Qualities of High Achievers: Is a seminar that Sh.Mirza Yawar Baig gave in Kuwait to a gathering of top businessmen and educators of Kuwait organized by FIMA presided over by His Excellency Sunil Jain, Indian Ambassador to Kuwait. The seminar explored what the substance of a legacy is and what qualities enable it.
Mirza Yawar Baig – Qualities of Top Achievers
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses his passion for learning and the benefits of participation in the learning process, emphasizing the importance of avoiding interfere with others' control and the need for everyone to forgive themselves and join hearts. He gives examples of historical figures and principles of leadership, including the importance of forgiveness, sharia, and the need for passionate and confident leadership. He emphasizes the importance of learning and building a critical foundation for people to achieve success and growth, as well as the need for personal development and self-improvement. He also mentions a former employee with success despite working at a lower salary and emphasizes the importance of creating a culture of success and efficiency.
AI: Summary ©
One of the things that I have always believed in and I tried to follow is to be prepared for the unexpected.
You must have heard an awful lot of his losses that if it can go wrong, it will.
And I think it's a very good law to keep in mind. And I thought it's a good example that you are here hopefully,
it was not wrong, but
things will straighten out quickly, and I think they have so I can now after my informal beginning, I can begin formally.
Your Excellency, Indian Ambassador liquids, Mr. Sunil J. Your Excellency, addresses a voyage chess
is also a dear friend of mine.
My dear brothers and sisters
salovaara lightworker.
I was
asked to give this speech and I always tell people that you should be prepared for to understand that there is no such thing as a free meal.
That applies to London, it applies also to dinner.
And the price of this meal for me is to sing for my supper. And for you is to put up with that.
Tom Coburn, Nevada, Nevada.
We talk about these qualities of top achievers and this is one of my it's my passion. It's my specialization. I do this internationally. I do this with all kinds of people. I do it with students, with teachers, with civil servants,
with politicians with
religious scholars, one of my first assignments was with the Apostolic Carmelite church,
with the nuns and the priests of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, all the Mount Carmel schools and colleges all over India and Sri Lanka. So there were two or 300 of them. So, all kinds of people I deliberately do that because it helps me to get a taste of different aspects and different parts of society and you'll be surprised how different people are from different parts of society. So, even though we might not look the same, and we may even talk, you know, similar languages, but we also have our differences
that in my CV
and
a brother
introduced me, but I usually put on my CV so that that I can start getting some job offers.
I want to start with one of my favorite quotes which I use all the time, which is a quote from the smoothies
where
it draws our attention to a very important aspect of learning.
And that aspect of learning has to do with our own participation in the learning. And this gives us an idea of
of the importance of participation a person's own participation in the learning process.
I hesitated to pronounce the Sanskrit for the
in case I make any mistakes. So if I do make any mistakes, please forgive me but this is how I was taught to pronounce it.
Azaria bada bada
bada shisha Samia bonza brahma
Shi Shan Kala caminata.
And this is it means the person can get only one quarter of knowledge from the Acharya from the teacher
another quarter by analyzing himself
a third quarter by discussing it with people and the last during the process of living by his own understanding of addition and deletion and correction and modification.
I think this is a very important aspect of learning to keep in mind. So, as I was saying that
it underlines for me
the importance of a person's participation in the learning process
to go forward.
One of the things that I always believe in and I've mentioned this many times is not how much you no matter how much you do, that makes the critical difference. There are many
instances in life where, at the end, it is action, which comes, you can know a lot, but if you don't act on it, they will notice that.
So my question to you is this, I want to begin with this question. My question to you is, what do you intend to do with your future? And asking each one of you this question, what will you do with your future?
Have you given it some thought?
What will you do? What do you intend to do with your future starting today?
You have two choices.
You can choose to survive,
or you can choose to live.
Because to live is not merely to drop rates.
Living does not mean breathing alone.
So what is the choice?
Today is the most important day of your life. And that's not because I'm speaking to you.
But it's because today is the only day that you have
yesterday is gone tomorrow, we don't know whether it will come.
But today is what we have.
So whatever we did yesterday, it may or may not matter. Tomorrow, we may have aspiration, but we don't know whether this will we actually have the time to do that. But today we have. And the question is, what do you want to do with that.
And that's important, because what I do today, what you do today, has the potential to impact the rest of my life the rest of your life.
So what do you want to do?
I don't ask you to give me an answer now. But give it some thought.
One way to arrive at what you want to do is to ask yourself this question and say, What do I want to be remembered for?
When we are gone from here? Not necessarily I don't mean dying. I mean, when we, when we leave this hall when we leave a job and we finish an assignment or whatnot, what is it that you want to be remembered for?
I think that is a very good thought to have. Before we begin any assignment not at the end. Before we begin the assignment, ask yourself this question. At the end of this, what do I want to be remembered for?
And that's why I want to share with you my motto in life and my motto in life is I will not allow what is not in my control, to prevent me from doing what is in my control.
And no matter what situation you might find yourself in whether you are a powerful person or a rich person or a powerless person or poor person, no matter what, there's always something in your control that you can do.
But the reality of life is many people do nothing. And if you ask them, they say they globalize the issue and they address it in global terms. For example, if I asked you, since all of us are Indians here or most of us are Indians here, if I asked you what is
give me what according to you is the biggest problem with our country. And you might say illiteracy.
So if I asked you now, how can you solve the issue of illiteracy in India?
and nine times out of 10, the person will tell you how can I solve the problem of illiteracy in India? Only one man, one person?
But if I change that question and asked you can you pay for the education of one child? One child only not two, can you pay for the education of one child? Now? What is the answer?
And if every one of us pays for the education of one child, and if you promote this message, that our time will come when there will be no illiterate people because everyone would have had access to at least basic education.
So globalizing a problem is a way of copping out. localizing the solution is a way of finding solution. That's what I mean, when I say, I will not allow what is not in my control, to prevent me from doing what is in my control.
So what's our world today? Like? I want to give you a very brief glimpse of that. I love statistics, I'm going to give you some statistical numbers for you to MANOVA.
We live in a world of contrasts. We live in a world that speaks to us in sign language, readable only by those who can see and by See I don't mean look, I mean see as an understanding,
and that's why I like this quote of Neil Gaiman who said there's none so blind as
Those who will not listen.
We believe in this world today as we live, that we believe that we are at the peak of knowledge, especially scientific knowledge, we think that we know better and more than anyone at any previous time in history, we believe that we are at the peak of civilization. We believe that we are at the peak of prosperity. There is more money floating around today than there was ever and we believe that we have the secret of everlasting happiness and contentment. My friends, my submission to you is, all such claims must be substantiated. So let us look at what the numbers tell us.
So here are some numbers for you.
We believe that we are committed to eradicating hunger. How many times have you heard this from the
speeches of all kinds of people?
We are we want to eradicate hunger. But what does the data tell us? The data tells us that 3 billion people live on less than 2.5 dollars per day.
Tonight as we speak, and as we eat our dinner.
1 billion children in the world will go to bed hungry
22,000 children die every day due to poverty every day.
on this planet 805 million people do not have enough food to eat 750 million lack adequate access to drinking water.
In many countries, including parts of my country,
not adding not having adequate access to drinking water usually means that the women not the men, the women have to walk miles with a pot on the head to get hold of water which in any case is hardly worth drinking.
My question to you is what according to you is a basic necessity. And I can almost guarantee that not one of us in this room will be able to define basic necessity as it is defined by the people that I'm talking about. Because for most of us and especially our children and iPhone six plus is a basic necessity.
A Samsung s6 is a basic necessity. A Samsung x five is all that because a new one has come on the market.
Nobody's thinking of bread nobody's thinking of one roti nobody's thinking of a an old shirt.
Yet we are also living in this world.
Let's look at food wastage and I'm giving you data from FAO Food and Agriculture Organization the united states of the United Nations, which says that $4.4 trillion
worth of food
enough to feed 3 billion people was wasted last year.
And 3 billion people are the number of people who are estimated to go to bed hungry.
By and all that food on a football field and you will have a casserole rotting miles high
discarded food
figures of 2014 USA 34 point 7 million tons worth 162 billion Uk 7.2 million worth 17 point 7 billion and India $9.2 billion
worth of food was wasted last year.
And that's why I say I'm big is a company.
We come back to my motto in the words of Mother Teresa who said you can't be done and people feed just one.
So let me stop here and ask you how many of you are willing to take with me and now to say that from this one this day onwards, you will ensure that one person
is fed by you every single day. Are you ready?
We believe that we are committed to the protection of people and the environment.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention says that in 2013 somebody died by suicide every 12.8 minutes.
I submit to you that happiness doesn't cause suicides, despite us.
The World Wide Fund for nature's Living Planet report which I call the dying planet report.
2014 said
that
in the last
40 years, the number of animals in the world wild animals has been half 50% of wild animals that existed in the world, in the last 40 years have disappeared, have died. And that's only the ones we counted.
The question is if we if we really believe that we are at the peak of knowledge, how come we are destroying ourselves? Doesn't make sense. I was speaking last week at Oxford, at the International Conference on education. And I presented some of the same data there. And that was a question to me, I said epi here, in an institution, which is over 1000 years old.
And we believe that we are at the peak of knowledge, that how come we are destroying our
lives at a time may come? When archaeologists digging the mound of what used to be our times, will wonder how people who knew so much still managed to destroy themselves.
We believe that we are committed to eradicating poverty.
But here are some figures about how the wealth of the world is shared
0.7% of the people in the world on 41% of global assets, and 68.7% of the people of the world
on 3% of global assets.
That's a cartoon which is not funny.
And so is this, which came out in 1997. On our 50th
Independence Day,
I submit to you therefore, that the single most powerful change to transform the world is to move from the position. The world is responsible for me to the position, I am responsible for the world.
My question to you?
Is this a logistics or resources issue?
Or is it an issue of conscience?
question, how do you define achievement? You're talking about quantities of global achievers. So I thought to myself, let me tell you about some achievers and ask you to define for yourself. What is achievement is buying a car or achievement. I don't think anyone has that thrill anymore. I mean, this. We don't own one, we own many, building a house not a thrill anymore. So what is achievement?
So let's look at three top achievers. Historically. First one I want to present to you is a man called Genghis Khan
was neither possible nor without name.
Genghis Khan was an animist in terms of his religion.
And finally, the battle in Central Asia for any kind of a leader 60 1162
to 1227, he lived for 65 years.
Out of 65 years, Genghis Khan,
about 20 plus years out of the 65, he lived as a fugitive. It's an amazing story to read. There is a biography I've read five of them of his there's a biography of his by a man called man
who's in his fantastic biography of Genghis Khan. And it's an amazing leadership book to read. I strongly recommend that for you.
So out of 65 years of life,
he spent 20 years as a fugitive.
And in the 65th year,
he was killed by his second wife, which also is a lesson for people who want to marry again.
Now, that was the that is a map of Genghis Khan's Empire.
It is the largest landmass ever in the history of mankind, to be ruled by one man
12 point 7 million square kilometers
largest landmass and he did that it binds us in a period of 40 years.
All of China all of Asia halfway to Europe,
ruled by one man
to give you a comparison.
That is the Empire map of the empire of Alexander the Great 2 million square miles, compared to Genghis Khan's almost 13 million square feet.
That is an empire as the back of the Roman Empire at its peak 1.7 million square miles smaller even than the empire of,
of Alexander the Great. And by far, almost one 10th the size of the empire of Genghis Khan.
That is the Omega, the Muslim Empire at its peak of the manomaya 5.8 square kilometers, about less than half the size of the Empire of the Sun, but bigger than the Roman Empire and bigger than the
double the size of the Roman Empire more than double the size of the empire of Alexander the Great but less than half the size of the empire of Genghis Khan.
So what are the principles of leadership of Genghis Khan?
One strict meritocracy without exception.
I actually teach a seminar on Genghis Khan's principles of leadership. I'm not gonna do that here. Maybe we'll do that some other time. But it's really worth worth studying. Not everything is worth praising. I'm not praising some of the things that he did, obviously, but definitely worth studying strict meritocracy without exception if I give you some of the examples of what he did. It helps me amazingly my family business consulting, especially succession planning. One of the major reasons why family businesses do not last more than three generations is because of the inability to take hard decisions.
Jenkins had two very hard decisions very, very hard.
Number one is number two is intense physical training and toughness.
The key weapon of the Mongol warrior was the devil that was born called the double banded
bow.
And they used to fire these to shoot the bow galloping on horseback. They had developed it to a next door to such as science, that those of you who have ridden horses I rode horses, all my youth is not the most stable of platforms to shoot anything. But when a horse is galloping, there is a split second, when all four hooves are off the ground, the horse is actually airborne.
The Mongol warriors used to shoot six arrows in that time of less than one second.
And because there are most of them right handed, they say that their right shoulder is if you look at a mobile warrior, you would think he was deformed because his right shoulder and arm was hugely developed out of proportion than the left
intense physical training and toughness, extensive intelligence about opposition, speed of communication and response, Genghis Khan's communication channels which was across Asia and and China, Asia and Europe, on horseback riding was the fastest living transmission of records. Until the invention of the railway
doing the unexpected.
The Chinese built the Great Wall of China to keep the Mongols out. The Mongols never went near the Great Wall of China, they went over the mountain.
And the last one is complete and sheer, ruthlessness. Genghis Khan had had a formula. When it came to a city, they would pitch a white tent.
The first day they would pitch a white tent, the meaning of the white tent was surrender as you are now.
Only your leaders will be killed. Everyone else will be left. The city will belong to us, but no one else will be killed. Next day, they will put a red tent
and the red tent meant that all men will be killed women and children will be enslaved but they will not be killed.
Great choice.
Third day they will put a black tent and the black tent meant that every living thing would be slaughtered, including cats and dogs and sheep and whatever anything that moves will be killed.
And they actually did that. When Genghis Khan attacked the Muslim kingdom of the
summer, Canberra, all the cities were completely wiped out.
In one city, they killed 1.7 million men, women and children in a period of six hours.
Six hours and remember, they were not using machine guns. They were using sorts.
So every sort stroke, you're talking about 1.7 million and more thought strokes. They might exist.
sheer ruthlessness of all that.
So they asked, they asked him and this is recorded.
That's the Why'd you do that? What's the motivation behind this empire building?
And he made what I consider to be the most short term focus statement that I've ever heard in my life. He said for the joy of chasing my enemy, killing him and taking his women
can imagine anything more short term focused on that?
But highly, hugely successful.
That's the these are the the the puzzles of leadership that I'm fascinated with and I
currently I have finished my 26th book on it.
So what remains today of this entire world and why don't you tell the whole story? What remains today of Genghis Khan's Empire, an empire the like of which the world never saw? Till today, the largest empire that was ever built by mankind. What is left today? Hold your breath.
One, one stone,
pillar base, which is shaped like a turtle.
Absolutely nothing else.
One stone, pillar base, which is shaped like a turtle from is the city that is grants and other hand built called karakura.
There is a Karakoram Highway in Central Asia but there's no Karakoram
one kilometers.
My submission to all of you is what will remain when you are gone. Because I don't think there's anybody here who's had an empire the size of Genghis Khan.
We come to the next one, which is Gandhiji. Mata God is second October 1869 to 30th of January 1948 79 years.
What what God is his principles. And this is another seminar I teach
it according to me, there are three classic principles of leadership of energy.
clear and simple goal.
wi I FM is the FM station that everyone listens to every one of you on the station.
wi I FM, what's in it for me.
And God is he translated that very clearly anyone who was there knew what's in it for a
clear and simple goal not complicated complex, high level vision statements, clear and simple goal number two, visible success
which builds credibility and number three, clear action plan.
And the foundation of that, no matter how eccentric people might think Gandhiji was, nobody can deny that he lived by his principles. You may agree with his principles, you may disagree with them, you may like them, you may dislike them that is immaterial. Nobody will say that Gandhiji did not live by his principles because it is
the foundation of living by all principles and leadership strategy, clear simple goals. Visible success, clear action plan.
So what are the principles of Gandhi's
leadership, clarity about core philosophy, through and Ahimsa through a non violence,
willingness to live by those values, no matter what happens, no matter who likes it, who doesn't like it, how popular or unpopular he becomes, but willingness to live by those values. Three is ability to take diverse people along
peoples of all religions, people of all
racial ethnic backgrounds and so on. who followed me. Number four, using symbols to fire the imagination. Give you a very classic example of that. And the fifth one is magnanimity to win over opposition.
So in Genghis Khan's case, you have a very short term focus in Goddess's case you have a very long term focus. And what are the results?
We'll come to that but before that, I don't want to give you an example of using of symbols that Dundee marks
to make salt
on the seashore. What are the Nandi marks all about?
It was not about making sorts. But it was about challenging the British Empire's right to make laws.
Very simple goal. Walk to Dundee
next door
But it shook the foundations of the British Empire.
What remains today?
This is
the third of the examples I want to give you, before we come to the tools
is the example of the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Sallam 572 632 62 to 63 years of life.
Out of age 23 of those years as a prophet
What were his leadership principles,
once again, leaving the message, walking the talk,
not saying something or doing something else. Number two, putting himself on the line, not telling someone else to do what he would not do himself. There was a commotion very early in the morning before further in Medina. And people were running Helter Skelter, they thought they had been attacked. And at that time, they saw a rider on riding *, coming back from the boundary of Medina. And that right there was a profit centers in itself, he said, there is no danger, I just went to check.
putting himself on the line. Number three, the goal comes first, before personal preferences.
The finest example of the ability to deal with people you dislike.
Today, one of the biggest reasons why we are very bad at teamwork is because we insist that the people we work with must necessarily be people will like personally. Whereas the reality is that you need that you need the skills and talents of people you don't necessarily need to like them.
It is the ability to work with people that we don't necessarily like, which is at the root of successful team building.
And the bars are so long did that to a level of excellence. Again, I'm not going into details we don't have the time for that there's a book of mine called leadership lessons from the life of Rasul Allah, Allah, I would recommend a few more to get the book and give each one of you a copy of that. I don't take any royalties from the books or not, I'm not trying to sell the book. But just so that you have a an example of the life of the Prophet written from a perspective
which is modern, which links with our world life challenges today in business in politics and administration. Taking from the lessons from the life of the Prophet, I'm sure you'd be interested to read that. And the last one very, very, very important. magnanimity and forgiveness. How do you join hearts together? by forgiving each other? How would you forgive somebody who wronged you? By definition, you can forgive someone who's always been good to you.
But unless you can forgive somebody who wronged you, hearts will never join.
And according to me today, this is the number one need, not only of India, but of the whole worlds. And that number one need is to join the hearts of people together. Do you agree with me?
And that can that can only happen if we learn to forgive one another.
So I say the Prophet sallallahu Sallam overcame enemies, not by killing enemies, but by killing enmity.
And so those enemies, people who after his blood literally became his greatest friends and supporters.
What remains today 1.5 billion people across the nation, my nationalities, races, geographies, who love him and believe in him and accept his message.
What is his legacy? The Quran and the Sunnah, the concept of the oneness of Allah and the concept of accountability in the Hereafter, which we call the here and after the forgiveness of Allah, the beautiful Ayat of Surah workato brother resided so beautifully Mashallah is one of those is
the one who seeks forgiveness. Not only will Allah subhanaw taala forgive his sins, but he will convert them into good deeds.
And whenever I read this is the only the King of Kings can do this. Forgiveness alone would have been enough. But imagine converting those sins into actual good deeds in the account of the individual you bought below. You know, what?
You bought the Lula Hosea team has an X
Allah will change this a year.
The sins into Hazara, which is good deeds, three charity as an act of worship as one of the pillars of Islam, not something which is good to do, but something which you have to do. And if you deny that, then you are out of Islam charity as an act of worship, a gala terian ism which people don't really understand but a gala. terian is a brotherhood of mankind, not only of faith.
Last week, I was in London after Oxford, I was in London, I speaking at a function of Muslims and non Muslims is a dear friend of mine, and one of my teachers am abubaker, who has a, an annual event, he calls it come dine with me. And the event is each Muslim, bring a non Muslim friend with you. So we had over 200 people that were Hindus, Christians, Jewish people, and so on and so forth, in that Hall. And we talked about and one of the things I talked about was the Brotherhood of humanity, the Brotherhood of mankind, not just about out of faith, which a lot of people don't know, including goodness.
And that's one of the legacies of the
fifth one is a legal system, before which there is absolute equality between Muslim and non Muslim region for powerful and powerless, today one of the four letter word which is not for that as a Sharia.
And people talk about imposition of Sharia.
And people think that if Sharia is important be imposed as a law, the non Muslims will get a raw deal.
If the Sharia is imposed as a law the way it is supposed to be imposed, I'm not talking about how it is imposed in many places, which is not sorry at all.
If it is done the way it is supposed to be done, there is absolutely no differentiation between Muslim and non Muslim before the law.
Complete equality in the rights of people with no distinction between Muslim and non Muslim
rights of women. I always say in my next incarnation, if there is one, we don't believe in reincarnation, we believe in standing before us. But if there was a philosophy of incarnation, which we believed in, I always say that if I want to be if I was to be reincarnated, I would like to reincarnate as my wife.
Because the rights of women in Islam actually exceed the rights of men. That is, might come as a big surprise to many of you. As I told you, we don't have time to go into the details. But as and when there is time, I'm happy to elaborate all this all this for you. But just to give you one statistic, I don't know how many of you are aware and I can give you the numbers and the links and the references
to this day.
Data correct to 2014 women in America get 20% less money for the same work
to this day,
same thing in Europe.
Of course, same thing in India.
Why? We like to talk about the equality of women, where is it?
And to the best of my knowledge, there are no Sharia being applied in America or in Europe or in India.
So what is equality? We will be talking about where is it? Give it to me? We want that to happen? Why was the woman get less money for the same work than a man? Just because she has a cheese from a different different gender? How is it fair?
Number six, a constitution the first such document in the history of mankind to be written down when the province of Medina, which guarantees equal rights for everyone, irrespective of faith. Think about this, the prophet of the Muslim writer doc rights are document which gives equal rights to the Jews and to the people who were the people of koresh and others who were who worship idols. So they were I mean, they were not Hindu in the sense that we understand but they used to worship idols, same rights as his own followers. And finally, an unparalleled example of personal life as a guidance for mankind that is the legacy of Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa.
So we come to the tools therefore, what must you do having seen these three examples of great leaders?
What must you do? How can you translate that into your life and I say put your life in gear. As you know if you even have the most powerful engine is it in a Ferrari Enzo Ferrari, you got to monitor SP the car can do zero miles per hour, but unless you engage the gear, you can step on the gas volume what the engine will scream, it will burn itself out but you will not move an inch because you have not engaged the gear right or not. So it's not the horsepower it's the whether you engage the guests never put your life in gear.
What is good, generate energy, energize others achieve results and return to society. That's my, that's my gods that have good, very good, let's go to that generate energy part of your life. Number one, very clear, very important to be clear and rooted in your values. What are your values? One of the things I teach is I call it like my core leadership workshop, which begins with core values.
What are your core values? What are the values that you will not compromise for anything on the face of the earth,
you need to be clear about that. And you need to be deeply rooted in them. That was the biggest strength of Gandhi, for example, very clear about his values. Number two, live those values with confidence, not hide under the under the table, no apologetic appearance,
live the value confidence, three, be prepared to commit fully, because that is the meaning of commitment.
There is no such thing as partial commitment. Just like there's no such thing as partial pregnancy.
You're either pregnant or not pregnant. So you're either committed or not committed, you can't be partially committed to something.
Values drive, passion, and passion rarely fails.
So what are right values, those in which you believe passionately, those which you will do anything for those who will not compromise at any costs, and those which add value to you and others.
They can be anything, but they must follow these four principles.
And as we know, and we have seen that recently, the subprime crisis, the US in the financial collapse of the global capital markets, and so on. Greed, self destructs.
And that's why I say to you, it's not how much you have, but how much you want, which determines satisfaction, and peace of mind.
There's a wonderful teaching story of this man who was in great need, and he was running, going from place to place asking people to help him and nobody could help you. Finally, he was in absolute desperation and despair. He was going and he found an old fucking sitting under a tree.
And the man column is a cafe. So what's what's the problem? He said, Oh, I need some money. I don't have anything. So what can you give me you're a kid you are you're a you're a beggar.
So the father
put his hand under his the mat he was sitting on and he pulled out a diamond that size.
And he gave it to
you take it.
He saw he said, What is this? He says the diamond.
What is it? What is that go as the as the jazzy jewelers?
He said you're giving it to?
The man took it and he ran away.
Next day, the man came back
to the
civilian sector, whatever, you couldn't sell it. He said no. He said, I went and I found out the price of this thing, he says is what millions.
So he said that whatever. He said, I came to give it back to him and why?
He said, because I want from you that which made you give me that stone?
What is it that that you have where you give it a stone? I want that because that is worth more than whatever the stone is worth.
That contentment of the heart.
My brothers and sisters, the essential truth is that living life is about making choices. Choosing to be a victim or choosing to be a master.
You might say well, how can anyone choose to be a victim? Believe me, if you do not choose to be a master, you chose to be a victim.
Both stances whether you choose to be a master victim are subject to the givens of society and the environment.
conditions will not change just because you decide to take a masterful stance. But what does change are the implications in terms of your own development and your own happiness.
Choose wisely, because the implications are for the year. And
I submit to you that they're that success has a price.
Like everything else, success has a price. When you leave this hall let's do an experiment. When you finish after dinner, you're going home, find the person that you can see and ask them Do you want to be successful or unsuccessful?
What is he using? Or she will say I want to be the most unsuccessful person in the world. You just say that that's a success statement. He doesn't want to be any ordinary is unsuccessful. The most unsuccessful the biggest failure
Everybody wants success. But does everybody have success? What's your experience? What does it tell you? Is everyone successful? So just one thing, success is not sufficient. People do not have success for the same reason that everyone does not have a Rolls Royce.
What's the reason? Because they're not willing to pay the price of the Rolls Royce. Just one thing a Rolls Royce will not get your Rolls Royce. So I go to the Rolls Royce showroom. And I say I've come here to buy this car. So sales guy says, How much money do you have, I said, I have one lakh rupees in my pocket. So he says, Please come here, he sits me down in front of his laptop, he shows me a 3d model of the Rolls Royce. And he says, move your finger around on the pad, and it will turn. And if you click here, the the bonnet will open. If you click here, the doors will open all of that when you are finished with that, leave your one lag there and go home for one lag, you get to see a 3d
model of the car.
Success has a price. People don't get success, because they're not willing to pay the price. And the reason why most people are not willing to pay the price is not because they don't want to, but because they don't know what is the price. They never thought of success as having a price. This man is a mind reader.
Most people
they don't pay the price of success because they don't know the price of success. And they don't know the price of success because they haven't thought about it. So my first question to you was what? When I began the previous presentation, what do you want to do about your future? My second question to you is, before you go to bed tonight, define success in your own terms. Do not go to sleep until you write a success statement. What does success mean to me?
When you do that, do not go to bed without writing a success statement for yourself. When you go home, also gather about you, your family, tell each of them to do that.
And the price of success is not in terms of money. It's in terms of actions. What is it that you are not doing today that you need to start doing? What is it that you are doing today? Which you need to start doing? And what is it that you are doing today, which you need to continue to do consciously?
We come to the next one which is energizing of others. And why do we do that? Because nobody but nobody can win alone.
Three things to do. build a team, create a foundation of trust because that's what the team is built on. And number three, very important. Learn to deal with conflict, leverage conflict, to enhance quality, to bring together hearts to enable people to understand each other better. Not avoid conflict, leverage conflict, use conflict, focus on your people and understand the doorman is also people. There's a wonderful story about JRD Tata, told by his driver, he said that JRD Tata has to work in
that type of German where India is to work in the Air India building for half the day. And the rest of the day he would go to the Tata headquarters, and he would eat lunch in the data headquarters.
So the man says that I was waiting for him one day. And he came down personally from the doubleheader building, and came and said to him, today, I'm not going to data house, you go and have lunch, and come back and pick me up at some time because I, I have I have some meetings here.
The driver is also people, the doorman is also people.
If God had not come personally, if he had sent a message the driver would not have been offended.
It's not about the driver. It's about the man himself.
Build your team, create a critical question who must be on the team and who must not be on the team.
Everybody has value, but some people have nuisance value.
Such people must always be on the team. Please understand, not of the team.
It is much better for a person to be in the tent and do it outside rather than be outside and doing it to the tent.
Since it's a dinner meeting, I don't want to say what and the last one is what will make them want to be there.
Nobody but nobody commits for money. Please understand this very clearly. There's statistics to prove this
Passion is a matter of the heart. Money has to come, nobody works for free, you have to pay salaries or you have to pay good salaries, but the salary will not buy your commitment. The salary will not buy your passion.
You need passion.
Because only the right people can go to the right place.
foundation of this is trust. What is trust, demonstrated competence, plus willingness to help
times time.
People trust you, if they believe that you can do something for them, and you are available to them. This is what we have to prove to our people not once, time and time again.
To build trust. Six things to do. Demonstrate integrity and competence demonstrate objectivity and impartiality, demonstrate willingness to help, communicate and collaborate, support others and cover up other people's faults, not show them up. Cover people's faults, be proactive in helping others don't wait to be asked.
And that's why one of my first managers in Guyana, South America in the middle of the boondocks, I worked five years in the middle of Amazonian rainforest. And I had a manager called Nick Adams. And Nick used to ask me this question. He used to say what is your bank balance and I was very poor in those days, I said I want nothing isn't I'm not wrong about that money. I thought he's going to give me a raise or something. He said, I'm talking about your goodwill bank balance.
He said works the same way. What you can draw out depends on what you put in.
If you did not put it in, you cannot draw it out. When do you put it in when you don't need it.
So you can dry it out when you need it. Many people
they value things and they use people.
And that's a formula for failure.
The to value people and use things. We collect things.
We don't collect people we should collect people give away the things.
The things I like about the question about the why you want to collect the for what you want to answer all those questions.
Collect people,
good people,
that should be your collection. Who are the friends who have
not stuff.
Leverage conflict, create a culture of mutual respect, not denigrating and criticizing people because they disagree with you disagree without being disagreeable.
In.
In Islamic sciences, we have something called a double if they laugh, the manners of disagreeing, how to disagree is taught as a subject, other how to disagree, very important lesson in team building.
We need to learn the manners of disagreeing and use conflict as a resource.
And that's why I say only appropriate heat tempered steel and wells metal to better
if you increase the heat,
the iron will melt and flowing. It won't dry.
Third one achievements, because only results count.
We can talk to the cows come home.
End of the day only thing which counts is what did you actually do three things to do that what's your strategy? What's your roadmap? What are your metrics, measurement track factors? strategy, what is the method you want to follow to achieve your vision, clarity about the vision, clarity about how to get there? How do you know this will work? That is critical to be able to demonstrate that because you will get commitment from people based on your ability to demonstrate that your method works.
Third one is what is the investment you need to make for your strategy to succeed. And once again, investment is not only money, for the most part, money is the last part of investment.
You need quick and significant wins to retain the energy and so you must know what are the leverage points of your strategy.
Many times we get sidetracked by the appearance of action. You're very busy. But you stuck on it as you're busy doing what? You've no clue.
It's not the appearance of action. It is actual results that must come from that. Number two is roadmap, systematic working.
What are the road milestones? What are the metrics? How do you know you're going in the right direction in the right speed? What are the timelines by which you will reach each milestone goal
Without a timeline is only a wish.
And the last one very important set the metrics, measurement parameters. We call this the SMART goals. A goal must be specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and time bound. Smart. So any goal you have put it on this framework and say, is it a SMART goal, I'm going to give you this company presentation for those of you who are interested, just contact Mr. Machado, and he will email you the link, and you will get the presentation.
Two kinds of goals, being goals and doing goals. Many of us start off with a being I want to be this, I want to be that.
But to be that you have to do something.
And unless you translate a being goal into a doing goal, it's not going to happen.
So if I want to be the CEO of my company, what do I need to do?
Take any being gold, and translate it into a doing goal. And so my quote for that is to be you have to do to do, you don't have to be you don't have to wait until you become in order to do unless you do, you will never be
to be you have to do to do you don't have to be unless you do, you'll never be if you can say that very fast five times, I'll give you a million dollars to be.
So therefore measure yourself. And this is your third task. First ask What will you do about your future? second task, write your own success statement? third task yourself in the last 12 months? What did you learn? Can you write down three critical learnings that you have write down? Can you write down three critical things that you learned in the last 12? months? Number two, out of those three? How many did you actually apply? number three? What is your investment in yourself in the last 12 months? And I want you to put a number on it? Not I work very hard. I don't know how much?
What number number four, what was your return on that investment?
success comes from clarity.
Clarity is absolutely critical. And that success is the life of this world. And in the year after which we call Why must we measure ourselves because we will be measured. One of the famous quotes of the halifa. Delano, he said, Take your hisab before your exam is taken, he said assess yourself before you are assessed.
Last one is returned to the world. Why? Because we took from it.
Every time I speak to a group of people, you can see that because I can't beam that picture from my mind into your mind. But I can actually see
the faces
of all those people
who are my teachers, formal and informal teachers.
Most of them are gone because I'm 60 years old. I mean, you know they would have to be out and ready to be alive now.
But I can see their faces my mind.
And I honor that.
And I know
that if it wasn't for them, I would not be even a fraction of what I have today.
And most of them, but almost
most of them are not because we live in a we live in a society like that we live in a society in the middle of people who love each other. The religion didn't matter. We didn't love that because there was a lot because we we love each other because we were
we are human beings.
So return share the wealth, all kinds of wealth, knowledge, money, energy, health, share the wealth. Why? Because that's the way to get rich. You don't get rich by water, you get rich by sharing
the principle of agriculture,
which I'll come to in a second. You get rich by sharing, give to get abundance philosophy. Many people tell me almost everywhere I go and everywhere I teach. I say to the people the same thing I said to you which is I will give you the entire presentation. People tell me you're mad You're crazy. This is your capital. This is my capital is not that I'm a consultant so my capital is knowledge. I charge money for this.
Why do you do it for free?
This is like Bill Gates giving away a you know, Microsoft Word or something or or Apple giving away iPhones.
I have done this all my life. And I have been hugely enriched by that, believe me, I don't do this for because I've been going to Iraq. I know this is my way of getting more and more and more, the knowledge that comes back to me when I share is far superior at whatever I give you.
To share abundance philosophy don't
return to society and create a legacy.
Give to get because only empty hands can hold.
Because wealth is not how much you have, but how much you can afford to give. being wealthy is a state of mind, not a state of the pockets.
What you have in your hand is the harvest. What you plant is the seed, hang on to what you have. And that's all you will ever have.
planned what you have, and you will always get more.
Because the harvest is always more than the seat.
So give what you have to get what you need.
And more.
My brother sisters life is math,
two plus four equals six. Life is mad because this equation is our equation in life, we control only one side of the equation. The other side is given to us. The two is mine, the four is given to me. But what I do with the two will affect will impact the outcome which is the six. So if I want to convert the six into eight, what must I do with the to make it work?
Many times people say well, you know what this happened to me? No problem. It happened to you. What did you do?
We control one side of the equation. But we do control that side of the equation. And what we do with that side of the equation has an impact on the final outcome, which is the only thing that matters.
And that's why I say life is math.
The only way to get is to give you want people to trust you hide their faults. Don't talk about it. People will trust you. You want people to care for you. You want caring show concern for others care for others. You want to have fun laugh. You want to respect. Be thankful to people. You want harmony, accept differences. Don't insist that somebody will be like, you know, accept differences. You want appreciation, appreciate, don't be critical. You want happiness, forgive mistakes.
You want to get good
return to society because strong societies are built on giving.
I'll tell you a wonderful story for foundation ran a program in North India in yupi where they it was agriculture program and very simple thing they gave people metal plowshares
so
it's a wooden plowshare thing which goes into the ground for partnership and this thing and they gave people in the in a particular village they gave them metal plowshares the metal crusher digs deeper, breaks up the soil better. So the fossils the crop is better than with a wooden ship.
So they did this experiment. They had some
experimental fields. They had control fields that demonstrated to the various people that I'm talking about giving. So they demonstrated to the village people that the metal pleasure is superior gives you better harvest and so on and so forth. Two years later, they came back for assessment of the project and they found that the metal plowshares were not being used.
They were missed. They were absolutely flabbergasted. They said how is it that people are not using it? I mean, these Indians are stupid What? So they spoke to the the the Buhari and Patel of the village and so on. And of course our people are very polite. So they said no, you don't like of course, we like it very much.
So they never got a straight answer from them. So they hired one of my professors when I was at the IMA.
So they asked Colin to go and
talk to them,
and so on and so forth. And he was from that general area. So pulling out his story. He said to me, I went there, he said, Northern Mr. Perez and I stayed in the village and then asked the people I said
you didn't tell the white man the story but tell me you know, what is the issue? You You don't like this thing? The Plaza? They said no, no, no, they are correct. The closure is very good, gives us a better harvest and so on. So he says Then why don't use it.
The answer that man gave the village elder grooming
When he said to pull in I'll say this in Hindi and I will translate for you those of you don't know Hindi.
He said to him,
he said Sir yellowhead Camus tamale Caray to hamari government Yo yo
yo Baraka, Hannah in Calgary.
He said if we use the metal plusher What must we do with the family of carpenters, which lives in a village?
Imagine
this is our culture.
This is he said, so the whole village takes a decision to take a lower crop, lower income, because we have to support the carpenters whose only job is to make this
strong societies are built on sharing and giving.
growth for the sake of growth is the philosophy of the cancer cell.
growth for the sake of growth is the philosophy of the cancer cell. And that is what has happened to us as a society.
Being well adjusted
to sickness is not a sign of health.
And that's a board of education was one of my favorite philosophy, which I read a lot of, he said being well adjusted to sickness is not a sign of health.
And that's why I say to my brothers sisters, honor is never old fashioned.
Last slide. For a second last slide
is develop leadership,
put back into society.
I teach leadership.
I charge a fee to my corporate clients only.
All others, which is over 80% of my of my practice, I do it for free.
I'm not doing it so that you will think I'm a great guy. I'm saying it to show that even somebody like me, who is a single individual can do if you want to do
schools, colleges, students, teachers, religious organizations, irrespective of religion, religious organizations, scholars, gatherings like this, all of them, I do this work for free.
Why not? I'm not doing anybody any favors. I'm doing it because I got it from society, I need to give it back.
So select, right, and train.
Monitor writes, hands on, support and critic say what needs to be said. And then hand over charge. One of the greatest reasons why family businesses break up is because the elders don't want to add over to the access.
They send them to the good.
And the interesting thing is that at least two in today's world, many business families they send their children to some of the finest institutions of the world. So get these youngsters with a brilliant education from Princeton from our from Cambridge of Oxford, and then his father will not trust him to change a lightbulb.
So what to do with education? Seriously, we have to trust our own training. If you have confidence in the way you train yourself.
You will never fear to handle jobs.
There is a very, very good friend of mine. He is a he's a disciple of one of the one of our very famous gurus from India. So he told me a wonderful story. He said that he or he has a son was about 21 years old. So he said the Guru Ji gave it to him and so on and he asked his son what would what would America and these people that you know traditional Brahmin family, very traditional people, so they were very afraid most of America what will happen and so on and you know, the biggest fear that we have of sending our sons of
guns anyway. So this person said, I went to this I went to my guru and I asked him I said Guru Ji K.
After my life, you want to go to my food. I sent him a Sriracha
and that would give you an answer which says there is such so simple but so correct.
He said to him, kay America, and a visa.
What happened is not a cake case at a key Sal Jolokia who said
he said to send the son to America or not depends on what you did.
With him for 25 years.
So it's so important in terms of understanding, you know what we do. Because if you want to leave behind a legacy, you have to develop leadership.
Last night, I want to submit to you people remember us not by what we consumed, but by what we contributed.
Whatever we owned is,
but what did you give back to people to society. And that's what we are remembered for.
That's a set of my books. That is the last slide that is my Those are my links. Those of you who are interested in most welcome, please contact please be in touch. It will be wonderful to hear from you. The tumbler link has my quotes.
Current count, actually, for books that are going to come out we have two quotes. So you will be tested with those of you interested take a screenshot of that. Anyway, I will send you this presentation, which has all of this. Thank you very much. It's great honor and pleasure to be here and quest to be at this function to talk to you. My thanks to his Excellency, our ambassador, and to all of you for taking the time to come here. It's a great honor for me. I'm most grateful to you. Thank you very much. vasavada COVID