Entrepreneurship is all about risk taking and innovation. An entrepreneur creates, builds and unlocks the value. This value creation and unlocking process are governed by economics. An entrepreneur shares ownership with public in the form of IPO (Initial Public Offering), while a writer shares his experience and knowledge in form of EPO (Experience on Public Offer). Entrepreneur creates and distributes wealth; the writer creates and shares knowledge. As an entrepreneur, I felt that we were sharing only the successful business models with the public. Success is nothing but the result of series of failures. The failures have to be detailed in the public domain so that the younger generation doesn’t shy away from failures.

I am blessed enough to have such a patronage from my followers/fans, which has swelled to more than 25000 in terms of the following of many of my social media pages.

Tasting the flair for my writing in the form of poems / short stories in various private family functions since childhood, it is my family that has pushed me to take up writing seriously.

In this era of swift decision making, people have no time. In this highly competitive world, when everyone’s competitive turf is threatened, we have to leverage our differential strengths. Even in corporate presentations, such a differential positioning has become mandatory.

With storytelling, it is possible to retain the attention and cultivate a base of spellbound audience. Realizing this, I have adopted a storytelling effect throughout my professional career, so that I can even carry the most serious subject/message to the audience in an effective manner. For eg: if an entry into Africa is a strategic theme for a business group, I would title the presentation as “The Great African Corporate Safari.” While explaining the growth patterns applicable to the African continent I may segment the presentation into different modules Such as – “The operation Snail”, “Operation Tortoise”, “Operation Tiger” and “Operation Cheetah”. Each of them will convey a different pace of rate of growth. Such a story telling effect generates a great amount of interest from the audience and provokes them to participate actively.

The following are the triggers for the book - ‘A Saint in the Board Room’:

Cut throatiness is emerging as smartness. Many sacred terms are being entirely defined by smart people. Eg: A regulatory compliance is interpreted to be the one where no one could prove that you lied. A smart accountant is defined as one who can circumvent the rules without being caught. Therefore I felt character driven competence is the key. People are willing to dilute when there is no chance to be caught. Thief is an artist while a policeman is only a critic. Therefore I felt ,it is not the rules but inbuilt values alone can play a key role in a society.

The countless inventions of Edison, comic genius of Charlie Chaplin, the magic of boundless compassion of Mother Theressa and the charisma of Mahatma Gandhi-all are awe inspiring to us. It is not an extraordinary knowledge of a superman, but exemplary conduct of an ordinary man that gives the leadership status. “Leaders realize the ideal while followers idealize the real”. We need more leaders to realize the ideals and we do not want the people to alienate the leaders on the ground of idealism, while many leaders lived a simple living.

In these turbulent times, younger generation has started losing hopes. There is a need for showing generosity, leading to compassionate capitalism. The two unbridled horses viz. the capitalism driven wealth generation and socialism driven wealth distribution are to be reined by dharmic accountability and control. We have to create a world, where more and more wealth is created, while at same time human dignity is enhanced. The gap between the status of values and statement of values is increasing today. To bridge this gap codes have to be converted to conduct.

Above all, it is not every man’s duty to guide the nations, but it is every man’s duty to guide his personal life and rule his turbulent mind to win for himself, what the state can never give him. “The greatest wars are fought in silent chambers of our soul.” The champions are not made in gym but are made in inner chambers of our soul. To enable the younger generation, to valiantly fight these battles and to convert their inner sparks of “possibilities”into flames of “achievements”, a humble attempt was made in form of a business fiction – ‘A Saint in the Boardroom’.

The purpose of 'A Saint in the Board Room' was to provide answers to many daunting questions in minds of today’s generation and to provoke the power of the positive thinking in them. At the first launch event of the book – Mr. Damodharan, former Chairman of SEBI remarked, “It is not a light fiction that can be flipped through and completed on a flight journey. It is a constant companion that has to serve as reference material throughout one’s life. ‘A Saint in the Boardroom’ was an attempt to present serious subject in a lighter form. From the feedback we realized it could create sparks in many younger minds.

The millions of aspiring youths get upset the moment the results do not align to their expectations. You can design the strategy or process not the result. This tale does not answer, but attempts to awaken you.

The trigger for the series:

I wanted to reach a younger audience – age group 16 – 35. It’s very unfortunate that a majority of the younger generation knows more about western culture than the hidden strengths of our own culture.

India is possibly one of the very few civilizations having the longest history of unbroken continuity of its culture and tradition and the ethos derived out of them. It has shown remarkable resilience. One of the reasons cited for it to have survived for so long, is its ability to synthesize the contradictions and diversity of different cultures.

In order to take this to the younger generation a complete navigation from 3100 BC to the modern day is attempted through the ten books including the first book ‘The shackles of the warrior’. The imaginary characters will revolve around historical characters. This book series will have thrill, suspense and will unlock secrets about ancient India, hither to unknown to the people. The blend of creativity and imagination with historic characters in these books will provoke the audience to complete the reading from cover to cover at one go.

It is likely to hit the stands by second quarter of 2016. Number of social media engagement plans are under consideration and we propose to seek the participation of the audience in various social media activities in the months to follow.

Yes, triggered by the economic objectives, our education and career have more of western orientation. The Indian mythology (is it a mythology or history is widely debated.) has many hidden secrets and mantras of happy living. So currently, I pursue the research of the Indian mythology and bring this forward to the younger generation in a lighter form.

I don’t believe in advising, but I believe in awakening. The awakened souls can light many lamps around them without diminishing their original flame. All I am requesting from the readers is to take interest in historical / mythology / fiction and know more about the wonderful ancient Indian history / mythology. The secrets and mystery to be unraveled through our forthcoming books will excite / enrich you.

All I can tell aspiring writers is this:

They should read books from diversified segments so that they will be able to enjoy varied genre. Sticking to one genre will exhaust them quickly and it is difficult to retain the interest of the readers in the long run. Therefore, I recommend a depth as far as the writing of technical books and width as far as fictional books.