SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE THEN AND NOW….

What has been said by our Great Chanakya, the eternal leadership guru, who paved way for many leaders in the making then and now, whose principles still holds good in this modern world too. Radhakrishnan Pillai from the University of Mumbai, Department of Philosophy is the founder-director of Chanakya Institute of Public leadership (CIPL) a research based organisation that is working to promote Indian concepts in management. He has done an extensive research on “Kautilya’s Arthashastra”, the well-known book on management written in 4th BC from Chinmaya International Foundation (CIF), Kerala under the guidance of Dr Gangadharan Nair, the dean of Adi Shankara Samskrit University. He later proceeded to do his MA in Sanskrit and a PhD. in the subject. He is a certified management consultant from the International Institute of Management consultants. He is the director at SPM Foundation and founder Director of Atma Darshan a spiritual tourism company.

With nearly 20 years of combined working and business experience he is a well-known management speaker, trainer, author and consultant. He has written nearly 200 articles and papers for various magazines, newspapers, journals and periodicals including Times of India group (Mumbai Mirror) as a weekly columnist. He has also hosted a radio show “Ask Chanakya’ on Moksha Channel of World space satellite radio which has completed nearly 100 shows. He has represented India in various national and international conferences including the Academy of Management (AOM) in San Antonio, Texas. Presented papers in Indian philosophical congress (IPC) and chaired session at Afro-Asian Philosophical congress (AAPA), taught in Germany (Heidelberg and Cologne universities), Singapore and Indonesia.

His first book ‘Corporate Chanakya’ has been on the “best-seller” list since its launch in 2010 and used as a text book in various Business schools in India and abroad. The book has the unique distinction of being made into an audio book, a training film and translated into 10 regional languages. He is a visiting faculty in prestigious institutes in India and abroad including the IIT, IIM, Indian Institute of Science (IISc) among others. He has been a trainer and strategy consultant to over 200 organisations like Indian police, various NGOs, private, public sector and government organisations including Indian oil, HPCL, BPCL, L& T etc. He has been awarded the prestigious Sardar Patel International award 2009 for his research and contribution in field of management & Industrial development.

Now,to suit this modern world, Chanakya almost 2400 years back, what has been told by him about, what attributes make successful people, still holds good now. For the simple reason that what principles were told then by Chanakya literally coincides with that of the ideas of these modern day successful people which is very surprising too. Health, Wealth, Wisdom, ideas what was told then, might have changed in form now, but they are eternal ever. People living at Chanakya’s time and now, follow the same principle of staying healthy with proper exercises, wealthy and wise with the correct lifestyle. Nothing much has changed. This has been reiterated by Dr. Radhakrishnan Pillai, from his research on Chanakya’s work in totality, which has been given in capsule form to suit this century.

What makes people successful, as a person, leader? First is to develop the habit of READING. Reading does not confine one, only to newspapers, all social media internet messages, but read journals, books whatever they can lay their hands on. It is expected that people should be deep, wide, readers and thinkers. But what is very important here is they don’t stop with reading alone they discuss heavily on all the issues read, in the process become well informed. As Chanakya said “ALL LEADERS ARE READERS”, develop the habit of reading. We are very fortunate to have had good education and are able to read, which should be put to optimum use.

Now another trait directly connected to reading,that is WRITING, successful people write a lot. This doesn’t mean only writing or authoring books. No one becomes an author by fluke unless he gets habituated to certain writing skills. Develop the habit of writing from young. Always have a pen and paper and note down points while listening to a lecture. Initially it may be difficult to write in long hand, but over a period one gets used to jotting out the points precisely.The big sea change from then,  is the digital world we are in now. Next is to diarise the daily happenings which again hones one’s writing skills. Now with the changing times we can type whatever has to be noted, but never give up writing, let it be a  continuing habit. Keep writing points, notes, minutes of the meetings which ever suits one, in the situation they are in.

The most important factor behind every successful person is the TIME-MANAGEMENT. Multi-tasking is an important factor of time-management. Precisely multi-tasking is not doing 100 things at the same time, NO, but doing one thing with a focus multipliedby 100 times. This only shows if one is focused, he or she can do multiple things because they are very good in time-management. Those of whom who know to manage time, actually don’t manage minutes, but seconds. They start managing seconds, minutes, hours, days then the whole year and of course the whole life. All successful people know the value of time, as the saying goes, “if you value time, time will value you”.

It is very few people who understand the value of time and once that happens, magic follows. One can do hundreds of things if this attitude is developed, but begin with respecting the time. How does one practise this? For an example, if there is meeting at five, one should not go at five, but five minutes to five. This small gesture is not only a confidence building step to one self, but to the other person also. The other person also realises, that he has to be on time as here is a person who comes before him for the meeting. It is a myth to think that successful people won’t have time, but they have lot of time to respect, not only theirs, but others time too.

If one wants to become successful in life, make sure he or she is in the company of more successful people. A person is what, the company he or she keeps. Choose your friends circle wisely. This doesn’t mean that you will be friendly with one group and unfriendly with another. You have to be friends with everyone. But in a college or work place, you definitely have to have a very friendly exterior, you can help everyone those who need it, but wisely choose those 5 to 10 core circle that you want to be very close with. Because it is with them one can really relate to on a personal level. But in business scenario, a small time business man needs to make friends or be in the company of more successful business man/woman. For an example, if a business man/woman is making 1 crore business, it is inevitable that he needs to be surrounded by business men who are making 10 crores. This is because the bigger business person helps in making the small timer to think, do business like he does because of his constant mentoring and guidance. A point comes where the small timer also comes into the league of the 10 crore making business people. So make sure that the company one keeps, are more successful people than he or she is.

Think like a leader, does not mean that one should become a leader. Even to become a leader or a successful person one has to start believing in it to think like a leader. It has been proven in researches, that all successful people visualised that they are going to be successful. Even before they become successful, they already have thought, made up their minds that they are successful. For an illustration, once a man with no arms and legs was climbing a big mountain, where a marathon runner went past this person who was crawling to climb the mountain. The marathon runner told the crawling person, at this rate I don’t think you will climb up the mountain, the other person said, I have already climbed the mountain in my thoughts, it is only a matter of time that I would reach the top physically. This is not over confidence, but self-confidence. Over confidence can be dangerous to ones psyche. Over confident people don’t have a plan, whereas confident people have a plan, path, put the right effort, strategy, work very hard and smart.

TO BECOME SUCCESSFUL DEVELOP FURTHER THE INNATE HABITS OF READING, WRITING, TIME-MANAGEMENT, BE IN THE COMPANY OF MORE SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE, THINK LIKE A LEADER….IT IS ACHIEVABLE…..

VIJAYASHREE RAMESH, ADVOCATE & SOCIAL ACTIVIST….