’s family.

21 min read
commitmentcourage
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The Journey
An Entrepreneur's Diary

The Journey

I have always had an abundance mentality and happily share my thoughts, ideas, even intellectual resources with anyone who asks, including my potential competitors. Some of them, now good friends, have asked me why I give away my ‘capital’. I do it for two reasons. Nobody owns thought and knowledge. You get it from someone or somewhere, you add to it and use it and bless those who shared with you. Secondly, the only way to grow knowledge is to share it. The more you share, the more returns to you value added. Hoard it and it shrivels, and you take it to your grave.

15 min read
challengedestination
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Breaking Free
An Entrepreneur's Diary

Breaking Free

Entrepreneurship is about taking charge of your own life. It takes a lot of courage, some insanity, strategic thinking, a thick skin, boundless energy, resilience like a truck tyre, sincerity, and hunger to succeed. If you don’t have these, get them. They are on the discount shelf in Walmart. You don’t think so? You are right. You can’t buy these. You must earn them. With sweat, tears and sometimes blood. I did. And this is my story.

9 min read
anxietyeffort
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Entrepreneurship is the ultimate test of commitment
An Entrepreneur's Diary

Entrepreneurship is the ultimate test of commitment

Entrepreneurship is all about spirit. But first we must recognize our purpose and then we need to consciously accept it. That is the scary part. But that is the threshold that must be crossed to demonstrate that we are in and not out. Choices are not always easy. As a matter of fact, all the important ones are difficult. The most difficult thing is to choose between two apparently good alternatives. But the choice must be made. Everything else depends on that.

6 min read
choicefreedom
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You get what you pay for
Leadership is a Personal Choice

You get what you pay for

A word about writing a life goal for yourself: Only you need to see it. Only you need to be inspired by it. So, write something that is big enough to inspire. “I want to become a leadership trainer.” Ugh! Big deal. Who cares? “I want to become Mickey Mouse.” Now that is something. A name that instantly conjures up an image of a face and makes you smile. That is worth working for. So, in 1983, I wrote “I want to become the best and most powerful leadership trainer the world has ever seen.”

27 min read
IIMAinvestment
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‘Tiger’ Goals
Leadership is a Personal Choice

‘Tiger’ Goals

I have always looked for challenges. Anything that came easy did not excite me. My learning that it is the extraordinary goal that inspires extraordinary effort is very personal to me. In the plantation industry I constantly focused on setting new records. And over the years I was able to do this in all aspects of tea and rubber planting. I set the record in yield per hectare, in work tasks in various cultivation activities, and in the price of the manufactured product.

12 min read
challengegoals
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No pain, no gain
In a Teacup

No pain, no gain

In this whole incident the one thing that is not logically explainable, but an essential part of leadership is the willingness to trust your inner voice. When you do that, you enter a state of grace. It is a state where you do things that you did not know were possible. You will find yourself saying things that you were not aware that you knew. You will find your mind working at a heightened state of awareness. You will feel more alive and full of energy than you ever did before.

21 min read
communicationcourage
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Building Winning Teams
In a Teacup

Building Winning Teams

My greatest gains in Ambadi were to do with conceptualizing learnings, about the importance of mentoring to empower frontline staff to take decisions and ownership. The results that we achieved had directly to do with our success in both areas. We took a group of discordant individuals and built them into a highly synchronized team that functioned as one person. We enabled people to see their strengths, to believe in themselves, to own responsibility, and to actively seek accountability. We took people who always played doubly safe and converted them into risk takers who were not afraid to take initiative. And we did all this in a period of less than one year.

28 min read
Ambadiinitiative
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Ambadi, the turn-around strategy
In a Teacup

Ambadi, the turn-around strategy

When you are working in a high conflict environment a particularly important strategy is to proactively reduce the issues on which conflict may happen. The fewer the conflicting issues, the easier your role in resolving them. Remember, the key is to do this proactively without being asked. The more issues you resolve unilaterally, the more brownie points you earn in the public eye and the more emotional support you will have when you actually deal with the ones in which you have to necessarily come into conflict with others. Another powerful strategy is to create as many interaction opportunities that are on issues other than the conflict issues as possible. That gives opportunity for both parties to meet and interact in tension free spaces and gives them freedom to exchange views, ideas and to see other facets of each other’s personalities than what they can see across the negotiating table.

20 min read
AmbadiCITU
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Leadership is content independent
In a Teacup

Leadership is content independent

I stressed in my Staff meeting that if my Staff did what I asked them to do wholeheartedly, I would take responsibility for any failures. I learnt from experience that when you have a team that is skilled, but not motivated and afraid, then you as the leader need to be able to take the responsibility for failure off their shoulders provided they follow orders. This creates a cushion of confidence which then gets reinforced when they see success and they start to own responsibility in due course. But in the beginning if they are too scared of trying the new methods that you are advocating and you make no effort to deal with these fears, then they freeze and will either not act at all or if you are forceful they will work without enthusiasm and commitment only because they are being pushed. This sabotages the entire initiative from the beginning and the effort fails. That sets up a negative vicious circle that reinforces the fears and then re-starting becomes even more difficult. It is essential in all change initiatives, especially big dramatic ones to ensure that you start with some success, however small. Without that the change will almost certainly fail.

18 min read
AmbadiCITU
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Every choice has a price tag
In a Teacup

Every choice has a price tag

There are critical incidents when as a leader you must take a call. At that moment you are alone. You believe in the depths of your heart that you can succeed. You know in your gut the real challenge that you must face. You are afraid, but you don’t show it. You take the first step forward and then you stand aside and watch yourself. For the rest is already written. And it is waiting for you to take the first step, so that the script for the right scene can be played out. Once you take the first step, doors open from undiscovered places. Once you take the first step, angels descend and walk with you and turn aside the hand that rises to strike you. And Allah puts love and respect in hearts where once resided fear, anger, and hatred. All this, however, depends on the first step. For that one instance, you are alone and all of creation is waiting to see what you will do. It is the choice you make that decides what the consequences will be. We are free to choose. But no choice is free. Every choice has a price tag.

20 min read
authoritychoice
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FIKR
Where are the leaders

FIKR

Sometimes people ask me for the secret of success. We live in a world of fantasy where people want magic formulae for everything. Let me tell you the good news. It is not a secret, but it is a magic formula. Focus + Investment + Consistency. Works every time. I have given it the acronym, […]

25 min read
businesschallenge
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