DEVELOPING INNER LEADERSHIP FOR SUCCESS

“Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm”, is a dictum that
captures very well what is required of an entrepreneur. Something that I learned the
hard way through experience as early on in my career, I decided to turn an
entrepreneur, which in the 80’s was both rare and risky. Nine start-ups, four total
failures, two part failures, including the first four at a stretch, a couple of moderate
successes and one fairly good one—along the way, the experience of raising funds
from angel investors, venture funds, strategic investors, giving them reasonably good
exits and exiting ourselves is the story of my entrepreneurial journey stretching from
the mid 80’s and continuing hopefully for another decade at-least.

Entrepreneurship was my dream and pursue it I did. The one critical quality required
of an entrepreneur is that passionate desire to become one. The fire in the belly is
what distinguishes a great entrepreneur from an also ran. There is no guarantee of
success, but the journey is rewarding. You must fall in love with what you do, because
being an entrepreneur requires arduous work and involves overcoming hard adversity.
From this love will come the dedication and ability to work as hard as required. A
burning desire is not enough though ; one has to go beyond. One also needs;
(i) A good business idea
(ii) Validation of the concept
(iii) Preferably a beta customer
(iv) A great Team

I have written about my life journey, entrepreneurial experiences, failures and

successes and the lessons derived, in my book “Failure to Millionaire; How I created
a successful company and you can too” published by Sage. Here I elaborate on one
topic from my life which I consider crucial to success in all walks of life but more
specifically to Entrepreneurship and / or as a Business Executive.

One area that most aspiring leaders forget to develop is their “inner core “, and one
often pays a great price for it later on in life. We tend to forget that for all our efforts to
succeed we need to begin by developing ourselves, not just from the outside but from
the inside as well. So it was with me when early on in my career as an entrepreneur,
the arrogance of being an IIMA graduate coupled with undisciplined living and the
pressures of entrepreneurship , I came down with issues of health – high blood
pressure, high lipid profile, spondylosis, low energy levels with a consequent loss in
focus on work and a general disinterest in everything in general ; probably signs of
depression caused by reversals and failures. In my interactions with college students
and young entrepreneurs, this issue of severe pressure and the consequent stress at
the physical, mental and psychological comes through as a major issue. Here are
some of the lessons I learnt that helped me develop resilience and inner peace and I
hope it helps you, my dear reader, in much the same way.

My search for alternatives to my health and emotional issues ( anger , worry, etc.) led
me to meet experts in Yoga ( amongst them Shri Desikacharya of Krishnamacharya
Yoga Mandiram – an acknowledged Yoga expert and the son of Krishnamacharya
who was the Guru of B.K.S Iyengar), Swami Vishnudevananda ( Swami Sivananda’s
Disciple and the founder of the Sivananda Yoga Mandiram, my Guru Baba
Shivananda of Shiv Yog who is referred to as the Healing Guru of India , Guru
Amrithananda Natha ( Shri Prahalada Sastry) who also initiated me into higher
practices of Sri Vidya and who was earlier a nuclear scientist with BARC , many other
interesting folks – IITians who had embraced spirituality , Phd’s who had left their job
to embrace a life of service , executives who had turned Babas and lived in caves high
up in the Himalayas in search of higher truths and so on . Interesting folks who
provided insights from a different perspective.

I have incorporated some of these practices into my life and have found it beneficial
from a physical (I have healed many of my physical problems and have not been on
medication for the problems that I listed earlier for over 25 years in spite of eminent
doctors at Apollo and CMS, Vellore stating that I needed to have them for life), and
psychological ( I believe I have developed resilience and immunity from success and
failures , worry and elation to quite a degree) perspectives and this had a positive and
beneficial effect on the work that I do – that of being an entrepreneur, investor and
teacher. A couple of the many lessons that I learnt from these interactions that helped
me greatly , the first that, “You are the creator of your own destiny” – no point blaming
other people or external circumstances, they are but facilitators in your life journey and
the second “Your are distanced from your dreams only by Time”- all you need is to
have a Dream and then shorten the time to fulfilment through Disciplined effort.

Some of the questions that I sought answers for were

(i) What life Skills did I need in order to be able to manage my internal
environment – my mindset & emotions, (worry, desires, anger, anxiety etc.)
and positive and negative drives – under ever-changing external
circumstances. How could I quickly rebound from setbacks and retain my
enthusiasm – as an entrepreneur or leader you need to have this quality to
inspire the folks who look up to you for direction? And most importantly how
could I lead a ‘value-based life’ and root my action in values that were core
to me as an individual.

(ii) Could I personalize a method (that worked for me) by which I could stay
reasonably calm and focused in the face of intense work pressure and
multiple failures.? How could I cultivate a mindset that would allow me to
perform at my optimum most of the time?

(iii) How could I achieve work-life balance, reduce stress and tension, control
my habits, control my emotions, maximize my energy and uphold my
personal values in social situations.

I have summarised my learnings as the “4 D’s” , an understanding of which helped me

to develop some extent of mastery over my body, mind and intellect and helped me
lead a reasonably happy and fulfilled life overall – both on the business and personal
fronts.

The four D’s are :

Discrimination (Wisdom)
The principle behind this is that “Viveka” or the discriminative power is very much
natural to a human being, but this power becomes active when the mind is quiet. In a
disturbed mind the discriminative power becomes stifled or numbed. So, keeping the
mind tranquil is imperative. The Bhagavad Gita eloquently states “Samathvam Yogam
Uchathe”. This is possible only when while one is active in the world, does so with an
attitude of “Nishkama Seva” ie. without expectation of returns. One needs to become
active in the world with a balanced and tranquil mind and then the mind becomes
sharp.

The technique for developing Discrimination is through Meditation and Karma (Seva)

Dispassion (Effort focus vs result focus)

Dispassion is the immunity from over-attachment and how does one develop
dispassion? It is a natural consequence of developing ones discriminative power. For
example, ask a child whether it wants a sweet or Rs. 100. It will choose the sweet
little knowing that the Rs 100 will get a lot of sweets. Choice is always dependent on
discrimination. Once one has knowledge one will choose the right thing.

Sometimes our effort does not give the desired result – eg business losing capital in
spite of ones best efforts, there is some other factor at work. Oftentimes people
complain (as it has been my personal experience also) that when one works hard,
there is no result and at other times positive results flow from very little work. Also,
some have it very easy others need o work very hard for the same result. “Karma
Phalam”, which is commonly called luck is a factor that is not explainable.

In all human undertakings there is an unknown, indefinable, unseen, unexplainable

factor which is called fate or destiny. – sometimes favourable (luck) or unfavourable
( ill -luck) . This is not under our control and to therefore make it positive atleast in
ones own mind, only one thing can be done – Prayer. That is why Prayers are so
important – does not matter who one Prays to but Pray one must – it is a psychological
antidote. There are a number of studies that show the positive correlation of prayer
and success.

Discipline

This involves
(i) Reining in the mind
(ii) mastery over the sense organs,
(iii) Doing ones’ duty with a balanced mind
(iv) Endurance,
(v) Faith
(vi) A meditative & Balanced mind & Intellect

How does one develop the above six qualities – one of the ways is through Patanjali’s
Ashtanga Yoga (something that I follow) –

(i) Yama & Niyama (Do’s and Dont’s- the original ten commandments),
 (ii) Asana (body control through postures)
(iii) Pranayama (controlling energy through regulating breath)
(iv) Pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses from sense organs ; this helps
stimulation of the mind by reducing sensory perception) ,
(v) Dharana ( Concentration on a object – externa or internal)
(vi) Dhyanam ( Meditation) and
(vii) Samadhi

At least the first 5 can be consciously followed to some extent and made a part of
one’s life.

DESIRE

To achieve anything of substance one needs to have that deep desire – expressed as
a vision, a goal with specific timelines and an action agenda

Personally, I do not buy the excuse that there is no time to incorporate all this in one’s
life – it is all a matter of prioritizing .

The understanding of the 4D’s also helped me appreciate how important it is to look
at and develop a personal practice to develop the following 5 areas of one’s life. I have
briefly touched upon each but I believe there are a variety of practices that help
develop each of the area and one can adopt whatever suits or interests.

1) Physical health and Nutrition (Physiological – body consciousness) – an hour

of yoga / walking / gym is part of my daily regimen
2) Physiological health (Energy Consciousness) – 20 minutes of pranayama
3) Mental Health (Emotional Consciousness) - 30 minutes of prayer and
meditation
4) Intellectual health (Intellectual consciousness) – acquiring a new skill , Reading
and most importantly deliberating on it. I have been attending Upanishad
classes as an attempt at widening my understanding, however it could be
anything that exercises the mind in a positive way.
5) Happiness consciousness - Have made a small attempt at making a social
contribution – balbhojan.org is my attempt at giving back to society. After all it
is in giving that one gets greater happiness. It also helps expand the mind.

Finally it is all a Mind-Game. For a strong and healthy mind, my Guru always states
that the mind needs to be Firm and one-pointed, Calm and Large. In the final
analysis, everything is “Mutti” or Maya or illusion and short-lived , but while it exists
lets enjoy the game to the fullest.