Maximise Potential

 Andy Grove was one of the greatest business leaders of all time. He left us on March 21st 2016 and remembering him as one of the great leaders who has impacted the world. Here is the summary below of his outstanding book "Only the Paranoid Survive." Andy Grove is credited with saying the phrase “Only the Paranoid Survive”. I happened to read his book of the same name. It was an interesting read. The main premise is that every company/industry will experience strategic inflection points at which they can be knocked off or use that to spur them on to further growth. Strategic inflection points are what happen to a business when a major change takes place that could shake up your company. It is when the balance of forces shifts from the old structure, from the old ways of doing business and the old ways of competing to the new.   An example is what happened to Intel in mid-1980. At that time Intel’s main market was in memory chips but the Japanese stormed the market with mu...

Shane Warne died at the ripe age of 52 on March 4th 2022. He was one of the greatest players of all time and has fans all over the world. He is a true champion and changed the face of spin bowling. I had a chance to meet him in person when I went to Taj hotel where the Australians were staying in Chennai during the 2001 test match in a historic series with India. Briefly I said "Hi Warney" and he responded in kind then proceeded with the conversation he was having. In his first test match against India in 1991-92 series he didn't have a great start. However he showed enormous resilience to turn himself into one of the greatest bowlers of all time. He was a great competitor with the ferocity of will to win no matter what is thrown his way. A true champion indeed. How much ever money or fame we have death seems to be the great equalizer.  It reminds us to look at our lives and maybe we are not going to be here forever. This might be a good time to see how we can live our li...

 Leadership has been endlessly dissected and ultimately even with the advent of technology the fundamentals of leadership has not changed. Leaders should have the ability to inspire others to action. It is getting people to do things which they normally would not have done without the leader’s intervention. For me leadership is about three things dreaming big with a compelling vision, ability to inspire others and leading by example. I have expanded each letter of the word leadership to identify the key requirements for becoming a great leader. Here are the 10 keys that all outstanding leaders use to stand out and lead people to work towards a well-defined vision. They are great listeners – Great leaders are great listeners. Leaders like Ronald Reagan were well known for their listening skills. When a leader listens to the team they feel the leader is part of the team and is willing to take into account the issues at hand. Leaders understand that for a team to perform they have to...

The 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing is underway and I want to wish the best to all the participants to bring on their best game. One of the inspirational performances was that of Eileen Gu as she had to land a move she had never tried in competition. Gu won a gold medal in freestyle skiing, hopefully the first of many for her. Another athlete to salute is Shaun White who is at his fifth games and is still one of snowboarding's greatest competitors. He finished fourth in his last games this time. He said afterward "I am proud the of the life I have led, and what I have done in this sport, and what I have left behind." At the end of our careers if all of us can say that it would be a great career indeed. On Wednesday February 9th 2022 Lindsey Jacobellis won a gold medal. Her story is really interesting. In 2006 she missed her gold medal by falling while performing a showboating trick near the finish line. She missed the final in 2010 and 2014. In 2018 she was placed at four...

Success is a wonderful word that all of us want to be associated with. In my opinion, everyone should define their success and it is for the individual to decide if they are successful or not. For example, the French chef Bernard Loiseau would be a success by anyone’s standard. However, he committed suicide because of a news report that hinted his restaurant may lose its 3-star status.  While setting high standards for our work and life is always a good sign, it is not good if we are never happy with what we achieve. This is why success requires a balance between striving for more and enjoying the current success.  I believe the recipe of success can be baked with the following ingredients. Here is my A - Z of Success. A for Ambition: To achieve any type of success you need a lot of ambition. The people who have made a mark in this world have all been highly ambitious with a compelling vision for the future. Ambition shouldn’t be confused with greed. When you have ambition it ...

I am totally inspired that Nadal has won the Australian Open again winning his 21st grand slam beating Daniel Medvedev in the final. What a champion he has now won the most grand slams of anyone in history on the men's side. The icing on the cake is he came through a tough match and has won the Australian Open second time which means he has won each major more than once. This shows his class and consistency. Does this mean he is the GOAT maybe or maybe not because Federer and Djokovic have also been great champions. However lets tip the hat off for Nadal because he has achieved something remarkable through his perseverance and enormous hard work. I had written earlier on the champions mindset of Federer and Djokovic. Here are the articles Djokovic Champion Qualities and Federer's Champion Mindset. However, if I don’t write about Nadal I would be leaving out my favorite player Nadal. While some Federer fans might not want Nadal to win and vice versa I take a nuanced approach to ...

I am continuing on the theme of making this new year great. Jan 1st we all feel pumped and ready to go so to avoid a loss or dip of motivation I am sharing the traits that can make you feel the continued enthusiasm throughout the year.  If you want to make 2022 great then the traits mentioned below can help you succeed as we go through the rest of the months. Successful people have a few common characteristics that make them great. Not every successful person can be a master of all these but awareness of them can help in increasing these qualities in ourselves. The best definition of success I have come across is what Earl Nightingale said “Success if the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.” So the key is to define your ideals and goals clearly for 2022. Unfortunately it is not rocket science, it is boring but true nonetheless. Once you do that and you take daily action towards those goals you are in the process of becoming successful. That’s why success is indeed personal a...