Climbing the social ladder isn’t all about building connections or financial success. A successful person knows the importance of helping people feel listened to, while being compelling in turn – to be both interested, and interesting.
Interested people create good conversations. Good conversations make up interesting people. But that’s not all because there’s nothing quite like the subtle charm of the truly charismatic.
Suhel Seth, who has mastered the art of being both interested and interesting, lays down some basic rules on how to cultivate a winning personality. Based on the premise of growing a wholesome, inviting personality, he charts out tips and tricks on how to develop the critical skills required to go that extra mile.
When Swwapnil’s father tried to build a cooperative sugar mill for Dalits in 1991, he was told by the chief minister to come back in two months. The work he had put in already was extravagant and he was hopeful that it would finally, happily go through. What he didn’t know then was that minutes after he left the room, that minister had turned to a supporter and said, ‘Now these ##@@** also want to own a sugar mill,’ referring to his caste. That sugar mill was never built.
Determined to fulfil his father’s dream, Swwapnil, who had gone on to build and own factories of his own, decided to take matters in his own hands. Fighting the vagaries of changing policies, natural disasters and caste-based discrimination in financial institutions, he managed by sheer hard work to keep his head above water. Timely business pivots and an adaptive approach to barriers allowed his business to grow in leaps and bounds, showing that, no matter what happens, with knowledge, focus and a clear head a man can do anything—even build his business from scratch.
Read on to find out how this extraordinary businessman did it.
Sanjay Kshirsagar started out his life in a one-bedroom kholi in a chawl, fixing speakers on the side with a friend while working at Compton Greaves. Today his company owns 14 acres of land in which they intend to build 300 flats, earning Rs 500 crore.
Determined to be more, he worked on his business on the ten days off he would get after every project with Crompton Greaves where he was a senior supervisor. Strategic thought, creative flexibility and the urge to do something new helped Sanjay and his partner create custom-made speakers designed to be an unobtrusive part of people’s homes. His breakout moment was when Kumar Mangalam Birla gave him a special order to design a mechanism for a problem that even the smartest people at Philips could not solve.
His success gave him the means to enter politics, and his first order of business was to ensure that the people that he grew up with had better homes. Read on to find out how this extraordinary businessman achieved his ambition.
Sarath Babu’s mother used to drink a lot of water. He always thought it was just a habit, but only on growing older did he realize that it was because she’d given all the food to her four children.
Sarath’s exemplary academic record brought him first to BITS Pilani and then to the prestigious IIM-A, where he could have had his pick of jobs. However, a month into placements, he opted out of interviews, in order to cater for them. Hastily licensing his business under the name ‘Foodking’, he made Rs 70,000 in his first month through sheer chutzpah, and went on to build a nation-wide catering empire offering the good, wholesome, inexpensive food of his childhood.
Sarath’s poverty has made him sensitive to the grave social injustices in the country, and he wants, more than anything, to ensure that sustainable employment and development is accessible to people below the poverty line. Now joining politics, he hopes to be able to leave behind a legacy of determination and change—find out how here.
At his first job, Phulia’s department was jokingly called the ‘Brahmin department’ because the four people comprising the team were Brahmins, and the work was also very laid-back. Phulia was the first Dalit to be recruited to this department, and the other four left no stone unturned to unsettle him so that he would quit.
After a humiliating incident that nearly cost him his job, Phulia was determined to avenge himself with sheer success—and in a few years, his unrelenting hard work ensured that he was heading that department, responsible for imports valued at Rs 100 crore. But eager to be his own master, he left his job with Rs 9000 in his pocket to start his own company. Having ruthlessly navigated caste-based discrimination himself, Phulia is now a strong advocate of independent businesses for Dalits to empower the next generation.
Read more about this extraordinary business story here.
Gobar Chowki stands close to the Taj Mahal in Agra. The Mughals had white marble loaded on to beasts of burden and carried to the monument. Over a period of time, animal dung got accumulated here and the area came to known as Gobar Chowki—gobar meaning dung.
Twenty-five years ago, Devkinandan Son’s home was in Gobar Chowki. Now, barely half a kilometre away from the Taj Mahal, he is the owner of the Taj Plaza. Forced to quit school at 14 due to poverty, Devkinandan’s first salary was Rs 2 per day, packing shoes into boxes. The government did play a major role in taking Devkinandan’s life forward—first through a degree in shoe design and then through the Uttar Pradesh government’s Leather Development and Marketing Corporation.
As a designer, Devkinandan impressed Thomas Bata of Bata shoes, going on to make shoes for global brands like Florsheim and Bugatti.
Fighting against an internalized sense of caste-inferiority along with numerous external barriers to success, Devkinandan built his business on sheer hard work and strategic thought. Find out more about the grit a true businessman requires in this story.
Coming from a family of teachers, Atul Paswan knew that he wanted to do something more glamorous his life. Though he dreamt of being a doctor, he fainted the first time he dissected a frog, a problem which put paid to that aspiration. Unsure of what his career path ought to be, he signed up for a language course at JNU hoping it would give him the chance to leave the country—and found Japanese.
Since a language degree could only take him so far, Paswan decided to get an MBA. This unlikely combination led to the series of events which culminated in Pasan becoming the first ever Dalit industrialist to own a software company. Today he hires Dalit software engineers in spaces that were almost exclusively those of Brahmins before.
Fighting through business struggles, natural disasters and the hard learning curve of entrepreneurship, at 36, Paswan has a company with a turnover of Rs 15 crore. Find out more about his extraordinary journey here.
From the young boy who had to work as a cycle-rickshaw puller to a tycoon with a multi-business empire, Hari Kishan has fought his way to the top.
When he got his first loan—Rs 15,000—it came from a personal contact who had faith in him. Though his family felt it was a lottery, Hari Kishan was determined to spend it only on business. So he left his family home and the pressure to spend it on personal demands, and ran from pillar to post to get an order of 10,000 shoes from the government and never looked back.
Within a matter of months, his credit shot up in lakhs, and soon his company was manufacturing for Bata, Hush Puppies as well as a luxury line of their own—Harryksons. Since then he has diversified into restaurants, marriage halls and even hospitals. Hari Kishan’s legacy has withstood the barriers society put up to impede his progress as a Dalit. Now he is determined to do right by his people and use his power to change society.
Read more about this powerful and inspiring story.
Despite owning crores of money, Devjibhai Makwana cannot buy property in certain areas—certain people from the upper castes will subtly arrange for there to be impediments. Devjibhai truly appreciates the value of money. He knows he is ‘allowed’ to live where he does because he has money. Without it, he would not be accepted into society.
Devjibhai dropped out of school in the 10th standard, believing that if his illiterate father could run a leather business, this much education would be enough. But it wasn’t that easy. ‘There are no advantages to being a Dalit. It’s all just a matter of perception. Small businesses get easy loans and waivers, but people like me are at the mercy of the market.’
Hitting roadblocks like banks refusing him loans and surviving bankruptcy in business, his company now has a turnover of Rs 300 crore. Today his sons are all highly educated and responsible for individual divisions. At 59, Devjibhai is still excited about starting a new venture from scratch.
Read how this gutsy and determined business tycoon rose to success in this story.
Harsh Bhaskar didn’t come from a family where formal schooling was a given, but today he is the proud owner of Kota Tutorials, a coaching programme whose rigorous and comprehensive approach to education enables students to get into the most prestigious universities.
Bhaskar himself went to IIT Roorkee and hates the idea that somehow reservation equals a degree—it doesn’t matter in the examinations you must take, and Dalit students usually have to face discrimination in an IIT as their classes are held separately and their answer sheets marked far more rigorously. He refuses, however, to be defined by discriminatory ideas, and is focused on building an educational institution to rival any university—the first Dalit to do so. His real aim is to shape students into good human beings; jobs will follow naturally.
Read on about this fiercely unapologetic businessman whose no-nonsense attitude is building an empire of minds that can change the world.
