Subroto on ‘Go Kiss the World’
o I think I am an entrepreneur and a professional. In my first book, I have given away my formula for entrepreneurship. In this book, I share my formula for building life as a professional.
o GKTW is a book for young Indian professionals, because they would shape the future of the country. More particularly, I wrote this book for the young Indian professional from small town India because that is where I come from. It draws upon my life’s experience of growing up in places without electricity and tap water to come to where I am. The central message is that ordinary people can do extra-ordinary things.
o The book draws on my life. But it is not about my life. I use my life as a narrative, it is not the message. The narrative carries what I call “Life-Lessons”, these I have gleamed from situations and people from whom I had something or the other to learn in life. The book lists more than three dozen such people – it pieces together lessons learnt both from people in positions of great power and very ordinary people.
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13 key lessons that make up who I am
o It is all in the Mind, if you think you can, you can
o Your power to receive is more important than someone’s power to give
o To get, first you must give
o Connect with people – finally, leadership is all about people
o Life is a constant negotiation – never feel surprised with the need for it
o The overachiever is always on a slippery slope – one must always carry the ski-poles of humility as you negotiate your success
o One must build respect the marginal person in life – the small folks are more important than the big ones
o Passion is what passion does – life is not about the armchair revolutionary
o In your profession and in life, resilience is more important than brilliance
o The key to your happiness is not money
o One must learn to look beyond oneself, my pain is as large as my inability to see the pain on the face of the guy next to me
o We must learn to forgive ourselves and forgive others as we grow up
o Self-doubt is a good thing – all over-achievers will go through it sometime or the other
Go Kiss the World
I delivered this speech to the Class of 2006 at the IIM, Bangalore on defining success. This was the first time I shared the guiding principles of my life with young professionals.
I was the last child of a small-time government servant, in a family of five brothers. My earliest memory of my father is as that of a District Employment Officer in Koraput, Orissa. It was, and remains as back of beyond as you can imagine. There was no electricity; no primary school nearby and water did not flow out of a tap. As a result, I did not go to school until the age of eight; I was home-schooled. My father used to get transferred every year. The family belongings fit into the back of a jeep - so the family moved from place to place and without any trouble, my Mother would set up an establishment and get us going. Raised by a widow who had come as a refugee from the then East Bengal, she was a matriculate when she married my Father.
My parents set the foundation of my life and the value system, which makes me what I am today and largely, defines what success means to me today.
